Your Chariot Awaits (14 page)

“Did you say anything about this to the deputies?”

“No. I guess I should have, shouldn't I? But at the time I was just so shook-up by the murder itself.”

“But getting killed by someone connected to your Uncle Ned wouldn't explain why Jerry was here at your place to begin with. What was he doing snooping around your limo in the middle of the night?”

“Good question.”

“It's still an interesting thought,” Fitz said. “Too bad we don't have a couple of Ed Montrose's writers. They were the real brains of the show. But we're on our own.”

It was almost midnight by the time Fitz left. By then we'd added another interesting possibility: someone at F&N who may have had an unknown grudge against Jerry or been angry and vengeful because Jerry had been chosen for promotion and transfer, and he hadn't.

“Or
she
,” Fitz cautioned. “Murder is an equal-opportunity crime, remember.”

I WAS UP earlier than usual the next morning. I didn't want to be late getting to the marina and give Matt Fitzpatrick some-thing else to nitpick about. Along the way I detoured through the vacant lot. Numerous cars were parked there on this week-day, but the Trans Am wasn't among them, so the police had apparently towed it also.

I hadn't been to the marina for a long time. Jerry kept his little sailboat at a friend's dock, so we never had occasion to use the marina. But I spotted the
Miss Nora
right away. She was the largest and by far the most impressive boat at the small marina. I left my Toyota in the parking lot, descended the steep steps to the wooden dock, and walked out to the end where the sail-boat was moored. Some marinas have locked gates, but Vigland's wasn't like that.

Here in port the boat's sails were not unfurled, but the tall mast rose to an impressive height, lines jingling in the breeze, and the boat was quite dazzling in its glistening whiteness. The silhouette was low and sleek and racy looking, with a railed area up front with lounge chairs. I didn't see anyone around, although the door to the cabin stood open.

“Hello,” I called. “Anyone here?”

A man in grease-stained khakis and wrench in hand filled the door—a taller, heavier version of Fitz.

“Are you Matt Fitzpatrick?”

“Yes. You must be Andi McConnell. You're early.”

He didn't sound overjoyed to see me. The unexpected thought occurred to me that he might be thinking I was out to snare his father in some matrimonial trap. Or perhaps I was older than he'd anticipated, and he was trying to decide if I was too senile to drive his SUV.

I'd been going to ask for Fitz, but instead I just said, “I've been to Sea-Tac, but not recently. If you could tell me where your clients will be arriving and how I can recognize them—”

“We have a sign with MATT'S SAILBOAT CHARTERS on it. Dad just holds it up and lets the clients come to him. It's in the SUV.”

“Okay, I'll use it too.”

“There are three couples. They'll be coming in on Continental. You'll have to ask Fitz for full directions. There are a lot more security regulations now than there used to be.”

“Young couples? Old?”

“Thirtyish, I think. Erickson is the name of the guy who made the reservations.”

“I'll need the keys to the SUV. Is it up in the parking lot?”

“Not at the moment. Dad's car wouldn't start this morn-ing, so he took the SUV to go pick up supplies at Wal-Mart. He thought he'd be back before you got here, but you're early,” he repeated. Apparently this was not an admirable trait in Matt Fitzpatrick's estimation.

“I'll go up to the parking lot and wait, then.”

I'd taken a few steps, but then he called, “Would you like to take a look around the boat?”

The invitation didn't sound overly enthusiastic, but he was apparently trying to be nice, and I took him up on it. I'd never been on anything larger than Jerry's little sailboat.

He motioned me to step onto the rear platform of the boat, which, unlike most sailboats I'd seen, was built with an open-ing with steps so passengers could walk on directly and not have to climb over a railing.

“It's called a walk-through stern,” Matt explained. “This is the cockpit area. And that's the helm.” He pointed to an oblong pedestal with steering wheel attached.

There was a tall chair by the helm and padded bench seats on either side for passengers. Inside, a panel in the flooring was raised to expose an enormous chunk of machinery. Matt dropped the panel back into place.

