Huckleberry Finished

by Livia J. Washburn

  Williams gawked at him for a second, then said, “We…we can’t go anywhere. The police—”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Vince interrupted. “Just do what I told you.”

  “But the mooring lines—”

  “I’ve already cast off.” A faint smile appeared on Vince’s face. “That’s what I was doing, or I would have been up here sooner after I saw Rafferty manhandling Ms. Dickinson up the stairs.” Vince paused, then gave Rafferty a vicious kick to the ribs. I heard at least one of them crack under the impact. Rafferty groaned from the pain and stirred slightly but didn’t regain consciousness.

  “Young man—” Williams said.

  Vince took a step toward him, thrusting the gun out so that the barrel stabbed almost between the captain’s eyes. “Do it!” he ordered. “Get the engines started!”

  Williams didn’t have any color in his face anymore. He jerked his head in a nod and reached for the old-fashioned speaking tube that connected the pilothouse to the engine room. “We’ll be leaving shortly,” he said. “Prepare the engines. Get up steam.”

  As a matter of fact, I could already feel the boat moving a little more than usual, confirming that Vince had cast off the thick mooring ropes that held the Southern Belle to the dock. The Mississippi’s inexorable current was tugging at it, but here along the shore it wasn’t strong enough to sweep the boat out into the river. The engines would have to do that.

  Vince glanced at me and said, “I hope I didn’t hurt you, Ms. Dickinson. I couldn’t have you running around the boat telling everybody what’s going on, though. There’s not much time left.”

  “Time for what?” I asked. I had the glimmering of an idea, but that was all.

  “Until the anniversary,” he said, and that was enough to make the remaining pieces of the puzzle slide together in my head and form a picture.

  “You knew Hannah in St. Louis, didn’t you?” I said. “You were dating her before she got involved with Gallister.”

  “We were more than dating,” he snapped. “We were going to be married. Then she met that bastard Gallister, and his smarmy charm and all his money swept her away. If it hadn’t been for him, we’d be a family by now, Hannah and the baby and me.”

  “But Gallister got her the job on this riverboat, and then she forgot all about you, didn’t she?” I wanted to keep him talking, both to understand fully what was going on here and to delay him from proceeding with whatever his plans were.

  “That’s right,” he admitted. “Gallister and this boat ruined everything.” He smiled again. “So I’m glad that Gallister is aboard. That was a stroke of luck. It saves me from having to settle with him later. I can take care of everything at once.”

  “What about Hannah’s parents?” I asked. “They’re on board, too, you know. You can’t have anything against them.”

  His expression hardened. “They’re to blame, too. Her father told her to move out if she wanted to. If she hadn’t, she never would have wound up on this boat, one year ago tonight.”

  “But if she hadn’t moved out, you never would have met her in St. Louis,” I pointed out. “You should be thankful for that.”

  He gave a little shake of his head, not like he was disagreeing with me but rather as if he was trying to make sense of everything. Then he scowled and said, “It doesn’t make any difference. They were part of it. They have to pay like everybody else.”

  The hatred he had been nursing ever since Hannah’s death was too strong for him to let go of it, no matter what I said. He’d been in love, and he’d lost her, and everyone else was to blame, not him. I suddenly found myself wondering just how real the so-called love affair between him and Hannah really had been. Had they actually talked about marriage, or was that all in Vince Mallory’s head? Was he really the father of Hannah’s baby?

  I didn’t know, but all that could be sorted out later—if there was a later. I had a bad feeling about Vince’s plans.

  A quiver went through the floor under my feet. It came from the engines being fired up, I figured. A second later the speaking tube squawked, confirming that. Vince gestured toward it with the gun and told Williams, “Ask them how long until they have full power.”

  Williams did as he was told, and whoever was down in the engine room reported that they’d have full steam in ten or fifteen minutes. I realized there was a clock mounted on the wall of the pilothouse. It was just past eight o’clock.

  Mark’s performance as Mark Twain would be getting under way in the salon.

