The Deep Blue Alibi (40 page)

“Mother, I don’t care, okay?”

“I never slept with him.”

“Fine. Now, just drop it.”

“It’s your father who cheated.”

Victoria wheeled around. In the direct sun, in her pin-striped trial suit, her face heating up, she thought she might faint. “Liar!”

“I knew you’d say that. That’s why I brought Nelson’s note.”

Irene tried to hand her the envelope, but Victoria backed off as if it were on fire. “It’s probably a forgery. I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“I don’t wear faux pearls, I don’t use paper plates, and I don’t forge suicide notes. It’s time you knew the truth. Your father was having an affair with Phyllis.”

“Phyllis Griffin?”

“It wasn’t Phyllis Diller. Yes, Phyllis Griffin. They were sneaking around those last few months.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

Uncle Grif’s wife, Junior’s mother. The idea was preposterous.

“When I found out, I told your father I wanted a divorce. He begged me to forgive him, but I wouldn’t. He got all psychological. Said he didn’t love Phyllis. It was the pressure of the business, the Grand Jury investigation, maybe even animosity toward Grif for getting them into legal trouble. Nelson offered to get counseling, anything to save the marriage. I told him to go to hell. Said I’d divorce him and take you away. My pride was wounded, and I wouldn’t give him another chance. So I am guilty, dear. Guilty of being rigid and unforgiving. Guilty of being so self-directed I couldn’t see how damaged your father was. He committed suicide the night after our blowup.”

Victoria felt the slightest puff of a breeze. The boats groaned in their moorings, the air heavy with putrid fish. “Give it to me.”

The note was handwritten on Griffin-Lord Construction Co. stationery.

Dearest Irene,

I cannot express the depths of my love for you

and Victoria, but it’s all become too much to bear.

I fear the business will go under, and I don’t see a way out. I have wronged you deeply, and nothing

I can ever say or do will make that right. My

biggest regret is that I will not live to see the

woman Victoria is destined to become. I beg both

of you to forgive me.

Nelson

Overhead, a seabird
caw
ed. Victoria was aware of the sound of diesel engines kicking up, water boiling at the stern of a fishing boat.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier,” Irene said. “I wanted you to remember your father differently. And maybe part of me was humiliated.”

“Why?” Suddenly, everything had changed. Her mother was a victim in the marriage, not its villain. “Dad’s the one who cheated, the one who took the coward’s way out.”

“Nelson felt he needed someone else. Not something for me to be proud of. And all these years, I’ve wondered. If I’d handled it differently, would he still be alive?”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

“I’ve told myself that, too. But I’m the only one who could have saved him. And I didn’t.” She took the note back, tore it up, and tossed the pieces off the dock, where they fluttered in the breeze like wings of herons.

Victoria needed to clear her mind. At the corner of Southard and Duval, she stepped off the curb and into the path of a pink taxi. The driver squealed to a stop, banged the horn, and cursed in Creole.

Victoria tried to fathom the depths of her feelings. Her mother, who could be so shallow and superficial, had now gone the other direction. She shouldered moral complicity in her husband’s death. But what did she expect of herself? What superhuman powers of understanding and compassion did she think she lacked?

“Oh, Nelson darling, don’t be depressed. I forgive you for screwing my best friend.”

No, the betrayal and shameful abandonment were all her father’s.

And the note I so longed for?

Now that she’d seen it, now that she’d held in her hands the last item he’d touched before the swan dive off the condo roof …the note made no difference.

You regret not seeing me grow up? Damn you! You could have been here.

Now that she knew what had happened, the truth had not set her free. No peace came with the knowledge, just one pain replacing another. What was it Steve said his father had told him? Something about being careful when turning over rocks. There’ll be snakes, not flowers, underneath.

In this moment, more than any other, she wished Steve were here. As she passed under the kapok tree on the courthouse lawn—the last place she had seen him— she pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number. There was no answer, but she listened to the entire leave-your-number message just so she could hear his voice.

Dammit, Steve. Where are you?

Forty-eight

THE DEEP BLUE ALIBI

A very loud woman shouted something at Steve.

