Dropping his tinted clip-ons into his pocket, Britton said that the medical examiner had just left, and that the van would arrive shortly for the body. "Stamos fell from right up there, where you see the boxes. He was working late, moving some stuff out of his office."
There was a gap in the railing above them. The horizontal bar had come loose. Anthony remembered leaning on it to watch the activity on the floor. Stamos had warned him that the railing was rusty, and that he should stay back. Why had Stamos disregarded his own advice?
Holding his breath, he circled, taking a closer look at Ted Stamos's head and chest. There were no suspicious holes, no dents in his skull, no blood matted in his short brown hair.
"I didn't see anything, either," Britton said, "but the autopsy is this afternoon, and the M.E. will let me know/'
Anthony looked at him. "You aren't calling this an accident."
"I'm not calling it anything yet."
"Who was here-after hours besides Stamos?"
"Nobody in this building. Over at the office, Duncan Cresswell and his wife and their son were working late. Duncan left about six-thirty, Elizabeth around seven-fifteen, and the kid sometime in between. We don't know when Stamos went over. No idea."
"Have you interviewed them yet?"
"They have, a boat ride to go on. I said I'd be
in touch." v
Anthony stepped back from the body, but the smell was pervasive. "Did you mention to any of the Cresswells that Bobby Gonzalez had cash from Roger's wallet?"
"No, I didn't. You asked me as a favor not to. Remember that? You said to keep it quiet and you'd call me with information, and I ain't heard squat from you." Britton stood with his feet apart and his fists on his hips. "If you know something, I want to hear it."
Anthony let a shrug convey his regret. "I'll call you this week."
Britton was unhappy. "Far as I'm concerned, finding Roger Cresswell's wallet on Ted Stamos doesn't prove Stamos killed him. You still haven't explained where Bobby Gonzalez was between eleven and midnight, and you haven't told me how he got the cash. In fact, I want to know where he was on Friday night, when Stamos took a swan dive off the edge."
"I can't talk to you yet, Frank, but I will."
"Tomorrow."
Leaving Frank Britton to cover the body, Anthony turned and crossed the assembly floor. Gail was a slender silhouette at the end of the building, a long-legged woman in a narrow dress above her knees. Anthony ducked under the crime-scene tape and walked into the sunlight, pulling in a lungful of fresh air.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay? How was it?"
"Not too bad."
"I bet." She had worn pale blue today. Her skin was smooth and fresh, and the wind played with her hair. She pushed it behind one ear. "What did you say to Frank Britton?"
"As little as possible. Come on, let's sit in the car." As they walked, Anthony explained the broken railing to Gail and the unlikelihood that Ted Stamos had fallen through it on his own.
Her mouth opened, a smile of comprehension. "Someone pushed him. That's what you're saying. Ted Stamos didn't kill Roger on his own, he did it for somebody else. And this same person made sure the wallet was in Ted Stamos's pocket first so the police would blame him for Roger's death. Bobby's in the clear."
"No. Frank still wants to know why Bobby had cash from Roger's wallet. He says Bobby could have been working with Stamos. I don't think Frank believes that, but he wants information. I said I'd call him tomorrow. I hope we have a name by then. Otherwise, I don't have much to give him."
Anthony opened the passenger door for Gail, who stood waiting until he had the engine going and the air conditioning blowing cold. She got in and pulled the door closed with a solid thunk. "Do we reconsider Sean?"
"Possibly. He was here late on Friday night, and so were his parents. They all left separately at different times. Put on your seat belt, sweetheart."
"We're only going half a block."
"Yes, but it makes me worry."
"Would you please stop being so overprotective? And another thing. The only reason I didn't want to look at Ted Stamos's body was because I thought I might throw up. Funny smells make me sick. It wasn't because I was afraid to."
"Gail, please. No arguments. Put on your seat belt."
"Fine."
He heard a satisfying metallic click and leaned over to kiss her. "I don't want anything to happen to you." Her mouth was sweet, and it melted under the soft pressure of his lips.
She pulled back a little, smiling. "We have some bad habits to break, don't we?"
