16

Wandering around the dock after a quick dinner at the Ocean’s Breeze, Leo stared out at the cruise ships that were beginning to accumulate several hundred yards off of the island. They were clustering together and he assumed that they were staying put in deeper water. Smaller boats were lowered and raised to the cruise ship’s level to allow passengers to disembark for the mainland and Tranquility, and then return as they wished. 

The air was turning colder but there were still no clouds in the sky. He recognized that while the storm might be coming, it hadn’t arrived yet. In fact, if he hadn’t been told that the weather would be getting worse, he would have assumed that the current conditions would last for days. 

The quiet of the evening was interrupted by the couple from the ferry ride and their toddler son. He was running ahead of them, checking boat by boat. Leo didn’t know what he was looking for, as the toddler speak didn’t translate in his head. But the parents seemed less flustered than they had before, that is, until the little boy almost took a header off of the side of the dock. 

“Come here, buddy,” the father requested, watching his wife throw her hands up in the air, helplessly. “Come walk with us.”

The little boy obediently took his mother’s hand, and they walked on, nodding in greeting to Leo who nodded back. The little boy stuck out his hand to high five Leo as they passed, and grinned excitedly when Leo obliged. They continued on down the dock and Leo watched as they stopped to examine a couple of the fishing boats that were tied to the dock. 

Above them, on Main Street, Leo saw as the lights in the various stores began to flicker off. Fred closed the Ocean’s Spray and locked the door behind him, waving to the waitresses and cooks as they left. Cindi locked up the salon and headed up the hill toward the residential area. The streetlights were all coming on, old fashioned lamp posts that gave the street a nostalgic feel. 

With a quiet sigh, Leo turned back to the water one last time. Standing there, he felt a great calm come over him. The immensity of water, the range with which it ebbed and flowed out to sea, almost infinitely reminded him of his small size in the context of things. There was so much more at work here than he could see, and it comforted him to know that there were greater forces in play that caused the sun to rise and the ocean to flow. 

Heading back to the chapel, he said a quiet prayer as he crossed the front of the small sanctuary and retired to his tiny apartment. Pulling back the covers, he hung his suit in the closet and pulled out a well-worn copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Shortly after Father Christmas delivered the gifts to the Pevensie children, he nodded off, his sleep deep and untroubled. 

17

The old wooden door of the now defunct library creaked open as the shadowy figure slipped inside. He replaced the duplicate key to the facility in his pocket, but a noise from the back of the library startled him. Walking cautiously through the welcome area past the checkout station, his eyes slowly acclimated to the dark. Looking left and right, he saw the dark outlines of the stacks, fiction, nonfiction, children’s, research. The books were long gone, donated to a library on the mainland, and the shelves now collected dust after several years of disuse. 

Stifling a sneeze, he stopped walking as he heard a noise to his left. The man played the light over the children’s area, where a small table and chair set had been pushed to the corner. Sitting on the table, a raccoon’s shiny eyes stared back through its mask, caught in the glow of the flashlight. The man sighed, and turned away. One had to admire the animal’s audacity, he supposed, one bandit giving credit to another. 

Walking down the hallway toward the back area of the library, the man heard shuffling and scratching that sounded more serious than the disturbance caused by the raccoon. Carefully, the man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small handgun. He extinguished the flashlight, and stepped forward, pushing the door to the office the whole way open. 

Inside, sitting at one of the desks, the man found his accomplice shelling peanuts and throwing shells at a trash can across the room. The man looked up midthrow and banked another one of the shells off of the rim of the trash can to join a pile of others on the floor. He grinned and said, “I used to be more accurate.”

“You used to be more careful,” groused the new arrival. “Your food consumption here has drawn the wild animals in. You should know better.”

“Aw, lighten up,” replied the peanut guy. “The animals aren’t going to mess with our stuff.” This last he said gesturing behind himself at the wall of white containers that the men had been smuggling in and out of the library for days. 

“You know we can’t afford to have any of that go missing,” reminded the first man. “You know what they’ll do to us if we don’t come through for them.”

“You worry too much,” said the other man, standing up and brushing off shells from his lap. “We’ve got a good thing going and they won’t want to screw it up.” 

The first man just stared, boring holes into his subordinate, until the other man finally looked away. Together, they began to tabulate the contents of the containers, preparing some to depart soon off of the island. They would probably work long hours into the night, and arguing wasn’t going to get them any closer to their goal.

18

Outside, Pat Garrett was making his rounds around town. The sky wasn’t too dark yet, but he knew the sky was getting heavier with the threat of the incoming storm. He’d lived on the island since moving from the mainland. He’d retired as the police chief of a big town – not a city he was always careful to point out to people – and when he thought about all of the places he could live out the rest of his days in peace, Tranquility was a place from his childhood that came to mind. 

Arriving on the island, Garrett had taken up in the Bed & Breakfast, eating at the Ocean’s Breeze every day for lunch and dinner. After two months of getting up late and going to bed early, he finally felt refreshed. As he relaxed into civilian life, he realized that he didn’t miss the grind of paperwork and schedules, but he did mind the lack of community. He was going to have to find something to do. 

