Bermuda Schwartz (22 page)

Polly gets up from the couch, steps over to the broken bookcase. She rummages through the books on the floor. She pulls one from the pile, flips through the pages, and hands it to Fiona. It's called
Gray's Salvor Compendium: Mediterranean Sea.

“See, that shows more of them,” says Polly, pointing to a page full of photographs of similar glass beetles. “One reason Ned went out that day was in hopes of maybe finding a few more of them. He wanted to show them to investors.”

“Investors?” I say.

“Uh-huh. Ned said he would need to raise a lot of money to do the whole thing right. He would have to get a boat of his own, hire people to help him. He was even talking about getting a film crew to document everything from start to finish. He figured the film might make enough money to help pay off the investors,” she says. “He expected the project might take several years. But when it was all done he would have …”

“Made a name for himself,” says Fiona.

“Yeah,” says Polly. “That's exactly what he was hoping.”

“That's what he told me on the phone,” Fiona says, “the last time we spoke.”

They're both quiet for a moment.

Fiona finishes studying the photos of the soul-savers. She closes the book. She looks at me, then at Polly.

“The ship Ned found, did it have a name?”

Polly shrugs.

“Not one that I know of. At least, Ned never called it by any name. He just called it ‘the wreck.' He was always researching, trying to find out what ship it might be. He ordered all these books, looked up stuff on the
Internet. When he wasn't working at the dive shop, then he was working on stuff related to the wreck. But he knew it had to be really old.”

“Why's that?”

Polly reaches for the soul-saver again.

“Because of these things,” she says. “Ned called it a marker, something like that. He said they lost popularity and sailors stopped wearing them in the early fifteen hundreds. So if you found them at a wreck site, it meant it probably happened before that. Really old.”

Polly kneels beside the pile of books and touches them, as if they bring her comfort. Fiona gets up to join her.

“Would you mind if I took some of his books, Polly?”

“No, I guess not. I mean, I don't really have any use for them, and I'm sure Ned would want you to have them. Let me get something to put them in.”

Polly goes into the kitchen and returns with a box of plastic garbage bags. She and Fiona start bagging the books. I step over to help them.

“A couple of these didn't actually belong to Ned,” Polly says. “They belonged to this other guy he was working with.”

“Someone at the dive shop?” I say.

“No, this old guy, some kind of famous diver or something.” Polly holds out a well-worn book with a brittle binding—
A Record of Atlantic Explorations: 1200–1600.
“This is one of his.”

I take it from her. I open the cover to reveal a label that reads: “From the library of Sir Teddy Schwartz.”

I show it to Fiona.

“Ned was working with Teddy Schwartz?” I ask Polly.

“Well, kinda,” Polly says. “I don't think they were officially partners or anything like that. But Ned met with him a few times. It was mostly to pick his brain, I think. Ned said Mr. Schwartz knows everything there is to know about shipwrecks.”

“Did you ever meet Mr. Schwartz?” I ask her.

“Not until the other day, the day Ned went out in the boat,” says Polly. “I was just getting ready to go to work at the Onion when Mr. Schwartz came by. He said he was looking for Ned, and I told him he'd missed him, that he was probably already out on the water.”

“Did Mr. Schwartz say why he wanted to talk to Ned?”

“No, I just figured it was something about shipwrecks. That's what
they always talked about. He seemed like a nice old guy. But he didn't stick around after I told him Ned wasn't here.”

We finish putting the books in the garbage bags. Polly grabs her yoga mat, some clothes, a few other things.

She stands in the living room, looking at the mess that still remains.

“I thought I might move back in here. But now …” She stops, looks at us. “You think whoever killed Ned did this?”

“There's a chance of it,” Fiona tells her. “Did you notice anything missing?”

“A few things. My iPod, a few pieces of jewelry. Not like I had anything that was worth a whole lot.”

“What about a computer, anything like that?”

“No, we didn't have one. The dive shop has a computer that Bill lets us use for e-mail or the Internet.”

