Blown Circuit (38 page)

Chapter 2

A
CROSS
THE
COUNTRY
, and a world away, Private Investigator Sterling Strange sat quietly behind his thick oak door, staring at his iPad. Outside the double-hung window, the traffic of lower Manhattan crawled beneath his tiny Chinatown office. Sterling wore a white t-shirt and jeans. Casual day at the office. Of course every day was casual day when you were the boss. Sterling was in his mid-thirties and in decent shape. He was six feet two inches tall and about a hundred and eighty-five pounds. His eyes, the last time he checked, were blue, and his dark hair, which he still proudly possessed, showed only a hint of grey. Sterling considered himself young enough to still care about what the world threw at him, but old enough not to get too worked up about it. He used to get worked up about it, really worked up, but that was a lifetime ago, back in law school, back when a single, simple event had altered the course of his life. Now that it was behind him, investigations, specifically investigations on the unusual end of the spectrum, were his business. And today he’d landed a case that more than fit the bill.

The client had stepped out of his office more than two hours ago, but Sterling still reviewed the details of the case. On his brightly lit iPad screen sat an image of an abandoned fishing boat washed up on shore with two State Troopers investigating. Sterling flipped the image to another shot of a similarly abandoned vessel. He paused on the photo, taking a moment to reflect. It was the old debate he had with himself before every case. He knew he’d make better money if he took on more of the standard P.I. fare: cheating wives and insurance scams and the like. Those cases generally paid more, but the truth was they just weren’t as interesting to him. Besides, if he were to do that he might as well get out of the P.I. game entirely. Put his law degree to work at a Midtown firm. His very proper mother had been hounding him for years to do just that. No, Sterling thought. He’d keep investigating the cases he did, the weird ones that nobody else wanted, until such a time came that doing so just didn’t make sense anymore. Or he got abducted by little green men. Until then, he’d plod along. One case at a time.

There was a half-knock at the door and his partner, Nicky Lang, entered. Nicky was a little younger than him and a lot better looking. Or so he felt. She possessed the slight features and straight dark hair of her Chinese mother combined with the cool rationality of her German father. She was breathing heavily as if she had just jogged up all six flights of steps. Probably had, Sterling thought. Nicky wasn’t the kind of woman that liked to back down from a challenge. Even something as simple as a set of stairs. She was, he thought, a little more idealistic than him, but a lot more practical. Sterling reasoned that her years working as an attending physician at a psychiatric hospital had probably toughened her up to the point that nothing could shock her. What he still didn’t know was why she had thrown it all away to work with him.
 

Sure they had been involved in a case two years back revolving around the tragic murder of her best friend. And sure, the circumstances had been unusual and the case had been traumatic, but to leave her job permanently behind like she had, Sterling just wasn’t sure it was the best career move on her part. When he had offered her the job, Sterling had done so as a means for Nicky to work through the death of her friend. But now, more than two years later, he was convinced that it was in Nicky's best interest to move on. To take up psychiatry again full time, or to at least start seeing a few patients on the side. The irony, he thought, was that he didn’t say as much because he needed her. He had come to rely on Nicky's keen analysis and calm investigative skills. So, for better or worse, Sterling found himself with a partner whom he believed deserved to move on to other things, yet whom he kept close beside him because he relied on her. Sterling put down his tablet and focused on the here and now. They had a case.

 
“I got here as soon as I could,” Nicky said. “What’s so important?”

“New client,” Sterling said. “Missing persons case. More like missing people. Fishermen. Seventeen missing in the last eleven months. Their boats wash up, but they're not there. The local sheriff hasn't tracked down a single lead.”
 

“OK. Slow down,” Nicky said. “If memory serves, fishing is listed among the ten or so most hazardous occupations. Though unfortunate, it isn't uncommon for a fisherman to be lost at sea.”

Sterling smiled. “Look at this guy. Tell me he doesn't look just a hair uncommon.” Sterling held up the iPad displaying a photo of a wild-haired, demented looking man in coke-bottle glasses, staring intently at a goldfish. “Walter Kronski, age fifty-seven. It was his wife I talked to. They’ve been separated for years, but he always checks in with her, makes sure she’s doing OK. For three months now no word, nada.”

