Facing the Storm (Brice Bannon Seacoast Adventure Book 1) Read online

  “Ready?” he asked, looking back at the bar to where Tarakesh “Blades” Sardana stood lining up glasses along the lower shelf. His bartender, Tara wore a clingy V-neck cashmere sweater, black leather pants, boots, and her raven black hair in a ponytail. The cream-colored top accentuated her dark, Middle Eastern skin.

  She gave him a contentious look, one of her more frequent expressions when it came to dealing with her boss. “You ask that every morning, like you expect it to be the Mall on Black Friday in here.”

  “One day, Blades,” Bannon said with a smile. “One day.”

  “It’s a Thursday morning in March. We’re in an ocean-front bar in New Hampshire. The only one clamoring to get through that door is Captain Floyd. And you should cut him off. He’s a lush.”

  “But a lovable one.”

  Bannon unlocked the door and as Tara predicted, an ancient, stooped figure with white stubble over his leathery face shambled in. His blue pants, too big for him, were pulled up around his bloated stomach and cinched with a leather belt that looked to be a century old. Like him. His unruly, wispy, white hair curled out from under his dime store, white captain’s hat. He tapped at his wrist, where once a watch had been worn.

  Bannon had learned it was stolen one night when a couple of thugs had mugged the old guy.

  “You’re three minutes late, sonny. You keep that up and I’ll have to take my business down to the Purple Urchin.”

  “See,” Bannon said over the little man’s head as he shuffled to the bar. “Lovable.”

  Like a small child getting to sit at the grownup table, Floyd climbed up on a bar stool. “Hiya, beautiful.”

  “Bite me.” Tara poured him a shot of bourbon and drew him a draught beer. His usual.

  “Ah, sass, I like it.” He grinned.

  “Try reverse psychology, Blades. Maybe if you’re nice to him,” Bannon said joining her behind the bar, a bundle of mail in his hands, “he’ll go away.”

  “No, siree,” Floyd said. “I’ll always love Tara, whether she’s sweet or sour.” He tossed down his shot and grimaced.

  “See, loveable,” Bannon said, playfully bumping his shoulder against her.

  She looked at him and said, “Bite me.”

  He laughed, taking no offense.

  The two of them had been together for years. They’d been through two lifetimes of heartache and pain, danger and suffering. As a result they were as close as brother and sister, with a bond of trust and love twice as strong.

  Bannon leaned against the bar’s back shelf, sifting through the mail: bill, bill, junk mail, bill. He slid them in next to the register. Nothing that couldn’t wait.

  “Coffee?” Tara asked, holding up the pot she’d just brewed. It smelled strong and delicious.

  “Sure.”

  Bannon’s cell phone rang. The opening theme of Hawaii Five-O.

  He answered, “Bannon.”

  The voice on the other end asked, “This Brice Bannon?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know a guy named Richard Sadler?”

  Bannon stood up straight, now fully alert. “Who’s asking and why?”

  Tara gave him a concerned look. He shook his head. It’s nothing.

  “My name is Tennant. I’m a detective with Nashua PD.”

  “What’s going on, Detective? Is Richie in some sort of trouble?”

  Tara returned the coffee pot to the machine without pouring any, her full attention on Bannon.

  “I’m gonna need you to come down here,” Tennant said.

  Bannon grabbed his brown leather bomber coat and headed for the door. “Where’s here?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  HERE TURNED OUT to be the Shepard Homeless Shelter & Rescue Center. A city-run social service housed in a postmodern brick, glass, and stucco building on Water Street in the City of Nashua. The building backed onto the Nashua River where the waterway cut through the quaint downtown shopping area and flowed under Main Street.

  Bannon found the roadway to the building blocked by a police car parked sideways. The unmanned vehicle’s emergency lights were flashing.

  He hooked his black F-350 into a tight U-turn in the middle of the street and parked at a meter across the way in front of a small mom-and-pop frame shop. Wearing his heavy, quilt-lined brown leather bomber coat, he adjusted it to make sure the .40 caliber Sig P229 holstered at the small of his back remained properly concealed.

