Andrew Gross - The Dark Tide

How in the world could she possibly tell them what was really in her mind?

As a friend, Linda scrolled back through her travel computer. “I don’t think so, Kar. I would have remembered at the time. I’m sorry, hon. There’s nothing here.”

This was insane. Karen sat there among her husband’s things at her wits’ end, growing angry, wishing she never had watched that documentary. It had changed everything. Why would you do this to us, Charlie? What could you possibly have done?

Tell me, Charlie!

She picked up a stack of loose papers and went to throw them against the wall. Just then her gaze fell to a memo from Harbor that was still there from a year before. Her eye ran down the office distribution list. Maybe they knew. She spotted a name there-a name that hadn’t crossed her mind in months.

Along with a voice. A voice she had never responded to, but one that now suddenly echoed in her ears with the same ringing message:

I’d like to speak with you, Mrs. Friedman… There are some things you ought to know.

The address was 3135 Mountain View Drive, a hilly residential road. In Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

Karen found Jonathan Lauer’s address in one of Charlie’s folders. She checked to make sure it was still valid. She didn’t want to talk with him on the phone. It was a Saturday afternoon.

There are some things you ought to know…

Saul had said it was just a matter of personnel issues, compensation. Karen had never heard from him again. And it wasn’t that she didn’t trust Saul. It was just that if they were turning over every stone, the way Ty wanted to, she thought she might as well hear it from Lauer directly. She had never called him back. It had been an awfully long time.

But suddenly Charlie’s trader’s cryptic words took on a more important meaning.

Karen pulled into the driveway. There was a white minivan parked in the open two-car garage. The house was a cedar and glass contemporary with a large double-story window in the front. A kid’s bike lay on the front lawn. Next to a portable soccer net. Rows of pachysandra and boxwood flanked the flagstone walkway leading up to the front door.

Karen felt a little nervous and embarrassed, after so much time. She rang the bell.

“I got it, Mommy!”

A young girl in pigtails who appeared around five or six opened the door.

“Hey.” Karen smiled. “Is your daddy or mommy at home?”

A woman’s voice called out from inside, “Lucy, who’s there?”

Kathy Lauer came to the door, holding a rolling pin. Karen had met her once or twice-first at an office gathering and, later, at Charlie’s memorial. She was petite, with shoulder-length dark hair, wearing a green Nantucket sweatshirt. She stared at Karen in surprise.

“I don’t know if you remember me-” Karen started in.

“Of course I remember you, Mrs. Friedman,” Kathy Lauer replied, cradling her daughter’s face to her thigh.

“Karen,” Karen replied. “I’m sorry to bother you. I know you must be wondering what I’m doing here, out of the blue. I was just wondering if your husband might be at home.”

Kathy Lauer looked at her a bit strangely. “My husband?”

There was a bit of an awkward pause.

Karen nodded. “Jon called me a couple of times, after Charlie-” She stopped herself before she said the word. “I’m a little embarrassed. I never got back to him. I was all caught up then. I know it’s a while back. But he mentioned some things…”

“Some things?” Kathy Lauer stared. Karen couldn’t quite read her reaction, nervousness or annoyance. Kathy asked her daughter to go back into the kitchen, said she’d be along in a second to finish rolling the cookie dough with her. The little girl ran off.

“Some things about my husband’s business,” Karen clarified. “By any chance is he around? I know it’s a little strange to be coming here now…”

“Jon’s dead,” Kathy Lauer said. “I thought you knew.”

“Dead?” Karen felt her heart come to a stop and the blood rush out of her face. She shook her head numbly. “My God, I’m so sorry… No…”

“About a month ago,” his wife said. “He was on his bike coming back up the road, up Mountain View. A car ran into him. Just like that. A hit-and-run. The guy who hit him never even stopped.”

Dock 39 was a dingy, nautical-style bar in the harbor, not far from the navy yard. A shorted-out Miller sign flickered on and off in the window, while a carving of a ship’s bow hung above the entrance on the wooden façade. From the street Hauck could see a TV on inside. A basketball game. It was playoff time. A crowd of people gathered whooping around the bar.

Hauck stepped inside.

The place was dark, smoky, jammed with bodies fresh from the docks. A noisy throng at the bar was following the game. The Pistons versus the Heat. People were still in their work clothes, blowing off steam. Dock workers and seamen. No office crowd here. Ray Dubose had told Hauck that this was where he could find him.

Hauck caught the barman’s eye and asked him for a Bass ale. He spotted Pappy, huddled with a few guys drinking beer down at the end of the bar. The old man seemed disinterested in the game. He stared ahead, ignoring the sudden shouts that occasionally rang out or the jab of his neighbor’s elbow when someone made a play. At some point Pappy turned around and noticed Hauck, Pappy’s eyes narrowing balefully and his jaw growing tight. He picked up his beer and stood up, pushing himself away from his crew.

He came over to Hauck, pushing through the crowd. “I heard you been asking about me. I thought I told you to head back to where you came.”

“I’m trying to solve a murder,” Hauck told him.

“I don’t need you to solve no murder. I need you to leave me alone and go back home.”

“What did you stumble into?” Hauck asked. “That’s why you won’t talk to me, isn’t it? That’s why you quit your job-or were pressured to. Someone threatened you. You can’t keep pretending it’s going to go away. It won’t go away now. Your son is dead. That’s what that ‘accident’ up in Greenwich was about, wasn’t it? Why AJ was killed.”

“Get the hell away from me.” Pappy Raymond pushed away Hauck’s arm. Hauck could see he was drunk.

“I’m trying to solve your son’s murder, Mr. Raymond. And I will, whether you help me or not. Why don’t you make it easy and tell me what you found?”

The more Hauck said, the more the anger seemed to build in Pappy Raymond’s eyes. “You’re not hearing me, are you, son?” He thrust his beer mug into Hauck’s chest. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need it. Go on out of here. Go back home.”

Hauck grabbed his arm. “I’m not your enemy, old man. But letting your son’s death eat away at you by doing nothing is. Those ships were falsifying something. They were empty, right? There was some kind of fraud going on. That’s why AJ was killed. It wasn’t any ‘accident’ up there. I know it-you know it, too. And I’m not backing off. You don’t tell me, someone will. I’ll pitch a tent on your goddamn lawn until I know.”

A roar went up from the bar. “C’mon, Pappy!” one of his buddies yelled to him. “Wade just hit a three. We’re back down by six.”

“This is the last time I’m telling you.” Pappy glared. His gaze burned into Hauck’s eyes. “Go on home.”

“No.” Hauck shook his head. “I’m not.”

That was when the old guy raised his arm and took a swing at him. A wild one, his fist catching on the shoulder of a man nearby, but the punch of a man who was used to throwing them, and it surprised Hauck, catching him on the side of his face. The mug shot out of his hands, crashing to the floor, spilling beer.