by Landon Beach
The toilet flushed in the bathroom.
“Company?” Shaw said.
Bagley tried to come up with an answer but thought too long. Shaw was already walking away.
✽✽✽
The lights flicked on in Shaw’s study and Bagley followed him in. Shaw closed the door.
“How old was that girl?” Shaw said.
“What difference does it make?” Bagley said. “She was good and experienced. They seem to start earlier and earlier every year. You got anything to drink in here?”
Shaw poured Bagley a snifter of brandy and they sat down at Shaw’s desk.
“So what’s going on?” Bagley said and took a sip.
“Good news and bad news,” Shaw said.
“The bad.”
“Someone found the sailboat,” Shaw said.
“What sailboat?” said Bagley raising his glass again, but stopping and almost dropping it on the desk. “You mean the sailboat?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Floyd told you he took care of it last summer. Said something about scuttling it in some cavern that was over three-hundred feet deep where no one would find it.”
“That’s what I thought. You know what he did?”
Bagley shook his head no.
“He rigged it with explosives. How could he be that stupid? I told him to sink it, not sink it and blow it up.”
“Well, how much did they find?”
“Just a portion of it.”
“Any identifying marks?”
“Thank Christ, no. The bow was the only thing left.”
“And the girl?”
“Floyd says she was in the stern with the majority of the explosives. And no body or body parts have washed up this year, so I think we’re still safe.”
“Why didn’t he make sure everything was gone last year?”
“How the hell should I know, Joshua? Anyways, he didn’t have time to explain it all to me. He’s got more important things to take care of right now.”
“What could be more important than taking care of that?” Bagley said, standing up. “Does the other party involved know about it?”
“I told him and he’s helping Floyd out right now.”
Bagley was pacing. “I’m lost, Leonard. You should take care of the sailboat and then concentrate on whatever else you’ve got going on. Maybe you should cancel the overnighter until you’ve got this tightened up.”
The intercom on Shaw’s desk beeped and he looked at the number. It was the bridge and he pressed a button to answer. “Yes?”
“Sir, all the guests are on board and we’re ready to get underway,” a voice said.
“Thank you, Captain. Cast off,” Shaw said and hung up. He gestured for Bagley to sit. “Relax, Joshua. I’m not going to disappoint our guests. Believe it or not, we’re going to be able to enjoy ourselves tonight, fix the sailboat issue, and celebrate the good news that you haven’t asked me about yet.”
Bagley sat and took a stiff belt from his brandy. “All ears, Leonard.”
49
Nate zoomed through the woods, the smell of smoke getting stronger. The path was worn down enough for him to keep his speed up, and after a short dip he could see the house from the top of the rise. The upper floor and roof were engulfed in flames but the fire had not reached the first floor yet. How much time did he have until it started collapsing? The path began to drop again and Nate held on as the bike flew down a steep hill. An attic fire? Had to be. He prayed that when he reached the house, Lucille would be out in the clearing and would tell him that the fire trucks were on their way.
The woods opened up and the path leveled off as Nate drove into the backyard. The screen door was open on the deck and he started moving toward the house when he heard a branch crack behind him.
He turned around to see a dark figure swinging a baseball bat at his head. Nate ducked and the bat whiffed through the air. Still crouched, he lunged at the man’s legs and tackled him.
The man dropped the bat and they rolled on the ground, ending with the man on top of Nate. He grabbed Nate’s neck and began to squeeze. Nate struggled and tried to pull the man over to one side, then the other, but the man’s knees were anchored to the ground on either side of Nate’s chest. He began to feel lightheaded; in a few more seconds he would pass out. Reaching down, he pulled the k-bar from its sheath and with a swipe, gashed the man’s left shoulder. Warm blood poured from the wound onto Nate and the man released his grip. Nate coughed as he refilled his lungs and then swung the knife again, but the man had moved off him and was crawling for the bat.
