The Off-Islander Read online

  “Oh, those Swifts, of course.” Swift Aeronautical had been Swift Marine, which had made wooden PT boats for the navy in World War II. In Korea, they had graduated to bigger boats and parts for jet planes. By Vietnam, they had given up on the boats and just focused on parts for jets. Those parts had made the Swift family millions to keep their existing millions from getting lonely.

  “My husband, despite his unlikely name, has a prospect of becoming the first Republican senator from the Bay Area in a long time.”

  “Bully for him.” Her eyes were big and green and distracting.

  “I would like to see that he succeeds. To that end, I require the services of someone who is capable and, more importantly, discreet. Dan Sullivan says that you are that person. Are you?” The big green eyes were focused on me, and I was aware that the two top buttons of her blouse were not buttoned and that pale flesh was showing in contrast to tanned skin.

  “I am discreet, and I am capable. The caveat is that I am also somewhat moral, and there are things that I won’t do.”

  She laughed.

  “Good, I like a man with a sense of morals. However, Dan also told me that you frequently bend the rules.” Her ears were perfectly shaped with diamond-accented lobes that you wanted to take between your lips, your teeth.

  “I believe in right and wrong, and that doesn’t always conform with the rules and regulations.” She had a freckle at the beginning of the valley that was formed by the two buttons being undone on her blouse. She looked at the folder in her hands and looked up at me.

  “Andrew ‘Red’ Roark, 10/13/1949, of Boston, Mass., attended Catholic high school in South Boston, a year and a half at the University of Rhode Island . . . Rhode Island?” She looked at me over the top of the folder. I shrugged. What could I say, I wanted to be an engineer, and it was close to the beach. “Voluntarily enlisted into the U.S. Army, February 1968 . . . voluntarily?” It was said the same way as “Rhode Island” was said, the way one might correct a particularly slow third grader. “Attended basic infantry and airborne training Fort Benning, Georgia, Army Special Forces training Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam. Command and Control North, Republic of Vietnam.” Cool green eyes looking down rifle sights at my face. “What was Command and Control North, Republic of Vietnam?” A breath and the freckles heaved, and I was slightly weak in the knees.

  “I can’t actually talk about all of that.” She gave me a look that made me feel like I should be waiting in line for the swings at recess. There would not have been much point in talking about it. It was like all wars, only those who fought in it understood any of it. She made mention of the rank I had earned and the medals I had been awarded, but none of that meant much. Friends who were gone, scars that covered wounds that ached when it got cold, and dreams that came by to visit more than poor relatives looking for a handout. That is all the war meant now. Not much of a war to talk about in a hotel suite in San Francisco.

  “Ooooh, it’s secret. Honorable discharge 1972, Boston University for a semester, a few months off, and then the Boston Police Department for five years, all the time going to night school, almost eking out a degree. 1979, resigned from Boston Police Department, minutes before being fired for insubordination, and then off on your own as a private detective.” Her green eyes zeroing in on my blue ones and me not having anywhere to look or to hide. “Is that accurate?”

  “More or less.” I didn’t like having my life summed up like that. It sounded cheap.

  “My father was a marine.” After a pause, “He fought in Korea.” She said it in the same way that she summed up my life. Short and inexpensive.

  “He came home from the war when I was a little girl.” I nodded, not knowing what else to do or say. “He was home for a while and everything was wonderful, my parents dancing in the kitchen and songs on the radio all the time. It did not last long. One night he went out for a pack of cigarettes, and we never saw him again. My mother eventually remarried, and I took my stepfather’s name. The best thing that my mother had to say about my father was that he was tall, and after a short time I stopped asking.” Light flashed off of the diamonds in her earlobes, and she shifted her slim body in the wing chair, then one long leg over the other. “My husband is going to announce his candidacy soon. We hope that in time he can run for president.” I had to stop for a second, because I was pretty sure that Reagan had it locked up until ’84.

