by Todd Borg
“No problem,” I said.
“In case you have any questions, I’ve typed up some checklists here.” He pointed to a three-ring binder in which were several pages in Mylar sleeves. “And if you have trouble, we have the latest marine radios, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. Do you need anything else?” he said in classic butler style.
“No thanks. I think we’re good.”
He nodded at Street, kept his distance from Spot, and left.
I hit the transmitter button to roll up the big boathouse door. Then I studied the checklists.
“Are you not a confident sea captain?” Street said.
“I’m just checking to make sure he got his information correct,” I said.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Street look at Spot, point at me, and make a little questioning shake of her head.
Spot glanced at me, then turned back toward Street and wagged. Maybe he was showing confidence in his master. Or maybe he was laughing at me, too.
I sat in the captain’s chair on the bridge. With the checklists as my guide, I got the boat started. Street took care of the lines, I shifted into reverse, and we backed out of the boathouse.
Street came up to the cockpit and sat in the port-side captain’s chair. It felt like we were sitting 12 feet above the water.
When we were well back from shore, I shifted into forward and cranked the wheel.
“You’re pretty sure you know how to run this thing?” Street said. “He made it sound like its excessive size makes it take a long time to stop or turn. I’d hate to hit other boats or run aground.” Street said.
“Your question reveals your confidence in me. I love that.”
“Actually, it looks pretty easy,” Street said.
“You need to remember that I take my responsibilities as boat captain very seriously. There’s a lot involved.”
“So I see.”
I kept it at idle as we motored north slower than Spot swims when he’s taking it easy.
“Do you need me to navigate?” Street said.
“I’m just heading toward Cave Rock like the caretaker suggested.”
“And you know the direction,” she said.
I pointed at Cave Rock, which stuck up from the shore in front of us. “I thought I’d just aim the boat toward it. Do you think that will work?”
“Probably,” Street said. “But you’ve got so much to keep track of, being captain and all, I thought maybe you needed to plug coordinates into the computer.”
“To enhance our adventure, I think we’ll just do it the nineteenth century way.”
“What shall we look for?” Street said.
“A big, sleek boat. But it will likely be hiding inside a boathouse.”
“Hiding,” Street said. “Because it’s wondering if you’re looking for it.”
“Right.”
“How will we find it when it’s hiding?”
“Most boathouses have walls that start somewhere above the waterline. Because the lake level is down, I’m hoping we can see underneath those walls. If so, the hull will show. It’s black, and that’s unusual. So that should make it easier for us.”
Street nodded.
We motored north.
Spot got tired of looking out the side of the lounge area behind the cockpit. He walked over to one of the curved seating areas and looked at the cushions.
“Spot’s looking at the settee,” Street said. “You think it’s okay if he lies on it?”
“Jennifer would say yes,” I said.
Street walked over, patted the cushion and said, “It’s okay, Spot.”
He jumped up, lay down, stretched out his jaw between his front paws. The sun coming through the vinyl windows of the removable canopy was warm, and he went to sleep. Behind him was the deep blue of the lake and the mountains beyond that.
The East Shore has lots of boathouses. We cruised by at a crawl. Street found the binocular stowage and focused a pair of them on the shore.
“Any luck?” I said after we’d gone a few miles.
“No. Lots of boats, but every one has a white hull.”
“Cave Rock is coming up,” I said. “I’d hoped we’d find it by now.”
“Sorry,” Street said.
We cruised by the last house south of Cave Rock. Then we came to the state park and the boat launch. Cave Rock loomed above. I looked up at the vertical wall of rock where Ryan Lear’s friend and business partner had fallen to his death while making an illegal free-climb the previous summer.
“No black-hulled boats,” Street said. “There are houses north of Cave Rock. You want to keep going?”
I nodded. “It would be worth it to go all around the lake to find out who is behind Ned Cavett’s spy mission.”
“Did it occur to you that we might not find the boat? It could be in a boathouse where we can’t see under the walls.”
“Yeah, it occurred to me. I’ve seen boathouses that are set into the shoreline and nothing is visible. But I have nothing else to go on.”
“Just checking,” Street said.
We went around Cave Rock. The shoreline curved to the northeast. The highway was well above the shore. There was a row of houses tucked in below, accessible by a narrow road that switch-backed down from the highway.
“Several of these houses have boathouses,” Street said. Then, “Stop! Stop the boat!”
“What?” I said as I pulled the throttle back and shifted into neutral.
Street had the binoculars to her eyes for a long time. We coasted to a near stop, then rotated to port even as I cranked the wheel to starboard. No steering without forward motion.
“That’s gotta be it,” Street said. “Under the edge of that gray boathouse is a very long black hull. Do you see it?”
“I see the boathouse. It’s too far away to see without the glasses.”
Street handed them to me.
I refocused them and studied the shore. There it was, a dark hulking shape under the side of a long boathouse with gray clapboard siding.
“That must be it,” I said. I shifted back into forward, left the throttle at idle, and we eased toward it.
I trained the glasses on the house behind the boathouse. It was a large modern design that stepped up the slope like boxes stacked on one another, each one above stepped back to match the angle of the mountain. One of the levels was all glass, and it blazed with light in the middle of the day.
