Dark Waters (The Jeff Resnick Mysteries)

by Bartlett, L. L.

  Rewrapping the bundle, I replaced it in the bag, stuffed it in my jacket pocket and extricated myself from that damnably small space. A minute later, I entered the salon to find Da-Marr standing in the center of the room. I hadn’t noticed that the noises in the engine room had abated.

  “I thought you were trying to start the engines.”

  “They’re not going to start.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, growing uneasy at the menacing look on his face.

  “I’m sure.” He held out his hand. “Give ’em to me.”

  “Give you what?”

  “The diamonds.”

  “What makes you think I found them?”

  “Give them to me, or I’m at yo head,” he threatened.

  “What?”

  He snorted an angry breath. “I’ll knock the shit out of you like that brother did back in the city.”

  I swallowed. I believed him. But he didn’t have to beat me up. If we couldn’t get the engines started again, we were already dead men.

  Chapter 26

  Da-Marr lowered his head, back in his raging bull stance.

  I reached into my pocket and handed him the purple bag. “Okay, now let’s see what we can do about those engines.”

  He pocketed the stones. “I told you, I couldn’t get it started.”

  “So, let me try.”

  Maybe it was because I handed him the diamonds without an argument, or maybe he figured he had me cowed once again, but he stood aside and let me pass.

  It was raining harder now. The low clouds seem to boil as they churned over the river. Easy Breezin’ was moving at a sideways angle. I looked to the left shore and saw an expanse of parkland. Not a happy sight. I hurried up the steps as fast as I could, squinted through the droplet-covered windshield and swallowed convulsively. Looming up ahead were the twin spans of the North Grand Island Bridge.

  Da-Marr was suddenly beside me. “Jesus,” he breathed.

  “Yeah. We’ve got a choice here. If we smash the boat into the pylons, we might get stuck. Someone’s sure to notice us and come find us.”

  “What if I don’t want to get found?” he asked.

  “If your plan is to take the boat over the falls, then good luck. It’s a hundred-and-sixty foot drop.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  Da-Marr pursed his lips, not looking quite so confident. “Then I guess we’d better ram this sucker.” He pushed me aside, and took the wheel, resting one knee on the captain’s chair to brace himself as he fought to straighten the boat.

  We said nothing as the rain continued to pound the bridge deck’s roof. Da-Marr aimed for one of the cement supports.

  My knee was killing me, so I flopped onto the end of the leather couch and watched in horrified silence as we came nearer and nearer the bridge. Despite his best efforts to ram it, the boat seemed to want no part of what appeared to be our death wish. Instead of crashing head on, we grazed the side of the concrete abutment with the ear-splitting sound of scraped and breaking fiberglass.

  Easy Breezin’ seemed to do a pirouette, the back end slamming against the concrete abutment of the southbound span. But that didn’t stop our momentum as the boat slowly danced back into the river’s main channel.

  “Da-Marr turned to glower at me. “Got any other bright ideas?”

  “Let me have a go at those controls.”

  “You get this sucker moving and you can have those diamonds back.” He stepped away from the controls. I pressed all the right buttons. I did everything according to spec, and nothing happened.

  The scenery seemed to be going by faster. Had we picked up speed? I knew it wasn’t far until we hit the rapids, just a half mile from the falls. That was the point of no return. Hell, we’d already reached it when we’d gone under the damn bridges.

  Da-Marr stood there, shaking his head, a self-satisfied grin plastered across his face. “I told you.”

  In fury, I kicked the front of the console then turned the key so hard I thought it might break. Amazingly enough, at least one of the engines sputtered to life.

  “Ha-ha!” I whooped in triumph.

  “Fucking good luck,” Da-Marr groused.

  “Your aunt would not approve of your potty mouth,” I said and laughed.

  For a moment I thought Da-Marr might say, Fuck her, but then his lips turned down in a classic pout. I kept turning the wheel until the boat came around and we faced the bridge once more. “I believe you owe me one package of diamonds.”

