The Graduation (10 page)

Although he had been in a hurry to reach the harbor when he left Clark’s house, Michael soon realized he could not board the ship with his hair and clothes full of blood. He made a quick stop at his house to wash and change. Fortunately, his mother and Daniel were not there to see what a mess he was. They had been disappointed when he hadn’t let them take him out for a celebration meal after the ceremony. He had given them some feeble excuse about work he had to finish at JPL.

Michael was worried his mother would have the baby early. She hadn’t said anything, but he noticed after the ceremony that her breathing was irregular, as if she were having pain. If he hadn’t felt so close to solving the mystery of Alice’s death, he wouldn’t have left her.

Close does not count in life and death. Only in horseshoes.

When had the shotgun been fired that had torn away part of the shingle outside the bedroom window? What did that shot have to do with the one that had been fired into Alice’s head? Who had broken Alice’s nose? Had Clark really been at the party? Why would Polly lie to him?

The endless stream of questions didn’t frighten Michael as it might have another investigator. He, in fact, felt as if he had almost enough pieces of information to solve the puzzle; he simply had to arrange them properly and the picture would make sense. But as with a child’s puzzle, he knew that one more piece—preferably a big corner piece—would help speed up the process immensely.

Showering at home, Michael had begun to take Polly’s warning more seriously. He began to worry that if he didn’t return from the all-night party, his efforts on Alice’s behalf would be wasted. Cursing his shortage of time, he took a piece of paper and quickly jotted down everything he had discovered, including a half-dozen different scenarios that might cover the facts. The problem was, all of his scenarios had at least one major hole.

But he
was
able to print Clark’s full name and address on the bottom of the paper. If nothing else, Lieutenant Keller could follow up that lead.

Sealing his information in an envelope, he took it to the station. The lieutenant happened to be in his office.

“What can I do for you, Mike?” he asked politely, offering him a seat. Michael was not fooled by the seriousness with which the officer welcomed him. Keller may have respected his intelligence and persistence, but he also had doubts about his emotional stability. Michael did not take the offered seat.

“I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry,” he said, handing the policeman the envelope. “I want you to hold this for me until next Monday. If I don’t return for it by then, I want you to open it.”

Keller glanced from the envelope to Michael’s face a couple of times and Michael could see the lieutenant’s doubts about Young Mr. Olson’s stability being replaced by something far worse—pity.

“What’s inside?” Keller asked.

“Information.”

“About Alice McCoy’s death?”

“Yes.”

Keller stood uneasily. Perhaps he was worried Young Mr. Olson was going to follow in Alice McCoy’s footsteps and go out with a bang. “Why wouldn’t you be back to pick it up?”

Michael smiled to put him at ease. “Who knows? I just graduated today. I might find a girl tonight and elope.” Then he got serious. “Please hold it for me. And if, by chance, you still have it Monday, give what I had to say some thought.”

“But where are you going tonight?” he asked.

“To our all-night senior party.”

The lieutenant relaxed slightly. “Sounds like fun.”

“I think it’s going to be a wild party,” Michael agreed.

Now he stood at the edge of the party and above the ocean. They were an hour out of dock and he had already searched
Haven
from the bow to the stern. Clark didn’t appear to be on board. Yet Michael was far from convinced he wasn’t there. He had been unable to persuade the captain to let him look in the thirty locked passenger rooms. Granted, if he couldn’t get into the rooms, Clark shouldn’t be able to. But with so many places to hide, Michael had to wonder. Even without access to the rooms, a sufficiently determined individual could probably have found some hidden corner to tuck into. It was a big ship. Michael was debating whether or not to give
Haven
another going-over when Nick came out of the main lounge and joined him by the rail.

“The game’s going to start in a couple of minutes,” Nick said.

“I’ll watch the second half,” Michael said.

Nick stared out over the calm water. The rise and fall of the ship was almost nonexistent. The fog continued to gather. The coast was already invisible and their path through the night seemed to be taking them into a land of clouds.

“It’s peaceful out here,” Nick said.

“You like the water?” Michael asked.

“I didn’t know how much until tonight. Did you know, Mike, when I was growing up in the barrio, I never saw the ocean once?”

“That’s amazing.”

Nick leaned on the rail. “I hear they have a sailing class at U.C.L.A. I think I might sign up for it.” He laughed softly at the thought. “Imagine me on a yacht?”

“Who knows, with the salaries they pay in the NBA, you might be able to afford one someday.”

Nick shook his head. “That’s a one-in-a-million shot. I’ll never play pro ball.”

