Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5)

  TERROR

  FLOWER

  A novel by

  Thomas Hollyday

  Terror Flower by Thomas Hollyday, Copyright Thomas Hollyday 2012

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Solar Sipper Publishing, div. Happy Bird Corporation, P.O. Box 86, Weston, MA 02493

  ISBN number 0-9741287-8-3

  First Solar Sipper Publishing paperback and digital edition: January 2012

  Copies of this publication may be ordered through solarsippers.com as well as Amazon, Google and various paperback and eBook distributors.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Publisher’s note: this is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Dedicated to the freedom fighter Tom Halliday, nephew of William Wallace, who stood with that brave Scottish leader in his historic Thirteenth Century battles with the English invaders.

  Acknowledgments

  The author wishes to thank research staff of the Boston Athenaeum for its hard work in sourcing books for the author’s research on histories and cultures of foreign countries. He would like to thank various museums for their advice and specifications on the equipment mentioned in this story. Many thanks to the enthusiasts who were consulted about building and racing dragsters especially Mustangs with modified Ford 302 V8s. The author found the Batchelor and Bachrach book on the life of Briggs Cunningham and his cars as well as the publications of the National Hot Rod Association of value. Much gratitude to C. Michael Curtis of the Atlantic Monthly and Elliott Coleman of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars for their kind encouragement. Thanks also to the book’s editor for her thoughtful suggestions and kindness, and to the author’s fiction workshop friends for incisive suggestions on chapters. Most important, gratitude is due to the author’s family for its unending and loving patience during the months when these chapters were written and rewritten.

  Prologue

  “Love seeks only love and a home in which to be loved” is a saying attributed to the mysterious “black prophets,” a small group of white Europeans who lived and died in peace with local tribesmen in a small village up country from the Niger River delta in the old times. They grew a golden bloom they called the flower of the free.

  Chapter One

  9 AM, Saturday August 14

  The town ambulance siren shocked the early summer heat with its wail. Smiley James, the volunteer ambulance driver on call this morning, stood up from the engine compartment of the Ford he was working on. He cleaned his hands thoughtfully on a rag. He reached overhead and switched off the grease covered radio interrupting Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Then, becoming very alert, he ran to his motorcycle parked to the side of the large open garage door. Another mechanic, young Kate Henry, called out encouragement with her Southern drawl, “You go you, Smiley.”

  Beside her, the boss, Jim Tench, a lanky, well-built and handsome man, younger than Smiley, looked up too, wrench in hand. The muscular thirty five year old heavily tattooed Smiley grinned back. Smiley straddled his Harley, started its motor and engaged the gears, squealed into the street and was gone.

  About ten minutes later Tench heard the ambulance screaming by on the main street and then coming to a halt only a block away. Lamont Beets, a quiet black middle aged employee, worked in the stall closest to the street. He reported in his soft patient voice, “The ambulance, she’s stopped at the town pier, Tench.”

  Tench shaded his eyes as he walked out into the hot sunlight and toward the harbor. His hand brushed the long healed two inch scar over his left eye. As he approached, he could see the blinking lights of Smiley’s ambulance and the sheriff’s car amid a crowd of fifty or more onlookers already gathered at the pier. It was an oil tanker wharf of large timbers and pilings coated with protective black and odorous creosote.

  Katy was beside him. “Out on the water,” she said, pointing. She had a round face like a chubby baby with spots of grease on her cheeks. Her hair hung in two blonde ponytails which contrasted in their cleanliness with her dirt covered shop clothes.

  Tench saw the Coast Guard launch towing in a long white workboat. Its bow lifted occasionally as it rode the front boat’s wake.

  “That’s the Emmy, Captain Bob’s workboat,” he said to Katy, his voice shaking. Her face froze as she too recognized the boat of one of the town’s most popular citizens.

  Then he saw the chestnut colored Chesapeake Bay retriever at the edge of the pier. Captain Bob’s dog, his Abraham, whimpered among the bystanders.

  The Coast Guard rescue team consisted of two younger crewmen and their middle-aged officer, a sunburned broad shouldered man. They tied up the Emmy and worked in the cockpit with a body.

  “Lend a hand up on the pier,” the officer ordered, moving his hands vigorously. “You men look alive now.” One of the crewmen clambered quickly up on the pier to handle the lines.

  Tench spotted Captain Bob, lying immobile on the floorboards, his skinny body soaked with water and draped with vines and seaweed. The sight of the old man made him feel cold in the hot sunlight.

  Smiley said, pointing to the old black man, “Drowned.” He and the other men lifted Captain Bob. Using lines attached to the ends of a stretcher, they hoisted him up the ten feet from the Emmy’s deck to the wood plank surface of the pier.

  Seaweed and wet fishing line covered the deck of the Emmy where Captain Bob had thrown them as he fished. They mixed with pieces of jellyfish and the flesh and claws of crab baits. A one quart wine bottle, its screw top off and a small amount of red liquid sloshing inside, rolled in the bilge.

