Last Words

1

Two years later

The sun was just rising, hot and round, tentacles of color wrapping around the early morning sky like fingers around an orange. From his kitchen window, Gabriel Beck watched the pinks turn coral then red.

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

“Oh, yeah,” he grumbled under his breath. “This sailor’s taking warning…”

The coffeepot beeped to announce its brew was ready, and he poured into the waiting St. Dennis Chamber of Commerce DISCOVER SAINT DENNIS! mug. He unlocked the back door then stepped onto the small deck and inhaled deeply. Early June in a bay town had scents all its own, and he loved every one of them. Wild roses mixed with salt air, peonies, and whatever the tide deposited on the narrow stretch of coarse sand that passed as beach overnight. It was heady, and along with the coffee he sipped, was all he really needed to start his day off right.

His cell phone rang and he patted his pocket for it, then remembered he’d left it on the kitchen counter. He went back inside, the screen door slamming behind him.

“Beck.”

“Chief, I hate to do this to you so early in the morning, but we have a two-vehicle tangle out on Route 33,” Police Sergeant Lisa Singer reported.

“Injuries?”

“One of the drivers is complaining of back pain. We’re waiting for the ambulance. Traffic’s really light right now, but if we can’t get these cars out of here within the hour, we’re going to have a mess. I’ve got Duncan directing traffic around the accident but it’s going to get hairy here before too much longer.”

“Christ, the Harbor Festival.” So much for starting the day off right. “I’ll call Hal and see if he can come in a little early today.”

Beck tossed back the rest of the coffee and set the mug in the sink. “You called Krauser’s for a tow truck?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get an answer. I called the service and asked them to page Frank, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

“I’ll have Hal stop by on his way in, see if he can shake someone loose. Chances are Frank left his pager on the front seat of his car and he and the boys are outside shooting the shit and no one’s opened the office yet.”

“That’s pretty much what I was thinking.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Beck turned off the coffeepot and the kitchen light, then headed out to his Jeep, his phone in his hand. Once behind the wheel, he punched in the speed-dial for Hal Garrity as he backed out of his driveway. Hal, one-time chief of police in St. Dennis, Maryland, was now happily retired but always agreeable to working part-time hours in the summer when the tourists invaded the small town on the Chesapeake Bay. At sixty-five, he was still in fine shape, still took pride in being a good cop, and had no problem taking direction from his successor. After all, he’d been instrumental in hiring Beck.

Hal answered on the first ring. He was already on his way in to the station, but was just as happy to head out to the accident scene, and wouldn’t mind a stop at Krauser’s Auto Body to check up on that tow truck. Beck smiled when the call ended. As much as Hal loved retirement, he sure did love playing cop now and then.

The narrow streets of St. Dennis were waist-high in an eerie mist that had yet to be burned off by the still rising sun. Wisps of white, caught in the headlights, were tossed about by Beck’s old Jeep, the ragged pieces floating across Charles Street, the main road that ran through the village, from the highway straight on out to the bridge over the inlet that led to Cannonball Island. Here in the center of town all was unbroken silence. No other cars were on the street, no shops opened, no pedestrians passed by. All was still. Peaceful.

This was the St. Dennis Beck loved, the one he remembered when he thought about moving back two years ago. But, with all the renovations, and every available building being bought up and fixed up and turned into one fancy shop or another, the St. Dennis he’d known would someday be little more than a fond memory. Now, though, in the early morning hours, before the tourists came out and the shop lights went on, the village was his home again. Peaceful, the way it was supposed to be.

Except for that damned traffic accident out on the highway, and knowing that by nine this morning the first of the tourists would arrive. They would be eager to spend their money in the picturesque boutiques and crowd his peaceful streets as they did every day starting in the middle of April and going strong right on through till Christmas. Today would be especially lively.

Beck checked the time. It was not quite six. The third annual Harbor Festival officially began at two that afternoon, but soon the first cars would begin to pull into the free parking lots across from the municipal building, and the early arrivals would descend on one of the three eateries in town that opened for breakfast.

He made a left onto Kelly’s Point Road and eased slowly down the narrow stretch to the municipal building. He parked in front of the sign that read RESERVED: G. BECK and got out of his car. The tightly compacted crushed clam and oyster shells that covered the parking lot and served as fill crackled under his feet as he walked toward the building.

Beck entered his department through double glass doors off the lobby and was greeted by the dispatcher.

“Morning, Chief.”

“Morning, Garland. You’re in early. Who was on night dispatch?”

“Bill Mason. He had an asthma attack around five and called me to come in.”

