Thin Blood Thick Water (Clueless Resolutions Book 2) (13 page)

Previously on Tuesday evening,
Chip had been trying to locate his four investigative assignees while waiting at the Bickford Lab guest house. He and Brad were awaiting the arrival of Danyel in the float plane and they were keeping an eye on the boat house exterior by watching the night-vision video monitor. Chip knew that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were considered the supreme command above the Parish and County police forces and had trained most of the members. He had gotten in touch with his contact in the RCMP to get any information available on whom to check with on the local police force. Chip was explaining the politics of the Canadian police authority when Brad interrupted him.

“Here she is,” Brad exclaimed excitedly as the taxi lights of the Cessna Caravan float plane obliterated the night vision picture. He switched the monitor to the boathouse interior. Chip couldn’t tell if Brad was more exhilarated by Danyel’s arrival or by watching his re-vamped Cessna entering the encoded automatic sensor-operated entry system of the boat-house doors as they opened and closed perfectly.  Either way they both watched, fascinated, as the large, high-winged floatplane drifted through the boathouse opening with its propeller spinning at idle in a non-propelling, neutral position. As the pontoon floats reached the stop pads the doors closed behind the tail of the aircraft and the prop spun down to a stop. Even on the unsophisticated black-and-white video depiction, Danyel’s sumptuous, lithe physique was poetry-in motion to the two male oglers in the house as she disembarked and tied down the floatplane.

Knowing that they were expecting her and awaiting her arrival in this dismal, dark, scenario, Danyel thought to herself,
“Loathe to imagine that they, or even one of them, could have been on hand to help with securing the plane and helping with any cargo!”
Being aware of the video monitoring system, she waved a sarcastic ‘hello, I know you’re watching’ to the boathouse interior camera and proceeded to the entry pad to tap in her PID code.

A loud “Bravo, great landing!” and a clapping of hands was the greeting Danyel received from her audience of two, when she opened the entry foyer door to the kitchen-eating area of the laboratory guesthouse.

“Well, thank you very much men, I’ll drop the ‘gentle’ part for now. I could have used a hand with the mooring and off-loading,” she responded with a smile, but dead serious as she dropped her 45 lb. equipment bag at her feet.

“Let me get that for you,” Brad said as he jumped off his counter stool. He had always ‘had the hots’ for Danyel but he felt that, realistically, she was out of his league as far as intimate relations were concerned. Yet, in Brad’s mind, since he was as an exceptionally intelligent, innovative and valuable member of the Partnership, there was always a possibility. That thought was his comfort.

“Where do you want me to put the bag?” Brad asked.  Danyel was not in the best of moods having dropped everything to get to Halifax, and having wrestled with the below-minimums weather conditions without an Instrument Landing System to guide her to a safe landing. She had a perfect opening to snap the perfect quip to the question from Brad, but she simply stated in her always perfectly controlled manner, “Would you take it into the waterfront bedroom please? Thanks Brad.”

Chip got right down to business as to the question of what happened with the group that was assigned to research the Bickford acquisition. He explained to Danyel that he had dropped them in Halifax and proceeded to Montreal on other business. Coming back into Halifax one day earlier than planned, he was at a loss as to why he could not contact any of the Partners. Danyel suggested that the hotel where they all were staying, and the Lab where they were supposed to have last been, would be the places to start tracing their whereabouts. She suggested further that time was of the essence.

“Should we go now and talk with the hotel manager?” Danyel asked. “If we can look through their rooms, we might get some hint as to where they are,” she offered. Brad had returned from delivering Danyel’s luggage. He and Chip agreed with the hotel inquiry.

Within fifteen minutes they were driving the service rental into the city to meet with the hotel manager or whoever was in charge there.

The coastal storm had eased and a chilly northwest breeze had heralded the chill that usually accompanied the eastern Canada fall season. They arrived at the ‘Herald Hotel and Restaurant’ and approached the registry desk walk-up counter. Chip showed the clerk his USAP business ID and inquired to the manager or person in charge. That resulted in the desk clerk stepping through an open door behind the counter to speak with someone. An oversized digital clock on the wall behind the counter read 9:40 PM.

“We paid big bucks for this place based on the on-line ratings. In person it doesn’t appear to measure-up,” Chip said as an aside to his cohorts. While they awaited the hotel manager, he nodded toward a cubby-hole array of room keys behind the counter, as opposed to modern electro-magnetic door cards.

