Solid Oak

by William F Lovejoy

He had given the Glock to Bobbi and told her to stay aboard the Catalina as backup. And out of the line of fire. Of course, she didn’t. He heard her sliding over the gunwale onto the yacht. Oak looked back at her, but she held a finger to her lips.

  He was supposed to be quiet?

  Inside the salon, he found a pair of leather couches angled to each other on his left. Coffee table. The corner table held the lamp that had been left on. That was convenient since he hadn’t thought to buy or bring a flashlight. Forward on the left was an L-shaped galley of cupboards and counters and an island counter with cookware hanging over it. Forward on the right was a settee with kind of a half-width dining table aligned in front of it.

  Bobbi came up behind him. He felt her hands on his waist pushing him forward to let her in. He moved.

  On the right was an entertainment center. Big flat screen.

  On the floor in front of the entertainment center was a wheeled suitcase.

  Nothing seemed to be moving anywhere on the yacht. He couldn’t hear anything but the whisper of a refrigerator.

  Bobbi slipped from behind him, holding the Glock in her right hand. She looked around, and then looked up at him.

  He shrugged.

  She spotted the suitcase and knelt down on the carpet next to it. Tilting it over, she laid the pistol on the deck, found the zipper and ran it around, lifted the lid. Right on top, a yellow sundress he had seen before.

  “She’s here,” Bobbi whispered.

  Well, good. That would connect her to both Sherry and Curtis. And all of them connected in one way or another to a bunch of deposit and brokerage accounts.

  A subtle shift in the hull made him look up.

  And there was Sherry coming up the companionway.

  No hat, no sunglasses, scarred cheeks over a scraggly beard. Big smile on his face. What looked like a heavy paperweight in his right hand. One of those globes that snowed inside when shaken.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “I think so,” Oak told him.

  “Glad you showed up, Malone. I owe you.”

  “Pay up then.”

  Sherry reached the salon level, and those big hands came up. He raised his right arm further, and then abruptly threw the paperweight at Bobbi.

  She dodged to her left and hit the deck behind Malone.

  The flat screen exploded, glass spilling over the suitcase and the Glock.

  There wasn’t a hell of a lot of room for maneuver in the salon.

  Sherry came directly for him, as Malone knew he would, and rather than wait for those hands to grab him anywhere, much less the neck, Oak went up on the coffee table, danced forward a step, and back two.

  Sherry shifted his angle of attack to his right toward Malone, reached his right hand out, missed as Malone skipped backward.

  Barely still on the table with the toe of his left foot, Malone kicked him in the face.

  Wished he was wearing steel-toed boots instead of Reeboks, but the toe still took out some teeth.

  The yelp he got from the big man was satisfying, and Malone leaped to his left, onto the leather couch. Probably screw up the leather.

  Sensed Bobbi scrambling back to her right, searching for the pistol.

  Sherry lips were bleeding. He tried to grab Malone again, but forgot there was a coffee table anchored to the deck, and his shin rammed it. He yelped again and lost his balance forward.

  Malone came down on the back of his neck with both hands laced together and helped stretch him out on top of the coffee table. Heard a table leg snap.

  He jumped off the couch and into the galley. Draw Sherry away from Bobbi. Looked up at the stainless steel cookware hanging over the island and selected a ten-inch skillet.

  He noted that Bobbi was still on her knees, but holding the Glock aimed at Sherry’s butt.

  Sherry was struggling to get off the coffee table, which was now lop-sided. He put his hand down on the top to push himself upward, and Malone stepped away from the island and brought the skillet down with as much force as he could muster. It slammed edge first into the top of Sherry’s hand.

  Bones shattered.

  The pan vibrated.

  Sherry screamed, rolling to his left, pulling his right hand to his chest.

  And Malone took one more step and used the flat bottom of the skillet in another long arc to mash the man’s face.

  That stopped the scream and the movement. He was out cold.

  Well, maybe not.

