The Crimes of Jordan Wise (24 page)

What I had to do is murder in the eyes of the law, yes, but not in my eyes. To me it was not even an act of aggression. It was justifiable self-defense, the same as Coder's death; the only difference is that with Annalise it was necessarily premeditated. There was no real malice involved. The decision, the final act were as cold as the hate. A cold equation, but not a cold-blooded one. The distinction is important.

I am not a murderer.

The blame for Annalise's death was entirely hers. You can see that, can't you? There was no hate in me until she put it there. If she had stayed with me from the beginning, stayed faithful to me, she would still be alive today. If she hadn't betrayed me to Cotler and helped him try to blackmail me, she'd be alive today. If she'd remained on Long Island instead of crawling back to St. Thomas, she'd be alive today. If she'd kept her promises after I gave her her one last chance, it would've amounted to the viper emptying its own poison sac and my hate would have lain dormant and I'd have gone on living with her. And she'd be alive today.

I didn't kill her, when you look at it in that perspective. I didn't kill Cotler, either. I was merely the instrument, like a gun or knife or cut-glass decanter, by which they died.

Fred Cotler killed himself.

And so did Annalise.

The best way to approach the problem, I decided, was as if I were one of Amthor Associates' engineers embarking on a construction project. The building of a wall, a perfect wall, from scratch. First there were the basics to be worked out, then blueprints to be drawn. That much was pure mathematics. Then the materials had to be gathered, the foundation laid, and finally the wall itself could be erected. The actual construction required skill, determination, courage, total commitment. No, not courage. Fortitude. I had plenty of that. I was nothing if not tenacious.

Simplicity was the keynote. The more elaborate you tried to make a wall, the greater the chance for a flaw that would cause it to collapse. After deliberation, I decided the first of the concepts I considered was the best. Annalise had disppeared once suddenly and without a trace, she had to disappear again the same way.

I shaped the plan and drew the blueprints off of that. Her death had to be bloodless—I couldn't bear a repeat of the kind of clean-up I'd had to do after Cotler—and it had to be tempered with a quality of mercy. I didn't want her to suffer. Cold equation, start to finish. So I couldn't do the obvious thing of taking her out to sea in
Windrunner
and throwing her overboard. Death by drowning was cruel; letting the sharks have her alive was barbarous. Besides, if anyone knew or suspected she'd gone out with me and then didn't return, there would be an investigation. I didn't dare report an accidental death for the same reason. I discarded several other methods before I settled on one that was bloodless, humane, and relatively easy to accomplish.

But there was a sticking point, the same one I'd had with Cotler: disposal of the remains. I liked the irony of putting her where I'd put him, but I couldn't do it that way. Too risky. I'd been fortunate to get away with a cemetery burial once; trying it twice was a fool's gambit. The safest choice? Burial at sea. That could be done easily enough, but how to manage it without risk? If she disappeared on the same day I happened to go out alone on
Windrunner,
somebody might conceivably put two and two together. Whatever I did, it had to be free of the remotest possibility of an investigation.

At first I rejected the only workable answer. It meant involving a third party, and that third party would have to be Bone. He wouldn't know it—he'd be an unwitting accomplice, an innocent witness—but I didn't like the idea of using him that way. There was the
y
factor, too; you increase the possibility of hidden dangers when you bring an outsider into an equation like this. I toyed with other solutions. None fit the fundamental plan nearly as well. So then I considered other methods of building the wall, using different types of bricks and mortar. None was as basic, as easy to work with, as certain to guarantee solidity.

Like it or not, using Bone was the only way to do it as it needed to be done.

I laid the groundwork for her disappearance by saying that she'd been acting secretive of late and I thought it was because she'd been having an affair and might be thinking about leaving me again. I said I needed a few days at sea, on
Windrunner
in case she had any notions of leaving while I was gone and taking more of my possessions with her, but that I didn't want to go out alone. It took some coaxing, but he finally agreed to accompany me. I'd already called the Weather Center and the forecast was good for the next several days. We set a sail date for Monday morning, three days hence.

On Friday Annalise asked to use the Mini. Beach trip, she said. I said no, I had a lot of errands to run. Well, would I drop her off downtown? I said, "Why? You have a rendezvous with the man you're screwing?" That set off a fresh rush of indignant denials. She wasn't screwing anybody, she said, why couldn't I stop making these ridiculous accusations? But if she did have an affair, who could blame her since I couldn't do anything for her anymore. Underneath her pique was the emotion I'd intended to stir up: anxiety. She didn't want to push me too hard or too far; she still needed me to pay for her ride. So she lapsed into a pout and the old "Why are you so mean to me?" bit. I dropped the subject. I had what I wanted. If whoever she'd been sleeping with was still on the island, she'd stay clear of him for the next couple of days.

