Damaged

CHAPTER 40

Maggie spent the rest of the afternoon back in her hotel room. Outside, the parking lots were filled with people packing up their belongings and getting ready to evacuate the beach. Most of the businesses were closed, the owners starting to board up windows and doors. However, surfers were still riding the waves. Some of the restaurants remained open. The Tiki Bar had a huge sign out front offering free drinks till they ran out.

The hotel manager had told Maggie he'd stay until the authorities closed the bridge. Maggie and Wurth were welcome to stay until then. Almost all of the other guests had checked out. Maggie suspected, from the absolute quiet, that she was the only one on her entire floor.

Sheriff Clayton had been gracious enough to drive her back to Pensacola Beach after the autopsy.

"Sorry, I can't be of much help," the sheriff had told her. "I'll contact Vince Coffland's next of kin. But anything else will have to wait until after the storm."

Maggie asked him to give her cell-phone number to Coffland's widow. If she wanted to talk about the details of her husband's disappearance, Maggie would be interested in listening. Clayton agreed.

Now, as she sipped a Diet Pepsi and waited for her laptop to boot up, she kept glancing at her cell phone. No calls. No messages ... from anyone. She had the TV turned on to the Weather Channel but muted. Every once in a while she glanced at the onscreen graphics of Isaac's progression. She noticed one of the weather reporters, handsome, shaved head, nice legs, standing in front of the Gulf with its emerald-green rolling waves. She read the crawl: JIM CANTORE REPORTING FROM PENSACOLA.

"Oh Charlie, he's here." She smiled as she started jotting down things she wanted to remember.

Clayton had been correct about the severed hands and the fingerprints. None on file. They would need to wait for DNA to see if any of the hands belonged to Vince Coffland. A simple blood test had already found the foot to be someone else's. Vince Coffland was type B. The foot's blood was type O.

On the hotel notepad she wrote:

Coffland disappeared July 10

Port St. Lucie over 600 miles (land miles) away

Foot: metal debris; belonged to a 2nd victim

Plastic: heavy ply (commercial use?)

Fishing cooler: Why?

Tie-down: man-made synthetic rope, blue and yellow fibers

Had the foot belonged to Vince Coffland, Maggie was ready with an explanation. She'd heard of storm victims--victims exposed out in the open--sometimes ending up with an odd assortment of items like pieces of insulation, asbestos, vinyl siding, and glass embedded in their skin.

She'd asked Dr. Tomich if she could borrow one of the pieces of metal. Now she fingered it, still encased inside its plastic bag. She set it on the desktop in front of her. It was definitely metal, bent and distorted. But where did it come from?

Perhaps the metal was something that had gotten ripped apart during the hurricane-force winds. If the foot didn't belong to Coffland, was it possible it belonged to another person who had gone missing during Hurricane Gaston?

She added to her list:

Check other victims missing after HG

Maggie had handed over to Sheriff Clayton the label--or what she suspected was a label--that she found inside the cooler. However, she had memorized the faded printing and written it down exactly as it had appeared. She pulled out her copy and laid it on the desk beside the metal fragment.

AMET

DESTIN: 082409

#8509000029

She believed the second line was "destination" and a date, 082409, which translated to August 24, 2009. She had no idea what AMET was. Probably an acronym but for what? The last line might be a serial number. It didn't, however, match the defibrillator.

Maggie glanced at the television and the map that Jim Cantore was showing of the Florida Panhandle. Then she did a double take. Off to the right side of Pensacola was Destin, Florida. Was it possible the second line of the label wasn't meant to be an abbreviation for destination, but rather Destin, Florida?

She twisted the hotel phone so she could see the instructions on its face as well as the hotel's phone number. Sure enough, 850 was the area code. The third line wasn't a serial number but a phone number.

What would it hurt to try? She tapped the number into her smartphone, pressed Call, and waited. It was ringing on the other end. Her mind kicked over to interrogation mode. She slowed her breathing, wiped her sweaty palm, and transferred the phone to her other hand. Three rings. Was the person on the other end expecting one of the packages from the cooler?

A woman's voice answered. "Advanced Medical Educational Technology, how may I direct your call?"

Maggie's eyes darted to the piece of paper. AMET.

"Yes, I'd like to speak with someone about a delivery."

"You have a delivery for us? Is it for one of our conferences?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"That would be Lawrence Piper. He's off-site today. Can I have him return your call?"

Maggie gave the woman her name and phone number. Before she could hang up, her phone was already beeping with an incoming call.

"This is Maggie O'Dell."

"Hey, it's Tully. I think I finally found your rope."

"What is it?"

"High-tenacity rope, UV resistant, anti-chemical erosion, modified resin coating."

"Wait a minute. You're able to tell all that from my photos?"

"The weave is unique. I scanned in a couple of your close-ups and got a hit."

Maggie had hoped the rope would lead them to the killer.

"So you found the manufacturer?"

"Ningbosa Material Company. They specialize in bulletproof plate, cut-resistant fabric, all kinds of good stuff."

"Are they somewhere close by?"

"Zhejiang, China."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not sure I pronounced that correctly. My Chinese needs work."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Everything's made in China these days, right?"

"There's more. This color combination is a special order."

"Excellent. So who's the customer?"

"The United States Navy."

Before Maggie could respond her phone was beeping again. Could it be Lawrence Piper already returning her call? "I've got another call coming in," she told Tully. "Let me know if you need anything else."

"Thanks." She clicked over. "Maggie O'Dell."

"Now that's music to my ears."

"Colonel Benjamin Platt." She tried to keep the smile from her voice. She hadn't talked to him for several days and whether she wanted to admit it to him or to herself, she missed him. "How goes your secret mission?"

"I'm being sent home. Can I buy you dinner tomorrow night?"

"I'm not home and I won't be for several days."

"Oh." He sounded disappointed. Disappointed and tired.

"Long story. I ended up on a road trip to Pensacola, Florida, with Charlie Wurth. Now I'm stuck here because of the hurricane."

"You're kidding? Where are you right now?"

"The Hilton on the beach. I'm looking out at the emerald-green waters of the Gulf as we speak. It's absolutely beautiful. Hard to imagine a hurricane is on its way."

"Go out on your balcony."

"Excuse me?"

"What floor are you on?"

"Platt, I swear if you ask me what I'm wearing, I'm hanging up."

"Just go out on your balcony."

Maggie hesitated. The balcony door was open. She had wanted to listen to the sound of the waves. She walked out onto the small balcony.

"Now look down on the beach," Platt told her.

There he was waving up at her.

"Buy you a drink at the Tiki Bar," he said.