Donna Andrews - Chesapeake Crimes - This Job Is Murder!

I pulled into the parking lot and backed my Honda up to Whitey’s Mercedes convertible. The afternoon had been unusually warm, and he’d left the car’s top down. I took the bag from my trunk, ripped it open with my seaman’s knife, and emptied the contents into Whitey’s front seat. I took a few minutes to work up my nerve and stomped into the roadhouse like I had a chip on my shoulder as big as a railroad tie.

I spotted my quarry at the bar with his back to me. I scanned the shabby, dimly lit room for Whitey’s thugs and didn’t see them. I made straight for Whitey, grabbed his shoulder with my left hand, and spun him around on the stool to face me. I drew my right arm back, making a tight fist, and unleashed a roundhouse punch that landed solidly on the startled man’s jaw. My hand hurt like hell. I stepped back and let him get up so he’d know who had clocked him. He recovered quicker than I expected and tried to tackle me on the run. I landed three or four hard blows on his head and shoulders before we both crashed to the rancid, beer-spattered floor. I rolled out from under him and started to push myself up on one knee when I felt a jolt on the back of my head, and that kaleidoscope exploded again.

The still night air was clammy and cool when I came to, slumped against a rusty wire fence on the edge of an open field. Along with the smell of damp earth, I caught the distinctive odor of a chicken-processing plant. My head and shoulders complained as I struggled into a lopsided sitting position. With my hands tied behind me around a wobbly wooden fence post, I banged my back against the pole until I could pull it out of the ground. I worked my bound hands down the roughened wood, wincing as splinters dug into my forearms.

Savoring my small triumph, I rested, listening to the night. The flutter of an owl’s wings and a rustle among the dead leaves nearby sent a shiver up my spine.

I maneuvered my arms under my butt and pulled my legs and feet through the loop so my hands were in front. I untied the rope with my teeth. After my head cleared, I stood and willed my shaky legs to carry me toward a murky glow in the distance. Somewhere along the way I’d lost my cell phone, so I walked to a gas station and called the first person I could think of to come get me.

Bill Newhouse answered the phone, but it was his niece who picked me up. Back at my cottage, she dug out splinters and cleaned and patched my cuts.

“I figured we’d cross paths again,” she said. “You should know, I didn’t believe that bull about drunk fishing buddies, so I did some checking. And guess what? Not only did nobody report you missing, you’re a reporter for Inside Access magazine, and you love the big story.” She leaned in. “Well, I love the big story, too, though for other reasons. I’ve been keeping my eye on you the last few months, waiting. Now here’s our chance.”

Our chance?

Sergeant Denise Newhouse, I soon learned, was not just a game warden. In one of those wild, you’re-not-gonna-believe-this coincidences, she was assigned to Maryland’s High Intensity Drug Unit. HIDU, as it is called, was set up to investigate and prevent drug trafficking on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. When I had recovered from my shock, I figured she had a right to know that I was tracking the cocaine trade in the Baltimore-Washington area for my magazine. I told her one of my sources had arranged for me to meet a distributor named Sketcher the night she and her uncle rescued me. I’d driven to a bar in Solomons where two muscle-bound guys with shaved heads took me outside and searched me. When a white Ford van pulled up, one of the baldy twins jammed a hood over my head and-with little apparent effort-lifted me into the back.

“After a torturous, suffocating ride, I was ushered aboard a swanky cabin cruiser that was supposed to take me to Sketcher,” I told Denise. “We were pretty far off shore when one of my escorts got a call on his cell phone. Next thing I knew somebody hit me from behind and dumped me over the side.”

“So, you were supposed to meet Sketcher?” Denise’s gaze shifted from me to the floor. “Word is he got caught holding out on his customers, taking an extra cut for himself,” she said. “He and three of his associates were found in a warehouse. Each one had been shot execution style and had a hundred-dollar bill stuffed in his mouth.”

I’d expected as much after my meeting with Whitey at the Komoto Club.

“You should know that a guy named Whitey had taken over Sketcher’s operation, and I’ve got a job in his organization; or at least I did,” I said.

“Look, if you had any sense you’d walk away from this before you get killed. No job is worth your life,” she said.

“Can’t do it. It’s not just a job; this is personal. I owe it to somebody to shine the light on those cockroaches so the cops can stomp them out.”

I told her about my best friend’s daughter who died of a drug overdose. Her name was Janette, and she was bright and full of life. She’d been an honors student at Johns Hopkins University until her drug habit took control. She ended up selling her books, her car, and herself just to get high.

“It was the worst day of my life seeing her thin, drug-ravaged body in the morgue, and I had to break the news to her dad,” I said. “I felt empty and powerless. So at her funeral I made a promise to do everything possible to keep someone else’s son or daughter from dying that way.”

“So, is it some kind of revenge or vigilante justice you’re after? Because if it is, I’ll have to arrest you for your own good.” Denise poured peroxide on a nasty gouge in my arm and asked what I planned to do.

The medicine stung, and I gritted my teeth. “All I want is to get at the truth about the drug traffic and maybe find a better way to fight it. For years the government’s said they’re making headway against drugs. But my sources at the Drug Enforcement Administration say all this so-called success hasn’t put a dent in the drug trade. More dope than ever is on our streets, and it’s killing people every day. Something’s got to be done to stop it,” I said.

I told Denise about Whitey’s drug-smuggling operation and my part in it. After a pause she said, “Maybe we could help each other,” and gave me an appraising look. Though the remark seemed offhand, I figured this was her goal all along.

“If I can sell the idea to my superiors, would you be willing to work with us in exchange for an exclusive, inside story about drug smuggling in Chesapeake Bay?”

“Why the hell not?” I agreed. “I always said I’d do anything for a story.”

She sat in silence a while, then stood up, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be in touch,” she said on her way out.

About two o’clock that afternoon, Whitey parked his car in front of my cottage. He looked almost as bad as I felt, and I smothered a smirk at the white smudges on the seat of his pants. He held up a brown business envelope as he walked to the front porch. “I know pulling a switch on you was way cold, but I got to know we can trust you. You down with that? But that shit in the bar last night, I had to teach you a lesson.”

I opened the envelope and fanned a handful of hundred-dollar bills. I gave him a hard stare. “Don’t ever play me again, asshole. I won’t be nobody’s bitch,” I snarled.

“It’s all good, yo. Get back with you soon,” Whitey said as he drove away.

I put the finishing touches on the boat’s repairs and headed into town for more paint. While I was at the hardware store, Denise called my cell phone. The excitement in her voice was unmistakable as she told me that HIDU had a tip from the DEA that a mothership they’ve been monitoring was headed up the coast from the Caribbean. “Get ready for a drug drop,” she said.