Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“We know how much is left?” he asked.

“My patrolman says it’s burned down mostly to the waterline but that there’s some cabin and superstructure in places,” said the Highway Patrol chief.

“Then we’re in business.” Jones grinned. “If the bad guys really knew how much we can recover, there wouldn’t be any crime-they’d know we’ll catch them in the end.”

Cowley thought the black man looked too old still to be influenced by the confidence of the bureau training videos. They left all house lights behind very quickly, and from the widely interspersed streetlamps and heavy jolting Cowley guessed they had turned on to country side roads. Steven Barr seemed to know where they were, warning they were only about two miles away. Almost at once they came to the first road block, jointly manned by Highway Patrol and local police. They had to stop for spiked, tire-puncturing strips to be moved out of their way. Cowley was impressed. There were two more blocks-although no puncturing strips-before Cowley became aware of a growing brightness. His initial, frightened thought was that somehow the fire had again taken hold of the cruiser.

Barr said, “We’ve got every available floodlight there-ours, the patrol’s, and fire department-each with separate generator trucks.”

Cowley was about to speak when Jones said, “Seems to me you’ve done one hell of a good job. If all local forces were as efficient, we’d all spend more time at home with our wives and families.”

When he got out Cowley realized what passed for a road had narrowed to little more than a track, which the generator trucks totally blocked ahead of the arriving vehicles. To the left a sparse forest was whitened by artificial light right to the track edge, where the yellow scene-of-crime sectioning tape began. Although the line of light indicated the direction of the burned-out cruiser, it wasn’t possible to see it or the creek. There was no path leading toward it, either, although about twenty yards back in the direction from which they’d come, their lane widened into a turnoff. In it, already parked, were several vans, one another communications vehicle. Another was Wayne Mitchell’s Highway Patrol car. He stood waiting beside it, a young, fresh-faced blond whom Cowley put no older than twenty-five. He saluted his commander as they approached. Cowley led but it was Jones who again spoke first. “You wanna tell me what we got in there?”

“Top part of the boat’s mostly gone, just odd bits still there and some deck railing,” said Mitchell. “What’s left is full of water, so I guess it’s holed somewhere although I didn’t see where. The moment I saw the name I recognized it as one of the boats reported missing so I came straight back to the car and called in.”

“How come you stopped and walked into the forest at this precise point?” asked Cowley.

“Didn’t,” said the man. “The report that was phoned in put the fire about a mile down the creek, toward the bigger inlet where there’s quite a few boats. So that’s where I started. When I didn’t find anything I walked along the bank until I came to it. It’s not in the creek itself. Looks like a long time ago someone dug out a space to leave a boat: a kind of a canal. That’s where it is-kinda pulled out of the channel and left in its own space.”

“So did you walk out that way?” pressed Jones, indicating the lighted area.

“No sir,” said Mitchell. “Took myself some markers toward the road here-those three trees over there, taller than the rest-and went back along the creek to my car. And drove up here.”

“Did you go in to check once you got here?” pressed the scientist.

“Just once. Straight in, straight out.”

“What’s the ground like, underfoot?”

“Soft. I can show you my tracks.”

“This is getting better.” Jones beamed.

“What about the creek bank and the canal itself?” asked Cowley.

“Mud.”

“But the creek is navigable for something fifty-two feet long?” queried Bradley. “That’s a big boat.”

“Hardly,” said the officer. “I didn’t spend any time looking closely and the current’s washed out any marks there might be on the bottom, but you can see the bottom. And where the water doesn’t reach there’s a lot of score marks on the bank, where it obviously hit.”

Jones looked in the direction of the light again and said, “Don’t know how we’re going to get the goddamned thing out through those trees.”

“There’s some open ground by the canal itself,” offered Mitchell.

“Sufficient to get it clear of the water for the first examination?”

“I’d say so,” guessed the patrolman.

Turning to Steven Barr, the forensic leader said, “You think you could get me one of those dinky garden tractors, small enough to maneuver through those trees? I’ll want to haul the boat out of the water. Drain it and then go over it tonight and tomorrow. Depending on how we find the creek, after that I might raft it back to where there’s enough hard standing to bring in the lifting helicopter.”

“I got one of my own in the backyard,” Sheriff Sharpe said proudly. “Happy to make it available.”

“Then let’s go to work,” urged Jones to the scientific team assembled loosely behind them.

Jones did have a spare plastic anticontamination coverall, which he loaned to Cowley with the injunction not to enter the forest until there was a signal. Bradley borrowed one from another scientist approximately his size. The technical squad suited up and moved off with the military precision with which they’d disembarked from their helicopter, Wayne Mitchell going to the tree line with them to point out his route. One of the squad, another black man, immediately took a plaster cast of Mitchell’s indentation and one of the patrolman’s foot. From the way they worked Cowley guessed they were a permanent professional team. There was hardly any conversation, everyone seeming to know what to do without any instruction from Jefferson Jones. The group divided into three-man squads, each to a section that they subdivided by tape, stirring and lifting the forest debris with slim, rubber-encased sticks. Twice more footprint casts were taken. From the line, Cowley guessed they were again those of the Highway Patrol officer. Behind the main body a still photographer and a television operator maintained a constant record.

One of the turnoff trucks turned out to be a refreshment truck-which further impressed Cowley, although the coffee didn’t. He welcomed the excuse to abandon it when he was summoned, by name, to the communications van. From his communication truck back at the sports field, Osnan said Harry Bonwitt had arrived with his marine insurance assessor. He was refusing to accept the legality of what remained of the Eschevaux being a federal exhibit and was insisting on coming down to the scene to examine his property.

“Put him on.” Cowley sighed.

“You hear what I’m telling you, sir,” rasped a voice without any greeting.

“And I’d like you to hear what I’m telling you, Mr. Bonwitt,” Cowley said politely, knowing the exchange was being recorded. “This area is sealed, on my authority as a federal officer. And by that same authority I have declared what’s left of the Eschevaux to be a federal exhibit in any future prosecution. Neither you nor your assessor will be allowed to examine it until all our forensic tests are completed, which isn’t likely to be for at least another twenty-four hours. Probably longer. If you attempt to do so, you will be arrested for attempting to impede a federal investigation. If you want the appropriate statute for that, I’ll be happy to direct you toward it. Is all that clear to you, Mr. Bonwitt?”