Doggone

by Herkert, Gabriella

  The Oath was near the end of the pier. I did a quick scan of the deck. No signs of activity. I walked down the dock, crossed the short walkway, and jumped onto the deck.

  ‘‘What did you find?’’

  ‘‘Eeyugh,’’ I squeaked, slapping a hand over my mouth. ‘‘You ought to wear a bell or something.’’ I patted my chest. Connor’s eyes followed the movement.

  ‘‘Forget flirting. I’m mad. If you’re done with this particular felony, I suggest we get out of here.’’

  ‘‘You made good time.’’

  ‘‘I broke the land speed record.’’

  ‘‘I thought you were unavailable.’’

  He glared. ‘‘Blue covered me.’’

  ‘‘Are you in trouble?’’

  ‘‘Not yet. Let’s get out of here before that changes.’’

  ‘‘I haven’t finished looking yet.’’ And I hadn’t found Siobhan.

  ‘‘Yes, you have.’’

  Maybe I had beaten her down. More likely Ryan got it wrong. I was going to brain him the next time I saw him. Then again, since I was already here . . . ‘‘No, I haven’t. This thing’s got all these little cupboards everywhere. All built-in. It’s amazing, really. I bet he’s got more storage space than I have in my whole apartment. ’’

  ‘‘As interesting as this is, we do not want to get caught. Not here. The locals take American lawbreakers pretty seriously. They’d throw even your cute butt in jail.’’

  ‘‘Didn’t you say we were going sailing? Here we are.’’

  ‘‘The plan was for you to wait for me and for us to do this without causing an international incident. That plan has gone to hell. Now we’re going to get out of this without making it worse.’’

  I bent down to reach a lower drawer. ‘‘I was trying to save time. I know about the Mexican jails. I’ve seen Tequila Sunrise.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘It’s a movie. Mel Gibson gets sent to a Mexican prison for a really long time for smoking pot on the beach.’’ I closed the drawer and moved to another.

  Connor took my left arm and hoisted me over his shoulders.

  ‘‘Hey.’’

  He moved toward the door.

  ‘‘Hey. Stop it.’’

  He kept moving. I went stiff at the stairs, spreading my arms and legs so I wouldn’t fit through the little opening. He reached up and grabbed my arm with his free hand and tried to force my arms together. I swung my arms and kept my legs wide.

  ‘‘Babu,’’ I shouted. ‘‘Knock it off.’’

  ‘‘Stop fighting, Sara.’’ Turning sideways, he tried to maneuver me through the door. ‘‘It’s not the U.S., you know. There’d be real consequences if the cops caught you.’’

  ‘‘Which is exactly why I asked the police before I boarded. We talked to them at the station and a very nice officer made a call.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘They told the dockmaster to let me on board.’’

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘What do you mean, ‘why’?’’ I punched his shoulder and he set me on my feet. ‘‘I can be very persuasive.’’ I poked him and went back to rummaging.

  I’d lied through my teeth to the cops of course, but I wanted them around in case Jack went ballistic. Or Siobhan got crazy. Since neither one of them was on the boat, I supposed getting the police involved might have been a little over-the-top on my part.

  ‘‘They just let you on?’’ Connor asked.

  ‘‘ ‘Con mi favor, señorita.’ ’’

  ‘‘ ‘With my favor?’ ’’

  ‘‘My Spanish isn’t very good. I think that’s what the guy said when he told the other guy to let me look around.’’

  ‘‘You are full of surprises, Mrs. McNamara. Which is señora, for the record. Find anything?’’ Connor asked.

  ‘‘No. He’s got tons of charts and papers, but none of it seems important.’’

  I thought about John Doe. As long as neither marital discord nor arrest was imminent, we should look around for anything that might indicate he’d been on board. Blood. A body. Medical records stating, Today I, Jackson Reed, quack psychiatrist, renamed my patient Charles Smiths John Doe. I glanced at Connor. He was already going through the drawers. Great minds . . .

  ‘‘You look topside?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘No. All the storage stuff is down here.’’

  ‘‘Keep an eye out for anything that looks like a log-book. ’’

  I snapped my fingers. ‘‘Safe.’’

  ‘‘For now, yeah. Get the lead out.’’

  ‘‘No, I meant, does he have a safe?’’