“Mason called you at five and asked you to come in?” Beck frowned.

“I didn’t mind. I was already awake. He filled in for me when my car died in Baltimore a few weeks back.”

“Glad you guys get along.”

“Two peas in a pod,” Garland replied before turning all business. “You heard about the accident out on thirty-three?”

“Lisa called a while ago. She’s out there with Duncan. Hal should be out there by now, too.” Beck looked through a short stack of phone messages that had come in overnight. “Give Lisa a call and tell her to come on in. And tell Duncan to make sure he’s back in town before nine. I want him on foot patrol. By then, Hal ought to have the accident scene cleaned up, and we can put him on parking.”

“Will do.” Garland Hess, a thirty-five-year-old transplant from Boston three years earlier, went to work.

A long hall separated the quarters assigned to the police department exactly in two. Beck’s office was at the end of the hall, and ran the width of their end of the building. On the opposite side of the lobby were the town’s administrative offices, and a combination of meeting rooms and conference rooms, with storage on the second floor. The basement was a damp black hole that invited mold to grow on anything placed down there, and the attic was hot in summer and cold in winter. Some old police files and council meeting records going back decades were packed away in fading boxes tucked under the eaves, though no one ever ventured up there. Beck suspected that if examined, many of the boxes would be found to have been gnawed on by mice or covered with bat droppings.

Every once in a while Beck thought about climbing the open stairwell to the third floor to see just what-all had accumulated up there over the years, but he hadn’t made it yet, and wasn’t likely to any time soon. The “archives,” as Hal liked to refer to the stored files, would have to wait until the tourist season had come and gone. This weekend’s Harbor Festival, slated to run from Friday through Sunday night, was just one of many weekends planned by the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce to bring in crowds and revenue. The merchants, understandably, all thought it was swell. The old-timers, like Hal and some others, thought it was all a pain in the butt.

“These narrow little streets weren’t designed for so much traffic,” Hal complained to Beck when he made it back to the station after having directed traffic out on the highway for two hours.

“That’s why the powers that be had those parking lots put in behind the shops on Charles Street.” Beck said, and took the opportunity to remind him, “Rumor has it that you were one of the powers who thought it was a good idea.”

“That was six years ago. Harbor Day was barely a gleam in the mayor’s eye back then.” Hal shook his head. “Who’da figured this sleepy little town was about to wake up?”

“It has done that,” Beck muttered, and leaned across his desk to pick up the ringing phone. At the same time, he motioned to Hal to take a seat in one of the empty chairs.

Beck’s call was short and he hung up just as Lisa poked her head in the door.

“First of the onslaught is just starting,” she told the chief. “What do you want to do about traffic control?”

“Put Duncan out on the highway till eleven”-Beck pulled his chair up to his desk and sat-“then call Phil in and ask him to take over out there until two. Things should have eased up a lot by then.”

“What about here in town?”

“I expect the only real problem will be where Kelly’s Point runs into Charles Street, there at the crosswalk,” Beck said.

“I’ll take that until noon,” Hal told him.

“Then I’ll take over from you from twelve to four,” Lisa offered.

“Aren’t you supposed to be off today?” Beck frowned and searched his in-bin for the schedule.

“Monday and Tuesday.” Lisa leaned against the door jamb.

“I’d have thought you’d be down at the boatyard to give your husband a hand.” Hal smiled. “Bound to be some foot traffic, all those people down on the docks. Someone’s going to want to look at a boat. Singer’s Boatyard is the only show in town.”

Lisa smiled back. “The boatyard’s Todd’s baby. He does his job, I do mine. His sister took the kids to the beach for the weekend, so we’re both doing our own thing today. But yeah, we’re hoping that a few folks in the crowd will be looking to pick up a boat this weekend. He’s put a few on sale, so we’ll see.”

“Well, if you want to take the lot down nearest the dock, that’s okay by me. We can put Sue on bike patrol,” Beck said, “just to have a presence on the street. Discourage pickpockets, find lost kids, lost parents. Give directions, that sort of thing.”

“Sue just came in at eight,” Lisa told him. “I’ll let her know she’s on bike today.”

“I’ll do a little foot patrol from time to time during the day,” Beck said. “Tomorrow, Lisa, you can take bike. I expect people will be leaving at different times throughout the day, so I don’t think we’re going to have the mess we’ll have today.”

“So who’s going to be minding the fort back here?” Hal asked after Lisa left to find Sue, the only other woman on the force.

