Dead in the Water (15 page)

"Forget it," I told her. "You're staying with me until I get Pardoe and find who slit a man's throat this afternoon." She said, "I don't know what you mean," and meant it.

"Then I'm arresting you on suspicion of complicity in the murder." I reached out and took hold of her wrist. I expected her to pull away or argue but she didn't even struggle. I wondered even then if she was acting under instructions. I was holding her left wrist and she had nothing in her right hand, no weapon, and she didn't look as if she knew any martial arts, but I took no chances. I glanced around again. I had canceled any chance of an ambush by staying close to the wall of the house, alongside her. The only place anyone could be hiding was down the side of the house where I'd sent Sam to check. The only place to take a shot at me was from out on the lake. Even a sniper sight couldn't have picked me off from out there.

The streetlight had given her extra shadows, but those under her eyes were the deepest, the most real.

"Let's go," I said.

She laughed, a real, open feminine laugh.

I felt my control beginning to slip. She was too calm. It felt like once we were talking to a couple of prisoners in a village in Viet Nam. They had been calm, right up until the counterattack started. I should have learned from that, never to trust anyone too much at ease in a difficult spot. But she was a woman and looking almost beautiful. She had fixed her makeup. Her hair was a blond fountain and her high cheekbones gave her class to burn. On any night, any other night, I would have been turned on. Tonight I was just worried.

I whistled Sam and put her in the back seat with him beside her. If she resented it, she didn't let it show. She sat back as if I were a taxi driver taking her to a ball and said nothing until I reached the station.

I left the lights out inside the car and turned Sam out to search. He ran back and forth around the station until I knew it was clear. Then I got out and unlocked the back door. She didn't come out and I had to reach in and grab her wrist. Now she came, slithering up out of the seat and draping herself all
over
me. Her knee slid between mine but I sidestepped quickly. "Cut it out," I said curtly.

Her voice was languorous, like an expensive hooker I ended up with on my first night of R and R in Hong Kong. "You're a very attractive man," she said.

Her free hand had crept around my waist, as if she were trying to embrace me, but I guessed she was feeling for the pocket where I carried my stick, hoping the envelope would be there. I said, "Suppose I go along with this malarkey and then still arrest you and don't give you the envelope. Will you still feel this amorous?" That touched the nerve. She tensed her arm and swung at me. "You dirty sonofabitch."

I trapped her other arm. Sam saw the motion and growled at her but did nothing, as I gave him no command. "Cut the sweet talk, you're making my dog upset," I told her. "Let's go inside." She was sobbing now, out of pure frustration. "What does it take to get my envelope back? What?"

She brought her knee up but I was sideways on and she just bumped my thigh. I told her, "Cool it or I'll get Sam to bite you where you don't want biting."

I let go of her hands and she lowered them to her sides and stared at me, looking like a petulant three year old. "What's wrong with you? Are you gay? I'm a good-looking woman. I know I am. Men have told me I am."

"You're great. I'm straight. And this is a work night," I said. The jangle of the words pleased me. I thought I was getting through to her at last. I could see the rest of the pieces of my puzzle snapping together as neatly as my cuffs would snap on the wrist of the man who had killed Winslow. What a dreamer.

She snuffled again and I asked her, "Where's Pardoe?" She didn't look up. I led her by the elbow through the door, with Sam behind us, then closed the door and sat her down on the kitchen chair next to the empty cell. What a fool. I should have put her inside it and locked the door. But I was still trying to do what I had been told to do, treat her like a citizen, a human being with equal rights, not an enemy.

She said at last, "They've got him."

"Who's they?"

"Two men. They came to the motel just after you took me back there." She wasn't acting now. I'd seen her act, and this wasn't it.

"Did they come into your unit?"

She nodded. "They came in and told me to do what they said or they would mark my face up."

"What did you do?"

She looked at me, flat and level, her voice tense. "I did what they told me. They looked as if they meant what they said."

"So what happened?"

"They sat and smoked and we waited, and after a while Derek came back, alone."