  Connor straightened. ‘‘Right. Why quit a winner?’’

  He moved to the middle of the room and started a slow spin. His eyes went from ceiling to floor, then moved on to the next section of cabinetry. I watched him. It was like his radar was on fine-tune. Searching. For what? If it was obvious, I’d have found it. Or at least I hoped I would.

  ‘‘Sonar,’’ he said.

  ‘‘That’s weird. I was just thinking it was like you had—’’

  ‘‘No. I meant the sonar is wrong.’’ Connor climbed the stairs. I followed him up on deck. He walked to midships and stepped into the enclosed area housing the high-tech equipment.

  ‘‘It looks okay to me.’’

  Connor shook his head. He pulled a pocketknife out of his uniform and twisted the screws off the casing. He lifted it and stepped back for me to see. The guy did prefer cash.

  ‘‘How could you possibly know that?’’

  ‘‘I glanced around on my way in. The jib is frayed but the sonar is new.’’

  ‘‘Maybe he’s just got the sails for show? Maybe he only needs the mechanical stuff.’’

  ‘‘In which case he’d have a new engine, GPS, something like that. Sonar on a boat like this is for finding fish. Maybe diving.’’

  ‘‘So?’’

  ‘‘Did Jack strike you as the get-out-and-do type?’’

  I thought about that for a millisecond. ‘‘No. That’s a McNamara trait. And he’s just an in-law.’’

  Connor smiled at me.

  I reached into the hole and pulled out the money. Underneath were two file folders, one thick, one thin. I took them and Connor set the fake sonar housing down.

  I started with the thicker folder. It was marked, SMITHS, CHARLES, and included a picture. The picture was new and did Gretchen’s philanthropist proud. Mental instability didn’t necessarily show from the outside. Pages in reverse chronological order. Faded near the back, the copies marked with dark streaks near the upper left corner. They went back to the late seventies. Must have been stripped for just the meat or it would come with volume numbers. Diagnosis was Capgras syndrome, just like Jack’s hypothetical case. Maybe John had mimicked it. Man, I’d bought hook, line, and sinker. I kept flipping papers. Enough medications to fill a pharmacy. Most with fifteen letters and no vowels. Page after page after page.

  I handed the file to Connor and opened the other. John Doe. Real name Edward Abernathy. He looked so young in the picture. Maybe late teens. Three years of crammed penmanship. Medications, diagnosis. Sociopathy. Three dozen pages of background, including references to increasing violence. A sister drowned, ruled accidental. A neighbor shot, ruled accidental but resulting in the first court-ordered psychiatric visit. Bomb threats to the local school. Arson at a nearby church. More doctors. Age twelve. Juvenile detention. Involuntary commitment. Age fifteen. Poor John. He hadn’t seemed like that. Crazy, sure, but not crazy-crazy. Just . . . lost.

  ‘‘Jack’s not a very good doctor,’’ I said.

  Connor looked up from his reading. ‘‘This surprises you?’’

  ‘‘Well, no, not really, I guess. It’s just that he got John wrong.’’

  ‘‘You’re not a doctor but you play one on TV?’’ he quipped.

  I stared. ‘‘That was a joke.’’

  ‘‘I know.’’

  ‘‘You don�
��t tell jokes.’’

  ‘‘I’m in a good mood.’’

  I eyed him. ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘We’ve got him.’’

  ‘‘What do you mean?’’

  ‘‘Look.’’ he pointed to a line in the Smiths file. ‘‘Jack’s notes say that Charles Smiths was in the hospital up until two weeks ago. There’s a notation about charging the SDCF for in-patient treatment.’’

  ‘‘So?’’ Light dawned. I looked back at the file and returned to the first page, running my hand down the notes. ‘‘He couldn’t be. Charles Smiths was in Seattle. Not in San Diego. You were right all along. Jack is committing fraud. SDCF must be the billing agency or something, but it doesn’t matter. Jack charged Charles Smiths for in-patient treatment that couldn’t possibly have happened unless Banquet Guy has mastered the art of being in two places at once.’’

  ‘‘Exactly.’’ Connor reached for the file. ‘‘Let’s go.’’

  ‘‘No, Connor, wait.’’ I reread the passage. ‘‘We’ve got more than that. I knew it. I knew I was right.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  Flipping the file, I held it up to him. ‘‘Two-thirds of the way down the page. Hospital admission last January.’’

