Death in Deep Water

by Paul Kemprecos

  I drove to the marina to check on Uncle Constantine. He was sitting on the deck of the Berger King with its owner. He saw me and shouted.

  “Hopa, Aristotle, come aboard.”

  I climbed onto the yacht. Uncle Constantine and Berger were seated on the wide deck in turquoise deck chairs. They were sipping cool drinks from tall glasses and smoking cigars as thick as my arm. A backgammon table was set on a table between them.

  Berger sprang up and grabbed my hand. “Boy, am I glad to see you. Your uncle has been beating the holy hell out of me. We’re using loaded dice, too. I should know, they’re mine.” He slapped Uncle Constantine on the back, so that some cigar ash fell on the board. “Hell, he’s going to own my damn boat before long.”

  “Maybe in ten years,” Uncle Constantine said, smiling. “Come, Aristotle, sit and have a drink.”

  “I’m on my lunch hour, Uncle. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute.”

  “Go right ahead,” Berger said. “I’ll make some more drinks. Don’t be long, Constantine, I want a chance to get my money back.”

  “Don’t worry, Harry. I want to win this yacht.”

  Berger guffawed happily and headed into his cabin.

  We climbed off the Berger King and onto the Artemis.

  “You and Mr. Berger seem to be having a good time.”

  “Sure, Aristotle, Harry is a nice fellow. I tell him treasure hunting maybe not a good idea. He says he doesn’t care. He is just bored. Another lonely widow man like me, no good without our wives. He’s glad to have company. Me, too. Come, I make some mezes.”

  He disappeared into the galley and came out a few minutes later with a platter laden with appetizers. Cubes of feta cheese, dark olives, stuffed grape leaves, sliced tomatoes, some pita bread, and a bowl of tzatziki, yogurt with grated cucumbers and garlic. He fetched a pitcher of lemonade and we sat on the deck eating like Dorian kings. After we finished lunch and cleaned up, I brought out Jill’s contact sheets and showed them to him.

  He squinted at the sheets, first holding them close, then at arm’s length. “Ah,” he said. “Delphis. We see them all the time in Florida.” He made a leaping gesture with his hand. “They jump ahead of the boat. You see dolphins, you have good luck.” He put on his glasses and squinted at the contact sheet again. “Ah. These no dolphins. Whales, like they show on TV for Sea World in Orlando. Smart cookies, these whales.”

  “That’s right, Uncle. Very smart cookies.”

  Uncle Constantine used the Greek word for dolphins. Delphis, he had called them. In the old legends, Apollo disguised himself as a dolphin and led settlers to the site of the most famous oracle. A place called Delphi. An oracle would come in handy about now. Maybe she could tell me what was going on at Oceanus. As I remembered, the oracle’s answers were usually ambiguous. Their value was in what you made of them. Like the contact sheets.

  Lunch hour was nearly over. I waved good-bye to Mr. Berger and told Uncle Constantine I’d come by the next day to talk to him about the tin wreck.

  “Take your time, Aristotle. We play some more backgammon.”

  Back at Oceanus, a note clipped to my time card said a Mr. Parmenter had called. I went to a pay phone and dialed the state-police barracks. Parmenter came on. “Well, we didn’t find your missing girl,” he said, “but we have her car.”

  “Where was it?”

  “On one of those dirt roads next to the Cape Cod Canal. A jogger running along the canal service road noticed it and called the town cops. They ran the plate through the stolen-car list. They got a negative report and figured the car broke down and the owners would come back for it.”

  “Any sign of the owner?”

  “No blood on the seats, if that’s what you had in mind.”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid that’s exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Nothing like that. We’re running a search of the surrounding woods, but I don’t think we’ll find anything. If I wanted to get rid of somebody’s body, I’d toss it in the canal and hope the tide would take her out to sea.”

  Parmenter was right. Jill’s slender body would have been like a piece of flotsam caught in the savage currents of the canal.