To get her away from the marina, I gave her enough money for the Water Island ferry and a day at Honeymoon Beach. When she was gone, I drove over to Red Hook and picked up a new mizzen at a sailmaker's shop. On the way back, I made two more stops in Charlotte Amalie. The first was a marine hardware store, where I bought two small hasps and padlocks, two extra padlocks, two lengths of anchor chain, and several lead sinkers. The second stop was an air-conditioning and refrigeration dealer, where I bought several packs of Freon refrigerant.

On
Windrunner,
I stored the Freon packs in the big ice chest in the galley, under ice to keep them frozen. Then I installed one hasp-and-padlock on the door to the aft sail locker, emptied the locker of the spare sails stored there, and put the lengths of anchor chain and the extra padlocks inside. I stowed the old spare mizzen and the lead sinkers under the berth in the main cabin. The new mizzen and the other spare sheets went into the forward sail locker, the second hasp-and-padlock onto that door. Annalise wouldn't notice the new locks. I knew Bone would; if he asked me about them I'd say somebody had been seen prowling around the yawl and it had prompted me to take security measures.

In the main cabin I plundered a dozen tablets from Annalise's extra supply of Valium. She wouldn't miss them. She had a half-full bottle in her purse; I'd checked on that the night before while she was in the head. I emptied out an aspirin tin, put the dozen Valium inside and the tin into my pocket.

After lunch, I ran
Windrunner
over to the fuel dock and topped off the gas and water tanks. I knew the Puerto Rican who manned the pumps fairly well. I pulled a long face when I came in and grumbled enough to get him to ask what was the matter. "Problems with my wife," I said. "I think she's fixing to run out on me again." He was sympathetic.

Maybe I ought to show her who was boss, he said. "Slap her around?" I said. "HeU, no. I've never laid a hand on her and I never will."

That finished the preparations. Now I was ready to build the wall.

That night she tried to kindle some sexual interest in me. Her hands felt like sea slugs on my bare skin. I said, "Leave me alone, will you? I'm too tired," and rolled away from her.

Sunday, her last day, she slept late and moped around when she finally got up. She suggested we go to Harry's Dockside Cafe for lunch; I said I didn't feel like it, why didn't she just go by herself. I gave her some money—twice as much as she needed to buy a meal. As I expected, she spent the extra on liquor; she was tight when she came back, and she didn't seem to care whether I noticed or not. I didn't say anything to her about it. She stayed in the cabin for a time—more liquor, Valium, or both—and passed the rest of the afternoon sleeping in the shade on the foredeck.

I thought I might be a little apprehensive as construction time grew near, but I wasn't. My resolve was too strong, the hate as cold as the Freon packs in the chest below. That's not to say I was looking forward to finishing the wall. No one in his right mind looks forward to a job like that.

Annalise woke up about five thirty. She said she could use a drink; she was bleary-eyed from a combination of the ones she'd had at lunch and the afternoon heat. I said I was hungry, we'd eat first and then have drinks. Supper was day-old French bread, some ripe Camembert, and papaya. While she was setting the table, I poured two large glasses from a bottle of red wine. With my back to her, I slipped two tablets from the tin of Valium and stirred them into her glass. She emptied half the wine before she even looked at her food. Neither of us ate much.

When her glass was empty, she asked for a rum punch. I built it strong, stirred in two more Valium tablets with the pineapple juice and Grenadine. She said when I handed it to her, "Let's go topside. It's like an oven down here."

"It's not that bad. There's the fan and a breeze through the porthole."

"Why can't we go up on deck?"

"I feel like sitting here tonight."

"Dammit, Richard, sometimes I think you're trying to torture me. Haven't I done enough penance for my sins?"

"I have no intention of torturing you," I said. "On the contrary. I'm making it as easy for you as I can."

"Then why can't we go up on deck? This damn heat is making me woozy."

"Drink your drink. You'll be all right."

She drank it. And the refill I gave her, that one more slowly. I made the third with three full jiggers of rum and three Valium tablets.

"Whoo, that's strong," she said when she tasted it. "Trying to get me drunk, fella? Take advantage of me?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well. Well, well, well. I better slow down, then, don't want to pass out."

"We have plenty of time." I raised my glass. "Cheers."

"Up your poop chute," she said, and giggled.

She was sweating heavily by the time she finished half that drink. Her eyes had an unfocused glaze. She pushed the glass away.

"Had enough," she said. "Too much. Rum and wine . . . shouldn't mix."

I pushed it back. "Go on, drink up."

"Why?"

"Drink it, Annalise. Can't let good liquor go to waste."

She drank it, gagging on the last swallow. "No more, no more." She sat staring blankly at the empty glass. Then, slurring the words, "Jesus, I feel shitty."

I didn't say anything.

"Can't keep my eyes open. So hot in here . . ."

I didn't say anything.

"Think I'm gonna be sick . . ."

She started to get up, lurched a little and would have fallen if I hadn't cought her. I eased her down onto the double berth. She struggled in my grasp, tried to stand up again.