“That’s Mr. Webb’s car,” Seth said.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s see who’s with him.”
Webb came to a stop at the dock, and all four doors opened. Webb got out from behind the wheel. Laurie emerged from the front passenger seat. From the rear stepped former island senator Bobby Jensen, and Diamond Reef general manager Mark Dobson.
The foursome headed toward the end of the dock, which took them out of our sight. I checked my watch again. Five minutes before three. Were Capehart and Jennifer Fletcher already on the dock waiting for Webb and his entourage? “Come on,” I said, pulling at Seth’s sleeve.
The dock was longer than I’d first thought. Tied up at its far end was a long, boxy cabin cruiser whose polished wood hull testified to a pre-fiberglass heritage. Webb and the others stood next to a gangplank leading from the dock to an opening to the deck. Jensen kept checking his watch; they all appeared to be anxious for something to happen. Where were they headed? I wondered. St. John? Presumably. Laurie had said she was going there this afternoon. But why all of them? A meeting? That would be the rational explanation for it. They seemed to meet a lot—at night in downtown Charlotte Amalie, lunches, dinner parties, and now on a boat.
I was debating whether to approach them when I caught a fleeting glimpse of Jennifer Fletcher, who’d stepped from the boat’s cabin to the deck, said something to the group on the dock, then ducked back inside. I couldn’t hear what anyone said, but I had the impression that the exchange between Jennifer and Webb’s contingent wasn’t pleasant.
I decided against making our presence known to them, content to simply watch at this juncture. Maybe one of them would do something, make a move that would turn on the cartoonists’ light-bulb over my head. Since leaving Jacob Austin’s house and widow, I’d been plagued by a nagging, unstated, infuriatingly elusive thought. What was it? What demon idea was lurking far back in my brain, too far to readily be brought to the front where I could act upon it? “We just going to stand here?” Seth asked.
“Yes.”
“Why don’t we go up and say hello again, like at lunch?”
“Because I want to—look.”
Seth held a flattened hand over his eyes and squinted. “Look at what, Jessica?”
“Did you see the face in the cabin window?”
He leaned forward, as though the additional few inches would enhance his vision. “Nobody in the window.”
“Not now,” I said. “But there was. A face I won’t soon forget. Uh-oh. Here they come.”
We retraced our steps to the building that rented snorkeling and scuba diving equipment, and positioned ourselves at its side. I peered around the comer. Webb, Jensen, and Laurie were leaving the dock and walking toward Webb’s black Mercedes. Dobson had evidently remained behind, probably had boarded the cabin cruiser.
“Don’t let them see us,” I said.
We waited until they’d driven off before leaving our vantage point and returning to the dock. A young man tossed mooring lines to the cabin cruiser. Catching them on deck was Fred Capehart.
I looked around. Most vessels tied to the dock were unoccupied. But there were two that appeared to belong to a man who sat in a director’s chair. A sign at his feet read: “JERRY’S BOATS FOR RENT.”
“How are your sea legs?” I asked Seth.
“My sea legs? What in the devil are you talking about?”
“Let’s go to St. John.”
“That’s where I assumed we were going when we came here.”
Capehart had pushed off from the dock, and the cabin cruiser slowly moved away under engine power. I went to the man with the rental boats and said, “Looks like the weather is breaking.”
He looked to the northern sky. “Maybe,” he said.
“My friend and I would like to rent one of your boats.”
“Jessica, I—”
“Don’t we, Seth?”
“I don’t understand what we’re—”
“Can we? Rent one of your boats? Jerry?”
Jerry screwed up his face. “You know how to run a boat?” he asked.
I don’t even know how to drive a car, but Seth, who’d spent a good portion of his life on the waters of Cabot Cove, had just sold his own boat the previous summer.
“Of course,” I said. “Don’t you—doctor?”
“You’re a doctor?” Jerry asked.
“Ayah,” Seth replied.
“And a good sailor?”
