Seize the Storm (11 page)

“He did,” said Martin.

“Did what?” asked Axel, rising to his feet. He had the pistol in his hand, across the flat of his palm.

Martin's voice was trembling, and he clung to literal truthfulness, forcing his mind to endure one detail at a time. “He did shoot the dog, apparently.”

Axel briefly removed the ammunition clip, examined it, and slid it back in. “Two bullets left,” he said, tucking the Glock into the top of his denims.

“What about fingerprints, Axel?” said Martin.

“You mean,” said Axel, his voice flat, “when the homicide detectives and the crime scene unit show up, I might be in trouble.”

Martin did not respond to this.

Axel said, “There's a dead guy in the cabin, too.”

T
HE CABIN WAS POORLY LIT
, once they got beyond the angle of daylight thrown by the open door. The space smelled wrong—unhealthy and overripe, but not as bad, Martin surmised, as it would in a few more hours.

There was enough illumination to allow Martin to briefly examine the other body. It was clad in a hooded Nike jogging jacket, khaki cargo pants, and Converse basketball shoes. The body was on its side, wedged between a cabinet and a fixed-in-place barstool. The dead guy's left hand held an iPhone, and a handgun lay in a corner nearby, a revolver.

Martin did not mind looking as this corpse so much, because the light was muted and he was perhaps already getting used to this sort of thing. Or so he told himself. He touched the body. It was clammy, and it was stiff, too, the arm rigid where Martin nudged it. And there was that growing dead smell here in the enclosed space that he had not noticed so strongly in the partially open structure of the pilot house.

Martin was very sorry he had disturbed the corpse's repose, and he nearly apologized out loud. He felt particularly troubled because this person had been trying to contact help, probably, using the handheld device. How terrible it was, thought Martin, to die so dismally, out in the ocean. He said a prayer—a spontaneous, unspoken
God help these people.

Martin picked up the revolver.

He held the firearm very cautiously, and carried it into the doorway. He did what he had seen detectives do in movies, swinging the cylinder out, and letting the shells spill into his hand. The copper shells were all empty—the unknown man had fired every bullet in the gun.

Axel wasn't talking, and Martin kept his mouth shut, too. He put the revolver down next to the DVD player. His flashlight beam joined Axel's in probing the interior. The lights shifted from shelf to floor to galley. The place was sparsely furnished, but what was there was quality—a Sony LCD hi-def screen, a Bosch freezer and ice maker, with what looked like teak paneling on the walls.

The walkie-talkie on Martin's hip was making a tiny squawking sound, like a transmission from deep space—Claudette's questioning voice. Martin turned down the volume. He didn't want to talk about any of this, ever, if he could help it.

Martin examined the living quarters. There was a liquor cabinet, the bottles held in place by a crossbar, gin and tequila. An Apple laptop lay closed on a side shelf, and the DVDs were all X-rated and action movies. He found two metal dishes on a bottom shelf, beside a neatly folded bag of Natural Balance Ultra Premium dog kibble.

For a fairly expensive pleasure craft, there was a lot of unused space and few partitions. The living area opened aft into a cargo hold. Where Martin would have expected sleeping quarters or even enclosed cabins, there was emptiness, with heavy-duty bungee cords attached to the walls, the kind shippers use to hold cargo in place.

In the daylight that fell down through the skylight in the hatch, it was evident that the vessel had once carried a shipment, but now she was empty.

Axel found a small door panel near the freezer and he asked Martin to hold a light on the thing while he switched circuit breakers off and on. He asked Martin to experiment with the wall switches, too, but the chamber remained dark.

“Generator,” said Axel. “Must be fried.”

“Can we get her running again?”

“Sure,” said Axel. “Have to jump-start the engines.”

“So this boat isn't permanently—” Martin could not bring himself to say
dead in the water.

Martin had the absurd feeling that the dead person would hear the phrase and be offended.

“Not permanently,” said Axel.

He opened the fridge and sorted through the dark interior. “Beef patties,” he said. “Lasagna. Still pretty much frozen.”

