Possessions (55 page)

“You didn't think about Craig. Neither did I. Katherine, do you know, I'm still hungry?”

“You've been talking instead of eating.”

“Then I'll make up for lost time.” He heaped his plate with
cheese and dates and bread. “Is there anything left in that bottle?”

She filled their glasses and nibbled on dates while he ate. “Is all this to avoid answering my question?”

“All this is to provide the narrator with sustenance. It's not an easy story. Do you want to tell me how Derek told it?”

“No. I just want you to tell me.”

“Well, then.” Hitching his chair closer to the table, he took a few more bites, then once again forgot the food. “The four of us were sailing home from Sausalito, across the bay. It was July—my God, sixteen years ago this month—a cool, clear evening and Craig decided to take a longer way back, making a loop through the Golden Gate. He was in charge; he always was, on the water—the best sailor I've ever seen. I think it was the only time he was really happy, absolutely confident, cut loose from people making demands on him. In those days I was more interested in swimming and tennis, and Derek had just bought his own speedboat, so Craig was in charge when he took us sailing. That day, when Derek wanted more speed, he said we could put up the spinnaker. Have you ever sailed under a spinnaker?”

“I've never sailed.”

“You've—” Stunned, he said, “That never occurred to me. We'll correct that when we get back.”

“Ross, please tell me what happened.”

“Well, with a spinnaker and a good wind, you skim the water, weightless, flying, but with the waves at eye level. The most fantastic feeling . . . Jennifer was ecstatic; she threw her head back, laughing into the wind. That's the picture I carry in my mind: her hair blowing, her face bright and laughing, her arms wide when she burst out ‘I love all of you so much.‘ We . . . loved her, too. So much.”

After a moment, he went on quietly. “When we were more than halfway home, Craig asked me to go below for a winch handle, and Derek called down to bring him a bottle of Scotch from his pack. Then Jennifer came down, saying Craig had ordered lifejackets for everyone; the currents are tricky near the Golden Gate and the wind was coming up. ‘Derek is so unpleasant when he drinks too much,' she said. ‘Could you . . . forget to bring up the bottle?' She was trying to be cool and sophisticated, but she couldn't quite make it; she was
young and impressionable, full of life and love, one of the dearest people I've ever known.” He drew in his breath. “Incredible, how grief stays fresh. I said I'd forget to bring the bottle and she kissed me. It was the last time Jennifer ever kissed me.

“When we came up from the cabin, Craig and Derek were arguing about the spinnaker; Craig said it should come down; it could get ripped apart in a strong wind. And by then the wind was very high: wild and sometimes gusting, with a kind of whistle—sometimes we had to shout to be heard—and the boat was heeling, with spray coming in the cockpit. Derek put his arms around Jennifer and told Craig—his voice cut through the wind—they liked living dangerously; the only one who was afraid was the captain.

“Craig's face, when he saw Derek holding Jennifer . . . I'd never seen him look like that: enraged but terrified, his mouth working as if all the words were trying to rush out at once. He screamed at Derek, ‘Get your goddamn hands off—!' and started toward them but he couldn't let go of the wheel. He had to stay there, shouting to Jennifer to move away, and to Derek to take his hands off her. Neither of them moved; they stood still, staring at him. Everything had changed, in just a few minutes, from laughter and exhilaration to something terrifying. I was scared to death, because
Craig
was scared—I didn't know of what, which was even more frightening—and he didn't look as if he could control himself or the boat. I had to do something, so I yanked Jennifer away and asked Craig if I should take down the spinnaker.

“The sound, roaring in our ears—you have no idea what it was like: wind and spray breaking over us, Derek and Craig yelling at each other—it all mixed together into a nightmare. Craig couldn't stop: he shouted at Derek that he was the captain and if Derek didn't like it he could swim to shore, if he had the guts to try it—he found a dozen ways to doubt Derek's courage and skill—and then he told me to go forward and take down the spinnaker. But Jennifer grabbed my arm, begging me to stay and stop Derek, because he'd begun taunting Craig in that way of his that always drove us mad. I didn't know what to do first—comfort Jennifer, who was starting to cry, or slug Derek, or tell Craig to ignore him, or go forward and take down the spinnaker—and then I remember thinking that
it didn't matter what I did; something was going to happen and
there was no escape.