  I turned the file around and flipped pages until I found it, flashing it at him in triumph.

  ‘‘ ‘Acute canine dander reaction,’ ’’ he read aloud. ‘‘Anaphylactic shock due to exposure. Epinephrine administered. Emergency room visit.’’ His head lifted. We stared at each other. Connor reached out and took the file from my hand, setting it next to his on the console, both open to the inside flap.

  ‘‘Maybe it’s just the miracle of modern medicine, but what are the chances Edward Abernathy was cured from his allergy to dogs?’’

  Connor turned a couple of pages. ‘‘No allergy meds on the list.’’

  ‘‘It’s a miracle.’’

  ‘‘Why would Jack have both files? Why would he be hiding them here?’’ Connor pulled the photos from underneath the paper clips holding them. He crossed his hands and slid the photos into the opposite folders.

  I helped him push them under the clips. A young boy’s picture from the seventies with the decades of medical jargon and history of violence. The crisp color print matching the laser print of the thinner file.

  ‘‘He switched them,’’ Connor said.

  Chapter Forty-one

  ‘‘Find anything?’’

  I jumped. ‘‘Maybe we ought to get bells for the whole team.’’

  Blue smiled. ‘‘Hi, Sara.’’

  ‘‘Hello, Blue. So glad you could join us.’’

  ‘‘Wouldn’t miss it. Find anything interesting?’’

  ‘‘You’ll never guess,’’ I said. ‘‘John Doe is the real Charles Smiths. Jack switched them.’’

  Connor took my arm and helped me jump to the dock. He landed behind me; then Blue touched down. They were like cats.

  ‘‘Why?’’ Blue asked, leading us down the dock toward the marina.

  ‘‘Why what?’’

  ‘‘Why did Jack switch Smiths?’’

  I stopped. Connor reached back and took my hand, towing me along.

  ‘‘I don’t know. Our best guess is still that John ran away and Jack couldn’t afford to have John out there as Charles Smiths.’’

  ‘‘Why? Who’d believe him? I mean, he’s crazy, right? Whether he’s Smiths or Doe or somebody else, he’s nuts. He could say the sky was blue and no one would buy it.’’

  ‘‘You’re right. No one would believe John Doe alias Charles Smiths. But someone might believe Henry DeVries.’’

  The lunatic who’d driven me to the dock was still parked at the end. He stood outside his cab smoking a cigarette and smiling. Probably waiting for the return fare. Given how much I’d paid him to get me here, I couldn’t blame him.

  ‘‘Conducirnos al paso de frontera, por favor,’’ Blue said, sounding like a native.

  ‘‘Sí, señores, señora,’’ the little man said, grinning and bowing.

  ‘‘Please tell me you didn’t just ask him to throw me in the bay?’’

  Blue held open the door for me. ‘‘Not you. Rock. You’’—he kissed my cheek—‘‘are a genius.’’

  Connor got in beside me, and Blue took the passenger seat. The few miles to the border went a lot slower on the return trip. Blue chatted with the driver. I couldn’t understand a word.

  ‘‘Abu?’’ Connor asked.

  I giggled. ‘‘Well, it was part ‘baboon’ and part ‘hey you.’ ’’ I took his hand, winking. ‘‘Somehow in the translation you became the monkey in Aladdin.’’

  ‘‘A monkey, huh?’’

  ‘‘Hey, don’t knock it. He was cute.’’

  ‘‘Cute. Great.’’ He nodded toward Blue. Connor checked his cell phone. ‘‘No service. We’ve got to get to the cops. Tell them what we know.’’

  ‘‘Oh, my God.’’ I slapped my hand to my forehead. ‘‘I totally forgot.’’

  ‘‘Forgot what?’’

  ‘‘Why I raced down here.’’

  ‘‘It wasn’t to make me crazy?’’ Connor asked.

  ‘‘Ryan told me Siobhan was on her way to Jack’s boat. To confront him. But she wasn’t on the boat.’’

  Connor checked his phone again. He slapped it against his leg and gritted his teeth. We waited in silence, Connor checking his phone every five seconds. When we hit a spot with cell service, he speed dialed.

  ‘‘Sib? Where are you?’’

  I wondered if he realized he was snapping at her.

