The Yakuza Gambit, Page 2

  Parked along the retaining wall, on the road above the rocky incline, were two Hampton Police cars, and a cruiser from the neighboring town of Rye. Along with them were a couple of dark sedans with flashing grille lights, and an ambulance.

  Yeah, kiss goodbye the beached sea animal theory.

  A few early morning onlookers lined the retaining wall with their cell phones out. They were taking pictures and video. Guests from the row of hotels and summer rental condos along Ocean Boulevard, just before it reached Great Boars Head Avenue. Their attention drawn by the flashing lights, the occasional squawk over the radio.

  At the water’s edge several uniformed cops, two EMTs, and a couple of people in civilian clothes milled around in a group, looking down at the rocky shoreline.

  Bannon pulled his earbuds from his ears and walked toward the crime scene where he’d spotted a young Hampton cop he knew, Stewart Willoughby.

  “Stu,” he called. “Hey, Stu.”

  The cop hammered another stake into the sand to further cordon off the area. His uniform pants were wet to the knees. Sand clung to them like glitter in the emerging sunlight. No doubt, he’d drawn the short straw and had had to wade into the cold ocean water to bang in the crime scenes stakes.

  He looked up, pushing his hat back off his unusually high forehead.

  “Oh, hey, Brice. What are you doing out here so early in the morning?”

  Dressed in a sweat-damped T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes, Bannon concluded detective wasn’t in the young cop’s immediate future. “That was my question to you. What’s going on?”

  Willoughby glanced over his shoulder at the group of uniformed cops and others behind him. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say.”

  “How long have we known each other, Stu?” Bannon asked.

  “Ever since you opened the Keel Haul. What’s that? Five years?”

  From day one, Bannon had made it a practice to be involved in the community he was now part of. He knew all the cops, of course, and many of the local shop and business owners. For the cops and lifeguards, he made free coffee and cold drinks available to them whenever they wanted. Over the years, he’d hosted who knew how many promotion, retirement, and bereavement parties for members of the department and others in the tight-knit community.

  “Come on. You can tell me, Stu. I won’t put it on my Facebook page.” Bannon held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  “I didn’t know you had a Facebook page,” Willoughby said.

  “I don’t/ That’s my point.”

  The young cop’s face soured with indecision. “I don’t know, Brice.” But his need to gossip won out. Even though no one was in earshot, he leaned in closer to Bannon and lowered his voice. “A body washed up on shore this morning. It’s still there, on the rocks.”

  The cop’s voice was so quiet Bannon had trouble hearing him over a strong gush of wind.

  Hampton Beach was a quiet resort town. And while they had their rowdy periods in the summer, come Fall the place became very, very quiet. It was certainly not the sort of place where foul play reared its ugly head very often, in any season.

  A boating accident or someone drowned, Bannon thought. “What happened?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.” The deep, gravelly voice came from behind Bannon.

  He turned to find himself face to face with Reggie Singleton, the Hampton Police Chief. Like Willoughby, Bannon had known Singleton since the day he opened the Keel Haul’s doors to the public.

  Forty-five years old, Reggie Singleton was African-American, as wide as he was tall, with dark skin, and a bald head. He’d played one season of pro-football with the New York Giants before blowing out his knee. After that, he joined the NYPD, putting in his twenty, he worked his way up through patrol and detective positions to become a Borough Investigative Chief responsible for overseeing all organized crime and gang-related investigations in the Bronx, until he retired.

  Bannon had learned this over drinks soon after they met. Singleton had learned Bannon was a retired Coastie, still in the Reserves, who’d always dreamed of owning a seaside bar. The Keel Haul being that dream realized.

  That was all the cop had learned.

  But his first day as Chief, Singleton came into the Keel Haul and under the guise of introducing himself to the local community, he issued Bannon a stern warning about the sort of conduct he and his department would not tolerate from the watering hole and its owner. Any transgressions, Singleton said, and he’d close down the Keel Haul faster than you can say last call. Dream or no damn dream.