  “We have an excellent chance of representing the state, but I am, of course, careful. I don’t know what became of my father, but I would like you to find out. I do not want to read about any unpleasant surprises in the Chronicle.” I nodded as though I had all the answers. If she was talking about the 1968 Democratic Convention, I could see where having a missing marine father might be a black spot to avoid. Now being a veteran was no longer considered a sin. “I hired a large firm out here, but they were not able to find much. They did trace my father to a town on Cape Cod, but the trail ran cold for them. That is why I needed you. You are local, and people will tell you things they won’t tell a Pinkerton man from San Francisco.”

  “What do you hope I will find?”

  “I want to know if there is anything to find. I want to know that my father hasn’t done anything that can hurt Geoffrey.”

  “Your father, the former marine?”

  “Yes.” Breathless, now more Ingrid Bergman than Bacall, more vulnerability than sex appeal. “I would hate to think that he committed a crime or is some gin-soaked veteran slowly dying on a barstool somewhere.”

  “Why do you need me? Pinkerton is more than capable. If they didn’t find anything, there probably isn’t anything to find.”

  “You are one of them. You probably root for the Red Sox and think that Manhattan clam chowder is basically clam minestrone. That is why I need you. You understand the lay of the land, but more than that you speak the same way the locals do. I doubt that the Pinkerton men did.”

  “You think that people on the Cape might not open up to strangers from California?”

  “That is part of it. I also think that they didn’t understand the terrain that they were operating on.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. How did you establish that he has something to do with Cape Cod?”

  “The Pinkerton men started with records from the Veterans Administration. They found an address in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where the VA sent a few checks.” She was the type of woman who couldn’t bring herself to just say Hyannis.

  “When was that?”

  “In 1968. Prior to that it was Las Vegas, before that Los Angeles, even Seattle for a brief time. Three checks in 1968 were sent to an address in Hyannis, Massachusetts, and then nothing. He stopped getting checks from the VA.”

  “Why do you think that there will be something potentially damaging in his past?”

  She sighed and then laughed. “You do not know much about politics, do you, Mr. Roark? Everything is a potential scandal; even simple or innocent things can turn out to be damaging.”

  “Like a missing father.”

  “Exactly. Are you going to take the case?”

  “Sure. I’m between jobs.” She smiled, and it reminded me of Danny’s smile. She handed me a large manila envelope with the Pinkerton name on it in one corner. I took it, and it weighed as much as a first edition of Gone with the Wind.

  “That is everything that Pinkerton came up with. They used a great deal of paper to say very little.” She handed me another smaller envelope.

  “That is five thousand dollars. That includes your retainer, fee for coming out here, a week’s worth of salary, and some for expenses. If you need anything else, or if you have expenses, contact Mr. Sullivan. He has been temporarily retained to represent our interests on the East Coast. He will also see that you are paid on a weekly basis should things drag on. There is a ticket waiting for you at the Pan Am counter. My man should have you there in time to catch the red-eye.” She stood and stuck out a cool hand. I stood an
d shook hers, then turned and walked away.

  Chapter 3

  The elevator and the lobby were the same. The driver and the car were also the same. He drove me out to the airport without a word. I had hoped to see the wharf and go to a bar, the Golden Gate Park or something, but instead it was tour through the Richmond and then a bit of expressway. The envelope with the money sat substantially in my breast pocket, and the file was in the postman’s bag. I wanted to look at it, but somehow it didn’t seem right inside the car.

  He pulled up in the departure lane, and I stepped out onto the pavement and made my way into the glass and concrete monstrosity that the city of San Francisco considered its airport. Inside, I made my way to the airline check-in and then to the gate. Along the way, I found a bar that was able to give me a double Dewar’s on the rocks. I read some of the history of the Battle of Thermopylae, looking up to see the occasional pretty lady walk by. Few places are more depressing than airport bars.

  I wanted to look at the folder from Pinkerton, but airport bars aren’t the sort of place where you should do that sort of thing. There is never any privacy and never any space. I took out a Lucky and lit it instead. The first sip of scotch and a cigarette work well together.

