Out of the Cold Dark Sea

by Jeffrey D Briggs

  Martha said nothing. There was nothing she could say that the detective would believe anyway. She didn’t think it prudent to tell him that if she had wanted to kill the asshole that had tried to rape her, she could have. Now was not the time to quibble about her “yacht” being a twenty-three-foot fishing boat, bought used, nor to try to explain how Hewitt hoarded nickels like a miser his gold. The only thing the detective wanted to hear right now was something that would confirm his line of reasoning. She had no intention of giving him anything that might take him further into this idiotic fairy tale.

  Metcalf nodded and leaned forward. “You’re in a tight spot here, Ms. Whitaker. You see, you’re no longer just some person of interest, you’re not just the friend—the dear friend—who found Mr. Wilcox missing. You’re now a person of suspicion, and if the lieutenant’s men find a floater, you may be the prime suspect in a murder case. The best thing you can do is talk to me.”

  “I have nothing to say about your bullshit theory,” Martha said. “I’ve made my statements, I’ve signed them, I stand by them.” She paused. “Now, I’d like to call my attorney.”

  FOUR

  By the time Martha walked out of police headquarters, the dark streets glared with the streaking headlights of evening commuters hurrying out of the city center. Sidewalks were packed with people scurrying by, heads dipped low against the continuing rain. The day had passed while she waited, dueled with Metcalf, waited some more, and then watched as her attorney berated the detective for hypotheticals that were bereft of evidence. Finally, her attorney, Kirk Eckersley, had leaned across the interrogation table and snarled, “Charge her or release her, but we’re through playing charades.”

  A wasted day—with no news of Hewitt. She stood rooted to the pavement, sick with the memory of the van and the trashed houseboat.

  Eckersley hurried toward her, his trench coat flapping against tailored wool trousers. His was a pretty, effeminate face with delicate features—thin nose, cheekbones, lips. A touch of gray highlighted his dark, wiry hair. “Sorry. Discharge papers always take longer than you think.” He popped open an umbrella. “Here, we can share.”

  “I’m fine, thanks, Kirk.” Eckersley had once been her boss, a good criminal attorney who was building a reputation as a great one. “I appreciate your coming on such short notice.”

  “Metcalf’s bluffing,” Eckersley said. “He has no evidence. With no body, no weapon, and no blood, there is no murder. He’s investigating a disappearance, nothing more. Metcalf was just hoping you’d implicate yourself in some way. They’ll find Hewitt’s phone call to you if they subpoena the phone company for his records. Hell, he might have hightailed it out of town, rather than wait to meet you. Most likely the Harbor Patrol will find him once he washes ashore.”

  “I had no idea I had so much motive. That was a shock,” Martha said.

  “Motive and opportunity don’t add up to murder. Who would’ve known? Can I buy you a drink—or maybe you should buy me one, come to think of it—or give you a ride somewhere?”

  “Thanks, but no. My car’s just around the corner.”

  It wasn’t, but it was a handy excuse. Eckersley deserved his reputation as a good criminal attorney and as a womanizer as well. After getting an STD from him, his last wife had gathered his three mistresses in the same room and told him to pick one because she was gone.

  “You look like a puppy that’s just been whipped,” Eckersley said. “Maybe you could use a friend.”

  Martha was too tired to play this game. “Kirk, that line might work on some overwhelmed housewife, but not me. What I need are answers, and I don’t think you can help me get them over drinks. Being a good attorney doesn’t change the fact that you’re a scrub. And knowing you, you always will be.”

  “A scrub? Oh, that’s brutal. Old-fashioned, but brutal.” Perfect white teeth gleamed in the light. “Well, if you change your mind . . .” He handed her a card with his cell phone number scrawled on it.

  “Trust me, if I hear from Metcalf again, you’ll be hearing from me. In the meantime, have your assistant send me a bill.”

  “First consultation is always free. You’d be surprised how often they take place in an interrogation room at police headquarters.”

