Aaron Elkins - Little Tiny Teeth

A few minutes later, the narrow gangplank was let down, and Vargas, some of the passengers, and most of the crew came down it and climbed the dozen or so rough steps dug out of the bank to get up to the building and look around. Although the still-smoldering structure was too hot to enter, it could be seen through gaps in the walls that the place was empty; nothing was stored there. John, who had some experience investigating arson, guessed that the fire was twelve or fifteen hours old.

While most of the others poked gingerly along the outside of the building, some with sticks they’d picked up, Gideon and John went meandering, with no real purpose, around the clearing. There were stacks of fresh lumber, corrugated metal roofing, and other building materials nearby, and lumber scraps and power tools on the ground. Under a crude little waist-high lean-to of its own stood the tools’ power source, a new-looking, gasoline-powered 5.5-horsepower Hitachi air compressor. (Gideon, not much of a hand around power tools, knew this only because John, who did know about such things, had just told him what it was.)

“Looks like there was some construction going on,” said John.

“Yup. Enlarging the place, repairing it, something.”

On top of the small lean-to were a few more power tools. “These are pretty good tools, you know?” John picked one up. “Hutchins rotary sander,” he said enviously. “Top of the line. I wish I could afford one. And this…” He hefted another. “Whoa, a Makita nail gun, also top of the line. This little baby doesn’t come cheap.” He put it down, seemingly with regret. “Doc, does it strike you as a little strange that in a place like this” – he waved vaguely about them – “way, way out in the boondocks, middle of the jungle – that they’d have expensive stuff like this? It all looks new too.”

“Not really, no,” Gideon said. “This is a warehouse, a pick-up point for other places, isn’t it? Not just some local storehouse. We don’t know how much money is behind it.” He leveled a finger at his friend. “Let me guess. You’re thinking there are drugs involved, right?”

“Yeah, I guess I got a one-track mind. But you know what the DEA people call this stretch of the Amazon Basin? The White Triangle. Sixty percent of the North American cocaine trade comes through here, either on the ground, down the river, or in the air. And here we have this falling-down little shack of a warehouse, way, way in the tules, and there’s about ten thousand dollars worth of new tools laying around.” He shrugged. “So, yeah, I’m thinking there might be more than coffee beans that come through here. You don’t agree with me?”

“I agree you’ve got a one-track mind. It’s hard to picture Vargas as a drug trafficker. The guy’s a bundle of nerves. He’d never be able to stand it.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

They walked on a little. “And here’s something else,” John said. “You know that old prof of yours, Abe Goldstein, and that theory he was always talking about, when too many things happen-”

“The Law of Interconnected Monkey Business. When too many suspicious things – too much monkey business – start happening to the same set of people in the same context, you’re going to find a connection between them.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Well, don’t you think it maybe applies here? Yesterday Cisco goes bonkers and throws Scofield overboard, then throws Maggie overboard, then throws himself overboard… and then when we arrive at the warehouse to drop off the coffee, the warehouse has just been burnt down-”

“I see what you’re saying, John, but in this case I don’t think it applies. We know why Cisco hated Scofield, and it had nothing to do with the warehouse, or coffee, or drugs for that matter. That was between them, something personal. This is something completely different, a different context.”

“Is it? Tell me, what’s Vargas so shook up about? He looks like a balloon that somebody let all the air out of.”

“Well, he was supposed to make a delivery here. That coffee-”

“Big deal, so he can’t deliver his coffee. So what? He brings it back with him, that’s all. Dried coffee beans’ll hold for months.” John’s relatives were in the coffee business and he knew a lot about the subject. “But Vargas goes around acting like a, like a…” But his search for another metaphor to match his deflated balloon failed and he just shook his head. “I think, I just think…”

“You think there’s more going on here than meets the eye.”

“Right, and I think there’s more than coffee in that hold.”

“I gather we’re still talking about drugs?”

“Yeah, drugs. Sometimes they put cocaine or heroin inside sacks of coffee. You ever hear that? It makes it harder for the sniffer dogs to smell it. I tell you, I’d really like to have about twenty minutes alone in that hold.”

“John,” Gideon warned, “you’re not on duty here. You’re not in America here. You have no jurisdiction-”

John held up his hand. “I know, I know, I know. Just dreaming, that’s all.”

They wandered over to look at the nearby platform house. Through the open sides they could see that there were two hammocks strung crosswise to each other in the center, and that the shelves along one side held canned food, cups and plates, and cooking utensils. A half-full sack of rice leaned against one of the poles that held up the roof. It was impossible to tell how old the house was – it could have been five years, it could have been five days – but it looked very much as if it were currently being lived in. It must have been where the construction workers, or maybe the watchmen (who were perhaps the same) were housed, they concluded, as they sat heavily down on the front step.

“Doc, there’s something else that I can’t figure out,” John said, his elbows on the step behind them. “I did take a look at Scofield’s room this morning, just before I got off the ship.”

“And?”

“It was strange. His bed hadn’t been slept in. It hadn’t even been sat on; it was tight as a drum.”

“And this is strange why?”

“Well, the thing with Cisco happened at two in the morning, right? What was he doing, if he wasn’t sleeping?”

“Who knows? He’d had all that ‘tea’ of his. Maybe it put him to sleep up on the roof, all right, but interfered with his sleep when he came down later on. The way alcohol does. Maybe he was reading, or-”

“Where?”

“Where?”

“Yeah, where?” John said. “Where was he reading? His cabin is the same size as ours. There’s nothing in the damn thing but a bed. There’s no chair. There’s no room for a chair. There’s only the bed, and he wasn’t on that. What’s more, the whole damn place was neat as a pin. Maggie heard scuffling, right? How could two guys scuffle in there without messing things up? There’s barely room for two guys to stand there.”

“Ah,” Gideon said, nodding. “I see what you mean. Maggie thought it came from his room, but it couldn’t have, could it?”

“That’s what I’m saying, right.”

“Well, it probably came from the cabin on her other side. We should-”

John was looking curiously at him.

Gideon looked back. “What?”

“ You’re in the cabin on her other side. Were you doing a lot of scuffling?”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right. Okay, maybe-”

They were interrupted by a shout from Phil, who was part of a knot of people – crew and passengers – standing in front of the warehouse’s scorched double doors.

“Hey, Gideon, come look. I think we have something in your line of work here.”

When Gideon, with John, got closer he saw that they were all peering at a round, silver-dollar sized object that appeared to be stuck or pinned to the outside of one of the doors. The crowd parted respectfully for him, then eagerly closed in again.