  “Thanks, John,” I said. “If you need to get me later, try me at home.”

  “Will do.”

  The afternoon seemed to drag on. Neither Mike nor Sally was around. It must have been a long lunch. I was spinning my wheels at the park, so I punched out early and took the film back to the photo store in Hyannis. The store had one of those do-it-yourself color enlargement machines. You stick your negative in and the machine projects the picture onto a screen. You can enlarge and crop to order and have a copy within a few minutes. I ran the negatives through the machine, pausing for an instant to check each exposure.

  Jill had used a zoom lens for distant shots, then focused in on specific body parts. The pictures looked pretty routine first time around. I studied them again and began to see differences. Some of the pictures of the dorsal fin and the tail were grainy, as if they were copies of other photos.

  A line was starting to form behind me. I quickly ran off a couple of five-by-sevens of the dorsal fin, since that was the physical feature Jill seemed most interested in. I choose one of the high-grain pictures and a sharper one for comparison. The prints came out in less than ten minutes. I took them over to the counter and borrowed a magnifying glass, studied them a few minutes, then I borrowed a loupe that gave greater magnification.

  Something was very odd.

  I went back to the machine to stand impatiently in line and blew the prints up to eight-by-ten size just to be sure. I wasn’t mistaken. In one picture, Rocky’s dorsal fin was as I remembered it from my swim in the pool with him. Two notches on the trailing edge. On the grainy print, there was one notch. I bought a magnifying glass and went across the street to a bar. Over a beer I examined the prints again. It was puzzling. Maybe he picked up another notch at Oceanus. Or maybe not.

  I took another look at the Hyannis address Jill had written on the slip of paper that was with the film ticket. Jill must have thought it was important. I decided to learn why.

  The houses by the sea on the east side of Hyannis were probably quite elegant back in the thirties and forties, when families came to the Cape from Boston to drink in the salt air. But cottages had been shoehorned into lots that were too small for them, and now the neighborhood looked as if it has been squeezed together.

  The address I was looking for was a two-story gray-shingled house overlooking the harbor and hidden from the street by a stockade fence. About a hundred yards beyond the house I turned down a drive and parked at a town landing. The high fence extended almost to the beach. A fishing boat maybe fifty feet long was moored next to a short, wide pier. The upper story of the house was visible, as was the roof of a smaller building behind the main one.

  My daypack with the stuff from the Dougie’s Clam Shack job was still in the truck. I slipped the contact sheets into it and pulled out my binoculars. I watched the house and pier for fifteen minutes, then drove back onto the road and parked on a side street where I could see the front door without being seen.

  After a half hour of nothing, I began to think about the bar I had passed on the way in and how nice a cold beer would taste. I had my hand on the ignition key, ready to turn it, when Livingston’s four-by-four drove up. A gorilla of a man who looked as if he belonged in the World Wrestling Federation got out on the passenger side and opened the gate in the stockade fence, then shut it behind him after the Toyota.

  Lines were beginning to intersect. Jill was missing and her car was found in Sandwich, the same town Livingston lived in. Jill writes down an address, and Livingston shows up there. Coincidences possibly, but not very likely. I studied the house and its surroundings for a few minutes, imprinting them in my memory. Then I started my truck and put it into gear, thinkin
g that it was odd but true, but often you can see more clearly in the dark than in the daylight.

  Chapter 28

  Flagg’s answering service said he was busy. I growled that it was urgent. The androgynous voice on the phone insisted he was in an important meeting in Boston and could not be interrupted.

  “Please tell Mr. Flagg when he’s done with his meeting that I need his help this evening.” I gave the operator the address of Livingston’s Hyannis house and hung up. I was in a bind. The same voices of intuition telling me this was too big to handle alone urged me to make haste. I got in the pickup and headed for Hyannis.