  “Okay, thanks.” She hesitated, before adding, “Kirk, I’d really appreciate it if this didn’t get back to anyone at CH&N, especially Matthews. I don’t need that right now.”

  “No problem. It’s our little secret.”

  “I’d rather think of it as an obligation. You know, attorney-client privilege.”

  He nodded, adding a smile that was really a smirk. “Of course. Being too trusting was never one of your faults. I’m surprised you called me.”

  “I called because you’re good.” She extended her hand. “Thanks, Kirk. I really do appreciate your coming down.”

  She strode off, hoping she looked more confident than she felt. After rounding the corner, she savored the moist air—noticeably warmer than it had been that morning—and the wind on her face. She let the rain fall steadily on her shoulders. The storm, a Pineapple Express blown across the Pacific from the tropical waters of Hawaii, would only bring more rain and wind.

  The Lyft driver dropped her off at Pete’s Supermarket. The parking lot was empty except for her Mini Cooper in the far corner. Lights from the store windows reflected off the water but fell short of the car. Trees swayed and branches whipped with the wind. Across the street, the dock leading to Hewitt’s houseboat was empty.

  At the car, she used her phone light to look up the tailpipe. Hewitt’s mystery package still sat there, dry and out of sight. She fished it out and dropped it in her jacket pocket. What could it mean? A key in a pill bottle, wrapped with a torn postcard of Pete’s Supermarket, all tied up with fishing line. She had barely had time to hide it before she had been bundled into a patrol car and taken downtown.

  Maybe this little package had nothing to do with the houseboat search, but that was about as likely as Hewitt driving himself into Puget Sound. Whether the mystery key was important or not didn’t change the fact that whoever ransacked the houseboat probably hadn’t found what they wanted. And they would still be looking.

  On edge, she glanced around. In the dark, water and wind and shining streetlights gave the scene a rippling, surreal quality without depth enough to see movement. It was time to go home and try to figure out what all of this meant. As she searched for the key slot, her phone light flashed across the inside of the car. Something caught her attention. She swung the light back, peering through the window. The glove box hung open, its contents scattered across the passenger-side floor. She tried the door. It opened, the dome light softly illuminating a mess of papers, power snacks, and spare tampons. The seat cushions had been popped up and not replaced. If they had taken anything, she couldn’t immediately identify it.

  She jerked upright, scanning the parking lot again, this time pausing at each shadow, peering into the dark corners of a dark night. She saw nothing new, and began to shiver. If they had searched her car, they knew where she lived. She touched the lump in her pocket. And now, she was certain. She had what they wanted.

  The popped up seats and jumbled contents of the car brought the chaos in Hewitt’s house—the coat liners slit, the mattress spewing forth their stuffing, the refrigerator dismantled—back to mind. She looked around again. The realization came to her slowly, like the creeping of the dawn. It was there in the unslashed, intact seat cushions; it was strengthened by the curious fact that nothing was stolen; it crystallized in the unmistakable scent of . . . Metcalf’s hair gel.

  Anger replaced panic. The police could have easily put the car back together to hide their search. Instead, they chose to send her a message. What was Metcalf telling her? We’re watching you? You can’t hide? Don’t screw with us? At least it partly explained why they had kept her waiting all afternoon in an interrogation cell. If they had found anything, they would have had time to put the car back together,
get a search warrant, and show up at police headquarters with the charges in hand.

  “Bastards,” she shouted and kicked the car. A cat darted out from under the car, disappearing into a row of shrubbery.

  “Dante?” she whispered. In an instant, she realized it wasn’t Hewitt’s cat. Dante, like his twin Beatrice, was black as the night. This one was some kind of tabby.

  “Oh, Christ,” she groaned. She had forgotten about Hewitt’s cat.