“Well, I—”
“The best,” I answered for him. “They’re pretty boats,” I added, hoping to soften him.
Seth left my side and looked down at the boats. “Nice rigs,” he said. “Had a Boston Whaler myself till recently, only it wasn’t this big. Twenty-two footer?”
“That’s right, mon.” Jerry stood. “The weather’s not so good,” he said. “You can see that for yourselves. What do you want a boat for?”
“Just to take a ride,” I said.
Jerry looked at Seth. “Just for a ride,” Seth said.
“All right. But just for an hour. Local. Stick close to shore. You got some form of ID?”
“Plenty.” I whipped out my credit cards, and Seth extended his driver’s license. I handed Jerry a handful of cash. “A deposit,” I said. “We’ll be back in an hour.”
Minutes later, Jerry had pushed us away from the dock and into the shallow, greasy water adjacent to it. Seth handled the craft as though he did it for a living, and we were on our way.
“Stay local,” Jerry shouted after us. “Stick close.”
I waved and smiled. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We will.”
Once clear of the dock and other boats, Seth idled back and turned to me. “Now that we’re out here, Jessica, just what was it you had in mind?”
“Follow that boat,” I said.
“What?”
“The cabin cruiser that just left. Follow it.”
“But the fella said—”
“Please. Just for a few minutes.”
“All right.” He gunned the large outboard engine from his position at the center console, and we roared off in pursuit of the cabin cruiser, whose running lights were barely visible in the distance.
I stood next to Seth at the center console and held on tight as the Whaler lurched through the choppy water, rising up on the swells, slapping down hard in the troughs. It was exhilarating and frightening at once. Salt spray stung my face as we gained on the cruiser.
“Dumbest damn thing I’ve ever,” Seth shouted. “Look out there.” The northern horizon had turned black. We’d enjoyed the proverbial lull before the storm. There it was, the “norte” in all its fury.
“Let’s go back,” Seth said.
He was right, and I knew it. “Just a few more minutes,” I said, my words carried away on the increasing winds. I narrowed my eyes and trained them on the cruiser, whose form came and went in the mist and churning sea.
“Look!” I yelled.
Seth saw it, too. Something had fallen from the cabin cruiser’s deck. A large bag? A box? A body?
The cruiser suddenly turned hard right and increased its speed. Seth looked to me for our next move. I pointed to where we’d seen the object go overboard.
It wasn’t until we were almost on top of Jacob Austin that his position was known to us. He was flailing in the rising and falling sea, bobbing on top like a cork, then disappearing beneath the surface. Seth chopped back on our power. We both looked for something to throw to the drowning man. “Use that,” Seth said, indicating coiled line attached to a circular buoy. Holding on to a low metallic railing, I inched forward to the front of the boat. Jacob had just come up from beneath the water. His desperate eyes locked on mine. I tossed the buoy to him, and he grabbed it, hugging it to his body. I wrapped the line around a cleat on the deck as Seth came forward to help. Together, and despite the boat thrashing about in the tumultuous water, we managed to pull Jacob to the boat and helped him come up over the side.
&nbs
p; Seth immediately returned to the console, revved the engine, and regained control of the craft. “Where to?” he shouted.
“Land,” I said. “Any place safe and dry.”
Chapter 23
Detective Calid, Seth, Jacob, and I sat in the detective’s office at police headquarters. We’d gone directly there after arriving safely back at the dock at Pettyklip Point and returning the Boston Whaler to a relieved Jerry.
“All right, Jacob,” Calid said. “Let’s go over this one more time.”
Jacob, wrapped in a heavy blanket provided by Calid and still in a mild case of shock from his ordeal, said, “I already told you what happened.”
“Tell me again,” Calid said. “Sometimes I’m a slow learner.”
“Okay,” said Jacob. “It was a plan, a scheme. When you arrested me for killing Marschalk, I knew I wouldn’t be convicted because I didn’t do it. I never killed nobody.”
