Maritime Caper (Coastal Fury Book 12), Matt Lincoln [good books to read for beginners TXT] 📗

“Ah, yeah, I talked to your boss earlier,” Wallace said, taking my hand and shaking it heartily. “She had good things to say about you.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said dryly, thinking that Diane might just about kill me for getting myself wrapped up in all this mess just when the hunt for the Hollands was heating up.

“She said trouble has a way of following you everywhere,” the sergeant said with a dark laugh, looking down at the bodies of the two goons. “She wasn’t kidding, was she?”

“No,” I sighed, running a hand through my hair wearily. “No, she wasn’t.”

“Why don’t my guys do a forensic run, and you and I can have a chat?” the man suggested, waving a few geeky looking guys in forensics gear who I hadn’t noticed before hiding at the back of the group forward. They hesitated but then busily got to work excavating the crime scene.

“Sure thing,” I said, nodding curtly to him. “Can you make sure to send whatever they find to our lab techs at MBLIS in Miami? Diane should be able to send you their info if you’re still in touch with her.”

“Of course,” Wallace said with a nod in my direction. Then, to the forensics techs, “Now’s your time to shine, boys. The big guns are going to be inspecting your work.”

He said it jovially, but the guys looked nervous, and one of them even stopped what he was doing to shoot us a borderline terrified look.

“It’s okay,” I assured them with a wave of my hand. “Bonnie and Clyde—that’s what we call our lab techs—they’re nice people. You’ll like working with them.”

“You call your lab techs Bonnie and Clyde?” the forensics guy nearest to me muttered. “That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

“I guess not,” I chuckled, and he jumped when he realized that I had heard him. “But the nicknames are tongue-in-cheek, I promise.”

“Come on,” Wallace said, motioning for me to follow him. “Martha here said we could use her office.”

“Thanks, Martha,” I said, nodding to the old woman as I passed her. She still looked like she wanted to wilt into one of the bookshelves.

“I’ll stay here with her, watch over what’s going on here, if you don’t need me,” Tessa suggested, giving Martha a nervous look.

“That’s probably for the best, thanks,” I said, nodding to her in thanks as I followed Wallace and a couple of the officers out into the main library area.

It’s not that I didn’t want Tessa with me. I did. It was more that I was afraid that Martha wasn’t in the best place to run this museum on her own, and someone needed to do it. No doubt the visitors were all downstairs terrified at what was going on and thinking they might be shot any minute now. Someone was going to need to reassure them, and by extension the whole town, that everything was okay. By the look of her, Martha was in no state to do that.

Out in the submarine area, everyone had been evacuated. There wasn’t a soul in sight, except for myself, Wallace, and the officers. I wasn’t sure if the tourists were still in the building or not, but I hoped that that poor intern Pierce wasn’t too overwhelmed by all this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he quit after this. It was probably more than he signed up for, just for a bit of college credit.

We made our way back to Martha’s office, and Sergeant Wallace settled in behind her desk while the officers and I sat in the chair across from it. No one bothered to turn on the lights, which Martha had liked to keep off so her stalkers wouldn’t know she was there.

“So,” Wallace said, settling his hands on his stomach, which poked out over his belt in his uniform. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here, Agent Marston? And Officers Bauer and Collins, of course.”

I nodded hello to the other officers and then launched into the story of what had brought me to Newport News and the nautical museum.

I gave him the short version, which turned out not to be all that short after all, but the alternative was practically reading him a novel. I left out anything sensitive about MBLIS and our cases, especially the Hollands, but I gave him enough to know that it was important that I wrapped things up here as quickly as possible and got myself back to Miami to help my colleagues.

“Yeah, I got the sense that there was something going on there,” the man huffed when I got to that part. “They sounded busy.”

“You could say that,” I said, running an anxious hand through my hair again. I was itching to get back in touch with Diane or Holm and see if they’d figured anything out about their own run-in with some goon, no doubt one of the Hollands’ in their case.

“Look, though, you’re not gonna run out on us while some nutbag is running loose in our town, are you?” Wallace asked, giving me a stern look.

“No, of course not,” I assured him, leaning forward for emphasis. “I’ve been cleared to see this thing through, no matter how long it takes. Though the quicker, the better, you’ll understand. There are always more cases to juggle.”

“Of course,” Wallace said, nodding to me.

“So you’re a sergeant?” I asked, wondering where the chief of police was and why he wasn’t here dealing with this personally.

Both of the officers snickered, and Wallace rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I know, I’m not technically the big guy,” he said, clearly following my meaning. “But Chief Resnick’s old and getting real close to retirement. He doesn’t have much time for the field anymore. And I’ll be taking over when he’s finally gone. You know how it is. Sometimes you really have to tear the uniform off of ‘em.”

“Yeah,” I said, chuckling under my breath. “I know how it is.”

I certainly hoped that no one would be saying that about