"No. Well, a few. Te quiero."
"I love you too. Let's go, or they'll leave without us."-
Chapter 27
Sorry for making a fuss over a seat belt, Gail breached out to put the back of her fingers on Anthony's cheek, a mute apology. He glanced at her, shook his head, then turned to put a quick kiss on her fingers.
Forgiven.
This would not be easy, reversing course. It would require throwing aside all the resentment and fear she had built up in two months. Everything was new again. New and frightening.
Two days had passed since they had been together. Gail had made excuses when he asked to see her for lunch. She had cut their phone conversations short. Please, Anthony. I need time. We both do. Time to think, to recover her balance. Gail had said little to her mother, and nothing at all to Karen. Not yet. She was too afraid that something would go wrong.
She had driven to his office today, leaving her car there, letting him drive. Still in the parking garage, nearly deserted on a Sunday, they had fallen into a kiss so thorough and deep it had set them afire. The engine had been going, and cool air blew through the vents. He had slid his hands under her dress. She had heard her own soft moans. Then the hum of the electric seat going back, rapid breathing, and the click of his belt buckle, coming undone. Anyone could have walked, by. No one did.
Gail wondered if there was a way to love rationally, not risking so much. How easy it had been with Dave. Easy to love, easy to walk away. Loving Anthony was to throw herself off the edge of a precipice.
She blinked, roused from these thoughts, when the car nosed up to a chain-link fence at the end of the street and the engine went off. A sign on the side of the one-story white concrete block building announced Cresswell Yachts, Inc. There were already several other cars in the parking spaces, and a security guard in the shade of a golf umbrella.
They got out and walked around the building.
This was not a marina but a working dock made of concrete and creosoted pilings. Two Cresswell boats were in slips, ready to be taken to customers, Gail assumed. The Lady Claire, with its gleaming white sides and curves of dark glass, waited at the dock. Gail guessed her length at nearly a hundred feet, with one open aft deck and a smaller one below it. A narrow walkway went from the stern to the pilothouse. The captain would navigate from there or from the open fly bridge on the top level. A line of portholes indicated staterooms below. Engines rumbled, and the smell of diesel exhaust hung in the air.
Anthony stopped walking and pointed out people Gail had heard of but had never seen. Duncan Cresswell was the heavyset man standing on the aft deck with a drink in his hand. His wife, Elizabeth, was the brunette in the green dress who had just come out of tiie salon. Chi the flybridge at the top of the boat, a dark haired young man sat with his sneakers propped on the helm. He tipped back a long-neck beer.
"Is that Sean?" Gail asked.
Anthony said that it was.
For a while they silently gazed at the boat and the people moving about, some on deck, others seen dimly as shadows through the dark glass of the salon and pilothouse.
Anthony again asked the question that most puzzled both of them. "If Sean took Roger's wallet, how did it get into Ted Stamos's pocket?"
Gail shook her head. "I can't think why Sean would give it to him. Unless Sean and Ted were friends, and Sean asked him for help."
"And then ki
lled him?"
"Well, what if Sean had the wallet in his room and his parents found it? They took it and planted it on Ted Stamos."
"They?"
"All right, one of them. Elizabeth or Duncan."
"Stamos fell facedown, so if the wallet was planted, it was done before, not after he fell."
"Or was pushed."
"Exactly."
"Liz did it," Gail said. "She and Ted Stamos were lovers. She used him to kill Roger, then framed him with the wallet."
"Possible, but it's too convenient. How could she make sure the wallet was in his pocket, then make him stand close enough to the railing so she could push him over? It makes more sense that someone knocked him out, planted the wallet, then lifted him over the railing, which broke under his weight. That isn't something a woman could easily do."
Gail followed Anthony's eyes to the upper deck, where Duncan Cresswell was in a conversation with another middle-aged man. They heard his booming laugh. He slapped the other man on the back. If not Liz, then Dub. The list had dwindled to two. Gail wondered if they had missed someone. All their assumptions could be wrong.