Nate hit him from the side and the man fell to his back. The man reached for the bat, which was less than an arm’s length away. Nate drove the knife into the man’s forearm just as the man had closed his fingers around the bat’s handle. The knife went through his arm and into the ground. The man yelled, releasing his grip. Nate took hold of the bat midway down the barrel and with a quick jab, brought the end down on the man’s face. The sound of wood breaking bone preceded blood oozing out of the man’s nose, and his body went limp.
Nate sheathed his knife and then placed his hand on the man’s neck. Who was he? After registering a pulse, he rose and ran for the deck with the bat still in his other hand.
Another man rose in the woods. He watched as Nate entered the burning house, then he sprinted across the backyard. Stooping down over the body, he snapped the man’s neck and pulled the corpse into the woods with him.
The smoke was billowing down from the stairwell and Nate shouted for Lucille. He passed through the living room and entered the kitchen. She was lying on the tile floor unconscious. Nate picked her up over his shoulder and carried her back through the living room and out the front door. As they cleared the porch, the entire second story collapsed.
The sound of fire engines and police cars could be heard now. Nate looked at the back yard. The body was gone.
✽✽✽
Hutch stopped the engine and threw the RHIB’s anchor over. He scanned the horizon for any boats nearby and saw none. He threw on a tank, mask, and fins and with his dive light on, dropped over the side. He located the line of rocks and followed them up to the limestone wall and swam into the crack. Everything in the underwater tunnel looked normal—until he started to make his final ascent into the room. The lights were on above him.
He turned off his dive light and instead of surfacing in the middle of the pool, he swam over to the far corner which was hidden behind a short wall of rock. It wasn’t enough to hide his whole body, but it was enough for him to get his head out of the water and look around without being noticed. He reached the corner and was a foot below the surface when the lights in the cave went out.
Surrounded in darkness, Hutch raised his head out of the water and listened. Perhaps there was a diver about to enter the water and Hutch would have to be ready. He unsheathed his dive knife.
Nothing moved or sounded in the cave, and he waited. He submerged for a moment and shined his dive light beneath him. No one was coming up from the bottom. He raised his head out of the water again. Still no sound. He decided to make a move and shined his light quickly at the ceiling and then shut it off. He listened. Nothing. Someone had been in the cave, that was for certain, but could it be that the overhead lights had simply lost their charge? Time to find out.
Hutch swam over and exited the water as quickly as possible, ready for someone to jump him. The cave remained quiet, except now he could hear a dripping noise. He started cranking the power box for the lights and they began to flicker since the toggle switch had never been turned off by whoever had been in the cave. He cranked a few more times and then gasped in horror. Hanging on one of the hooks in the wall was the body of Mickey Leif.
50
Hutch fell back against the cave wall, vomited, and then approached the body. Mickey hung motionless as blood ran from the two chest wounds where he had been shot, forming a pool underneath him. His eyes stared stra
ight ahead and his neck was cold and clammy. Hutch knew there wouldn’t be a pulse, but he went through the motions of checking, just in case. There was none.
Hutch left the body and went over to where he had placed the chest. It was gone and someone had dug up the urn and smashed it on the rocks.
“Sorry, my love,” Hutch said to the ashes and pieces of urn. “I thought you’d be safe out here. I promise to come back and get you.” He couldn’t fall apart; he had to focus on what needed to be done now.
He raced back to the main room of the cave, turned off the lights, and swam for the RHIB.
✽✽✽
Hutch was met at the dock by Tyee and Nate. Nate explained that Lucille had regained consciousness and was on her way to the Hampstead Hospital. The fire was out and an investigation had started. The firefighters and cops had asked Nate if everything was okay out at Hutch’s and he had lied and said it was fine. Then, he told the story of his encounter and Hutch spoke up.
“Mickey is dead.”
“Dead?” Tyee said.
“He led whoever it is that’s after the treasure out there, and once they had the chest, I guess they figured they didn’t need him anymore.”