  Vince nodded. “That’s good,” he told the captain. “Eight thirty-seven is the time.”

  “Wh-what time?” Williams asked.

  “The time of vengeance,” Vince said.

  “The time Hannah died,” I said.

  Vince glanced at me again. “One year ago, to the minute. Everyone for miles around will know that she’s been avenged.”

  Oh, Lordy, Lordy, I thought. That sounded really bad. It takes a mighty big noise for folks to be able to hear it for miles around.

  Like an explosion so powerful that it would blow an entire riverboat into little-bitty pieces of kindling.

  “You weren’t an MP at all, were you?” I guessed. “You were in demolitions. You and your buddy Ben, or whatever his name really was.”

  His voice was sharp as he asked, “What did he tell you?”

  “Don’t worry, he didn’t betray you. He didn’t tell me anything about what you were planning to do.”

  “It was only a matter of time,” Vince said bitterly. “He was getting cold feet. He said that all the people on board didn’t deserve to die, that they hadn’t had anything to do with what had happened to Hannah. He didn’t understand that this was the only way I could be sure of punishing the ones who were really to blame.”

  “He did it!” Williams cried in a voice ragged with panic. He pointed at the unconscious man on the floor. “Rafferty killed that girl! I had nothing to do with it!”

  Vince looked down at Rafferty, and for a second I thought he was going to empty the gun into him. But then Vince shook his head and said, “It’s too late to stop things now. Everybody has to pay. Gallister, Hannah’s folks, this boat itself. This damn riverboat…”

  “And when Ben didn’t want to go along with that, you killed him,” I said. “That was your cabin he went to yesterday, but it wasn’t an accident or a ruse to get away from me. He wanted to talk to you, to tell you that he was backing out of the deal you’d made with him.”

  That was what I had realized earlier. I had never considered the possibility that there might be a connection between Webster and Vince. It had seemed to be pure chance that I had made Vince’s acquaintance, and I had accepted it as that. Circumstances and his natural likeability—or his carefully calculated pose of natural likeability—had blinded me to what was really going on.

  “Todd and I swore over there that we’d back each other up once we got home, just like we did in Iraq,” Vince said, his voice trembling with anger. “It was all lies. When it came time to seek vengeance for Hannah, he went along at first, but then he tried to double-cross me. He came to my cabin and said that there had been some trouble, said that the head of security for the boat would be keeping an eye on him and we ought to just call off the plan. When I told him we couldn’t do that, he panicked. I knew I couldn’t trust him.”

  “So you killed him,” I said. “Broke his neck.”

  “I convinced him to go below decks with me,” Vince said with a shrug. “I told him I wanted his opinion on where I’d decided to plant the bomb—”

  “Bomb!” Captain Williams said. I was surprised he hadn’t tumbled to what was going on before now.

  Vince ignored him and went on, “Of course, that’s not really where I planted it. There’s a better place. But I knew the security cameras don’t cover that little hall by the engine room, and I was able to take him down there by a route that doesn’t show up much on the cameras. Anywhere there was a chance the cameras might catch
us, I made sure our faces were averted.”

  “You must have studied the layout of this boat before you ever came aboard,” I said.

  “Actually, I did, but I’ve also been aboard eight times in the past year, taking the cruise under various names and using disguises. Preparation is the key to a successful mission. The army taught me that, too.”

  “Along with how to blow up stuff real good,” I muttered.

  “Yeah,” Vince said with a laugh. “That, too.”

  The engine room called then on the speaking tube, reporting that full steam was up. Vince nodded to Captain Williams. “Take us out into the river,” he ordered. “Cruise south.”

  “Detective Travis must have left officers on the dock,” Williams said. “They’ll stop us.”

  “No, they won’t,” Vince replied with a shake of his head. “I knocked both of them out before I cast off. I showed them my badge, and I was close enough to take them out before they knew what was going on.”

  “Badge?” Williams croaked.

  “You’re not really an investigator for the attorney general, are you?” I asked. “That was another lie.”

