Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4) (10 page)

She pushed it.

And there, before her, lay a series of telephone numbers.

The last ones that Edgar Ramirez had attempted to call.

“Yes.”

She put the phone in her pocket, turned, and walked out of the tunnel.

For some reason, she drove back to Gerard Park.

She wasn’t absolutely certain why. Perhaps it was a feeling that she did not want to go back to her bungalow right now; or it was simply the perfumed and balmy early summer air of Bay St. Lucy; or it was the streetlamps beginning to glow blue throughout the copse-lined walkways where only a few days ago she had come to do her morning run…

…or perhaps, it was something undefinable that draws people into parks and that makes parks necessary, especially town parks, especially parks with small gazebos where families gathered to have small picnics and drink cans of beer and listen to music on portable radios.

But whatever the reason, that was what she did.

The park was not particularly crowded. It was not a place that Bay St. Lucy advertised to its tourists. It was a more private experience, a refuge from the vacationers rather than a lure for them.

So Nina had no difficulty in finding one of the white gazebos that seemed meant for her. She drove the Vespa up to it, parked, rammed her foot down on the kickstand, and got off.

Then there was the rain gear.

She shucked it off, storing it in a compartment behind the driver’s seat that had apparently been constructed by Vespa’s engineers for the sole purpose of hiding toxic vinyl.

Then, shaking her head like a dog that has just been thrown into a lake—and crawled out—she walked up into the gazebo, waved at an acquaintance that happened to be walking by on the running trail fifty feet distant, and sat on one of the white wooden chairs that had been placed around a metal table in the precise center of the edifice.

She looked up, through a circular opening that had been made in the top of the structure, probably, she imagined, to let through smoke from a charcoal grill that someone might want to be cooking with.

One bright star.

“Star light, star bright,” she whispered. “First star I see tonight.”

There, farther on toward the center of the park, a teenage boy and his girl friend were throwing Frisbees, wildly, having no idea where the miniature plastic flying saucers would end up, not caring at all, both of laughing girlishly even if only one of them happened to be female.

“I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.”

And so thinking, she pressed the green button for recall.

She pressed the phone to her ear.

Buzz.

Buzz.

Bu…

Click.

“Narang here.”

Even as the words embedded themselves in static, it dawned on her immediately that, having no idea whom she was calling, she also had no idea what to say.

Hi. I don’t know you but I’m Nina and you don’t know me either. My whole name doesn’t really matter or who I am or where I’m from or are right now but you may be the one who killed Edgar, either that or the one who might have been able to keep him from getting killed. We don’t quite know which right now and we’re not even really sure he
was
killed but his lungs were all filled with sewage and his blood was all filled with alcohol and that really isn’t like him so could you help us?

The static once again:

“Narang here! Who’s calling?”

“I’m sorry…”

“Yes? Yes, who’s calling, please?”

Did she want to give her name?

No.

So what could she say?

“Do you have the wrong number? Who is this? Who is calling?”

“I’m calling from Bay St. Lucy.”

A pause.

“From where?”

“Bay St. Lucy. It’s in Mississippi.”

“Yes. I know of it. But I don’t…”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I need to know, though: with whom am I speaking?”

Yet another pause.

She could feel the tension as something in the phone that was being held to her ear was whispering:

He’s going to hang up now.

But he did not.

“This is Professor Daruka Narang.”

A British accent, with perhaps a touch of New Delhi or Bombay thrown in.

“And…and where are you located, Professor?”

“Please tell me who this is? Are you soliciting? Because I do not do business…”

“I’m not soliciting.”

“All right, but I still don’t wish to…”

“I’m a friend of Edgar Ramirez.”

The name seemed to dispel the static.

So that the following pause, though longer, emanated a kind of warmth.

Impossible as that might have been.

The voice at the other end, when it came back, was somehow softer.

“Edgar?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Of course. Of course. He is one of our students.”

Was
, thought Nina.

But she did not say that. Not yet. Although she knew that she would eventually have to.

“Are you calling me on behalf of Edgar?”

“Yes. In a way.”

“I’m very sorry but I do not understand you.”

“Are you Edgar’s teacher?”

“Yes, yes…in the department of geological sciences.”

“Located at…”

“At the University of Louisiana, here in Lafayette.”