Michael leaned on the rail beside him. He wondered how deep the water was. The thought nagged at him. He wasn’t able to relax. “Yeah, you’d be better off concentrating on your education. You sprain your ankle or twist your knee and you’re out. But they can’t take your degree away from you.”

“The day I get it, I’ll have you to thank for it.”

“You get what you deserve. Good things are going to come to you.”

“I read that last book you gave me,” Nick said.

“Which one was that?”

“
The Hound of the Baskervilles
—Sherlock Holmes. It was great.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ll give you another one.”

“You remind me of him.”

“Me? I don’t smoke a pipe.”

Nick looked at him closely. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You look kind of down.”

“I’m all right,” Michael said.

“Have you talked to Jessie today?”

“Not really. How’s Maria?”

Nick frowned. “Very quiet.”

“Has she told you why she wanted to come tonight?”

“No.”

“Has she threatened you again like she did at the hospital?”

“No, nothing like that. But she’s got something on her mind. She seems to be
waiting
.”

Michael glanced about, feeling he couldn’t wait. He tapped Nick on the shoulder. “I’ll catch up with you later, buddy.”

Above the main lounge, where the bulk of the class had gathered in front of the large-screen TV to watch the final game of the NBA playoffs, sat
Haven
’s bridge. Michael looked up and spotted the helmsman—lit a faint blue and red by rows of luminescent dials—turning the wheel several degrees to port. That was another place the captain hadn’t let him inspect.

Am I searching for Clark or Jessie?

He found Polly instead. She stood alone against the entrance to
Haven
’s galley. Michael could hear kids laughing and carrying on inside. Few were walking the deck. The temperature had dropped steadily since they had pulled out of the harbor. The salty breeze, however, continued to blow soft and easy.

“Is your headache better?” he asked cheerfully.

She jumped slightly at the sound of his voice. She had on a short-sleeve white blouse, a thin red skirt. Gooseflesh covered her arms. “I’m all right,” she said.

He had told Nick the same thing a minute ago. He had lied. His head was throbbing from Clark’s blow. Worse, his vision continued to blur off and on. It blurred now as he looked at Polly. She went back to playing with her dark hair, watching the fog.

“I’m sorry I ganged up on you this morning,” he said.

“That’s OK.”

“Having fun?”

“I’m cold.”

“Why don’t you go inside and have a hot drink? I’M have one with you.”

She stared at him. “He likes me cold.”

“Come again?”

“He told me: ‘Stay alive babe and stay cold. It’s the only way for the likes of us.’ That’s what he said. He’s weird.”

“I saw him today.”

It didn’t surprise her. “At the cemetery?” she asked.

“No, I went to his house. Did you see him at the cemetery?”

She nodded. “Before I came to the harbor.”

“When was that?”

“Five o’clock, six o’clock?”

Clark must have gone straight to the cemetery after knocking him out. “Did he have a gun with him?” Michael asked.

“I didn’t see everything in his bag.” She chewed on her lower lip, looking exhausted.

“Is he on board?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He moved a step closer. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must have some idea?”

“I don’t. He comes and goes, like lightning.”

The simile made him pause. Polly was the only one who even indirectly supported his belief that Alice hadn’t committed suicide, and yet, whenever he spoke to her, he didn’t believe her. “Why is he here?” he asked.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll kill me.”

“Does he intend to kill me?”

“If you get in his way.”

She was doing it to him again—confusing him. He remembered the weather beaten paper he had found in her backyard. “Polly, back in November, I gave you a form for your aunt to sign. What did you do with it?”

“I gave it to Clark.”

“Why?”

“He wanted it.”

“Where and when did you give it to him?”

“In my backyard, during the storm.” She shivered. “I have to take a warm bath now before it gets any later, Mike. I don’t care what he says. I have to warm my blood.”

“I’ll see you around,” he muttered, distracted, hardly caring how or where she would take her bath. As Polly turned and walked away, for an instant, everything in his immediate surroundings seemed to jump into the air, and land in reverse. He put his hand to his head and took it away and found blood on his fingers. No, it was not a concussion that was making reality dance. She had given him the answer! For an instant, he’d had the entire solution to the night or the party, to the whole crazy year, in seed form in his mind. Not the details of the truth, but the essence of it. Unfortunately, it had gone as quickly as it had come, leaving him more confused than ever; leaving him cold, too, almost as if he had just fallen overboard.

It will come back.

Either one person had sneaked fifty gallons of alcohol on board or else a fair percentage of the class had ignored the prohibition against mixing ocean cruises and intoxicating substances and had brought enough good cheer onto
Haven
to give themselves and their closest friends a respectable buzz. The air in the main lounge literally stank of booze. Sara was getting drunk just breathing. Unfortunately, the basketball game on the tube was keeping her more sober than she would have liked. Halftime had just begun and the Lakers were down by eight points.