  Bannon crossed the street and walked around the unoccupied patrol car.

  More police cars were parked around the shelter’s entrance, along with an unmarked Crown Vic, an ambulance, and a black SUV. On the door panel of the SUV was the county coroner’s emblem.

  A group of people stood herded off to one side. Most of them men, a few were women. All of them had the disheveled and haunted appearance of the homeless. A couple of the men wore ratty gray blankets draped over their shoulders like shawls. They were being interviewed by two uniformed police officers.

  Water Street sloped and curved to the left. Bannon put his hands in the pocket of his jacket and navigated the decline, careful to avoid the runoff from the plowed snow piles that had re-frozen overnight and remained icy in the twenty degree daytime temperatures. The pavement was stained white with road salt. Gritty brown sand crunched under his shoes. His breath fogged the cold air.

  He circled the cluster of emergency vehicles but was stopped at the entrance of the shelter by a wide cop who didn’t wear a coat. The cop’s cotton uniform shirt stretched at the seams to contain his bulging, bodybuilding muscles. He had a bullet-shaped head, only a scrim of dark hair, and wore dark Ray Ban sunglasses.

  Must be the steroids keeping him warm.

  The cop put his hand out. “This is a crime scene, buddy. You can’t go in there.”

  “I was told to come down here.”

  “Yeah, by who?”

  “Detective Tennant.”

  “Tennant’s inside.”

  “Good. That’s where I need to be then.” Bannon moved to walk around the cop but got stopped again.

  “You can’t go inside,” the cop repeated.

  “But that’s where Tennant is. He asked to see me. Inside.”

  “Not inside.”

  “Yes inside.” Bannon felt like he was in a bad Abbott and Costello routine. Who’s on third?

  As Bannon was about to ask the cop to call Tennant, a wiry man in his mid-thirties wearing a red North Face parka pushed through the metal-framed door, leaving the shelter. He had sandy brown hair already thinning on top. Under his open parka, he wore a navy tweed sport coat over a powder blue dress shirt and dark slacks. His tie matched the sport coat, but looked worn. Like the man. He had a gold police shield pinned to a pocket on his coat.

  “There a problem, Ray?” he asked the muscle-bound cop.

  “This guy wants to go inside,” Ray the cop said.

  “Well, he can’t go inside.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sakes!” Bannon threw his hands up in the air. “You won’t let me in, fine. Tell Tennant I was here. He wants to talk to me he can call me again.”

  “Hold it,” the parka-wearing cop said. “Who are you?”

  “Brice Bannon. Detective Tennant called me—”

  “I’m Tennant. I’ve got this, Ray.” To Bannon, he said, “Walk with me.”

  Together, they walked up the incline and made their way toward Main Street, the main thoroughfare through the business district of Nashua. Bannon had always liked this section of Nashua. Several blocks of small businesses lined both sides of the tree-lined street, housed in brick and show window facades. A fitness studio here, a cell phone store there. Restaurants. They strolled past a tax preparation office, a pharmacy, a small eatery with space for two tables for sidewalk dining in warm weather. The area was snow covered now, left over from last week’s twelve-inch Nor’easter.

  It had that quintessential New England town feel.

  Tennant pulled a cigar from his coat pocket, lit up, and took a h
ealthy puff. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news, Mr. Bannon. Your friend Richard Sadler. He’s dead.”

  Bannon had guessed as much when he saw the coroner’s vehicle, but hearing the words, it still registered like a gut punch. “What can you tell me?”

  “First, my condolences for your loss.” Tennant took a few more puffs from his cigar. “The smoke it helps. Being around…death. There’s a smell to it, gets in your nose. Near impossible to get it out.”

  For Bannon it was the eyes. The lifeless stare of the dead. Always gave him a chill. Impossible to chase away, or forget. “What happened to Richie?”

  “It looks like—the coroner’s still conducting his initial examination—but it appears your friend killed himself.”

  Bannon took a moment to absorb the news. Damn.

