Going Down With the Ship

by Eric Douglas

  *****

 

  Andrea was a half an hour late for dinner. Jackson was concerned, but also disappointed. It wasn’t like there was that much traffic – it was only a two-lane road running through the middle of the island – so the possibility of a car wreck was fairly remote. She could be having trouble with her rental car, but it was new. He doubted that.

  Looking out over the water, Jackson’s mind began to wander. What if she was just using me for information? I thought she was interested, too, but maybe not, he thought. Oh, come on. This is ridiculous. Something must have come up. This wasn’t a date. This was a chance for me to tell her what I discovered. I know she wanted to hear that, even if she isn’t interested in me.

  The internal argument raged in his mind. It wasn’t that Jackson was normally emotional, or filled with self-doubt. Typically, he was decisive and confident. It’d just been a long time since he had allowed himself to think about a relationship. He had dated women. He just hadn’t allowed himself to think about them in terms other than someone to pass a few hours with. He had already begun to make that mental leap and it was causing him problems.

  As Jackson stood looking out over the water, he was startled to see two men coming at him. One of them was one of the three men from the fight in the parking lot when he met Andrea. He immediately began to brace himself for an attack. At least until he realized the man had a heavy bundle rolled up in a tarp over his shoulder. Neither man gave him a second glance, except to say, “How’ya doing” with a simple head nod in the way that men great each other as they pass on the street.

  As they went by, the man carrying the bundle stopped to adjust his load. He shifted it and repositioned the roll on his shoulder, bouncing it down hard. Then he moved on. The two men made their way to a small runabout boat, painted in Seashore Engineering colors. Jackson guessed they were working on the Beauregard and had come to the dock to pick up some supplies. The first man climbed into the boat and the second man tossed the bundle to him. Once they were both onboard, the first man – the one from the fight – started the boat’s motor while the other tossed off the bow and stern lines. They pulled away from the dock – faster than they should have, but not quite fast enough to get themselves fined for violating the No Wake zone.

  Jackson waited for another hour before he finally decided to go inside and get something to eat.

  Sitting at the bar eating a sandwich and drinking a cold beer a few minutes later, Jackson didn’t feel like talking. He was quietly watching the television and reading the closed captioning scrolling across the screen. His mind wasn’t really registering what was on. Jackson overheard bits and pieces of the conversation going on between the only other two patrons setting at the bar.

  “Did’jou hear?” one of the other bar patrons said, with mildly slurred speech. He had been drinking for a couple hours, being sent home early for the day. “They went ahead and towed the Beauregard out to the spot where they’se gonna sink her.”

  “Nah. They couldn’t’ve. They was planning a big to do out at the dock tomorrow before they towed her out. They wanted all the big shots in one place,” the second man replied.

  “I’m telling ya. That’s why I’m here. All the guys that was working on last-second stuff, they sent home with our final paycheck. The foreman said they wouldn’t need us tomorrow,” the first drunk said.

  “Works out good for you then. Wanna go fishin' tomorrow?”

  Jackson tuned back out to his sandwich. Hearing the man mention the Beauregard had perked up his attention, but the conversation didn’t actually register with him.

  As he finished his sandwich and paid his tab – not exactly the meal he had planned on – Jackson decided to walk back out on the pier one last time.

  “I just don’t get it. What could have caused Andrea to do a complete no-show?” Jackson said out loud to himself as he walked across the wood boards. “I know she wanted to hear what I found out.”

  Something shiny caught his eye as he walked. Moving over to pick it up, more out of instinct than interest, he lifted a gold chain and locket off the pier decking. If it had been a quarter of an inch smaller, it would have slipped through the gap between the boards, never to be seen again.

  Picking it up, Jackson realized what he was holding. It was Andrea’s dolphin locket from her father. That meant she had been there. And, if she realized she had lost it, she would have moved the entire pier to find the locket. He knew it was that important to her. His mind began to spin.

  As if he was actually seeing it in front of his eyes, Jackson saw the two men carrying a bundle. It was about 6 feet long – just long enough to cover the body of a small woman. The spot where he found the locket was just about where the man had adjusted his load and bounced it up and down. In his mind, he replayed the scene and realized he heard a sound, much like the sound of someone getting the wind knocked out of them – but muffled. He had just thought it was the man making the noise, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  Then he heard the two men talking at the bar from a few minutes earlier. “They went ahead and towed the Beauregard out…”

  His mind was in full overdrive now. What’s going on? he asked himself. It all began to come together quickly.

  The locket belonged to Andrea. She had been in the load the men were carrying. The Beauregard was towed into position ahead of schedule.

  Then Jackson heard the sound of muffled explosions from out on the water. Someone had set off the explosive charges to send the Beauregard to the bottom. And he was certain Andrea was on board.