Dark Waters (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries)

by Bartlett, L. L.

  Now that I knew about the diamonds, and that this was Morrow’s boat, I thought I knew where they might be hidden — in the tidy engine room. But there was no way I wanted to go down there. It would be too easy for them to kill me once the stones were found. Then what would they do?

  The boat continued to drift north, and I knew what lay ahead if we didn’t stop moving in that direction; something enormously big, with a very long drop.

  “Da-Marr, get this boat out of the middle of the river and find us a place to hide,” Bobby ordered.

  Da-Marr looked uncertain, but nodded, and headed up the stairs once again for the bridge deck. Bobby shoved me toward the master stateroom. “Get moving.”

  As I started to move, the Slipstream’s engines thrummed to life below us once more.

  My heart sank at the sight of what had once been a sumptuous respite. The queen-size bed took up ninety-percent of the tiny bedroom, or at least it had. That was before the mattress had been reduced to the consistency of shredded wheat. The platform had been reduced to tinder — out of spite, no doubt. As in the salon, there were holes punched in all the walls and Fiberglass ceiling, and even the flat-screen TV attached to the wall opposite the bed had been smashed in what was probably frustration at not finding Morrow’s treasure.

  “So where is Jack’s stash?” Bobby demanded.

  “It’s not in here,” I said, and turned to face him. For a moment, I thought he might hit me, but then his lips turned up into a smarmy smile.

  “Are the diamonds here on the boat?” Bobby asked, his tone menacing.

  “What made you think they were?”

  “Because Easy Breezin’ was the thing Jack loved most. Even more than that whore he married ten years ago. Crap, that bitch couldn’t wait to leave the country with everything she could lay her hands on. She never took to heart the phrase stand by your man. But Jack was arrested before he could get the stones. The feds took the boats the next day.”

  “Are you a friend of Harry’s?” I asked. Bobby looked to be about the same age as Harry, but not nearly as sophisticated. Had he been a schoolmate who hadn’t been privy to the money and status Harry had enjoyed and resented him for it — enough to kill because of it?

  “Friend?” he repeated in disgust. “Harry wouldn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  That wasn’t the impression I’d received from the younger Mr. Morrow. He’d seemed like a decent enough guy who’d been shamed by his unrepentant father, and yet … when I thought about him, I got the impression he’d loved his father unconditionally. My mother was a drunk and the worst excuse for motherhood to set foot on the planet, and yet I’d felt the same way about her. I hadn’t always liked her, but I had loved her. The more I looked at Bobby, things I’d been feeling when touching the chalk seemed to coalesce within my mind. He’d been jealous of the Morrows’ wealth. He hadn’t been Harry’s friend — more like a hanger-on. He’d shown up at the Morrow home even after his friendship with Harry had waned, after high school or college — I wasn’t quite sure which.

  “Da-Marr thinks you’re Morrow’s son,” I said, as I bent down to look through the litter on the floor.

  “So what?”

  I straightened. “What will happen when he finds out you aren’t?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s going to have a mysterious accident.”

  My stomach did a flip-flip. “You don’t leave witnesses,” I stated.

  Bobby smiled. “No, I don’t.”

  Was he underestimating Da-Marr? Or had he brought along the gun he’d used to splatter Morrow’s brains across the Lexus?

  “What you’re looking for obviously isn’t in here,” I said, keeping my voice level.

  “I’ve spent the last eighteen hours tearing this boat apart. They’re here, I just haven’t found them yet.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “You’d better hope I’m right.”

  I shook my head. “You already said you don’t leave witnesses.”

  The smarmy smile returned. “Get to work.”

  “Doing what? How are you going to find the diamonds when you can’t move around in here?”

  “Then you can start dropping the stuff into the river to give us room.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea. If someone on shore saw us dumping junk overboard, they could call the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office marine patrol. Then again, what awaited us north of Grand Island could be lethal.

