Stowed Away

by Barbara Ross

  Binder’s phone rang. The lieutenant went to his makeshift desk, picked up the receiver, and listened to the person on the other end. “Send him in,” he said.

  The door opened and Cliff Munroe entered, the tall, handsome protester.

  “Lieutenant Binder?” He looked from Flynn to Binder and back again. “I’m Geoffrey Bower.”

  Chapter 24

  Lieutenant Binder invited Flynn and me to leave the room immediately after the real Geoffrey showed up. My mind swirled, full of unanswered questions about Geoffrey Bower, Seebold Frederickson, Bert Sand, and Cliff Munroe. But one thing, a more personal thing, had the most urgency.

  We stood in the twilight on the sidewalk in front of the police station while I dialed Quentin’s cell. “Where are you?” I listened and finally said, “Stay. I’ll be right there.”

  “Quentin’s in Wyatt’s room at Blount’s,” I told Flynn. “Genevieve and Maria Consuelo are there too. It’s turned into an impromptu wake for the man they knew as Geoffrey Bower.”

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  I put my foot down. “This part of the story doesn’t concern you. This is between me and Quentin.”

  “I mean I’m coming to Blount’s. I want to check in with Genevieve and then I’ll wait on the dock by the Garbo. If I’m there when the lieutenant arrives with Frederickson and Bower, I’m pretty sure I can talk him into letting me watch them open the safe.”

  “Us,” I corrected. “Letting us watch.”

  “That’ll be a harder case to make,” he warned. Then scanning my expression, he added, “Meet me on the dock when you’re done with Quentin.”

  When Wyatt opened her hotel room door, I beckoned across the room to Quentin. “Let’s go downstairs. We need to talk.” As we left, Flynn slipped into the room.

  We found a quiet corner in the bar. “Most mysterious,” he joked. “What is this about?”

  I pounced. “You bought the Black Widow. You were the anonymous bidder on the phone at the auction. You sold the necklace to Geoffrey Bower.”

  Whatever he’d been expecting, that wasn’t it. Even in the low light of the bar, I could see the color drain from behind his tan. “How did you find out? Why would Bower buy it?”

  “Because it was local and historical and that’s the kind of thing he likes, according to his lawyer. Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about why you bought it.” I waited.

  “I did buy the Black Widow at auction,” he admitted.

  Even though I’d guessed, the news hit me like a plank to the chest. “But why?”

  “Because I wanted your family to rebuild Windsholme and I thought the surest way to make it happen was to get enough money into your mother’s hands. When she inherited the Black Widow, I saw my chance.”

  A waitress hovered nearby, waiting for our drink order. Quentin waved her off.

  “Why do you care if we rebuild it?” I asked. “You can only see the upper stories from your house.”

  Again, Quentin didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, his voice was thick with emotion. “If you didn’t rebuild it, you would knock it down. It would disappear.”

  It still didn’t make sense. Demolishing the mansion wouldn’t ruin Quentin’s view. Someone who’d never seen the view before would never know Windsholme was missing. “Why is that so important to you?” I waited impatiently as the minutes ticked by.

  “Did you ever wonder why I built my house on that spot, looking out at your island?” he asked.

  “You’ve said the land was in your family.” Quentin’s modern fortress had replaced a shack built to secure his family’s claim to lobster in the narrows between Westclaw Point and Morrow Island.

  “That’s true, but there’s a more personal reason. It has to do with our discussion last night.”

  “That you’re gay.”

  “Yes, but I was thinking more about the topic of personal disclosure. My explanation involves a personal disclosure.”

  I settled into the booth. “I’m waiting.”

  He’d left his blazer in Wyatt’s room. He was in his usual blue cotton shirt, sleeves rolled up. He put his elbows on the table and began. “Like a lot of gay teenagers not yet out, I believed I was going to be a grave disappointment to my parents in one way, so I overachieved at everything else. I didn’t think it was ever possible that I would marry or give them grandchildren, so I became the best at academics, sports, volunteering, Scouts. The most helpful around the house. The kid the other parents relied on. The one they said, ‘Okay, if Quentin is going, you can too. But stay close to him and stay out of trouble.’ It was wonderful, because I was admired and praised. And it was exhausting because I was simultaneously keeping a giant secret and striving so hard.”