  The dock to Hewitt’s houseboat was a ribbon out into the lake. She was suddenly tired. All she wanted was to go home, draw a hot bath with lavender, play some Mozart, and wash away all thought. Wash away Metcalf and his stinking hair gel. Something, anything to just let her brain shut down and let her subconscious work on this puzzle. The last thing she wanted to do was walk down that dock, enter that houseboat.

  She slammed the car door and did just that—hurried past the other houseboats, ignoring the flicker of television screens and folks gathered around tables. Low lights lined the dock and cast feeble halos to guide her back toward Hewitt’s houseboat. All this for a cat? Yes, for a cat. It was what friends did. It was what family did.

  The houseboat at the end of the dock was dark against the dark lake. Police tape stretched across the gate and the door. She hesitated no more than a second, then ducked under the tape and stepped onto the deck. The houseboat rolled with the waves whipping across Lake Union. Her knees bent in time with the rise and sway of the big, water-soaked flotation logs below as the whitecaps pounded in. This time, when she turned the key in the door, she felt the pressure and heard the click of the lock.

  In the foyer, she stood motionless. Too much had happened in the past twelve hours for her to assume anything or anyplace was safe. Least of all this place. She listened to the creak of the boat, the wail of the wind, the waves slamming the hull. Natural sounds. Sounds of a storm. Between gusts, she strained to hear anyone breathing, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow. Nothing.

  Only then did she whisper, “Dante. Dante, kitty. Wanna come visit Beatrice?” She repeated it all again, only louder, adding a purr at the end. She punched on her phone light, saw an overturned chair, and turned the light off. Righting the chair, she sat down. The skittish Dante would need time to recognize her before he ventured too close. She sat there in the dark, occasionally calling his name, offering companionship, bribing him with the promise of canned tuna, which she knew drove him into a catatonic bliss. If Dante was still on the houseboat, he ignored her. Who could blame him?

  Martha was about to call out again, when something made her pause. Had Dante come home? She waited to feel the brush of Dante’s fur against her leg, as she had so many times in the past. Instinct told her it was something else. The houseboat heaved and groaned in the storm, a perfect camouflage for footsteps. She slipped into the darkest shadow in a house of shadows, her every sense on high alert.

  The reflected glow of a neighbor’s light winked out and came back. Someone had scurried past the window. The light winked again. Two of them on the deck. Fine. She was ready, and she wanted answers. They were heading around back. Had they come through the front door, they would have surprised her. Now, she had the advantage. They would either come through the tarp or head back to the front door like she had. The trick was to be patient, let both of them enter before announcing her presence. They would be harder to catch if they fled down the dock. Trapped in the houseboat, they were hers. The only question was weapons—a gun, a knife, a policeman’s baton. She dismissed the last option. Cops would have used the front door. Up close, she could disarm someone with a gun. But she had to be close. And quick. A knife was more dangerous. She’d have to make sure she didn’t give them a chance to use either.

  “Survival. That’s always your first goal,” Jonesy had said, like the drill sergeant he had been. “Kick ‘em in the balls. Disable them. Make them run. Whatever it takes. No rules. I’m not training you for competition. I want you to survive in the real world.”

  He had taught her well.

  How she wished Rachel had met a Jonesy earlier in her life. But some people just weren’t survivors.

  Unwanted distractions. Let it go, she told herself. Breathe. Focus. Murmurs reached her, but not words, indistinct sounds moving back and forth in the wind. Whoever these guys were—for now she was sure they were guys—they were back for a second search to find what they hadn’t found before. Or maybe to find her. They whispered back and forth like they were at a Sunday afternoon potluck. Amateurs. Obviously. But amateurs could be dangerous. Now they were at the tarped-off patio door. She forced herself to be patient.

  “Never rush into a fight,” Jonesy had warned her. “Slow time down. But when you’re ready, strike fast, strike hard, and strike to end it then and there.”

  She flexed her fingers and her toes. She let her body relax, breathing deeply, silently.

