by Stuart Woods
She shook her head vigorously. “I’m not going to hang around this godforsaken island for days or weeks. I want to get home, get Paul’s estate settled, and get on with my life.”
“That’s certainly understandable,” Stone said. “Alternatively, you can allow the inquest to resume on time and present the best case you can in the circumstances and take a chance on the outcome.”
“What’s your recommendation?”
“I think it’s always a mistake to rush the legal process unless you’re in a very strong position, and I’m not at all sure you are.”
“If I go back to the hearing, will you represent me?”
“Yes, if the coroner will allow it. I’m not licensed to practice in St. Marks, but an inquest is less formal than a trial, and he might do it. But there’s Sir Winston to consider, too.”
“You asked me if I knew who he was. I don’t.”
“He’s the minister of justice of this island country, and I’m told he aspires to be the next prime minister. If that’s true, and if he sees some political advantage in pursuing this, he could be dangerous to your interests.”
“I see,” she said. She leaned against a galley counter and looked down at her feet, silent. Finally she spoke again. “I want to get this over with and get out of here. I can’t believe he could possibly convince a jury that Paul’s death was anything other than natural. After all, there were no witnesses; they’d have to take my word, wouldn’t they?”
“No, they wouldn’t, not if Sir Winston can present convincing evidence to the contrary. Your husband’s diary, for instance.”
She waved a hand. “I can explain that; it’s no problem.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Stone said. “Did the police remove anything else from the yacht besides the logbook and the diary?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” she said.
“All right. First, let’s talk about the diary, then let’s see what else we can dig up that will react to your benefit.” He glanced at his watch. “We have forty-five minutes to build our case.”
Stone looked at his watch again. Five minutes to go, and she was in the head. “Better hurry,” he called out.
“Won’t be a minute,” her muffled voice called back.
Stone took the opportunity to look around the interior of the yacht. It was gorgeous. The maker was Nautor of Finland, and the boat was a Swan, widely held to be the best production yacht in the world, and very close to being custom-built. She had obviously been built with little regard to cost; every piece of equipment aboard was the best that money could buy—the electronics, the sails, even the galley equipment. He reckoned the boat had cost between a million and a half and two million dollars.
She popped out of the head, her makeup redone, her long, blond hair combed. “Okay, let’s go,” she said.
Stone picked up the documents she had given him and followed her up the main companionway ladder.
Five minutes later, they were back in the Markstown meeting hall, and Sir Winston Sutherland was resuming his questioning of Allison Manning.
Chapter
5
Sir Winston rose to his full height and addressed Allison Manning. This time he was not bothering with charm. “Mrs. Manning,” he said, “was your husband a wealthy man?”
“We’re well off, I suppose,” she replied, looking a bit nonplused. “Paul never really discussed money with me; he took care of that. I mean, on the boat, he tied the knots and spliced the wire and fixed the engine and navigated, and I did what I did at home—I kept house. I’m not a business executive or an entrepreneur or a stockbroker or a lady lawyer or a yachtswoman. I’m a housewife, and that was all I ever did. Paul made the money and invested it and, except for my clothes and the things in the house, he spent it; I hardly gave it a thought. We have a nice house, we drove nice cars, but the only really extravagant thing Paul ever bought was the boat, and I don’t even know what it cost.”
“I see,” Sir Winston said, as if he didn’t see at all. “You never give money a thought.”
“I think I see what you’re getting at,” she said. “You’re implying that I hit my husband over the head or stabbed him with a kitchen knife and dumped him overboard so I could have his money, right? Well, do you have any idea how big Paul was? He was as big as you!” She seemed to reconsider. “Well, almost as big.”
The jury tittered at this. Allison Manning was becoming very assertive now, and it worried Stone a little. He had instructed her not to argue with Sir Winston, not to lose her temper again.
“Well, Mrs. Manning,” Sir Winston continued, seeming to regroup, “let me ask you this: what were your husband’s toilet arrangements on the yacht?”
She looked at him as if he were a raving lunatic. “What?”
Sir Winston looked flustered for a moment. “Let me rephrase, please. When your husband was on deck, and he felt the need to relieve himself, how did he do it?”
“In the usual way,” she replied.
The jury began laughing, but a sharp look from the coroner subdued them.
“I mean, Mrs. Manning, did he go below and use the toilet, or like most men on a boat, did he just pass his water into the sea?”
“He stood on the stern of the boat, held onto the backstay with one hand, unzipped his fly with the other, and peed overboard.”
“Ah,” said Sir Winston, as if he had caught her in some monumental admission. “This large husband of yours made himself vulnerable for just a moment when he urinated. A small shove, even by a small woman, was all it would take, eh?”
She fixed him with a hard stare. “That speculation, Sir whatever-your-name-is, is not worthy of a reply.”
Stone sensed his moment; he rose and addressed the coroner. “Pardon me, Your Honor,” he said. “My name is Stone Barrington; I am an American attorney, and Mrs. Manning has asked me to represent her in these proceedings. I wonder if I might put a few questions to her?”
Sir Winston spun and looked at him. “Are you licensed to practice in St. Marks or in Britain?” he demanded.