  The broken bones of his nose may have gone into his brain. There was blood draining from his flattened nose and his smashed lips.

  When Malone checked the carotid, there was still a pulse. He was still breathing, but probably not for long.

  “You could have shot him.”

  “You were doing just fine,” she said.

  “How come you’re not in the sailboat, like I asked?”

  “You might have needed me.”

  Bobbi scrambled to her feet, and carrying the Glock out front of her, went forward and down the companionway. Probably looking for Alicia.

  Malone laid the skillet on the island. He walked around Sherry’s legs, grabbed his shoulder, and pulled him off the ruined coffee table. Sherry landed on his back on the deck, and Malone knelt down on one knee and patted him down for a weapon. Nothing.

  He’d stopped breathing now.

  Had trouble feeling any sense of loss or remorse.

  Heard drawers and doors banging lightly from the cabins below.

  Happened to look under the coffee table.

  A purse.

  Alicia’s? Malone couldn’t remember what she’d been carrying when she went shopping in Antigua.

  He reached across Sherry’s body to retrieve the purse.

  And saw something else. Up against the bottom of the couch. Pink in the dim light from the lamp. Bright red polish on the fingernail. Dark brown where the blood had dried.

  “Shit!”

  “What?”

  He looked up to see Bobbi coming up the companionway with the Glock in one hand and two more pistols in the other.

  He waved her toward him, and then pointed.

  “Goddamn it! Fucking monsters!”

  “Maybe she’s up at the house,” Oak said.

  “You don’t believe that.”

  He stood up. “Nothing below?”

  “No. These were in a dresser.”

  Both were Colt .45’s. Malone took them and shoved them in his waistband.

  “There’s paper towels in the galley. Grab a couple and go below to wipe down anything you may have touched.”

  Malone did the same thing on this deck. Door handle. Skillet. Countertops. The sides and zipper of Hampstead’s suitcase. Back on the stern deck, he wiped the gunwales.

  This wasn’t the same as Washington or Sausalito, where men had come gunning for him. No, here he was the trespasser, and he didn’t relish talking to a bunch of French cops who would find out he had a felony warrant hanging over him.

  Galway came back out and used the paper towel to pull the door closed.

  “Now we sail away?”

  “Oh, no. Now we visit the house.”

  Malone checked both of the Colts, ejecting the magazines to be certain he had full loads, then slapping them back, and running the slides to load the chambers. He stuck one in the back of his waistband and one in front. He really hated relying on a gun he had never fired, but this was better than none at all.

  He helped Bobbi step across to the pier and followed her. The pier was about a hundred feet long, and when they reached the shoreside, they found the stairway. Planks had been laid across wet concrete on the ends during construction to assure firm footing. The stairway curved to the right, then back to the left and ended at an opening in the railing of the deck.

  There were black wrought iron chairs and tables scattered about the deck, and the glass wall that loomed to a high peak under the roof eaves was dark. At the far left of the southern wing, the window still glow
ed with light. Probably a bedroom.

  Malone moved carefully, skirting furniture, to the center of the glass wall and located the sliding door. Two things he hoped for: that it wasn’t locked, and that it moved as silently as his own back in Sausalito.

  Two hopes fulfilled.

  With the door open, he stepped inside and Bobbi followed. Malone moved to the right to separate them. He would check the northern wing first, to see if household help was located there.

  Then move down the southern wing to that lighted bedroom.

  That’s the way he had explained it to Bobbi. She was to stay in the center of the house to provide backup.

  That was the plan.

  His night vision was coming around and with the starlight coming through the big windows, he could locate some of the furnishings.

  He took two more steps to his right.

  “You know, the way you’re both backlit, I have easy shots. I suggest that neither of you move.”

  Well, damn. So much for Plan A.

  The overhead lights flashed on, too bright for a second, but he saw the man standing in the doorway to the southern wing.

  Another second for the eyes to adjust to the lighting.

  Bobbi said, “Oh, my God!”