“The chest is gone?” Nate said.
“Gone like your students at the end of a school year,” said Hutch, “leaving us with a problem.”
“What?” said Nate.
“It’s a good bet that before Mickey kicked the bucket they got the location of the wreck out of him,” said Hutch walking toward the shed. “That’s why we’re diving tonight and getting it up before those bastards get their hands on it.”
“You don’t think they’d go after it tonight, do you?” Nate said.
“Well, I didn’t think my house would get the shit stripped out of it, Mickey would betray us, or that they would set Lucille’s house on fire. Do you really wanna wait?”
Before Nate could answer, Tyee said, “Shouldn’t we tell the cops about Mickey?”
“What good would it do right now? He’s not going anywhere,” said Hutch. “Let’s get Queen loaded up.”
✽✽✽
The powerboat came alongside Triumph’s port quarter and maintained station directly beneath a boat davit. A crew member was stationed at the davit control console and pushed a button to lower a heavy-duty cable from the davit. The end of the cable arrived at the powerboat and the man who was not driving clamped the end to a steel ring mounted in the center of the boat over the helm console, then gave a thumbs up to the davit operator. The operator pushed another button and the davit took the weight of the powerboat and the two men in it.
The winch stopped, and three crew members helped steady the boat against the rail as the two men disembarked and took their cargo into Triumph’s interior.
The guest list for the overnight cruise included Hampstead’s mayor, police chief, country club owner, district judge, two beach mansion neighbors, and even marina owner Kevin Shelby. Their significant others were aboard and of course Shaw’s wife and Bagley, which put the number of guests at seventeen. It was nearing eleven o’clock and the lights were turned down in the main entertainment room. The talk of politics along with having his ass kissed by every local was boring Leonard Shaw to death. At least the jazz musician he had flown in was gorgeous. The music, booze, and Bagley’s courtroom war stories—‘They didn’t know they were dealing with the master’…‘I destroyed him’—were flowing. It was doubtful that Bagley and Kevin Shelby would make it to midnight at the pace they were going, but it didn’t matter.
Deep, or not so deep, into a conversation with Hampstead Mayor James “Jimmy” Wagner about what it would mean for Hampstead to construct a brand-new Community Performing Arts Center for the Hampstead Players—which of course Jimmy wanted Shaw to pay for—was cut short when a crew member approached the men. Unfortunately, Shaw had to excuse himself for a minute. He thought about motioning for Bagley to come with him, but took one look at Bagley’s eyes and determined that it would be pointless.
Shaw entered his study and two men were seated on the couch inside. On the table in front of them was a chest.
“Excellent, gentleman,” Shaw said approaching the couch.
One of the men was Floyd and the other was a man he had not seen since last summer. Just seeing him brought back visions of an event that Leonard Shaw had hoped to never think about again. The two of them on the sailboat, wining and dining Shaw’s mistress and then taking turns with her below. The man had introduced her and had even shared her with Shaw, but it had spun out of control fast. Floyd scuttling the boat was supposed to be the final act of an affair gone terribly wrong, with the end result being that the girl and boat would never be found. The man’s trump card of videotape and pictures of the three of them together had kept the man alive and his pockets full during the past year, but that was coming to an end. The man had no idea that he wasn’t being cut in on the treasure—or that Floyd would be killing him later tonight.
Floyd remained seated but the man next to him stood up and extended his hand. Shaw shook it heartily as if they were best friends.
“It’s good to see you again, Tim.”
“Pleasure is all mine, Leonard,” said Tim Gibson.
“How are things proceeding, Floyd?” Shaw asked.
“We had a setback with the house fire and I had to finish off the new guy before his body was found.”
“Who was he?” Shaw asked.
“The helmsman who took Tim and me out to the island the other day. No one will miss him.”
Shaw started to shake his head.
“Don’t worry, I took care of it. His body won’t be found,” said Floyd. “The house is clean too. I made it look like an attic fire. Tim took care of Leif and I helped him bring up the chest,” Floyd said.