  “It comes in handy sometimes,” he said with a shrug. “Like when you’re trying to get the blueprints of a riverboat to study.”

  “Why’d you follow Mark and me into the casino earlier today?”

  “I saw the two of you sneaking around and wanted to know what you were up to. I eavesdropped on you long enough to figure out that the roulette wheel is rigged before I let you know I was there. That was interesting. I thought maybe it had something to do with what happened to Hannah.”

  “It had everything to do with her murder,” I said. “She found out about the rigged games—”

  “And Rafferty killed her,” Williams said again. “I tell you, I had nothing to do with it, and no one else on this boat is to blame.”

  “Gallister is,” Vince said. “Her parents are. You are, too. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” He gestured with the gun. “Take us out into the river,” he said in a flat voice.

  Williams swallowed hard and gave the order through the speaking tube, just like in the old days. “Back one-quarter.”

  Another shiver went through the deck. I felt the slow, ponderous power of the engines as the paddlewheels began to revolve and push the boat away from the dock. The engine room crew wouldn’t know what was going on, but they probably figured that we’d been cleared to leave Hannibal. They had their orders; that was all that would matter to them.

  Williams spun the wheel as the Southern Belle left the dock behind and moved out into the flow of the river. He gave the order to stop engines. From the window of the pilothouse I saw water sluicing from the paddlewheels as they slowed to a halt. Then Williams ordered, “Ahead three-quarters.” The wheels began to turn the other way, biting into the water, propelling us southward in conjunction with the current. Below, people began to come out on deck, no doubt wondering what was going on and why we were cruising downriver in the dark like this.

  “Are you really a reader of Mark Twain, Vince?” I asked. I knew that Vince Mallory probably wasn’t his real name; no doubt it was another of his phony identities. But I didn’t know what else to call him.

  “I love Twain’s work,” he said. “Always have. How can you not, growing up in this part of the country?”

  “Then you know from readin’ Life on the Mississippi that it’s dangerous for a boat to be out on the river at night. We’re liable to hit a hidden snag.”

  He glanced at the clock on the wall, which now read eight-twenty. “In seventeen more minutes, it won’t matter,” he said.

  “No,” Williams said suddenly. “No, I won’t let you do it.”

  “It’s too late now. Hannah will be avenged.”

  The lights of Hannibal were falling behind us. From the corner of my eye I saw flashing red and blue lights approaching the waterfront. Maybe one of the cops Vince had knocked out had come to and called for help. Maybe they had figured out some other way that something was going on. It didn’t matter. They were too late to stop the Southern Belle from heading downstream.

  “Get back,” Vince said, lifting the gun as Williams took a step toward him.

  “This is my boat,” the captain declared. “I don’t care who owns it. It’s my boat, and I won’t see it harmed.”

  “Get back, blast it!”

  Williams ignored the warning. He leaped at Vince and reached for the gun.

  The shot was deafeningly loud in the relatively close confines of the pilothouse. I didn’t see smoke or flame gush from the barrel. There was just the roar of the shot, and then Williams was falling back against the wheel with blood welling from the hole in his chest and staining his uniform jacket. He flung out one hand and grabbed a spoke in an attempt to catch himself, and that caused the wheel to spin as Williams fell to the floor.

  The riverboat began to turn.

  At the same time I realized that Rafferty had pulled the same trick as I had earlier. He had been playing possum, pretending to be unconscious as he listened to what the rest of us were saying. Now he twisted around and kicked out at Vince’s legs, catching him on the side of a knee. Vince cried out in pain and fell. Rafferty went after him, trying to get his hands around Vince’s neck.

  Vince slashed at him with the gun, raking it across Rafferty’s face. Crimson spurted from a cut on Rafferty’s forehead opened up by the gun’s sight. Vince hit him again, breaking his nose this time. Rafferty groaned and sagged back. Vince crashed the gun down in his face twice more. I thought I heard bone splintering. Vince’s face twisted in lines of insane hatred.

