Dark Waters (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries) (22 page)

Parked at the pull off by the Robert Moses power plant intakes, Richard held the binoculars pressed hard against his eyes, watching in horrified fascination as the boat he’d so recently acquired and had so little time to appreciate floated past him on the river. There was no sign of life. There didn’t appear to be anyone on the bridge deck. No one, and the boat was obviously under no one’s control.

“Do you think Jeffy and Da-Marr could be inside it?” Brenda asked, her voice sounding small and tired. She’d insisted on joining him when he’d called to tell her what had happened, and had brought him some dry clothes — not that they were going to stay that way standing in the rain as he was.

Evelyn had driven her, and though she hadn’t said more than two words, he could see she was upset and angry that he’d accused Da-Marr of stealing the boat.

“I don’t know,” Richard said tersely, his mind racing. How much further could they go and still keep the boat in view? There wasn’t much time before.…

The police hadn’t come soon enough, didn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. And now the boat was being carried away by the current. More than a quarter of a million bucks down the drain, and along with it something far more precious: his brother.

He lowered the binoculars, got back in the car, started it, and rolled up the window.

“Now what?” Brenda asked.

Richard let out a breath. “We head for Niagara Falls State Park. The cops said they would send a patrol car there to wait to see if it — when it….” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I blame myself for all this,” Evelyn said from the backseat. “If I hadn’t come here — if I hadn’t brought Da-Marr with me, he wouldn’t have been tempted by the things he could never have.”

Richard looked over at Brenda. Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. He didn’t have a psychic connection with her the way Jeff did, but he did know her soul — as if it was a part of his own.

I’m sorry
, she mouthed.

He shook his head, reached over and squeezed her hand.

A single tear cascaded down her cheek. He clasped her face, and with his thumb wiped it away. Then the turned to look at the review mirror.

“Evie,” he said in preamble. He had never called the woman by her sister’s more familiar name. “We don’t know what the circumstances were. Why Da-Marr took the boat. I think it’s premature to assume the worst. He did it, but we don’t know why.” And Christ, they would probably never know. Except the idea of diamonds and their fantastic worth could have —
must have
— been the impetus. Richard hadn’t told the sisters about them — or the possibility that that was what lay at the heart of the entire situation. He couldn’t — not now, not when Brenda was about to give birth to their child.

To lose a brother and gain a daughter in the span of a day or so would be Dickensian to the max: the best and worst of times.

But Jeff was nothing if not resourceful. He’d proven it far too many times to assume the absolute worst.

Richard started the car. “I’m not giving up on either of them. Not yet. They’re two very smart guys.”

“You’re a fool, Richard Alpert,” Evelyn said, her voice grave.

Maybe he was. But Richard was a doctor, and far too many times he’d witnessed life-saving miracles. Right now he was counting on one — or maybe two — to happen.

“We’re skunked,” I told Da-Marr.

He peered through the windshield. “What’s with all the fog ahead?”

I managed a mirthless laugh. “That’s not fog — that’s spray from the Canadian falls.”

Da-Marr stared ahead, his expression grim. “Aunt Evelyn will kill me if I don’t live to go to college in January.”

“How can she kill you if you’re already dead?”

Da-Marr looked down his nose at me. “That woman would find a way.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I had no doubt he was right. But the smile was short-lived. Was there a chance in hell we could hit an island and then have time to jump off the boat to relative safety? Had we been observed from the shore? Maybe. I sure as hell hoped so, but we couldn’t count on it — at least not until the wreckage appeared below the falls. It was late in the day. Would Easy Breezin’ hit one of the last Maid of the Mist forays of the day? I sure as hell hoped not. Bobby was probably already dead. We were doomed as well. I didn’t want us to take out, or injure, anybody else.

The mist ahead grew thicker. The end was near.

I felt like I should say something profound, but when facing the end, it wasn’t a stranger I wanted to be with. I kind of thought I’d be talking to Richard or Brenda or Maggie. Then again, wasn’t this as final as a random traffic accident or getting hit by a bus? Except then the end would be fast — like I’d have never seen it coming. I could see the end of the world coming at us with terrible speed.

I looked down at Da-Marr’s hands on the wheel. The skin over his knuckles was stretched taut — it was taking all his strength to keep Easy Breezin’ on a forward trajectory. Crap. A trajectory that was going to turn us and the boat into paste.

The terrible sound of the roaring river filled my ears. If not for the enclosed bridge deck, I was sure we both would soon be deaf.

This wasn’t the way I thought I’d die.

“Do you have any regrets?” Da-Marr asked.

I caught his gaze. “About a million of them. You?”

He shrugged. “I had a kid,” he said, and I could have sworn his lower lip trembled. “He died. Now I ain’t got no one to carry on for me.”

“What was his name?”

He laughed. “Da-Marr.”

“Wow, that’s original.”

“Hey, it’s a great name.”

“If you say so.”

“And what would you name your kid?” he asked, sounding belligerent.

I shook my head. “It was never in the cards for me.”