  They continued to walk.

  When he spoke, Bannon asked, “How’d you get my number?”

  “Sadler’s cell phone. Had you listed as an emergency contact.” Tennant squared him with a look. “How well did you know him, Mr. Bannon?”

  “Well enough. Richie’s an Army vet. We were in the Gulf together. Five years ago.”

  “You were Army?” Tennant asked.

  “No. Coast Guard.”

  “In the Gulf?” Tennant asked, surprised.

  His reaction wasn’t unusual.

  Most people weren’t aware that the Coast Guard had a presence in the region, going back to ’03 when assets were deployed to Bahrain as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was the first overseas combat deployment for the U.S. Coast Guard since Vietnam.

  Bannon explained this to Tennant.

  “Last I heard, Patrol Forces Southwest Asia consisted of six one-hundred-ten foot cutters, shore side support personnel, a Redeployment Assistance and Inspection Detachment, called RAID, Advanced Interdiction Teams, and a Middle East Training Group, among others. I was there in oh-eleven and twelve.”

  “I had no idea,” Tennant said. “So, you and Sadler. You get to be best buds or something?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I met him when my team was assigned to provide convoy escorts for the 112th Transportation Battalion, Sadler’s unit, during the drawdown from Iraq.”

  “Army escort duty? Like through the desert? Is that normal for the Coast Guard?”

  “They had a Coast Guard RAID team assigned to them.”

  “A redeployment assistance whatever you said it stands for, what’s that all about?”

  “Primarily,” Bannon explained, “their mission is an inspection function, ensuring transportation containers meet government, legal, military, and regional standards, protocols, and requirements. Expediting the movement of shipping containers significantly lowers the cost of transporting goods, equipment, and supplies into and out of the region.”

  “I see,” Tennant said. “You were part of this RAID team?”

  “No, I ran a Maritime Security Response Team.” Bannon didn’t elaborate on what a MSRT was or did. “Richie and I connected because we were both from New Hampshire.”

  “I see.” They walked on and Tennant smoked. “So an ex-Army guy. He’s gotta have unit buddies and a battalion full of fellow soldiers and whatnot he could rely on,” he puffed out a thick ring of blue, cigar smoke, “but he’s got you, a Coastie he barely knows, as his emergency contact?”

  “Knew well enough, I said. You have a point to make, Detective?”

  “No. Just an observation.”

  “Did you serve, Detective?”

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  Bannon nodded as if that explained a lot.

  “Working with the 112th, we saw some action. That brings people together, Detective. In the sandbox, that’s what we called being in the Gulf, Richie and I talked a lot about home. None of his unit buddies were from here. When Richie got back, he looked me up. We got together a few times, talked. Kept in contact. He had a tough time adjusting. I tried to help him.”

  Tennant nodded. “Comrades in arms. I get that. Cops. Same thing.”

  “I guess,” Bannon said. “How’d Richie do it?”

  “You mean, kill himself? Sure you want to know?”

  Bannon gave the detective an I-can-take-it look.

  Tennant changed the subject. “We need to notify the next of kin. I want to do it before word gets out on the news or social media.”

  “That’ll be easy. There isn’t any. Richie was an only child. Both his parents are dead. I don’t know about any aunts or uncles. There was a girlfriend, a fiancée. Cindy something.”

  “Ex-fiancée, Cindy McKinnon,” Tennant said. “Lives here in Nashua. She was listed on his phone, too. I already contacted her. When was the last time you spoke to Sadler?”

  “A few months ago. He was pretty low at the time.”

  “Are you saying you’re not surprised he might have committed suicide?”

  “Might have?” Bannon asked. “Is there a question?”

  Tennant smiled sadly. “A figure of speech. Let’s turn around. I’ve gotta get back.”

  They turned, paused to let two elderly women exiting the pharmacy with prescription bags go past them to a car parked at the curb. Bundled up in long black coats and hats and leather gloves, they shuffled across the sidewalk, stooped and complaining bitterly about the cold.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Bannon said, pressing. “How’d Richie kill himself?”