The manager was an older man with time-tested distinctive mannerisms, which contradicted his position at this out-of-the-main-stream, C-class hotel.

“Welcome, I’m Clive Wadsworth, Manager. It’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Chaplain,” the manager announced in a resonating, ‘Majordomo-style’, baritone voice. His large, out-stretched hand seemed to be positioned in a secret handshake position. As the two men shook hands, the manager was moving his handshake up, down, and side-to-side. Receiving no detectible response to the ‘special’ handshake, the manager, obviously having had his after-dinner cocktails, down-toned his demeanor slightly. Seemingly disappointed at the lack of recognition, he asked, flatly, as to what assistance he might be.

The talk with the hotel manager resulted in the USAP trio being allowed to enter the three rooms occupied by their fellow Partners in order to gain some perspective as to their whereabouts.

Max was sharing his connecting-room suite with Maggie and one of the rooms had a sofa-bed, which was in the folded position. Their passports were on a dresser there, and their cell-phone chargers were in each room. Their luggage was left open on the stands. In a general sense, the indication was that they were expecting to return fairly soon after they had left.

“Look, this is Maggie’s, I think,” Danyel said, holding up a cell phone. They all looked at the phone in a state of wonder and indecision. Danyel activated the phone and noticed a missed call from 10:10 AM. “Should we check the missed call? It might give us a clue to where she is, and Max wouldn’t be far away,” she added, seemingly bothered at the thought. Chip gave Danyel a long, curious stare.

“Hey, nothing against her, but Max is a Partner for Christ’s sake!” she retorted sharply, regarding Chip’s look of whatever-it-was.  Brad made himself seem busy looking for clues in this unusually brusque encounter between the other two. He wasn’t accustomed to discord among his fellow Partners, and he didn’t like it.

“Something is very wrong here,” Brad commented. “If we can get any information as to why our contingent is out of contact, and possibly missing, we had better go for it,” he stated with an unusual air of authority. At that, Danyel entered the reply mode and called the caller’s number under the name ‘Marshall R.E.Serv’.

“Hello, Maggie?” was the almost instant, live reply. “Is that you? This is Jessie,” spoke a very anxious female voice. Chip, listening to the response, put his hand over the phone microphone and put a finger to his lips signaling Danyel not to respond.  Chip took the phone from Danyel and ended the call.

“That’s her office, probably forwarding a message or something. We don’t want to be involved in her personal or business affairs,” he said with finality. There was no objection.

Upon inspection, the same was true of Mario’s room, producing no further clues.  Lamar’s room was mysteriously untouched and showed no signs of having been used. A double check with the front desk confirmed that it was the room correctly assigned to him.

“Maybe he knows somebody here and slept-in somewhere else,” Danyel quipped, making imaginary quote marks in the air with her fingers. Chip nodded in agreement, but with a puzzled frown on his brow.

Brad was totally blank-looking, as if he was absolutely clueless.  The trio left the room keys at the desk, waving a ‘thank you’ to the manager as they exited the hotel.

Chip’s cell phone rang and he hesitated as he scanned for the calling number. Brad and Danyel proceeded to the service car while Chip, walking hesitantly, listened to the call. With the phone pressed to his ear, Chip stopped abruptly, looked around and turned back to the hotel. He re-entered and, after ten seconds he came trotting out to the car and got into the rear seat. Brad turned in the driver’s seat as Danyel looked back at Chip from the passenger side.

“I just heard back from my contact in the RCMP,” Chip announced. “There was something strange going on over on the New Brunswick side as the Halifax Ferry off-loaded. It seems like there was a search going on for one or two people, thought to be fare-dodgers, but according to my source it was more intense than warranted. It’s more like they were fugitives and the activity attracted a lot of attention.”

“Do you think it was any of our people?” Brad asked. “We’re looking for four, not one or two.”

“We don’t have anything else to go on yet, let’s go on over to the lab and see what we can dig up over there,” Chip directed.

“I’m kind of beat,” Danyel said. “I’d rather crash at the guest house and pick it up first thing in the morning.”

“Not a bad idea,” Brad added. “I need a little sack time to get my head around this calamity, plus we have a ‘loaded gun’ parked in the boathouse,” he added, referencing the armed Caravan Amphibian.

“Thanks for the warning!” Danyel exclaimed disingenuously. “I saw the altered console. It’s a good thing I didn’t push any buttons out of curiosity. I remember your briefing about fitting out the floatplanes but I didn’t get a briefing on how to use it.” At that point Chip relented and they drove back to the guest house.