"Derek Pardoe?"

I broke the thread of her story to check whether she could pick it up again. "Where had he been all night?" I could guess the answer. First, when he jumped out of the boat, he had been lost. He didn't know the lake and he wouldn't be sure of his directions back to the highway. On top of which, he was scared. Somebody knew enough about him to have a boat set up to intercept him at Murphy's Harbour. That meant he didn't know who he could trust. He would have stayed away from any lighted cottages, probably waiting until daylight to make his way back toward the highway after he had oriented himself again from what he could remember seeing in the twilight the night before. But the girl didn't have an answer for me anyway.

"I didn't get a chance to ask him." It could have been a story, but she was too angry.

"Why not?"

"When he saw them he tried to fight, and they hit him. They hit him hard."

"How hard? Did he bleed?"

"Worse than that." She pantomimed it for me and even at second hand it brought back enough real-life memories to chill me.

"His eyes rolled up; they were just whites. It was awful."

"Was he breathing?"

"Yes." She nodded frantically. "Yes, but it wasn't normal, it was kind of a snuffling sound."

"So tell me where he is and I'll go get him."

She grabbed my sleeve, for real this time, no hint of seduction in the motion. "They told me they would kill me if I came back with you. They just want the envelope."

I pointed at Sam, who was sitting watching us, his tongue hanging out. "I've got Sam, I've got guns, I can take care of them."

"No." She moaned the word, shaking her head. Then she looked up at me and whispered, "Please. Please, for Derek's sake."

"So tell me what they look like."

She gave me a description that would have fit only about half the visitors to Murphy's Harbour, the male half. One was tall, one wasn't. They had light summer clothes, city clothes, not casual, and two-tone shoes. That made them American.

"They're not at the motel; I was up there. Where are they?"

"They're in a cottage. They took me there, blindfolded."

It was my turn to laugh. "You watch too much television, what are you talking about, blindfolded?"

Her face stiffened with anger. "They took a towel out of the bathroom and when we got in the car they covered my eyes."

"Whose car?"

"My car, of course." She had no hesitation, it was true. But left unanswered the question of how two mob heavies had found their way to the motel, how they had got there, what they had done with the car they arrived in. Could it be there were three of them? Two operatives and a third man to drive their car?

"Did they put Pardoe in with you?"

"Yes. He was lying across the seat. He was unconscious, burbling as he breathed. I kept asking if he was all right."

"And what did they say?"

She winced and covered her breast with a little reflexive motion.

"One of them elbowed me in the breast. It hurt."

"Nice guys." I tried to sound angry. "How long were you in the car with them?"

She shrugged. "It felt like hours."

"It couldn't have been, you're back here already," I reminded her.

"I don't know how long," she said. "Why is it important?"

"It might give me a fix on the radius I have to search."

She tried but gave up with another shrug. "I don't know, maybe ten minutes."

"Was there a radio in the car?"

Her eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "Why?"

"Did it play through two tunes, ten tunes, one commercial, what?"

She clenched her fists and gave a short, angry shake to her hands. "Really, what do you think I am? Derek was hurt I as frightened. I wasn't listening to the radio."

"Okay, tell me about the cottage, or did they keep the towel on your face then as well?"

She thought about that one for a moment, then said, "It was neat. The room I was put in had broadloom on the floor."

"What could you see out of the window?"

"The blinds were drawn. I think there were shutters outside the window as well. No light was coming in, anyway."

"And they had the lights on?"

She nodded.

"Electric?"

"Of course." She was a New Yorker—what other kind of light was there? She didn't know that half our cottage country ill made do with propane or even kerosene lights. So she'd been in a modern place, not too remote.

"What could you hear outside?"

"You mean what kind of noises?" She was puzzled again, off balance at being asked questions when she had been told to get her envelope and come back.

"Was there any sound of traffic, or a train, or running water, what?"

"I could hear a cow mooing." She was getting desperate again. "Listen, you can't keep me here. I have to get back."

"Back where?"