“The Lakers are a great second-half team, aren’t they?” she asked Nick, who, along with Maria, was sitting with her in the rear of the lounge. Maria appeared to be enjoying the game, although she hadn’t said more than five words since it had begun.

“They are, yeah,” Nick said.

“That’s good,” Sara said.

“But so are the Celtics,” Nick added.

A faint creaking sound went through the lounge as the floor dropped a few inches. It was a rare sign that they were far out at sea. The lounge could have been in a bar on the west side of town. It was loud enough.

“But an eight-point lead,” Sara said. “That’s nothing in a basketball game, is it?”

Nick nodded. “It can disappear in a couple of minutes.”

“If you were to put money on this game right now, who would you bet on?” she asked.

“You’d have to be crazy to put money down on the Lakers versus the Celtics. It’s always close.”

“But just suppose? Who do you think is going to win?”

“The Celtics.”

“What? I thought you were a Lakers fan?”

Nick smiled. “Yeah, but you’re talking about money.”

He was not very reassuring. Sara stood. “I’ve got to find somebody,” she said.

Bubba was sitting on the bar on the far side of the room. Most of the kids who were drinking were doing so from brown-bagged pints barely hidden in their coat pockets. Bubba had a fifth of Jack Daniel’s riding his left knee. Every time the Lakers scored, he toasted the room and the basket and took a chug. It really pissed her off that he was having such a good time.

Clair stood by his side. She was not drinking. In fact, she didn’t seem all that happy about his flagrant consumption. She was trying to take the bottle away from him. She was a little late; the thing was three-quarters empty. Then again, it was always said that Bubba could drink a crew of sailors under the table.

Why are people always saying good things about this jackass?

“You’ve had enough,” Clair said, unwrapping one finger from the neck of the bottle only to see the finger before it wrap back around the neck. “It’s still early and you’re already loaded.”

“I’m not loaded,” Bubba said, slurring his speech. “I’m merely giving a few of my brain cells a much-needed vacation.”

“You’re going to end up falling overboard,” Clair said, getting annoyed. She gave up trying to be gentle about it and yanked the bottle from his hand. He laughed uproariously.

“That’s why I’ve got to get my drinking done now!”

Sara poked him in the side. “I need to talk to you.”

He turned, his jovial smile rolling around his fat face like a goldfish in a bowl. “Sara, how come you’ve left your post? Who’s steering the ship?”

Clair gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s impossible when he’s like this.”

Bubba reached out and grabbed Clair, putting his arm around her, snuggling the side of his head up to her smooth tan cheek. “But nothing is impossible when we’re together, darling,” he said.

Sara half expected her to shove him away; he was, for all intents and purposes, slobbering on her. But Clair did nothing of the kind. She put her arm around him instead and hugged him back, blushing red and laughing as he turned and whispered something in her ear.

Sara just couldn’t understand how such beauty could be attracted to such disgust.

Clair gave him a quick kiss on the forehead as she broke free a moment later, the bottle still in her hand. She began to walk toward the rear exit. “I’m still dumping this poison, Bubba,” she called over her shoulder.

“There’s plenty where that came from!” he called after her, giggling. He turned back to Sara. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

“The Lakers are losing,” she said flatly.

He sat back in mock surprise. “No.”

“They’re down by eight points. Nick says they’re going to lose.”

“Does Nick want to play?”

“Huh?”

Bubba clapped his hands together. “Yeah! The coach should put Nick in. He’s a homegrown boy. It’ll be legal.” Bubba went to jump off the bar. “I’ll radio for a helicopter.”

Sara grabbed his arm, keeping him on the bar. “Stop carrying on like a lunatic. We’ve got a serious problem here.”

He eyed her as best he could with his eyes rolling around in a multitude of directions. “We can’t have a problem until the game’s over.”

“But what if they lose?” she cried.

He leaned closer, his breath enough to anesthetize a tubful of clams, and raised a fat finger close to her nose. “You know what your problem is, Sara?”

She paused. “What?”

“You don’t know how to dress.”

“What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

He gestured to her orange dress. “You’re always in autumn colors.”

“So what?”

He turned his head and sneezed. She felt the spray. He went on in a confidential tone. “Autumn is a rotten time of year. School starts in autumn. Leaves fall off the trees in autumn. People hate autumn. They hate people who remind them of it.”

She sneered. “Get off it.”