“We were crammed in that sailboat, flying over the water in a roaring wind, heeling at a crazy angle, soaking wet from waves washing over the cockpit, and Derek stood there, absolutely still, his voice like a knife, calling Craig the little golden puppet, his grandmother's toy . . . well, a string of brutal insults. Jennifer was crying and when Craig saw that he got so livid I thought he'd burst. He roared out—making sure Jennifer heard—that Derek was a liar and a crook—he'd cut corners to save money on a building we were putting up, and bribed an inspector to OK the job. I hadn't worked on that building and I asked what the hell he was talking about and Derek, like ice, said ‘Golden boy changed the specs on the Macklin Building to be Grandma's hero—even bribed the inspector—but now he's scared and shifting the blame. Running away,' he said. ‘As usual.' And then, out of the blue—the damndest thing—Craig laughed. I've never known why. He said he cared about the Hayward reputation more than Derek, and he was going to tell the family and the city officials what Derek had done. He was still laughing when he told me again to take down the spinnaker.

“I got about halfway forward when I felt the boat change course. I turned around to see what the hell Craig had done and saw him with his hands on Derek's throat. Jennifer was pulling at his arm. And then everything happened at once. The boat had changed course because no one was at the wheel, and the wind pushed the mainsail to the other side. The boom swung across and slammed against Jennifer's head. There was blood—like a rose, bursting into bloom just beside her eye—and then she stumbled and fell overboard. She never made a sound. She just fell. But Craig and I screamed—my God, I still dream about this—the blood and the two of us screaming—‘JENNIFER!'—and Craig lunging at the life preserver and marker pole to throw them over the side. Jennifer was floating face down; the water was choppy all around her. It looked so cold—it hadn't looked that cold all day—and we were moving away from her. With that wind and all the sail we had, we were going so damned fast . . . I raced to the spinnaker and hauled it down. Slashed my hands on the ropes and never knew
it until I saw the blood when I ran along the deck back to the cockpit.

“Derek was at the wheel, cursing because he couldn't get the boat to respond; it wasn't like his speedboat. He told me Craig had jumped in after Jennifer. I grabbed the wheel from him; I didn't know much more than he did, but with the spinnaker down we'd slowed, and I managed to turn us around. Then I told him to take the wheel again and I took down the mainsail and started the motor.”

“But Derek said—”

Ross turned, suddenly aware of her. “Derek stood by the cabin, looking at the water, and never moved a muscle or said a word while I turned the boat. I remember thinking he was figuring out how all this would affect him, because that's how Derek looked at everything, but I didn't have enough energy even to be angry: I was dizzy and sick and trying to get back to Jennifer and Craig. It took me ten minutes—ten minutes, when today I can do it in three!—and that was too long. It was too late. We got back to the marker pole and Jennifer . . .

“She was . . . tucked into the opening of the life preserver . . . like a doll . . . her eyes were staring . . . The wind was a steady screech, and Jennifer was staring at us, not seeing us . . . And I was crying. I couldn't stop. I stood at the wheel, crying.”

Katherine felt her own tears well up, and she closed her eyes.

“I shouted to Craig, but there was no answer. I thought he'd be close by, waiting for us after he put Jennifer in the life preserver, but I couldn't see him or hear him. It was almost dark and I was still crying. I told Derek we had to get Jennifer. It was the only time in our lives I gave orders and Derek followed them. He went in the water and tied a rope around her; and we got her into the boat and put a blanket over her. Derek tried to find a pulse but he couldn't. That was all, really. We shouted for Craig and Derek called the Coast Guard on the radio and I kept the boat close to the marker pole while we waited for them, shouting for Craig. Our voices seemed so small in the darkness, with just the circle of our spotlight moving over the black water, and in the distance the lights of San Francisco and the lighted bridges strung across the bay—so
damned beautiful, but I kept thinking, ‘Jennifer can't see it'—and we kept shouting Craig's name into the wind . . . But, my God, we sounded so infinitely small. The night swallowed our voices. I don't know if Craig heard us. He never answered.”

