Suspicion of Guilt (50 page)

"Shut up!" Odell jabbed the bang stick closer. "Turn around and put your palms flat on the ceiling."

"No. Come on, Howard."

"Did you kill Althea Tillett?"

Eric laughed.
"Me?"
He kept his eyes on the end of the steel rod. "Did she tell you that? It's a lie, I swear to God. She's fucking with you."

Odell gasped for breath. "I said turn around, palms on the ceiling."

Gail dug her fingers into Eric's closed fist. "Oh God, oh God, let go!"

Eric was staring at the end of the rod. "Howard ... I think you forgot to load it, man."

"I keep it loaded, asshole. Bet on it."

Eric smiled. "Come on, then. Do it. Blow my guts through the wall."

"Let go!" Gail screamed.

Odell lunged. The bang stick landed on a brass snap on Eric's denim jacket, making a soft clink. Eric twisted it out of Odell's hands.

"Fucker, I told you it was empty." He threw it down, clanging against the stove. But Odell was running forward, pulling the fish bat out of his pocket. The blow hit Eric's upraised arm, and he tripped on the bang stick, crashing to the galley floor.

Gail was on the table. Eric had fallen against the stairs, cutting off escape. Odell smashed the bat into Eric's knee. He screamed, caught the second blow with his hand, then grabbed the bat. He rammed upward and Odell staggered into the table. His hat fell off, revealing his pale head and fringe of brown hair.

Eric came for him as Gail leaped off the table. Eric raised the fish bat, then brought it down, thudding into flesh. Up the companionway stairs she could hear a sickening crack, then silence.

Gail screamed for Karen. The deck was empty. She whirled around.

Eric was in the salon doorway, a silhouette, hopping on one leg. She backed up. There were dark smears on his jacket.

"Fuck!" He inhaled deeply, catching his breath, hands on his hips. "Dammit, Gail. If you'd kept your mouth shut!"

"Let Karen go. She's only a baby. Eric, please!" She moved behind the fighting chair, then noticed a movement above the bridge. Karen was climbing the tuna tower. The sea rolled, and the outriggers swung and clattered.

"I don't want to hurt you, Gail. Believe me, I don't. But if you stay on board, I'll have to. So jump. Make it easy." The black water curled into frothy wavelets that smacked against the hull.

He braced both hands on the chair to steady himself.

"You killed Althea Tillett, didn't you?" She had to keep him talking to give herself time to think.

He lowered his head to the level of his arms. "Yes, Gail. She was going to call the police about Howard's embezzling. I made it look like an accident. I came in through her sliding glass door when she went out on the terrace, just like I told you this morning. I would have come in another way if I'd had to, but I got lucky."

"Oh, God. And Carla."

"And Carla." Eric raised his head, then swung around the chair. Gail went one way, he countered, and she went back the other, trapped.

"Karen! Jump! Find the life ring and jump!"

"You too, Gail," Eric said. "I want both of you off this fucking boat."

She grabbed a beer bottle out of a holder on the transom and threw it at him. It missed, bouncing off the salon windows.

"Work on that forward pass," Eric said. "I am sorry about Larry, but he'll make it, so all is not lost."

"Bastard. I hope you die!"

Eric laughed. "I'll tell you something funny, the way it happened. Irving Adler. I told him I was from Alan Weissman's office. He let me right in. The back door, no less. That dog of his bit my ankle, and I stepped on it. I didn't even mean to." Eric clutched at his chest and rolled his eyes. "Adler just ... went down." His smile vanished. "Well. I guess you had to be there."

The engines rumbled and the water bubbled at the stern. Gail glanced up. Karen had reached the tuna tower. The boat pitched. Karen slipped sideways, then grabbed the ladder and held on.

"You're pissing me off, Gail." Eric fumbled into his jacket pocket and came out with Dave's fishing knife, quickly snapping it open. Gail leaped back as the blade slashed through her sweater sleeve. She fell backward past the transom onto the latticed wood deck that extended over the stern, rolling toward the water. She could smell the diesel exhaust. A wave splashed up through the wood. Gail clawed, scrambling back into the boat, dropping into the starboard corner. Eric had gone to port. He was looking for something—the knife.

