He hurried over, greeted the chief, and said, “Thanks for saving me from those two ladies. They were chewing my ear off.” He pointed to the Abyss. “What do you think, Earl? Can you see how anyone could fall off that boat?”
“A child could duck under the railing, stick his head out too far, and lose his balance. The railings on the upper and main decks are high enough to keep an adult from going over . . . by accident.”
Val could see how other areas of the yacht might be more treacherous. “Could you go overboard if you fell from a staircase?”
Granddad shook his head. “The stairway between the upper and main decks is a couple of feet away from the edge of the boat. If you fell, you’d hit the deck. You can’t roll off it, because the side of the boat comes up like a half wall with the railing above it.”
Val switched her attention to the staircase down to the swim platform. Stacy might have had those steps in mind when she asked for a life vest. Val pointed to it. “The stairs to the swim platform aren’t as safe. If the yacht rolled to the side while you were taking that last step, you could fall off. There’s a gap in the railing.”
The chief shrugged. “Possible, but it would be a freak accident.”
Val eyed the set of four railings on the back of the swim platform. Three feet high, they were shaped like upside-down U’s, with a foot of open space between them. “If I stood sideways between those railings, and the yacht pitched, I could fall into the water. Otto Warbeck might have done that. He was on the small side for a man.” Val realized she’d spoken of him in the past tense.
The chief took off his sunglasses and studied the yacht. “Only a fool would stand between the railings, especially if the water was rough.”
Granddad stroked his chin. “He’d only have to stand near them. Then someone with muscles could shove him through the space between the rails. All the men on that yacht were bigger than he was, and some of the women looked pretty strong, especially his wife.”
The chief glanced around. The crowd gawking at the Abyss had doubled in size just in the last few minutes. “What happened to him is the Coast Guard’s business for now, not mine. Even so, we should talk about this in private. Let’s find a bench at the other end of the marina.” As they circled around the cove, he said, “Look at the sailboats on the river and the yachts docked at the marina. More than ten million recreational boats are registered in this country. Yet boating mishaps cause less than a thousand fatalities each year.”
“A small percentage,” Granddad said. “Are most of those drownings?”
The chief nodded. “And the vast majority of drowning cases go down as accidents. Just like people are innocent until proven guilty, a drowning is an accident until proven otherwise.”
“Proven how?” Val said.
“Evidence that the person jumped or was pushed. A suicide note. Body trauma. Best of all, a witness.”
Of those, Val considered body trauma the likeliest, but that wouldn’t be apparent until Otto was found. “What if someone on the yacht had a reason to kill Otto and the opportunity to push him overboard? Would that trigger an investigation, or would his death still be chalked up to an accident?”
The chief sat on a bench partially shaded by an evergreen. “In the absence of evidence to the contrary.”
Granddad, who’d chosen to look cool in his black shirt for his TV interview, now looked chilly without a jacket. He took the spot next to the chief on the sunny side of the bench.
Val plunked down on the chief’s other side. No point in telling him about the mystery game played on the yacht. He’d dismiss any connection between the game and Otto’s disappearance as speculation, not evidence. Instead, she told him about Jerome’s possible drugging by someone on the yacht.
While listening to her, the chief took a pipe and a small pouch of tobacco from the pocket of his windbreaker.
Granddad said, “Jerome hoped to pilot boats for a living. He wouldn’t have done anything stupid like take drugs while he was at the helm.”
The chief filled his pipe with tobacco. “It doesn’t make sense for any passengers to drug the pilot unless they expected Otto to take over the navigation.”
Granddad shielded his eyes from the sun. “They probably did. Otto said he’d piloted the Abyss all the way from Florida to Maryland. Maybe someone drugged Jerome to make him look spacey without realizing the drug would knock him out totally.”
Chief Yardley puffed on his pipe. “You can’t predict how people will react to drugs.”
Val wrinkled her nose as the pipe smoke drifted her way. “Just like drugs don’t work the same for everyone, ‘innocent until proven guilty’ doesn’t work the same across the board. People who’ve previously gotten in trouble with the law are often guilty until proven innocent, especially if they’re brown or black.”