Katherine was crying, her muscles tensed, as if she stood beside Ross on the boat, calling to Craig. Ross put his arm around her. “That night we were all at Victoria's. I suppose we talked about what happened, but I kept hearing Craig's voice. In a room full of people, all I heard was Craig shouting Jennifer's name, and I kept seeing Jennifer's eyes.”

His voice became dry. “The next morning, I went to see my father in his office. I hadn't slept, but at least I was thinking again, and I had to know what Derek and Craig had been talking about. My father had been with me all night, of course, but I hadn't said anything about a fight on the boat and it took him by surprise. Not for long; he never takes more than a few seconds to recover from surprise. Derek is like that, too. I asked him to have the Macklin Building checked, and just then, Derek came in and heard me, took a quick look at our father, sitting behind his desk like a judge, and said to him, ‘Craig changed the specs; I didn't tell you at the time because it wasn't serious, and I took care of it.' I asked him what he did, and he said he'd strengthened the footings and there wasn't anything to worry about.

“My father asked him if he was sure he'd corrected the problem. Those were his words. And Derek said it was all taken care of. They were very smooth, except that the nerve next to Derek's eye was jumping. I thought they were lying, but I didn't have any evidence to back me up. My father gave me hell for doubting my brother, suggested I was distraught over the accident, and offered me a trip to Europe, after the funeral. I took it.

“Probably I shouldn't have. But I was exhausted and sick of all of them; I just wanted to get the hell out of there. When you're twenty years old, it's hard to accept the fact that your father might be a liar or dishonest; especially if you're already having trouble coping with nightmares about seeing your two cousins die in the same afternoon. So I went to Paris.

“In the fall I went back to school and when I graduated my father asked a friend in New York to hire me as a junior
architect. It occurred to me today, for the first time, that he wanted to keep me away from the Hayward Corporation.”

“So you wouldn't ask questions?”

“So I wouldn't snoop and discover that Derek hadn't repaired anything, and my father knew it. And there was another reason, I suppose, why they wanted me out of the way: to make sure that Derek would take over the company.” He reached for the wine and poured what was left in their glasses. “If they'd asked, I would have told them I never wanted to take over the company. But I did worry about that building, and finally managed to buy it and get it vacated. It was inspected this week; I got the report yesterday in Paris.”

After a moment, Katherine asked, “What didn't Derek repair?”

“The footings that supported the building. We hired a foundations engineer to check them and the first thing he found was a column . . . damn, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get into this.”

“Tell me,” she said. “I want to hear it.”

Ross smiled at her. Nice words, he thought. “He found a column that hadn't been sunk deep enough and then, under it, a footing that was cracked because it hadn't been reinforced with enough steel. We assume that if it's true of one, it's true of all of them, which means the building is in danger. Do you remember the accident at a Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City, when people were dancing on a skyway and it collapsed? The reports say it was the same problem: shortcuts in construction that made it unsafe. In other words, someone deviated from the original specifications to save time and money.”

“And that's what happened in the Macklin Building?”

“We think . . . What the hell, that's what it had to be. The footings are substandard, which means the specs were changed, which means, I suppose, an inspector had to be bribed to approve them.”

“Was it Craig?”

The name echoed on the terrace. “I don't think so,” Ross said slowly. “I always had trouble believing Craig would knowingly do anything to jeopardize a building's integrity; he was absolutely straight in construction. He thought of money last. I always felt I could trust Craig with any building I designed.”

Trust Craig.
Katherine rested her head against Ross's arm, feeling drained. A faint glow made her look to their left. “Sunrise,” she said wonderingly. The sky brightened: a wash of pale pink and apricot spread above them, and then the sun burned through, turning the cypress and olive trees to burnished red-gold. “So beautiful,” Katherine murmured. “But everything followed us here, after all.”