  Singleton had said it like he’d meant it and Bannon took him at his word.

  Of course, Bannon had made sure the Keel Haul had never been a source of concern for Singleton and his department. He did his best to be a friend to the department, a model neighbor to the community, and the former NYPD cop hadn’t said a cross word to or about Bannon since.

  Now the two men shook hands.

  Singleton wore a forest green soft-shell jacket with the police department logo on the pocket, blue jeans, and a matching green baseball cap that said Chief in big yellow letters. He held a steaming hot cup of takeout coffee in his hand.

  He took a sip.

  “You being here actually saves me from make a phone call.”

  Bannon arched his eyebrow. “How so?”

  Singleton lifted the crime scene tape. Bannon ducked under it like a price fighter entering the ring. “You got that crime scene access log, Stu?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mark Bannon as being on scene at this time, as a consultant.”

  “Consulting on what exactly?” Bannon asked.

  He and Singleton trudged through the wet sand toward a small eddy where water splashed up and around the rocks before receding back into the ocean. White and frothy. The gulls circling overhead cawed.

  Singleton sipped his coffee. “I thought I left all this back in the Bronx. A body washed up on shore this morning, got caught up in the rocks here. Some old guy walking his dog found it. My guys are taking a statement from him now.”

  They neared the milling group of cops. Bannon looked down into the eddy, following their curious gazes. There he saw the body lying face down in the sand. Water washed up around him, then eased back, shoving his body with it.

  Bannon noticed he wore jeans, a T-shirt, a dark green wool hoodie and one sneaker. The EMTs stood off to one side. Not needed, but no one had released them yet. A woman in the group was taking photographs. Two other men Bannon hadn’t seen initially were in the water, wearing green waders, and collecting debris floating in on the tide.

  “Boating accident?” Bannon asked.

  “That’s part of it,” Singleton said. “The state’s forensic guys say they found damage to some rocks out there. Consistent with a boat having run up on ’em.” He pointed vaguely at a cluster of jagged rocks protruding just above the waterline.

  “The tide’s low,” Bannon said. “Last night all of that would’ve been underwater. Easy to run into if you’re not familiar with the area.”

  “Yeah. That’s what they’re telling me. But then there’s this.”

  The woman took a step back and lowered her camera. Done taking photos, at least for the time being.

  Singleton squatted down and rolled the body over onto its back revealing the small, black hole in the man’s forehead. Bannon knew a bullet wound when he saw one.

  “That’s definitely not from a boating accident.”

  The young man’s skin was already ghostly gray and looked cold to the touch. His open eyes stared up at Bannon, cloudy with a milky film. The bullet wound was washed clean by the ocean. Bannon guessed a small caliber gun, either a .38 or 9-millimeter was used.

  Singleton came to his feet. “We’re grabbing the debris that’s drifting in of course but we don’t even know if it’s got anything to do with our vic or not. The damaged rocks could be completely unrelated, too.”

  He looked out into th
e water as he drank his coffee.

  Bannon eyed the items that were floating in the water and had been collected and carefully laid out on the sand; A seat cushion. A cooler. Some empty beer bottles. A half-smoked cigar. A single strip of torn fiberglass hull.

  “Or not. I’m sure you’ve got a theory, Chief.”

  “If this was the Bronx?” Singleton shrugged. “I’d say our vic here had an appointment to swim with the fishes.”

  “A mob hit. Here? Not likely, Chief,” Bannon said. “Have you IDed him yet?”

  “Wallet was in his back pocket. We’ve got a Massachusetts driver’s license, credit cards, receipts, the other usual crap you find in a wallet, and eleven hundred dollars in cash.”

  “Not a robbery then.”

  “Nope. Name’s Alex Riggi. Age twenty-seven. D.L. says he lives in Boston.”

  “What is it you think I can do for you, Chief?”

