Seawitch g-7

by Kat Richardson

  “I requested the case.”

  That stopped me cold and I blinked at him, puzzled and frowning.

  Solis graced me with a tiny smile. “My captain made the same expression.”

  “I imagine so,” I replied. And though it sounded incredibly stupid, I added, “But why?”

  “I have heard,” Solis said, looking down at his hands, “that a definition of insanity is continuing to do as you have always done while expecting a different result. Here I saw a case that could not help but fall into your hands and I thought I might learn something if I observed it from within—if I approached the mystery from a new angle: yours. I don’t find myself liking the sensation—I don’t believe I ever shall—but am finding it . . . illuminating.” He glanced up and I could’ve sworn his eyes sparkled. “And why should I inflict your . . . affinity for the bizarre on some innocent policeman?”

  I snorted and started to reply, but found myself lurching forward and gasping as a spurt of fight-or-flight adrenaline shot through me. My chest felt hollow and battered as my heart rate accelerated like a sprinter from a standing start. This wasn’t my emotion. . . .

  Solis reached for me in concern and I shook him off, forcing myself up to my feet, trembling as I fought off the sensation with long breaths. “I’m fine,” I gasped at him. “I’m fine.” I fumbled in my pocket and clutched my cell phone.

  I brought out the suddenly slippery thing, turning it on as I did, and started poking in a message as fast as my shaking fingers could manage. Damn Quinton’s security paranoia that favored dumb pagers over smartphones. I tapped one last key and sent the “Call me now” code and wished we had established one for “What the hell was that?”

  “Are you certain?” Solis asked, and for a moment I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I nodded, confirming that I was all right.

  “Yeah.” I offered no explanation and he continued to watch me, niggling threads of curious yellow and anxious green leaking into the Grey around him. “Let’s just . . . get back to the case in hand,” I suggested, putting my phone on the desk as I sat back down. My heart rate was sliding back to normal already, but I’d be happier once I heard from Quinton.

  Solis scowled at me for a moment and I almost laughed. It was like old times. He shook it off and took the autopsy report from under my hand. “I will read this, since it is a past case and department property. You review the log pages.” He moved his chair aside so I could park mine in front of the monitor and flip through the digital images from the log book. I appreciated the distraction.

  The log entries were mostly dull and out of order. Some of the pages hadn’t been salvageable and others were still unavailable, but I read through a few, including a couple with some diary-style notes courtesy of Gary Fielding, including one that referred to a “strange feeling” he had whenever he was near Shelly Knight. I wondered if that was an actual sensation or an emotion. I clicked onto the next page and found an entry that read in part, “Carson totally flipping out about his wife—”

  “Odd,” I muttered.

  “What?” Solis asked, looking up from his reading of the Odile Carson death report.

  “There’s an entry here that mentions Odile . . .” I replied.

  “Is the date June nineteenth?”

  I peered hard at the image and increased the size on the screen, but it didn’t help. “It’s hard to be sure, but, no, it looks like the eighteenth.”

  “That is the day before Mrs. Carson’s body was discovered.” He scowled.

  “When did she die?”

  “The night of the eighteenth. What more does the passage say?”

  “It’s very smeared, but what I think it says is that Les got into an argument with . . . someone . . . after dinner and then . . . he wanted a record that he had been on board continuously since they left port. Fielding’s note says, ‘This is to affirm . . .’ There’s a further note about fishing—making a change of plan to go fishing at . . . Port Townsend. Then it appears that Les Carson received a call via the radio about Odile’s death . . . but when isn’t recorded here that I can see, and the next page seems not to have been salvaged.”

  Solis paged through the report and found a call log. “June nineteenth at eleven forty-four a.m. A call was made to Seawitch via the radio telephone service for the purpose of notifying next of kin.”

