“Gus and I were talking about you a couple of weeks ago,” Jack said. “We both agree you have world-class instincts.”
“For a theater administrator,” I said. I was perversely pleased at my ex-husband’s compliment. “Listen, I’d like to see you. Tonight. Catch you up with what I’m thinking, see if you can fill in some gaps for me.”
“I’m lying a little low right now,” he said.
“I’ll meet you wherever,” I said.
“Okay, but no cops. You got that? No. Cops. I know you still hang out with them on occasion.”
“I’m flying solo tonight,” I said. “Where should we meet?”
“There’s a bar in Brighton. The Bus Station. You know it? Meet you there in twenty minutes.” He ended the call, and I answered somebody’s parking prayers by pulling out of the spot and heading over toward Harvard Stadium.
I love bars like the Bus Station. Loud, slightly seedy bars that feature ’80s rock, only use iceberg lettuce, and have no pretensions, but do have an excellent beer selection. I inhaled the wafts of burgers and fries that met me at the front door and my stomach rumbled. I scanned the room and saw an average-height, well-built black man stand up from a corner booth. I smiled despite myself. Good old Jack, scoring a prime location on a Saturday night. I wondered if he was a regular.
I walked up and we gave each other a hug. “Good to see you, Sully. Have a seat. I ordered a large plate of fries, got a beer coming from the bar. Plenty of fries to share. Want a drink?”
A beer sounded really good, but I wanted to stay focused. “Just a seltzer.”
Jack called the order out to the bartender, who nodded. “You’re on the job,” he said. “I know that look. Tell me about Gus.”
So I did. I told him what I knew, and the timeline I’d worked out. I included information about Babs in the conversation.
“I hope to hell he’s going to be okay,” Jack said.
I looked over at his shaved head and deep brown eyes. The news of Gus had shaken Jack up. He’d worked with Gus for a lot of years, back when he was still on the force and Gus was in the district attorney’s office. Unlike a lot of folks, Jack hadn’t cut ties to me when Gus and I got divorced. Our paths had crossed this December, and we’d had a couple of meals together since then.
“They think so, but he’s in a medically induced coma right now. I’m glad we found him when we did.”
“We?”
“I was with Emma Whitehall. Long story. We didn’t set out looking for him, but one thing led to another—”
“And your gut kicked in,” Jack said. “Good thing for Gus.”
“Good thing for Gus,” I said. “And for me. Listen, I just found out that Babs Allyn had hired you. Did Gus recommend you to her?”
“Babs who?” He asked, his eyes darting toward the bar. The bartender came over with the drinks and let us know that the fries were on their way. I waited till he was out of earshot to respond to Jack’s question.
“Jack, I’m tired and I still have adrenaline flowing, but we both know I’m going to crash soon. The cops know Babs Allyn hired you. I want to know why, and what for. I’m assuming it had something to do with Martin Samuel’s disappearance?”
Jack looked at me and clenched his jaw. He took a long sip of beer, and used his napkin to wipe the foam off his upper lip. I watched his face contort as he wrestled around with the question of what to do.
“I saw Babs on Tuesday,” I said. “She was heading out for a meeting and never made it back to the theater. I saw her again that night, and she was a hot mess. Did she see you Tuesday afternoon?”
Jack nodded slightly.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“You’ve heard of client confidentiality—”
“I have, and I respect it. But I want to point this out. No one has seen Babs since that night. She’s either on the suspect list or something’s happened to her. I talked to Martin’s daughter, Holly, and she mentioned that Babs was investigating Martin’s disappearance. I’m assuming that’s what you two met about. I don’t know Babs well, but she seems like the type who would protect Holly from harsh realities, until she couldn’t. From what I understand, Holly and maybe Babs thought Martin was alive for a long time. But lately they’ve been having doubts. Have I got this part of the story right?”