  “Normally I’d figure the guy was killed here along the beach or dumped, but with the floating debris…”

  “And the damaged rocks. You think there’s a boat involved.”

  “Or all that junk’s got nothing to do with it.” Singleton shrugged. Bannon could tell, that didn’t sit well with the cop. “Protocol is I bring Fish and Game in. They’ve got a dive team we use for this sort of thing.”

  “To find a boat, if there is one,” Bannon said.

  “And any other evidence that might’ve sunk rather than floated in,” Singleton added. “The dive team’s out of state at some training function.”

  “All of them?” Bannon asked.

  “One team was left back to cover, but they’re involved with something up at Lake Winnipesauke. I’d rather not wait for them. Your buddy, McMurphy, he’s got a dive boat, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re both qualified to dive, aren’t you?”

  “Sure,” Bannon said, seeing where the cop was going. “You want to know if we’d—”

  He was cut short by a high-pitched scream. A woman’s voice. Hysterical. “Is that my boy? Oh my God! Is that Alex?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bannon and Singleton turned toward the commotion.

  Willoughby dropped his roll of crime scene tape to the sand and put his arms out to prevent a heavy-set woman from storming through the crime scene tape. The woman was short and compact. Her short hair blew in the stiff breeze as she shouted over the wind and the surf. “Let me through!”

  Behind her a balding, middle-aged man wearing plaid shorts, a purple Polo shirt that didn’t cover his paunch, and sandals raced to keep up with her. He wore tortoiseshell-framed sunglasses, brown sandals, and had a worried look on his face.

  With them, a tall, thinner, and more composed woman followed. Like the other two, Bannon put her in her mid-forties. She wore dark slacks and a spring-weight suede jacket.

  “You can’t go in there,” Willoughby said. “Ma’am. Please. You must—”

  “Crap.” Singleton handed his coffee cup to Bannon and crossed through the wet sand to give Willoughby a hand. Bannon tagged along behind him.

  “Ma’am. Ma’am! I need you to calm down.” Singleton raised his arm, collecting the woman’s attention. “I’m the police chief here. My name’s Singleton.”

  His approach abated the woman’s attempt to stampede into the crime scene, to Willoughby’s immense relief.

  “You’re the one who called?” she asked.

  “Are you Ruth Riggi?”

  “Yes.”

  “My office called,” Singleton said. “Yes.”

  She bounced up on her toes, trying to see past Singleton’s broad shoulders.

  “Is that my son?” she demanded. “Tell me!”

  Bannon glanced back, too. From her angle, she could to see the body, turned so it’s back was to them. His face, nor the bullet wound were visible to them.

  Singleton put his hands on her shoulder and gently held her. “I know this is hard.”

  “You called me.” She glanced to the balding man behind her. “You woke my husband and me up. Is that—”

  “We don’t know yet—”

  “Is it!” she shouted.

  “Mrs. Riggi,” Singleton said. “I need you to calm down. Can you do that?”

  Her husband put a hand on her shoulder. She nodded, wiping away a tear.

  “We found your son’s wallet,” Singleton said.

  The woman lost color in her face.

  Bannon stepped closer. He’d made death notifications during his time in the service. Her pale complexion worried him. One could never tell how a person would react to the most devastating news possible, the unexpected death of a loved one, especially a son or a daughter.

  Ruth Riggi moaned and her legs buckled under her. She groaned and held her head like she was suffering from a migraine headache.

  Bannon and Singleton rushed forward, with help from the rotund, bald man, they caught her before she slipped to the sand. Together, they walked her to an outcropping of rocks and sat her down.

  “You’re Sam Riggi?” Singleton asked.

  “Yes.” He draped a supportive arm around his wife’s shoulder.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Mrs. Riggi?” Willoughby asked. “Water?”

  “Yes, please,” the man said, answering for his wife. He held her hand and patted it. “That would help. Thank you.”

  Willoughby retreated as the other woman stepped forward.

