Double blind

Chapter Thirty-six

Mike Takahara had based his time estimate for locating Wilbur Boggs on rough distance and the clearly marked speed zones through town, rather than the speed and mobility of the small Honda.

And the uneasy determination of Henry Lightstone.

Consequently, it took Lightstone five minutes less than the tech agent's estimate to find Boggs's office. But he then spent another ten slowly circling a four-block area — until he felt reasonably certain he hadn't been followed — before he risked entering the small office building through a door that opened into the back alleyway.

It took him another five minutes to properly identify himself as a federal agent of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and get the relevant information out of Boggs's secretary. No, she hadn't seen Wilbur since last Tuesday. Yes, she was worried, but she felt confident that the other agents who also were looking for Wilbur would find him soon. The names of the other agents? She paused for a moment to scan her notebook. Oh, yes. Gus Donato, Mark LiBrandi, and a young woman agent whose name escaped her at the moment.

Gus Donato, Mark LiBrandi, and Natasha Marashenko. Henry Lightstone smiled to himself. The offensive players of Charlie Team, scene two, sleazy congressman and bagman try to make a deal.

Bingo.

Fifteen minutes later, using directions provided by Boggs's eager-to-help secretary, followed by a good half-hour spent on the back-track, searching for any sign of an active or passive surveillance, Lightstone stood in the covered carport next to the resident wildlife agent's home, wondering what out-of-place element had triggered his mental alarms.

He'd done the standard things first. Rang the doorbell, and received no response. Then he carefully examined all the doors and windows — house and garage — and found everything securely locked with no sign of forced entry. A cursory search of the yard led him next to the carport, where he'd stood studying the backed-in pickup truck and boat trailer for a good two minutes now.

Then it finally hit him.

The boat trailer.

It was still attached to the truck.

And not just the bumper hitch, but the safety chains, trailer brakes, and electrical hookup, too.

Not an unusual situation if you planned to go on a trip, or left everything hooked up for a quick run out to the lake; but hardly the way a wildlife agent would leave his personal truck and trailer when working twelve-hour patrol duty shifts with a government truck and trailer. Lightstone moved in closer… and then immediately went on the alert when he saw the blood splatters on the boat's windshield.

What had Boggs's secretary said? Something about the other agents checking Boggs's home every evening?

Which made as much sense as anything else, he decided as he cautiously moved to the rear of the carport — where the back of the boat trailer nudged the back wall — because if Mark or Gus or Natasha had checked the house during the day, at least one of them should have noticed the blood splatters on the windshield… or at the very least, the damage to the back of Boggs's boat.

Pretty hard to miss, guys, even in the middle of the night, Lightstone thought as he knelt and surveyed the external damage sustained by the small watercraft.

Okay, Wilbur, let's hope for your sake this isn't what it looks like.

Alert for the slightest movement, Henry Lightstone cautiously approached the near side of the boat, looked over the railing, then breathed a small sigh of relief.

No body.

But more than enough blood for a body to have been here, Lightstone decided as he carefully stood up on the trailer, eased himself into the boat, and began to examine the scene like he'd done so many times when he and Bobby LaGrange had worked homicide investigations together.

Yeah, you do like to play, Bobby, Lightstone smiled to himself as he made a cursory examination of the damage sustained by the outboard engine, then furrowed his brows in concentration as he turned slowlywatching where he stepped, carefully avoiding any potentially latent-fingerprint-bearing surfaces with his bare hands — and began methodically to work through the cause-and-effect aspects of the blood splatter patterns around the windshield…

And I can see you and Susan hooking up with Halahan to have some fun with Bravo Team.

… the instrument panel…

Problem is, though, I know you too well.

… the steering wheel…

You were scared when I called last night because you were worried about Susan.

… the seat cushions…

And you wouldn't have been worried about her, or pulled out that old pistol of yours, if you knew the whole deal was a setup.

… and the flooring.

