Depth of Field

by Michael Blair

  “Be my guest,” I said. “Call the police. I’m sure they’d like to talk to you, too. Here,” I added, taking out my wallet and finding Sergeant Kovacs’s card. I held it out to her. “Here’s the number.”

  Ignoring the card, she smiled thinly, acknowledging that I’d called her bluff. “What do you want?” she said.

  Although I should have probably called the police myself, I didn’t have a cellphone, and I didn’t think she’d be likely to lend me hers, so I put the card back into my wallet and my wallet back into my pocket.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  She answered with a shrug.

  “Let’s start with your name,” I said.

  “My name is Anna Waverley,” she said, unwilling to completely give up her charade. “As you sodding well know.” I thought I detected a faint trace of a British accent to go along with the British slang.

  “Let’s try again,” I said. “What’s your name? Your real name.”

  “I told you,” she said, still sticking to her story, but there was slightly less confidence in her voice. “It’s Anna Waverley.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said roughly. “Anna Waverley is dead.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” I said. “She’s dead.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, eyes narrowing. “You’re lying.”

  “I wish I were,” I said.

  She stared at me for a moment, realized I wasn’t lying, and sagged back against the galley counter. “Goddamn it,” she said. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Goddamn it,” she said again, with more emphasis. “Fuck.” Her distress seemed genuine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She moved by me into the main salon and slumped onto a cushioned built-in berth that looked more comfortable than my living room sofa. She sat with her elbows on her knees and her face in her hands. There was a shrink-wrapped twelve-pack of single serving plastic bottles of mineral water on the butcher’s block cover over the galley sink. I broke the shrink wrap and freed a bottle. Twisting off the cap, I went into the salon and handed her the bottle.

  “Thanks,” she said absently, but she did not drink.

  I sat down on the edge of the berth against the opposite bulkhead, facing her across the hardwood deck, ready to intercept her if she made a break for the hatch. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You and Anna Waverley were friends,” I said.

  “You could say that. How —” Her voice caught and she coughed. She raised the bottle and took a sip of water.

  Anticipating her question, I said, “She was murdered in her home last night. Strangled. Whoever did it tried to make it look like suicide by stringing her up with an electrical extension cord. I found her body.”

  “Shit,” she said.

  “I know exactly how you feel.”

  “I doubt it,” she said.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s start at the beginning. What’s your name?”

  Her eyes flashed and for a moment I thought she was going to refuse to tell me, but she said, “Chrissy. Chrissy Conrad.”

  “Well, Chrissy Conrad, if that really is your name, what are you doing on Anna Waverley’s boat?”

  “She lets me stay here when I need a place to crash.”

  “Were you here last Tuesday evening?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Where were you last Tuesday evening?”

  “And how is that any of your business?”

  “You damned well know how it’s my business,” I said angrily. “I’m not in the mood to play games with you. My partner was attacked on the boat you hired us to photograph.”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” she said.

  She had dropped her cellphone onto the berth beside her. I reached over and picked it up. “Screw it,” I said. “If that’s the way you want to play it, we’ll let the police sort it out.” I flipped open the phone. “What will it be? Are you going to answer my questions or shall I call the police?”

  “Knock yourself out,” she said, with a mocking smile. “It’s locked.”

  I pressed a button on the phone’s tiny keypad. The screen lit up, instructing me to enter a password. Closing the phone, I gestured toward the navigation station at the forward end of the cabin. “I’m sure there’s a phone in the electronics locker. Ship-to-shore radio, anyway. Why don’t I just give the Coast Guard a buzz and ask them to put me through to the police?”

  She stared at me for long moment before saying, “All right, fine. The whole thing has turned to shit, anyway. First, though, you have to promise me two things. One, that you’ll hear me out and, two, you’ll wait at least twenty-four hours before telling the cops you talked to me, give me a chance to get out of Dodge.”

  “Why would I promise you anything?”

  “Do you want me to answer your questions or don’t you?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll hear you out.”

  She waited for me to continue. When a few seconds had passed and I hadn’t, she said, “Shit,” her raspy voice defeated. “I need a cigarette.”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  She gestured toward the galley. “There’s a pack on the counter.”

  I got up and went to the galley, where I found a pack of Player’s Light and a matchbook on the counter. I handed them to her and resumed my seat. She lit up and blew smoke upwards, where it was caught by the gentle cross-breeze through the open ports above the berths.

  “Anna doesn’t like me smoking on her boat,” she said. “I don’t suppose that matters now.” Her hand shook as she raised the cigarette to her lips. She pulled hard on it, cheeks hollowing, then drew smoke deep into her lungs. I suppressed the urge to cough. “No one was supposed to get hurt,” she said, smoke spilling from her mouth, thickening her words. “I’m sorry about that. Really. I was sick when I heard about it. At first I thought it was you who’d been hurt. Then I found out it had been a woman. I’m really sorry.”

  “Tell that to my partner. She’ll be getting out of the hospital in a day or two. Do you know who attacked her?”

