Chapter 6 - The Ghost on Dock 4
The underground brewery tunnel reeked of stagnant storm runoff and centuries-old brick rot.
Every step we took kicked up a spray of black, freezing silt that soaked straight into my boots.
Behind us, muffled vibrations shook the ceiling as sirens from three fire engines wailed above the downtown streets.
Harold wheezed with every breath, his elderly hand clamped tight around my wrist to keep from collapsing into the muck.
“Hold up, Finnley,” Harold gasped, his boots sliding against the slick brick incline.
“Give an old man twenty seconds before my ticker gives out completely.”
I supported his weight against the damp masonry, shining the tactical flashlight down the dark tunnel corridor.
“We can’t stop here, Harold.”
“Miller knows the layout of the municipal sewers even if he missed the coal chute entrance.”
“He’ll have two squad cars covering the river drainage outlet within ten minutes.”
Harold coughed violently into a soot-stained handkerchief, his eyes bloodshot behind cracked reading spectacles.
“He won't check Dock 4.”
“The Old Marina was decommissioned six years ago after the chemical spill from the fertilizer plant.”
“Nobody docks there except rust-bucket trawlers waiting to be sold for scrap metal.”
We pushed forward through the remaining quarter-mile of tunnel until the stagnant smell of sewage gave way to the sharp, salty tang of the open bay.
A rusted iron intake grate blocked the end of the brick pipe, overlooking the black waters of the river channel.
I used the edge of the tire iron from my pack to lever the rotting padlock free from the hasp.
The chain snapped with a dull metallic clink.
We crawled out onto the rocky shoreline beneath the wooden pilings of the abandoned pier.
Fog hung thick over the water, blanketing the rotting timber pilings in cold white vapor.
Above us, the skeletal remains of warehouse cranes stood silhouetted against the amber glow of the burning town.
Dock 4 stretched two hundred feet out into the deepest channel of the bay.
Moored at the very end of the slip sat a beat-up, thirty-foot commercial crabbing boat named The Peregrine.
No lights showed on deck, but a thin ribbon of gray exhaust sputtered from the low diesel stack near the stern.
“Is that him?” I whispered, keeping low behind a pile of abandoned fishing nets.
“That was his father’s boat before Dennis Logistics bought its first container ship,” Harold replied, his voice trembling with emotion.
“Camden kept it registered under his brother’s dead corporation name.”
“It’s the only asset Reagan’s lawyers couldn't touch during the probate slaughter.”
We stepped onto the rotting planks of Dock 4, every step squeaking softly over the water.
A shadow stepped out from behind the wheelhouse of the boat.
The figure was tall but terribly thin, draped in an oversized oilskin jacket that swallowed his sunken shoulders.
A battered wool watch cap covered his gray hair, and in his right hand hung an old iron wrench.
The man raised a hand to block the beam of my flashlight.
“Turn that damn light toward the deck, Finnley,” a voice rasped from the shadows.
The voice was cracked and hollowed out by poison, but the cadence belonged to only one man on earth.
“Dad?”
The flashlight beam trembled as my hands shook violently.
Camden Dennis stepped into the faint amber glow of the harbor markers.
His cheeks were hollow, his skin had the yellowish, waxy hue of prolonged arsenic exposure, and deep purple circles framed his tired eyes.
He had aged fifteen years in the thirty-six months I had spent behind bars.
He dropped the heavy wrench onto the wooden deck with a loud thump.
“Come here, son,” he whispered.
I vaulted over the gunwale of the boat and crashed into his arms.
His chest felt fragile, like dry kindling beneath the heavy canvas jacket, but his grip around my shoulders was ferocious.
He wept silently against my neck, his tears warm against my cold, soot-covered skin.
“I let them take you,” Camden choked out, his fingers digging into my back.
“I watched Miller put you in the cruiser and I couldn't stop them.”
“I was so poisoned by that woman I couldn't even stand on my own two feet to swear an affidavit.”
“It wasn't your fault, Dad,” I said, pulling back to look into his weathered face.
“We know everything now.”
“We have the drive from Unit 108.”
“We have the footage of Carter planting the bank slips.”
Camden’s gaze hardened instantly, the frail old man vanishing behind the ruthless resolve of a self-made logistics king.
“The drive isn't enough to put them down, Finnley.”
Harold scrambled aboard, clutching his ribs, and collapsed onto the engine casing.
“Camden, Miller just burned my office to ash with a firebomb.”
“He’s hunting Finnley on a fabricated violent robbery charge from Phoenix Storage.”
“If we don't present that drive to the United States Attorney across the state line by dawn, Miller will have state troopers execute us on the highway.”
Camden shook his head slowly, his jaw set like iron.
“The U.S. Attorney in this district is Bradley Vance’s first cousin, Harold.”
“Did you think Carter’s father spent forty years funding judicial election campaigns just to be caught by a federal filing?”
“The law in this county is a spiderweb designed to catch flies and let wasps pass through.”
“What are you saying, Dad?” I asked, staring at the old man.
“I’m saying we don't go to the courts,” Camden Dennis said coldly, pointing out across the dark water toward the western channel.
“Tonight, Reagan Dennis is hosting the Silver Lake Founder’s Gala at the Dennis Estate.”
“She invited every city councilman, every judge, and every foreign investor financing the two-hundred-million-dollar maritime port sale.”
“The closing contract will be signed at midnight in my grandfather’s ballroom.”
“They think I’m bones rotting in an unmarked grave in Blackwood Falls.”
“They think Finnley is running scared in the gutter.”
Camden pulled an old brass master key from around his neck, worn smooth by three decades of work.
May you like
“We are going to walk straight through the front doors of that ballroom.”
“And we are going to burn their empire down in front of everyone who bought into their lies.”