  Most of my cases are either divorce or insurance fraud. There is some missing persons work, but it is usually the husband who went to the corner store for a gallon of milk five years ago and didn’t come back. Sometimes it is the wife who goes to the store; sometimes it is a teenager who has run away. In most cases, people hire me to find someone because they care about them and need to know what happened. Sometimes it is about child support, but usually there is some feeling there. I had never been hired before to find someone because a budding politician didn’t want a scandal.

  The metallic voice called my flight number after the Battle for Thermopylae had ended, and I was on my second scotch. I lifted the heavy canvas bag and made my way to my gate. The stewardess welcomed me onto the plane with the same robotic greeting that is the trademark of their industry. I found my seat and strapped in. People filed in, stopping to stow their bags and ease into a seat. The door shut at last, and we hurtled down the runway and lurched into the sky.

  I waited until the stewardess brought me a scotch; then I opened the large folder that I had taken out of my bag. On top was a black and white snapshot of a thin young man in Marine Corps dress blues. It was the official yearbook photo taken right after graduating from Parris Island. The soft glow from the small overhead light didn’t reveal anything other than he was young, with high cheekbones and a slightly dimpled chin. There was also a photo of the same young man with longer dark hair, in utilities with two other marines, all posing with their rifles. Last was a picture of the same young man with a crew cut, wearing khaki pants and a madras shirt, holding a little blond girl.

  His name, according to the file, was Charles Edgar Hammond. He was born in June 1932, not far from San Diego, California. He married Mary Ellen Frazier right after graduation. He joined the Marine Corps in August of 1950 and found himself in Korea shortly after that. Mary Ellen gave birth to Deborah in March 1951. Hammond wound up at the Chosin Reservoir—he was wounded but managed to survive. He was promoted to sergeant by the time both sides sat down to talk and agree to keep the war but not fight anymore. He was rotated stateside and was posted in San Diego at the navy base in Coronado. Shortly after he was discharged, he and Mary Ellen were visiting her parents with Deborah. Charles Hammond told his wife that he had to go to the store for cigarettes and never came back. It didn’t take Mary Ellen long to get a divorce and find a job as a legal secretary to a patent attorney. She married the patent attorney eighteen months later. He was two decades older than Mary Ellen, but he wasn’t the type to go out for cigarettes, and he could afford the best schools for Deborah, whom he adopted.

  After that, the file turned into random pieces of paper that told the rest of the story. Some were from the VA, check stubs or notices. Some were expense reports from the Pinkerton detectives. They had followed the VA checks to Los Angeles, where they found the transient hotel that Charlie Hammond had lived in for several months. They couldn’t find anyone who had even been there in 1954, much less anyone who knew him.

  From 1955 to 1958, the VA checks went to a series of cheap apartment houses in Los Angeles. According to the Social Security office, Charlie had a lot of low-wage jobs that lasted for a few months at a time and never for more than six months. In 1959, Charlie moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he apparently worked in a casino that no longer existed, and none of the employees they tracked down knew him. Charlie was in Las Vegas until 1965. Las Vegas was also the last time that Charlie paid into Social Security, paid taxes, or seemed to have a job. Early in 1966, Charlie was getting his mail in a transient hotel in Seattle, Washington. He dropped off of the radar screen and reemerged in the fall of 1966 back in Los Angeles. In 1968, three checks were sent to a P.O. box in Hyannis, Mass. There was no VA paperwork to explain why Hyannis or why for just three months. By the end of 1968, he was in San Francisco, his mail going to a P.O. box in Haight-Ashbury. By 1972, Charlie’s VA checks started getting returned to the VA. Charlie didn’t go to his mother’s funeral in 1973. Charlie never responded to the divorce proceedings, and the detective the patent attorney hired in 1956 couldn’t find him. All I had was a P.O. box on the Cape. It was, as we say professionally, pretty thin.

