P Deutermann - The Moonpool

“What videotape?” Horace asked. “She never returned, remember?”

I knew that, I thought. Back to Bernie Price. I was more tired than I realized.

As it turned out, Bernie couldn’t help us, either. The feds had taken everything-the car, the contents, Allie’s backpack and briefcase, everything-and since the front seat of her car had registered on a Geiger counter, the Wilmington police impound was just as happy to see Allie’s radioactive ride go away.

Reluctantly, I called Creeps and explained what I needed. I harped on the fact that we were honoring our agreement: This was about Allie Gardner and not events at Helios. He told me he’d see what our Bureau could do.

For the moment, we were stymied. I called the marina over in Carolina Beach to see if the Keeper was present for duty. It was not, and Cap’n Pete had no information as to where the colonel had gone off to this time, as usual. He wouldn’t have told me if he knew, I suspected.

Another blank wall. We were batting a thousand this morning.

I decided to go for a run. When I got back, Pardee had news. Creeps had arranged access to Allie’s car, which was being held at the Customs and Border Protection office in Wilmington. They had, surprisingly, not yet put a forensics team on the car, so if we wanted to do so, the Wilmington resident agent would send an agent to be present. Any physical evidence would, of course, have to remain in federal control.

We stopped by the Helios admin center to pick up the visitor log copies and then went on to Wilmington. The Customs and Border Protection office was located on Medical Center Drive in a low, brick building that looked a lot like the local FBI resident agent’s office. There was a fenced parking compound behind the building containing some boats and various vehicles with the CBP logo on the doors. We went up to the front doors and confronted a video camera. There were no actual signs on the building indicating it was a government building, but the roof was littered with radio antennas, and the flags of both the United States and the Coast Guard fluttered out front. The doors clicked, and we began processing through security.

The agent sent over to assist us in our enquiries was none other than the lovely Samantha Young, ex-administrative-assistant at Quartermain’s office. She was dressed in a neatly tailored pantsuit, which did nothing to disguise her splendid physical assets. Even the CBP guys were impressed, which probably explained why we had four male agents helping us sign in.

“Hi, there, Ms. Judas,” I said.

“Ouch,” she said with a smile. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

“Just business, I know,” I said. “But it got personal once I went inside that Marine Corps rest home.”

“Whatever that is,” she said with a face chock-full of feigned innocence.

I rolled my eyes, and then we all trooped out to the impound yard. Allie’s car was parked by itself alongside the chain-link fence.

“What specifically are we looking for?” Samantha asked.

“We don’t know,” I replied. “Anything that might tell us where she went while she was down here in Wilmington. Receipts, fast-food wrappers, her briefcase, a prescription for radioactive pills. Like that.”

In the event, we found most of the above, including the videocassette onto which she’d downloaded her camcorder tape. Allie had kept a plastic grocery bag slung between the two front seats for trash, and we pulled out the usual collection of fast-food debris and two gas receipts. We copied down the dates, times, and addresses from those and the one Wendy’s receipt I’d found glued to the floor carpet by a sticky French fry. Her purse, which had been jammed under the front seat, had the usual female stuff. Samantha held on to the videocassette while we poked around under the seats, in the trunk, and in the glove box. Pardee went through her luggage, which consisted of a backpack and a briefcase, and which he said contained nothing of direct interest.

We went back into the CBP offices, and someone rustled up a cassette player. Allie had done the tape professionally, with voiceovers on time, place, and the names of the subjects involved. There wasn’t that much actual run-time video, but it was clear what the two lovebirds were there for, or at least clear enough for any suspicious wife and her lawyer. Pardee had taken one thing from Allie’s briefcase: her hotel receipt from the Hilton. Nothing on the bill except room, meal charges, and lots of taxes. No phone charges. More blank walls.

We left everything with Samantha and went back out to my Suburban. As we drove away I speculated on the lack of any phone calls on her hotel bill.

“Nobody uses hotel phones anymore,” Pardee said. “Especially when you have one of these.” He produced what I assumed was Allie’s cell phone, which he’d apparently palmed from the briefcase when Samantha wasn’t looking.

“Hoo-aah,” I said. “They’ll git you for that.”

“They have access to the central office records; we don’t, not without some help. But this thing ought to have a call log, don’t you think?”

He switched the phone on while I drove and accessed the call log. “Aha,” he said.

“Aha, what?”

“I think I recognize a number, or at least an exchange. Hang on a minute.”

He told the phone to recall the number and then waited. Then he said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and switched off.

“That was the Helios general information number,” he announced. “For some unknown reason, Allie called the power plant.”

Aha, indeed, I thought. Now we had a tie, however indirect, between Helios and one of the unexplained radiation incidents. I maneuvered the Suburban through a very complicated cloverleaf to get up onto the Cape Fear River Memorial Bridge.

“Does it show the duration of the call?” I asked, in case Allie had simply dialed a wrong number as Pardee had pretended to do.

“Nope,” he replied. “Just the call and the date, which was, lemme see, the day before she died.”

“Call ’em back and ask for Quartermain.”

A moment later, he was speaking to Quartermain’s secretary. Pardee raised his eyebrows at me, and I told him to see if Ari could meet us in a half hour for a quick private conversation. She put him on hold, and then came back on to tell him that Dr. Quartermain could meet us in an hour and named a restaurant in Southport. I nodded, and Pardee told her we’d be there.

The restaurant turned out to be a New York-style deli, which opened for breakfast and lunch only, down on the main drag leading to the municipal beach. It was noisy and surprisingly full of people when Ari came in, saw us at a corner table, and excused his way through the counter line to join us. I’d decided to go ahead and tell him what we’d found out about Carl Trask.

“Can’t stay,” he announced, checking his watch.

“That good a day, is it?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes. “We are infested with agencies whose names are all abbreviated,” he said. “A million questions, no answers. What you got?”

“A live Carl Trask?” I said.

He leaned back in his chair, visibly surprised. “Really,” he said. “Maybe I’d better get a sandwich after all.”

Pardee volunteered to stand in line and order for all three of us while I debriefed my visit from the local constabulary and the news that Allie had made a call to the power plant the day before she died.

That really threw him. “She did? Do you know who she called?”

I shook my head. “All we know is that her cell phone called your central number at Helios. Does your switchboard record calls coming in?”

“No,” he said. “Unless it’s a threat or a crank call; then the operator can hit a capture-record button, but otherwise, no, calls are just calls. And if that’s not Carl Trask in the cask, who the fuck is it?”