Jack took another pull on his beer and set it down. “You do,” he said. “I’m worried about her too. Babs, I mean. A couple of months after Martin went missing, she got a postcard from him, from an island near where he’d disappeared. Told her he was okay, he’d be back soon. Holly got a similar postcard a couple weeks later. On both of the postcards, Martin asked them to hang tight, not to look for him. He was taking care of some business.”
“Was it in his handwriting?”
“That’s the problem. He sent them through this mail service they have down there, where you go online, type in a message, chose a picture, and then the company sends it out. On both postcards he used a phrase that he’d used before, and that made them feel like he’d sent the postcard. They both hung on to the hope those cards gave them. But then, when they didn’t hear from him again, and it was coming up on a year, Babs decided they needed to look for him. Hal Maxwell and the Cunninghams were making noises about getting him declared dead so that his will, and some of the insurance policies, would kick in. Babs hired me to see if I could find anything out.”
“Did you find anything?”
“I did some research on that mail service. Anyone could’ve used it, set up an account under Martin Samuel’s name, so there’s that. Not real proof of anything.” Jack took a long pull from his beer and continued his story. “I went down there, asked a few folks about the disappearance. Seems there were a bunch of folks staying on the Cunninghams’ boat, which was moored out in the harbor that night, not on the dock. The crew had taken the dinghy back to shore and were planning to come back out in the morning to make breakfast and set sail. Crew came on board in the morning and no one could find Martin. Apparently he took a lifeboat and his suitcase and left the boat in the middle of the night. Anyway, that’s what everyone thought.”
“Who else was on the boat?”
“Hal Maxwell. Babs Allyn. Mimi and Jerry Cunningham. Fred Ginger—”
“Who’s Fred Ginger?”
“A business associate of the Cunninghams. Helps them with their offshore banking.”
“Nice.”
“Right? That’s a can of worms I stayed away from on this job. Anyway, that was it. From what the crew said, there had been a lot of drinking that last day and into the night.”
“The entire crew left?” I asked. “Was that normal?”
“When the Cunninghams were staying in port, yes,” Jack said. “The crew would leave late and come back at dawn. From what I could find out, most of the time the Cunninghams and their guests were sleeping, or passed out, and missed the crew’s departure.”
“Did Babs remember them leaving?” I asked.
“Babs said she passed out around midnight. She didn’t hear a thing. She doesn’t remember what time, or if, Hal came to bed.”
“She didn’t remember a thing? She must be a pretty sound sleeper.”
“From what I can gather, she was a pretty heavy drinker. That was the last drink she had, as a matter of fact.”
“Until Tuesday night,” I said.
“Really? She’d been drinking?” Jack said.
“I think so,” I said, trying to remember the details of the last time I’d seen Babs. Had I seen her with a drink? Or had I assumed she’d been drinking? “At least, she seemed tipsy. She was furious. I couldn’t understand what she was saying to the Cunninghams but she was disheveled, you know? Babs was never disheveled.”
“She was pretty upset when she left our meeting,” Jack said.
“What did you tell her at your
meeting?” I asked.
“I told her I thought that Martin Samuel was dead. There was no moon that night, so the harbor was dark. Really dark. I don’t see how a drunken person could’ve gotten on a lifeboat, made his way ashore, and no one saw him. Plus I talked to a couple of folks from the crew. The Cunninghams paid them well, very well. One of them said he’d thought maybe the boat had changed moorings the next morning, but he couldn’t be sure. And since everyone seemed so upset, he didn’t say anything.”
“The boat had moved?” I asked.
“Maybe, but I couldn’t get that verified,” Jack said.
“You think the crew was paid off ?” I asked.
“They may have been,” Jack said.
“What did the authorities say?” I asked.
“They aren’t convinced nothing happened, but they couldn’t find any proof. They did a thorough search of the boat, didn’t find anything. They did say it was clean, really clean. They smelled bleach, but Mimi Cunningham explained that away by saying that Babs had gotten sick on her way to bed. The police kept the boat down there for a few months in case new evidence came up or they found Martin’s body, but they finally released it in October.”
