Supreme Justice

Chapter Three

Tom Oswald parked the police car next to the warehouse. A full moon in a cloudless sky illuminated the dock. It was just after midnight the evening after the 911 had directed him to the China Sea.

“It’s gone,” Jerry Swanson said as he and his partner peered through the windshield of the cruiser at the empty space where the ship had been moored.

Oswald didn’t say anything. He was angry and he didn’t know why. The mass murder and the drug smuggling had officially ceased to be any of his business as soon as Chief Miles told him to turn the matter over to Homeland Security. Still, the way the feds had barged in and thrown their weight around irritated the hell out of him.

“We’ve got company,” Swanson said. Oswald snapped out of his reverie and glanced in the side mirror. A security guard was headed their way, flashlight in hand. He was at the rear of the car by the time Oswald could make him out clearly enough to see that he wasn’t Dave Fletcher.

“Can I help you,” the rent-a-cop said as he shone the light into the car’s interior.

“Yeah. It’d be a big help if you’d get that light out of my eyes,” Oswald snarled. Then he caught himself. It was late, he was tired and pissed off, but there was no reason to take that out on the guard.

“Sorry, rough day,” Oswald apologized. “Where’s Dave?”

“Who?” the night watchman asked.

“Dave Fletcher, the guy who’s usually here.”

“I got no idea. They just transferred me from the mall in Astoria.” The guard shook his head. “I hope this ain’t permanent. This place is too damned isolated for me. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Look, we’re just taking a break. We’ll be out of your hair in fifteen.”

“OK, then,” the guard said and he walked off.

“The fuckers disappeared the whole damn ship,” Oswald said as soon as the night watchman was out of earshot.

“I saw David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear on TV once,” Swanson said. “This is just like that, only Copperfield brought the statue back.”

Tom Oswald lived by himself in a one-bedroom house that had been too small for Tom and his ex-wife and still seemed too small even with Linda out of his life. The house was dark and melancholy and held few good memories. Oswald had been depressed when he was discharged from the army, and his hasty marriage to a woman with a bipolar disorder and a drinking problem had not been the smartest of moves. The house was haunted by heated words and angry silences, and Oswald stayed away from it whenever he could.

Instead of going home when his shift ended, Oswald drove to the trailer park where Dave Fletcher lived. He stopped his car in front of Fletcher’s trailer and knocked on the door.

“If you’re looking for Dave, he’s gone.”

Oswald turned toward the voice. A heavyset woman in a housecoat was standing in the door of the next trailer. Her hair was in rollers and a lit cigarette dangled from the fingers of her left hand. Oswald crossed the yard between the mobile homes.

“I’m Tom Oswald. I’m with Shelby PD, Mrs…”

“Dora Frankel.”

“Where did Dave go, Mrs. Frankel?”

The woman took a drag of her cigarette and shrugged. “I got no idea.”

“Can you remember when you saw him last?”

Frankel stared into space. “I saw him head out the day before, but his car ain’t been parked by the trailer since then. Has something happened to him?”

“Not that I know. I just needed to talk to him about a case.”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong, has he?”

“He’s a witness. He’s not in any trouble.”

“That’s a relief. Dave’s always been a good neighbor.”

Oswald handed the woman his card. “If Dave comes back, ask him to call me.”

“Sure thing,” Frankel said. “I got to go in now. My program’s starting.”

When he got back in his car, Oswald made a mental note to talk to Fletcher’s employers, but he didn’t think they would be able to tell him what happened to Dave. His gut told him that the night watchman had disappeared along with the ship, the dead men, and the hashish. He hoped he was wrong about another victim being added to the body count, but nothing about the China Sea affair smelled right.

Oswald drove on automatic pilot while he thought about what the incident had taught him. He now knew that the inhabitants of Shelby, Oregon, were very little fish in a gigantic ocean where people, holds full of drugs, and entire ships could be made to disappear without any effort at all. He did not appreciate being pissed on by the big fish, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that, especially after Chief Miles had told him to forget everything he’d seen.

Oswald was halfway home when he conceived of a small act of defiance. He turned his car around and headed back to the station. He had the fingerprints he’d hidden from the goons from Homeland Security. It wasn’t much, but he could scan those fingerprints into AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, and see if he could get a match. He had no idea what he would do if he identified the person who’d left the latents. His satisfaction would come simply from doing something he’d been ordered not to do.