“What happened to Lucille Hawthorne?” Shaw said.
“She’s probably in the hospital by now,” Floyd said.
“We missed our chance to get rid of her quietly,” said Shaw, “but she still needs to go.”
“They’ll keep her there for at least twenty-four hours. I’ll drop by the hospital tomorrow and take care of it carefully,” said Floyd.
“So that leaves Martin, Beecher, and Hutch?” Shaw asked.
“Correct,” said Floyd. “And there’s been a new development—an opportunity.”
“What’s that?” asked Shaw.
“It looks like we’ve forced their hand. They’re gearing Hutch’s boat up to dive on the wreck tonight and recover the rest of these,” Floyd said, patting the chest.
“Will they all be on the boat?” Shaw’s eyes glinted.
51
The future mother of Tim Gibson’s illegitimate child had left the house and Brooke sat across from Jane in the Gibson’s living room. Jane was now on her third drink in the past hour.
“May I tell you something, Brooke?” Jane said.
“Of course,” Brooke said.
“I’m scared of confronting Tim.”
“None of this must seem easy,” Brooke said.
“No. You don’t understand. I’m afraid of what will happen to me.”
“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about Tim becoming violent with you. It sounds like he has really messed up, but he doesn’t seem to have that kind of streak in him.”
“That’s not what I mean, Brooke.” Jane took a long drink. “We’re in debt. Major debt.”
“But I thought,” Brooke said looking around their house, “that you were set financially.”
“Appearances,” Jane said. “Ann Arbor is a last-ditch effort for us. Tim has some friends in the program; they juried our way in. Based on our salaries last year, we’ll have to work until Tim is in his late seventies just to break even. However, Tim has been able to make some payments this year with money coming from somewhere that he won’t tell me about.” Jane began to sob. “Tim is a serious gambler, Brooke. It didn’t start out that way, but it’s gotten worse as time has gone on. And not just gambling at the
casinos or on horse racing or other sporting events. After one good property investment a few years ago in Florida, we tried to break into buying and selling real estate, but we got in way over our head. We’d buy, buy, buy and then couldn’t sell. Then, Tim began gambling to try and recoup our losses, but our debt doubled. We own virtually nothing right now.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Brooke said. “Do you have anything in reserve? A nest egg?”
Jane said, “My father left us a good amount of money, and Tim blew it all.” Her voice broke again. “And now this, Tim getting involved with a student. She claims she’s pregnant with Tim’s child! I can’t handle this!”
Brooke looked at the carpet, thinking how she had almost given into Tim’s charms, and then lifted her head. “I’m so sorry, Jane.”
✽✽✽
Nate listened to the roar of Queen’s engine winding down as he waited at the bow with the forward anchor and Tyee waited in the stern with the aft anchor. The engine went to idle as they reached the target position.
“Drop your hook, Nate,” Hutch ordered.
Nate released the brake on the windlass, and the anchor began to drop. They were in thirty feet of water, and Hutch wanted to go with a 6:1 ratio on both anchors.
As Nate’s rode continued to pay out, Hutch backed up past the target point and had Tyee drop his anchor. Then, it became a matter of paying out the stern rode while taking up the bow rode, until 180 feet were deployed forward and aft. This procedure eventually centered Queen above the target: a position ten yards parallel to the drop off and directly over where the Griffon rested on the shelf.
Hutch’s mastery with the throttle along with his patience paid off. Queen was anchored like an Olympic gymnast sticking a landing.
“I think that’ll do it,” said Hutch, and he shut off the engine.
Nate, Tyee, and Hutch changed into wetsuits. After helping each other strap on tanks, Hutch loaded and hid a shotgun in the aft locker. The only boat they had seen on their way to the wreck was Leonard Shaw’s Triumph, which was now out of sight. The men finished putting on their gear and stood in the stern.