Dark Waters

by Susan Rogers Cooper

  Again Grady laughed. ‘Yes, actually. He works for my father in the paint department.’ Leaning in to stage whisper, and again with the air quotes, ‘“You know, them gays are good with colors.”’

  Emmett couldn’t help it – he laughed. Standing up and heading for the door, he said, ‘Thanks, Grady. I appreciate your time and the information.’ He stopped and turned back. ‘Off the top of your head, who do you think killed Hunt?’

  ‘Off the top of my head? His mother. Of course, she should have done it in utero and saved us all a lot of heartache.’

  Dalton had been thinking about it a lot. The whole gun thing had put the house of his dreams on the back burner, but now that he had his service revolver back, it was time to think about the future again. Him and Holly, and their home. Of course, she hadn’t seen it yet, and he wasn’t about to buy a house without her seeing it first. It was going to be her house too, after all. But he had a lot to think about before he did that. Like, did he do that first, then go buy a ring and propose? Or did he buy the ring first, show her the house and propose to her there?

  He was so ready for his life to begin. And he knew it was going to be great, now that he’d found Holly. He’d never met a woman like her. She was what they called a free spirit, and he couldn’t think of a better mother for his children than a free spirit. Not that he was saying anything bad about his own mama. She definitely wasn’t a free spirit, but she’d still been a good mother. He didn’t blame her for him not getting out on his own, or not having a girlfriend, or any of the other stuff. If he was to blame anyone, it would be his daddy, for up and dying on them when Dalton was only fourteen. He’d had to be the man of the house after that. And the man of the house just didn’t get up and walk out.

  But his mama had been talking about selling their house, about moving in with her recently widowed sister who lived in a big, fancy house in Bishop. His mama had been going to his aunt Martha’s church every other Sunday now for about two months, so she was meeting new people and making new friends over there. His angel was definitely looking out for him, having all this come together at the same time. And his aunt had a live-in maid, so his mama wouldn’t have to suffer, not having him around to do the cooking and cleaning and the laundry and such. She always made a joke that he’d make a good wife someday, but he figured with these skills he would make an excellent husband!

  Now all he had to do was get up the nerve to take Holly to the house.

  Milt – Day Four

  ‘There’s the most obvious question,’ I said to the two boys sitting side by side on the twin bed I’d been sleeping on during the cruise. Jean sat on her twin bed while I loomed in the small space between the two. ‘Why did you leave the children’s pavilion without calling us first?’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Johnny Mac started, then looked at Early, who said, ‘Ah . . .’

  ‘Spit it out, boys. It’s obvious you did it. You were caught, in a manner of speaking, on the staircase at the other end of the ship. You said you were going to Janna’s cabin. Who told you that you could do that? Did Janna call her mother?’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Johnny Mac tried. Early just shook his head.

  ‘Ah ha!’ I cried in make-believe glee. ‘I have a negative response! Janna did not call her mother. Did Lyssa call hers?’

  Again Early shook his head while my son glared at him.

  ‘Now I call this progress. Two negative responses!’ I turned to my wife. ‘Aren’t my interrogation skills amazing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Indeed,’ she said, giving the boys her stone-lion-outside-the-library stare.

  ‘And I think we can all agree that neither you, Early, or your friend Johnny Mac called either of his parents. Can we agree on that?’

  Since I was speaking directly to Early, he said, ‘Yes, sir. We didn’t call.’

  ‘Now back to my first question: why didn’t you call?’

  My son stood up, almost knocking me down. ‘Because you woulda said no! That’s why!’

  Well, that stopped me in my tracks. So I said a rough, ‘Sit down!’ Johnny Mac obliged and I sank onto the bed next to Jean.

  ‘What was your plan, John?’ Jean asked. ‘Were you going to rush back to the children’s pavilion when I called you to say we were on our way?’

  Johnny Mac looked stonily at the wall. Early said, ‘Yes, ma’am, that was the plan.’

  Johnny Mac glared at Early. ‘You have betrayed me for the last time!’ he said, stood up and walked into the other part of the suite, climbing to the top bunk.

