Offshore Threat

By Nancy A. Lindley-Gauthier

Deep in coastal security red-tape, Lieutenant Commander Corwin does not need the distraction of a distant murder. It seems far from his own base and far from his area of concern. The strange death of a well-known whale seems more immediate; until one determined would-be sailor convinces him the two deaths are suspiciously linked. Sailing the waters of Cape Cod bay, a small sailboat, a Coast Guard cutter and an immense Middle Eastern freighter take on a collision course.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597053525

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Nancy Lindley-Gauthier

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Mystery Suspense Novel

Edited by: Dianne Hamilton

Copy Edited by: Karen Babcock

Senior Editor: Leslie Hodges

Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Cover Artist: Pat Evans

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

Copyright © 2008 by Nancy A. Lindley-Gauthier

ISBN  978-1-59705-352-5

Published In the United States Of America

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

As with all, For my wonderful Kent.

Prologue

The Summer Child

AT THE END OF WORK on summer days, as Olivia Gray turned onto the quiet dirt road that took her home, her mind would fill the empty space before her with a conjured vision from the past. The vision was clear, as if this ghost were real; sunlight filtered through the trees to dapple the road before her. It took little effort to see the dapples of the buttery suede pony there, emerging as if from the road itself.

Olivia often found she had to blink to bring herself back to the present. At times, she had waited whole seconds for the child and pony to notice that she was waiting to pass, only to realize they were not there. She had been tricked by sunlight and sadness, and she would slowly realize that there was no one there to move; the plump pony stood as ever now, alone in a distant field.

She had been an elfin creature, this child of her neighbor. The golden child, that child of summer who rode out of memory always carelessly poised on the plump pony. Olivia remembered the girl’s peek backward as she heard the daily crunch of Olivia’s tires and the shy duck of her head as she raised her hand in a brief, tiny wave before she guided the pony aside.

She had been so small and golden, ever-present on her slowly ambling pony. The twined forms of child and pony seemed to ceaselessly follow the familiar paths of the neighborhood for summers beyond count. The child must have aged in all those passing summers, yet Olivia still saw her as small, young, her golden hair falling scraggily across her shoulders from heat and road dust, unchanged from one day to the next, one summer to the next. The pony’s mane was always tidily brushed; every part of her coat glowed with what must have been endless polishing.

Olivia often tried to picture her face. She recalled it was pointed, narrow, pale, but no picture emerged in her mind. All that remained of the child was a blur of color—gold and white and pink blending with the dappled butter cream pony. Her true memory was of little more than a shape, a silhouette at the roadside, hard to focus on with the sun in her eyes. That image, that tireless spirit, superseded any other image she tried to conjure.

For Olivia, the child’s pixie-sized shoes dangled in all the summers past, and the sure little hooves of the pony had led her, had led all the neighborhood, forward to the promise of coming summers. Somehow CarolAnn’s daughter had come to represent summer with all the boundless freedom that summer meant for schoolchildren. Her pony was part of the picture; they were heralds of summer, markers of another year gone.

One quiet summer had long set in before Olivia, arriving on the little dirt road and fanning herself against the oppressive heat, had wondered why she had not seen the heralds. Surely, she had not missed this golden creature’s last ride? Olivia had sighed, but did not inquire. Well of course, the Summer Child would be child no longer. She had been bound to outgrow the pony sooner or later and was likely off to earn money for school, long past hot days spent idling.

The girl’s absence had triggered all sorts of other musings, and Olivia had begun to reflect on her own age, wondering what, in all these years, she had accomplished. What, indeed, she might be accomplishing by endlessly following the same path. It was not long after, after she had started wondering how so many years had slipped past, that she found her. In the newspapers, she found the summer child.

SOME SORT OF OFFICIALDOM had discovered this neighbor, girl no longer at age seventeen, long lost, dead since the last summer, at least. Olivia desperately scanned her memory, but had never heard the girl had been missing, recalled no wanted posters or publicized pleas for a safe return.

The papers now made no mention of what must have been desperate searching, or her mother’s endless days of anxiety. They reported dark details with ghoulish relish—how she had last been seen near a sleazy bar in Fall River, a sailor’s party town if ever there was one. Her body, skeleton really, had been uncovered on the outskirts of the city. She had been wrapped in heavy cable and stuck fast in a concrete culvert that led to the sea.