  It had taken me two scotches to go through the file. Pinkerton had earned their money. They had sent detectives to any place that Charlie Hammond might have ever lived, visited, or seemingly even passed through. The P.O. boxes didn’t help. P.O. boxes were easy if the person you are looking for is using one currently. You sit on the box and wait. They show up to get the mail, and you have found your missing person. It is like magic. But almost twenty years later, P.O. boxes and transient hotels are dead ends. Charlie’s trail was as cold as last Christmas.

  I turned off the overhead light and tried to sleep. The seat was uncomfortable, and I woke up every fifteen minutes or so. When I finally gave up and admitted that it wasn’t going to happen, I had a sharp pain in my neck, and my mouth felt like someone had covered it with carpet from an hourly motel.

  The captain made his announcement, and the seat belt light went on. The stewardess came by to make sure that we were sitting up and that we were not recklessly leaving our trays down. The plane banked and I could see Boston Harbor, the gas tanks, and Quincy. Then I could only see water and buildings; then we touched down with a hard thump. As the plane taxied up to the gate, I was putting everything away in my canvas sack. I stood up when we stopped, as much to stretch my stiff, abused back as to retrieve my corduroy blazer. I made my way up the Jetway and through the terminal. My head hurt and I needed a shower.

  I blinked at the bright October sun and shivered slightly in the cool morning air. I found a Lucky from a pack in my jacket that wasn’t too crushed, and lit it. I felt good to be back in Boston. It always feels good to be back in Boston.

  I made my way through the maze of cars until I found the Ghia. It started and I made my way to the parking lot attendant’s booth. He took my money, leaving me to fight the traffic, as everyone on the East Coast was trying to get into the city to go to work. I started listening to the news, but that was just depressing. It took me almost an hour to get home, and I managed to get the Ghia into the parking spot behind my building. Pumpkins were on sale and jack-o’-lanterns were starting to appear on steps. I locked the car and made my way upstairs to the apartment.

  I opened the door and let myself in. I only recently stopped half expecting her to be in the apartment. It was still half an apartment. I dropped the bag on a chair in the small living room. I thought about making coffee but opted for a shower and toothbrush instead. After the shower, it was bed and a few hours of sleep.

  Chapter 4

  When I woke up, it was late afternoon. I went over and paid attention to the blinking lights on the machine. None was important enough to m
ake me pick up the phone. I put the coffee on and took the Pinkerton file out of the canvas bag. I took the file into the kitchen, where I poured coffee. I padded back out to the living room and put The Rolling Stones on the turntable. Mick Jagger offered to introduce himself to me, mentioning that he was a man of wealth and taste. At least one of us was.

  I sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee, reading back through the files. This time, unlike on the plane, I made notes on a yellow legal pad with a blue felt pen. It took a pot of coffee, two pieces of toast, a half a pack of Luckies, and a couple hours to go through it all again. The salient points were that Charlie Hammond had been in the Korean War. He had acquitted himself well and come home with some medals: a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and couple of Purple Hearts that looked good against the dress blue uniform. He had walked out on his wife and young daughter. He kicked around the West Coast; then all traces of him stopped in 1972. Ten years ago. That was it on Charlie Hammond. Pinkerton had talked to everyone and anyone who they could. No one knew anything about Charlie Hammond.

  I got up and went to the phone in the living room. I called Danny’s office, and his secretary was able to find him after a short wait. Danny suggested a bar not far from his office near the John Hancock Tower. I showered and put on jeans, cordovan loafers, a white shirt, the Colt .32 in its shoulder rig, and a corduroy sport coat that was the darker cousin of the one I wore to San Francisco. The weather looked nice but cooler, and I grabbed the fawn-colored trench coat Leslie had given me. I didn’t feel like driving. Parking was more trouble than walking over to the bar.

  The sunshine outside was brittle, the way it seems to be in New England in the fall. I would like to believe that I could smell smoke from a fire in the air, but it was only the diesel fumes from a passing bus. It wasn’t chilly yet, but in a week or two, fall would become an unpleasant prelude to winter. I like fall and, until mid-January, I like winter, but by then I am sick of the cold, the snow, and slush.