  ‘Johnny Mac, get your ass back down here now!’ I said, ready to rush into the other room and try some of my daddy’s belt therapy on him. Jean saw me loosening said belt and said, ‘Not on my watch.’ To Johnny Mac, she said, ‘Right now, John McDonnell Kovak.’ Whoa, three names. He knew he was in trouble.

  He sighed and climbed down. ‘Early is not betraying you,’ Jean said. ‘He’s actually acting responsibly, although, like you, he hasn’t done so until now. Did the girls talk you into this?’

  ‘Don’t you dare blame Janna!’ Johnny Mac all but shouted.

  ‘Watch your tone, boy!’ I said, trying to think what other punishments my parents used: the belt, a switch, a hairbrush, all used unsparingly on my backside. Looked like Jean was gonna put the kibosh on any of that.

  ‘Was this the first time you’ve done this – left the children’s pavilion – or have you done this before? Like the night you said the pavilion closed at one a.m. but the sign says it closes every night at ten p.m.?’ Jean asked.

  Neither boy said anything.

  ‘I hope you realize that neither of you are going anywhere without your dad or me with you,’ she added.

  Johnny Mac sighed. Under his breath I heard him say, ‘That sucks.’

  ‘I heard that,’ I said.

  He just sighed again. He gets that from his mother. ‘I’m wondering, though,’ I said to Jean, ‘if we checked the pavilion records if we would see whether they ever checked in?’

  ‘Should we look into that, John?’ Jean asked.

  Our son stood up again. In a defeated voice, he said, ‘Do what you will. I’m going to bed and I’m not getting up until we reach Galveston.’ And with that he was off to his part of the suite, climbing the latter to the top bunk.

  ‘May I be excused?’ Early asked. We said yes and he crawled into the lower bunk.

  Milt – Day Four

  We forced the boys into nice clothes and made them eat dinner with us in the dining room. They went with the steak and French fries again, while I basked in the glow of an appetizer of bacon-wrapped, goat-cheese-stuffed scallops, a Caesar salad and a main course of lamb kabobs with pearl onions, button mushrooms and yellow peppers with a side of risotto. For dessert Jean and I split something called a chocolate volcano (a three-inch-high chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache in the center, vanilla ice cream on the side, and all of it drizzled with a dark chocolate sauce and topped with brandied pecans). The boys both had just plain ice cream, although I don’t think that was coordinated since they didn’t speak during the entire meal.

  Then we forced them to go to a kid-friendly Vegas-style show in the big auditorium. Afterwards I let Jean and the boys go in our suite while I stayed outside to call home. Emmett picked up on the second ring.

  ‘’Bout damn time you checked in!’ he said by way of a greeting.

  ‘I’m on vacation,’ I said for what seemed the umpteenth time.

  ‘OK, I’ve only got one more person to interview and he doesn’t look promising. Everybody has a half-assed alibi and the same half-assed motive.’

  ‘Hell, Emmett, revenge is always a strong motive.’

  ‘Yeah, but there’s not one of them that stands out, know what I mean? They all hated his guts, they all wanted him dead, and most of ’em had the means and the opportunity. I mean, how hard is it to get your hands on a rifle in Oklahoma?’

  ‘Did you ever find out what caliber?’

  ‘Yeah, thirty-thirty Win.
’

  ‘Hell, that could be anything,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, lot of rifles use thirty-thirty.’

  I sighed. ‘Don’t know what to tell you, Emmett. Just keep plugging away. That’s the only way to do it. At least for me.’

  ‘Yeah, you always were a plodder. Me, I like the more effective miraculous brainstorm.’

  I laughed. ‘Yeah, well, you hold your hand over your ass and wait for that, ’k? I’m gonna join my wife,’ and with that I hung up.

  We made an early night of it and were all in bed by ten p.m. At around eleven there was a knock on the door. Jean and I had both been reading but the boys didn’t move, which was a good indication they were actually asleep.

  I got up, put a robe on over my shorts and T-shirt and went to the door. Mike Tulia stood there. ‘What’s up?’ I asked him.

  ‘Step outside?’ he said, making it sound like a question. I did. When the door closed behind me, he said, ‘Josh Weaver is missing.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Vern’s oldest kid,’ Mike said. ‘Vern just called me. Said he couldn’t find him anywhere. He called security and they’re looking for him, but I told Vern you and I would help too. That OK with you?’