All right.

So that explained it.

Edgar knew he had discovered immensely complex, but also immensely important, data.

He might not be able to make sense of it himself.

So he would ask for the help of his old professor.

Who was now on the other end of the phone, asking:

“I really must ask that you identify yourself.”

Okay, here goes:

“My name is Nina Bannister.”

“And you are a friend of Edgar’s?”

“I’m a friend of Edgar’s family.”

“His family?”

“Yes. I’m not sure you knew, but Edgar lived here in Bay St. Lucy.”

“Lived?”

“Professor Narang, I must tell you that Edgar Ramirez is dead.”

Strange. She had never before in her life told someone that someone else was dead.

It made her feel, also, as if she were dead.

The phone was also dead—even if only for an instant or so—the park was dead the dogs that should have been running around in the park were dead, the Frisbee flying over a small stream was dead, and so was the stream and so were the stars and so was all the town…

…for just that instant.

Then:

“Oh my God.”

There is nothing one can say to ‘Oh my God.’

So she simply waited.

“How?”

“I…we’re not sure.”

“But…was it an accident, or…”

“His body was found in a drainage canal.”

“A what?”

“A kind of runway for sewage.”

“I cannot believe that I am hearing this.”

“I know.”

“But how…how could this have happened?”

“No one in Bay St. Lucy is certain, Professor Narang.”

“But…but Edgar was working on an oil drilling platform, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Then how…”

“He had come home. Maybe to visit his family, we don’t know.”

Pause.

She continued:

“But Professor Narang, the bottom line is this. Edgar may have found out that something was wrong on The Aquatica. That’s the rig he was working on.”

“Wrong?”

“I know, it sounds crazy. His brother says he was worried, even scared. He spent three hours the night before he was killed…”

“Killed?”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You think someone killed him? Killed Edgar?”

“I don’t know.”

“But…”

“But he spent three hours of his final night attempting to call you. I know that because I recovered his cell phone. That’s how I got your number.”

Pause.

She continued:

“Professor, Edgar’s brother Hector and I went to the Aquatica this morning to get his things. We found in his room a disc drive that he had hidden. On this drive is a huge amount of data.”

“What kind of data, Ms. Bannister?”

‘I don’t know.”

“You haven’t looked at it?”

“Yes. Only a short time ago, but it’s incomprehensible to me.”

“And you haven’t shown it to anybody?”

“No. I’m absolutely certain that he wanted you to see it. You and no one else.”

“Ms. Bannister, please tell me clearly what you are trying to say.”

“All right. I think Edgar, brilliant engineering student that he was, had found out something very wrong was happening aboard Aquatica. I think he recorded his findings on his computer, then transferred them to this disc that I now have. I think someone may have followed him from the Aquatica to Bay St. Lucy, killed him, and made it look like he had gotten drunk, fallen into the drainage canal, and drowned.”

“My God.”

There was that phrase again.

Surely someone would come up with a reply to it.

“All right. Then precisely what is it that you want me to do?”

“I want you to look at what’s on the disc.”

Static.

More static.

It was quite dark now, and several yellow stars had crowded their way into the cupola above her.

“All right. I do not see how I can refuse.”

“Can I somehow send you this data electronically?”

“Ms. Bannister, this data. I assume that no one on the Aquatica knows you possess it?”

“That’s true.”

“Then I feel we should avoid sending private and confidential information flying through digital space. But if you have a disk and you wish to show it to me..”

There was, she knew a flight from Bay St. Lucy tomorrow at two PM.

It was the regular commuter flight to New Orleans.

From New Orleans there would certainly be flights to Lafayette.

As for money, she had a bit in the account, left overs from her months as being a principal again.

“I’ll come to you.”

“All right. When can you be here?”

“Tomorrow evening. I’ll take the commuter flight from New Orleans, and I’ll probably arrive about six or so. I’ll have to check the times. I’ll also have to get a motel room. But when I do, I’ll…”

“No. No, the motel is not good. There is a young woman here in the department., a graduate student. She is…was… a friend of Edgar’s. I feel certain that she will wish to help in this matter. She has a small place near campus, I think. I can have her meet you at the airport here in Lafayette. I feel certain she would not mind for you to stay with her.”