  Wisps of fog were rolling in off the harbor and the air smelled like the underside of an old wharf as I drove past Livingston’s house and parked at the deserted town landing. Hooding the beam of my flashlight, I walked along the wet sand a few yards above the gurgling edge of the tide. Minutes later, I stood next to the pier behind the house and listened. The mist-muffled summer-night sounds of music and laughter came from a couple of bars across the harbor.

  Climbing a slight incline to the backyard, I made my way around a couple of skiffs and a pile of metal lobster traps to the small house. It was a one-story cottage of weathered shingles and white trim about the same vintage as the main building. The cottage was dark except for a dim yellow glimmer. I peeked in the window. The curtains were drawn. I went around to the front door. It had a new Yale padlock on it.

  The second-floor lights were on in the main house. I walked across a short expanse of lawn, climbed a stairway onto the porch, and listened at the front door. All was quiet. I tried the knob. The door was locked.

  Two vehicles were parked in the drive, Livingston’s Toyota and a white Camero I hadn’t seen before. I left the porch and went around the side of the house to an old flower bed I had passed. The flowers were long gone, but the bed was bordered by a row of white-painted rocks. I picked out a boulder the size and shape of an eggplant then walked back to the cottage and examined the lock. The wood was old and soft around the latch screws.

  I raised the boulder and brought it down hard against the lock. The noise sounded like a cannon. The cottage faced away from the house onto the harbor. I hoped the sound wouldn’t carry to the second floor.

  The lock held. I cursed, and smashed it again, skinning my knuckles. This time the screws pulled out of the wood. I waited a minute and listened, heard nothing that worried me, then pushed the door open.

  The cottage expelled a damp musty smell of long disuse. I poked the flashlight inside and followed it with my nose. The door opened onto a short hallway. I made my way quietly down the hall and turned into a small kitchen that had a 1930-ish white-enameled GE stove and Kelvinator refrigerator. Light came from a doorway off the kitchen. I walked that way and stepped into the small living room.

  The source of the illumination was a Mickey-Mouse-face night-light plugged directly into an outlet. It didn’t throw much illumination, but its soft glow was enough so I could see the blanket-covered form on the couch.

  The last time I looked under a blanket I found Hanley’s corpse. Preparing for the worst, I peeled back the blanket and switched the flash on at the same time. The circle of light fell on Jill’s face. Her mouth was gagged with a red neckerchief. She was lying on her side, her wrists and feet tied with nylon cord to the wooden arms of the couch. I knelt beside her.

  “Jill,” I whispered, “it’s me, Soc. Are you all right?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “Good. I’m going to untie you and get you out of here, okay?”

  I put the flashlight down and reached behind her neck to undo the gag. Her eyes widened, and she jiggled her head like someone with the palsy. I thought she was excited to see me. I was wrong. The floorboards creaked behind me. I turned. It was too late. Somebody dropped a ten-ton vault on my skull.

  I blinked my eyes and almost immediately wished I hadn’t. My head felt as if somebody had jabbed a dinner fork into it above the left ear. Now the scalp was tender on both sides. I tried to rub away the pain, but my arms were tied above my head. My feet were equally immobile. And I was not alone.

  A table lamp had been turned on. Two men were in the room. Livingston was bending over me. Standing near the kitchen door was the dark-haired gorilla.

  Livingston opened his mouth. “Soc, are you all right?”

  It was the same question I asked Jill, which was pretty funny, because I was lying on the couch in her place. I nodded slightly.

  Livingston straightened and dragged a chair over. He sat down and leaned forward. “Well, I guess we can dispense with games. I know you’re a private detective.”

  I almost laughed. Was there anyone who didn’t know I was a private cop? I needed to stall while my head cleared. “How about some water?” I said.

  He nodded and motioned with his hand. The tap ran in the kitchen and seconds later the gorilla handed Livingston a glass. Livingston held it to my mouth and I took a couple of sips. The water was lukewarm and tasted like old copper pipes, but it relieved the dryness in my mouth. I took another sip.

  “How’d you know I was here?” I said.