“Diesel engine, 100 horsepower,” he said. “I was just doing a little work on it. Fortunately it's not a big enough problem to have to call in a mechanic.” He wiped his hands on a greasy rag.

“Does Fitz help with engine work too?”

Matt laughed. “Dad's a great cook. And a great guy, and I'm really glad he's here with me now. But he can't tell a diesel engine from a generator.”

Which was no doubt important, although I didn't know the difference either, and I figured Fitz knew plenty of important things that full-of-himself Matt didn't.

Matt showed me through the boat, two bedrooms in the rear, two up front. The room he and Fitz shared had narrow twin beds, the others doubles with nautically themed bed-spreads, polished woodwork, and brass lighting fixtures. There were two bathrooms, “heads,” as Matt called them, a small but well-equipped kitchen—galley, that is—and a kind of living room he called a
salon
, very elegant, with a dining area and comfortable seats, a TV, and more polished teak and mirrors. Also, off in a corner, a navigation center with a wood desk and gauges and equipment that looked capable of launching a spaceship.

“It's beautiful,” I said honestly. I could tell Matt was proud of his boat, with good reason. “You've been handling sailboats all your life, I suppose?”

“Oh, no. Up until about four years ago, I was running the rat race down in LA, with a long-term game plan that I figured would make me CEO of the company in ten years.”

“You were downsized?” I asked, thinking of my own predicament.

“No. In fact, I was up for a promotion. I'd been aware for some time that things weren't quite right with the company, but I'd always looked the other way. Until a big deal in the Middle East came up about the same time as the promotion, and I had to face the fact that it was more than things being ‘not quite right.' The company was up to its corporate ears in unethical deals and deceiving investors. Moving money around all over the world. Juggling the accounting records and setting up subsidiaries to conceal what they were doing. And if I took that promotion, I'd be in it up to my ears, too, which was way over my conscience level. So I got out.”

“You just . . . chucked it all?”

“I just chucked it all,” he agreed, as if he liked the phrase. “I'd been up here sailing on vacations several times, and I came up and went to work for the old guy who owned this boat. So when he wanted to sell the boat a couple years ago, I jumped at the chance to buy it.” He frowned. “Why am I telling you all this?”

Because I'm such a sweet, understanding, easy-to-talk-to person?
I doubted he'd agree. So all I said was, “I admire your ethics,” and changed the subject. “Did you name the boat the
Miss
Nora?”

“No, the old guy who owned it before me named her.” He laughed. “Not some love of his life, if that's what you're thinking. Miss Nora was his cat. Meanest, worst-tempered cat you ever saw. She'd growl when you fed her. Had a rigid no-purr policy.”

“Maybe the cat was named Miss Nora because she reminded him of some woman in his past.”

“Hmmm. I never thought of that.” He gave me a glance that suggested my thought had earned me a bit of unexpected respect.

“What happened to the cat?”

“She refused to live anywhere but here on the boat. So I kept her until she died of old age last year.” His smile was a little sheepish. “I got kind of fond of the cranky old gal.”

I liked him better for that admission. “What happened to the company after you left?”

“Collapsed,” he said laconically. “Taking the pension I was supposed to get someday with it. Three top execs now in prison.”

“Hey, daisies!” I said suddenly, spying a window box of them behind a little wooden barricade in the kitchen. They were a dwarf variety, only a few inches tall, blue with yellow centers. “I love daisies. I have several flower beds of them at home. They're so real and . . . you know, unpretentious. Not like big, ostentatious dahlias and other showoffy flowers. Are these Cape Town Blue?”

“I have no idea.” He looked at me as if he were wary of anyone attributing personalities to flowers. “Dad's the daisy grower, not me.”

Matt Fitzpatrick obviously didn't place much value on daisy growing, but I did. I'd tried a few fancy varieties, but mostly I grew the ordinary White Shastas because they tolerated my sometimes haphazard gardening habits.

Fitz came in, carrying a couple of big plastic bags of groceries. He set them on the counter in the galley. “Hey, you're here already. Good. I guess Matt told you about my car not starting?”

“That's too bad. Nothing serious, I hope?”

