Power (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 8) Page 3

  As the driver raced up the road into the compound, Loggerman discerned shapes of buildings. Coming around the last turn and out of the dense growth of trees, he studied a large mansion house standing forth in the open. High trees and rich flowering bushes in the surrounding gardens accented its grandeur. To his right he spotted the gleaming waves of a river. To his left was a large modern barn. Around the perimeter were steel poles with bright lights illuminating the area like a night baseball stadium. The house itself was constructed in three parts, with a three-story central section with four high chimneys. The smaller sections were full two-story houses. Windows on the bottom floor of the main house were lit. On the main roof behind a wooden railing he could see two men holding rifles.

  The truck stopped at a brick walk to the main door. Above him several nighthawks were diving at bugs buzzing the bulb of a perimeter spotlight. One of the fast birds swooped down. Suddenly the nighthawk exploded into drifting feathers as three quick shots destroyed it in mid-flight. A guard on the roof rested his rifle. The other slapped his partner on the back shouting, “Took you three.”

  The front door opened revealing, outlined in interior light, a guard’s bulging shoulders and heavy round head. “Go on in,” the driver ordered, his arm motioning Loggerman with impatience.

  He crossed the driveway, knowing the guards on the roof were intently watching him. The heavily timbered doorway frame loomed in front of him as he climbed stone steps. He stopped for a moment and looked around at the blackness of the night beyond the perimeter trees. The armed guards front and back of him gave an African feeling, a sense of a secret and violent revolution ongoing in the darkness.

  When he was inside, the big man closed the door and motioned to chairs at the side of the hallway. As Loggerman sat down, the man, stretching his green shirt, spoke quietly into a wall phone.

  “He’s here.”

  The guard looked back at Loggerman, shook his head, and went out a back door at the end of the hall. A security camera moved slightly in the wall above the entry door. For a little while he amused himself by standing up and sitting down, watching the camera try to follow him.

  The hallway was warm. Minutes went by and he began to fall asleep as the thousands of miles of travel started to catch up with him. He closed his eyes. Suddenly the front door opened and crashed back against the interior wall, the noise making him sit up quickly.

  Two men rushed into the hall. The second yelled out orders, his voice stern and even, almost demanding. Loggerman immediately noticed the large rings on the man’s hands. He had long slender fingers filled with gold and rich jewels sparkled in the hall light. His face was grilled with a cheek scar and rough furrows as if he had been tortured by the sharp rungs of a garden rake.

  The man with the rings said with his furrowed lips, “Where’s the security? He’s supposed to be on this door at all times.”

  The big man who had let Loggerman enter rushed back into the hall, his haste adding to the excitement. He said, “Right here, Mister Ferrars. I’m right here.”

  “Where the hell were you?” asked Ferrars.

  He turned to his companion, an overweight short man. “Whithers, you better talk to him.”

  The companion produced a notebook from his shirt pocket and quickly wrote a few words. Ferrars continued walking toward the large stairway at the end of the hall, still speaking to his companion.

  “I thought it went well,” he said. “Cole did it again. They were eating out of his hand.”

  Then, after a pause, talking to the short man again, “I want you to get the last poll results from Elizabeth soon as we get upstairs. Right away.” He shoved his companion forward.

  The man, slightly balding, slipped on one of the stair treads as he hurried.

  “We got to be ready for Baltimore. Get Spire to help you, Whithers,” Ferrars yelled after the man who was stumbling up the stairs.

  Ferrars looked back and showed surprise when he saw Loggerman. “Who is this?”

  “He come to see his daughter,” the guard said.

  “Daughter?”

  “Stephanie. He’s Elizabeth’s former husband. I was just trying to find her.”

  “I’ve told you never to let strangers inside.”

  “Yessir. Spire said it was OK.”

  Ferrars looked at Loggerman and then back at the green uniformed guard who was shaking at attention. “For God’s sake at least put him in the hall chamber. No reason for him to sit out here in the hall listening to our business.”