He unscrewed the cap of a bottle of tequila and sniffed it, as though suspicious. He did not drink any of it.

“What do you think happened?” asked Martin.

“They shot each other,” said Axel.

“How?” Martin had learned how to think like this, working with scientists at Scripps—theorize about what hunting fish had taken a bite out of the sea bass, measure the bite, estimate how long ago the bass had escaped.

“We can guess,” said Axel. He found a toolbox on a shelf and sorted through wrenches and wiring.

“I think the bald puka shell guy shot the iPhone guy first,” said Martin. “The dog got upset, tried to protect his master, and then he got shot, too.”

Axel found a socket wrench and spun it around, the ratcheting noise loud in the enclosed space.

“The iPhone guy wasn't dead,” Martin continued. “He staggered up to the helm, and the puka shell guy blew most of the rest of his clip trying to defend himself, getting killed anyway. Then iPhone guy crawled back down here and died. That explains the two paths of blood on the stairs and the bullet holes in the Plexiglas—puka shell guy did not have a very good aim.”

Axel nodded. “Sounds about right,” he said.

“It all happened this morning, early,” said Martin. “Rigor mortis is just beginning to wear off.” Dead fish got rigor, and so did most other creatures, Martin had learned. Thinking analytically like this, Martin discovered, made the crimes just a little less upsetting.

“Good theory,” said Axel.

“But,” continued Martin, “what were they fighting over?”

“People fight,” said Axel.

Martin gently kicked a sports bag on a lower shelf, the kind of carryall people use for tennis equipment and gym clothes. He leaned down and poked it with his fingers, then he hooked the bag—which was surprisingly heavy—and set it down in the wedge of daylight.

The outside of the bag was flame-red, and it featured a logo, Sleeping Giant Gym and Spa, with yellow lettering. Martin tugged the zipper.

Martin's understanding of the recent violence became instantly more clear. He could see, now, the possible grounds for the two homicides.

The bag was full of money.

T
HE MONEY WAS
in the form of bundles of hundred-dollar bills, each held together with a light blue paper band. Each paper band, as far as Martin could tell at a glance, had been carefully defaced with a black marker to disguise the bank name and other identification.

No sooner had Martin set his eyes on this money than he had the impulse to hide it from Axel.

Martin had no particular reason to expect Axel to seize the money, or in any way behave dishonorably, but a hoard of this size changed the way Martin felt about his companion, and about his own personal future.

This wasn't the promise of money, like a future paycheck or an inheritance. This was actual money, right here, giving off the admirable but unfamiliar whiff of old printed paper, hand-worn, conserved, and refolded many times.
Mine.
The word was like a neon pulse in his head.

But it was too late to hide.

Axel was already kneeling beside the bag and running his hands down into it. He pulled out a bundle of cash and stood in the doorway. He fanned the currency like a deck of cards and held one of the bills to the daylight through the doorway without removing it from the stack, like a prospective book buyer admiring a printed page.

Martin waited for what Axel was about to say, but he could guess the words.

So when they came, Martin was not very surprised.

“We could split this,” said Axel. “Just you and me.”

He knelt again, joining Martin on his knees beside the money. To make his meaning clear, he added, “I mean that we could keep this. All of it.”

The two of them remained on their knees beside their discovery.

“We could,” agreed Martin.

But he felt again how unwise it was to discuss such things with Axel. Retreating from his feeling of personal greed, Martin was convinced that what he really wanted was to give the money to his uncle, and let the cash end up being shared with the entire crew.

“We could keep it,” said Martin, “but we won't.”

Axel put the bundle of money back into the bag and hefted the bag in both hands, like a traveler trying to remember if he had packed his underwear. “This must weigh forty pounds.”

“At least,” Martin agreed.

“You're not thinking, Martin,” said Axel. “We could set this money to one side. Hide it.”

“How?”

“Or, we could report to Mr. and Mrs. Burgess that we found the money after we had already kept some of it back. As a commission, like.”

“A finder's fee,” suggested Martin.

