Death in a Wine Dark Sea

by Lisa King

  Jean dashed back to the stern, leaned over the railing, and searched the turbid water for a sign of Martin. Hurried footsteps approached and several guests joined her.

  “Can anybody see him?” Jean asked.

  “It’s too dark and it’s raining too hard,” Frank said next to her.

  Jean caught a whiff of Je Reviens and looked around. Diane stood behind her, unsteady in her yellow satin heels. She leaned on Peter’s arm, a stricken look on her face. “What happened?” she demanded.

  “I heard him fall off the stern and saw him in the water,” Jean said. “I threw him a life preserver but I don’t know if he got to it.”

  The engines died abruptly and Captain Loach joined them. “When did he go in?” he demanded.

  “Less than a minute ago.” Jean replied.

  Loach nodded grimly. “I’m going to bring her around. I’ll need you gentlemen to stay on deck and try to reestablish visual contact.” He turned to the crewman with him. “Kelly, break out the foul weather gear.”

  The group—Frank, Peter, Hugh Rivenbark, a few men Jean didn’t know—followed Kelly to the equipment locker.

  Diane took the captain’s hand. “You have to find him,” she pleaded. “He’s not a strong swimmer.”

  “We’ll do everything we can, Mrs. Wingo,” Loach said in a soothing voice. “I hit the man-overboard button and notified the Coast Guard, so every boat in the area will be looking for him. Now go back inside. We’ll find him for you.” He met Jean’s eyes over Diane’s head, and Jean took her friend’s arm and led her in out of the rain.

  Most of the women were still inside. Jean didn’t think it was a sexist thing—they all wore skimpy evening dresses and stupid shoes. People gathered around Diane, attempting to calm and reassure her, and Jean explained what had happened.

  She needed to catch her breath and think. She left Diane in the care of several friends and moved toward an empty chair across the salon. The musicians, three middle-aged men in dark blue tuxedos, had switched to unobtrusive jazz. The servers sat in a group near the cake, unsure of what to do. One of them jumped up as Jean approached, but she waved him away.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Go ahead, have some bubbly. I think the party’s over.”

  Jean sank into the chair, realizing that she was damp and quite cold. The more she thought about it, the more she was certain Martin hadn’t fallen. He was an experienced sailor who never drank much, and in the water he hadn’t looked like a man having a heart attack. Someone must have pushed him seconds before she got to the aft deck. If she’d looked around the corner at the starboard deck, she would have seen who it was. Surveying the guests, all Martin’s good friends, she tried to imagine one of them pushing him into the bay on his wedding night.

  Zeppo approached her, holding a snifter of amber liquid. “Hey, gorgeous. I thought you might need a drink.”

  Cognac was exactly what she wanted. She took the glass gratefully, thanking him. Zeppo did have nice broad shoulders, and big hands and feet were always an encouraging sign, but Jean usually found him obnoxious.

  He sat down next to her. “I’m impressed that you threw Martin a life preserver. I bet your first impulse was to let him drown.”

  “I’m not that much of a bitch. I’d even throw one to you.” Jean took a warming sip of Cognac. “Why aren’t you out there looking for him?”

  He pointed to his thick wire-rimmed glasses. “Can’t see very far without these, and they’re not much good in the pouring rain.”

  Jean peered through the big window near her. Out on the bay, raindrops pocked the inky water. “They’ll never find him in this weather. It’s the proverbial wine dark sea.”

  “Yeah, but Athena sent those dudes a favorable gale,” Zeppo said.

  She looked at him in surprise. Had he actually read Homer? “What do you suppose the water temperature is?”

  Zeppo thought for a moment. “Fifty degrees?”

  “So that means he’s only got an hour, hour and a half before hypothermia knocks him unconscious.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I read it in a mystery.”

  “Who do you think pushed him?” Zeppo said.

  “That’s just what I’ve been wondering,” she said, surprised again. “But who on this boat would want to kill him?”

  “Besides you, you mean?” Zeppo grinned, his braces making him appear even younger than his twenty-three years.