It was a good sign because it meant someone was home.
As we cruised closer, we came into view of the end of the boathouse. The door was open. The “Beats Working” Predator 54 floated in the serene protection of its shelter. Even from the rear, it was vaguely like looking at an F-16 fighter jet sitting in a hangar.
“I want you to drop me off,” I said.
“What?!” Street said. “I can’t do that!”
“Sure, you can. We’ll just ease up to the end of the dock, I’ll jump off, and you’ll back away.”
“You’re crazy! I don’t know how to drive this boat.”
“Sure you do. You told me a few minutes ago that it looks easy. So you put it in forward or reverse, steer it like a car, and take it back to Jennifer’s boathouse.”
“You don’t want me to pick you up?! What will you do?”
“Someone is home at that house. I’ll ask them to talk to me. This is the break I need. When I’m done, I’ll call you, and you can pick me up in the Jeep.” I fished in my pocket, pulled out the key fob, and handed it to her. Then I steered toward the dock of the Beats Working.
“This is dangerous, Owen,” Street said. “This guy may have killed multiple times. You’ll be defenseless. He could shoot you, take you out into the middle of the lake, and sink your body.”
“He could, but he won’t. Even if he’s the killer, he’s gone to considerable effort to make the deaths look like accidents. This guy has to maintain his facade of a businessman who is simply trying to develop a ski resort. He may decide he wants to
kill me, but he won’t do it at his house or on his boat. He’ll wait until I’m not on or near his territory, and then he’ll arrange another accident.”
“What about Spot?” Street said.
“He’ll stay with you. Help you drive the boat.”
“He’ll help me swim to shore when I crash this thing into Jennifer’s dock and sink it.”
“You’ll be fine, my sweet.” I shifted the boat into neutral as we got close to the dock.
“I’m going to go out on the bow. When we get closer, shift it into reverse to slow our momentum. When we get close enough to the dock, I’ll jump off, then you back it away. I’ll call you later.”
I got out of the captain’s chair.
“But I...”
“No buts, hon, you’ll do fine.” I gave her a kiss and hustled my way down the stairs to the deck. Holding onto the railing for support, I walked the narrow passage to the forward sundeck. Spot joined me, looking toward the dock, turning and looking up at me. At the bow, I lifted my leg over the railing and waited as we coasted toward the dock.
We got closer, but we weren’t slowing down. I envisioned what 48,000 pounds of ship would do to the dock. Without turning my head, I started waving frantically to Street up on the bridge, my palm out in a stop motion. I leaned over, wondering if I could lesson the blow. I waved more, a gesture of panic.
We were about to hit. I leaped down to the dock, turned to put my hands on the hull, and push. In a moment, the engine roared. The cruiser slowed. Just before it hit the dock post, the boat stopped and then moved backward. Relieved, I stepped back a bit.
The boat retreated at a faster crawl. Suddenly, the prop wash came toward me, a large churning, bubbling mass of water. I jumped back, worried that the swell of water would come over the dock. It didn’t, and I relaxed.
Jennifer’s boat continued to accelerate rearward. When it was well away from the dock, I heard the engine RPM drop.
Street was probably trying to calm herself. It was a close call, but nothing was damaged.
The boat’s RPMs revved once again. I stared, feeling ill-at-ease. As the big boat came forward, it made a fast, sweeping turn. It curved away from the dock and boathouse where I was standing, and it then arced off toward the center of the lake and turned back south toward its home.
As I watched, stunned at Street’s chutzpah, the aggressive, curving wake came toward the dock, hit the posts hard enough to send ice water spray into the air, soaking me.
The last thing I saw as they cruised away was Spot standing at the stern, looking at me, wagging hard.
THIRTY-FIVE
The Predator’s boathouse was so big that it enclosed the 59-foot boat with room to spare. There was a roll-up garage door like the one on Jennifer’s boathouse. The door was up. The boat inside glowed from the light coming through skylights in the roof. With its black hull and pointy lines, the small ship looked sinister.
There was a dock walkway along the inside of the boathouse. The dock, like the boat itself, did not extend to the end of the boathouse, so that even though the roll-up door was open, one could not walk into the boathouse from the end.
I walked down the dock and tried the side door of the boathouse. It was locked. Someone had at least made a pretense of security. I went back to the open end of the boathouse, wondering if anyone up in the house was noticing. I was in full view if anyone happened to look out the windows.
As I looked in the open rear of the boathouse, I could visualize where the boat’s tender bay lay between its rear stairways. But it was very well hidden. The door was the same smooth material and color as the rest of the boat, and its edges were the natural lines of the boat. Without knowing about it, one would never imagine that it existed.
I gripped the rear wall of the boathouse and leaned out over the water to look inside. About five feet above the level of the dock was a metal electrical conduit. It passed through holes drilled in the metal wall studs. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had.
I knew that if I hung from the conduit, my feet would be in the water, but thanks to Street’s boating prowess, my feet and lower legs were soaked anyway. I grabbed onto the conduit and lowered myself down off the dock.