Mutterings were there of unsavory friends, hints that perhaps she’d been on a nasty street, a mid-city known hangout of... well, others. From somewhere had come a picture of the summer child, harshly black and white, looking cold and unemotional.

Every gory detail was shared, analyzed, judged; her death her own fault, it seemed. Excited, horrified prose built the story to intrigue, to tantalize, to speculate, but also, oddly, to reassure. Tucked in between the lines was a calm assurance that good girls need not fear such a fate. Mention was made that though she had been completing a Coast Guard internship in the early weeks that same summer, she had left with no notice. Police squirmed a bit, saying in part that she had not been expected at home at any particular time and so had not been officially a missing person, back when her parents had first reported her missing. With no indication of wrongdoing, they had not had a crime to investigate until her body had been discovered.

Olivia had stared at the paper, repulsed, transfixed. How had she never heard of her disappearance? It was true she rarely saw the neighbors. They were almost a mile distant, country people and nice enough; she’d stopped at their yard sales years back, when the neighborhood would still gather, when people talked. Had she never spoken to the girl? Elizabeth her name was, Elizabeth Atwater.

Olivia spent weeks after learning of Elizabeth’s death, driving in and out the long way to go past the Atwater’s. She passed her aging neighbor daily and often saw her as she cared for the graying pony in her field. It seemed indecent somehow, intrusive, to go offer condolences so late—far too late. Olivia just carried on. She followed the plain track of her own quiet road, wondering every day at the passing years of her own life, at the futility of wishing to turn back time.

One

Off Massachusetts’s Northern Shoreline

Twilight was just giving way to pale pink streaks of dawn as the small Coast Guard utility boat, designation W187, thumped slowly over the choppy waves.

Lieutenant Commander Calvin Corwin hung over the portside rail, inspecting the tidal buoy by flashlight.

All in order, he said finally.

Yes sir, acknowledged the seaman. Back to base?

Corwin peered around what seemed to be the empty waters of the bay. To the east he could just make out the tops of the trees on Misery Island against that approaching light of dawn. In a few moments he’d be able to make out the rocky ledges that slipped treacherously down from the island and below the surface, waiting for an unwary vessel. There was no sound but for the steady chug of their over-powered engine. Even the rhythmic smack of the hull against the waves could not be heard above the engine’s growl. The narrow warning beam from the Baker Island Lighthouse swept over them at intervals. Misery had claimed victims in spite of the beacon’s warning, many a time.

Turn the engine off, Yeoman, Corwin ordered. We’ll have a bit of a listen.

With no power, the boat began to bob in the small, crested waves. The engine stilled and the thump of the hull much reduced, the two men could hear even the distant whine of car traffic picking up on the shoreline road, old Route One, a good few miles west. There was no other sound.

The yeoman rubbed his hands briskly as he asked, What exactly was the report, sir?

The harbormaster wasn’t sure. A fisherman coming in reported stationary lights northeast of Little Misery. The harbor master was concerned. He thought it might be kids out vandalizing the buoy. They’ve lost several of them, further south. He shrugged. I don’t think there’s even anyone around here at the moment. Can’t imagine anyone wants to mess with one of these things in this cold.

Yeoman Trotski shifted uneasily. He was a big young fellow and very aware of Corwin’s rank and his position as Sea Marshal. Trotski hesitated before he offered, Did you see that news report today, sir? The body of that young girl found down on the Cape? Her remains were found wrapped in a cable. It seemed to me like it was the kind used for these mid-sized buoys.

That so? Corwin wondered Well, that might explain something about what happened to one of those southern buoys. How was the cable described in the newspaper? He glanced sharply at the yeoman.

Just the size was given. It seemed about right for buoy cable, from the description. Creepy.

Corwin glanced over the sturdy man’s shoulder at the radar display. On such a small vessel, the radar offered very limited information. A person could pretty nearly see as far as the radar could reach. Handy, perhaps, on a pitch-dark night or in a heavy fog, but tonight, it added nothing. Yeoman waved his hand easterly, toward the island. If it were summer, I’d guess it was divers getting out early to sneak down to one of the closed wrecks off hereabouts.