  Well, well. The son of a bitch!

  Malone said, “Hello, Bob. You resurrected well.”

  He was holding a 12 gauge shotgun, aimed between the two of them. Twenty feet away, no chance at all of a miss.

  “Not bad, huh, Oak? I knew you’d finally get here. Not much that slows you down.”

  “You bastard!” Bobbi’s face had gone completely pale. Her eyes were wide with shock.

  “Sorry, darling. It’s just the way it happened to work out. Let’s lay the guns on the floor please. Easy now, we don’t want to crack the tile. And we don’t want me to shoot out the windows.”

  “You have house staff here,” Malone said.

  “Nah, they got the night off.”

  Malone glanced at Bobbi. Her hand was shaking. He was afraid she’d try a shot.

  “Bobbi,” Oak said, “lay it down.”

  He set the example, pulling the Colt from the front of his waistband with a thumb and forefinger, squatting, and laying it on the floor.

  “Good man, Oak. Come on, Bobbi.”

  She looked at Oak and finally did the same. Her whole body was trembling, and Malone figured it was rage by now rather than stunned senses.

  “Kick them this way.”

  Malone went first, putting a toe to the Colt, and kicking it about ten feet. Bobbi did the same.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “Simply took advantage of a good thing my old man set up. Even better than being a senator, darling. I really did regret leaving you behind, but I knew you’d never understand.”

  “It’s all over for you now, Bob,” Malone told him. “That boat of yours is a crime scene.”

  Corridan laughed. “Did you run into Dexter?”

  Who the hell was Dexter?’

  “He didn’t make it.”

  “Well, he only had a few days left anyway.”

  ‘You didn’t even bother to clean up Alicia’s finger.”

  “She didn’t need it, Oak.”

  “She might have, to get your money back.”

  Corridan frowned.

  Bobbi told him, “You didn’t think we’d leave 66.5 million in the Caribbean Regional Investment Services, did you? It’s long gone, Bob.”

  “What you see around you,” Oak said, “is what you’ve got. How’s your 401k doing?”

  Corridan nearly lost it. The shotgun was waving around, toward Bobbi, then Malone.

  “What did you do?”

  “Cleaned you out,” Bobbi said.

  Corridan advanced on her, raising the shotgun to club her with the butt.

  “You’ll get it back!”

  “No,” she said.

  And Malone pulled the other .45 from his back and shot him through the left temple.

  So much for brotherhood.

  Chapter Twenty-One – Thursday, July 4

  Galway stretched out on the starboard cushion and watched as Oak furled the sail on the aft boom. She was quickly learning about the Tacky II, a twenty-year-old 36-foot Pearson twin-masted ketch. After sailing all morning and afternoon, they were now anchored near Pirate’s Cove some miles north of San Francisco. They were provisioned for three days and not planning to be anywhere but aboard the boat.

  She was starting to come around, but it had taken some time. She still felt a deep ache in her abdomen from time to time. Her mind almost wouldn’t wrap around the massive deceit. She didn’t remember much about the rest of that night. Or was choosing not to remember. Bob coming at her with that shotgun raised high. And then pieces of his skull and brain blown out to spatter against the wall. He went face down on the floor in front of her.

  Malone had wiped down and left the kill weapon behind. He gathered her up and helped her down the long stairway to the pier. They crossed the Carmelita and boarded the Catalina. Malone shoved off, and then motored away with the auxiliary engine. He dropped the Colt and the Glock over the side. Anchored somewhere to the south in the Lagoon, Oak held her tightly through the rest of the night in the tiny cabin.

  On Sunday morning, they returned the sailboat, retrieved their luggage from the hotel, and took the first flight they could get to Miami. As the Williamsons.

  By Monday, they were in Sausalito.

  By Tuesday, she realized she was still in love, and with the right man.

  As for Bob, whose remains had never been assembled after the IED took him out in Afghanistan, she was still holding back on full-blown rage. She felt like she was America after learning about Benedict Arnold.

