CHAPTER 2


   The garage was pretty messy and Jake could see how Norman Scoggins was getting away with what he told his wife, Darcy. How long his excuse, of cleaning this place, would last was anyone’s guess. Jake’s stab at a time frame was maybe a week, two at the most. Norman, on the other hand, seemed more optimistic. He kicked over a pile of stuff as he walked by it and the noise could easily be heard upstairs. That was evidenced by Darcy yelling loud enough to be heard, “you better not break nothing down there Norm! I got my grandmother’s good china down there somewhere!”
“See what I mean,” Norm said with an uncharacteristic smile. When it was obvious that Jake did not, Norm quickly explained, “she gave that to our daughter, eight years ago. She hasn’t been down here since.”
Jake knocked the dust off an old, half broken, office chair that he promptly sat in before telling Norm, “from the looks of things, neither have you.”
After tossing Jake a beer from his little refrigerator, and then taking one himself, Norm wandered over to what was probably the only tarp down here that did not have a coat of dust on it. He pulled it down and revealed the board underneath. Jake began to study all of the little circles and lines on the board. It formed a map of sorts, the kind of which you used to link things together. Jake had to admit it, he was impressed.
Jake asked Norm, “that’s everything we been working on?”
“Sure is,” Norm told him. “The stuff we’ve collected is adding up. Bout time we organized it so we could get a good look at the whole picture.”
“We’d have done all this with computers back home,” Jake noted rhetorically.
Norm did not take it that way and he told the guy from Earth, “yeah, well, Darcy is the only person with a computer in this house. The whole point of putting this down here is to keep her out of it.”
Jake suspected that the real reason had less to do with Darcy and more to do with Norm’s inability to use anything that required electricity and buttons. Jake tested the theory by noting, “you know, we do have computers at the station, last time I checked.”
That drew a facetious laugh from Norm who then pointed out, “yeah and the reason why I’m doing this here and not out there is to keep some other people out of our business.”
Jake took a stab at that, “Kent?”
Norm surprised him by saying, “every goddamn body, Jake.”
That kind of surprised Jake and, at the same time, it made sense as well. Jake did not want to admit it though. It was also contrary to his overall plan. He offered up to Norm, “they’re good kids for the most part. Near as I can tell, Norm, that’s about the only thing we got going for us.”
Norm nodded and said, “I agree, to a point, which is exactly why I don’t want them knowing all this just yet. Jake, case you ain’t figured it out,” he pointed to the board and said, “that right there is enough to get you killed. What we got right here is a picture of some pretty hinky shit going on. Stuff that nobody else even knows they even need to put together.”
“What?” Jake was still trying to defend his basic plan, the very plan that Norm was not so keen on. “You think one of our kids is spying on us or something?”
Norm just shook his head and sighed before replying, “Jake, you still thinking like a pro. These kids ain’t. I’m not worried about them…”
Darcy’s voice carried down the stairs and interrupted Norm, “what are you doing down there Norman Scoggins?”
Quickly, Norm looked around and found what he needed. He kicked over another pile of junk and then yelled back up, “what was that honey?”
“Nothing,” his wife quipped and then Norm waited till he heard her footfalls settle in the bedroom. He breathed another sigh and this one was of relief. Then he looked back to Jake, “sum it up for you, them kids wouldn’t know how to keep their mouths shut if somebody was trying to take a piss….”
Jake held up his hands, “I get the reference.” He then pointed to the board and specifically at something he had noted while Norm was busy with his wife. Jake asked, “and what about Barbara? I see you got her on the board with some question marks. You don’t trust her or something?”
Norm crossed his arms and then just truthfully let the bad news out, “more like she don’t trust you Jake.”
“She just don’t like me,” Jake protested.
Norm just shrugged, “that too.”
“Ok, whatever,” Jake said in frustration. Then he thought back to his conversation with Jessica and wondered if he could take that word back. Finally Jake just grunted out, “why is Barbara on the board?”
“Cause she knows something she ain’t telling,” Norm replied.
Jake was even more frustrated now, “like what?” Norm just nodded too the board and the lines leading too and away from Barbara. Jake then read everything around her and after that he said, “Shannon was just in the wrong place and time.”
Norm was not even going to argue that point. He simply said, “and whoever tried to cut Barbara in half had nothing to do with Shannon. The kid is just an inconvenience that they don’t seem to be too worried about. In fact, I’m surprised a crew like that would care about a witness, period.”
Jake snapped, “we know who tried to kill Barbara. That was her ex-boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” Norm replied, “but what I saw of that mad house kind of made me think somebody told him to do it. Don’t you?” Jake did not answer. He simply stared at the board so Norm went on, “that somebody has enough pull to scare a guy like that? Jake, that crazy mother fucker had money behind him.”
Jake then thumped the board and said the name under his finger tip, “Conner O’Rouke? You think all this has something to do with mob ties? That is the guy that runs the Canadian Mafia, right? They got money.”
“No way,” Norm replied shaking his head. “O’Rouke had been trying to get into Barbara’s pants ever since she married his brother. Besides all that, I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”
Jake didn’t get it, “then why is he on the board, Norm?”
That did not draw a verbal response. Norm reached down to a cluttered table and found a file. He tossed it over to Jake. At first, Jake had half expected it to be a police report but, as he examined it he saw that this actually came from the fire department. Jake rhetorically mentioned, “don’t tell me, Tony right?”
As Jake read on, Norm scratched at his eye with his center finger and quietly replied, “you know I do know one or two people over there my own self.”
Jake metaphorically exploded when he finished scanning the report, “why didn’t we hear about this? For that matter, why hasn’t anybody done anything about it?”
“You in the Arch, Jake,” was Norm’s answer to that question. “As for the rest, does all that sound familiar to you?”
“Yeah,” Jake sounded very serious, “just like the explosion that killed Roy Kingsley, you know, the day I got here. Did the city police even investigate this?”
Norm just shrugged, “why would they? Just like Roy, there wasn’t any body and, on this one, not even a car to figure out who the guy was. Assuming there was a guy. That building had repair work going on and the fire department ruled it a work place accident.”
Jake pointed at the file and asked, “you think this was… you know?”
“O’Rouke?” Norm nodded, “make’s sense. You want to move anything in the Arch, from island to island, you had to deal with one of two people.”
Jake sounded very disgruntled, “Roy or Conner, right?” Norm simply nodded and that set Jake off. He got up and slapped the file down before pacing around in the limited space that the junk allowed. Jake rubbed at his chin and then he asked, “and what does all this have to do with Barbara?”
Again, Norm just shrugged, “I don’t really know. I just know she’s got a connection to Conner, somebody tried to kill her, and he’s probably dead.”
Jake stopped pacing and studied the board. He really had a hard time believing that Barbara had something to do with all of this. The only thing he could think of was that she was somehow a player, and was successfully hiding things from him. Past that, if Barbara was just, well, Barbara then Jake could not conceive of a single reason why anyone would want her dead, for professional reasons anyway. If there was any threat coming from the Rangers it was because of him and not her. Nobody had even gone out of their way to try and kill him. In fact, it almost looked to Jake like somebody was doing their best not too.
That brought about a sneer on Jake’s face. He grunted and then headed for the stairs. Norm just watched him and when it was clear that Jake was on his way out the door, Norm asked him seriously, “Jake, I know Barbara is keeping secrets. Is their something you haven’t bothered to tell me?”
Jake kept right on walking, “seeya later Norm.”