Justified Malice

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3Miles stopped by the marina early Tuesday morning to see if he could uncover any leads from the boat wreckage. Yellow police tape surrounded the boat on three sides, connecting to the chain-link fence serving as the fourth side, thereby securing the perimeter of the crime scene. He also noticed his boat was the closest one to the marina’s refueling station. It was extremely fortunate the blast hadn’t ignited the fuel-storage tanks. The resulting explosion would likely have severely damaged the entire facility, including the several dozen boats stored there as well as the six adjacent public piers.

He slipped underneath the police tape and walked around the boat, looking for any evidence the police might have missed. Sticking out of a footprint frozen in the mud was a sliver of paper. The police had probably missed it because it was obscured by the water from the fire hose. Once the water in the footprint had frozen over, it exposed the piece of paper. Miles went back to the car and retrieved a bottle of water from the cup holder, and a pair of nitrile gloves to handle the evidence. Using a few drops of water and his pocketknife, he was able to free the piece of paper intact. The numbers 6-6-2-6 had been written there, which happened to be the last four digits of his boat’s license number. Obviously, Morton had used it to identify which boat he intended to blow up. It also pretty much negated the theory that Morton was simply an unlucky squatter.

Miles climbed into the boat to have a look around the interior. The area below deck was in shambles. None of the boat’s equipment currently rested in its original location, and bloodstains were splattered throughout. After a thirty-minute search for additional clues, he came up empty. Apparently the police had been quite thorough in their combing of the rest of the crime scene. If they’d found anything, he might need Jim’s help to get his hands on it.

Miles headed from the marina to his office, arriving at the office a little after nine o’clock.

“Good morning,” said Anne. “May I mark the Fremont case invoice as ‘final’?”

“Yep,” Miles replied as he stepped into his private office. His rather mild OCD tendencies were on full display, with all his office tools and files neatly tucked away in his desk drawers. His desktop was uncluttered except for the bare necessities which included his computer; office phone; a small, neatly stacked pile of papers; and a digital clock Ken had given him at their Hannukah/Christmas dinner in Chicago. He decided to check in with George, who was likely still traumatized by the boat bombing. George answered the call on the first ring.

“How are you doing, George?” he asked.

“Okay, but I’m beginning to rethink our friendship. Every time you and I get involved in something, it blows up in my face.” George laughed at his own attempt at a joke.

“It’s totally understandable,” Miles replied, sharing a laugh.

“Actually, it could have been far worse,” George added. “After we lifted the boat out of the water for the season, I had the maintenance guys drain and remove the gas tank so it could be repaired. It had started to rust through, and it was sorely in need of a fix. Normally the tank would be full of fuel and a stabilizer.”

“So, if the bombing had gone as it was likely planned, the gas tank would have also exploded and done far more damage.”

“No kidding. Given the boat’s proximity to the refueling station at the marina, the whole place and all the boats, buildings, and equipment could have gone up with it.” George confirmed Miles’s theory about the bomb’s potential for destroying the entire facility.

Miles’s mind immediately shifted to another motive for the bombing. “Who might have benefited from such a catastrophe?”

“The entire operation is owned by Bill Cisco. I know he operates it on a shoestring. It’s unlikely he has enough insurance to survive the financial impact on the property, let alone when the insurance companies for all the boat owners try to hang him with the liabilities. It’s pretty clear to me he wasn’t behind it.”

George’s analysis made sense.

“Any other ideas?” Miles asked.

“Developers. The property has a wonderful location at the harbor’s edge with plenty of land to build condos or apartments complete with piers for boat-access to the lake. Bill told me they have been after him big time, and he had told them he wasn’t interested in selling.”

“So, one possible way to force an underfinanced and reluctant owner to sell his property would be to destroy it,” Miles theorized.

“Yep. If they’d done it right, there likely wouldn’t have been enough evidence left to pin it on anyone.” George was tracking right along with Miles.

“Thanks, George. We now have a theory about what happened. If I’m right, the bombing might not have been directed at us, but rather at the location of our boat.”

“I sure hope that’s the case. Then there would be no one out to get us, and Bill Cisco would have dodged a bullet.” There was a definite note of relief in George’s voice as he chose to accept this latest hypothesis.

After hanging up, Miles decided rather than wait for Jim to find out what the police had uncovered, he would be proactive and share what he had with the police. After all, they not only had all the necessary resources to investigate, they could initiate charges if they found a crime had been committed. Let them put in all the legwork, he thought.

A quick call to a former colleague on the force, Detective Don Maxwell, did the trick.

“Maxwell,” Detective Maxwell answered using his officious police voice.

“Hey, Don. I have a piece of evidence for you in our boat bombing case,” Miles offered. He went on to describe what he had found at the scene of the bombing.

“Thanks, Miles. This gives us a viable new lead. Can I send an officer to your office to pick up the slip of paper?” he asked.

“Of course. It’s safely inside an evidence bag. I’ll leave it with my assistant, Anne, in case I’m not here. Please keep me up-to-date on how the investigation unfolds.” Miles knew he had just earned an informal attachment to the investigation.

“Will do,” Detective Maxwell promised in closing.

Miles mused about how, based on recent events, he had wrongly assumed the bombing was about someone out to do him harm. The fact that Jonathan Reese, the man who’d forced his victims to sacrifice transplantable body parts to pay their debts, was still at large continually fed that paranoia. Even though Miles and the FBI successfully brought Reese’s criminal loan-sharking enterprise down, his disappearance and penchant for eliminating those who opposed him, still fueled Miles’s nightmares.

It was just before 5:00 p.m. when Miles left for home. It was already pitch-dark as the winter-shortened afternoon had already turned to nighttime. Molly’s walk that evening was abbreviated considerably by an afternoon shift in the weather. Now lake-effect snow driven by a bitter cold breeze had left the sidewalk slippery and the landscape barely visible. Once finally inside the house for the night, he retreated to the basement to bring up the three boxes Bobbie had requested, leaving them by the back door so he’d remember to put them in his car.

Just as he reached the top of the stairs with the last box, his phone rang. It was Ken.

“Hi. I have some information for you on Todd Morton. As you mentioned, he’d been in and out of trouble for decades. According to his most current parole officer, he’d been working doing odd jobs in the Waukegan area. Most recently at the site of a newly completed apartment complex.”

“Well, that could explain how Morton got involved.” Miles immediately saw the construction work fit with his suspicions about who might be behind the bombing. He filled Ken in on what he had learned, and how the ever-growing number of pieces fit together.

“What time do you expect to be in Chicago on Friday?” Ken asked, shifting subjects.

“I have a lunch meeting in Madison on Friday. Bobbie has another potential client for me.”

“So you don’t have to rush, I’ll make a seven-thirty dinner reservation. Any preferences?” he asked.

“Not really. Surprise me.” Miles didn’t really care what they would be doing as long as they would be doing it together.

With that, they hung up and Miles turned his attention to a light dinner and an evening of Seinfeld reruns, which he knew would provide the perfect distraction from the dramas of the day.