“I already understand that part,” Calid said. “But what happened later? After you were arrested?”
“That’s when I got the note from Mr. Dobson.”
“Diamond Reefs general manager,” I said.
“Yeah. Right. Butch, the guard gave it to me.”
“This note.” Calid held up a wet piece of paper that Jacob had been carrying in his clothing.
“Yeah,” Jacob said. “That note.”
Calid had read the note to us: “I can get you out of jail, and you’ll make lots of money.”
“So, what did you do?” Calid asked.
“I talked to Butch and said I’d be interested in finding out what Mr. Dobson meant. Butch arranged for me to use a telephone to call him.”
“Dobson.”
“Yeah, Dobson. He told me that if I would go along with having people think I died, I’d be set up in the States with fifty thousand dollars, and my family would be moved there.”
“And you decided to go along with it,” I said.
“Sure. Once I heard that Doc Silber wasn’t going to provide an alibi for me, I figured I probably would be convicted—even though I didn’t do it. So I agreed. Dobson sent me another note—I lost that one—and told me I’d be taken from the jail at night, hid someplace, and then taken to the States. Everybody would think I committed suicide.”
I reached across the short gap between us, placed my hand on Jacob’s shoulder, and said, “And that’s where you thought you were going today.”
“Yeah. I really trusted them.”
I looked at Calid. “You say this guard, Butch, is now in custody?”
Calid nodded. “You were here,” he said, “when I called over to the jail. He was on duty, but he’s in a cell now. The warden says he’s blabbering away about how all he did was deliver a note to Austin, and take him out of the jail that night.”
“He’s verifying what Jacob has been saying so far?”
“That’s right. Go on, Jacob,” Calid said. “What happened next?”
The young man shrugged. “They put me in a basement room over at Diamond Reef. Like a storage room. They put a bed in there and brought me food. I was supposed to stay there until today when I was going to the States.”
“Did your wife, Vera, know any of this?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“She knew about the fifty thousand dollars,” I said.
“She did?”
“I visited Vera at your house this morning. You have a lovely family, Jacob. Vera said Mrs. Marschalk had called her about a life insurance policy Mr. Marschalk had bought for you.”
“There was no life insurance,” he said angrily.
“I know,” I said. “Walter Marschalk had told me the first day I was on St. Thomas that he wasn’t about to provide such benefits to his employees. I’d forgotten that when Vera told me about the money. But then I remembered it later this afternoon. I saw your face for a fleeting instant through the window of the boat you were on. That’s when I realized there was a grander scheme at foot.”
“And good thing you did,” Seth chimed in. “If you hadn’t, Mr. Austin here would be a very dead young man.”
“I know it must be painful to have to tell it again,” I said, “but what happened on the boat this afternoon?”
“They threw me overboard.”
“They?” Calid asked.
“Mr. Dobson and that Fred guy.”
“Fred Capehart?” I said.
“Yeah. Both of them. Capehart was the one who showed me the razor.”
We sat up a little straighter. He hadn’t mentioned any razor the first time around.
“What razor?” Calid asked.
“Mine. The one I bought as a present for my grandfather.”
“Fred Capehart had it?” I said incredulously.
“That’s what convinced me to go through with the plan. Once I was in that basement room at Diamond Reef, I decided not to do it. I didn’t want people to think I’d killed myself, or that I was a murderer. So I told Dobson I wouldn’t. That’s when Capehart arrived. He had the razor and said my fingerprints, and Marschalk’s blood were on it. If I don’t go along, he’d turn it over to the police.”
Calid and I looked at each other.
“Looks like you’ve got your murderer,” Seth said to the detective.
I asked Jacob, “Did Fred Capehart indicate he was the one who’d killed Walter Marschalk?”
“He was the one,” Jacob said coldly.
“How do you know?” Calid asked.
“I heard him tell that girl, Jennifer. They argued a lot. She was real mad that he killed Marschalk. I thought he was going to kill her on the boat today, he was so mad.”