  Worse, when she analyzed the timelines of the accounts, and figured out which had existed for what periods, she positively knew that Bob had been unfaithful during their marriage, had probably seduced Alicia and Lani. And Lani had likely brought Jim Mears into the mix. Bobbi thought that Oak had worked it out, also, and chose not to discuss it with her. She loved him even more for that.

  Bobbi had called Patrick, not with any details, but to tell him that a dead man in Saint Martin would soon be identified as Robert Corridan, and that he had been involved in plundering the Institute. She didn’t want Patrick or Evelyn to learn this in a news report. Patrick had cried. He would retire rather than run again.

  Malone finished with the sail, dropped into the cockpit, and then went below. He returned with two icy cans of Heineken and moved her feet so he could sit beside her.

  “It’s almost four o’clock,” he said.

  “Go ahead and call.”

  “Detective Ford is going to be pissed, having to come into work on a holiday night.”

  “His problem since they wouldn’t give out his home or cell phone numbers,” she reminded him. “You called to make the appointment.”

  “True.”

  Oak picked up his cell phone from where it rested on the binnacle and dialed the number.

  He answered in the middle of the first ring. “Ford.”

  “Malone here, Detective.”

  “Damn it, Malone. What are you doing?”

  “I wanted to thank you for withdrawing that arrest warrant.”

  “You were right about the Sherry fingerprints. We also found them on the back door.”

  “You want Sherry?”

  “I do.”

  “Check with the French cops in Saint Martin. I think they’re working an unsolved double homicide. I believe Sherry is involved, but as a victim.”

  “Malone. . . .”

  “Now, about yesterday, you should have received a package marked personal and confidential.”

  “Uh, yeah, I did.”

  “I’d bet it has a flash drive in it.”

  “Do you always win your bets?”

  “Almost always. Now, first things first, I don’t know anything about that package. But I think you should get th
e credit for breaking this case open.”

  “What are you talking about? What case?”

  “The one that explains a few murders. The next step is for you to go see a Bureau agent named Neal Salisbury. The Feebies are going to have to be involved, and he needs some credit also. You’ll get some forensic accountants working on it and figure it out. There are names on the flash drive. The guy named Jim Mears might sing a little for you since he’ll have a tough time explaining how 4 million dollars landed in his personal accounts. And if you weren’t aware of it, a woman was rescued at sea on the 29th. She was in the water for about four hours, I guess, and some boat picked her up. She’s in a hospital in Charlotte Amalie, supposedly refusing to give her name. You might call down there and see if she responds to Alicia Hampstead. I’ll bet she’ll sing a tune also.”

  “Jesus, Malone. What have you been up to?”

  “Once in a while, Detective, we like to come close to a balance on the Justice scale.”

  “This sounds like a lot of work. I don’t think I should thank you.”

  “No, you don’t want to do that. But you do want to tell Agent Salisbury that some of the money that went missing can be found in that account on the flash drive marked for Fred and Melissa Williamson. The bank’s located in Sint Maarten so some diplomacy will be necessary.”

  “Who are Fred and Melissa Williamson?”

  “I don’t know. They ceased to exist.”

  “Please, Malone, stay in Sausalito.”

  “Detective Chu doesn’t want me.”

  “I’ll call her and give you a reference.”

  “That would be nice,” Oak said and clicked off.

  He leaned forward and replaced the phone on the binnacle. Then he wrapped his arm around Bobbi.

  “Is it over now?” Bobbi asked.

  “Oh, I think so.”

  “And you didn’t even get paid.”

  “Not a priority. But you know what might be interesting?”

  “What?”

  “It’s only been three years, and the marriage was never terminated, so you’re Bob’s widow. You could claim the house and boat and whatever else. The Lamborghini.”

  “Do you want those, Oak?”

  “No. I’ve got all I need.” He squeezed her shoulder.

  “They can sell it all and send it to the U.S Treasury.”