  I was tired but I had to admit I also had a little cabin fever. Our cabin was so small it didn’t take long for the fever to take hold. ‘Sure,’ I said to Mike. ‘Let me get some clothes on.’

  I went back into the cabin where Jean lay on her bed, pillows stacked behind her as she read, although the book was now on her lap. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Mike,’ I said quietly. ‘Josh Weaver’s missing. Mike volunteered him and me to go look for him.’

  ‘Well, that was nice of him,’ and yes she said that sarcastically. ‘I thought that was what security was for. Other than for arresting small children, of course.’

  I decided to ignore that. It was her kid, too, after all. At this point she wasn’t going to see the law and order part of it like I did. ‘Security is on it, but Mike promised Vern.’

  ‘That you’d look for him?’ she said.

  ‘Come on, honey—’

  ‘Don’t honey me,’ she said, her whisper fairly loud. ‘Mike Tulia’s daughter is more than likely the one who got John into this whole mess! Just what did she plan on doing with my son up in her cabin? Answer me that!’

  You know, you can give a person all the high-faluting education in the world, a whole medical degree in psychiatry, but mess with a woman’s kid and the mama lion will win every damn time.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ I said, buttoning up my shirt. I was out the door before she could utter another word.

  Mike and I headed up to the promenade deck, checking out the shops and the casino. We saw Chief Heinrich’s men going into the different entertainment venues and decided to let them disturb the entertainers and patrons rather than us. When we found nothing in the shops or casino, we headed to the open-air pool area, me taking the port side (I think) and Mike the starboard (I think). Nothing. We headed to the food court which was mostly empty, and on to the children’s pavilion, not suspecting he’d be there, but we had to check. He wasn’t there. We headed out to the deck that went around the food court.

  Mike stopped and looked out at sea. It was black as pitch. ‘You don’t think he fell overboard, do you?’ he asked me.

  I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Hope not,’ I said.

  ‘Can you imagine?’ Mike said, his voice soft. ‘A kid like him out in that?’ He pointed into the blackness. ‘Bobbing up and down, not being able to see anything, just this ship fading from sight?’ Mike shook himself. Looking at me, he laughed nervously. ‘I think this might be my last cruise.’

  ‘I hear you,’ I said, staring out at the blackness. I could feel my skin crawling from the thought of a boy, my boy – out in the blackness, alone, treading water, waiting—

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past the little shit to be hiding,’ Mike said, breaking into my painful thoughts. ‘He’s given Vern nothing but hell ever since he divorced his mom.’

  ‘Where would he hide?’ I asked.

  ‘I dunno. Where would you hide?’ he asked.

  I thought about it, then pointed to a door. ‘That says employees only. Think Josh would obey that?’

  ‘Hell, no,’ Mike said.

  So we ignored the sign too and went in. Stairs immediately headed down several flights until we reached a long, narrow, unadorned corridor with lots of doors on either side. Probably crew quarters. Another door near the stairway led – by the sign – to the engine room. We tried opening it, but it was locked.

  ‘So what do you suppose Josh would do when confronted by a locked door?’ I asked Mike.

  ‘Give up. The kid doesn’t have a lot of drive.’ We looked down the long corridor. ‘Think we should try some of these doors?’ Mike asked.

  I shrugged. ‘In for a penny,’ I said, and headed to the doors on the left, while Mike took the doors on the right. They were definitely crew cabins and few of them were locked. I could see spare navy uniforms in open closets. And truth be told, most of the rooms I found were God-awful messes. Of course, when did they have time to clean their own cabins when they were always waiting on us hand and foot?

  Mike had found several open doors before he hit the jackpot: an enraged young lady.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled. ‘This is my private room! Are you a passenger? It’s not enough that I slave for you day and night, you have to come down here and what? Do you think you can seduce me? Or are you a rapist?’

  All this time, Mike was backing up and trying to apologize.

  ‘I’m really sorry! I didn’t think anybody—’ Mike tried, to no avail.

  ‘Oh, my God! You’re not alone!’ she screamed upon seeing me. ‘Rape!’ she yelled at the top of her lungs. ‘Rape!’