"Shit." He hopped once, then grabbed the flying gaff, hooked over the ladder to the bridge. He let the gaff slide down through his hands. The gaff was topped with a hook six inches across. The other end was tied to the ladder by a dozen feet of polyester line that would easily reach to the starboard corner where Gail now cowered.

"Jump, Gail. Jump off the fucking boat right now, and tell your daughter to jump, too. You want to watch me slit her open?"

"Give her a life vest. For God's sake! Give her a life vest and I'll jump without one, I swear."

In the darkness above, Karen's fingers were curled over the edge of the tuna tower, and her eyes were huge in her pale face. The boat shuddered into a trough and the outriggers clattered over her head, thin white lines in the darkness.

Eric cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey! Karen! You can swim, can't you? Don't make me come up there."

On her feet, Gail ran for the open salon door. She would find the fish bat, anything. Eric swung around, the light glittering for an instant on the hook of the gaff before it smashed across the entrance and shattered the window on the other side.

He came after her. The hook caught in the hem of her sweater. He pulled and she fell to the deck, drawn closer before the yarn shredded. Gail scooted backward. The hook swept inches from her face.

She rolled between transom and chair, coming out on the port side. She ran for the bridge, up the ladder. A life preserver was there, hanging by the engine controls. Eric grabbed her ankle. She kicked, screaming, connecting with his face.

"Goddamn bitch!" His nose was bloody. He was pulling himself up with his one good leg and one hand, the other still around the gaff. The boat rolled and he hung on, then climbed another rung.

Gail grabbed the life preserver, a hard white ring with rope around the edge. She would throw it, jump, scream for Karen to jump as well.

"Karen!" She flung the life preserver starboard. It caught on the back of the tall captain's chair and bounced back to the lower deck.

Eric was at the top of the ladder. Gail rushed forward and kicked him squarely in the chest.

Then for a long moment, during which Gail watched as if this were all happening somewhere else, and Eric Ramsay was a man she did not even know, he stood balanced on one foot, arms outflung, holding the flying gaff, the line making a long, lazy S against the empty black sky.

He dropped. The line snagged around an outrigger stanchion and went taut. The gaff slipped through Eric's fingers. Then he screamed, thudding against the side of the boat at water level.

Gail gripped the railing of the bridge, staring over the side. Eric was dangling there, and the salon lights danced crazily on the water. He grabbed the rope with his free hand. Supporting his weight, he worked the hook out of his palm. It came free and clanked on the hull. He began to pull himself up the gaff line, hand over hand, eyes fixed on Gail.

She heard a high-pitched cry. "Mom!" She looked up. Karen was on the roof, pointing to the deck. "Dad's knife!"

Gail slid down the ladder, clutching at the slippery metal. She looked over the side. Eric was struggling to catch hold of the metal railing along the gunwale. Gail grabbed the knife, stood on the second rung of the ladder, and sawed at the gaff line.

Eric stretched his bloody hand for the railing. The rope frayed, then snapped. The end still tied to the ladder danced. The ocean slapped against the hull, and the wave crests gurgled and frothed, white in the starlight

Suddenly there was a rush of noise and motion, and Gail rolled backward, hitting the transom. Karen was on the bridge, throttle forward. The engines screamed. The boat turned, turned, coming back, its long prow aiming for the spot where Eric had fallen.

Gail was not certain that the boat ran over his body, but there seemed to be a thud. When she looked over the stern, she saw nothing but empty ocean.

A few hundred yards later, the engines finally slowed, went silent.

Gail sank to the deck, then heard the quick scurry of Karen's feet.

"Mom, are you okay?"

She opened her eyes and pulled Karen into her arms.

"We need to radio for help."

"I don't know how," Gail said.

"I do." Karen stood up, her slight figure moving easily on the rolling surface. "We should do it like really quick."

Gail struggled up. "Let's just start the engines and go back. Don't worry. We'll find our way. See that glow on the horizon?"

"I don't think we have time."

"What do you mean, sweetie?"

"You know when I was below by myself?"

"Yes."

"I shot the bang stick. I wrapped a pillow around the end of it to make it not as loud, and I hit it on the deck in the vee berth. It didn't make a really big hole, but ... we ought to look for the life vests."