The chief took the pipe from his mouth. “Is Jerome from around here?”
“Crisfield,” Granddad said.
Val had heard him talk about Crisfield. The southernmost Maryland city used to have an economy based on catching and processing seafood. That had changed as the health of the bay and the fish population declined. “Jerome’s been staying in Bayport with his aunt, Althea Johnson.”
The chief nodded. “The lawyer. Jerome’s in good hands. For the time being, this is a matter for the Coast Guard. It can take weeks or months for a body to surface.”
Val saw a possible way to involve the chief in the case of the drowned man before his death brought Jerome more trouble. “If it takes that long for Otto’s body to come up, people’s memories of what they saw and heard on the yacht may fade. If he was pushed overboard, it’s worth knowing what happened before he disappeared. The Coast Guard didn’t ask about that.”
The chief took the pipe out of his mouth. “Were the folks on the yacht locals?”
“Otto and Cheyenne recently moved here.” Granddad took off his bifocals and held them up as if looking for a smudge. “I talked to Otto while I was setting up the bar for the cocktail party. He got married about a year ago. He retired soon after, sold his place in Washington, and bought a yacht for himself. Then they went shopping for a house she could renovate.”
Val figured Cheyenne would get rid of the yacht, and probably the house, as soon as she could. Hard to stay alone in a place you’d expected to share with someone. “Louisa and Damian Brown, the poultry people, haven’t been here long either. They bought a second home in Bayport last spring. I see her at the club. They split their time between the place here and their other house, which is somewhere between Annapolis and Washington.”
The chief reached into his pocket and took out his buzzing phone. “Excuse me.” He walked far enough away from the bench that they couldn’t hear what he was saying. He returned in less than a minute, his face grim. “I have to leave, but I’ll be in touch soon. Very soon.”
He hurried away from the marina, surprisingly light on his feet for a big man.
“Looks like his Sunday just turned into a workday,” Granddad said. “How much you want to bet Otto has surfaced?”
Chapter 7
“Sunday afternoon isn’t the best time to keep up with the news,” Granddad groused as he channel-surfed from his lounger in the sitting room. He tried the radio. The station he counted on to update the news every half hour during the week was broadcasting a baseball game, interrupted only by commercials.
Meanwhile, Val searched online for the latest local news. Her Google search turned up nothing new. She visited the sites for the local media, the Coast Guard, and the county and state law enforcement agencies. On her second circuit through the obvious news sources, a bulletin popped up. The Coast Guard had found the body of a man in the Chesapeake Bay. Further details would be available after the man’s identity was confirmed and the next of kin notified.
Val sighed. She’d hoped against the odds that a strong current had washed Otto ashore, where he’d collapsed, exhausted but alive. Cheyenne had probably nursed a similar hope, and
now she’d have to identify her husband’s body. Hard for any woman, but especially difficult for one so young. When Grandma died, Val had been around Cheyenne’s age. Losing a grandparent had hit her hard. Until then, she’d understood death in the abstract, but it hadn’t touched her personally.
She went into the sitting room. Granddad had fallen asleep in his lounge chair. No reason to wake him. She went upstairs to gather the laundry she’d neglected all week while preparing for the Titanic dinner.
Passing by the unoccupied bedrooms upstairs, she thought about Gunnar’s urgent need to find a place to live. He currently used the living room of the house he rented as a home office and met accounting clients there. If nothing turned up that met his needs, would he want to live here until he found a place? And what would he do for an office?
Val moved her clothes from the hamper to the laundry basket. Most of the time, Granddad’s house had plenty of unused space. Her parents stayed in one of the spare bedrooms a few times a year when they visited from Florida. Her brother and his family occupied the other two on their annual Christmas trip from California to the East Coast. But how would Granddad react to the idea of Gunnar moving in? Before she broached the subject with him, she’d have to decide how she felt about the arrangement herself. She and Gunnar saw each other often, but in small doses. Having him around from morning to night would test their relationship and might determine its future.