“Nah, just a run-down battery. I'll put the charger on it, and it'll be fine.”

“Dad, I keep telling you, you should get a new battery. One of these days you're going to be out in the middle of nowhere, and it'll go dead and you'll be stuck.”

“You're probably right,” Fitz agreed, a cheerful Mr. Congeniality but obviously without any intention of heeding his son's warnings. “Oh, by the way,” he added to me, “I talked to one of the guys I know on the city police force. He said that Molino detective who's heading up the investigation is a real gungho kind of guy, with ambitions of being sheriff himself one of these days. But he's a good, very thorough detective. He won't leave any stones unturned.”

“I'm glad to hear that.”

“What investigation? What detective?” Matt inserted in that same frowning voice I'd heard on the phone.

“Murder at Andi's place. The body in her limousine.”

“You're not getting involved in that, are you, Dad?”

“Andi and I thought we'd see what we could find out before they try to pin it on her.”

“Dad, you're not a real detective. I wish you'd remember that. And the real stuff can be dangerous.”

“He solved Mr. Bolivar's murder down in LA,” I put in defensively. “I'm sure it took real detective work to do that.”

“Right. And did he tell you how many legs Mr. Bolivar had?”

“Legs?” I repeated uncertainly.

“Okay, so Mr. Bolivar had four legs,” Fitz muttered. “He was a German shepherd. But he
was
poisoned, and I figured out it was that snooty couple down the street who did it.”

“And have you told her about the big crime wave of flower thefts you also solved?” Matt asked.

“I'm sure you're going to if I don't.”

“Flowers kept disappearing out of yards in Dad's neighbor-hood in LA. He figured out who did it.”

I was still feeling defensive. “I'm sure the neighbors appreciated that.”

“Captured the wild and dangerous Daisy Thief, who was all of nine years old. Picking the flowers to take to a teacher he had a crush on.”

“Well, it was something he shouldn't be doing. And who knows? Maybe the talking-to I gave him deterred him from a life of crime. At least I never went
kerchunk
off my sailboat into the water in front of six guests, like someone I could name.”

“It was rough water. An exceptionally large wave hit the side of the boat—”

“You were giving a demonstration on sailing safety at the time!”

The two men glowered at each other, and for a moment I thought a family crisis was about to erupt. But then I saw the teasing twinkle in Fitz's eyes and an echoing twinkle of affection in Matt's, and I knew this was just chatter between two guys who probably never could manage to come right out and say they loved each other, so this was how they did it.

Then Matt eyed me, not so twinkly eyed, as if he suspected I was leading Fitz astray with this detective nonsense.

“And you, what about you? I suppose you're some kind of detective too?”

With me, his tone and look said if I was a detective, he was captain of the Battlestar
Galactica
.

I named the only credential I had as a detective. “I used to watch
Ed Montrose, P.I.E.
all the time.”

Matt didn't physically roll his eyes, but I could see them practically doing a somersault on a mental level.

“Figures,” he muttered. Then he went over and yanked up the floor panel to expose the engine again.

Fitz just looked at me and winked. I winked back. Then I edged around the hole in the floor to get outside and back up on the dock.

“I'm sorry I didn't have time to find out anything more. But after we get back from this trip on Saturday, I'll see what else I can turn up. The Vigland police and county sheriff's department work pretty closely together, so the guys I know may know something. Especially since Jerry lived within the city limits. The lot where his car was parked was in the city limits too.”

“I think while you're gone I'll see if I can find out anything about Jerry's girlfriends. And contact some relatives in Texas to see what I can learn about Uncle Ned's shyster dealings and enemies down there.”

“Good places to start. Just don't put yourself in any danger. People who murder once may not be reluctant to do it again. I'll walk up to the SUV with you. I need to get the battery charger hooked up on my car so I can get to the lawyer's office on time.” He paused. “Hopefully I'll get the connections right this time.”

Fitz gave me the keys to the SUV, then showed me the controls and where the registration and insurance papers were located in case I needed them. He also gave me good directions about parking and connecting with the clients.