Page 45 of Beneath Still Waters

Kevin turned around and stood. “Let’s chat in here. Shall we?” His voice had changed from the backwoods drawl that—now that he wasn’t doing it—seemed over the top. In the living room, he offered them the more comfortable of the two sofas then sat after they did.

“Come on, Heath. Sit.” He motioned next to him. The older man grumbled as he lowered to the sofa.

Kevin took a deep breath. “I’m sure this will come as a surprise, but we’re actually with the ATF. There’s been a large amount of drug activity in this area for the last two years. We thought it was on the other side of Red Lake, because that’s where the whole chain seemed to originate, but that wasn’t it. We eventually realized the shipments weren't crossing the lake. They were being exchanged in the middle. One boat dropped the drugs. Another collected them. That way no single route ever connected supplier to buyer.”

Heath continued, “Whether it’s fish or goods, boats that haul have to keep a register. And the port, even as small as this one is, knows about it. We found out which boat was coming to collect the goods from the center of the lake. That was an easy enough trail to follow. He even fessed up to the plot, but he didn’t know who had put the plan in place or who put the drugs in the container before he would collect them.”

“Bailey?” Ferd asked. “He’s dry. Completely. Or so he told certain people.”

“No, that man is already in jail, awaiting trial. Bailey was used. A scapegoat. We were on the water and followed his boat, but he was actually witnessed at work when a drop was made. We still haven’t figured out who owns the supply chain and who’s dropping the goods from this side of the lake to the box you found.”

“But it’s a pretty good bet that whoever it is killed Bailey?” Ferd said.

Heath glared at her. “Possibly. He may have discovered what was going on inadvertently. I think whoever was doing the drops was stealing his boat to do it, because we checked with Bailey’s boss and the only day he’d missed was the day he used vacation time to take out his boat and found it missing.”

“The day we met him,” Ferd muttered.

Duke nodded at her. “Why didn’t you tell us when we first came out here? Why did you treat Ferd like she was a threat?”

Heath shifted his focus to Duke. “We’d planned to bring you in on the investigation when we saw you and asked you to come out here to see the damage. You were potentially working part of our case. Thereweretracks, but those were from us in the evening, trying to relax a little after long days. We couldn’t break security with her there. None of us knew her, and she wasn’t in any of our case files. So, we chose not to bring you in, either.”

“Because I’m not usually around.” She pulled out her badge. “I’m an officer in Cody.”

Heath glared at her badge like she’d faked it. “Didn't expect that. Well, at least we didn’t break cover for a civilian. Now comes the real question. How far have you gotten, because we’re running out of leads? Without Bailey’s boat and with the box in the middle of the lake gone, we may never find out who’s the head of the supply chain.”

“Are you aware of George Edward Ripley III? He made a very strange request for Bailey’s body. He’s in town right now,” Duke said.

“We’ve been watching the inn. No one is there,” Kevin said.

“We noticed that too. I’m wondering if he’s not on one of the rental houseboats. Maybe even anchored in the bay between here and Cottonwood. It’s super still there and perfect for a place to hide,” Ferd said. “Not that I want to go out and check.”

Duke cast her a quick glance of reassurance. “We should send someone to look. In the meantime, our biggest clue is the fact that a large number of people had a key to Bailey’s apartment.” Duke leaned back for a second. “One thing has been bothering me.” He tugged out his phone and pulled up the picture of the notes on Bailey’s fridge. “Is he talking about you guys here?” He pointed to the line mentioning H and F.

“Yeah. When his boat went missing, we met up with him to help him find it. He thought we were just really interested in boating and fishing. Nice guys willing to help a neighbor. Since we had a boat that we used to help him, he probably thought he’d do us a good turn by warning us about the storm. We never got that message. He had to have died before he was able to talk to either of us about it.”

Heath squinted at the notes. “Looks like a pretty average guy. Other than the fact that he didn’t have a cellphone. That’s not average.”

“Then all that’s left is to wait on the lab results of the can we just collected from Carl’s and see where that leads. If you find anything new, you’ll let us know?” Duke said.

“Yes, and you?” Heath stared Duke down.

“Absolutely.”

THIRTY-SIX

After a few minutes in the truck, Duke glanced at her. “I hope you don’t think you ruined anything. You didn’t.”

The fact that she wasn’t part of the community made her stand out. They could’ve had help if she hadn’t been there. “You believe what you want to.”

“Ferd. Don’t do that. You only lived in Piper’s Ridge for a few years before going on to Cody. I’m sure whatever resource they used to research the town and who was here didn’t even know you ever were. We still managed to figure out a lot without them. In fact, we’re doing better because they risked their cover for us.”

“Whatever. I’m not going to whine about not fitting in. Not like it helps. It just makes people even less likely to ever let you into their fold.” She looked out the window as the trees whizzed by and blinked rapidly.Don’t you dare cry now.

“I’m not a psychologist, but it is interesting that you’re always looking for home, even to the point of hunting for your dad. Have you always felt this way?”

She took a deep long breath and let it out. “Please. I have two psychologists helping me already. Can you just be a friend and not try to fix me?”

“Friend it is.” He drove on in silence for a while. “Want to come with to drop off the can at the lab, or is there anything else you want to do?”