  I closed my eyes, slightly nauseated by the idea. “The log says they were going to stop at Roche Harbor that day . . . but there’s no record in the insurance report that they did. It looks like Les Carson knew his wife was dead before she died. . . . And Seawitch went missing later that day without making port or being reported in trouble by any other boat or either coast guard. What the hell happened? Did Les Carson kill his wife and use the trip as an alibi?”

  Solis shook his head. “The timing is impossible, and Mrs. Carson killed herself.”

  “Really?”

  “The medical examiner is very clear. Mrs. Carson left a note and the disposition of the body was consistent with suicide by electrocution in water.” I thought I saw him shudder before he added, “She was thorough in guaranteeing her death.”

  “Could it have been murder for hire?” I suggested.

  Solis shook his head, rolling his eyes. “It is my experience that the clever professional assassin exists principally in the minds of thriller authors and Hollywood scriptwriters. Those who kill strangers for money rather than the satisfaction of their own psychotic impulses are most frequently violent thugs with criminal records and the minds of twisted children.”

  I almost smiled at his vehemence. “So . . . not a fan of Barry Eisler’s novels, I’m guessing.”

  He gave an amused snort that didn’t quite bloom into a laugh. Then he shook off the moment and looked back down at the report. “It appears that the coroner certified the death as ‘misadventure,’ in spite of the autopsy and scene investigation.”

  “Maybe the family brought pressure to keep the suicide ruling out of the public record,” I suggested.

  He nodded. “Possible. No city is perfectly without corruption.”

  “Seattle’s built on it.” I would have said more, but my phone rang, jiggling across the surface of the folding table where I’d left it to fall onto the floor near my original position. I dove for it as the office door opened and a small brown face peeped through the gap.

  “Blaine,” I barked as I answered the phone, falling onto my shoulder on the floor and trying to keep an eye on the newcomer at the same time.

  “Papa?” the face asked.

  “Sí, Mario?”

  The little boy started in Spanish, then switched to English after Solis frowned at him. “Mama says dinner’s ready and Grandmama came out of her room again. But she’s OK now.”

  Solis nodded. “We will be downstairs in a moment. Tell your mama we’ll wash up first. Just like you.”

  “Sí, Papa.”

  Mario withdrew his head and closed the door gently. I couldn’t hear him leave over the sound in my ear from the phone.

  “Harper!” Quinton yelled over the sound of traffic, “I’m sorry. I’m at a pay phone in downtown. It’s really loud here.”

  “I can tell. What happened earlier?”

  “When earlier?”

  I checked my watch. “About forty minutes ago. I felt something.”

  Quinton didn’t reply for a moment and only the sound of cars on the street filled my ear. Finally he spoke. “I saw someone from the past. He shouldn’t be here and he wants me to do something I can’t agree to.”

  “I understand. Are you OK?”

  “I am now. I . . . I’ll tell you the rest later. Here and now is not good.”

  “I’m with Solis at his place—we’re going over files. Do you need me to meet you somewhere soon?”

  “No. Whenever you’re done, page me. I’ll come home then. I want to stay out here until the last minute. Just in case.”

  “If it’s that past, then they already know who I am and where I live, i
f they want to find you.”

  “Yeah, but . . . humor me.” Then he cut the connection.

  Goody. More fun and games dodging Quinton’s scary ex-boss.

  Solis lifted an inquisitive eyebrow as I put my phone back into my pocket.

  “Boyfriend trouble,” I said.

  He grunted and made a lifted half nod with his chin. “Do you need to leave?”

  “Not yet. I’d like to get through this paperwork while we can. Qu— he’ll be all right.”

  “I’m sure he will.” He stood up and put the death report back into a neat, squared-off pile on the table before motioning for me to follow him. I went along and I noticed that he paused to lock the office door behind us as we left.

