by Stuart Woods
“I know a good story when I see one,” she said. “You can explain that to them in New York. I think the network might want a feed for the evening news, too. Check on that, will you?”
“Sure.”
Stone began to feel good about this. Now all Allison had to do was charm Chris Wheaton out of her socks, and that might not be easy.
Chapter
17
After dinner Stone said good night to the 60 Minutes people and walked back toward the marina. He had no sooner set foot on the dock when he found himself grabbed from both sides by two shadowy figures. He made a point of not struggling.
“Is one of you Thomas Hardy’s brother?” he asked the darkness.
“Both of us is,” a deep voice replied.
“My name is Stone Barrington; I live on the smaller of the two yachts over there. I’m the one who asked Thomas to find some security.” The pressure on his arms relaxed, but he was not let go.
“You got some ID, then?” the voice asked.
“Right-hand rear pocket,” he said. “My New York driver’s license.” He felt some fumbling, and a flashlight came on.
“Okay, then, Mr. Barrington, we’ll know you next time.”
“Gentlemen…” Stone began.
“Henry and Arliss,” the voice said.
“Henry and Arliss, I think our purposes would be better served if you stood over there under the lamp by the gate, instead of lurking in the dark. You can do the most good by being seen to be keeping people away from Mrs. Manning.”
“I see your point,” Henry replied. “You expecting anybody else? Anybody at all?”
“Not until early tomorrow morning, when some people, including a camera crew, will be coming down here. Please keep them at the gate until you’ve called me. Just rap on the hull; I’ll be awake.”
“Of which boat?” Henry asked.
Stone decided to pretend there was no meaning in the question. “The smaller one.”
“Good night, then, Mr. Barrington.”
“Good night, Henry, Arliss; see you in the morning.” Stone walked down to his boat and went aboard. The lights aboard the big yacht were out. He undressed and climbed gratefully into his berth, just in time to hear a dim scrambling in the cockpit. A moment later, Allison was crawling into bed with him; she was naked.
“I take it you met Henry and Arliss,” she said, snuggling up to him.
“I did, and I hope to God you didn’t meet them on the way across the pontoon.”
“Nope. They’re standing up by the gate now; I could see them.”
“Were you naked when you left your boat, or after you arrived on mine?”
“The whole time.”
Stone laughed in spite of himself. “Allison, while your craving for my body may be perfectly understandable—even admirable—you have to remember that there is now on the island a camera crew for the most popular television news program in the United States of America, and we don’t know yet how powerful their lenses are.”
“I’m glad you understand my craving,” she said.
“On Sunday night, your interview may be preceded by a shot of you, naked in the moonlight, climbing aboard your lawyer’s boat. That might not exactly get the American public behind you.”
She turned over and pushed her buttocks into his increasingly active crotch. “Why don’t you get behind me?” She reached between her legs, found him, and guided him in.
Stone pushed into her sweet depths. “Oh, God,” he breathed. “When this is over, remind me to talk to you about your interview tomorrow morning.”
“Shhh,” she whispered, helping him.
Stone jerked awake. Sunlight was streaming through the port above his head. He heard voices and footsteps on the dock. “Allison,” he said, shaking her, “wake up.”
“What is it, baby?” she asked, snuggling her warm body closer.
There was a sharp rap on the hull, and Henry Hardy’s booming voice called out, “Mr. Barrington, you up?”
“60 Minutes here,” he whispered.
Allison’s head came off the pillow. “What?”
He glanced out the port and saw legs standing next to the boat. “I’ll try to get rid of them,” he said. He got out of bed, tried to rub some color into his face, and brushed his hair back with his hands. He got into his swim trunks, which were lying on a seat next to the berth, went into the main cabin, climbed the ladder, and emerged, waist high, from the hatch. Jake Burrows and Chris Wheaton were standing on the dock next to the bow of his boat. “What time is it?” he asked. “Aren’t you a little early?”