  Ferrars continued upstairs.

  The night was quiet again. Loggerman was taken to a comfortable chair in a nearby large room with a fireplace. Today’s Baltimore newspaper was open on a table in front of him. The headline was about a violent street protest in front of a fire at a Texas oil well. The city lights in the nearby city had gone out for an hour.

  Loggerman shrugged and looked around the room. He recognized some of the valuable antiques along the walls. He’d worked with wood as a child and loved the old pieces. He studied a highboy chest placed against a wall and started to rise to inspect it when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “I thought the judge said no visiting.” His former wife’s greeting was haughty and official.

  “Hello, Elizabeth.”

  She was an average sized woman who years ago he had thought was perfect for him and who still looked as young as she did when he first met her. It was a routine romance, very much the story of upward bound youth. He had come home from war. He was handsome in those days. She was in Washington working for politicians. He supposed she needed a Marine on her arm. They married, made the party circuit in the capitol and had Stephanie. He found work in Africa with Joe Henry and the job suited him. She came with him. Maybe all she wanted was more credentials, an international know how for her resume.

  Anyway, her hate for him began to show as soon as they arrived. She showed it over there in the village life. Her expression still showed him all the hatred she had for him. She was in a dark green dress with the Tinker emblem on her chest, and her hair was cut short. She had the barely-covered tiny scar on her left forehead from her teenage years before he met her. As a matter of fact it wasn’t until they had dated for a while he noticed it one night after she had forgotten her heavy makeup on the spot.

  “Look, I want to see her,” Loggerman said, impatience in his voice. He thought quickly, however, reminding himself to be patient with his words.

  Elizabeth put her hands on her hips and said, “I’d really appreciate it if you’d go back to Africa or wherever and leave us alone.”

  He heard high heels tapping on the hardwood floors. A woman about thirty with an athletic body fitted into form-fitting blouse and slacks entered. A green circle appeared on her left breast pocket. She seemed to have no emotion, almost like a robot. Both women stood in the center of the room facing him.

  “Your friend here to keep the peace?” Loggerman grinned, nodding at the young woman.

  Both of them ignored his comment. He repeated, “I just want to see Stephanie.”

  “My former husband has come all the way out here because he thinks Stephanie wants to see him,” said Elizabeth as the younger woman moved her lips into a slender smile.

  He said, “Stephanie can tell me herself how she feels, Liz”

  “Don’t call me Liz. I never liked it,” Elizabeth said, the line of her scar reddening.

  “You once said you did.”

  The room became quiet, each of them grim-faced, no words being spoken.

  Loggerman broke the chill and smiled. At the divorce hearing, the last time he had actually seen Stephanie, she had been only ten. He recognized she was much older. However, Stephanie would not have lost her childhood wisdom. Of that he was sure. If he could talk to her, Stephanie could straighten out his worry regardless of her mother. However he had the nagging fear she was hurt or even dead, living with these Tinker people.

  “When can I see her?”

 
“She is on assignment,” Spire said curtly. She added, “She’s earning her rifle.”

  He thought for a long moment. What did these women mean about earning a rifle? Stephanie had never been a violent person and he doubted she could hurt anyone with a gun.

  He studied Spire, the assistant, dressed in her high fashion clothes. They were more expensive than the dress Elizabeth wore. Perhaps she was not a subordinate but instead Elizabeth’s manager. She appeared very intelligent, with a disdain for inferiors. Her demeanor was one of disinterest but more, disgust, apparently with wasting her time with him.

  Why did the guard say Spire had authorized his visit? Why not Elizabeth?

  Spire said nothing more. She refused to provide more information about his daughter, her training, and her job. He found nothing more to say.

  Walking strongly, he went back to the lobby. The guard opened the door immediately and he left the mansion. Elizabeth and Spire followed him to the lobby without speaking. Outside he walked toward his car. He wanted to look back but he didn’t. He knew he was in their power right now.