By the end of the third month, the retired law enforcement officer had found his way to the small prayer meeting that met at the Chapel once a week. Miss Isabelle had taken to him immediately and pegged him as a police officer before he ever told anyone. By the third week, she had informed him that the island had been missing a night watchman for six months and would he be willing to take on the role for a nominal compensation? 

The tall mustached officer had thought about turning down the offer. He didn’t feel like dealing with the criminal underbelly of society anymore, after years of busting a menagerie of humanity at its worst. But the little old woman batted her eyelashes (maybe she was blinking, he wasn’t sure) and introduced him to Red O’Rourke, who tersely greeted, shook hands firmly, and welcomed him to the position.

That was twelve years ago, and here he was still making the rounds at night. It was especially encouraged during the cruise ship season as some of the cruise ship tourists ended up drinking their way through town and collapsing somewhere in the dark, unable to find their way back to the ship. One year, Garrett had even saved two of them from drowning when they’d been certain they could return to the cruise ship by swimming back off of the dock. The thankful and slightly ashamed tourists had even sent a cashier’s check in Garrett’s name to thank him for his efforts. 

Shaking his head, the stooped officer limped up the hill toward his house. Everything seemed buttoned up for the evening, and it would take him a bit to get home as an old sports injury always caused aches and pains that sitting at a desk for hours had only exacerbated. He’d been trying to walk around the island more during the day, both to get better acquainted with people who were new to the area and to drop some more of the weight he’d acquired by too much sitting around.

Tightening his belt, Garrett stopped and stared at the old library. He thought it was his mind playing tricks on him but there certainly seemed to be light shining dimly through the arboretum end of the library. Maybe one of the Tranquility muckety mucks had visited during the day and forgotten to turn the lights off. Or maybe he was just sleep deprived. Either way, he wasn’t going to sleep well unless he put the matter to rest. 

The trees seemed to whisper in the wind as Garrett turned down the walkway toward the library. He was more annoyed that someone had left a light on than he was worried that anyone was up to no goods. Besides, he knew those boys wouldn’t be finishing up their time in juvie yet, and none of the other teenagers had escalated to breaking and entering. He signed, and groaned as his knee creaked going up the stairs. 

In the dim moonlight, Garrett fumbled with the ring of keys that he had been outfitted with once everyone around town realized that he would actually make the rounds and was trustworthy enough to check on their property when they were away. Finding the library key, he turned to the door and realized that it was slightly ajar. The old police officer frowned and pulled out his flashlight. 

Holding the flashlight out ahead of him, the ex-chief reached for his gun, remembering as his hand came away empty that he wasn’t actually armed anymore. His internal temperature rose a little, and his pupils dilated as the old habits came flooding back. 

A crash in the shadows caused him to shift quickly, the flashlight catching the masked face of a racoon munching on peanuts. The varmint stopped in mid-chew as Garrett chuckled to himself, relaxing. Noise from farther back in the library made the blood pound in his ears, and he pushed forward, reminding himself to get someone to trap the racoon the next morning. Inching ahead, he saw light shining from underneath the office door. 

Taking a deep breath, Garrett pushed open the door and froze. The scene in front of him reminded him of too many places that he had been in making busts for the police department. He’d seen containers like this with drugs before, and rarely had he seen this great a quantity before. There was no hiding what was going on, and the man in front of him was completely oblivious to his arrival. 

“Turn around slowly,” Garrett said. The man at the work table tightened up and sighed. He turned to look at Garrett, a look of anxiety and frustration playing off of his face. 

The man smirked. “What can I do for you, ‘Officer’?” he asked, his hands deep in his coat pockets. 

“I’d like to see your hands,” replied the ex-lawman, ignoring the jibe. “Then we can talk about what you’re doing and what we need to do about it.”

“I don’t think that would be necessary,” said the other man, shaking his head slowly. “It would be wise for you to turn around and walk away.”

Garrett replied, tersely, “You know I can’t do that.”

A sharp blow to the back of Garrett’s head sent shockwaves of pain through his head and neck. He put out a hand to brace himself on the doorframe, and turned, his flashlight swinging wildly toward the source of the blow. He heard a rush of wind in the darkness outside of the library office and a flash of bronze as a heavy bookend rushed toward his face, and then everything went black. 

A shoe and then the rest of a leg and body emerged from the darkness. The second man nudged Garrett’s body with his boot. The first man stood aghast, his hand on his mouth. “You killed him, you fool!” he hissed at the assailant. 

“It’s too bad he wandered out here tonight,” the murderer said, dropping the bookend to the ground beside the growing pool of blood spilling out of Garrett’s lifeless body. “But what did you expect me to do? It wasn’t like he was going to stay quiet. He was too stubborn and too straightlaced for that.”

The two accomplices lifted the body of the ex-policeman, half-carrying and half-dragging him out of the back door of the library. No one ever came to that end of the abandoned building but they found some heavy duty plastic wrap to surround Garrett’s body, and left it covered with brush. Their plan was too close to fruition to be sidetracked by one man’s murder, even if they had genuinely respected the man. 

Chapters 19-21 coming April 5!