“I’ll give them a call,” Captain Dixon said, then added, “I’m running out of ideas. You got any suggestions?”
Zavala stared at the vast area represented by the satellite image. The Navy faced a daunting, almost impossible task. The Federated States of Micronesia consisted of more than six hundred islands scattered across a million and a half square miles of the Pacific. Actual land covered an area smaller than the state of Rhode Island, but, factoring in the ocean, the FSM was two-thirds the size of the United States.
“The good news is, your search plan is terrific, Captain. Given enough time, I don’t doubt you would find the lab.”
“Thanks.” The captain narrowed his eyes, and said, “What’s the bad news?”
Zavala gave him a sad smile.
“We don’t have time.”
CHAPTER 38
PAUL TROUT DROVE THE RENTED SUV INTO THE DESERTED back lot of a four-story mill that had been abandoned decades before when New Bedford’s textile business pulled out of the city. Silhouetted against the night sky, the granite building could have been a relic from a bygone civilization if not for the banner-sized sign advertising DISCOUNT FURNITURE. A security light over the front door illuminated a small wooden plaque: BRIMMER’S ANTIQUITIES, 4TH FLOOR.
The mill was otherwise dark, except for the night lights in the showroom and a yellow glow in a fourth-floor window.
“Look familiar?” Gamay asked.
“Yes,” Paul said. “It’s the old Dobbs mill, the place Rachael showed us in that print back at the mansion.”
Gamay pointed to the top floor.
“Either Brimmer is up there,” she said, “or the ghost of Captain Dobbs is putting in overtime.”
Paul reached for his cell phone and called Brimmer’s number.
“Strange,” Paul said. “Light’s on but Brimmer’s not answering. Not even a recording. Are your antennae picking up the same something’s-not-right vibes that I’m getting?”
Gamay wrinkled her nose.
“More like a bad smell,” she said.
Ticking the points off on her fingers, she said, “Brimmer tells us the logbook is a goner, then calls to say he knows where it is. Then he asks us to meet him at this overgrown haunted house instead of at his shop, or even a public place. Why all the secrecy?”
“I’m getting a picture in my mind of a mousetrap,” Paul said. “Only instead of cheese, an old book is the bait. And we’re the mice.”
“Maybe this creepy old building is making us paranoid,” Gamay said. “Brimmer isn’t the violent type. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know if the information in the Dobbs logbook will help Kurt and Joe find the missing lab,” he said. “But, with lives involved, I say we go for it.”
“Looking at this from a cost-benefit point of view, I’d have to agree with you. Let’s cut the risk factor, though, and scout things out.”
Paul parked the SUV in the shadows, and they cautiously approached the main entrance.
“Unlocked,” Paul said. “Nothing suspicious there. Brimmer is expecting us.”
“But he didn’t answer the phone,” Gamay said. “If he isn’t in his office, he wouldn’t leave the door unlocked. And that is suspicious.”
They walked the length of the five-hundred-foot-long building, eventually coming to another door. This one was locked. Continuing on around a corner of the building, they came upon the black cast-iron fire escape that zigzagged up to the top floor.
They climbed it and tried the door at each landing, but all were locked.
Paul jabbed the doorjamb on the top floor with his car key. The wood was soft with rot. He took a step back and threw his shoulder against the door, felt it give, and slammed it a few more times until the latch ripped out of the jamb. Gamay produced a small halogen flashlight from her handbag, and they stepped inside.
Their footfalls echoed as they walked across the dust-layered floor. The vast space where workers once tended hundreds of looms was as still as a tomb. They headed toward the far end of the room, where light was seeping under a door, and eventually came to a drywall partition. Cartons were stacked against it. BRIMMER was written in ink on the boxes.
Paul picked up a two-by-four from a pile of debris, hefting it like a baseball bat, and whispered to Gamay to knock on the door. She did, softly. When there was no answer, she stepped aside, and he did his battering-ram imitation again. The door popped open at first nudge.
The floor was littered with books and papers from the shelves, now empty, that lined the office. Sheets of paper hung from strings stretched across the room. The light visible outside through the window came from a goosenecked desk lamp on a table that also supported a computer, a small artist’s drafting board elevated at the back, and Brimmer’s body. The antiquities dealer was sprawled facedown, his hand stretched out toward a cell phone several inches from his fingertips. The back of his suit was perforated with a single bullet hole and stained red.
Paul put his fingers to the artery in the dealer’s neck.
“Now we know why Brimmer didn’t answer the phone,” he said.
Gamay bent over the drafting board, which held a half-finished document written in ornate script. Next to it were some antique calligraphy pens and a bottle of ink. She read aloud a handwritten note on a sheet of paper next to an open book:
“Call me Ishmael . . .”
“The opening sentence from Moby-Dick?” Paul asked.
Gamay nodded.
“It appears our Mr. Brimmer was forging manuscript pages from Melville,” she said.
“Could that type of thing get him killed?” Paul asked.
“Rachael Dobbs would be my first suspect. But it was more likely that someone didn’t want him using the phone.”
Paul slid a piece of paper under Brimmer’s cell and flipped it over so the display screen showed.
“He was calling the police,” he said. “He got as far as 91 . . .”
“I think we can conclude that Brimmer was forced to come here,” she said. “He would never have let anyone into his forgery workshop otherwise. And, judging from the mess on the floor, I’d say they were looking for something.”
“The 1848 logbook?”
“As Holmes would say, eliminate the impossible and you have the possible.”
“His body is still warm, Ms. Holmes. What does that tell you?”
“That we had better be on our toes,” she said. “And the murderer knew we were coming to see Brimmer.”
“Doesn’t that seem far-fetched?” he asked.
Gamay pointed to the corpse.
“Tell Mr. Brimmer that it’s far-fetched.”
“Okay,” Paul said with a tight smile. “You’ve convinced me.”
Paul put his finger to his lips and opened a door opposite the one they had come through. He stepped out onto a landing, edged over to the railing, and looked down the stairs. He saw a tiny orange glow and smelled cigarette smoke rising up the shaft. He backed up into the office, shut the door quietly, and turned the lock.
He picked up Brimmer’s cell phone, punched in the second 1 to complete the emergency call. When the police dispatcher answered, Paul said his name was Brimmer, gave the address, and said somebody was prowling around in the building. He suspected they were armed and dangerous.
Paul hung up and put the phone back in Brimmer’s lifeless fingers.
He and Gamay slipped out of Brimmer’s office and quickly made their way across the wide loom floor. Paul set the two-by-four against the wall, and they stepped out onto the fire escape, only to stop short.
The rickety old fire escape was trembling, and there was the tunk-tunk of ascending footfalls on the cast-iron steps. The Trouts ducked back inside, and Paul picked up the two-by-four he’d just left behind. They plastered themselves flat against a wall on either side of the door. He tightened his grip on the board.
Low male voices could be heard, then a quick exclamation of surprise. The men had found the smashed latch. Then the voices ceased.
The door opened slowly. A figure stepped inside, followed by another. There was a spark, as the lead man flicked on a cigarette lighter. Paul calculated that he would have a second to act and brought the two-by-four down on the head of the second figure. The man with the cigarette lighter turned at the thwack of wood smacking skull. He was holding a revolver in his other hand. Paul jammed him in the midsection with the end of the two-by-four, and followed up with a blow to the head as the man doubled over.