  She moved deftly into a shadow near the patio door. A blue spot shone through the tarp and glinted on a knife blade as it sliced the bottom edge of the tarp, then up one side. The light snapped off as suddenly as it had appeared. The bottom corner of the tarp lifted. A head poked through, followed quickly by a body. Was he the one with the knife? She let him enter and move past the opening. He stumbled on some of the debris on the floor and swore before righting himself.

  The second head appeared. A flashlight snapped on. The light glinted off the steel of a knife in his hand. When it was dark, she had planned a more general, close-in assault. Now she had enough light for something more specific. He started to right himself. Martha stepped forward and delivered an open palm to his forehead. At the last instance, she pulled her blow. She wanted him alive and disabled, not dead of a broken neck. He dropped like a sack of wheat, the flashlight and knife clattering to the floor. In less than a heartbeat, she spun and drove a foot into the other man’s thigh. He went down with an umph, the air escaping his body like deflating a balloon.

  “Oh, God,” he screamed. “My leg’s fucking broken.”

  Martha picked up the flashlight, kicked the knife into the dark, and stood over him. “If I’d wanted your leg broken, I’d have gone for your knee. Do you have a knife, too?”

  He reached in his pocket and removed a small pocketknife and handed it to her. “That was my grandfather’s.”

  “And now it’s mine. Evidence in a breaking and entering. Who are you? What do you want? And where the fuck is Hewitt?” The arc of the flashlight reflected off a pair of glasses on a bearded face. Longish blond hair, a receding hairline. She put him in his thirties.

  “You’re a girl?” His voice sounded incredulous.

  “A girl? A girl? Shut up and don’t move or I will break your knee cap.” Martha turned to the other man. The upper half of his torso had fallen back through the tarp. She grabbed him by the legs and dragged him inside, a trail of water following him.

  “Oh my god, you fucking killed Lance,” the bearded man said.

  “Shut up. I didn’t kill him. But he’ll have a headache in the morning.”

  “Lance!” the man cried out. “He’s not moving.”

  “He’s unconscious,” she sighed. “He’ll come around in a minute.”

  She didn’t add that an open palm to the forehead could knock someone senseless without leaving a bruise. It made assault charges harder to prove if there was no evidence. Thank you, Jonesy.

  She shone the light on the man’s face to see if he was coming around. The darkness hid her surprise. The last time she had seen that goateed chin it had also been soaking wet. Jogging Man.

  Finally. Maybe now she would learn something useful about Hewitt’s disappearance.

  “Start talking,” she demanded, shining the light again at the first man. “What’s your name? Why are you here?”

  He moaned and grabbed his leg. She crouched over him. When he didn’t respond, she said, “Okay, I can just find out from your wallet. Left side, I believe. Thin. Like there’s not much money in it. Hint. If you’re going nin
ja, don’t leave your wallet in your pocket.”

  “Going ninja? That would be you, not us.”

  She pressed his thumb back along his wrist, and he started to roll over to escape the pain.

  “MacAuliffe,” he screamed. “James MacAuliffe. Jesus. Call an ambulance. We both need an ambulance.”

  “You’ll be fine. Your buddy, too. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “We’re reporters.”

  “Reporters? Christ, they’re worse than attorneys. So what are you doing here, Mr. MacAuliffe?”

  “How do you know he's okay? I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “Because I hit him.” Martha released him. “If I didn’t want him to be okay, I would have hit him harder. You’re a slow learner, aren’t you? I’d hate to think I’m dealing with someone that stupid. Oh, that's right, you're a reporter. If you so much as touch your cell phone . . .”

  MacAuliffe scrambled away from her, shaking his hand.

  “So who’s your partner in crime?”

  “We’re not criminals.”

  “Oh no? Breaking and entering? Through a police barricade? Give me a break. In fact, as it happens, you may be breaking into my houseboat, which, of course, gives me the right to kill you. Now, again, what’s his name?”