  “He shot himself. In the head. Used a Colt .45 automatic. One of the old 1911 models. It even had U.S. Army stamped right there on the slide.” Tennant shook his head. “Any idea how he’d get his hands on a weapon like that? A friend in the service?” He glanced at Bannon. “A comrade in arms, maybe?”

  “No idea, Detective. Certainly not from me, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Not implying anything. Just an—”

  “Observation,” Bannon said. “I want to see him.”

  “No.”

  “Isn’t that why I’m here, to ID the body?”

  “No. The shelter supervisor’s done that. Being in the service, Sadler’s fingerprints, DNA, and dental records will be on record. That’ll confirm it.”

  “I’d like to see him.”

  “Not going to happen.” Tennant puffed his cigar. “Civilians don’t go traipsing willy-nilly through crime scenes. This isn’t TV, Mr. Bannon.”

  Bannon stopped walking. “Crime scene? So you are questioning whether it’s a suicide.”

  “It’s just a term, Mr. Bannon. Don’t read anything into it that’s not there.”

  With his cigar scissored between his fingers, Tennant waved his hand. “Just easier to say crime scene than the place you can’t go where the guy killed himself and we’re doing our jobs without you contaminating the area.”

  “Fair enough,” Bannon said. “But we could’ve done all this over the phone. Why did you really call me down here?”

  Tennant smiled. “You’re sharp, give you that. We did find something else. A business card. Yours. It says you’re a private investigator.”

  “I own a bar, Detective. Place called the Keel Haul in Hampton Beach. Nice place. You should stop by sometime.”

  “Not what this says.” Tennant held out the business card.

  “I am a licensed investigator, it’s true. But it’s a side thing. More a hobby than anything.”

  “Explain that,” Tennant said.

  “Sometimes people come to me for help. Friends, mostly. If I can, I poke around for them. Having the license helps with that.”

  “Why’d you give the card to Sadler?”

  “It’s got my contact information on it. So he could contact me if he ever needed me.”

  “No other reason?”

  “What other reason would there be?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I’m asking you.”

  Bannon gave Tennant his own advice back. “Don’t read anything into it that’s not there, Detective. It’s just a business card.”

  Tennant stopped him and held Bannon wit
h a long, hard look. “Fair enough. Still, I’ve got to put this out there.”

  “What?”

  “License or no, don’t start poking around and don’t become a pain in my ass. You hear me?”

  “I don’t know, Detective.” Bannon returned Tennant’s stare with equal intensity. “Is there a reason I need to start poking around?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DETECTIVE TENNANT ASSURED Bannon there was nothing to look into. It was just a simple, albeit tragic, suicide. Nothing more. In return, Bannon assured him, if that was the case, then the detective had nothing to worry about from Bannon.

  When they reached the police car blocking the access roadway to the Shepard Homeless Shelter & Rescue Center the two men shook hands.

  Bannon watched Tennant head down the incline to the shelter below while he remained at his truck, leaning against the door. He crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn’t shake Tennant’s use of the term “crime scene,” in spite of the detective’s assurances to not read anything into it.

  His thoughts turned to Richie. Inside. Dead. A bullet to the head. A nasty way to die.

  When the chilly air seeped into his bones, he shivered. Or did that have more to do with why he was there?

  Tennant feared Bannon poking around. But why?

  If it truly was a straight-forward suicide as Tennant insisted, why worry about what Bannon thought or did? So what he was a private investigator? That was the sort of thing that set alarm bells off in Bannon’s head. It told him something wasn’t right. Now he’d not be able to let it go until he figured out what.

  Damn it.

  Bannon climbed into his truck, started it up, and turned the heater on high.

  Using his phone, he connected to the Internet.

  It didn’t take long for him to track down Cindy McKinnon’s address. As Tennant mentioned, she lived in Nashua, not far from where he sat, the heat blasting through the truck’s vents, slowly warming the cab. He debated whether to call first and run the risk of her refusing to see him or take the chance she was home and just show up on her doorstep in person.