  Livingston laughed softly. “We discovered we had run out of beer upstairs, and my friend Gordie remembered we had a couple of six-packs in the cottage refrigerator.” Gordie must be the gorilla. Preppy name for a guy built like King Kong. “He heard you breaking in, and while you were talking to Jill, he crept up behind you and hit you over the head with the large gun he always carries.”

  “Where is Jill now?” I said.

  “She’s fine, Soc.” Livingston motioned to Gordie, who handed him my daypack. He took Jill’s contact sheets out of the bag and held them under my nose. “We found these in your truck. Do you know what they are?”

  I shook my head.

  “You still haven’t told me where she is.”

  “She’s going with us, Soc. I think she knows more than she’s telling and I want to talk to her at length. Besides, I want to show her what she got herself into.” He put his arm on my shoulder. “We’ll be leaving you for a time, but we’ll try to make you a little more comfortable.”

  He motioned to the gorilla, who produced a switchblade and slit my bindings. I sat up and rubbed my wrists and ankles, watched him tuck the knife away, and wondered if I could make a break. I quickly decided against it when I saw the Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Gordie pulled out of his belt. He came over, grabbed my arm, and sat me on a worn braided rug next to an old-fashioned radiator. Then he took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, snapped one bracelet around my left wrist and the other around the radiator. Livingston took some cushions off the couch and tossed them and the blanket at me.

  “You can stretch out and take a nap if you get tired,” he said. “Sorry we can’t make you more comfortable, but we didn’t expect you, and we’re in something of a hurry. We’ll be back tomorrow night. Gordie, get something for Mr. Socarides to drink.”

  It was clear Livingston was in charge. The gorilla brought me a six-pack of Heineken’s and a wine bottle full of water.

  He knelt down next to me and said, “If you have to take a piss, just go in your pants.”

  “I can think of better targets, Gordon. Your face, for instance.”

  He grabbed me by the shirt, but was cut short by Livingston’s annoyed voice.

  “C’mon, Gordie, we’ve got work to do. I want to make sure we catch the ebb tide.”

  Gordie released my shirt and stood up. “Talk to you later,” he said.

  He was grinning as if he looked forward to our reunion. He switched off the table lamp and hurried to catch Livingston. The door shut and I was alone. After ten minutes, the sound of an idling motor came from the direction of the pier where the fishing boat was tied up. Great rescue attempt, Socarides. Jill is going on a boat ride, and you’ve become a permanent cottage fixture.

  I jerked at
the handcuffs. It was a futile gesture. I wasn’t going anywhere unless I dragged the whole cottage along with me. My head still hurt where Gordie had sapped me. I popped a beer with one hand and sat with my back against the wall, brooding over my situation, staring sullenly at the vapid grin on the plastic Mickey Mouse face. I was thinking about Laurel and Hardy, Oliver saying another fine mess you’ve gotten us into. I paused in my ruminations.

  I was no longer alone.

  A shadow loomed in the kitchen. I thought Livingston changed his mind and ordered Gordie to take care of me. I had only a couple of weapons. My feet and the beer can. Maybe I could trip him if he got close enough and throw beer in his face.

  The shadow moved closer, but not close enough to reach with my feet. A flashlight beam blinded me, then moved down to where my wrist was handcuffed to the radiator. There was a derisive chuckle.

  “Looks like you got yourself into something of a pickle,” a deep voice said.

  I had been holding my breath. I let it out and said, “I got tired and decided to take a nap, Flagg. What the hell took you so long?”

  “I came down as soon as I got out of my meeting and heard about your call. Made it from Boston in fifty-five minutes, Soc. That’s almost as fast as the plane does it. Spent another ten minutes snooping around. Long enough for you to get into deep shit.”

  “Stop gloating. If you’d been here as a lookout, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.” I paused. The pitch of the boat engine had changed. It was revving up.

  I pulled at the handcuffs. “Dammit, Flagg, they’re getting away.”