  The young driver appeared as cocky as before. He threw dust with the SUV as he drove away. The gate guards stared at him silently, one still holding his shotgun. After the Range Rover had returned him to his car, he started on the dead animal lane to the main road.

  He had driven a few miles towards River Sunday when he noticed a pickup truck following close to his rear bumper. The truck turned on its high beams. Its lights flashed.

  He pulled over to the edge of deep roadside ditch. Two men in jeans and tee shirts walked up to his window. One had a Tinker logo on his tee shirt.

  “Get out, mister.”

  He exited. He smelled the body odor of the men and could see they were both overweight.

  The front one said, “You don’t want to come back to the Tinker place.”

  Loggerman was silent.

  “You don’t give us any trouble. Leave town. Get quick on your way back to Africa. You hear me now.”

  The other man, standing slightly behind his companion, added, “We like to think we’re just a friendly Chesapeake town, don’t we?”

  The two approached. “Now we want to make sure you remember what we say. It won’t hurt much to make you for sure agreeable.”

  The first man took a fighting position and pulled back his right. His companion did the same.

  “Yessir, won’t hurt you none.”

  Loggerman took out the first man, blocking his right and answering with a right hook. The stunned man fell back on a pothole on the macadam road. The second received a kick in his groin and, as he bent forward, Loggerman followed with the same right hook driving him down on his back. As the two tried to rise, he kicked their heads, leaving them sprawled unconscious.

  He looked up and down the road but saw no traffic. Quickly he ran their truck into the roadside ditch, shutting off the engine but leaving its lights on. He lifted the men to its front seat and placed their heads against the dashboard, as if they had suffered an accident. For good measure he sprinkled around the bodies a bottle of rye whiskey he found on the truck floor.

  He stood back from the pickup. He heard a barred owl’s ‘hoot hoot by hoot’ in the distance. Maybe the bird was laughing at these two blue jean tough guys. Looking both ways but still seeing no other vehicles, he got into his rental car and drove on to River Sunday and some sleep.

  He smiled, thinking it was strange how a simple inquiry about his daughter had angered so many folks. Anyway, whoever it was this time would have to send along people better than these two clucks to convince him to leave town.

  Chapter Four

  Tuesday

  He descended the sweeping stairway to the dining room for breakfast. The sunlight from a magnificent Chesapeake morning blazed through the tall windows as he sat down. The waiter in white coat appeared with coffee and he ordered. He sat back in the comfortable chair and looked around the room. Tourist families dressed in casual summer wear chattered about their day’s plan. One man pointed out the window at the harbor and held up a map. River Sunday had a world recognized monument in the middle of the cove on which it was settled. The monument was unique, the only stone edifice constructed after the Civil War to the memory of the local slaves. In addition it was built from the remains of the slave market building which had stood at the edge of the harbor for visiting trading ships.

  Another waiter tapped him on the shoulder.

  “A message was left for you, sir.”

  He took the expensive white envelope, with his name written in a fine script on the front. He read the note enclosed.

  “Come by the boatyard and tell me about your trip into our local wilderness.

  Doctor Mike”

  He quickly finished his meal and walked to the front desk.

  “Where is the boatyard?” he asked the desk clerk.

  “Yessir.” The man, attentive in his red hotel uniform, reached for a notepad and slowly drew a map on it. He held his head back from his work and, with a grin, said, “Map ought to direct you.” He continued in a jocular voice, “Our main street is called The Strand. It’s a street name the colonials took from their home in London. Anyway, along the opposite side from the hotel is a row of brick buildings all connected together. Between the middle two an arched doorway we call Hole in the Wall leads into the shipyard. Legend is pirates built it to smuggle rum.”

  “I can show you.” He walked with Loggerman to the porch and pointed to the arch about two blocks away in the direction of the courthouse and police station.

  “Good luck,” he said.