  “No. I don’t. I — all I wanted was some pictures of that boat. I didn’t know there’d be anyone on it. Really, I didn’t.” She tapped cigarette ash into the palm of her hand. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Your track record with me isn’t good.”

  “Yeah, okay. But I’m telling the truth now.”

  “Why did you want pictures of that boat?”

  “I really did have someone who was interested in buying it.”

  “It’s not your boat to sell.”

  “I’ve never let little details like that bother me. I once sold a house I didn’t own. A couple, in fact. You’d be amazed how easy it is.” She smiled again, a bit predatorily, I thought. “Some free advice. Always let the local plods know you’re going on vacation. Not that it’s likely to do any good.”

  “Okay, so you were conning someone into buying the Wonderlust. Why pass yourself off to me as Anna Waverley?”

  She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Not good enough,” I said.

  “Tough.” She drew hard on the cigarette.

  Chrissy Conrad was about five feet five inches tall and wiry, probably didn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds — Bobbi had been right; most of the superstructure she’d displayed at the studio had been artificial. Anna Waverley had been an inch or two taller and a few pounds heavier, but I didn’t think Chrissy would have had any trouble hoisting her up with the extension cord.

  “How do I know you didn’t kill her so you could steal her identity and her boat?” I said.

  “We’re even, then,” she said coolly. “How do I know you didn’t?”

  “I have an alibi,” I said. “A good one, as a matter of fact. Where were you last night?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  “Okay,” I said. �
��I guess it’s time to call the police.”

  I stood up and crossed to the navigation station. The electronics locker over the chart table did indeed contain a ship-to-shore radio. It also contained the compact stereo system upon which the smoky-voiced singer was currently lamenting the slicing up of a poor cow. A CD jewel case on the chart table identified the singer as Tanita Tikaram. I vaguely remembered her from my early twenties. Chrissy Conrad would have been barely in her “tweens.” The disc must have belonged to Anna Waverley.

  “Hang on a minute,” Chrissy said. Standing, she reached through the open port over the berth and tossed her cigarette and palm full of ashes overboard — or at least onto the portside deck. “All right, look,” she said, dusting her hands. “I knew Anna, okay? We were friends. Sort of. I worked for her husband. That’s how we met. Anyway, well, we had a bit of a row over … it doesn’t matter. God, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill her.” She took a breath. “Christ, what a fucking cock-up.” I wondered if she really was British or whether the faint accent and the quaint colloquialisms were just part of her act, picked up from too many episodes of Coronation Street.

  “This row,” I said. “Was it because you were having an affair with her husband?”

  “Eh?” she said, surprised by the question. She regrouped quickly, though. “Not exactly. Sam has affairs with all his assistants. I was just one in a long line. No, it was because she refused to leave him.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. “Just what kind of ‘sort of’ friends were you?”

  “We weren’t lovers, if that’s what you’re thinking. We’re both straight. I am, anyway. Reasonably sure she was, too.”

  “What was it, then? You wanted Sam Waverley for yourself?”

  “Christ, no. Sam’s a bastard. But I liked Anna. If I weren’t straight, I might have —” She broke off with a shake of her head. “There’s no point in thinking about that now, is there? In any event, she talked a lot about leaving Sam, just never got round to doing anything about it. It pissed me off.” She shrugged, as if that were reason enough for friends to fall out.

  “That’s why you used her name when you came to my studio last week,” I said. “Because you were angry with her.”

  “No, although I suppose it was part of the reason I set up a scam to sell this boat.”

  “This boat?” I said, pointing at the deck. “Not the Wonderlust?”

  “Yes. No. My original plan was to run the con with this boat, but when I hooked a mark who wanted a fixer-upper motor yacht, I had to act fast. The Wonderlust was a perfect fit, but I needed photos and I didn’t have time to create a new false ID. But I never meant for your friend to get hurt. Or Anna.”

  “You were supposed to meet me on the Wonderlust at eight that night. Were you there? Did you see what happened to Bobbi?”

  “No. I was nowhere near here that night. I never intended to meet you, which is why I gave you the key and told you to use it in case I was late. I was going to call the next day and get you to email the photographs directly to my — client.”

  “Who really owns that boat?”

  “I haven’t any idea. Some corporation, is all I know.”

  “And you’ve no idea who may have been on it that night.”

  “No. I knew it was rented out for parties, but I called the agency that handled the bookings to make sure it wasn’t booked that night.”

  “Your ‘client,’” I said. “Could he have caught on to your scam and laid in wait for you? Maybe he mistook Bobbi for you.”

  “Not a chance. He’s pissed that I haven’t sent him the photos yet.”

  “Does he know what you look like?”

  “No. But it wasn’t him. He’s still hot to buy the damned thing. Look, you’ve got to believe me. I never intended for anyone to get hurt.”

  “It really doesn’t matter what you intended,” I said. “The reality is that Anna Waverley is dead and my friend was damned near killed.”

  “What makes you think Anna’s murder has anything to do with me or your friend getting hurt?”

  “Anna called me last night and told me there was something she needed to tell me, but by the time I got there, she was dead.”

  Chrissy looked as though she was going to be sick. She gulped water.