  ‘‘No. Nothing. I just wanted to know if you were okay.’’

  He gave me an ‘‘okay’’ sign. I started breathing again. ‘‘We’re on our way back now. Why don’t you meet us at the condo and we’ll catch dinner? Okay. Bye.’’

  ‘‘I take it she’s not beating Jack with a stick,’’ I said.

  ‘‘That’s too bad,’’ Blue said without turning around.

  ‘‘Not right now. You must have gotten it wrong. Or Ryan did.’’

  I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘‘So, making you crazy was the only part I got right.’’

  He laughed.

  I held out my hand. ‘‘Can I borrow your phone?’’

  He handed it over.

  ‘‘I’ve got to call the office,’’ I told him.

  ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘I solved the case. I found Charles Smiths.’’ I linked hands with Connor. Find the guy. That’s what my boss had demanded. That was what the bigwig client, the bank, wanted. They’d all been fooled. I found the guy, all right. And I saw what they hadn’t seen. I was definitely getting better at this job.

  ‘‘You figured out that John Doe was Smiths. And you did find him. But in case you forgot, we lost him again. After we talk to the cops, we’ll go looking.’’

  ‘‘We don’t have to. He’ll find us.’’

  ‘‘Maybe. Once he knows Jack’s behind bars and it’s safe to come out.’’

  ‘‘He wasn’t worried about Jack. He’s so confused he . . .’’ I trailed off. Something was nagging just out of reach.

  ‘‘He what?’’

  ‘‘He’ll find us.’’

  ‘‘What makes you think so?’’

  ‘‘We have his dog.’’

  Chapter Forty-two

  ‘‘Sara?’’

  I was half asleep, dozing on the couch. Connor’d been called back into the office. When the phone rang, I’d picked it up automatically, but my brain wasn’t functioning properly.

  ‘‘Who’s this?’’ I shook my head to clear some of the cobwebs.

  ‘‘Siobhan,’’ she yelled, freeway traffic loud in the background. ‘‘Connor’s sister?’’ A little tentative.

  ‘‘Of course. Sorry, Siobhan.’’ I sat up, rubbing at my eyes. ‘‘I’m dead on my feet. What’s up?’’

  ‘‘I’m going to do it.’’

  ‘‘Do what?’’

  ‘‘Confront him.’’r />
  My stomach plunged. I was wide-awake now.

  ‘‘Confront who?’’ As if I didn’t know.

  ‘‘Jack. I was going to do it earlier but I lost my nerve. But I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. I have to do it. I have to. He took two hundred forty-one thousand, seven hundred and sixty-one dollars out of our accounts. Practically cleaned them all out. Including the home-equity line. Everything in both our names. Our names,’’ she sputtered. ‘‘It was my money. All of it. I’m not taking it anymore. I’m taking control of my life.’’

  ‘‘This is a bad idea, Siobhan. Why don’t you meet me? We’ll talk about it. Come up with a plan.’’ I searched under the coffee table for my shoes.

  ‘‘Someone stole my purse.’’

  ‘‘Are you okay?’’

  ‘‘Everyone thinks they can just do anything they want. Take things. Destroy things. Without a note or an apology or anything. And no one stops them.’’

  ‘‘Are you hurt?’’

  ‘‘Yes. I’m hurt. I turn my back for a minute and some lowlife takes my handbag right out of my shopping bag. In my favorite store. In the middle of the day. Like it’s nothing, and no one will say anything because you can’t just have a meltdown in a public place like that with everyone watching. Like I’ve just got to stay quiet forever.’’

  We probably weren’t talking about driver’s licenses needing to be renewed.

  ‘‘I’m not taking it anymore,’’ Siobhan was yelling. ‘‘Not from thieves or liars or husbands or anyone.’’

  ‘‘Siobhan, are you okay?’’

  ‘‘I have a plan.’’ On the edge of hysteria. So not good. Why the hell couldn’t Connor be here to handle this?

  ‘‘What plan?’’

  Finding one shoe, I dug under the couch. Where the heck could the stupid thing be?

  ‘‘I’m taking it all back. The practice. Did you know I gave him the money to join it? It was my wedding gift to him.’’ She coughed or maybe sobbed, I couldn’t be sure. Probably both. ‘‘My fucking wedding gift.’’