“I certainly hope not,” I said. “What about the others? Mr. Webb, the Marschalks’ partner, Senator Jensen, Mrs. Marschalk?”
Jacob shrugged. “I heard them talking together once about some deal. I didn’t understand any of it.”
“Did any of them know that Fred Capehart had murdered Walter Marschalk?” I asked.
Another shrug.
Seth asked, “Any idea where they went on that boat after they tossed you over to the sharks?”
“No. Oh, wait a minute. They had a map out in the cabin. Somebody had drawn lines on it.”
“Lines to where?” I asked.
“Puerto Rico, I think.”
“That’s about it,” Calid said. “You’ll have to give an official statement to a stenographer,” he told Jacob.
“Not again,” Jacob said. “I’d like to see my wife and kids.”
“You’ll see them soon enough,” Calid said. “Wait here.”
The detective walked us to the lobby. “I suppose I owe you an apology,” he said.
“An apology for what?” I asked.
“For not listening to you more closely. Because of you and your friend here, we don’t have another murder on our hands today.”
“But we do have a few unanswered questions,” I said.
“We’ll get Capehart. I’ll send an all-points to Puerto Rico and the States as soon as you leave. With this storm, they may not make it anyway.”
“At least Jennifer Fletcher might not make it,” I said. “Detective, do you have any idea why a group of such distinguished people—a former senator, a businessman like Webb, and my good friend, Laurie Marschalk, would have gone along with this? No, I take that back. They evidently were in on the planning from the beginning. Why?”
“That’s a question I intend to ask when I interrogate them, Mrs. Fletcher. In the meantime, I suggest you just forget about the whole affair, relax, read—or write a book—and leave the rest to me.”
“An excellent suggestion,” said Seth, shaking Calid’s hand.
“A pleasure meeting you, Doctor,” he said.
“Likewise. Comin’, Jessica?”
“Yes. Good-bye Detective Calid. And thank you for everything you’ve done.”
“Give a call before you head home,” he said.
“I’ll do that,” I said.
A taxi drop
ped us in front of my villa at Lover’s Lagoon Inn. “Hungry?” Seth asked.
“No. You?”
“Famished.”
“Then why don’t you go next door and have something to eat. Don’t overdo it,” I added. “We’ll have dinner together tonight.”
“At Diamond Reef?”
“Any place but.” I fished my St. Thomas guidebook from my bag and handed it to him. “Pick a good restaurant, and make a reservation for seven. Okay?”
“Ayah. I’ll do that. What are you about to do?”
“Relax, think a little. And there’s someone I really need to talk to.”
Chapter 24
Laurie Marschalk was in the inn’s kitchen when I sought her out. I quietly stood in the doorway and watched as she carefully cut thin strips of meat with a large carving knife, tossing them in with other ingredients already in a large, round stainless-steel bowl. So engrossed was she in her task that she was oblivious to my presence.
“Laurie,” I said.
She stopped cutting but didn’t turn, just stood like a statue, the knife’s motion frozen in midair.
I stepped into the kitchen. “Whipping up something special?” I asked.
She allowed the knife to fall onto the table, faced me, wiped her hands on her Lover’s Lagoon Inn apron, and said, “I thought you were going home.”
“Oh, I am. Perhaps tomorrow. But before I do, there’s something we should talk about.”
“No there isn’t.”
“I saw you at the dock at Pettyklip Point today,” I said.
My statement impacted her. Her eyes opened wider, and her mouth became a severe slash across her pretty face.
“I saw you there with Mr. Webb, Senator Jensen, and Mark Dobson from Diamond Reef.”
“So what? I can’t believe this, Jess. What are you, hell-bent on destroying me? I’ve lost my husband to a crazed murderer. Isn’t that enough?” I started to answer but she raised her voice and demanded, “What is it you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“The truth about what?”
“About Walter’s murder. You knew all along it was Fred Capehart who’d killed him.”
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