“OK, maybe he’s found someone new. A new love affair. Occupation. Hobby. Something.”

“Nicky,” Sterling said. “Think about it. Does the name ring a bell?”
 

“It’s vaguely familiar.”

“Think three cases back. Marine biology.”

“OK, I’m thinking. Is this the guy who published some kind of report on inter-special communication—telepathic communication between humans and marine life? I think his findings were largely unsubstantiated.”
 

“There’s an understatement. They laughed him out of the academic community.” Sterling got out of his chair. “In 1989, Kronski, a marine biologist by training, a geneticist by trade, published a study documenting telepathic communication amongst animals, specifically sea life. He argued that the evolution of alternate forms of communication was necessary in the marine environment. Three years ago he produced a companion study, this one extending his theory to the rest of the animal kingdom.”

Sterling handed Nicky a thin book, entitled, What Your Pet Won't Tell You. Nicky glanced at it.
 

“Even if his theories had merit, they would have been impossible to prove,” Nicky said.

“Kronski may have recognized that. After his critical panning, he packed up and left. Moved to Alaska. But not just anywhere in Alaska. He moved here.” Sterling pointed to a map on his desk covered in red dots. “Fair Harbor, Alaska. Home of the Fair Harbor Triangle.”
 

Sterling drew three quick lines around the dots with a pen. A rough triangle emerged on the map. “Fishermen have been going missing in these waters for nearly fifty years. Now Kronski can't be found.”

“Regardless of Kronski's or the fishermen's whereabouts, you have no evidence that this is anything more than a standard missing persons case. We usually don’t do those. You sure you want to take the job?”

“O ye of little faith.”

Sterling clicked open an email. The attachment showed a photo of Kronski's hand, his two middle fingers missing. “This is why I want to take the job. There’s something unusual going on here. I did some digging after I finished with the ex-wife. Talked to family. Kronski’s sister sent me this photo along with a voicemail he left her.”

Sterling hit play on the iPad. Kronski's paranoid voice filtered through the static. “They told me I had to change. I don't want to change. Not like them.”
 

“This still sounds more like a case of self-mutilation than a missing persons conspiracy,” Nicky said, eyeing the traffic crawling through Chinatown below. “There are plenty of those right here in the city.”

“Maybe, but I don't think Kronski packed up and renounced his life's work as easily as everyone thinks. I think he moved to Fair Harbor for a reason.”

“Based on what? The delusional ranting of a self-exiled outcast?”
 

“There’s more. In the spring of 1968, a Fish and Wildlife team comprised of five men and a woman left for Fair Harbor to investigate, and I quote, ‘the close affinity between man and catch, demonstrated amongst the local fishermen’.”

Sterling displayed a photo showing a Fish and Wildlife team, posing in their distinctive canvas jackets. He closed the window. “Not one of them returned.”

“They could have been looking for a change of pace, or avoiding the draft,” Nicky said. “It was the late sixties. Again, anything could have happened to them.”

“Unfortunately the tune in, turn on, and drop out hypothesis doesn't hold much water. The team’s disappearance was the subject of a two month search by the FBI. They came up with nothing, Nicky, zip. Just like the fishermen, the Fish and Wildlife team disappeared without a trace.”

Nicky thought about it. She still wasn’t convinced. She knew that when Sterling first got a case, he got excited. Really excited. But he didn’t always think it through. She was starting to think that he purposely left that to her. “You know we need to collect our fee this time, Sterling. This office doesn’t run on air. We need money. We need to take jobs where we actually get paid.”

Sterling reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a check. “Kronski didn’t leave his ex destitute. This is a ten thousand dollar retainer. And she’s begging us, I mean really begging us, to take the case.”

Nicky glanced at the cashier’s check. It looked legitimate.

“What do you say, Ms. Lang? Up for a little late night angling in the land of the midnight sun?”

* * *

End of this sample.

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