“Have you called the police about this?”

Polly shakes her head no.

Fiona pulls out her cell phone.

“I'll take care of it,” she says.

 

Chief Inspector Worley arrives with a full crew—technicians, investigators, a photographer.

When he's finished interviewing Polly, he pulls Fiona and me aside.

“Got a call from the owner of that dive shop down the road,” he says.

He waits for one of us to say something. We don't.

“He seemed pretty mad about you trespassing on that boat, Miss McHugh,” Worley says.

She doesn't say anything.

“That boat is his private property. Plus, I left clear instructions that no one was to set foot on it. It is considered part of a criminal investigation and, therefore, it is off-limits to the general public. You, as a police officer, should know and respect that, Miss McHugh.”

She doesn't say anything.

“And you, as whatever you are, Mr. Chasteen, should know that, too.”

I don't say anything either. It has become a real one-sided conversation.

“Do you mind explaining yourself, Miss McHugh?”

Fiona draws herself up, fire in her eyes.

“Do you mind explaining yourself, Inspector?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about why didn't you tell me that you had found the boat?” Fiona says. “It's so nice being in the loop.”

The sarcasm in her voice fairly drips.

“Miss McHugh, please, you must understand …”

“I do understand, Inspector. I understand that you can look me straight in the eye and lie when you tell me that I will be informed about every development in this case. Why didn't I know about the boat, Inspector?”

Worley takes a deep breath.

“I thought it better to share that information with you after we had completed a full and thorough inspection of the boat. We are still in the process of gathering evidence and …”

“Bullshit,” says Fiona. “I should have been told.”

Worley rubs his head, blows out air.

“Look, Miss McHugh, I can see now that I made a mistake not sharing that information with you. I apologize. OK? I was wrong. And I promise that from here on out you will indeed be kept informed every step of the way.”

Fiona takes it in.

“I wish I could believe you,” she says. “Just as I wish I could believe something else you told me.”

“What is that?”

“That you are close to tying up this investigation, close to finding who killed my brother.”

“We are close. And with luck, this break-in might put us even closer,” Worley says. “Now, if you'll excuse me.”

We watch him walk back to the house.

Fiona says, “Good thing he didn't ask me if I'd taken anything off that boat.”

“Why? What would you have done?”

She looks at me.

“Lied,” she says.

 

We give Polly a ride to the Onion. She insists that we stick around for a drink. Seldom have I been known to offer argument on that front.

The Onion is a loud and lively place, and it's packed when we walk in. Polly snags us a table on the deck, overlooking the bay. There's soon a pitcher of Newcastle Brown Ale in front of us, along with bowls of the house specialty—Bermudian fish stew. It's a dilly of a version, finished off with a dollop of Outerbridge's sherry pepper sauce. I wind up eating the better part of Fiona's stew, too.

There's a fresh breeze off the water. It helps lighten the topic at hand, namely, Fiona's plans for the burial at sea.

“We'll be heading out at noon tomorrow,” Fiona tells Polly. “I hope you can join us.”

“I'll be there. And I'm sure some of Ned's friends from the dive shop would like to come, too. There's a group of them sitting up there at the bar. Why don't I go grab them and have them come over so you can meet them?”

I turn to see Belleville, the dive-shop owner, sitting in a cluster of people. He's been watching us, but glances away when I look in his direction.

I stop Polly as she starts to step away.

“Look, why don't you say something to them about the service after we've left,” I say.

“OK, sure.” She catches a look between Fiona and me. “Is something wrong?”

“Oh, let's just say we had a bit of a run-in with Belleville when we stopped by the dive shop this morning,” Fiona says. She tells Polly the story.

“That's too bad,” Polly says. “I mean, Bill started off being so nice, but lately he had really been getting down on Ned.”

“What about?” I ask.