  I held up both hands in surrender. ‘Miss, wait now, miss—’

  But she yelled that word again. Mike and I looked at each other and took off running for the stairs leading up.

  We got to the brisk night air of the deck and both sighed heavily. ‘Jeez, what was with that broad?’ Mike asked.

  ‘You do have a way with words, don’t you, Mike?’ I said.

  ‘What?’ he asked in apparent innocence.

  ‘Hens? Broads? What next? Bimbos? Dames? Floozies?’ I said.

  ‘Gee, Milt, did I hurt your feelings? You on the rag, boy?’

  ‘See, there you go!’

  ‘OK, I’m not a she-man, all right? I’m a man’s man! I like to hunt and fish and watch the cowboys and fart in my living room!’

  ‘Hell, I like all those things, too, including farting in my living room’ – I like it, I just didn’t do it anymore since Jean and I got married – ‘but you just don’t call women—’

  At that moment we must of hit a minor tsunami ’cause the ship rocked heavily, knocking me and Mike up against the wall. Across from us was one of the life boats. When the ship hitched, an arm, presumably attached to a body, fell out from under the tarp covering the life boat. And the arm wasn’t moving.

  SEVEN

  Milt – Day Four

  Mike and I were surrounded by four security personnel, plus Chief Heinrich, the head steward, and somebody from the bridge whose rank I didn’t get. We all stared at Josh Weaver’s uncovered body. By the marks on his neck, the fact that most of his tongue was hanging out, and my years as a professional lawman, I deduced he’d been strangled. Unfortunately even Mike, a tool and die guy, deduced the same thing, so I didn’t get all uppity about it. We were all staring when the door down to the crew quarters opened and the irate young lady from only a few moments earlier came barreling out.

  ‘Chief Heinrich!’ she cried. ‘You got them! Thank God! They tried to—’

  She stopped in mid-sentence, I suppose because people moved enough for her to see poor old Josh lying there with his tongue lolling out.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Is he dead?’

  No one a
nswered her ’cause at that moment Vern Weaver came rushing down the deck with Crystal running behind him. I’m a happily married man, but that didn’t keep me from noticing that when Crystal ran, especially wearing nothing but a silky-looking short nightie and a matching silky-looking short robe, her D cups hardly moved. Her legs were longer than I thought humanly possible, and her red hair flowed behind her like she was in a shampoo commercial. I couldn’t help wondering if the fact that her D cups didn’t move meant they weren’t real. That would be a real shame, because they were awful pretty peeking out of that flimsy nighty.

  ‘Josh!’ Vern yelled. The crew made way for him and he grabbed his son and pulled the boy to his chest. I started with an ‘Ah, Chief,’ thinking about all the forensics he was messing up, but Heinrich just glared at me so I shut up and watched Vern cry over his son. Crystal came up behind Vern and hugged his back, making sounds like she was bawling her eyes out, but the lady had some heavy mascara on and I didn’t see it smudge. I’m just saying – for what it’s worth.

  I tapped Mike on the shoulder. ‘You should stay for Vern, but I’m just in the way here,’ I said. ‘So I’m heading back to my cabin.’

  Mike nodded his head and moved to his partner, patting a free shoulder. I walked back to our cabin, wishing I had Jean’s scooter ’cause I was dog tired and didn’t feel like walking the length of the ship to get to bed. So to keep my mind occupied while I made my way, I had to wonder, who would want Josh Weaver dead? The kid wasn’t the best-looking, brightest, friendliest, nicest or any of the other ‘est’s’ you could think of, but that was hardly a reason to choke him to death. He and Vern had been at each other, but no more than any other father and teenaged son. Something I had to look forward to, I thought with a little trepidation. I was thinking about the people we knew who knew Josh. The Tulias, Esther Monte, her daughter and her shipboard romance, Lance Turner, and Rose Connelly and her boys and in-laws. Why would any of them want him dead? The only people even close enough to the Weaver family to care would be the Tulias – Mike, Lucy and Janna. I ruled out Janna purely because she wouldn’t have the strength to put Josh in the life boat. Could probably rule out Lucy for the same reason. Not to mention neither one had hands big enough to have left the bruising I had seen on Josh’s neck.