"I don't know." She almost shrieked it. "I don't know. I'm to be picked up."

"Fine. I'll come with you." At last I could see a break coming my way. "Where are they picking you up. I'll take over and we'll get this thing sorted out."

"It won't work." She was close to tears. "These are rough people. All they want is that envelope. Then they said they'll let me get help for Derek. They just want that envelope."

"It's not that easy. They've killed a man. They won't mind killing you and Pardoe, both. You've got to take me where I can get at them. Where are you meeting them, here?"

She ignored me. "Just give me the envelope. Please."

"I can't. They know I can't. If they've given you a deadline I'm just going to have to put you in a cell and see what they do."

Her head dipped, tearfully. I've seen too many tears from too many crime victims to feel sympathy. Sure she was in a mess. But so was Winslow. So was Pardoe. I had to keep her here she was, as bait. I played it the way I've played it ever since those bikies played rough. No violence. Nothing but cool, calm police work. I stood and watched, vigilant but not hostile as her hand dipped into the purse she was carrying, groping for a tissue. I knew that if she came out with a gun, Sam would have it out of her hand as fast as I could tell him "Fight!"

But she didn't bring out a gun. It was a canister, small, dull, and businesslike. As she pointed it I tried to grab for it, tried speak to Sam, but nothing came out of me. A cloud of peppery stinging, stupefying Mace dissolved the edges of reality. Her voice kept coming, low and apologetic. The words didn't reach me then, but later, when I was over it all, I remembered them. She was saying she was sorry.

The jet turned away momentarily and I heard a low anxious whining out of Sam. I tried to ask her to leave him alone, but she couldn't have heard me. My words were drying up and dying away like an old phonograph running down in mid-record. Then the floor of the corridor came up and took hold of me.

I was aware that she was leaning down over me. Her form was there, vague as a figure seen through frosted glass. She was still talking, but it meant nothing at all. My brains, my coordination were all gone. I felt her unfastening my handcuffs pouch, and then nothing at all.

|
Go to Table of Contents
|

I
swam upward through a pool of something as dark as ink and twice as bitter into the worst hangover I had ever known. I was lying face down on cool concrete. My left and was underneath me but my right was extended up and back off the edge of the explored world.

I lay there for a while, treasuring the coolness of the concrete against my face, then my brain stopped slopping around in my head and I rolled slowly up on to my left hand and took stock.

The first thing I realized was that I was handcuffed to a cell bar by my right wrist. The second thing was that Sam was in worse shape than I was. He lay about six feet away, his muzzle a pool of saliva. The sight made my stomach roll. He was alive, retching mechanically as if it were another of the tricks I had taught him.

With my left hand I patted my pockets for keys. They were gone. My wallet was still there, and my gun and nightstick. Weak as I was, I breathed a little sigh of relief about that. Whether the girl had been dumb or humane, she had given me chance to protect myself. Her buddies from the cottage with carpet on the floor would not be able to come back and use me as a football. Probably they would slap her around a little for being so forgetful, but at least I was going to be able to find her and help her, once I got out of the mess I was in.

With my faculties regrouping I put together the bits of information I'd gotten from her, either in her words or her actions. For one thing, that can of Mace had come from the station. I hadn't stopped to check everything, but the ammunition cupboard was torn open and it must have been taken out. That meant she was in touch with the guys who had ripped the place off. At worst, it meant she was part of their set-up. Then dismissed that thought as I patted the holster. She would never have left me the gun if she had been working with them.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve and sat up. This loosened a great jagged chunk of pain in my head and it flopped around inside like a rusty shovel in a coal bucket. I winced and vomited again, managing to avoid getting any on me.

I sat still for a while, working out what to do. There wasn't much. It was no good trying to shoot the cuffs off; they're carbon steel. A lead bullet would ricochet off without denting them, but it might easily come tumbling back through my damn fool head. For security's sake I took out my gun, unflipped it to make sure it was loaded, and set it down next to my left hand. I'm a good shot with either hand. If it came to a showdown, I'd make them sorry they'd tried.