  I grabbed an abundant armful of what had once been mattress stuffing and shuffled out the stateroom, into the salon and out onto the deck. As I tossed it overboard, I scanned both shores.

  Not a boat in sight.

  The engines below my feet stopped dead.

  Bobby looked up to the bridge deck. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” Then Da-Marr let loose with a blue cloud of profanity. “We’re out of gas.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Bobby asked.

  “No!”

  Bobby left me, taking the steps to the bridge deck two at a time.

  I looked back to the salon. Unfortunately, the radio was upstairs on the bridge deck. Would it even be intact, or had they already destroyed some of the dashboard looking for the diamonds? We were caught in the current, drifting north again. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. There were cell towers along the shore, but was I close enough to get a signal? Yes! I punched in 911, and seconds later a dispatcher came on the line.

  “Please state the nature of your emergency.”

  “I’m on a boat in the Niagara River and — ”

  A hard shove nearly sent me overboard. My phone went straight into the drink.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Bobby demanded. I hadn’t heard him come back down the stairs.

  “What did it look like I was doing?”

  Bobby punched me hard in the gut and I fell to my knees. Then he kicked me, his heavy boot smashing into my left knee.

  “Hey!” Da-Marr hollered. “Stop it. Stop it!” He grabbed the back of Bobby’s shirt and hauled him away from me.

  Bobby turned on him. “Don’t you touch me!”

  Da-Marr backed up a step, looking scared. “What in hell is with you?”

  “Drop the anchor. We’ve got to stop the boat and figure out what we’re going to do next.”

  “Anchor?” Da-Marr repeated stupidly. “I don’t know where the control is.”

  Bobby shoved him aside and started up the steps to the bridge once more. Da-Marr watched him go up, then turned for me.

  The thug came at me with the baseball bat, this time with intent to kill.

  I ducked my head for the blow, but instead Da-Marr grabbed me by the front of my jacket and helped me to my feet. “That fucker’s crazy,” he grated and looked back to the bridge deck. “We gotta do something, man.” He turned back to face me. “You got any ideas?”

  Could I trust him? He’d threatened me. Terrorized my cat. Filled my apartment with deadly wasps.

  I took a chance. “Does he have a phone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I bit my lip and looked toward the north, where the sky was growing darker over Lake Ontario.

  “Do you know where the diamonds are?” Da-Marr asked.

  “No,” I said, not sure if I was telling the truth.

  “Holy Christ!” Bobby nearly screamed from the helm. “Da-Marr, bring that fuckhead up here.”

  “You know any more about running this boat than me?” Da-Marr asked.

  I shook my head. “You never let me have a chance at the wheel, remember?”

  “We better get up there. And don’t you let on that I don’t wanna kill your ass.”

  “Thanks.”

  Holding onto my throbbing knee, I struggled up the steps first and found Bobby in a rage, pushing buttons and pounding on the helm when nothing seemed to work. “Where’s the goddamn anchor control?” he bellowed.

  “I have no idea.”

  Bobby tur
ned to Da-Marr. “Is he lying?”

  “He’s too chicken shit to lie.” He gave me a shove, but there wasn’t any heft behind it. He was on my side.

  “We have got to find those fucking diamonds and get the hell off this boat fast or we’re going over the falls!” Bobby ranted.

  “Falls?” Da-Marr asked with what sounded like panic.

  “Don’t you know what’s up ahead? Niagara fucking Falls! You have heard of them, haven’t you? Or didn’t they teach you anything in your fucking ghetto school?”

  Bobby did not know how to win friends and influence people — and if Da-Marr still had any doubts about his character, they’d been wiped out by that last statement.

  Da-Marr lowered his head, his eyes blazing, reminding me of a bull about to charge.

  “We have got to find those diamonds!” Bobby bellowed.

  He grabbed me by the jacket and shook me. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re lying. Where. Are. They?”

  Da-Marr was right. This guy was a nutcase. His blue eyes bore into me, but I answered truthfully. “I. Don’t. Know!”