  TWELVE

  Dinner at the Solis house was served in the dining room under tension that seemed to have less to do with my presence than that of Ximena’s mother—whose name was the long and rolling Maria del Carmen Gomez Baranca de Moreno, but was shortened by everyone to Mama Gomez. Chatter was carefully regulated and dish passing was accomplished with a degree of solemnity I had rarely seen in a house full of subteen children. The table seemed a bit unbalanced with both me—in the uncomfortable middle—and Ximena’s mother on the same side and three of the four kids on the other. Ximena was at the foot of the table with the two youngest—Martha Carolina and Claudia Elena—seated on either side. Solis sat at the head with the oldest boy, Oscar Luis, on his left. Mama Gomez was on his right and I thought it wasn’t so much for any honor the place conferred as the ease with which Solis could keep an eye—and if necessary a hand—on her. Directly across from me sat the youngest boy, Mario Diego, who at seven years old was still a bit too small to manage his own plate and the serving bowls at the same time, which made the progress of dishes go backward: food started not with the head of the table, but with the youngest children and Ximena, then passed on to me and Mama Gomez, and finally to Solis, Oscar Luis, and Mario. This seemed to annoy Mama Gomez and she muttered continually while casting me black looks from the corner of her eye and eating mechanically.

  The food was more a collection of meats and a few side dishes than a specific meal, but it was delicious. The amounts were ample and no one complained, though the feeling of something about to shatter hovered over us. Eventually Mama Gomez said something under her breath that brought a low-voiced reprimand from Solis and a giggle from Martha.

  “She called you a witch,” Martha said, looking at me with big, sparkling eyes.

  Solis pressed his lips together and seemed about to say something but I forestalled him with a wave.

  “It’s all right,” I said, addressing the little girl. “I’ve been called a lot worse and I recognized the word, anyway.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?” Martha asked. “Papa says it’s rude to say things the guests don’t understand in front of them, but if you speak Spanish, we can talk normal now.”

  “No, I don’t really speak Spanish. I’m sorry. I know only a few words and they are mostly very impolite ones.”

  Martha was crestfallen. “Oh.”

  Mama Gomez grinned and repeated herself a little louder, staring at me as if issuing a challenge. I returned her stare with a bland face and didn’t use any of my precious store of profanity, waiting to see what she’d do now. I’d caught exactly three words of what she’d said: “silver,” “gold,” and “witch.” The rest meant nothing to me with my terrible Spanish.

  Ximena gasped and looked taken aback.

  Solis narrowed his eyes but it was the only outward sign of his irritation. “Apologize, Mama.”

  Mama Gomez whipped her head around to face him. “Why should I?”

  I’d already figured out that she understood English perfectly so I wasn’t surprised she spoke as well as her daughter did. I kept my face and body still: This showdown wasn’t really about me.

  “Because you have insulted our guest,” Solis replied.

  “I spoke only the truth,” she objected.

  “Truth or not, you meant harm. When you do harm to my guest, you will apologize or you will leave. My house, my rules.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Ximena bite her lip. Both her daughters looked to her in confusion and she glanced back, shaking her head and laying her finger over her mouth.

  Mama Gomez also turned to look at Ximena, but she didn’t like what she saw. “Ximena!” she demanded.

  Ximena’s eyes were huge and her lip trembled but she replied quietly, “Apologize, Mama.”

  Mama Gomez made a strangled noise and flew to her feet. She glared back and forth between her daughter and her son-in-law, eyes bulging and mouth pressed tight to suppress her rage that sent violent red shocks into the Grey. Finally she looked at me. Since I was sitting and she was tiny, her face was just about level with mine.

  “I’m sorry you’re a witch!” she shouted, and wrenched herself around to rush from the room, knocking over her chair and lurching into the built-in sideboard as she went. The room seemed to shiver as she left it, some glimmering residue of anger dying out of the air.

  The whole room seemed to draw a breath of relief. The children dove back into their food and it appeared normalcy would return.

  “So,” I asked, “what did she say?” I glanced at Martha Carolina and added, “Aside from the witch part.”

  “She said you have gold and silver in your . . . umm . . . Mama, what was that word?” Martha asked.

  Ximena didn’t look up from helping Claudia Elena with her food. “Aura. It’s like a light some people have around them.”

