Chapter 24
31.
 After lunch, Linsey and Jack decided to take a brief walk along the beach before looking for the harbor pilot who had guided Lima Voyager into her dock.
Jack had his car parked several streets over, so he locked his laptop in the trunk of Linsey's Lexus. Walking hand in hand, they strolled by the booming breakers. Usually, the sea was much more still. Today, there were hardly any people sitting on towels soaking up the hazy sunlight. The beach today seemed to belong to surfers in full-body wetsuits, and large sea gulls brazenly inspecting passers-by to see if perhaps they had any fish to offer. Bird logic. The fresh air drove away the slight buzz Linsey still felt from the margarita.
"So where does this harbor pilot live?" Jack asked as they returned to her car.
She showed him the man's name, phone number, and address. Lester Sapolsky, First Class Harbor Pilot, lived off Orange Avenue. Linsey read Jack some of the qualifications Sapolsky held a Federal Masters License and a Federal First Class Pilot's License of Unlimited Tonnage issued by the United States Coast Guard.
"Wow," Jack said. "Sounds like a top notch guy in his field."
"Yeah, he's no fly by night."
They pulled onto Coronado's main drag, a mile or so long. Orange Avenue could have been the downtown of any New England village or small town in the USA. Two lanes each way, with a spacious green median divider with trees, it stretched from the southern end of town, where the Silver Strand passed the Hotel Del Coronado, to the northern end overlooking the harbor. The City of Coronado was a municipality situated on the former North Island, now joined to the mainland by the Silver Strand parkway which ran down to Imperial Beach. Coronado was joined at the hip with the U.S. Navy community at North Island Air Station. This was the same air base seen the hoary old 1930s flick Devil Dogs of the Air starring James Cagney. The two massive Quonset-like hangars made of poured concrete, seen in that movie in aged black and white Cagney flybys were still in use, housing modern aircraft. The northwestern part of Coronado was famous for being a retirement community of old admirals and generals of various services, and there was a military golf course on the beach, under the approach lanes for carrier-based aircraft landing at NAS North Island. On the Silver Strand, home base of the Navy SEALs, trainees could be seen working out under grueling conditions in sweat shirts, baseball caps, shorts, and combat boots.
Jack and Linsey located Lester Sapolsky's house on a quiet side street shaded by old willow trees. The houses were generally two-story add-ons, reflecting the upscale nature of the community. What had started as a one-story Victorian gingerbread house might by now be merely the ornamental entrance to a six-unit condo, or to a millionaire's ten bedroom, ten bath mansion with pool, and view of Glorietta Bay. Sapolsky's house was a modest two-story, New England-style salt box. The simple but elegant house sat in a shady lot overgrown by huge Brazilian pepper trees on either side. The house had been added onto around the edges in eclectic styles.
"Try calling him on your phone again," Jack suggested.
Linsey did, as they sat parked in the shade, and got a recording. "This is Les. I can't come to the phone right now…" She snapped the clamshell phone shut. "I guess I'll go knock on the door. Eyeball me, will you?"
"Want me to come along?"
"Nah." She got out, smoothing her jacket. "But thanks." She almost regretted having him come along, and thought of suggesting he drive around the block out of harm's way if there were any harm. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She strode up the concrete walkway that was littered with mauve jacaranda droppings—that time of year. There was also a very fine reddish powder, almost like nutmeg or cinnamon, but earthy smelling. Linsey surreptitiously touched her gun with her fingertips, checking it out, while looking around. From a second story window across a canyon, a toothless elderly woman glanced out at her and then slammed a window shut. Otherwise, nobody was in sight. The concrete walkway was strewn with ankle deep pepper tree detritus—poor maintenance. Was that because the owner traveled a lot, just didn't care, or something else? She came to a recessed doorway set in an archway of stones. A lantern glimmered under the doorway's ogive peak. A pile of yellowed newspapers lay rolled up amid ankle deep leaves. A bench beside the thick oak door looked as if nobody had sat on it in a while. Linsey rang the door bell. Not hearing chimes inside, she rapped on the little leaded window pane in the door. "Hello? Mr. Sapolsky?" No answer.