  I nodded to show I understood. It would be a struggle to be the perfect teenager and to keep such a huge secret at the same time. Either one would be exhausting on its own.

  “My uncle was the black sheep of the family. Never went to college. Never married. A good lobsterman with a quiet life. He stayed all summer in that shack on the land where I built my house. By the time I remember, it had electricity and running water, but barely. I don’t know how the tradition started, but every summer, he’d have me out there for two weeks. Just me. Not my sister, not my brother. We worked hard every day I was there. We’d get up at four in the morning to pull his traps, be out on the water for hours. Then go to the lobster co-op to sell the catch and finally home to endless chores of scrubbing down the boat, fixing traps, painting buoys.

  “I was never happier than I was those two weeks every summer. It was fourteen days of the year when I followed my uncle’s lead, did what he told me, and didn’t have to pretend I was something I was not.”

  “But Windsholme—” I interrupted. This was all very interesting, the kind of confidence I would have loved receiving from Quentin in any other circumstance, but I didn’t want to stray too far from the Black Widow.

  “I’m getting to that. Have some patience, Julia.” He waited to make sure I wasn’t going to interrupt again, then continued. “I’d fall into bed exhausted every night. It was summer, so the days were long. We got up so early that even as a teenager I went to bed in twilight. The window by my bed looked out on Morrow Island. I’d fall asleep every night staring at Windsholme, thinking about how happy I was and how I wished the summer would never end.”

  I thought about that teenaged Quentin, staring at Windsholme. I’d stood on the boulder on the little beach on Morrow Island so many times, staring in the other direction, at the lobster shack on the rocky piece of land across the narrows. Quentin was a dozen years older than me. When Livvie and I were old enough to go off on our own, but too young to work at the clambake, we’d often clamber over that boulder at dusk while our parents and their employees fed the day’s second boatload of tourists their lobster dinners. Had Quentin been in that shack, staring in my direction at the same time? We hadn’t met until a year ago, even though we’d lived in the same town for years, and then two blocks apart in Manhattan for years more.

  “And your uncle?” I asked.

  “Stayed up drinking. I slept so soundly, I never heard him go to bed. He died when I was in college and left me the land and the shack. Cirrhosis. My life was changing radically by then.”

  “You were rich.” Quentin, a classics major, had built a tiny piece of computer code in college that made all the software in all the world run more efficiently. Or so it seemed. He’d lived off the royalties ever since.

  He nodded. “Not yet, but I was on my way to being. I didn’t come out to my family, or anyone else, for another decade. But when I did, it was a huge relief. The charade was over.”

  “And your family was—?”

  “Not surprised.” He laughed again, an easier laugh. “Evidently, I wasn’t keeping the secret quite as adeptly as I thought. Anyway, I didn’t do anything with the land for a long time. During my thirties, I traveled. I thought I had everything, but I didn’t have
anything that was meaningful. Few friends. No work. No relationship. No family. Building the house on Westclaw Point, coming back to the place I was happiest, was supposed to be a start at finding all I’d missed.”

  I reached across the table and squeezed his hand. My dear friend. “You’ve explained you have a sentimental attachment to your view. But what about the Black Widow? That was a crazy amount of money to spend on a gamble my mother would use it to fix the mansion.”

  “You know money doesn’t mean much to me.”

  “That’s what people say when they have plenty of it.”

  “Touché.”

  “But then you sold it,” I said.

  “I didn’t need the necklace. I knew your family wouldn’t take it back. I was approached by Seebold Frederickson. I never met him. We talked on the phone. Funds were exchanged electronically. He never said whom he represented. I sold the Black Widow to the something-or-other trust. I did try to hedge my big bet by introducing your mom to Wyatt. I knew she could convince your mother Windsholme should be rebuilt.”

  “And now look where that’s got us,” I said.