He couldn’t see her because his eyes were glued shut. At least, that’s the way they felt. He forced his eyes open, a salty crust cracking along his lashes.

Ouch.
He was staring into a broiling sun. Suddenly aware of noxious fumes. Burning fuel, melting plastic.

“Wave your arm if you can hear me!”

That voice again. Amplified. Authoritative.

If I’m dead, then God could be a woman. But then, that sun is hot as hell, and who’s to say the devil’s not a chick? Now, just where is my arm?

Steve managed to wave, water pouring down his wet-suit sleeve into his face. His mask was gone. So was one of his fins. He was floating, lifting and falling with every swell. The top-of-the-line buoyancy compensator
—thank you, Stubbs—
was rigged to float an unconscious man on his back.

Fowles. Where are you?

“Just stay calm, sir. We’ll get you in a minute.”

Steve lifted his head out of the water. It weighed about the same as that giant jewfish.

Maybe heaven is a giant spa, and I’m in the Jacuzzi.

Maybe that’s where the good Jews go. The others are made into gefilte fish.

Bobbing in the water, smaller than a cutter, was a boat. He recognized the red, white, and blue diagonal stripes. Coast Guard. Most beautiful boat he’d ever seen. A woman in uniform stood at the bow rail, a bullhorn in her hand. Most beautiful woman, too, though he couldn’t make out a single feature. He gave her the thumbs-up sign.

“That’s it, sir! Don’t try to swim over.”

Swim? Going back to sleep is more like it. What time’s my massage?

He was aware of the
putt-putt
of a small yellow inflatable craft coming to his side. Two men in uniforms leaned over, barking instructions. They seemed very young and pimply but their voices were strong. Best he could understand, he was to do nothing. They’d get him aboard. He tried to say something, but his throat was raw with salt water, and he vomited all over the guardsmen as they hauled him into the inflatable.

“Another man,” Steve croaked. “Scuba gear. Where is he?”

“Just relax now, sir.”

They seemed extremely competent for twelve-yearolds, Steve thought, hazily.

The inflatable headed toward the boat, dodging pieces of fiberglass and aluminum, the remnants of the Cigarette. Fuel burned, black and orange, on the surface. Bouncing in the waves nearby, without its rider, the rusty old chariot. The bow charred black, but seemingly indestructible.

As they neared the boat, Steve saw another inflatable in the water. Two more Coast Guardsmen. A lifeless body, a man in jeans and a bloodied T-shirt, lay facedown in the craft.

Conchy Conklin? Who else could it be?

With a net, the guardsmen were fishing something out of the water. What was it?

An arm! From the elbow down, an arm in a torn wet suit.

Fowles.

God, he’d done it. He’d sacrificed himself. He’d destroyed his own personal
Tirpitz
and saved Steve’s life. How do you repay a debt like that?

You don’t. Maybe you make a vow to be a better man, but the debt goes unpaid.

As a young guardsman helped Steve up the ladder of the larger craft, he had the vague notion that he’d lost something. The mask, of course. And one fin. And …

The slate.

Fowles’ confession. His dying wish had been to settle up, to clear Griffin’s name. The slate was Griffin’s deep blue alibi and now it was at the bottom of the deep blue sea.

Forty-nine

VISITING HOUR

The ER staff at Fishermen’s Hospital appeared happy to see Steve. A couple jokes about discounts for repeat customers, a couple suggestions to stay away from bodies of water. They promised to let him out after a few hours’ observation as long as the various probes and scans all came back normal.

Steve’s face was the color of a broiled lobster with a ghostly white outline from the mask. His neck was wrapped in a soft brace, but all moving parts seemed to be in semi-working order. Soon, the doctors and nurses dispersed, and his little cubicle was filled with people in uniform, with guns on their hips. Steve refused to make any statements, until he heard someone belting out the chorus of “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season.”

“C’mon in, parrothead,” Steve rasped as Sheriff Willis Rask poked his nose through the curtain.

“Jimmy B. says howdy. Wow, you look like shit.”

“Thanks, Willis. Why don’t you clear everybody out of here so we can talk?”