  “Like a halo? Like a saint?” Martha asked.

  “Sort of . . .”

  Martha looked at me again, grinning. “You have a halo! You must be very good!”

  Solis made a quiet snort.

  Now, here was a pickle: I’m not much of a kid person, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but it felt incumbent upon me to do or say something. . . .

  “Umm . . . no, I don’t think it’s a halo,” I started.

  “Ms. Blaine hasn’t got that kind of goodness,” Solis said.

  “Is she bad, then?” Martha asked, frowning.

  “No. But not everyone who is good is a saint. That takes a holy kind of goodness all the time.”

  “And I’m only good some of the time,” I added, hearing the obvious cue in his voice.

  “Oh,” said Martha. Then she brightened and declared, “I’m good all the time!”

  Ximena laughed and turned to her older daughter to smile and tap her lightly on the nose. “You only wish that were true, Martita. Now stop pestering our guest and eat your dinner.”

  The boys giggled and elbowed each other until Solis frowned at them. They stopped immediately and the rest of the meal was civilly quiet.

  As we rose afterward, Ximena sidled up to me, chivvying the three older children into the kitchen to bus their dishes, and whispered, “I’m sorry about my mother. Sometimes she . . . sees things. . . .”

  “That’s all right. Sometimes I do, too,” I replied. Then I noticed Solis motioning for me to go with him.

  Ximena gave me a trembling smile. “You do?”

  I nodded and she nodded back, her smile strengthening. Then she said, “Go on. You and Rey have work to do. The kids will help me clean up.”

  Feeling a little guilty, I went with Solis, heading back up the stairs to the office in the attic. On the final steps I asked, “What was that about with your mother-in-law?”

  “I apologize. She’s very rude when she gets like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “She is taken with strange ideas, with visions. And as an artist she refuses to constrain her mind, and, to our frustration, her mouth as well.”

  He paused to unlock the office door.

  “That’s not quite what I meant. She may be a little nuts, but that wasn’t the crazy talking at dinner. She was trying to get a reaction out of you.”

  “Her feelings about me are . . . unstable.” He opened the door
and waved me inside, then shut the door behind us before he continued in a low, intense voice. “She knows how I love Ximena and our children, that I will do anything to keep them safe. Sometimes that means keeping them safe from her, which she doesn’t like. And sometimes she hates me for being blind to the world as she sees it—the world, perhaps, as you see it.”

  I frowned at him. “As I see it?”

  “Yes. I . . . have begun wondering if there is something I don’t see. For years I’ve thought Maria del Carmen was mad. And she is, but not all of her madness is lies. And Ximena . . . I fear she is becoming like her mother.”

  “You’re afraid she’s going crazy?” I asked.

  He nodded. “When we met I knew she was . . . fragile. I had no idea . . . what she might become. Now I see it in her mother and I know she will get worse. But”—he turned his face to me suddenly—“if there is something else—something that is true, even though it is hidden from the world—then perhaps she isn’t doomed to madness.”

  “And that’s why you wanted to work with me. Because you think I’m like them and that gives you some kind of hope.”

  “Yes. And you are not insane. I may not agree with all you say, I may find it hard to believe everything you’ve been telling me and even some of the things I experienced today—even in the face of proof, it can be difficult to change the”—his eyes darted around and he made a frustrated gesture, rolling his hands in the air as if trying to grasp something incorporeal—“the habit of mind. But if there are more things to see than I can see, then perhaps a way can be found to manage the difference between us and I . . . won’t lose her.”

  I blinked at him and found I’d been holding my breath. I drew in a shaking lungful, but it didn’t help much. I still didn’t know what to say even when I had the breath to say it. “I—I’m not— That is, what we experience is not the same.”

  “You and Maria del Carmen?”

  “Me and . . . anyone. It’s different for each of us. What you experienced in the engine room on board Seawitch wasn’t the same as what I experienced—similar, related, but not the same. Even what Ximena and her mother both . . . see won’t be identical.”