  Jean couldn’t tell whether he was callous or was covering up stronger feelings. “Doesn’t this bother you just a little? The man is your mentor. You owe him everything you have.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll be sorry as hell if he’s really dead.” He shrugged. “But to me, he’s been dead since the heart attack. I mean, when you lose your edge, they might as well bury you.”

  Jean raised an eyebrow. Every time she thought he might be tolerable, he’d say something that convinced her otherwise. “I suppose you want to grow up to be just like the old Martin.”

  “Nah, not just like him,” he said smugly. “Better, because I don’t have his fatal weakness—women.”

  “Oh come on, Zeppo. With all the money he paid you, surely even you can get a date.”

  “Of course I can get dates. But there are a lot more important things in life than getting laid.”

  “I don’t think very many men your age would agree.”

  “Maybe I just haven’t slept with the right girl.” He leered at her. “I’d love to give you a chance to change my mind.”

  “Gee, thanks but no thanks, Zeppo. I don’t do charity work.” Jean finished her drink, stood, and walked toward Diane. “You really shouldn’t leer until you get your braces off,” she told him over her shoulder.

  Zeppo chuckled; he never seemed to take offense, no matter what she said to him. She made her way through the uneasy crowd. Diane, sitting on a built-in loveseat, clutched a glass of red wine so tightly that her knuckles were white. Peter hovered nearby, worried and solicitous. Jean hooked a finger at him and he came over. He said nothing, just put his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

  “You know what I’ve been thinking?” she whispered. “That somebody pushed him.”

  He nodded slowly. “You may be right.”

  “Peter, did you see anyone on the starboard deck when you were looking for Martin?”

  “No—there was no one on deck so I went down to look in the galley.”

  As the search continued, guests took turns watching for Martin and drifted over a few at a time to say words of comfort to Diane. Jean watched her friend as they stroked her hair, hugged her, told her stories about people who’d survived for hours in icy waters, of miraculous escapes from certain death by drowning. Hugh Rivenbark, solid and reassuring, kept Diane’s glass filled. He was in his early sixties, looking every inch the famous author with his unruly white hair, full beard, and leonine head. Frank, his face deeply creased with worry, sat with Diane for a long time, doing his best to give her hope. “He’s fooled us before,” he told her. “He’s a survivor.”

  Frank went back on deck while Jean sat next to Diane, realizing that Martin’s hour and a half in the water had ticked away. Diane laid her head on Jean’s shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I can be brave,” she whispered. “I feel like screaming.”

  “Go ahead and scream. I’d say you’re entitled.”

  “I’ll scream after everyone’s gone.” Diane stood up, her eyes tearing, arms crossed over her chest, her hands gripping her bare shoulders. “How could this happen? How could he fall? Think how cold and alone he must feel, and how frightened.”

  Jean thought that if Martin were still alive he was more likely pissed as hell at whoever had pushed him.

  “Oh Jean, what if he drowns?” For the first time, Diane started to cry.

  “They’ll find him,” Jean said with conviction, but she didn’t believe it. “He’s a survivor, remember?”

  The Walrus had maintained a search pattern for nearly t
hree hours when several guests pressured Captain Loach into heading for port, leaving the search to the better-equipped Coast Guard and Harbor Patrol vessels. Diane protested, but finally agreed that her guests should be allowed to disembark.

  At the yacht club, the grim-faced group bid goodbye to Diane and trudged up the dock in their finery to waiting cars and limos. The caterers hauled boxes and bags off the yacht and loaded their truck, and the musicians piled into a blue minivan.

  A stunned group—Jean, Peter, Frank, and Zeppo—stayed with Diane in the salon. Someone on the galley staff had made a pot of coffee, and everyone but Diane had a cup. She paced the room, anxious and distraught.

  Frank shook his head. “What the hell could have happened? One minute he was here, then he went outside, and then Jean heard him fall in.”

  “What do you think happened?” Diane said, a note of hysteria in her voice. “He slipped and fell. He’ll drown if they don’t find him!”

  “That’s probably right, he fell,” Peter said soothingly. “We know he didn’t jump.”

  Diane stopped pacing and looked at Peter. “You think he was pushed, don’t you?” She sat down. “Of course, how stupid of me. He would never fall. Pushed. Oh God, this just gets worse and worse.” She started to cry again.