When I was dead, Richard would live on, and he’d have little Betsy Ruth to carry on our mother’s genes. And maybe my half-sister Patty would one day have a child to carry on my father’s line. But I was a biological dead end. I’d never given it much thought before now. How sad was it that nothing of me would go on?

I felt a lump rise in my throat. Pretty damn sad.

The mist grew higher and thicker.

“Where the fuck are those islands you mentioned?” Da-Marr demanded.

“They should be to the right,” I somehow managed. God, my voice sounded so damn calm considering how panicked I felt.

Despite Da-Marr’s best efforts, Easy Breezin’ started veering to the right. Holy crap — this was it.

And then out of the mist came a large and terrible brown object — we slammed into it with such force that the two of us flew through the air and crashed in a heap on the deck.

“What the fuck was that?” Da-Marr hollered.

“The old scow.”

“The what?”

“Come on, we’ve only got seconds if we’re going to live.”

I practically fell down the fiberglass steps from the bridge deck onto the stern. Easy Breezin’ was lodged against the rusty old barge that had been caught near the brink of the falls for almost a hundred years — but it wasn’t likely to be here for long.

“Are you crazy?” Da-Marr hollered over the incredible roar of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls only some eight hundred yards from the precipice.

“This boat ain’t gonna stay here for long. I’d rather take my chances on something that hasn’t moved in decades,” I hollered.

Da-Marr studied the old rust bucket and winced. It was at least four feet higher than Easy Breezin’, so climbing aboard wasn’t a sure thing. God, how I wish Richard had tossed those life jackets aboard the boat before Da-Marr had taken off from the dock at breakneck speed.

The scow was made of steel — and obviously not the stainless type. It was rusty and ragged and we were likely to be torn to pieces before our ordeal was over. Da-Marr was a lot stronger than me. He yelped as he grabbed onto the edge and pulled himself over the back of the scow, then he disappeared.

My knee screamed as I jumped — once, twice — trying to grab onto the back end of the old barge, both times cutting my hands on jagged metal.

Easy Breezin’ bucked in the turbulent water. I had only a minute, maybe seconds before she would break loose and then it — and I — would be over the falls.

Panicked, I tried again, and this time threw my left arm around the edge just as Easy Breezin’ broke away, leaving me hanging onto the old scow’s stern. I kicked, trying to walk up the side, but my sneakers kept slipping. My arm and shoulder protested. I was losing my grip. About to fall — Suddenly, the world’s strongest arms grabbed me by the shoulders of my jacket and yanked and yanked and yanked, hauling me over the edge and pulling me onto a short, flat deck pocked with rust holes.

“Thanks,” I managed, feeling like I might never catch my breath again.

I shut my eyes and thanked God, and Sophie, and Zeus, and all the gods on Mount Olympus. But I also knew that we were a hell of a long way from being safe. Earlier the temperature had been in the low sixties. It was a lot colder than that and we were both soaked.

I looked up at Da-Marr. “Where the hell were you?” I hollered once I could speak once more.

“Lookin’ around. Man, this boat is one big piece of shit. Half of it’s missing!” Da-Marr yelled.

I studied his face. His left cheek bore a deep cut, still oozing with blood, and his hands were just as bloodied as mine. How long had it been since I’d had a tetanus shot?

I sat up and looked around. Since childhood, I’d seen many pictures of the old scow, but never an aerial view, and never in my wildest fantasies did I think I’d ever board her. She’d originally carried sand and rocks after a dredging operation, but the rusty cargo compartment before us was empty. I’d heard that the guys who’d originally been stranded on the barge had shifted more than a ton of their cargo to help stabilize the craft. They’d been rescued without any loss of life. Would we be as lucky?

“What the hell do we do now?” Da-Marr demanded.

I shrugged. “Wait.”

“For what?”

“Rescue. It’s been done before.”

“How?”

I thought about what I’d learned in school about the barge’s last passengers. It had been a long time ago. “Some soldiers shot a rope from a cannon and then saved the two guys who were stranded in a breeches buoy.”

“A what?”

“It’s like a pulley on a rope. They hauled them along on a line over the river.”

“Ain’t nobody hauling
me
over this damn river,” Da-Marr cried.

That only left one other way of rescue.

I looked up at the darkening sky, but couldn’t really tell if it was raining or if it was just the thick mist from the thundering cataract ahead of us.

Da-Marr followed my gaze. “A helicopter?”

I nodded, but the thought sickened me, especially if the weather worsened.

Da-Marr shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t like flying.”

“But you flew here from Philadelphia.”

“That was a on a plane — with big engines. And I Googled the safety record of the airline before I said I’d come. Helicopters crash — a lot. Uh-uh, I ain’t gonna get rescued by no fucking helicopter.”

If I recalled correctly, the guys who’d crashed the barge on the rocks had had to spend a long day and night onboard before they were rescued. That had been during the summer. This was fall, and the temperature might fall to the forties overnight.

“Do you want to die of hypothermia?” I hollered.

“Hypo what?”

“Hypothermia. Where your body temperature drops low enough to kill you.”