  “Will I need some?” Loggerman asked with a grin, but the employee was gone.

  When he reached the tunnel, he peered into its shadows. At its end, fifty feet towards the harbor, a patch of sunlight reflected colorful yachts and bright water. The clump of his boots echoed against the clammy moss-covered walls. In the ceiling random scars identified paths of past adventures. He imagined these might be the marks of unloaded cargo or, even long ago, of renegade cutlasses slicing against the brickwork.

  Through the tunnel he came into the June sunlight and gazed at a wide area of sandy beachfront. Behind him were the walls of several three-story brick town buildings extending each way along the shoreline. Further to his right, a small cottage peaked, isolated among several marinas. The marinas had their own piers with tied up cruisers and sloops and with gasoline pumps easy to reach. Small boats of all descriptions rested haphazardly on the beach. They exhibited various stages of repair for their watermen and tourist owners. A weatherworn grey structure of supports and railway tracks big enough for a vessel of about one hundred feet stood next to the tunnel.

  Splashed over the green tracks and wooden struts were the remnant green and red paint stain colors for vessels built or repaired in the past on this launching apparatus. At the top of the launching track was a small shed with an electric hoist motor. A faded sign nailed to the side sheathing of the cable house indicated in peeling paint the history of the site. It stated in black letters:

  This railway and proud workers from River Sunday had designed and crafted motor torpedo boats for the Russian navy in 1943. Memorial June 1946 by Town of River Sunday, Maryland

  The hull of a thirty-five-foot oyster workboat with its mud rakes was on the ramp tracks attached by a thick steel cable to this motor and its winch. This apparatus kept the craft from sliding stern-first into the harbor until completed. The launching was also delayed by a series of wooden wedges and blocks hammered against the sides of the hull.

  A pigtailed middle-aged man in dirty jeans and tee shirt printed with the red words Nova Scotia Music squinted from beneath the workboat toward Loggerman. He waved his paint scraper, calling, “Doctor Mike said you might be by.”

  He crawled back under the wooden hull to continue cleaning.

  “They call me Scotty,” he called over his shoulder as he chipped paint.

  “Where’s Doctor Mike?”

&nbs
p; “She’ll be along.”

  Loggerman approached the workboat. “I’ve worked on fishermen like this one up in Maine.”

  “She’s a pretty good hull built about ten years ago by the owner. Locals call them ‘carpenter built’ when the owner constructs them in his backyard.”

  Loggerman smiled. “Bevels and trim usually fit better done by owners. My father taught me about workboats when I was growing up in Maine.” He walked over and touched the wood. “Nice work,” he said, running his fingers over the craftsmanship. “Our Maine bows might have been designed a little higher to ride the ocean swells.”

  “I’ve seen races in Nova Scotia. Not sure which hulls are faster. Down here, builders developed this deadrise sharp bow. They learned from watching the fast four stack destroyers coming down the Chesapeake during World War One.”

  Loggerman’s mind went back momentarily to a small boatyard in a seashore town in Maine where he had grown up. He was once again a boy, watching his father. He recalled again the soft sounds of freshly planed chips falling to a brick workshop floor. He smelled the aroma of fine wood. His father, blue work shirt and jeans with the western boots the older man loved, advised him. The boy worked on a fourteen foot wooden sailboat, his father soothing him when the timber grains did not obey Loggerman’s inexperienced fingers.

  From his childhood past he heard the command of his mother, reminding schoolwork needed to be finished. She saved her money for tutors to help him in math while his father gave him woodworking tools. He loved those old planes and chisels.

  He sighed. His mother, not idealistic at all, sold them for the money she needed to live when his father died.

  “I’m glad you got my note,” said a familiar voice behind him. Walking toward him in her fitted jeans and loose white blouse, Doctor Mike was casual but strong, with the assurance of a person knowing the world and what she wanted of it. He noticed, too, she was a very good looking woman.