She clambered through bushes, making a circuit around the house. This involved leg-over climbing onto the rear redwood deck with its predictable flotsam and jetsam—enameled plates standing on edge, candle in wrought iron and glass cage, thick table covered in loose pepper tree leaves and twigs, and so forth. She clambered over the far rail after briefly noting a view of hedges with a peep at the bay, and ended up back at the front door. She saw more of the reddish powder dusted very finely and evenly in a fan as if it had emanated from inside the house.
She tried the handle and found that the front door was not locked. Glancing about for neighbors to talk with, and not seeing any, she drew her weapon. Wrapping her hands around the grip and keeping her finger on the trigger, she pushed the door open with her foot. "Police," she said, "is there an emergency?" Without a warrant, she knew she was stepping on thin ice.
There was no answer. She smelled a strong odor like wet, decaying leaves and soil. There was dark red powder everywhere. "Hello?"
Her own voice sounded thin and lost itself in the dark shadows that seemed to permeate the house. All the curtains inside were drawn. A chair lay on its side in the kitchen. She should call for backup, she knew. She should do a lot of things, but there was something far more frightening at stake here.
For the first time in her career, Linsey Simon deliberately violated a number of department policies, and that in another jurisdiction yet. Her own coolness amazed her, but she was viewing herself almost as a stranger. She didn't understand the situation that was enveloping her at every stage in this investigation, and she didn't know exactly what she was doing, so it was like watching someone else in action and wondering what they were doing.
"Hello? Anyone here?" She knew better than to bother. She followed the smell as it grew stronger. She followed her nose into a bedroom, where she flicked on the overhead light.
A mass of bed sheets and blankets lay off to one side, as if someone had struggled in bed and then rolled off. She followed the avalanche of twisted sheets and blankets with the sight of her gun, until the gun pointed to a six-foot-long fungus resembling a rotting dark brown board. It was attached to the baseboard along the wall.
A noise.
She whirled this way and that, pointing the gun.
"Honey?" said a man's voice.
Jack. She stayed crouched, desperately trying to figure out the situation. "Jack, is that you?"
Her husband stepped slowly into the room behind her.
She whirled and pointed the gun at him.
He loomed in the doorway with his powerful frame, bull head, and beard shadow. The eyeglasses twinkled in the wan electric light. He held a pump-action shotgun in his hands—hers, from the trunk of her car.
She lowered her automatic. "Jack, are you insane?"
"Are you okay?"
"Crack that shotgun."
He opened the breach and laid it over his forearm so the barrel pointed downward. "You were taking a long time, so I came in to make sure you were okay."
"You scared the living daylights out of me."
"Sorry. You had me pretty worried too."
She holstered her gun. "We're getting out of here."
"Aren't you going to call—?"
She grabbed his shirt and towed him out, down the hallway. She pulled a paper towel off a rack as they went through the kitchen. "Don't touch anything. Did you touch anything in here?"
"No, I just—"
"You were holding my shotgun with both hands?"
"Yes."
"Didn't leave any finger prints then. Good. Get out the door." She used the paper towel to wipe the door handle she had touched earlier, then wadded the towel and stuffed it in her pocket. "Just get in the car and let's book."
They stashed her shotgun in the trunk where it belonged, and got into the front seat as fast as they could without seeming in a hurry. She pulled out from the curb and drove away.
"What was that all about?" he asked.
She told him: "Every instinct in my being was screaming for me to call for the Coronado PD. Every fiber of training said I should call for backup, whatever. But I felt some higher instinct that said it would be the wrong thing to tip Them off."
"Them?"
"Whoever is doing this mushroom thing. There are some seriously whacked out people at work here. I don't know what the game is, but they are out to hurt someone. I don't know whom they want to hurt, but I suspect it's a lot of innocent people. Right now, I feel I walked in on a crime scene, though I can't prove it, and I messed it up just by being there. I erased fingerprints, and failed to notify the local PD, and who knows what else. Like basically, Jack, I just put my career on the line. Or it's a slippery slope. If I haven't put it on the line, I'm not acting like a good cop now. Yet, I'm following my instinct."
Jack was silent, the way he got when he didn't know what to say, but wanted to be darkly and silently supportive. The glint of worry in his eyes had a sheen of fear. How well she understood. She reached over and gave his knee a reassuring squeeze.
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Copyright © 2014 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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