The Children's Corner

Chapter 13

Bambi ushers Lily into the play area to await inbound classmates before answering Rick's inquiry. "You know, your timing couldn't be better. My cousin Julia is graduating this May in early childhood ed. She's been looking for upcoming jobs at pre-schools, but she's great with babies. And so far, she hasn't found anything that would pay enough for her to afford even a closet in the city. She wants to be on her own – but not too far from her family. So, a live-in position would be perfect for her. She gave me some of her cards. I have them in my purse at my desk. If you can wait until all my students get here, I'll get you one."

Rick grins. "For that, I'll be glad to wait."

After handing a well-fed Jake to Rick, Kate lifts Reese out of his crib and settles back into her rocking chair. "From what Bambi told you, Julia sounds great. And she should be good with Lily too."

"So when Reese is replete, you want to try calling her together? Or, hmm, she's probably in class. People interested in working with kids tend to be early birds. They can't help it. Julia's email is on her card. We could craft a cleverly worded message."

"Word crafting is more in your ballpark," Kate points out. "And you could go ahead now. When Reese is finished, I want to call the precinct. By this time, the boys should have something on the ship bringing in MacIver's order."

"And what's your next step if they do?" Rick wonders. "Are you planning to zoom your way into interviews with crew members?"

"I don't know. I can't see doing that if the boys have to question a bunch of sailors down at the docks. But after I talk to them, I'll see what I can figure out."

"All right. In the meantime, I will do my best to compose a compelling lure for our potential baby whisperer. And I'll set an alarm for a response."

"Not too loud," Kate cautions. "When you used the one with that screaming comedian, Jake wailed for an hour."

Rick winces. "I remember. But I can use the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. He loves that. Maybe he'll grow up to play the celesta."

Kate gazes at a freshly burped Jake as Rick lays him down. Both of the baby's hands are curled into fists. "I can't picture fairy song flowing from those fingers. But in this family, anything is possible."

"We got lucky, Beckett," Ryan explains. "The ship that was bringing in MacIver's clothes is huge, but that's mainly to hold the containers. The crew's only 20 people. A few of them signed aboard another vessel that's already long gone. But about 15 of them are waiting for a return trip. They're at The Anchor, one of those hotels that cater to merchant marines. Javi and I are on the way there now."

"Can you keep me updated?" Kate asks.

"You'll just keep calling us if we don't," Esposito interjects.

"I'll give you a report later, Beckett," Ryan promises.

"The Anchor," Rick repeats as he hands Kate a tall tumbler of juice and pours himself a second mug of coffee. "I was there once gathering background for 'Storming the Vessel.'"

"I don't remember that one," Kate admits.

"That's because I decided not to write it. It was supposed to be about Storm hunting down a secret new alloy hidden on a cargo ship. But when I talked to a few sailors and did more research, I discovered that there would be so many containers on the ship that Storm would get caught before he could ever find the right one. So I decided to stick to smaller craft like yachts for his seafaring adventures."

"Then it would be easy to keep something hidden on a cargo vessel," Kate mulls.

"While it's in transit, yes. The trick would be recovering the smuggled goods once the cargo was offloaded. If MacIver's shipments were used to conceal drugs, someone would have to retrieve them soon after the container reached terra firma."

Emerald flashes light Kate's eyes. "Which could have caused the delay Dagmar Lindell told me upset MacIver so much. So, what happened on the ship wouldn't matter as much as what happened between the dock and when the clothes reached MacIver's clients."

"Or more likely between the dock and wherever MacIver's people went through the garments and designated them for various customers. That would leave a relatively narrow window for a drug distributor to retrieve the merchandise."

"And a limited route to do it," Kate adds. "Let's…."

The tinkling of a celesta emanates from Rick's computer. "That's got to be Julia!" Striding quickly to his office, he brings up the email. "She says she remembers us from Bambi and Espo's wedding. We are rather memorable."

Kate rolls her eyes. "And modest."

"But to continue, she says she's willing to come for an interview early this evening, around seven. Hmm. Lily won't be in bed yet, and the twins will probably be awake too. So we can see if everyone hits it off. What do you think?"

"That should work out all right. And if drugs were hidden with MacIver's shipment, it will give us most of the day to figure out where and how they were removed."

"Or you could pass our mental meanderings on to Ryan and Esposito and let them figure it out," Rick proposes.

He and Kate lock gazes with a simultaneous, "Nah!"

"According to what I've found on MacIver's assets, he owns a warehouse in the garment district, just south of West 40th Street," Kate notes. "His staff distributes his orders from there. If someone was going to grab the drugs before MacIver's people found them, it would have to happen at a location between the docks and the warehouse. That's not a long drive. So where would a truck hauling clothes stop that would delay the receipt of a shipment for a day or more?"

"Maybe someone stopped it," Rick proposes. "Picture this, Kate. The bad guys know the drugs are on that truck. So they have to get to them before they're unloaded at MacIver's warehouse. They could try staging an accident, but the cops might show up fast enough to ruin their gambit. And they'd also run the risk that the drugs could be damaged. So they need the truck to break down and end up someplace where they have access to the cargo. They sabotage the vehicle just enough to have it seize up near a repair facility they control. I had Storm do something like that once."

"That, I remember."

"The drug sellers retrieve their stash while a mechanic waits for parts. No one would be the wiser except for the delay, which makes MacIver furious enough to want to investigate. But, unfortunately, he asks the wrong person too many questions – and ends up dead. But what I can't figure out is why someone would waste the drugs to poison him before shooting him."

"Because no one trusts a junkie," Kate replies. "In court, lawyers try to discredit witnesses all the time by establishing drug use, even if they were sober when it mattered. The killer tried to make sure that if MacIver said something to anyone before he shot him, it would be dismissed. But since Dagmar told me that MacIver never went near drugs, doping him up was a bad move. It might even be the one that nails his murderer."