“Oh, I don't know, just little things. Criticizing him for dinging the tanks when he took them off the boat or for using too much soap when he washed down the deck. Tiny stuff, really,” Polly says. “Ned said it was because Belleville had the hots for me and was taking it out on him.”

“Did Belleville know what Ned was working on in his spare time?” I ask.

Polly shakes her head.

“No, that was the other thing,” she says. “He thought Ned was using the boat to scope out new dive sites. And he was cool with that because, you know, it could help business. But when it didn't turn out like that and Ned wouldn't let on exactly what he was doing, Bill kinda got his feathers ruffled. He and Ned, they got into it a few times.”

“What do you mean, they argued?”

“Yeah, but nothing serious. Not so serious that Bill wouldn't let Ned keep on taking out the boat. But he did start charging him gas money after that. He hadn't done that before.”

A couple of people stop by the table to offer their condolences to Polly. She introduces them to Fiona, who tells them about plans for the burial at sea.

While they're chatting, I spot Michael Frazer walking in the door. The tall, bearded curator of wrecks stops to talk with a few people at the bar, eventually making his way to our table. He says hello to Polly and me, then introduces himself to Fiona.

“I was so sorry to hear about Ned,” he tells her. “I didn't know him well, just the few times he dropped by my office. But I was impressed by his intellect, his zeal. He'll be missed.”

“Thank you,” Fiona says. “You're more than welcome to sit down and join us if you like.”

“Well, just for a moment,” Frazer says, “I really need to be off. Early morning and all that.”

He takes a seat. I pour him a glass of beer.

“Too bad we had to meet the way we did,” Frazer tells me. “But if there's one thing I've learned in my years on this job, it's that I have to keep an eye on Sir Teddy.”

“The two of you have had some run-ins in the past?” I say.

“To put it mildly,” Frazer says. “We're natural adversaries, I suppose. My job is to preserve and protect. Teddy takes a more, shall we say, proprietarial view.”

“Meaning …”

“Meaning, Sir Teddy has this notion that everything out there in those waters belongs to him and him alone and that he should be able to plunder as he pleases, like he did in the past,” Frazer says. “It just doesn't work like that anymore, I'm afraid.”

Frazer turns his attention to Fiona, smiles.

“And how long will you be in Bermuda, Miss McHugh?”

“As long as it takes,” Fiona says. “Until my brother's murderer is found.”

“I understand that you are a police detective back in Australia?”

“Not exactly,” Fiona says.

As she tells Frazer about her job with the water police, Polly fetches us another pitcher of beer.

Belleville stops her as she walks past his group at the bar. They speak for a moment, then he gets up and heads to our table.

He stands by my chair, looking down at me. Fiona and Frazer are wrapped up in their conversation, not paying any attention to us.

The cut on Belleville's cheek is festering even worse than before. If things turn ugly, I figure I'll aim for it with the first punch.

“Look,” Belleville says. “About what happened earlier on the dock … I'm sorry about that. I kinda lost my head.”

Not what I was expecting.

“Don't worry about it. Strange situation.”

“Man, you can say that again. The whole thing with Ned, the cops, the boat—it stressed me out. I'm sorry, man.”

He sticks out a hand. I shake it.

“You mind?” he says, nodding at an empty chair.

“No, have a seat.”

Polly arrives with another pitcher of Newcastle and I pour it around. Fiona and Frazer nod our way, then return to whatever it is they're talking about.

Belleville clinks his glass with mine. We take long sips. He grins at me.

“You used to play for the Gators, didn't you?”

“Sure did.”

“The Dolphins, too.”

I nod.

“Fucked up your knee or something, didn't you?”

“I did.”

“The 1986 AFC championship. I remember. I lost a shitload of money on that game. You guys broke my heart.”

I hear it a lot. I never know what to say. So I just shrug and don't say anything.

Belleville says, “You dive?”

“Yeah, when I get a chance.”

“How about you come out diving with us while you're here? My treat. I'd consider it an honor hosting you, a former famous football player and all that.”