Chapter Thirty-Three

At midmorning in the autumn, the light could pour through the upper-floor windows of the Hartwell Building with such blue intensity that Gail could imagine stepping out and soaring on the updrafts. The islands and the Beach seemed to float on swirls of turquoise, and the clouds were like the full, white spinnakers on sailboats.

She stood by the windows in Larry Black's office; he sat on the divan, a cane propped beside him. Larry had dropped in only to attend the management committee meeting; he was still too weak to come back even part-time. His face was bandaged and one arm was in a sling.

He was shaking his head. "But how could you do this? We're about to vote on your partnership, Gail."

"I've made up my mind, Larry. I spoke to Paul Robineau yesterday about it, and he told the others."

"Are you sure? Maybe you only need some time off. Gail, you've been through a lot lately."

"Oh, it isn't my nerves." Laughing, she sat down beside him. "I'll tell you what it is. Larry, I saw a man clubbed to death. I thought I was going to die. Worse than that—much worse—I was going to watch my daughter die. Then our boat sank under us. Coming that close to the ultimate reality has to change your priorities." She smiled at him. "Doesn't it?"

Larry let out a long breath. "Yes. Perhaps it does." He looked at her. One of his eyes was still heavily bruised. "What will you do?"

In the two weeks since the Coast Guard cutter had rescued her and Karen from an inflatable life raft sixty miles off Daytona Beach, swept north on the Gulf Stream for a day and a half, she had been thinking about what to do.

She took his uninjured hand in both of hers. "I may ask a certain friend to open a new law firm with me. What do you think?"

Larry smiled. "Yes. I've heard many couples practice together. It's not easy, but Anthony seems—"

"Larry! I meant you."

"Me?" He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"Yes. I couldn't share an office with Anthony. My God. There has to be some distance between a man and a woman, otherwise they get tired of each other." Gail whispered, "Larry. I know you've considered leaving. Take the plunge. You can do it."

"Leave Hartwell Black? My father practiced here. My grandfather."

"So?"

"I don't know. After the stories in the news about those despicable corporations, in which I had the lunacy to own shares ... No, it would appear that I'm turning tail because I can't take the heat."

"Appear to whom? Your other friends who were doing the same thing? Larry, you shouldn't care what people think. You're humane and honest, the very thing a lawyer needs to be. Clients can see that. And if nobody else can, then to hell with 'em."

He laughed, then winced, touching his side.

The door opened and Larry's secretary stuck her head in. "Ms. Connor? There's a Mr. Ehringer on the phone for you. I told him you were busy, but he insisted."

"Ehringer?" She got up. "I'll take it. Excuse me, Larry." She picked up the phone on his desk.

He wanted to speak to her; he was downstairs in his car on his way to the airport. Perhaps she had a moment? Gail said she did, then hung up, curious.

She went over to the divan for her purse, then stood there for a moment. "Larry, would you think about what I asked you? If you tell me no, I'll only harass you until you change your mind."

He smiled up at her. "Well. All right, I'll think about it."

"Remember Althea," she said. "Live fearlessly."

"Althea Tillett?"

Gail laughed. "If you knew!"

Pushing her way through the revolving door on Flagler Street, Gail saw a sweep of glittering black and deepest red. He had arrived in a Rolls-Royce limousine, not a new one, but stately and square, with a long hood, immense grill, and the winged lady about to soar off the silvery point of it. Russell stood by the rear passenger door. He saw Gail, nodded, and reached for the handle.

Gail walked over and peered inside. Sanford Ehringer sat on the backseat, Walter beside him. Ehringer was in white, with two-tone shoes; Walter wore a suit of navy blue, perfectly tailored. There were some picture books beside him.

Ehringer asked if she had time for a spin around the block; he had a matter to briefly discuss with her. Gail replied that she was about to find a taxi anyway, so perhaps he could drop her off near 62nd Street? Unless it would make him late for his flight? No, they had chartered a jet; it could wait.

Walter smiled at her and scooted over. The gray upholstery was soft as velvet. As the Rolls pulled away from the curb, she looked around. A telephone, computer, and fax machine were built into a burled walnut cabinet. Little vases with pink rosebuds hung at the curtained windows. The sounds of the street had disappeared, replaced by Vivaldi.

Ehringer chuckled. "Never been in one of these, eh? This is a 1954 Phantom V, as solid as the day she was born. I got a deal on it secondhand. It used to belong to the Queen Mother."