  In that instant, I thought the kid might clock me, but then, incredibly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the purple pouch, slapping it into my outstretched hand. “Fuck you. But if you don’t get us out of here, I want ’em back.”

  I pocketed the diamonds, feeling smug.

  That feeling was short-lived, however. For it soon became apparent that though the engine below us was thrumming once again, it didn’t have the power to overcome the current’s awesome force. We’d probably destroyed at least one of the propellers, and probably damaged the second when we’d hit the bridge abutment. Everything inside me started to tense as Easy Breezin’ began to lose ground.

  And then the engine died once more and the boat started floating backward.

  “You can give me back those diamonds,” Da-Marr said, his voice devoid of emotion.

  I reached into my pocket and handed them back to him. Fat lot of good they were going to do him.

  “What the hell do we do now?” he asked, his voice tight.

  I let out a long breath. “Did I mention there are rapids ahead? That means shallow water. There’s a miniscule chance the boat could get caught up on the rocks.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” he asked.

  It occurred to me that Da-Marr had lost the ghetto slur he’d so often used. “It’s a long shot, but there are a couple of small islands right before we hit the falls. If we can crash the boat into one of them, we might be able to jump off. And then….”

  “Wait for rescue?” he asked skeptically.

  I nodded. “Rich saw us take off. He knows I wasn’t a willing participant. He’s a real law and order fanatic. My guess is he marched right into the marina manager’s office and called the cops. It’s been a couple of hours, but law-enforcement is often slow to react. But believe me, he isn’t going to give up on us.”

  “On you,” he said, which sounded like an accusation. “Is he gonna have me arrested?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that now. See, I was told by someone I trust that I just might die tonight, and you’re here with me.”

  Da-Marr looked through the windshield. Up ahead the water was a frothy white. We were approaching the rapids. “This person ever bullshit you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then let’s hope he or she is wrong,” he said, grasping the wheel once more.

  Neither of us spoke, staring ahead where we could already see a misty cloud obliterating the sky: the spray from Niagara Falls — the second-tallest waterfall in all of North America.

  We hit the rapids with a staggering jolt that knocked us both off our feet. Da-Marr recovered first, struggling upright and grabbing the wheel in a death grip.

  The sound was the worst. How could the river have been so deep and then suddenly so shallow, filled with jagged rocks that ripped the keel like it was made of tissue paper? Da-Marr had far more physical strength, so while he struggled to keep Easy Breezin’ under some kind of control, I went down to the into the engine room to find it quickly filling with water. But we weren’t going to sink, not in this current. We might be clinging to wreckage when Easy Breezin’ went over the falls, but there was no stopping the inevitable now.

  I held on to my throbbing knee as I struggled up to the bridge deck once more. My heart pounding so hard I wasn’t sure I could speak.

  “You said islands. How big — how many?” Da-Marr demanded.

  I didn’t know — couldn’t remember the lessons I’d lear
ned in school far too many years before.

  “Aim for anything that stands between us and the falls. It’s our only chance.”

  Da-Marr nodded, and I looked down at his fingers clutching the wheel, straining to keep the boat on some kind of course,

  “If I get us to crash on some little island, you don’t say a word to the cops about any diamonds,” he said.

  “You got a deal,” I replied in earnest.

  The shadow of a smile crossed his lips.

  The rain that had already been hard seemed to pound on us as we broke free from the rapids.

  We. Were. Doomed.

  Thank you, Sophie, for warning me in advance. A warning with no real details. If she’d said, “Don’t get on a boat,” I would have listened to her. When we met in the afterlife, I was going to give her one fucking big piece of my mind.

  Up ahead we could see the vague outlines of trees and rocks.

  “There,” I pointed to the right. There’s an island over there. Try to steer toward it.

  Already the tendons in Da-Marr’s arms were distended as he struggled to keep the boat under his control, but the mighty river had other ideas. Easy Breezin’ seemed to have a mind of her own as we progressed ever forward toward our deaths.