As my feet entered the icy water, I had a brief thought about how my body would provide a well-grounded electrical passage should any of the wires in the conduit have frayed insulation and – because of my weight pulling on the conduit – bump bare wire to metal. Metal conduit is not really strong, so I tried to grab it next to the studs as I went hand-over-hand down the wall. I figured it would have less chance of bending or breaking.
I came to the inner dock without experiencing electrocution. I stood on the dock until my shoes and pants drained some, then I stepped onto the tender deck of the Beats Working.
I walked up one of the rear stairs to the lounge and cockpit level. I sat down on one of the leather settees in the diffused glow from the skylights in the boat’s ceiling, which in turn got its light from the skylights in the boathouse roof.
To one side was a wet bar with a nice selection of liquor bottles but no beer. I pulled a heavy lowball glass from a rack, poured a couple of fingers of Macallan single malt Scotch, and brought it over to the large, leather captain’s chair. I sat down and took a sip.
I noticed the key in the boat’s ignition. Lake shore dwellers often think of security in terms of protecting against riff-raff who come by highway. Rarely do they consider access from the lake. But I wasn’t here to steal a one-point-five million dollar boat. I just wanted to get its owner to talk to me.
It took a minute to figure out what switches ran what. When I had the accessories battery turned on, the music panel over by the liquor sideboard glowed with blue back-lighting.
I got up and played with it. I’m not tech-fluent, so it took some experimenting to make the music come on. Push some buttons, tap on a touch screen, follow a menu within a menu, move a virtual volume slider, and piano music began playing through unseen speakers. The bass notes were rich and deep, the mid-range tones clear, the treble sharp and crisp, Tommy Flanagan playing big chords on a jazz standard, running up and down the keyboard using all five fingers on each hand.
Bob from RKS might not share my taste with his plan to reconfigure a beautiful mountain wilderness, but he shared my taste in music. The drink wasn’t bad, either.
As I listened, I tried more switches and learned which ones worked which lights. Eventually, I had some good mood lighting, simulating a romantic twilight outing on the yacht inside the boathouse during the middle of a sunny day. Hidden cans made glowing ellipses on the carpeted floor. Blue glow came out from under the settees and from behind the edges of windows and fixtures and the opening to the companionway to below decks. Even the stairway going down below decks had light flowing from under the railings and the leading edges of the steps. It created a strong flavor of Vegas, which contrasted with the sophistication of the music and the single malt Scotch.
Despite my activities, no one came running. If the boat was alarmed, the alarm was off. I decided to take a tour of the boat.
Below decks was as advertised on the Sunseeker website, large spaces, luxurious appointments, top-quality fixtures, exquisite design. The carpets were thick. Every other surface was either upholstered leather, gloss-varnished birds-eye maple, or stainless steel. And everywhere, the lighting was such that you couldn’t see the light source. All you could see was that the surfaces glowed.
After inspecting the staterooms and galley and saloon, I went back up the companionway and headed for the stern to satisfy my curiosity about the tender garage.
It took me awhile to figure out the mechanism. When I did, the door rose silently, revealing the tender boat inside. No doubt, like the rest of the yacht, there were lights in the tender garage as well, but I couldn’t find them. Nevertheless, there was enough ambient light coming in the open boathouse for me to see a soiled mark on the tender’s wheel and engine housing. It looked like a smeared hand print.
Partly, it seemed out of place because everything else I’d seen on the boat was spotless and clean. Mostly, it was notable because the mark was dried blood.
THIRTY-SIX
Dried blood is not a crime, even though it seemed like a crime to smear blood on a piece of equipment as nice as the Predator. Nevertheless, I figured that the blood might be significant.
Time to talk to Bob or his representative.
I’d already tried the polite way on the phone, and that wasn’t effective. I had a better idea of how to get attention.
Without starting the engines, I turned on the ignition and tried a quick beep on the horn.
An amazing, deep, resonant honk shook the enclosed boathouse space. So I blasted out a Shave-and-a-Haircut-Two-Bits rhythm. It was like a ship’s foghorn, painful to my ears. In a moment, an echo came back from the mountains, and in another moment, another echo. It was so loud that I’m certain that Spot’s ears were twitching miles to the south.
While I waited for a response, I sat down on one of the settees and dialed Diamond.
“Sí,” he said.
“Got a crime in your territory,” I said. I sipped some Scotch.
“You call nine-one-one?” Diamond asked.
“Not that kind of emergency. This requires more finesse, somebody with your sense of nuance.”
“You want me to respond personally,” he said. “Why?”
“Because I’m the perpetrator. I’ve trespassed on Bob’s boat, which is inside his boathouse.”
“Bob...?”
“Bob with no last name. Bob from RKS Properties. Same Bob who wants to turn a wilderness mountain into a cash machine.”
“That Bob,” Diamond said.
“So I bumped the boat’s horn. I’m expecting someone to arrive shortly. I figured that Bob and company might put in a courtesy call to the sheriff’s office and inform them of interlopers in Douglas County. I thought that you might want to come and make an appearance, especially considering that if I’m arrested, it would have substantial negative implications for Bob.”