Why would they need to sneak? Corwin queried. I thought diving here was permitted? Not a diver himself, not even much of a swimmer, Corwin hadn’t given any thought to the potential for divers to be in the area. As a southern boy only recently transplanted in these waters, many things were still unfamiliar.

The seaman nodded. There are a bunch of wrecks down there. There’s a freighter from the ’50s that is the most photographed wreck in these waters, but not every shipwreck is open. There are a couple of wrecks designated as historic parks. You can dive on them, but they have to be left undisturbed. Every year we get a few people trying to remove stuff. You know, get out here at dawn, go search a wreck for saleable trinkets, get out before anyone notices that you are bringing stuff up. So we watch for that kind of thing.

The yeoman turned and indicated the ship channel they were bobbing in. There are a couple wrecks now that are totally off limits. One end of that big freighter has shifted over the years and now lies almost under a shipping channel. There are so many safety concerns between the force of the current down there and the potential ship versus diver event, it seemed wisest to close that entirely. That was closed back before it might even have been a security issue. There’s one other, just north of Baker, which is considered closed as it’s a breeding ground for some rare species of fish. The current there is so strong, it’s no joke to dive it anyway. Too close to the shipping lanes, to my mind.

Shipping lanes seem clearly marked in this harbor, Corwin remarked.

We have a lot of recreational boating in the area. They are the sort that underestimate the speed of freighters. A tanker takes a mile or more to stop, and that’s with engines at full reverse. They don’t have much evasive-action capability. It’s hard to make that clear to some of the recreational boaters.

Humph. Corwin’s duties were often administrative. To date, he had experienced far fewer actual harbor patrols than reports about patrols. He had had no involvement in the rescue side of the service. He focused all his attention on homeland security issues relevant to the harbor and port.

Corwin had popped out to check the buoy as there had really been no one else readily available. Technically vandalism to the tidal buoys could threaten security, but for the most part, his day-to-day job involved granting security clearance to freighters coming into Boston harbor. He generally went from office to helicopter directly to the flying bridge of a ship. Coast Guard or no, it had been a lot of years since his job happened just above the waves.

So tell me, Yeoman, he said, laughing, is there anything else out here we should be checking on then?

He was surprised when the younger man turned to him very seriously. Yeoman Trotski almost whispered, We should be checking on that dead girl sir, even though that base is miles away. He continued in a rush, People said that murder was hushed up, sir, never properly investigated because it would cast suspicion at personnel at that base.

Corwin guessed the yeoman had said more than he meant to.

The younger man stepped back, shrugging. I just hate to hear that kind of rumor is all.

Corwin studied him for a moment. The murder, old though it was, must have hit some kind of nerve. He too hated to hear any sort of rumor that slammed the Coast Guard, so he could understand the man’s concern. Murder? I think maybe we’d better leave to the civilian authorities.

The yeoman dropped his eyes to the GPS read-out, and nodded. After a moment, he said, It doesn’t look like the civilian authorities are making headway. In an almost-apologetic voice, the yeoman added, I heard a lot of rumors when I was at that Cape Cod Base, sir.

Corwin studied the serious, downcast gaze of the man beside him. He’d known the Yeoman a matter of weeks, yet he had no doubt about the man’s dedication. Corwin slapped the young fellow’s shoulder. I’ll see if I can locate the published facts about the case. It couldn’t hurt to take a look.

He’d barely finished speaking when he just heard a distant pop, followed by a rush of air. He turned to starboard, peering out over the barely visible sea. White crests and foam marked the edges of the nearest waves, but darkness still encompassed the surface of the sea. He looked at the yeoman.

The younger man grinned. I don’t see anything, sir.

Corwin jerked his head at the apparently empty sea.

Yeoman smirked. A whale sir. They go wherever they want.

Ah. Corwin nodded. Coming up for air.

If it were daylight sir, I could probably tell you which one that was. When Corwin looked confused, the young man continued, Most of the humpbacks in this area are regular visitors. They have identifying markings, and the whale survey groups have given a lot of them names.

I had the feeling that you weren’t an everyday sailor, Yeoman.

Yes sir, he said. We are in my home port here.

Well, back to base then, if all that’s happening is just this large friend of yours out here, having a swim, Captain Ahab.