“Me,” Beck told him. “I’ll be in and out all day. Frankly, I don’t expect much. This isn’t a biker convention-it’s not much more than a bunch of yuppies out to put a few miles on their Docksiders, looking to see how much money they can spend in a single weekend. Buy some cool artsy stuff at Rocky’s gallery, maybe some antique something at Nita’s, grab an ice-cream cone at Steffie’s after they eat crabs out at the pier or over at Lola’s. Then maybe they’ll spend a few hours down at the harbor watching the boats, maybe even wander into Singer’s and buy one of those fancy boats Lisa’s old man has sitting in his showroom. I’m thinking the most action we might see will be the parking tickets Duncan writes. A fender bender or two, maybe, since people will be traveling on foot most of the time, once they come into town and park.”

Beck leaned his arms on his desk and grinned.

“And like I said, this isn’t exactly a party crowd.”

“You’re probably right.” Hal hoisted himself out of his seat. “I’m going to head on down to Charles Street. Guess I’ll see you around at some point during the day.”

“Thanks, Hal.” Beck stood as the older man started toward the door.

“For what?”

“For coming back to help out.”

“My pleasure. Truly, it is. I don’t mind traffic. Never did.” He stood in the doorway, half in, half out. “Even when I sat where you’re sitting, I never minded traffic patrol.”

“You just wanted to see what was going on in town. Who was driving what. Who was going where with whom,” Beck teased.

“Damn right. Part of the job.” Hal was still talking even as he left Beck’s office. “Chief of police has to know what’s doin’ in his town. Only way to know for sure is to get out there and keep an eye on folks.”

Beck could hear Hal at the end of the hall, talking to Garland and flirting harmlessly with Sue, who was twenty-five and good-natured enough to flirt back.

Well, there was no denying Hal was in his element here, Beck thought as he returned to the pile of mail that had yet to be answered. He figured today would be a good day to get to that. The building would be all but empty for most of the day, and by noon he should have all the mail caught up.

He glanced out the window behind his desk and noted that cars were starting to pull into the lot across the road from his building. Beyond the lot he could see the New River, and beyond that the Chesapeake Bay. Off to his right and hidden from his view was the small, shallow harbor and the docks. He knew from past experience that by noon the town would be filled to near capacity. The latecomers would be looking for parking out on the side of the road leading out of town and walking back to the center of things. Like they say, the early bird gets the best parking space.

Beck turned on his computer and quickly scanned his e-mail. One message stood out.

MISSING WOMAN read the subject. Beck opened it and read the note from his fellow chief of police up in Ballard, a town about four miles away.

The e-mail contained a photo of a pretty young woman with light brown hair and gold-brown eyes. She laughed into the camera, as a large black dog climbed into her lap. The e-mail identified her as Colleen Preston, of Ballard. Twenty-two years old, last seen on June 26. Beck glanced at the calendar. She’d been missing for two weeks now. He knew what the chances were they’d find her alive.

He tapped his fingers on the side of his keyboard. Hadn’t there been a similar e-mail from another police department just a few weeks back?

He checked his old mail. There it was, from Chief Meyer, over in Cameron. He opened the e-mail and read it through, then printed out both that notice and the one from today. He placed the pictures side by side. The two women couldn’t have been more different. Colleen Preston was five feet nine inches tall. Twenty-year-old Mindy Kenneher, from Cameron, was five two and had short blond hair. The only similarity appeared to be that they’d both left home one morning to go to work, and never came back.

Beck got up and walked to the end of the hall, taking both printouts with him. At the bulletin board, he pinned the two pictures up, side by side. On his way back to his office, it occurred to him that Cameron was about seven miles from St. Dennis. Which made it only three miles from Ballard. Way too close to St. Dennis for comfort.

He wondered if either of the girls had turned up. If the investigations had led to any leads. If Meyer in Cameron had been in touch with Chief Daley in Ballard. If they’d traded notes. That’s what he’d do, if it happened in his town.

God forbid, he thought as walked back to his office.

The photo of Mindy Kelleher was still on his computer screen. Pretty girl, he thought as he closed the e-mail. As the image faded away, a solid chill went up his spine. It gave him pause for just a moment. Then he turned off the computer and headed down the hall.

“I’ll be on foot for a while,” Beck told Garland as he passed by and left through the front door.

He walked swiftly to the path that led from the building to Kelly’s Point Road. From there it was a short walk to the center of town. It was a path he’d walked more times than he could count. Today he couldn’t seem to walk fast enough.

Like Hal said, the chief of police should know what was going on, and today was as good a day as any to see what folks were up to, and who was walking the streets of his town.