  I wasn’t sure I believed everything she’d told me. In fact, I was damned sure I didn’t. I had no idea, though, what part of what she’d told me was the truth and what part of it was fiction. Perhaps, I thought, just to be on the safe side, I should consider everything she’d told me to be a lie. Starting with her claim that she hadn’t been anywhere near the marina when Bobbi had been attacked.

  “Why did you choose the Wonderlust to base your scam on?” I asked, figuring that a roundabout approach might work better than a straight-on assault.

  “Like I said,” she replied. “It was exactly what my mark wanted. Anyway, what difference does it make?”

  “Humour me. How did you get the key you gave me?”

  “I crashed a party the week before I came to see you and swiped it from the guy who was throwing it.”

  “When was the last time you were onboard?”

  “The night I swiped the key. Look, I know what you’re thinking, but, I told you, I wasn’t anywhere near that boat the night your friend was hurt.”

  “Where were you?”

  She looked at me for a long moment before replying. “I was working,” she said at last. “Setting up another score, if you must know. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.”

  “And last night?”

  “Same answer.”

  “Do you know if Anna had a lover?”

  “No. Not for sure, anyway. Probably. It wouldn’t surprise me. Yeah.”

  “I don’t suppose you know his name, then?”

  “No.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Six weeks ago or so. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “How long did you work for her husband?”

  “Not long. A year, maybe a bit more.”

  “When?”

  “Until last fall.

  “And you became friends with Anna Waverley even though you were having an affair with her husband?”

  “Is that so weird? I dunno, maybe it is. Anyway, we met a couple of months after I started working for him and we hit it off right away. She was smart and funny and interesting, but she was the unhappiest person I ever met. I don’t think I saw her smile more than once or twice, and even then they were sad smiles. I don’t know how she dealt with it. I’d probably have killed myself.” She shrugged.

  I looked at her for a moment, then said, “I think you should go to the police with what you know.”

  “It’d just be a waste of time,” she said. “Theirs and mine. I don’t know anything more than what I’ve told you. I don’t know who hurt your friend and I don’t know who killed Anna. And how can you be sure Anna’s murder had anything to do with what happened to your friend? Maybe it was something else.”

  “Such as?”

  “How the hell should I know? Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I never meant for anyone to get hurt, but it’ll just jam me up if you turn me over to the police.” Did I detect a hint of desperation in her voice?

  “Give me one good reason why I should give a damn if you get jammed up?” I said.

  “Well,” she said. “Maybe I could make it worth your while.”

  “I’ll probably regret asking,” I said, “but what do you have in mind?”

  “I could cut you in on the deal I’m working on.”

  “Your next scam, you mean. Thanks, anyway.”

  “All right, look,” she said, “I might know someone who could tell you who really owns the Wonderlust. What would that be worth to you?”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll take you to him,” she said. “But only if you’ll agree to leave me out of it.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Not far,” she said. “Is it a
deal?”

  “Let’s hear what he has to say first.”

  “Okay, fine,” she agreed petulantly.

  I watched as she closed and dogged the ports. She fetched a waist pack from the galley, from which she took a set of keys, and into which she stuffed her cigarettes, matches, and phone. She gestured for me to precede her up the companionway to the cockpit. I did, but I was careful to keep an eye on her, lest she attempt to brain me with the small fire extinguisher affixed beside the door to the head. In the cockpit, I watched again as she locked the main hatch.

  “He lives on a boat in the Harbour Authority marina,” she said, putting the keys into her pack and strapping it on.

  The Free Spirit was moored bow in between the two narrow finger docks. As we stepped onto the dock, she pointed toward Free Spirit’s stern, and said, “I don’t really know much about boats. The rope at the back came loose and I don’t know if I tied it properly. Would you mind checking it?”

  I went to the end of the finger dock and looked at the stern line tied to the dock cleat. “It looks o—”

  Suddenly, I was in the air.

  I should have seen it coming. Chrissy Conrad may not have known much about boats, but she knew something about leverage. With a quick thrust, she’d sent me sailing out over the end of the dock. I hit the water with a curse and a resounding splash. By the time I sputtered and spit to the surface, she was halfway to the ramp. By the time I pulled myself out of the water onto the dock and pelted after her, she was at the top of the ramp, where she kicked the prop out from under the gate and slammed it shut. By the time I got to the top of the ramp, she was long gone. That’s when I discovered you needed a key to get out of the marina as well as into it. Cursing, I clambered over the ramp railing, managed to get onto the quay without falling into the water again, and began the long squelch homeward.

  The first thing I did when I got home was to strip out of my wet clothes and shower the scummy salt water of False Creek out of my hair. The next thing I did was call Greg Matthias’s cellphone number. The call was picked up by his voice mail. After the beep, I said, “Greg, it’s Tom. Call me ASAP. It’s urgent. Thanks.” I hung up and poured myself a generous shot of Bowmore Legend. It was a decent enough Islay, and less pricey than Lagavulin, Laphroaig, or the older Bowmores, but I hadn’t quite made up my mind about it. I was just about to pour another shot when Matthias called back.