Val was on her way back to the first floor with an overflowing laundry basket when the doorbell rang. She put the basket down and opened the door. Bethany stood on the front porch in Black Watch plaid leggings and a purple hoodie with a sparkling pineapple on it—a typical outfit for her, though not one Val had ever seen before.
“Come in.” Val led her into the sitting room and saw the excitement in her friend’s bright green eyes. “You look like you could use a calming drink. Tea? Wine?”
“White wine, if you have it.”
Granddad sat up in his lounge chair. “I could use a calming beer.”
“Sit down, Bethany,” Val said. “I’ll get the wine and beer.”
Granddad stood up. “No, let’s all go into the kitchen. I gotta try a recipe for my column this week.”
At least he was starting earlier than usual. He generally tested recipes on Monday, the day his newspaper column was due.
“What are you cooking, Mr. Myer?” Bethany said as they trooped into the kitchen.
“The dish you didn’t get to eat last night. Waldorf pudding. But I’m not making the version Val planned. Too many ingredients. I found a simple recipe for it in an old cookbook behind the other ones on the top shelf.” He opened the cabinet devoted to cookbooks and held up a tattered, cream-colored book. “The 1903 cookbook compiled by the Ladies’ Aid Society of Calvary Presbyterian Church. I’m using Mrs. Milligan’s recipe for the pudding.”
“I’m impressed, Granddad. I couldn’t find any Waldorf pudding recipe that existed when the Titanic sailed.” Val couldn’t hold back the news any longer. “I read online that the Coast Guard found the body of a man in the bay.”
Bethany sat down at the table. “It’s Otto. I was with Cheyenne when she got the news.”
Granddad took apples and butter from the fridge. “It’s good Cheyenne wasn’t alone. Were you on the yacht when she heard?”
“No. She never wants to set foot on it again. We exchanged phone numbers last night. I called this afternoon to find out if I could do anything for her. She asked me to keep her company while she waited for her brother to get here from Pennsylvania. I went over to her house and spent most of the afternoon there.”
Val took wine, cheese, and crackers to the breakfast table. “It was kind of you to do that.” She’d made few friends in ten years of living in New York who’d been as good-hearted or as much fun as Bethany. “I’m sure it was a comfort for her to have you there.”
“She was doing okay until the police came to the door. Chief Yardley, a Coast Guard officer, and someone from the state police. They told her that a search team had retrieved the body of a man in evening clothes.” Bethany gulped down some wine. “Cheyenne has to formally identify him, though the police didn’t sound as if they had any doubt about who the man was. Her brother’s going to help her through the formalities.”
Granddad took a swig of beer. “How did she react to the news?”
“With denial, at first. She questioned how divers could have found him so fast. The Coast Guard officer told her the branches of a floating limb had snagged the man. She lost it for a minute and whimpered like a puppy.”
Val understood that reaction. “She had a mental image of what happened to him. That’s when it became real.”
Granddad washed three huge apples and took out a knife. “Remember the scenes after the sinking in the Titanic movie? Some folks managed to cling to floating debris. By the time help arrived, they’d died of exposure. That mighta happened to Otto.”
Bethany toyed with the stem of her wineglass. “They’re going to do an autopsy to find out how and when he died. Cheyenne objected. She said she didn’t want Otto cut up when it was obvious he’d drowned. The Coast Guard officer told her that the man they’d pulled from the bay had a head injury that could have caused his death.”
Granddad looked up from the cutting board, his eyes wide. “An injury that happened before he went into the water?”
Bethany shrugged. “The police didn’t say. I thought at first that he fell, hit his head, and rolled overboard when the yacht tipped sideways. But then the police told Cheyenne not to return to the yacht until they’ve had a chance to go over it. I wonder if they’re looking for evidence of a crime.”
“Maybe they think one of Otto’s guests clobbered him and shoved him in the water.” Granddad’s knife thumped against the cutting board as he sliced an apple. “The police might find some blood that the rain didn’t wash away, but they aren’t gonna find a weapon. The person who used it woulda thrown it overboard.”