“No, I am not,” Stone said evenly, “but if these proceedings are so informal as to allow the minister of justice to question a witness at an inquest, then perhaps Mrs. Manning might be questioned by someone of her own choosing.”
“Well…” the coroner began.
“Are you a barrister? A trial lawyer?”
“I wasn’t aware that this was a trial,” Stone replied.
The coroner asserted himself. “I will permit Mr. Barrington to put questions to Mrs. Manning, if he believes he can shed some light on this matter.”
“I believe I can, Your Honor,” Stone said. He hadn’t the faintest idea how to address a coroner in a former British colony, but “Your Honor” seemed to do the trick. He picked up a manila folder, stepped forward, and addressed his new client. “Mrs. Manning, how did your husband earn his living?”
“He was a writer; he wrote spy and mystery novels, mostly; he had quite a following.”
“And when your husband was preparing to write a book, was it his practice to make notes?”
“Yes, he made very extensive notes, sometimes writing almost the whole book in telegraphic form.”
Stone picked up the leather-bound book from Sir Winston’s table. “In a form like the contents of this diary?” he asked.
“Exactly like that. Paul bought that blank-paged book in Las Palmas specifically for the purpose of outlining a new novel. He mentioned it to me over dinner, and he wrote in it often. He liked to save his notes in a bound form, because the university he attended had asked to be the repository for his personal and professional papers.”
“And why, when Sir Winston read you the passages from this outline, did you not mention your husband’s usual practice?”
“He didn’t give me a chance,” she said, casting a withering look at Sir Winston.
“I see,” Stone continued. “Mrs. Manning, what was your husband’s state of health shortly before his dea
th?”
“Well, Paul had never been seriously ill, but he wasn’t in very good shape.”
“How do you know this?”
“We both had thorough physical examinations before we set out across the Atlantic.”
Stone removed a sheet of paper from the manila folder in his hand and presented it to her. “Is this a copy of your husband’s examination results?”
She looked at the paper, then handed it back. “Yes, it is.”
Stone looked at the jury and the coroner. “Please follow as I read from the doctor’s report.” He held up the paper and began to read. “‘Paul Manning is a forty-two-year-old author who has come in for a physical examination prior to an extensive sea voyage. Mr. Manning has no complaints, but he is desirous of being examined and taking a copy of his medical records on his journey.
“’Mr. Manning is six feet, two inches tall and weighs two hundred and sixty-one pounds, rather too much for a man of his frame. The results of blood tests show a serum cholesterol count of 325 and serum triglycerides are 410. These are both dangerously elevated, the high end of normal being 220 for cholesterol and 150 for triglycerides. Because of these numbers, in conjunction with Mr. Manning’s lack of regular exercise and a history of heart disease in his family, I have advised Mr. Manning to immediately undertake a program of exercise, a diet low in cholesterol and other fats, and to bring his weight down to a maximum of two hundred pounds.’”
Stone handed the coroner the page and turned to his client. “Mrs. Manning, did your husband take his doctor’s advice and go on such a diet?”
“For about a week,” she replied. “Paul was incapable of dieting for longer than that.”
“Right,” Stone said and addressed himself to the coroner and the jury. “Paul Manning was grossly overweight and had been clogging his coronary arteries with cholesterol for many years. He was, in short, a heart attack waiting to happen, and happen it did, in exactly the way Mrs. Manning has described. You have heard how she coped with this disaster at sea, and I put it to you that she could not have invented such a story. It is simply too heartrending not to be true. This brave woman has lost her husband under extraordinary circumstances and then mustered the fortitude to save their yacht and her own life. You cannot believe otherwise. Thank you for your time, Your Honor, gentlemen.” Stone sat down.
The coroner turned to Sir Winston. “Do you have any further questions?”
“None,” Sir Winston replied almost inaudibly, looking at his knees.
“Gentlemen,” the coroner said to the jury, “do any of you have a question?”
The jury was mute.
“Then I will ask you to retire and consider your verdict.”
Stone and Allison Manning sat at the bar of the Shipwright’s Arms, as Thomas Hardy’s restaurant and inn was called, and sipped piña coladas.
“I can’t thank you enough,” she said. “I’ll give you my address in Connecticut, and you can send me your bill.”
“For practicing law in a foreign country without a license?” Stone asked. “I’d be disbarred.”
“What do you think the verdict will be?”
“You can never tell about a jury, even a coroner’s jury, but I believe we answered every point Sir Winston made. I’m optimistic.”
“So am I; you did a brilliant job.”
“You’re too kind. What are your plans now?”
“I suppose I’ll go home and settle Paul’s affairs. He had a lawyer and an accountant; I’m sure they’ll help me. We both made wills before we left on the transatlantic—simple ones, each leaving everything to the other.”
“What will you do with the yacht?”
“Sell it, I suppose; I’ve spent all the time on that boat I ever want to.”
“I’d buy it myself—I’ve always admired Swans—but I think I’m a few years away from being able to afford one. My advice is to get it ferried back to the States—Fort Lauderdale, maybe—where there’s a brisk market in expensive yachts.”
Thomas tapped lightly on the bar and nodded in the direction of the meeting hall.