  He shoved me backward with savage force that sent me crashing against the fiberglass bistro table; then he pushed Da-Marr out of his way and nearly fell down the stairs in his haste to get below.

  Da-Marr and I looked at each other; his eyes were filled with terror and I wondered if he could see the same emotion in mine. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “The life jackets are gone. Can you swim?”

  Da-Marr shook his head. I’d had swimming class in high school, but all these years later could I do much more than tread water or dog paddle? The shore — either east or west — was a long way away.

  The billiards chalk was still in my pocket. I took it out and rubbed it between my right thumb and forefinger, hoping it would give me some insight into Bobby.

  “What are you doing with your hand?” Da-Marr asked.

  “Don’t ask.”

  The impression that burst upon my mind was different this time. It was a reversed image of Bobby, as he’d seen himself in a mirror in Jack Morrow’s game room. His expression was bland, but it was his eyes that consumed me. Inquisitive? No, calculating, As Morrow’s world had collapsed around him, Bobby had made a greater and greater effort to ingratiate himself with the older man. They’d sparred as they’d knocked colored and striped balls into the pockets of Morrow’s vintage billiards table, and Bobby’s admiration had fed Morrow’s faltering ego, something he’d badly needed at that time. And when Bobby had shown up on Morrow’s last night alive, the old man had never suspected that his last remaining sycophant had homicide in mind.

  “What did Bobby tell you, that he was Morrow’s son and deserved a portion of what his father had worked for all his life?”

  Da-Marr nodded vigorously.

  “He lied. I met his son. His name is Harry — he’s nice guy. This jerk is a psychotic opportunist. He shot Jack Morrow execution style. And you know what? He won’t hesitate to do the same to us.”

  Da-Marr looked confused and hurt. “But he said — ”

  I actually felt sorry for the poor schmuck. Da-Marr had thought of me as an asshole worth dismissing, but he was, after all, just a kid without a lot of experience. He was just figuring out that he’d been lied to — taken advantage of — and that he might actually go to jail for the acts of vandalism he’d performed at Bobby’s behest.

  “It’s a tough world, kid. You can’t just take people at face value.”

  Da-Marr said nothing, but looked shaken, and for a moment I thought he might actually burst into tears. Then he straightened, finding some inner resolve. “We got to do something. We can’t let him kill us.”

  “Hey, I’m not advocating murder, but the truth is — it’s us, or him. We’ve got to subdue him — tie him up — something. And then we’ve got to contact someone — cops, sheriff’s office, somebody — to come and intercept this boat before we go over the falls. You said you can’t swim, and though I barely can, the current gets faster and faster the farther north we go. If we go into the water — there’s no way we can survive.”

  Da-Marr pivoted and, frustrated, slammed his fist into the fiberglass wall. It didn’t budge, and he shook his hand, wincing.

  “We have to decide — right now — how we’re going to approach this.” Da-Marr’s expression was filled with indecision. “I know we aren’t related by blood, but we are family,” I said, hoping to God he would buy my next line of bullshit. “Your father’s brother married Evelyn. Brenda is Evelyn’s sister. She’s married to my brother. That’s a family line. We have to stick together. Are you with me?” I held out my fist.

  After a long moment of indecision, Da-Marr clenched his own fist and bumped mine. “Family,” he said, and nodded gravely, but still looked scared shitless.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to fill my voice with a confidence I didn’t actually feel. “You’ve got to make Bobby believe you still have me intimidated.” And, man, that wasn’t going to be a hard act for me to perform. “But if any opportunity presents itself, we’ve got to act. We’ve got to get his cell phone, because if we don’t — we’re all going to die.”

  Again, Da-Marr nodded. He took a deep breath, schooled his features, and straightened. “You go down the steps first and show him you’re a goddamn wimp. If we can get him inside the salon, the two of us can smack that sucker down and get his phone.”

  I hoped.