  “Indeed,” Quentin responded. “Though I’m starting to enjoy our nightly talks.”

  Chapter 25

  I found Flynn sitting on the dock across from the Garbo. The overhead lights left pools of illumination on the rough boards, but he sat in a darkened corner, his back to Blount’s retaining wall.

  “Sit down,” he said softly, careful so his voice didn’t carry on the water. “This could be a while. The lieutenant will have a long interview with Bower and Frederickson before they come over here.”

  “Are you sure they’ll come?”

  “Lieutenant Binder will want that safe opened tonight.” He paused. “You realize that since the killers poisoned the wrong man, we should now expect to find the necklace still in the safe. Bert couldn’t have given his murderers the combination.”

  “I worked that out. Poor Bert.”

  “After you left with Tupper, I told Wyatt we’d met the real Bower,” he said to me.

  “Won’t the lieutenant be mad you did that? He probably wanted to see her reaction.”

  He sighed. “Yes, probably, but I couldn’t sit in that room with her, knowing what I knew, and not tell her. She’s been deceived enough.”

  “It’s a little different on the outside looking in, isn’t it? How did she react?”

  “About as you’d expect. The poor woman is a mess.”

  We lapsed into silence. Sitting in close proximity, in the dark, got more uncomfortable as the moments ticked by. “Why did you leave Providence?” I kept my voice low, as he had done. I knew his father was a chief on the force there. His brother was high up too. They were a whole family of Rhode Island cops. Why leave?

  “I did join the Providence police when I was in the army reserves. I went to Afghanistan and came back. I felt like I didn’t fit in. In the police force or in the family. I needed to get away. The Maine State Police were hiring. Here I am.”

  “Didn’t fit in? You’ll have to do better than that.”

  He didn’t answer for so long, I thought he might not. But then he said, “My brother married my girlfriend while I was deployed.”

  I was surprised. Flynn of all people. The man of few words who had everything under control. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It gave me the kick in the rear I needed to leave town. I have so many relatives on the Providence PD, I was bound to be reporting to one or another my entire career. Besides, all’s well that ends well. Or at least I hope it is. I’ve asked Genevieve to marry me.”

  I inhaled sharply. In the dark I could feel him shift his body to face me.

  “She didn’t tell you?” he asked.

  “No. When was this?”

  “I planned to do it at dinner Friday night, but she got the call with the news about the murder. I think she suspected my proposal was coming, even before Friday.”

  I remembered how Genevieve had thrown her arms around me Thursday night on the Garbo, like I was a long lost friend. Or a life raft in a raging river.

  “I finally completed the proposal last night,” Flynn continued. “I was sure you figured out what was going on when Mr. Gordon said he already knew me.”

  I hadn’t even suspected. “I was preoccupied at the time. What did Genevieve say?”

  “She asked for time. I get it. She’s younger than me. She’s worked every day of her life since she was in high school. I’m ready to settle down, have a real life. I hope she is. I love her, Julia. I really do.”

  In the darkness, I flushed at the intimacy of his declaration. This was a new side to Flynn. “She’s fantastic. For what it’s worth, I think you’d be a great couple. Good luck.” I was touched that he’d confided in me about something that made him so vulnerable. We lapsed into silence again.

  “What about you?” His hushed voice startled me in the darkness, even though I knew he was there.

  “What?”

  “What about you and Chris? What’s going on there? I can never get a handle on you guys. Is it serious? Do you think you’ll marry him?”

  “I know you don’t like him,” I responded. “But in answer to your question, it is serious, and I don’t know if we’ll get married. It hasn’t come up.”

  “I wouldn’t say I don’t like—” Flynn stopped and tapped my upper arm. “They’re here.”

  * * *

  We stood in a semicircle around the safe. It had felt a little odd as we trooped through Geoffrey’s stateroom, or Bert Sand’s stateroom, really. Lieutenant Binder had led the way. No one had talked since we’d reached the main deck.

  Binder looked at each of us in turn. Me, Flynn, the real Geoffrey Bower, Seebold Frederickson, Jamie, and Officer Howland. “Mr. Bower, would you do the honors?”