Two

Beverly, Massachusetts

I do apologize for this trouble, ma’am, Corwin drawled, his southern accent coming out a bit, along with his southern manners. He nodded in what he hoped was a gentlemanly way at the woman, principally because he could hardly offer to shake her hands with both arms wrapped around his daughter.

Enough, he muttered as he leaned down over the child’s head. Happy, enough. She stood so rigidly under his grasp that he imagined he could feel anger emanating from her. He was too familiar with her rage. She wanted to lash out, scream, finish the fight in her typical never-say-die manner. He didn’t give her any opportunity, though, as he semi-dragged her out the door. He grumbled, half-humorously, Never was there a child more inaptly named.

Perhaps a special school would be worth considering, Mrs. Paladino said, following after them. There are some quite good programs out there. Special, focused classes, might be more suitable, with— The large woman stopped at the threshold.

Corwin disregarded her. The enraged twelve-year-old he might be stuck with, but the old besom, not.

He held the car door for Happy and automatically leaned in after her and did up her belt. As he stepped back he paused long enough to bark, You stay right here. It was usually her mother that handled these things.

He levered himself into the car. Bending that one ankle to get in was accompanied by several sharp twinges. He felt too old to be a father. If he’d been going to do this, it should have been as a younger man.

Happy was silent, leaning back and staring out the window, wiping the back of her sleeve across her face every once in a while. It was never easy for her to stop crying, once she started. She looked around curiously when he turned left onto Ocean Boulevard, saying, Where?

He glanced over, but she was not looking at him. Your babysitter won’t be home for a couple of hours, he said, and I am supposed to be available on base, so we’ll just go home.

She looked away from him. It was almost a habit. She would not meet his eye; she didn’t in fact, seem to look directly at anyone. He would have adored having a fun, beautiful child. This one was a matter of regret. Pudgy, intense Happy seemed a far cry from the child he had once envisioned.

Well, she had never been a typical child. He shifted uneasily, glancing at her, sidelong. Prior to their most recent move, they’d lived on a base with a vast number of stay-at-home moms, and Paige had been one of them. It wasn’t that there had not been problems, he reflected, just that Paige had handled them all.

In truth, the other mothers wouldn’t have thought much of her otherwise. Things were different here, just north of Boston. Paige had seemed more and more distracted since their move. He understood she was in the midst of adapting to a very different lifestyle, a lifestyle he’d dragged her away from some fifteen years before. Now they were back among families where both parents worked and where there were relatively few other at-home parents for support. He suspected that Paige had gone back to work rather eagerly. It was more than their landing where opportunities abounded.

And, any child might have trouble at a new school. He reached out and touched the back of Happy’s hand. She was frozen, not looking at him, not moving her hand. Was she mad about this latest move? He moved his fingers to clasp her small hand in his palm.

Do you want to tell me about today? he asked.

She shook her head.

We sort of have to talk about it sometime. He paused, dragging out the old, patient voice. You are going to have to go back to school when the three-day suspension is up. Maybe we could do something to solve the problem.

She yanked her hand away and turned toward the door. They’re just jerks, she said with finality. I’m not going to let them pick on me.

Corwin slowed as he came to the corner with the weathered building housing a bowling alley on one end and two long-defunct shops at the nearer side. It can’t be all that bad, he murmured.

Shannon Dougherty said I am ugly. She said it again, and she said it in gym, and I shut her up.

Corwin swung onto Fisherman’s Cove and waved to the base guard. The guards knew him perfectly well and waved him through without ado. Coast Guard bases had stepped up security recently, but Corwin, overall second-in-command, did not take delays lightly. In the weeks he’d been on duty, staff had learned not to annoy him.

Corwin sighed. He needed to get back to the office, duty-hours or no. He needed to clear a cargo ship due within a day. That morning, he had asked the duty lieutenant, Darnelle, to go through background checks of the personnel on board.

She had said, I already have a list. I know who has had access to what areas on the ship. I’ve been checking every item listed on official rosters for anything put on board that should not be there.

This was all while the vessel had yet to cross into US waters. Darnelle’s level of efficiency could be frightening. He had not completed risk assessments on the vessel, still. He had been on duty until noon that day, and was due back on at midnight.

The job stressed him more than he had expected.

Everett Residents Living on a Potential Bomb, had been one of the first headlines he had encountered on arrival.