So that cuts you and Susan out of the grand conspiracy theory, leaving me to hook up with Sage the soothsayer on my own… however and whenever that might have happened. But not… uh oh, what's this?

Lightstone reached down under the driver's seat, came up with a bloody front tooth — and then another one under the cowling — sat down on the front passenger seat to consider this latest bit of evidence for a few moments, then moved to the back of the boat to re-examine the damaged transom and outboard motor.

Only when he began a detailed examination of the outboard motor shaft did Henry Lightstone notice the rope fibers and fragments of nylon netting. That discovery led him to the prop and the protective skeg, where he made another interesting discovery — which caused him to reexamine the damaged transom with a decidedly different perspective.

Boat's traveling at a high rate of speed, gets caught up in nets, rope, something like that, and comes to a sudden stop, causing Wilbur Boggs's face to smash into the steering wheel, knocking out a couple of his front teeth, and sending blood all over the place. Wilbur cuts the boat loose, tries to fix the engine — getting blood all over the cowling — but never gets it running again because there's still a bunch of netting wrapped around the propeller shaft, and finally ends up paddling to shore. Easy read. Trouble is, judging from the damage to the motor skeg and some — but not all — of the damage to the transom, the boat was going backwards at a fairly high speed at the time of impact.

Hell of a trick, Wilbur my man.

Unless…

Then Lightstone noticed the truck's broken rear window.

Ten minutes later, after expanding the scope of his search and placing several more very intriguing pieces of the puzzle at least within reasonable proximity to each other, Henry Lightstone walked across the street, rang the doorbell, and waited.

This time, to his amazement, he got a response.

"Yes?"

"Hi, I'm a friend of Wilbur Boggs, your neighbor across the street," Lightstone began.

"Oh, I'm so glad you stopped by. How is he?"

"Well, we think he'll be all right," Lightstone replied hesitantly, "but I was examining his truck and boat trailer just now, and happened to notice your mailbox…"

"I planned to talk to Mr. Boggs about that once he got home from the hospital. I'm sure the entire situation was simply an accident on his part. As you can see, we don't have many streetlights around here, and it's pretty hard to see anything that early in the morning anyway. My homeowner's policy should cover the repairs just fine, but to tell you the truth," the neighbor paused, "I was hoping…"

"That's why I stopped by," Lightstone interrupted, reaching for his wallet. "Wilbur's terribly embarrassed about the entire incident, and doesn't want you inconvenienced any more than you've already been, so he asked me to try to set things right if I can."

Lightstone pulled three one-hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet and extended them toward the man. "Will this cover the necessary repairs?"

"But that's… exceedingly generous," the neighbor protested as he accepted the money after only the briefest hesitation.

"No, not at all. It can take a lot of time to locate a contractor, and then oversee the work. Besides," Lightstone added with a wink, "this way, neither you nor Wilbur need to bother your insurance agents, fill out all that paperwork, or more importantly, run the risk that they might raise your rates. You know how those things always seem to work out in the insurance company's favor."

"Don't they ever," the neighbor nodded his head vigorously.

"Anyway," Lightstone went on, "I know Wilbur would be grateful if you'd consider the money as his apology until he can get back home and apologize in person."

"Of course," the neighbor assured the agent hurriedly, trying very hard not to smile. "And please, if there's anything else I can do for Mr. Boggs…"

"Well, there is one thing." The wildlife agent smiled. "I'm trying to help Wilbur get all the paperwork together on the accident, and we're having trouble locating the people who took him to the hospital. I was wondering…"

"I'm afraid you'll find that's pretty typical for local government around here," the neighbor smiled apologetically. "If our fire department's records are anything like those at city hall…"

Henry Lightstone nodded his head. "I understand completely."

It took the persistent ex-homicide investigator an hour and a half to determine that the extent of Wilbur Boggs's injuries got him transferred to Providence Hospital in nearby Medford… and the better part of another two hours to finally track down the supervising floor nurse at Providence Hospital, where he learned that patient John Doe — now positively identified as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Resident Agent Wilbur Boggs — had disappeared.