  Chapter 27

  Parked at the pull off by the Robert Moses power plant intakes, Richard held the binoculars pressed hard against his eyes, watching in horrified fascination as the boat he’d so recently acquired and had so little time to appreciate floated past him on the river. There was no sign of life. There didn’t appear to be anyone on the bridge deck. No one, and the boat was obviously under no one’s control.

  “Do you think Jeffy and Da-Marr could be inside it?” Brenda asked, her voice sounding small and tired. She’d insisted on joining him when he’d called to tell her what had happened, and had brought him some dry clothes — not that they were going to stay that way standing in the rain as he was.

  Evelyn had driven her, and though she hadn’t said more than two words, he could see she was upset and angry that he’d accused Da-Marr of stealing the boat.

  “I don’t know,” Richard said tersely, his mind racing. How much further could they go and still keep the boat in view? There wasn’t much time before.…

  The police hadn’t come soon enough, didn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation. And now the boat was being carried away by the current. More than a quarter of a million bucks down the drain, and along with it something far more precious: his brother.

  He lowered the binoculars, got back in the car, started it, and rolled up the window.

  “Now what?” Brenda asked.

  Richard let out a breath. “We head for Niagara Falls State Park. The cops said they would send a patrol car there to wait to see if it — when it….” He couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I blame myself for all this,” Evelyn said from the backseat. “If I hadn’t come here — if I hadn’t brought Da-Marr with me, he wouldn’t have been tempted by the things he could never have.”

  Richard looked over at Brenda. Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. He didn’t have a psychic connection with her the way Jeff did, but he did know her soul — as if it was a part of his own.

  I’m sorry, she mouthed.

  He shook his head, reached over and squeezed her hand.

  A single tear cascaded down her cheek. He clasped her face, and with his thumb wiped it away. Then the turned to look at the review mirror.

  “Evie,” he said in preamble. He had never called the woman by her sister’s more familiar name. “We don’t know what the circumstances were. Why Da-Marr took the boat. I think it’s premature to assume the worst. He did it, but we don’t know why.” And Christ, they would probably never know. Except the idea of diamonds and their fantastic worth could have — must have — been the impetus. Richard hadn’t told the sisters about them — or the possibility that that was what lay at the heart of the entire situation. He couldn’t — not now, not when Brenda was about to give birth to their child.

  To lose a brother and gain a daughter in the span of a day or so would be Dickensian to the max: the best and worst of times.

  But Jeff was nothing if not resourceful. He’d proven it far too many times to assume the absolute worst.

  Richard started the car. “I’m not giving up on either of them. Not yet. They’re two very smart guys.”

  “You’re a fool, Richard Alpert,” Evelyn said, her voice grave.

  Maybe he was. But Richard was a doctor, and far too many times he’d witnessed life-saving miracles. Right now he was counting on one — or maybe two — to happen.

  “We’re skunked,” I told Da-Marr.

  He peered through the windshield. “What’s with all the fog ahead?”

  I managed a mirthless laugh. “That’s not fog — that’s spray from the Canadian falls.”

  Da-Marr stared ahead, his expression grim. “Aunt Evelyn will kill me if I don’t live to go to college in January.”

  “How can she kill you if you’re already dead?”

  Da-Marr looked down his nose at me. “That woman would find a way.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. I had no doubt he was right. But the smile was short-lived. Was there a chance in hell we could hit an island and then have time to jump off the boat to relative safety? Had we been observed from the shore? Maybe. I sure as hell hoped so, but we couldn’t count on it — at least not until the wreckage appeared below the falls. It was late in the day. Would Easy Breezin’ hit one of the last Maid of the Mist forays of the day? I sure as hell hoped not. Bobby was probably already dead. We were doomed as well. I didn’t want us to take out, or injure, anybody else.

  The mist ahead grew thicker. The end was near.