Da-Marr’s brow wrinkled. “Didn’t you say you had that and lived?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t fun.”

“How’d you do it?”

I grimaced. “Some guy tried to kill me. I managed to tie him up and then … I hugged him all night.”

Da-Marr pulled away, his mouth dropping open in horror. “That’s sick.”

I shrugged. “It saved my life. I saved both our lives.”

He shook his head again. “I’d rather die.”

“Suit yourself.”

I looked around us. To our left was the old Canadian power plant that had been shut down for decades. Small islands with a few scrub trees about to lose their leaves were to the right. I couldn’t see the American shore through the mist.

Someone must have seen Easy Breezin’ travel down the river. Someone must have reported it to the authorities — both American and Canadian.

Please, God, please let
someone
have reported it.

Crowds of frustrated rubberneckers had gathered in Niagara Falls State Park, hoping for a glimpse of the men stranded on the old scow. “We should have brought our passports,” Richard groused and checked the Twitter feed on his phone once more. The car radio had been useless when it came to finding news on what had happened, but at least the online community (#strandedNiagaraFalls) had been active for the past hour or so.

“I didn’t bring my passport,” Evelyn said, her voice catching.

“I don’t want to go to Canada,” Brenda said. “I mean not today. Not now. Take me to Niagara on the Lake and the Oban Inn any other time, but no adventure to Canada today, please.”

Richard glanced over at her, noting her pinched expression. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. If he had to include an adverb, he would have said, bravely. Hadn’t Jeff said the baby would come today or tonight?
Please — not now!

Two men were stranded on the old scow — but who? Da-Marr and his cohort in crime, Bobby? Jeff and Da-Marr? Jeff and Bobby? There’d been a report of someone going over the falls, but the body hadn’t surfaced — might not for several agonizing days, and so far there’d been no description of the stranded men.

Richard swallowed down his rising panic, staring through the windshield at the darkening landscape. It would be full dark in only minutes.

His cell phone chimed, startling him. “Hello?”

“Mr. Alpert? This is Captain Gainer from the Niagara Falls Police Department. I wanted to give you an update on our plan to rescue the stranded men.”

“Yes, please do.”

“All you have to do is look out the window to see the weather isn’t good. It may not be possible to rescue them until the morning.”

“Captain, I’m a doctor. I’m pretty sure I know what these men are up against. They’ve been stranded for hours in the rain, let alone subject to the mist from the falls. The temperature is dropping. That’s a pretty lethal combination.”

“I understand that, sir, and I don’t mean to sound unfeeling, but we can’t sacrifice four people trying to rescue two. We also have no idea if one of the stranded men is your brother.”

“I don’t care who’s out there, Captain. I just want them to be rescued.”

“I understand that, sir. I invite you to come to the Niagara helicopter tours site up on Main Street by the big hotel — not far from the Rainbow Bridge.”

“I know the place.”

“I’ll meet you there. And sir, I hope your brother can be brought home safely.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Richard ended the call.

“Well?” Brenda asked.

“They want us to wait at the commercial helicopter site, but they’re saying the weather might not guarantee they’ll attempt a rescue until tomorrow morning.”

“But aren’t they worried about them suffering from hypothermia?” Brenda cried.

From the backseat came a strangled cry. “Oh, my Lord, Da-Marr … what have I done by bringing you here?”

“Evie,” Brenda admonished. “You just hush. If there’s one person on this earth who knows how to survive, it’s our Jeffy. He’s got a knack for escaping death.”

“But you don’t know who’s out there — maybe it’s not Da-Marr. Maybe it’s that terrible man who led him astray.”

Brenda closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a few moments. “Jeffy isn’t dead. I would know it if he was.”

“Don’t you give me that crap that Grammie used to spew.”

“You don’t believe?” Brenda asked, her voice tinged with surprise.

“Not for a moment,” Evelyn practically spat. “Second sight? There’s no such thing.”

Brenda looked at Richard, and they both managed to produce the shadow of a smile.

“You’d be surprised what we believe,” Richard said.

“Nonsense,” Evelyn declared.

Richard started the car. “If you ladies don’t mind, I think we should follow the Captain’s advice and go wait at the commercial helicopter site.”

“I agree,” Brenda said, but her voice sounded strained. “But can we make a pit stop. I really have to pee.”

“There’s a big hotel right near the helicopter site. We’ll stop there first.”

“Bless you,” Brenda said.

Blessed. They’d have to be to survive this terrible night — or maybe for Jeff to survive this terrible night. But who was he stuck with out in the middle of the Niagara River — in the cold and the dark? Da-Marr had tormented him, and if it wasn’t Da-Marr, how safe would he be with the other person who’d been on the boat when it had taken off from the marina?

Richard shifted the car into drive and hit the accelerator. It was going to be a long, long evening — maybe night. And what if Brenda went into labor? Where was his loyalty? To his brother or to his wife?

He was pretty sure he knew, and yet he also knew that no matter what choice he made there’d be guilt that would follow him for years and years to come.