“It’s seven-fifteen,” Burrows said. “We have to set up for our eight o’clock interview.”
Stone shook his head. “I haven’t finished breakfast yet, and I don’t know if Allison is even up.” Suddenly he felt a naked body slither between his legs and up the ladder behind him. “Why don’t you go back to the Shipwright’s Arms, have some breakfast, and come back at eight?” He heard Allison sneaking across the cockpit behind him, then the rattle of his boarding ladder, followed by a tiny splash. He stepped off his boat, crossed the pontoon, hopped into the cockpit of the larger yacht, and yelled down the hatch. “Allison, you up yet?” He pretended to listen for a moment, then looked up at the television crew. “She’s up, but nowhere near ready,” he said. “Come back at eight.”
The disappointed crew turned and began walking back toward the pub. As Stone stood in the cockpit, Allison climbed up the stern ladder into the cockpit and, soaking wet, slipped past him and down the companionway ladder.
“I don’t know if I can be ready by eight,” she said, laughing.
“You’d bloody well better be,” he muttered, refusing to look at her.
“If we hurry, we could get in a quickie before they come back,” she said, pulling the hair on his legs.
“Ouch! I’m getting back to my boat right now. You get yourself together.” He fled the yacht and went back to his own.
At eight o’clock sharp he emerged, dressed, to find the crew standing on the dock, waiting. “Just a minute,” he said, “I’ll see if she’s ready.
As he spoke, Allison climbed into her own cockpit, wearing a sleeveless cotton dress that showed off her tan, yet made her look like a high school senior. “Good morning!” she cried, delivering a dazzling smile. “I’m Allison; come aboard, all of you.”
As the crew climbed aboard, Stone took deep breaths and tried to get his pulse rate back down to normal.
Chapter
18
I must be crazy, Stone thought as the interview began. I’ve let this girl go on TV, before an audience of millions and at the mercy of a reporter on her first assignment who would kill for a success, which she might not define as I would, and with no preparation whatever. He watched from the pontoon as Chris Wheaton tossed Allison a few softball questions to relax her, then tensed as the real questioning began. Jim Forrester from The New Yorker had shown up and was sitting quietly beyond camera range, listening and taking notes.
“Allison,” Chris Wheaton said, sounding really interested, “when you and Paul left the Canary Islands and set sail for home, how much sailing experience had you, personally, had?”
“Well, I had sailed across the Atlantic and around Europe with Paul, but he had always done the sailing. The boat was rigged for singlehanding, so he took care of that, and I just kept house—or boat, I guess.”
“So how was it, after Paul’s death, that you managed to sail this very large yacht all the way across the Atlantic all by yourself?”
Allison launched into an explanation of how she had learned enough celestial navigation to find her latitude and how she had managed the sails by using only the main most of the time.
Wheaton seemed fascinated by her reply and satisfied with her answer. Forrester seemed almost to be taking a transcript of the proceedings. Wheaton continued with questions about the sailing of the boat, and Allison grew visibly more relaxed. Then Wheaton changed tack, and Stone
knew that the questions were not coming in the order in which they would appear in the edited version of the interview. Wheaton probed the depths of Allison’s marriage to Paul Manning, taking her over and over the same ground, looking for what might appear to be a motive for murder. To Stone’s surprise, Allison stood up to it beautifully, genuinely seeming to try to answer every question put to her, holding nothing back.
When a halt was called for the first change of tape, Wheaton turned to Stone. “You want a break?”
Stone looked at Allison and she shook her head imperceptibly. “No,” Stone replied. “Go ahead.”
Wheaton got the signal from her producer; she turned back to Allison. “Allison, how much life insurance did your husband have?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Allison replied. “Ashore, the division of our lives was pretty much the same as at sea. He handled the business, I handled the house. I never made an investment, bought a life insurance policy, or even wrote a check, unless it was for groceries or clothes. Paul had people who handled the business end of his career, and they’re sorting out the estate now, I guess, and when they tell me where I stand, then I’ll know. I’m told it will be some weeks before it’s all figured out. I do know from what Paul said in passing that although he owned an expensive house and boat, they both have large mortgages on them, so I don’t know yet what will be left when everything is settled.”