  I felt like I should say something profound, but when facing the end, it wasn’t a stranger I wanted to be with. I kind of thought I’d be talking to Richard or Brenda or Maggie. Then again, wasn’t this as final as a random traffic accident or getting hit by a bus? Except then the end would be fast — like I’d have never seen it coming. I could see the end of the world coming at us with terrible speed.

  I looked down at Da-Marr’s hands on the wheel. The skin over his knuckles was stretched taut — it was taking all his strength to keep Easy Breezin’ on a forward trajectory. Crap. A trajectory that was going to turn us and the boat into paste.

  The terrible sound of the roaring river filled my ears. If not for the enclosed bridge deck, I was sure we both would soon be deaf.

  This wasn’t the way I thought I’d die.

  “Do you have any regrets?” Da-Marr asked.

  I caught his gaze. “About a million of them. You?”

  He shrugged. “I had a kid,” he said, and I could have sworn his lower lip trembled. “He died. Now I ain’t got no one to carry on for me.”

  “What was his name?”

  He laughed. “Da-Marr.”

  “Wow, that’s original.”

  “Hey, it’s a great name.”

  “If you say so.”

  “And what would you name your kid?” he asked, sounding belligerent.

  I shook my head. “It was never in the cards for me.”

  When I was dead, Richard would live on, and he’d have little Betsy Ruth to carry on our mother’s genes. And maybe my half-sister Patty would one day have a child to carry on my father’s line. But I was a biological dead end. I’d never given it much thought before now. How sad was it that nothing of me would go on?

  I felt a lump rise in my throat. Pretty damn sad.

  The mist grew higher and thicker.

  “Where the fuck are those islands you mentioned?” Da-Marr demanded.

  “They should be to the right,” I somehow managed. God, my voice sounded so damn calm considering how panicked I felt.

  Despite Da-Marr’s best efforts, Easy Breezin’ started veering to the right. Holy crap — this was it.

  And then out of the mist came a la
rge and terrible brown object — we slammed into it with such force that the two of us flew through the air and crashed in a heap on the deck.

  “What the fuck was that?” Da-Marr hollered.

  “The old scow.”

  “The what?”

  “Come on, we’ve only got seconds if we’re going to live.”

  Chapter 28

  I practically fell down the fiberglass steps from the bridge deck onto the stern. Easy Breezin’ was lodged against the rusty old barge that had been caught near the brink of the falls for almost a hundred years — but it wasn’t likely to be here for long.

  “Are you crazy?” Da-Marr hollered over the incredible roar of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls only some eight hundred yards from the precipice.

  “This boat ain’t gonna stay here for long. I’d rather take my chances on something that hasn’t moved in decades,” I hollered.

  Da-Marr studied the old rust bucket and winced. It was at least four feet higher than Easy Breezin’, so climbing aboard wasn’t a sure thing. God, how I wish Richard had tossed those life jackets aboard the boat before Da-Marr had taken off from the dock at breakneck speed.

  The scow was made of steel — and obviously not the stainless type. It was rusty and ragged and we were likely to be torn to pieces before our ordeal was over. Da-Marr was a lot stronger than me. He yelped as he grabbed onto the edge and pulled himself over the back of the scow, then he disappeared.

  My knee screamed as I jumped — once, twice — trying to grab onto the back end of the old barge, both times cutting my hands on jagged metal.

  Easy Breezin’ bucked in the turbulent water. I had only a minute, maybe seconds before she would break loose and then it — and I — would be over the falls.

  Panicked, I tried again, and this time threw my left arm around the edge just as Easy Breezin’ broke away, leaving me hanging onto the old scow’s stern. I kicked, trying to walk up the side, but my sneakers kept slipping. My arm and shoulder protested. I was losing my grip. About to fall — Suddenly, the world’s strongest arms grabbed me by the shoulders of my jacket and yanked and yanked and yanked, hauling me over the edge and pulling me onto a short, flat deck pocked with rust holes.