Axel smiled. But this was a new, unfamiliar smile, a just-you-and-me, confidential grin. Axel was aglow, enjoying this. “Right. A finder's fee.”

It made sense in a way. Martin felt how exciting it was, the two of them in on a grand secret. “How much do you think it is?”

Axel shook his head. “A lot.”

“How much?”

Axel thought about this, running mental calculations. “If they are all hundred-dollar bills,” he said, “this is a fortune.”

The words went through Martin like an electric current.

“Of course,” said Martin, “this might all be counterfeit.”

“The C-note I looked at had a watermark.”

“You're an expert at identifying money?” asked Martin.

“I play cards with strangers,” said Axel. “Someone pays you money, you give it a good look. This is the real thing.” Axel put his hand out to touch Martin's chest, and leaned forward. “I have debts, Martin,” he continued. “Money like this would mean a lot.”

Martin was caught at that instant by a compelling possibility. He could have all this money himself. Why did he even have to share this cash with Axel? A shocking accident could happen, and Axel could hit his head.

This instant fantasy, Martin with the entire satchel of money, was a waking reverie that could have lasted a long time. Axel would be gone, and Martin and the rest could have a nice long talk about things being different.

Axel was the one who shook Martin to his senses when he said, in an offhand way, “Of course, I'm the one with a loaded gun. Why do I have to share this with you?”

Martin said, “You're talking about shooting me.”

A
XEL WAS NOT SMILING NOW.

He was back to his usual expression of masculine endurance.

“Maybe,” he admitted. “Maybe I am raising the possibility.”

“The possibility of using the gun to kill me,” persisted Martin.

Axel kept his voice even, and his answer short. “Just talking.”

Martin was quiet, but he was appalled. “You're looking me right in the face and threatening my life.”

Martin knew that if he was going to hurt Axel, disable or stun him in order to defend himself, it would have to be now.

Axel lifted both hands in denial.

Martin shook his head in disbelief. But it was not total disbelief. Martin himself had briefly entertained the same impulse. “You're saying that you would murder me to keep this.”

Axel looked away and lifted one shoulder.

Then he looked back at Martin. There was a trace—a bare hint—of a smile in his eyes when he said, “I scared you, didn't I?”

“Yes, and you still do,” said Martin.

“There are people I would kill to keep this money, Martin,” Axel said, “but you aren't one of them.”

“How can I believe you?”

“It's the money doing this to us,” said Axel. “We find some money in a gym bag and we turn into a couple of criminals.”

“I don't know if I can turn my back on you,” said Martin.

“Now you're starting to offend me, Martin,” said Axel. “A guy like you doesn't get killed by Axel Owen over a sack of money.”

Martin felt his body begin to relax.

“Also,” added Axel, “I need you. Aside from me, you're the only one strong enough to work the yacht's rigging winch if the power goes out.”

*   *   *

Martin zipped the carrier tightly.

Then he and Axel went out under the open sky, and Martin turned up the volume of his walkie-talkie.

Across the water Claudette was intoning directions into the two-way radio. “I am really upset, Martin. Very, very upset. You told me you would keep in constant communication.”

Martin said that he was sorry and added that he had some news. He had heard the formula before and never liked it. But he used the phrase when he added, “I have some good news, and some bad news.”

Claudette was quick to ask, “Is anyone hurt?”

“I'm OK and Axel is OK,” said Martin. “But there are two dead people on the boat.”

This news shut her up for one long moment.

“Dead how?” asked Claudette.

“Shot, as far as we can tell,” said Martin. “That's the bad news. The good news is, we found some money.”

Claudette's voice sounded doubtful. She was in no hurry, absorbing this fresh information. “What do you mean,
money
?”

Martin was at that moment aware of a sound from the sky.

An aircraft was approaching.

T
HE NOISE WAS A LOW-KEY
, pleasing growl, the sort of far-off engine sound Martin associated with small airports and Sunday afternoons, amateur pilots enjoying unlimited visibility. He was happy to see this sign of civilization, someone enjoying the Pacific from the air. He envied the pilot, and wished that he, too, was looking down from a great height.