  The Coast Guard officer pointed to the old man’s face, where dead eyes stared at the sun. “He hasn’t been in the water long, Tench. He’s still got his eyes. Crabs didn’t get much chance to feast on him.” The officer reached down and picked up a straw hat from the Emmy’s floorboards. He handed it up to one of his crew. “Put that over him,” he ordered.

  Worn black suspenders held Captain Bob’s trousers over his thin shoulders. One foot possessed a boot but the other was bare, protruding from the faded blue pants. Tench wanted to cover the bare foot and glanced around the deck of the Emmy for the other boot. It was nowhere to be seen.

  “Yessir, look at them eyes,” Tench heard one of the volunteer firemen remark in a whisper. “Old Captain Bob done got afraid when he seen the Lord fightin’ the Devil for him.”

  As the ambulance left, Tench turned homeward. He stared at the ground in sorrow as he began walking. The death of the old man had hit him with the sudden pain of an elbow blow into his face. He crunched across the blue gravel of the pier’s parking area, almost aimless.

  The Coast Guard must have notified Smote Rojos, the old man’s grandson, as soon as the first radio call had come in. Smote arrived just after the ambulance left. He drove the truck from his boss’s construction company, the pickup bed rails filled with new lumber extending over the cab. The truck skidded to a stop, the boards tumbling up and down, the tires throwing stones into the air with a popping sound. Smote, a short wiry Latino man of Ecuadorian heritage, tore out of the vehicle. He ran over to the edge of the
pier. He looked down on the Emmy, his face contorted with grief.

  Tench had halted as he saw Smote arrive. Before Tench could say anything, Smote shouted and waved at Tench, “They kill him, Jimmy. They kill Captain Bob up at the Island.”

  Sheriff Satter heard him. “Hold on there, Smote,” he said. “You got no call to say that. His boat wasn’t anywhere near Strake’s place. He was drinking too.” A tough medium size man, Sheriff Satter wore the Confederate gray uniform with gold trim of the River Sunday police. He had held the deputy position for several years under the former sheriff. When that man went to prison for murder, Satter took over and won the next election. He had been a detective in Baltimore and came to River Sunday as the town’s first black officer for the otherwise white force. People liked Satter because he knew how to work effectively with the mixed modern cultures of River Sunday.

  “Captain Bob drowned, is all, Smote. This is a sorry thing but that’s what happened,” said Satter.

  Smote looked up at the lawman, his face full of tears, his mouth chewing fast on his odorous and ever-present wad of baseball gum. “You know he don’t drink on his boat,” he said, breaking away from Tench and moving closer to the Sheriff.

  The Sheriff shook his head. “Don’t go talking big,” he replied, still calm.

  “Strake did this,” said Smote, almost yelling.

  “How do you figure, Smote?” said the sheriff. “He fell overboard.”

  Tench spoke up, “You’re going to look into this, aren’t you, Sheriff?”

  Satter hesitated, looking at Tench then back at Smote. Smote stared at the sheriff, his flashing angry eyes showing that he did not trust Satter.

  “You best get to the hospital and, when you are able, you rethink what you’re saying,” the Sheriff continued. “I don’t want no claims about things you can can’t prove. You got no proof and neither do I that the old man was fishing up to the Island, the Strake shoreline, this day. We’ll run an autopsy soon’s we can, look into the accident. I can tell you right now, I don’t think we got any reason just because you don’t like Mister Strake or his people.”

  He looked at Tench. “This is an accident, Tench.”

  The crowd murmured assent. From what Tench heard, the people, white and black in the audience, stood with Satter. Watermen, standing in their rubber boots, did not rush forward to join Smote in his claim of murder. They’d lived on the water and had seen these accidents before. Smote had accused William Strake, the owner of a large farm north of the town located on the Island. The property had a long shoreline coasting the Chesapeake Bay. More than a year ago Strake had placed armed guards to patrol that waterfront. He had forbidden all fishing along his shore. The security protected his valuable automobile collection stored on his estate in a warehouse. Cancelling the fishing rights caused controversy among watermen like Captain Bob who had always fished the location.

  However, most people in River Sunday did not see Strake as their enemy. For one thing Strake, an experienced and wealthy oilman, had been on the President’s energy council and the conservative President was very popular in River Sunday. Tench had not seen the White House helicopter since last year. Years ago it had flown over the town at least once a month to carry Strake off to the President for an energy conference or planning session. Besides that prestige, the man had invested in several of the small firms where local citizens held jobs. Also, to River Sunday environmentalists, Strake’s firm stand in keeping the watermen off his shoreline at the Island drew applause. They claimed it would rebuild the Bay’s over fished seafood beds. Strake himself, a muscular man in his sixties, came across as pleasant and friendly on his rare town visits, and perhaps even a little eccentric. This endeared him to the women.

  Smote looked once again at Tench, shook his head, his face contorted with grief, and climbed back into his truck. He seemed to Tench to have controlled himself, as he drove off in the direction of the hospital. He made a point of carefully shifting the truck and driving it slowly, keeping the wheels from throwing up any more gravel.