Bethany put down her glass. “I just hope Otto isn’t too smashed up. That’d make identifying him even worse for Cheyenne.”
Grim news for Cheyenne might prove good news for Jerome. If a guest had attacked Otto before he went overboard, the police would grill everyone on the yacht, not just Jerome. For his sake, Val hoped that Otto had entertained his own murderer on the Abyss. “The three of us were the only people who stayed in the room after Otto left. The rest of them trickled out, probably to use the bathroom on the aft deck outside the saloon. I mean the head, not the bathroom.” Val corrected her own nautical terminology as if Otto were there to notice.
Bethany put a slice of cheese on a cracker. “Otto could have fallen, hit his head, and then rolled overboard when the yacht was tipping sideways.”
“A freak accident,” Val said, repeating the words the chief had used today for a similar scenario. “I think the police will want to know who had the opportunity to attack Otto. I was so busy in the galley that I didn’t pay attention to which guests left the saloon when. But if the three of us put our heads together, we could figure out if any of them were out there alone with Otto.” She took a scratch pad and pen from a cabinet drawer and returned to the table. Meanwhile, Granddad layered the apples with bread crumbs and poured melted butter over them.
Bethany put down her wineglass. “Trey was the first to leave the table after Otto did. Then Stacy.”
Val jotted down three names. “Otto, his ex-wife, and his former stepson, all on deck while everyone else was in the saloon. I remember Cheyenne saying the guest head on the lower deck was nicer than the one on the aft deck. Louisa went down the stairs.”
“Then Stacy came back to the saloon and Damian went out,” Granddad said.
Bethany shook her head. “I think he left before she came back.”
Granddad looked skeptical, but didn’t argue. He peered at the cookbook. “Set in a moderate oven until the apples are tender. What kind of recipe is this? Mrs. Milligan didn’t give the temperature
and the time for baking the apples.”
“Don’t blame her, Granddad. I doubt ovens had temperature dials in 1903. Just follow your own oven rule, the one you gave in your first interview as the Codger Cook.” Val wasn’t surprised by his puzzled look. Knowing nothing about cooking when he won the job of recipe columnist, he’d made up kitchen maxims on the fly and promptly forgotten them. “When in doubt, set the oven to 325. That’s what you told your readers.”
“Hmm. Good advice.” He fiddled with the oven controls. “Okay, it’s preheating. Now I can finish my beer.”
Bethany jumped up. “Sit here, Mr. Myer. I have to leave soon.”
Val tapped her pen on the scratch pad. “We have Otto, Trey, Damian, and Louisa all out of the saloon. What happened next?”
Granddad sat down across from Val at the breakfast table. “Damian came back, looking anxious.”
“I was feeling anxious myself by then, Mr. Myer. The yacht was really bouncing around.” Bethany frowned in concentration. “Then Louisa came upstairs and Cheyenne left. Or did Homer leave before her?”
Granddad scratched his head. “I’m not sure, but I know he went out to the side deck by the door near the galley. Trey was out of the room the longest. When the Coast Guard officer questioned him, he said he was on the bridge the whole time and Otto was never there. Jerome can’t confirm or dispute that, since he has no memory of what happened.”
“Where else could Otto have been all that time?” Val remembered the door to the engine room on the lower deck. “Maybe he went from the deck outside the saloon down to the swim platform and then walked through the engine room to the master stateroom.”
Granddad nodded. “To use the head in his stateroom and leave the other ones for his guests.”
That made sense to Val. “And when he retraced his steps and went back outside, someone bashed him and pushed him overboard.”
Granddad went over to the stove and put his apple, butter, and crumb mixture in the oven. “This kitchen is full of things you can bash someone with. A cast-iron pan, a marble rolling pin, a wine bottle. But on a boat deck, there’s not a lot of stuff to grab. You can’t have stuff rolling around when the water gets rough.”
S'more Murders Page 6