  Around midnight, Captain Loach came into the salon looking bleak. “Mrs. Wingo, I’m sorry, but there’s still no sign of him. They can’t use the helicopters until the weather improves. I’m afraid I had to notify the police.”

  A short while later, two plainclothes inspectors and a uniformed officer came aboard. Captain Loach spoke to them on deck. Jean edged over to the nearest porthole so she could eavesdrop.

  The older, heavier inspector was scolding Loach. “Why’d you let them go home before you called us?”

  “These are important people,” Loach said defensively. “Nobody’s going to leave town.”

  The inspector snorted with irritation. “Well, it’s done now. Who’s left?”

  “His wife and a few friends. But there’s one other thing. A crewman found Mr. Wingo’s boutonnière on the aft deck under a bench. I have it in my office.”

  “Baker,” Hallock said to the uniformed man. “Go bag it.” Hallock moved closer to the porthole and glared in at Jean. “You getting this OK?”

  “Sorry,” she said, moving back into the salon.

  Loach brought the two inspectors into the salon and introduced George Hallock and Oscar Davila. Hallock was a balding man of about fifty-five, stocky and florid, wearing a lumpy brown suit. “We’re very sorry we have to question you at a time like this,” he said. “Now then. I understand from Captain Loach that you embarked at five P.M. from this slip, cruised for twenty minutes or so to the area under the Golden Gate Bridge, where you circled during the wedding ceremony and reception. Around seven thirty Mr. Wingo noticed it was raining and ordered the ship back to port. What happened after that?”

  Jean told her story again as Davila took notes. He was a slim Latino in his mid-thirties with thick, wavy black hair. His light gray suit was stylishly cut. When Jean finished, he looked up. “Do you all agree that it’s unlikely he fell?”

  “If I might jump in here,” Captain Loach said. “We’ve cruised as far as Hawaii, even gone through the canal to the Caribbean. Mr. Wingo’s comfortable on a boat. There’s no way he’d fall overboard by accident in this weather.”

  “He does have a heart condition,” Peter said.

  “But he has his medication in his pocket,” Diane said. “And he knows the symptoms. He’d call for help.”

  “Then there’s the waist-high rail,” Zeppo added. “Martin wasn’t very tall. It’d take a good strong shove to get him over it. Someone would really have to want him dead.” Diane visibly recoiled at his words as if she’d been slapped.

  “Watch your mouth,” Jean snapped. “And stop talking about him in the past tense.”

  “Sorry, Diane,” Zeppo said. “I’m rooting for him, too, you know.”

  Officer Baker entered the salon, and handed Hallock an evidence bag containing a small bunch of yellow rosebuds tied with ribbon—Martin’s boutonnière.

  Davila flipped through his notes. “There’s not much more we can do tonight except wait. Captain Loach gave us the guest list, and we’ll be talking to everyone on it.”

  Hallock glanced at the printed list. Jean saw his eyebrows go up as he realized he’d be bothering two judges and three supervisors on a Sunday. He put the list away and took several business cards out of his pocket. “I’ll be on call till morning,” he said, handing them around. “Give me a call if something comes up.” Jean took a card, noticing that Hallock smelled strongly of tobacco smoke.

  The two men stood. “Let’s hope Mr. Wingo himself can tell us what happened,” Davila said. “Mrs. Wingo, we’ll call you if we hear anything at all.” He had the kind of dark good looks Jean liked, and she saw humor and compassion in his soft brown eyes, qualities definitely lacking in Hallock. She glanced at Davila’s hands. A wide gold band circled his left ring finger. Oh well.

  CHAPTER 4

  Just after two A.M., Jean persuaded Diane to go home. She wrapped her friend in a pale yellow cashmere shawl, and the five of them walked along the dock through a cold drizzle to their cars.

  Diane shivered as Jean helped her into the back seat of Peter’s Saab. In the next parking space, Zeppo unlocked the door of the 1964 Jaguar XKE coupe that Martin had driven before buying his new Porsche. Jean had been astonished to learn that Martin gave the car to Zeppo as part of his severance package, in addition to stock options and a nice cash settlement.