  Smiley said later that Hiram Jones had looked to port this morning. He had spotted a white boat that he recognized from the shape of her cuddy as Captain Bob’s boat rode at a standstill in the choppy waves a few hundred yards away. At that distance he saw no one aboard. He thought the boat might be deserted and went over to have a look. He found Captain Bob dead in the water tangled in his crab line. He could not do anything. Hiram called in for help and then kept going on his way in to port with his catch.

  Smiley chuckled when he went on to say that the Coast Guard chief on duty swore at Jones for refusing a direct command to stay at the scene until they got there. “Independent old cuss.”

  “The engine must have been running when Captain Bob fell overboard, then choked out,” said Tench. He tried to speak evenly, conceal his sorrow and anger at his own loss. He had loved the old man like a father.

  Katy nodded. “Had to be to get that line all wound up on the shaft.”

  “The prop cut him up good and spit him out. Then it wound up part of the line on its shaft as the body floated out behind the boat,” said Smiley.

  “Or,” said Katy, “The boat might have turned around on him. I’ve heard of that too. The boat, running wild through the water, locked its rudder, turned and came back on him.”

  “Drowning the official cause?” asked Tench, thinking of Smote’s outspoken claim the old man had been murdered.

  Smiley said, “When I got to the hospital, the doctor who does the autopsies for the Sheriff’s department came out. He took a first look at Captain Bob’s body.”

  “He said, ‘Goddamn Sheriff, this is an accident all right. No sense me spending much time on it. Drowned. I can see the water still coming out his mouth. Smell the wine too. I see a few bruises but that could be from hitting the side of the boat. If I come up with anything besides being drunk and falling overboard, I’ll let you know. Otherwise I’ll write it up and release him to his family. Too hot to keep him in the lab.”

  That evening Tench drove the garage pickup to Captain Bob’s house. His modified Mustang stayed in the shop, set up on the racks of the shop dyno undergoing carburetor adjustments. As he entered the house, a large sitting room was on his right filled with men and women talking softly. To his left a large picture of Captain Bob protruded on a metal easel. The old man had been photographed resplendent in his blue suit. This picture normally hung at his church on the entry wall where the other elders had their portraits. The room smelled of cut flowers and sweat. On a small table to the side, candles burned surrounded with vases of bright blooms. A shiny white wooden frame with the signed letter from Jerry Orbach stood proudly. This had been procured by Smote for Captain Bob’s surprise Christmas present last year. The old man loved “Law and Order,” the television show in which Jerry Orbach played the clever policeman. Captain Bob fancied himself an amateur officer. He loved to tell telling stories about how, over his life, he had helped investigate famous River Sunday criminals and whiskey runners. He said he had secretly helped the FBI chase Nazi agents from submarines sneaking into the harbor during the war. His friends loved him and didn’t care whether Captain Bob told the truth in his tales.

  A wooden basket filled with fresh green unshucked corn ears sat on the floor in front of Captain Bob’s portrait. Tench assumed Smote's wife had set this in her South American tradition for the dead. She wore a green dress with large white blossoms sewn on it as she greeted visitors and family members. Her two small girls tugged at her dress, their eyes full and nervous watching all the strangers.

  Abraham, Captain Bob’s Chesapeake, held guard near the basket, his paws in front, his eyes in mourning as if he understood that his master was gone forever.

  Smote approached Tench. “Come,” he said. He quickly led Tench away from the others and into a back room. Smote was still in the work clothes he had worn earlier in the day, the jeans smelling of paint and roofing tar. He turned and faced Tench.

 
He spoke, his voice shaking. “I think they just do not do their job. Bastards,” he said. “I look at the boat. I see the throttle lever way forward from the notch where Captain Bob set the speed.”

  Tench said, “That probably got hit when he fell overboard, Smote. The throttle lever was right there at the side near the steering. That’s why the boat went ahead. His body drifted into the propeller and the engine stalled out. ”

  Smote said, “Captain Bob, he was old but very clever. He wasn’t careless. He wasn’t drinking out there, never. He goes to the Island and they killed him.”

  Tench knew Smote’s answer but he asked anyway. “You are pretty sure he went up to the Island?”

  Smote nodded and said, “The Sheriff, he’s scared. I think he don’t want trouble. Same thing with the rest of the people around here. Strake owns this town and that’s all she wrote. You know, my friend. You know that’s the way cops work.”

  Smote raised his face to stare at Tench. Tench was taller by a foot. “You know he was always talking since Strake closed the fishing. He was talking like it wasn’t fair, that he wanted to do something about it.”

  He stared at Tench. “Look, the town, they respect you. You come here to make money and that’s what you do. You don’t bother for nobody so they owe you a favor. I want you to help me,” Smote said. “I don’t care what they say about me. I want to find who killed Captain Bob.”

  He guessed Smote was right. He wanted to make money and that was why he was here in River Sunday. If he helped Smote it was a rare thing for him to do. “Do you want me to talk to Jones?” asked Tench. “See if he knows anything to help us?”

  Smote paused, “Yes, he wouldn’t talk to me because he don’t like us Latinos. He might know something. He might talk to you.”