  Geoffrey stepped forward. Even though I’d only met Bert Sand once, it was hard for me to accept Cliff Munroe in the role. How were the crew members coping? Flynn had told Wyatt about Geoffrey’s real identity with Genevieve and Maria Consuelo in the room. Word must be getting around to the rest of the crew. Everyone but Rick and Emil had known Sand as Bower.

  “We’ve already checked for fingerprints,” Lieutenant Binder said, nodding toward the safe. “Nothing useful.”

  Geoffrey pressed a long string of numbers on the keypad in a clickety, clickety, clickety rhythm. At last, there was a satisfying thunk. “It’s open.” Geoffrey stepped out of the way.

  Jamie, wearing gloves, swung the door open. A purple velvet box sat on a pile of manila envelopes on a shelf at eye level. He reached for the case and took it down. We crowded closer as he opened it.

  It was empty. The indentation of the big, black diamond showed on the velvet-covered platform inside, but there were no gems.

  Binder was the first to speak. “Well, that’s that.”

  Bower cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. I’d like to report a robbery.”

  Chapter 26

  Flynn and I left the Garbo ahead of the others. Lieutenant Binder made it clear he had more questions for Bower and Frederickson. He asked us all to keep the theft of the Black Widow to ourselves.

  Bert Sand’s impromptu wake had grown and moved. The entire crew, along with Wyatt and Quentin, were gathered around several tables pushed together in the bar at Blount’s. Wyatt was, as Flynn had said, a mess. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks by tears. But I understood why she wanted the company of the others. They’d all been deceived. Better to be with them, than sit alone in her room.

  Flynn pulled a chair next to Genevieve’s and held her hand. She gave him a wan smile that spoke of the emotional turmoil and tiredness of the past few days. I sat in an empty chair next to Rick.

  The evening’s conversation turned inevitably to the question of “Did you know?” Rick and Emil quickly admitted they did.

  “You have duped me twice, my friend,” Marius said to Emil. “You persuaded me to work on this yacht, and you kept from me the rea
l identity of the owner.” He spoke with a smile, but there was an angry edge to his voice.

  “I didn’t know, but I suspected something was off,” Genevieve said. “I asked him once if he liked the cuisine of the Greek isles and he said he’d never been there. I remember thinking, ‘that is so weird,’ because Rick had told me they’d sailed around Greece many times. But I put it down to misremembering or misspeaking because he was distracted.”

  Others chimed in with little slips Bert had made. Once it appeared he couldn’t read a financial document Doug had asked him to review. Another time he said something to Maria Consuelo about ‘his sister.’ All of them claimed they had paused at the time, but then forgotten about it. But that’s what humans did, wasn’t it? If we were introduced to someone as so-and-so, we took that at face value. We created rational explanations for small anomalies, even if there were several over time. It took a big blow-up to reset our beliefs, and then we picked over everything in the past, examining it through a new lens.

  “I was taken in completely,” Ian claimed loudly. “I never had an idea.”

  The group switched to telling humorous, affectionate stories about Bert, and the table broke down into several small conversations. Rick leaned toward me. “Where have you come from?”

  Binder had asked us not to tell anyone that the Black Widow was missing, so I told a partial truth. “Sergeant Flynn and I were with Mr. Frederickson and Mr. Bowers. The lieutenant is continuing his investigation.”

  Rick stiffened visibly, all the casualness of the prior question seeping away. “You and Genevieve’s boyfriend—you are continuing your investigation too?”

  Were we? With the revelations of the day, Genevieve and Wyatt were probably totally off the hook. And since the Black Widow was not in the safe, and since Geoffrey had not been Geoffrey after all, my theory about the reason for the poisoning and the theft also lay in a shambles. But I was unwilling to let it go, so I said, “Yes, we’re still involved. Informally, of course.”

  He rose quickly from his chair. “I must speak to you. In private.” He started toward the lobby. When I stood, Flynn shot me a curious glance across the table. I mouthed the word “Rick,” and followed him out.