Liquefied natural gas ships super-cooled, to maintain its liquid state, Darnelle had explained while dredging up copies of old debates from sundry periodicals. A leak could cause an immense explosive fireball...in theory, anyway.

Corwin had studied the various articles. The potential for a flammable cloud of gas blowing onshore and suddenly erupting had given the area politicians a feeding frenzy. They’d shouted about the dangers to public safety, even back before terrorism had seemed a real threat. The issue had filled Corwin’s mind ever since that first headline.

Right now his problem was somewhat more domestic. He glanced down at the silent child beside him. She was an unlovely child. Her hair was never cutely tousled; it simply tangled. She never had red cheeks but her whole face would be red. She was not teddy bear-like plump, but stout and square. Her silence made her distant.

He parked and sat, wondering what to do with her. She’d sit in front of the television. That would probably be easiest. Distantly a gull shrieked, and he muttered, I’ve been sitting all day myself.

C’mon, Happy, he said, giving in to temptation. Come for a walk on the beach with me. The narrow crescent of sand seemed a blend of yellow to gold, and the reddening sky glinted off the crest of miniature waves. The breakwater kept the harbor-side tame, though there was always a conflict of winds as they rounded the narrow point. The gulls screamed and laughed as he and the child trudged toward the water line through the soft, dry sand, disrupting the meditation of the flock. As soon as they reached the firmer footing of the surf-side sand, Happy scrambled to pull off her shoes and socks. Hopeful gulls swooped nearby, watching. The birds balanced on the currents of air, hovered over the tiny wave crests, then flapped along, following them. The leader swooped daringly near before backpedaling.

Happy sprang forward in exacting mimicry, one arm lifted skyward, one dipping as she sailed as fast as her feet would bear across the narrow strip of sand. Happy transformed as if by magic. She danced as light and free as the gulls, unfettered by earthly concerns. A flurry of birds lifted off the sands as she approached. The soaring gray and white birds surrounded her. They shrieked in their general, complaining fashion, and he caught her voice among them.

She paused far ahead, looked back at him. After a moment she called, I was a gull.

I saw, he responded. A fast one.

She spun and skittered off. It took him a moment but he recognized the busy gait of a sandpiper, wings tight to sides, as she darted about the sands. He laughed aloud, the wind laughing with him. Her mimicry was perfect, and there wasn’t even a ’piper here for her to copy. She skittered just right, from memory. He sauntered slowly, finding the sand slow going because of his one dicey ankle.

Paige was waiting out front of their government-issue townhouse, arms folded. She gestured, a half wave, as she saw them round the corner. She shouted at once, Where on Earth have you been?

Just a walk... He trailed off, looking at her tightlipped glare.

Honestly, she snapped. What a great decision. She gets suspended for fighting so you take her to the beach?

I, ah well... He hadn’t thought of it that way, of course. Paige had a habit of being right, and this seemed like one of those times. Paige had always rather enjoyed her daughter’s issues, he suspected. Her unselfish efforts were wonderful items for discussion at parents’ meetings. Her struggles to improve her daughter’s behavior and to help her learn were sympathetic attention-getters in any circle. The endless hours of researching behavioral issues, the school meetings, the multiple parental support groups, were all trappings of her cause, and she’d made a career of being the good mother. Since they’d moved north, since she’d gone back to work, things had changed. Lately, he suspected she ignored Happy.

The things that had changed were hardly Paige’s fault, though. Once she had been the busy, put-upon mother. She metamorphosed into an intense career-minded woman. Even now, she clutched the smooth leather brief case that she had selected, after serious deliberation, from an appropriate Newbury Street shop. It was the new sort of trappings that went with her new identity.

He glanced down. His little sandpiper was gone. In her place was this silently trudging block of a child.

Finally, he said, We were waiting for you, of course. He touched the back of Happy’s head although she did not look up or respond. They walked in silence up the narrow stairs to the townhouse. Inside, Paige immediately plopped the glossy briefcase on the hall table and walked into the narrow front room. Time for a family conference he presumed. He gave Happy a little push toward the stairs, but heard her pause in the hall to listen. Paige deliberately turned her back on the one window that offered a beach view. She always made a show of how much she detested every part of living on base and now, hands on hips, she swung into full cry.

"Suspended! Now here we have her on our hands, and you know I am just not able to drop my work