He belched loudly. “It’s a fact. You send out de-pressing vibes. Look at me. A minute ago, I was finishing my bottle and singing. Then you showed up.” He wiped at his eyes. “Now I’m beginning to feel sad.”

“What are you sad about?”

“I feel so unhappy.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do. I can’t bear it.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

He thought for a moment, looking as miserable as he would have her believe he was. Then a wild gleam entered his eyes, and he suddenly reached for her with his grubby paws. “I want you to take your clothes off!”

She dodged him easily. He fell from the bar stool and landed on his face. She kicked him while he was down. He sat up and rubbed his head. “Bubba, you’re drunk,” she said, disgusted.

He rolled his eyes upward and grinned. “No, Sara. I’m just happy.”

She decided she would give him to the end of the game—then she would kill him. She left him giggling on the floor.

Russ was bothering her as much as the game. He was acting like a stranger. No, stranger was too strong a word. He was being friendly and all—but that was the problem. He wasn’t supposed to be her friend. He was supposed to be her boyfriend. At least that was her understanding. But she wondered if he knew. He had kissed her. He had told her he liked her. He had let her bail him out of jail. He had written to her while he was away; not so often as she might have wished, but a letter and a postcard should count for something. Yet they had never made any promises to each other. When she thought about it, they had never even
talked
, not really, not for any length of time. And now they were supposed to make love before the sun came up.

What the hell have I talked myself into?

It was a lonely thing, to suddenly realize that maybe she had been suckered all along, not by Russ, but by her own imagination.

He was watching the game with “the boys.” That was fair enough. He hadn’t seen his pals from the cross-country team since December. She didn’t re-quire every blessed second of his time. But eyeing him from across the room as he was sitting on the arm of a couch and laughing at some fool joke, a beer can in his hand, obviously having more fun than she was, she thought of all the trouble she had gone through to pick him up at the bus station. He owed her something. She strode up to him.

“Hi.” she said.

“Hi,” he said, glancing over briefly, before continuing with his wild tale of mystery and intrigue at the state’s most exotic juvenile hall. “Then I said to him, I said, ‘You hide that knife under my pillow again during a shakedown and I’ll use it to shred every piece of clothing you’ve got.’ He called my bluff, the idiot. And a month later he was walking around with his—”

“Excuse me,” Sara interrupted. “Russ?”

He looked at her again. “What, Sara?”

She smiled. “How are you doing?”

He glanced at the beer in his hand. The rest of his buddies were waiting for him to continue. “I’m fine,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to, you know, say hi.”

“How about we talk in a few minutes?”

“The game starts in a few minutes.”

“Then we’ll talk after the game. Would that be all right?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

He went to give the punch line of his story, then noticed she had made no move to leave. He smiled uneasily. “I don’t know if you want to hear this, Sara.”

“Why not?”

“It’s kind of disgusting.”

“OK. Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment, being told to bug off because I’m not disgusting enough to listen to you.” She spun on her heel and stalked away. He called to her, but she didn’t slow down till she was standing outside in the damp darkness beside the rail. The fog kept getting thicker. She kept getting more tense. She hadn’t wanted to fight with him. She had promised herself she wouldn’t. But whenever she was around him, she just wanted to strangle him!

Or kiss him. Why didn’t he even kiss me after the ceremony when everybody was kissing everybody else?

She stood there for several minutes, catching her breath and trying to tell herself she was too cool to get upset about a boy. After a bit she began to notice her surroundings. It was a bizarre night. She could hear the splash of the water against the hull, could even smell it. But she could not see the ocean in any direction.
Haven
could have been plowing through the sky above a storm.

“Hi,” a nearby voice said. It was that weird dude who worked at the gas station, the one with the greasy hair and mustache, the guy who had owned the gun that had killed Alice. He had come up so quietly that he had startled her.

“Hi,” she said.

He grinned. He had incredibly crooked teeth. “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

“No.”

“You’re Sara, right?”

“Yeah. You go by a nickname—Rats?”

“Kats.”

“Yeah. Sorry. How are you doing?”

“Couldn’t be better. How are you?”

“Fine.” He wasn’t someone she would have chosen for a late-night ocean-cruise partner. The way he kept grinning at her—it was as if he was thinking about doing things to her she preferred not to know. His next question did not exactly put her at ease.

“Can you swim, Sara?”

“Yeah. Can you?”

He leaned over the rail and spat into the fog. How disgusting! Sara thought she heard the splash of the spit in the water. He must have grime in his saliva glands. “I don’t have to,” he said. “I know how to float.”

“I think I’ll go back inside.”

She heard him laughing to himself as she reentered the lounge.