  “Goodnight, Jeannie,” Zeppo said, getting into the sleek black car. “Take care of the bride, OK?” Jean heard a trace of New England in his vowels—she’d noticed that before.

  “I’ll do my best,” she said. “We’ll call you when they find him.”

  “Call my cell. I won’t be home.”

  “Where are you going? You’re a witness, after all. Maybe even a suspect.”

  He chuckled nervously. “Not me. After Martin went outside, I talked to that architect guy until you came in yelling. Anyway, I’ve got to get out of town. This kind of thing bums me out.”

  “What do you mean, this kind of thing? Does this happen to you often?”

  “Often enough,” he muttered. He broke into his usual sarcastic grin. “See ya, gorgeous.” He shut the car door and zoomed out of the lot.

  Jean got in beside her friend, who collapsed against her. “Let’s take you home, honey,” Jean said. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”

  As they drove across town in light traffic, Diane leaned listlessly against Jean. “The water is so cold,” she said faintly. “You can’t live long in water that cold.” She clutched Jean’s hand. “They say drowning is an easy way to die.”

  “He’s not going to drown. He’s going to come home to you.”

  Peter drove to St. Francis Wood, pricy even by San Francisco standards. They passed through the Beaux Arts gate and along curving residential streets, beneath huge cypress and eucalyptus trees, past the white stone upper fountain. The neighborhood was quiet, most of the mansions dark. Diane’s was an elegant, two-story Italianate house built in the thirties.

  “That’s funny,” Peter said as he turned into the driveway. “The lights are on in the back of the house. Is anyone supposed to be here?”

  Diane sat up. “No. No one.”

  “Stay here,” Peter said. “We’ll check it out.”

  Peter and Frank got out of the car and strode along the stone path that curved around the right side of the house.

  “One of the neighbors was burgled last month,” Diane said, twisting her hands together. “Maybe it’s a robbery.”

  Before Jean could reply, a dark figure burst from the shrubbery on the left side of the house and ran across the lawn, past the car and down the deserted street. Jean, furious, scooted out of the car and gave chase.

  “Jean, don’t!” Diane pleaded.
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br />   Jean’s slick-soled shoes slowed her down on the wet pavement and her tight skirt constricted her legs. She hiked it up, which didn’t help much. She heard a ripping sound and felt the skirt loosen—she’d torn a seam.

  Her quarry was a big man in bulky black clothes, moving fast. As he ran under a streetlight, Jean saw that he wore a black watch cap pulled low and black gloves.

  As the man disappeared around a corner, heading for Portola, Peter ran up beside Jean and grabbed her arm, pulling her to a stop. She didn’t resist—the burglar was long gone. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “Chasing him.”

  “Were you planning to tackle him?”

  “Oh, don’t fuss,” Jean said. “I didn’t catch him, did I?”

  “A good thing, too. Frank’s calling the police.”

  “Was he inside?”

  “Yeah,” Peter said. “He tossed a couple of rooms on the ground floor.”

  “Jesus Christ. Diane doesn’t need this. Did either of you see his face?”

  “No. He ran out before we got to the back door. You?”

  “He was too far away.”

  Peter looked her over. “You’ve torn your skirt.”

  “I can fix it.”

  They hurried toward the open front door. Inside, in the living room, Frank sat on a sofa close to Diane, his arm around her shoulders. She stared straight ahead as if in shock. Through the door to the study Jean could see upended furniture, spilled books, and scattered papers. She plopped down next to Diane.

  “He’s gone, honey,” Jean said.

  “The police should have responded,” Frank said. “Are you sure you set the alarm, Diane?”

  “I . . . I thought Martin did. But maybe he forgot. We . . . it was pretty hectic when we left for the wedding.” She started to cry again. Frank pulled her close and rocked her gently.

  “Look,” Jean said, “we can deal with the police. Let’s put you to bed.”

  Diane didn’t resist as Jean led her upstairs to her yellow and white bedroom, took off her rain-spattered dress and lacy wedding-night lingerie, and put a flannel nightgown on her.