Rask shooed out the others, pulled up a chair, and Steve told him everything that had happened since showing up at Paradise Key that morning. The chariot ride, the reef, Fowles’ story about sneaking aboard the
Force Majeure,
fighting with Stubbs over the speargun, the spear firing, and finally the attack by Conklin in a Cigarette with flame decals.

“It matches up,” Rask said. “One body’s Chester Lee Conklin. Body parts of the guy in the wet suit are a little harder to ID, but from what you say, it’s got to be Fowles.”

“What about the Cigarette? Who owned it?”

“Registered to a shell company in the Bahamas. We’re trying to track it back, see who pays the annual fees.”

“Find anything on the boat?”

“You mean what’s left of it? Coast Guard’s still sifting through the debris. We did find Conklin’s Harley, though. At a marina on Lower Matecumbe.”

Steve propped himself up on the pillow. “You inventory the saddlebag? Interview people at the marina? Find out where Conklin was staying?”

“I dunno, Steve. I’m not supposed to share investigative materials with civilians. Especially defense lawyers.”

“Give. Or I’ll tell the mayor you’re still growing pot in your backyard.”

“Hell, so’s he.” He scratched at his mustache. “Nothing but a carton of Marlboros and a traffic ticket in the saddlebag.”

“Ticket for what?”

“Expired tag, is all.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Willis?”

“Nothing I can make heads or tails of. The ticket was issued in Jacksonville. Ten days ago.”

Jacksonville? You couldn’t get any farther away and still be in Florida.

“Long ride,” Steve said. “Any idea what Conklin was doing up there?”

Rask shrugged. “Could have been visiting friends or family. ‘Course, it’s not like Miami.” Rask hummed a little of “Everybody’s Got a Cousin in Miami.”

Sure, Conklin could have been visiting or vacationing or bodysurfing. But he might also have been working for whoever hired him to run Steve off the road and threaten Victoria. Steve asked for the address where the ticket was issued, and Rask gave him a block on St. Johns Riverway Drive. Then Steve told him about Fowles signing a confession on a magnetic slate, now lost at the bottom of the sea.

“Wait a sec, Steve. What confession? You said Stubbs got shot accidentally, struggling over the speargun.”

“He did. But Fowles took moral responsibility.”

Rask tugged at an earlobe. “That muddies the water a bit.”

“The truth often does.”

“Fowles say who he was working for?”

Steve shook his head, a painful movement. “Only that Conklin worked for him, too. They were supposed to force Stubbs to take their boss’s offer of a million bucks. Toss him overboard if he turned them down.”

Rask lowered his voice. “I like the confession. And I’ll find out who their boss was. But now that I think about it, I can’t have you telling the Grand Jury the shooting was an accident.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you do, I’ll never nail the boss for conspiracy to kill Stubbs.”

“So you want me to lie under oath?”

“Just smudge the fine print a bit. Say Fowles admitted killing Stubbs on someone’s orders. I’ll provide the
someone
as soon as I have it.”

“Aw, jeez, Willis. I bend the rules here and there, but you’re asking me to commit perjury.”

“Sometimes you gotta break the law to do justice, Solomon. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that?”

Only my father, Steve thought, sinking back into his pillow.

Ten minutes after Rask left, a nurse came by to tell Steve they were releasing him: “But don’t be a stranger, hear?”

A moment later, the curtain parted and Junior Griffin poked his head inside. He wore denim cutoffs, a muscle tee, and even through the curtains Steve could see the entire contingent of nurses staring at him.

“Steve, I came as soon as I heard.”

“Thanks, Junior. C’mon in before the nurses drool all over the bedpans.”

Junior sat on the edge of Steve’s bed. “I just spoke to Tori. She’s worried to death. Says to please call her.”

One positive development today, at least.

“I brought you something to wear.” Junior handed over some faded jeans and a polo shirt. “If there’s anything I can do…”

“My car’s at Paradise Key,” Steve said.

Junior offered to drive Steve there; he could use the cell to call Victoria and his father and Bobby; there’d be a hot meal waiting if he wanted it; and wasn’t it a shame about Clive Fowles?