Anthony was giving her reasons to suspect Duncan Cresswell. "Roger knew that Dub was embezzling. That's a motive for murder. We know that Ted Stamos acted as a bodyguard when Dub took customers out to nightclubs. Let's assume that Dub paid Ted to get rid of Roger, and Ted's own hatred of Roger made it easy for him to accept. You remember what Bobby told us. Dub owns a .22 pistol. He could have let Ted use it. When Ted had done his job, he was more of a risk than an asset." Anthony looked at Gail. "What do you think?"
"Oh, let's just go ask him." Gail kept her voice low, although there was no chance anyone would hear them. The engines on the boat were rumbling steadily. "This is hopeless. What are we doing^ here? I feel like an intruder."
"No, no. We're friends of Claire's. She invited us." Anthony took Gail's hand. "We're simply going to observe. I'm counting on your intuition."
"Mine?"
"You are the one who guessed that Margaret Cresswell was Diane's mother, no? Come on."
A set of stairs had been placed at the open gate in the side of the boat. Beyond was a door, and Claire Cresswell appeared in it. "Hello! I was just in the salon and saw you through the window. Welcome."
Letting Gail go first, Anthony kept a firm grip on her arm. Claire waited on the narrow, teak-finished walkway. Gold buttons and loops of braid relieved the stark white of her linen jacket. The boat would be taking her son's ashes to sea, but Claire had requested that no one wear black.
When Gail and Anthony had both stepped aboard, she drew them closer. "Have you heard the news?" Her face was flushed with excitement. "They know who killed Roger—one of our own employees."
Before she could go on, Anthony told her that they had stopped by the boat yard on the way and Frank Britton had given them the details.
"I still can't believe it," Claire said. "Ted has been with us all his life! We knew his father, Henry, so well. How could he have murdered my son after all we did for him? You see? I told you it couldn't have been one of us. Nate's all right now, isn't he? And Bobby? They can put it all behind them. I wish I could. I just want to go do this and come back, get it over and done with." Claire leaned past them to look up and down the dock. "I think we have everyone now. I'll go and tell Porter. He's playing captain today, so hang onto your life vests. There's some food in the salon and plenty to drink. Look at the boat if you wish, then come and meet everyone."
Claire went through a polished teak door, which she left open for them. Cool air drifted through it.
Gail and Anthony remained behind for a while watching the departure. A man in a shirt with a Cresswell emblem stood at the bow to catch the rope tossed by another man on the dock. Someone else hauled in the lines from the stern. The engines throbbed, and the long bow of the boat swung away from the dock, propelled by a bow thruster. The Lady Claire glided smoothly into the river, which would carry them past the skyscrapers downtown and into Biscayne Bay. This part of the river was lined with freighters and marine-repair facilities. There was no beauty to this river. Trash, tattered sea grass, and rainbows of oil floated in the water. Rusting Haitian or Panamanian freighters were tied along the opposite side of the narrow river, and dark, bare-chested men worked on their decks.
A drawbridge went up as the Lady Claire approached. They had both worn cool, light clothing, but the wind was sticky and hot, and after a few more minutes of this, Gail suggested they go inside. Anthony held the door, then shut it behind them.
The interior was paneled and carpeted, and frosted glass sconces lit their way. The main salon was aft, the pilothouse forward. "Let's see what's down here," Anthony said. "Be careful on the stairs." They had to move aside for some people coming up, doing the same thing they were, exploring the Cresswells' yacht. On the lower level they went through the kitchen—the galley, Gail reminded Anthony. It sparkled with brushed steel and ceramic tile, and Gail groaned with envy. Farther aft they walked out onto a small deck with bench seats and a table affixed to the floor. The city went in reverse motion, unfolding backward as they passed out of the river and into the bay. The engines changed pitch, and the boat picked up speed. Fat, graying clouds were piling up overhead, and the humidity was too much to bear.
They went forward, discovering the master stateroom with its mahogany cabinetry and private bath tiled in marble. There were three smaller rooms, then the forward stairs that led to the pilothouse, finished in teak, with more dials, lights, and screens than Gail thought remotely necessary. She could see through the wraparound windows that they were already parallel with the southern tip of Key Biscayne. The bow dipped slightly, and spray shot up on either side. Gail steadied herself on Anthony's shoulder.