“Where’s the boat now?” I asked.
“The Cunninghams had it sailed up from the Caribbean. It’s actually at a slip in Charlestown.” Jack took a napkin and wrote some numbers down on it after double-checking them on his phone.
“Did you tell Babs where the boat was?” I asked.
“I didn’t have the information when she asked Tuesday. I haven’t heard from her since. The news about the guy who thought the boat was moved pushed some buttons for Babs. ‘They kept telling me I was crazy because I remembered something different’ she kept saying. Anyway, she never called to ask where the boat was. But Gus did. So I told him. Didn’t hear from him again either, but I wasn’t worried till I heard about Kate Smythe’s death.”
“Did you go check out the boat yourself ?” I asked.
“I didn’t, not yet. Too many fires burning right now, but it was on my list for tomorrow. Believe it or not, I have to go stake out a client’s husband tonight.”
“Hi ho, the glamorous life of a private investigator,” I said. One of the reasons I always gave for not becoming a private investigator after I left the force was that if I couldn’t wear the badge, I didn’t want to do the job. That was true. The other reason was that the work of private investigators was brutal and solitary. That said, if I didn’t have other things on my mind, I might have volunteered to go on Jack’s stakeout with him. See if they were as awful as I remembered.
The fries finally arrived and I picked one up off the plate. It was steaming hot, so I blew on it for a few seconds and then took a bite. It burned my tongue but it was worth it. I took another sip of the seltzer and unrolled a fork from a napkin.
“Thanks for the information.” I tapped the piece of paper with the boat slip location.
“You’re going to go down there now, aren’t you?” Jack asked. I didn’t answer but I did look away. “Dammit, Sully, how about you wait until daylight and I’ll go with you?”
“I won’t be able to sleep. I need to see the boat, you know? I can’t help but think what happened on that boat has something to do with all of this. Maybe Babs is there? I promise I won’t get into any trouble. I’m just going to look around a bit.” Jack looked dubious. I picked up another fry with my fork and blew on it. “Jack, you go do your job. I’ll call the cops and catch them up after I get back from the boat. I’ll keep you out of it, of course.”
“How about you call them first, let them check the boat out?” he asked.
“Where’s the fun in that?” I asked. I took a paper napkin and put some fries in it, smiling over at him. “I’m going to go satisfy my curiosity, look at the boat, give Toni Vestri a call, go home to sleep, and start fresh in the morning.”
“You be careful, you hear me? Text me if you need me. Gus will kill me if I let anything happen to you.”
“Ten-four on that. Thanks for the fries.” I put out my fist and Jack bumped it. I got up from the table and went back into the February freeze.
• Twenty •
Allston and Charlestown are both in Boston, not far apart in distance, but getting from one to the other took some thoughtful maneuvering. I did some mental calculations. Were the Bruins or the Celtics playing? I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t be sure. Storrow Drive was the best way to go at this time of night. Like much of New England, Boston had been built on old cow paths that had been paved over. The side roads were complicated to traverse easily, but often made more sense than trying to go on major roads during prime travel hours. Of course, these days prime travel hours seem to go from six in the morning to midnight.
Charlestown had a high-priced apartment complex on the water. I knew there were some boat slips, and I’d noticed that several boats were still in the water the last time I’d taken a walk on the other side of the harbor. Someone had explained to me that the harbor didn’t freeze over easily, and that the complex made sure that the water around the slips was churned during the winter.
It was a gated complex, so I parked a block away. I’d gotten my coat back from the paramedics and found my gloves in my pockets. They were still wet from digging in the snow. Fortunately, my car was like a traveling suitcase and I went into the way back to see if I could find another pair of gloves. Bingo: gloves, a black scarf, and a black watch cap. I stuffed my curly mop into the hat. Not a fashion-first look, but it was warm. I put my wallet with my ID in my pocket and left a business card on the front seat. I pulled the charger out of my phone. Almost 57 percent. I grabbed a small flashlight from the glove box and put it in my pocket. I took a deep breath and held my hands in front of me. Steady as a rock.