  I didn’t see any more. I lunged for the doorway, my injured hip slowing me down a little.

  But I made it out the door despite that and started down the stairs toward the third deck. I had taken only a couple of steps when a familiar voice called, “Delilah!”

  I looked down and saw Mark Twain at the bottom of the stairs, white suit, bushy mustache and all. But I thought I either had lost my mind or was seeing things, because there were four Mark Twains in all, scattered along the deck near the bottom of the stairs, peering up at me. I stopped, blinked, shook my head.

  Then Vince flung the door to the pilothouse open behind me, stepped out, and started shooting. I saw one of the Mark Twains go down.

  “Mark!” I cried, but I wasn’t talking about the writer. I had recognized Mark Lansing’s voice when he called my name, and for all I knew, he was the Twain who was hit.

  Furious, I turned and threw myself at Vince’s legs, driving my body into them as hard as I could. The collision upended him and made him fall over me with a startled cry. He hit the stairs and continued bouncing down them toward the third deck. I couldn’t tell if he still had the gun or if the fall had caused him to drop it.

  The closest Mark Twain charged up the stairs and landed on Vince before Vince hit the bottom. He crashed a fist into Vince’s face—once, twice, three times—as hard and fast as he could, then leaped over Vince’s senseless form and hurried on up the stairs to me. I felt his hands on my arms. They pulled me up, and Mark Lansing said, “Delilah! Delilah, are you okay?”

  So he wasn’t the Twain who’d been shot. I took a second to be grateful for that, then gasped, “What time is it?”

  “What?” Mark asked, clearly startled that I’d be wondering about such a thing right now.

  “What time is it?” I repeated.

  Mark let go of me with one hand and used it to pull an old-fashioned turnip pocket watch out of the watch pocket of his vest. “This is a prop, but it keeps good time,” he said. “I’ve got eight thirty. Why?”

  “Because in seven minutes,” I told him, “a bomb is gonna blow this riverboat to kingdom come.”

  CHAPTER 26

  There’s nothing like the word bomb to make folks go nuts. Usually with good cause, of course. The other Mark Twains heard it, including the wounded one, who was on his feet again and obviously not hurt too bad, and they
took off, yelling at the top of their lungs.

  Mark’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “A bomb?” he repeated. “Are you sure?”

  I nodded. “It’s too long a story to go into right now, but I’m sure.” Something Vince had said earlier popped up in my mind. “And I think I know where it is. You’ve seen the police reports. Where was Hannah killed?”

  Mark frowned. “As far as the cops could determine, she was struck on the head and then thrown into the paddlewheel from the third deck.”

  I believed it. Rafferty was big enough and strong enough to throw an unconscious young woman that far, so that she’d clear the lower decks and fall into the paddlewheel.

  That jibed with what I’d thought. I said, “Come on,” and pushed past Mark to start down the steps.

  He followed close behind me, steadying me with a hand on my arm. “Delilah, we’ve got to get off this boat.”

  “There’s no time,” I told him. “We couldn’t swim far enough away to be safe. And there’s no way everybody could get off in time.” We stepped over Vince, who was still sprawled near the bottom of the stairs, out cold. I glanced upriver toward Hannibal and saw flashing lights coming toward us. A police boat, I figured. But it wouldn’t get there in time, either.

  “What are you going to do?” Mark asked. “Disarm the damn bomb?”

  He had me there. I didn’t know anything about disarming bombs.

  “I don’t reckon you know how to do that?” I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “Well, come on,” I said. “Maybe we can get the blasted thing off the boat.”

  I went at a run toward the observation deck. Vince had been sitting there when I’d found him earlier in the day, and he’d had a backpack with him, I recalled. And this was the place where Hannah had been killed. What more appropriate spot than that to plant his instrument of vengeance for her?

  I started jerking open the doors of the storage areas underneath the benches. Mark got the idea and started helping. After only a couple of seconds, he recoiled like he’d found a snake and said, “Son of a—! Delilah, over here.”