  “I’m Meredith Palmer,” she said. She rubbed a hand over Mrs. Riggi’s back. “A family friend. Please tell us what you know, officer.”

  “The person we’ve found…” Singleton said. “I’m going to need someone—”

  Sam Riggi, proving to be of sturdier stock than his appearance suggested, interrupted him. “You need someone to identify the body. To tell you if that’s really Alex or not.”

  “Yes, sir,” Singleton said. “But first I was hoping you could answer some questions about your son.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Bannon thought the man curt in his response. But different people reacted differently to what this couple was going through. Bannon didn’t have children, but he had lost people close to him. A lot of them. Still, he couldn’t imagine the hell it must be to be told your child was dead.

  “He lives in Boston, doesn’t he?” Singleton asked.

  “Yes,” Riggi said. Impatient. “Yes.”

  “Do you know why he’d be here? On this beach?”

  “I know exactly why Alex was here,” Meredith Palmer answered for him. “He was with my son.”

  “Your son? Who would that be, ma’am?”

  “Billy. Billy Palmer. He and Alex grew up together. They’re best friends and are from here originally.”

  “Hampton Beach?” Singleton asked.

  “No. New Hampshire. Amherst, specifically.” She looked at the Riggis. “Where we still live. The boys live in Boston now.”

  “Together?” Bannon asked.

  “No.” she said. “They have their own apartments. Alex lives in the Back Bay. Billy owns a condo apartment on the waterfront. In Harbor Towers.”

  “You believe they might’ve been together?” Singleton asked. “Last night?”

  “I know they were,” she said. “Billy and I spoke earlier in the week. He told me they were going to take the Bottom Line out”

  “Take the bottom line out?” Singleton asked, confused.

  “His boat. The Bottom Line. He keeps in docked at the Hampton River Marina. The slips are cheaper here than in Boston.”

  “I’m familiar with the marina,” Bannon said. “It’s a little late in the season to be out boating, especially at night.”

  She looked at Bannon in his T-shirt and shorts. “I’m sorry. Are you a cop?”

  “No, I’m—”

  “He’s consulting with us on this,” Singleton said, getting the interview back on track. “You were saying, the boat?”

  “He wanted to take it out a last time before
they had to pull it from the water for the winter.” She looked from Bannon to Singleton. “Is Billy with Alex? Have you found my son? I’ve tried texting and calling him ever since the police called Sam and Ruth. He’s not picking up.”

  Distraught, she pleaded, “Do you know…where is my son?”

  Bannon and Singleton exchanged concerned glances. Good question.

  Here’s a better one, Bannon thought.

  Was Billy a second victim or a suspect?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Witnessing the angst the Riggis and Meredith Palmer were experiencing, Bannon told Singleton he’d be glad to help. He stepped away from the group as Willoughby returned with a Styrofoam cup of water for Mrs. Riggi. Bannon pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called his oldest friend in the world, John ‘Skyjack’ McMurphy.

  They’d served together for nearly fifteen years in the U.S. Coast Guard.

  For the last part, Bannon lead a small, tactical unit attached to the Deployable Operations Group. Created in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, it had been the Coast Guard’s answer to the Navy’s SEALS and the Army’s Special Forces program. The DOGs were decommissioned five years ago.

  McMurphy, a Chief Warrant Officer, had been assigned to Bannon’s unit as a helicopter pilot.

  A certified and accomplished pilot in both fixed and rotor wing aircraft, he was licensed to drive just about anything from a scooter to a space shuttle. In truth, it seemed McMurphy had an uncanny ability to instantly know how to operate anything that had an engine and floated, flew, rolled, or dived.

  Over the phone, with his hand covering his ear to block out the stiff wind and surf, Bannon filled McMurphy in. Before he’d even finished, McMurphy said, “Where and when?”

  Bannon let Singleton know.

  He also offered the Keel Haul as a base of operations for the cops to use, extending the bar’s full hospitalities to him, the investigative team, and of course, the victims.