“Are you going to keep the big house in Greenwich and this beautiful yacht?”
Allison shrugged. “The house was always too big for even the two of us, since we didn’t have any kids, and I don’t know if I would want to live there alone; I just haven’t thought that far ahead. As far as the boat is concerned, what would I do with it? Anyway, the memories are too painful; I don’t think I could ever sail on her again without Paul.” She brushed away a tear.
Perfect, Stone thought.
There were two more changes of tape before the interview ended, but Allison kept going. Apart from an occasional sip of orange juice, she never paused. Finally, they were done, and the crew began to pack up their equipment. Allison chatted idly with Chris Wheaton and Jim Forrester, answering questions about her yacht.
“It’s nice to see you again, Jim,” Allison said. “Paul and I enjoyed your company in Las Palmas, and we were sorry not to know you were in Puerto Rico until we saw you as we were leaving port.”
“I was sorry, too, Allison,” the journalist replied. “Do you think we could get together later today or early tomorrow for a few minutes? I have some more things to ask you.”
“I’m sure we can,” she replied. “Let me talk to Stone about my schedule, and I’ll get back to you. Where are you staying?”
“At the Shipwright’s Arms.”
“Good. I’ll call you.”
Wheaton and Burrows thanked her for her time and, with Jim Forrester, left the boat. As they were walking up the pontoon, Chris Wheaton stopped and spoke quietly to Stone. “That was some performance,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I’m glad it went well,” Stone replied. “You should be able to get an awfully good segment out of that.”
“You bet I will,” Wheaton said, then she looked back at Allison, who was standing in the cockpit, looking out over the harbor, sipping her orange juice. “She’s really something,” she said. “You won’t have any trouble getting her off.”
“I wish I could believe that,” Stone said, “but from what I’ve seen so far, I think the odds are heavily against her. Sir Winston Sutherland wants her neck in a noose, for whatever reason, and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop him.”
Wheaton looked at him closely. “Jesus,” she said with wonder, “you really think she’s innocent, don’t you?”
Stone looked at her in amazement. “Of course I do; after all that questioning, don’t you?”
“Not for a minute,” Wheaton replied. “Listen, over the years I’ve interviewed a couple of hundred people who were either accused of murder or who had just been convicted or acquitted; I learned to tell the guilty from the innocent, and let me tell you, not more than ten of them were innocent.” She pointed her chin at Allison. “And she’s not one of them.”
“Show me one hole in her story,” Stone said.
“There isn’t one. But she’s guilty just the same. Call it a woman-to-woman thing, if you like, but I look in those beautiful blue eyes and I know.”
“Is that what you’re going to say on 60 Minutes?”
“Are you kidding? I’d be fired out of hand. No sir, I’m going to play it straight, let her answers speak for themselves, and ninety-nine percent of the audience is going to be outraged that this beautiful, innocent young woman could be charged with murder. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Certainly, that’s what I want.”
“Well, relax, because that’s what you’re going to get.” She paused and looked across the harbor at the boats. “Unless I can dig up something new between now and Sunday.” She turned and walked up the pontoon toward the pub. Then she stopped, turned, and walked back. “One more thing,” she said. “You seem like a nice guy, Stone, so let me give you some free advice: don’t fall in love with her; don’t even fuck her, if you haven’t already. Allison Manning is a dangerous woman.”
Stone was speechless. He watched her walk away.
Chapter
19
Stone was having lunch with Hilary Kramer from the New York Times at the Shipwright’s Arms when Thomas Hardy waved him to the bar, pointing at the phone. Stone excused himself, got up, and went to the bar.