Stone turned and saw the coroner approaching, an envelope in his hand. They had not yet been out of the meeting hall for half an hour.
Chapter
6
The coroner handed the envelope to Allison Manning. “Here is your husband’s death certificate,” he said. “Please accept my condolences.”
“Thank you,” Allison replied.
He turned toward Stone. “For what it’s worth, I thought you did a very good job.” He turned and walked away.
Allison handed the envelope to Stone. “You open it,” she said.
Stone tore open the envelope and read the certificate.
“Well,” Allison asked, “what was the verdict?”
“It’s an open verdict,” Stone said. “The jury felt it had insufficient information to assign a cause of death.”
“And what does that mean to me, legally?”
“In my opinion,” Stone said, “it means you should get the hell out of St. Marks right now.”
“Do you mean you think Sir Winston might still come after me?”
“It’s certainly possible,” Stone replied.
“If you’ll forgive me for butting in,” Thomas Hardy said, “I think it’s more than just possible.”
“Thomas used to be a New York City policeman,” Stone said, “and he knows how things work here. Thomas, do you have any idea what the airline schedule is?”
Thomas looked at his watch. “There’s a daily flight out of Antigua for San Juan in an hour and a half, and you’ll have to get Chester to fly her to Antigua.”
“Who’s Chester?” Allison asked.
“He flies a Cessna twin to Antigua, by arrangement,” Thomas replied. “Would you like me to call him and the airlines?”
“Please,” Stone said.
They sipped their drinks nervously while Thomas did his telephoning.
“You’re on the flight from Antigua,” Thomas said, hanging up. “Now let me see if I can raise Chester.” He dialed another number. “Chester? You got room for one lady to Antigua, right smart? Good. She’ll be along.” He hung up. “You’d better get going,” he said to Allison.
“I’ll go get my things,” she said, hopping off the barstool.
“Forget your things,” Stone said. “I’m sure Sir Winston had the verdict before we did. If he wants you, the police could be here any minute.”
Thomas put some car keys on the bar. “A cab could take a while to come; my car is out back.”
“I’ve got to get my passport,” Allison said. “And a few other things.”
“Run,” Stone said. “Don’t take a second longer than absolutely necessary. I’ll get the car.”
She jogged off toward the marina.
“Thanks, Thomas,” Stone said.
“You take the main road and turn right after about two miles,” Thomas said. “There’s a sign. Chester’s airplane is white with blue stripes.”
Stone ran to the rear of the restaurant, found the car, a new Toyota Camry, got it started, and drove around front. He looked toward the marina but saw nothing of Allison. “Jesus H. Christ!” he muttered, getting out of the car. He was halfway across the lawn when he saw Allison hurrying across toward him, carrying a duffel and a man’s briefcase. Stone opened the door. “Let’s go!”
Allison dived in and slammed the door. “I’m not accustomed to running from the law,” she said.
“Don’t say things like that,” Stone replied, driving off. “As far as we know, the law has no interest in you. You’ve accomplished all the legal necessities in St. Marks, and you’re leaving for home like any other tourist.”
“Just in more of a hurry,” Allison said. “Do you think they might come after me at home?”
“I think that if you were arrested, then ran, they probably would go for extradition, but since no charge has been made, well, there are no guarantees, but I think it’s unlikely they�
��d come after you. If they do, my advice is to get the best lawyer you can and fight it tooth and nail. Would you like me to recommend a lawyer?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’m of counsel to a firm in New York called Woodman and Weld.”
“I’ve heard of it; very prestigious.”
“Call Bill Eggers there. The firm probably has someone who specializes in this sort of thing, and if they don’t, Bill can recommend the best man in town. If this happens, it’s going to cost; how are you fixed for money?”
“I won’t know that for sure until I’ve talked with Paul’s lawyer and accountant, but I think I’ll be all right. I can always sell the boat.”
Stone turned right onto the airport road. “As soon as you get home, find a yacht broker and have him fly a ferry crew down here at the earliest possible moment to get the boat out of here.”
“All right.” She dug into her handbag and came up with a card. “Here’s my number in Greenwich; will you call me when you get back? I’ll buy you dinner.”
“That might be tough to explain to the lady I live with,” Stone said, “but I would like to know how things work out. I’ll call you.”
“So why isn’t this lady with you?”
“She got snowed in. Oh, I hadn’t thought of it, but the airports might still be closed up there. When you get to San Juan, check with the airlines. It might be best to spend a night there and wait for the weather in the Northeast to clear up.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that.” She smiled at him. “Sure you don’t want to come with me?”
“It’s a lovely thought, but I’ve got a yacht charter here, and I hope Arrington will be here soon.”
“My bad luck,” she said.
God, Stone thought, you’re supposed to be the grieving widow! He drove through the airport gates and toward a large hangar. The Cessna was parked in front of it, and the pilot who had flown him to St. Marks from Antigua was waiting. “There’s Chester,” Stone said.
“Thank God,” she said.
Stone pulled up next to the plane, took her duffel and her briefcase, and stowed them in the baggage compartment. He walked back to the wing and held open the door for her. “You’re on your way,” he said.