  “We have to do it in the next couple of minutes, or there’s no way the authorities can get a boat out to intercept us. Once we go past the Grand Island Bridge, we’re dead.

  Da-Marr was so scared he nodded like a bobble head.

  The choppy water seemed to get rougher the farther north the current took us and with a bum knee, it was hard to get down the steps. Both sides of the shore were dotted with houses and businesses. I had no idea how far we’d gone up the river or how long we had before we got closer to the end of the island.

  I looked into the salon, but didn’t see Bobby. Da-Marr pushed past me and entered the boat’s interior. I hobbled over to look toward the bow and saw Bobby trying to access the anchor locker. Fat lot of good that would do us — the river’s current ran about one-and-a-half miles an hour and it was about twelve miles from the marina to Buckhorn Island State Park. That gave us a little time. But I’d lost track of when we’d left the dock and how far Da-Marr had taken the boat before we’d run out of fuel. But the more time we had, the better. If we could keep Bobby searching for the diamonds and dropping trash into the water, we’d have a better chance of being intercepted by a police patrol boat.

  Bobby hauled the anchor out of its locker and tossed it overboard, the momentum nearly sending him into the river, but he grabbed onto the chrome rail that ran along the bow and I watched in disappointment as he pulled himself back onboard.

  “What the hell are you looking at?” he shouted at me.

  I backed off and dug the chalk out of my pocket once more, rubbing it like a lucky rabbit’s foot, only, it wasn’t luck I was looking for, but insight.

  I already knew what this joker was capable of doing, and I didn’t want him doing it to me.

  Chapter 25

  The first thing Richard did when he got out of the water was try to find a phone, since his own had been ruined by its dip in the Niagara River.

  “Mr. Alpert, what happened?” Frank, the marina manager, asked, springing up from behind his desk as a dripping Richard entered his office.

  “No time to explain. Can I borrow your phone and maybe a towel?”

  “Sure.”

  “I could use a phone book, too.”

  After coming up with the white pages, the marina manager left Richard in privacy. But, instead of calling the police to report a stolen boat, Richard called the Buffalo News, hoping to find Sam Nielsen at his desk. He answered on the second ring.

  “Sam, it’s Richard Alpert — Jeff’s brother. Wh
at the hell are you two up to? Why are you looking for diamonds?”

  “Did Jeff find some?” he asked eagerly.

  “I don’t know. But someone has just stolen my boat and I was wondering if the two were related.”

  “Holy shit.” Sam was silent for a moment. “I asked a friend of mine to look up the registration on the boat. Let me put you on hold to see if he ever came up with the info.”

  The line went silent.

  Frank returned with a couple of faded beach towels and a dry jacket. Richard toweled off his hair and then peeled off his wet jacket and shirt, drying off before he put on the borrowed jacket, which was a little snug, but its warmth was welcome.

  Sam came back on the line. “Damn, I could kick myself for not following through with this when Jeff first mentioned it. The boat, it’s called Easy Breezin’, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It was registered in Jack Morrow’s company name. You know who he was, right?”

  “I know,” Richard said grimly.

  “Man, if I’d known this we could have saved a lot of time. And you say Jeff’s found diamonds?”

  “No. But someone must think there’s diamonds on board. The boat’s been stolen, with Jeff on it.”

  “Damn. Have you tried calling his cell phone?”

  “No.”

  “Hang on.” The line went silent once more. It was at least thirty seconds of standing in squashy shoes before Sam came back. “I get a message that the call can’t be completed. Is the marina manager around?”

  “I’m calling from his office.”

  “Better get him to call the cops — they’re more likely to listen to him than you. What marina are you at?”

  “Sundowners.”

  “I know the place. My boat’s parked just down the way. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  He hung up; Richard did likewise. He looked up to see Frank waiting for an explanation.

  “Are you sure the boat’s been stolen? The young black man who’s been with you on several occasions was on it earlier today. He said he had your permission to be there.”