While the perilous drama and intrigue was taking place in the Canadian Atlantic provinces on Wednesday morning, a nervous Jessica Knowles was on the job early, rather than her customary slight tardiness. She had slept fitfully, and was downing her second cup of coffee in an attempt to clear the cobwebs in her mind. She needed to alleviate the uneasy feeling that was caused by Maggie’s uncharacteristic lack of communication.

During the previous day, when Maggie did not answer her cell phone or reply to the texts that were sent, Jessie rationalized that urgent business assisting Max was the probable cause. There were requests from one of Maggie’s most treasured clients that Jessie knew Maggie would want to respond to, and the texts had hinted at that without naming names.

After she had closed the office for the day Jessie had tried to reach her boss from her personal cell phone. She was relieved to finally get a reply from Maggie’s number around 10:00 PM and was dumbfounded when the caller hung up.  Jessie thought she had heard a muffled voice, or voices, followed by a scratchy sound like someone dropping or fumbling the phone…and then nothing. She had called back but Maggie’s phone was on ‘off’.

When she tried to reach Maggie from the office on this morning the cell phone was still dead. The agenda Maggie had set called for her return today by late morning to mid-afternoon, depending on the flying weather. According to the on-line weather service, the northeast US and the Canadian coastal area currently showed fair conditions.  Jessie was certain that a call before take-off would have been made, or else a notice of a delay would be sent by now.

“Something must be wrong,”
Jessie thought silently.
“Who-in-hell can I contact?!”
  She was beginning to panic and was trying to keep herself calm and composed, just as Maggie would do. Her first instinct was to call Max, although she had a feeling that it may be futile as well, because Maggie would obviously use his cell phone if hers was dead. Sensing that there was nothing to lose, she looked at the emergency contacts list Maggie left and entered Max’s cell phone number.  The phone picked up but there was no greeting.

“Hello! Hello! Max, is that you?” Jessie shouted into the mouthpiece. The phone clicked off.

“Somebody answered that cell phone but it wasn’t Max,”
Jessie sensed.
“He wouldn’t have just hung up,”
she theorized.   Now Jessie knew now that they were in trouble. The next emergency number on the list was the USAP headquarters. Jessie dialed and received an almost immediate answer. The reception of the call was courteous but it was an almost recording-like, stock answer designed for an unknown caller who could be a salesperson, petitioner for donation, etc. Looking further down the list she saw Eugene Van Dyke, Atty. Jessie was surprised to see the Mayor of East Wayford listed on Maggie’s list but, in desperation, she entered the number. A secretary answered the call and said she would give the Mayor the message. Within three minutes the office phone rang.

Upon answering the Marshall Real Estate Services phone, Jessie recognized the Mayors voice.

“Is this Jessica?” the Mayor asked?  Surprised that he would know her name, Jessie answered to the affirmative and apologized for the disturbance but explained very briefly that her boss had left this number for emergency purposes. After listening to Jessie’s recap of the break-down in communication between her and Maggie, Gene Van Dyke suggested that she had done the right thing by calling him and advised her to stay at the office phone during business hours. The Mayor took her personal number with the assurance that he would get back to her with any information that would shed light on the mystery of the communication breakdown.

The next call Gene made was to a friend of Maggie’s, and Max’s, who was an F.B.I. Inspector. While awaiting a return call he contacted a fellow lawyer he had known since they went through law school together. He was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney General’s office in Washington, DC. Mayor Van Dyke was aware of Max’s involvement with USAP and had provided a positive reference in his regard when Max was being considered for a Partnership position there. The conversation between Gene and his longtime friend resulted in an assurance that a long-standing, mutually-cooperative connection was in place between the top levels of US and Canadian government officials. This was especially true with matters pertaining to customs and immigration. He indicated that information on the whereabouts of Max, Maggie and their cohorts should not take long to gather. He expected to have results before the day was over.

At the USAP headquarters in Ithaca, all hands were on deck this day responding to requests from Senior Partner Harold Lee ‘Chip’ Chaplain. All employees, especially those with Canadian contacts in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, were asked to apply all existing USAP resources in order to turn up leads to the missing Partner’s whereabouts.

A massive pool of high-level investigative personnel and their supportive staffs had been assembled and spurred into action within three hours on an otherwise ordinary October Wednesday morning. It stemmed from phone calls from Chip to his crew and Jessie Knowles to the Mayor of East Wayford, CT.