Porter Cresswell sat at the wheel in one of two high captain's chairs bolted to the deck. He wore white pants and a blue blazer with gold buttons. Cigarette smoke curled from an ashtray fastened to the helm.
Anthony introduced Gail, and Porter took her hand. His grip showed some strength, but his shoulders were curved, and his skin was cool and slack. Gail saw at once that he was ill. His color was wrong, and his belly was distended. This was the man who had banished his daughter to another state for getting pregnant. Gail could not put out of her mind what other damage he might have done.
She tugged out of his handshake. "I'm so sorry about the loss of your son."
"Thank you." His smile was slow, lifting one side of his mouth, exposing smoker-yellow teeth. A deep cleft divided his square chin. Hooded eyes lingered on Gail's face, then shifted to Anthony. "Claire says you heard about Stamos. That was a real shocker. I'm glad he's dead. Saves the state the trouble of putting him on trial."
Gail remembered what Roger's widow had said about her father-in-law. How he had hated his own son. How he had yelled at him, "I could kill you."
She asked, "Do you have any idea why Ted Stamos did it? Why he killed Roger?"
Anthony glanced at her.
Porter Cresswell's ropy hands turned the wheel a fraction. "Roger was trying to take over the company, and Ted wouldn't have it. That's what I think." He reached for his cigarette, tapped off the ashes, but didn't smoke it.
A few drops of rain slid across the glass. The horizon seemed to rise and fall, and Gail stood with her feet farther apart and held onto Anthony's arm.
He asked, "How far are we going?"
Porter glanced at the instruments. "We'll stop about ten miles south of Elliott Key. Roger liked fishing down that way. He won a trophy when he was thirteen, a ninety-two-pound swordfish. I thought he'd like to go back there."
Gail exchanged a look with Anthony, who made an almost imperceptible shrug. It had been a strange remark, but it didn't mean Porter was crazy.
Porter glanced around when two men in their early thirties maneuvered through—Roger's friends, Gail thought. He nodded and smiled, accepting their condolences on his son and their compliments on his boat. Of the son and the boat, she h
ad no doubt which he valued more highly.
The boat shifted, and Gail reached out for the back of the other chair, aware that more than the ocean had unsettled her.
Porter laughed at the expression on her face. "Don't worry, honey. This boat could ride out a hurricane. The pastor will say a few words, we'll give Roger back to his maker, and then we'll head home. You don't get seasick, do you?" He laughed again. "Miami girl like you? Tell Claire I said to get you some Dramamine."
Gail forced herself to smile. "Thanks."
"Porter!" Duncan Cresswell came through the door from the salon. He stopped dead, looking at Anthony. His eyes seemed too small for his heavy face. "What are you doing here, Quintana?"
"He's here because Claire invited him, and he's brought his lovely lady friend along," Porter said.
Turning his back on them, Dub Cresswell stood beside Porter's chair. "Have you looked behind us? It's raining like hell, and it's coming this way."
"I've got radar. Of course I know. We'll run right out from under it."
"So you say. Let's stop here and get it done with. You can't scatter ashes in a storm."
"It's not going to storm."
"We ought to stop here, Porter."
"Who's running this goddamn ship? You or me? I'll tell you when we're stopping."
Fury reddened his brother's cheeks. He stepped back, fists clenching. With a quick heated glance at Gail and Anthony, he left the pilothouse.
Porter lifted his cigarette from the ashtray, rolling it between his fingers. He saw Gail watching him and smiled at her. "Claire won't let me smoke anymore either. Can't smoke, can't drink. I can still appreciate a pretty woman. If this guy can't do it for you, come see me." He laughed. "Quintana, can't you take a joke?"
Anthony's hand clamped onto Gail's elbow, and he turned her toward the door on the port side. He closed it firmly behind them, and they walked aft to a point beyond view of the pilothouse windows.
Suspicion of Malice Page 33