Getting down to the boat slips required me to walk to the right to get to the water’s edge, and then veer left to head toward the dock area. The only other way in was through the buildings onto the grounds, which would probably require IDs or keys. It was February, and strolling by the water was not a pastime, especially this time of night. I didn’t see anyone. I turned on my small flashlight and kept it low to the ground, using it to make sure I wasn’t going to slip on anything. If anyone asked, I was out for a walk, so using a flashlight made sense. I kept toward the water’s edge, and when I was closer to the docks I looked around. I didn’t see security or cameras, but I still pulled my hat down lower and shut my flashlight off.
I walked down the dock but then was blocked by a large gate that provided security to the boatyard. Probably a good idea so kids wouldn’t hang out on the boats docked there, but a pain in the neck for me. I shined my flashlight in an arc. The gate didn’t go too far into the water’s edge. I took a deep breath and put my fingers through the chain link. I shimmied to the end of the gate and then carefully turned myself around and shimmied back to the dock. By the time my feet were back on solid footing, I was sweating and had started to shake. I put my hands on my knees and took a deep breath. One thing was for sure—I wasn’t leaving the boatyard the same way I came in.
I walked down the dock again. I looked at the slip of paper Jack had given me and compared the numbers to the ones on the first column I came upon. After walking to the next pole, I turned to the right, walked farther, and looked at the number of the first slip. I understood the system. On each dock there were several slips on each side, so the boats had walkways on three sides of them. There weren’t many boats in the water, but there were more than I’d thought there’d be. If I was right, three docks up was where the Cunninghams’ boat was docked. I wished I knew what it looked like.
I thought about texting Toni and letting her know what I was up to, but I decided to look at the boat first, see what I could find. I took a right.
I’d expected the dock to be slippery and metal, but I was wrong on both counts. It was wooden, possibly a manufactu
red wood, but the traction was good. It was also quiet as I walked. There were three boats in slips on the left, two in slips on the right. I pulled out my flashlight and put my hand over the end, letting a tiny bit of light filter out. I moved forward slowly. The boat in the middle, on the left—was that a light? I inched forward. Yes, there was a faint light coming from inside the cabin. I moved closer and looked at the name on the boat. The boat’s name was Mimi.
Each slip had a small gangplank separating the boats. I suspected it also provided extra security during storm surges, helping the boats not clang against each other. I looked behind me, but nobody was there. Not that it would’ve been easy to see in the inky night. Could I see in those portholes? What happened if someone was in there? If Jerry Cunningham was having a drink, maybe I’d join him.
I walked over to the Mimi and had to stand on my tiptoes to see inside. A blonde head was leaning over the stove, pulling a pot of boiling water off the burner and pouring it over a tea bag. Was it Babs? A gust of wind came up and I grabbed the side of the boat to steady myself. I must’ve made a noise, and she looked up. I gasped.
Mimi Cunningham.
I crouched down beside the boat. I hoped Mimi hadn’t seen me, and was grateful for the black hat I’d found in the back of the car. I pulled out my phone and found Toni’s number. I was about to hit send on the call when I heard a voice to my right.
“Hands where I can see them,” the voice said. I looked over and vaguely made out a figure. I recognized the voice. Jerry Cunningham. “Who is that?” he asked.
I hit the send button and hoped for the best. I put the phone in my pocket and held both hands in front of me, toward Jerry. I had put my flashlight in my pocket when I got closer to the boat, and now I cursed that decision. If I could have flashed the light in his eyes, maybe it would have startled him. But he was blocking the gangway and I couldn’t get past him without taking a flying leap to reach the dock. Flying leaps had never been my forte, especially not on a cold February night.
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