“It’s somebody named Cantor,” Thomas said, handing Stone the telephone. “By the way, Chester called from the airport, too; says he’s loaded down with media folk all afternoon.”
“Right,” Stone said, taking the phone. “I’d like to have a press conference here Friday morning at ten, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
Stone spoke into the phone. “Bob?”
“Stone? Glad I caught you; I’m coming home tomorrow.”
“That was fast; were you able to cover any ground in such a short time?”
“You bet; I got into Las Palmas early, so I took a connecting flight to Puerto Rico and spent a couple of hours there, then came back to Las Palmas.”
“What have you learned?”
“Nothing in Puerto Rico, except they took on fuel and water and spent one night there; more in Las Palmas, though.”
“Tell me.”
“They were at the yacht club marina for four or five days, doing odd jobs on the boat and provisioning with fresh fruit and vegetables at the local market. Paul had a drink at the yacht club bar late every afternoon, once or twice with Allison, but apart from the shopping, she kept pretty much to the boat. Boats go in and out of that marina constantly, so I was only able to find one boat still there with people who remembered the Mannings. Apart from their boat, which was big and beautiful, they remembered only a couple of things about them: first, their rubber dinghy was stolen, and Manning apparently had trouble finding the replacement he wanted; finally he had it flown in from Barcelona. Second, the Mannings had a terrific fight late on the night before they left Las Palmas.”
“Tell me about the fight,” Stone said, lowering his voice and looking around to be sure no one overheard.
“A real knockdown, drag-out domestic dispute. Crockery was thrown, names were called, tears were shed, and the whole thing happened at top volume.”
“Did you get any direct quotes?”
“No, but it had something to do with sailing—with their route, or something.”
Odd, Stone thought, that Allison would argue with Paul about something to do with sailing the boat. “That’s all you could find out?”
“That’s it. Apparently the couple did all the usual things that the yachties do when they sail in and out of Las Palmas—repairs, food, and like that.”
“Funny, a guy showed up here, a journalist, who s
ays he had dinner with them their last night in Las Palmas. Any mention of a third party there during the fight?”
“Nope, no mention. I’m afraid that’s all there is here.”
“About the dinghy, what was so special about the one he had flown in from Barcelona?”
“I don’t know; apparently the guy was real picky about his stuff. There were other dinghies available here—Avons and Zodiacs, mostly, both good brands, one English and one French. He wanted something called a Parker Sportster, an American model, very expensive. It arrived on their last morning. Can you think of anything else I should be doing here?”
“No, I guess not; go on home.”
“Soon as I’m back I’ll finish up my research into Manning; there wasn’t time to do much before I left.”
“Do that, and get back to me soonest. It’s Thursday, and the trial is on Monday; I’ll need the info fast.”
“Right; I’ll be in touch.”
Stone hung up the phone just as Jim Forrester ordered a drink at the bar. “Just the man I wanted to see,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“You said you had dinner with the Mannings their last night in Las Palmas, right?”
“Right.”
“How late were you with them?”
“I don’t know, maybe eleven o’clock.”
“Did the Mannings have a fight when you were there?”
“No, not exactly; they did disagree about something, though.”
“What was that?”
“It was kind of crazy, when you consider that Allison apparently didn’t usually take much interest in the sailing of the boat. We were looking at their route on the chart, and she wanted to sail a direct course from Puerto Rico to Antigua. Paul pointed out to her that the trade winds blow some distance south of the Canaries, and if they wanted to take advantage of the trades, which everybody does who’s crossing in those latitudes, they’d be better off sailing south or southeast from Puerto Rico until they picked up the trades, then turning west with a good breeze at their backs. She couldn’t seem to grasp that, for some reason. We’d all had a good deal to drink, of course; maybe she was just spoiling for a fight. You know how married couples can be. Anyway, I was a little uncomfortable, so I said my good-byes and left. They were still arguing about it when I stepped ashore.”