Full Fathom Five - The Homicide Files (A Lincoln Munroe Novella, #1)

by Harrison Drake

Walter was always bragging about how he was going to get Lester’s business when Lester died. Walter worked there, if you can call it that, never put a lot into it, probably just enough to learn the ropes so he could hire underlings to keep raking it in for him.

  “The night of the fight, Lester told Walter he was selling the business, already had a buyer and everything. Not only was Walter out of a job, Lester said he was moving with Stefanie to the Caribbean, buying a yacht and traveling around. Walter freaked out, started the fight and told his Dad how much he was destroying his life. That’s when Dad told him he’d been nothing but a leech, never took any advice he was given, slacked off at work, slacked off and got kicked out of university… you get the picture.”

  “So that was it, Walter was cut off?”

  “No, Lester told him he’d give him a quarter of a million to give him time to go back to school and get himself a job.”

  “I bet that went over well. So when did this happen?”

  “Monday night. The next morning Lester told Stefanie he was taking the boat and going to clear his mind. Said he’d probably be a few days. It’s not uncommon for him to do that, she said. I guess he likes the open water.”

  “So somewhere along the way Walter finds him, kills him and tries to blame it on some poor sod?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Did Lester have any other kids?”

  “No, just Walter.”

  “Ex-wife?”

  “Nope, widower. She died of cancer four years ago.”

  “So Walter and Stefanie are the only heirs?” Still couldn’t rule out the girlfriend.

  “Yeah. But she couldn’t have done it.”

  I cast him a questioning look. “And why not? Too pretty to be a killer?”

  “Funny, but no. She’s epileptic. When she and Lester met, he wanted her to take up diving but her doctor forbid it. Her driver’s licence has been suspended for medical reasons as well. She says she’s not even allowed to take a bath.”

  “Can she prove it?”

  “I asked her to fax her medical records. She’s going to go to her doctor’s first thing in the morning to get whatever she can and send it along.”

  I nodded. Odds are she was telling the truth. A driving suspension for medical reasons isn’t too common for someone her age. Seizures, narcolepsy, or suffering from an accident that left her unable to drive were the only things I could think of.

  And the last thing you want when you’re a hundred feet underwater is to have a seizure.

  “Anything else?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, a light bulb appearing over his head, “she said that Lester had changed his will not too long ago. Walter was to get the business and a million dollars, she was to get the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “The house, the cottage, the boat, the cars, the vacation home in Florida, and a decent amount of cash.”

  “How much?”

  “She said she didn’t know exactly, but she’d seen one of his investment statements and he had over three million in the one account.”

  “A lot, then.”

  Dave just nodded, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, as he probably thought about what it would be like to inherit all of that.

  “Go out, find yourself some rich old lady, woo her and you can have it all too.”

  He laughed. “Thought about it, but I doubt it would work. It’s the old men that have to have trophy wives. Not often you see an eighty-year-old rich woman with a twenty-something kid on her arm.”

  He had a point. Men would always be men. And the pharmaceutical companies wanted to make sure that nothing ever changed.

  “Anyway, Lincoln, I’ve got everything here for you.” He handed me a manila envelope, the kind with the string that wrapped around the two circular tabs to close it. I would’ve preferred wax stamped with the OPP seal. “It’s all in there, I think I covered all the good stuff though.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking the package. “Can we get the information on Lester’s boat—see if it has GPS or something we can trace it with?”

  “We could, but apparently his boat is docked at Ontario Place. No way he could’ve made it up here that fast.”

  Ontario Place has it all—an amusement park, waterpark, IMAX theatre, convention centre, banquet hall, the Molson Canadian Amphitheatre (a great, open-air, covered spot for concerts), and a marina. Except the marina was on Lake Ontario, the opposite side of Southwestern Ontario.

  “And before you ask, it’s too big a boat. Stefanie says he leaves it there and rents a boat when he goes anywhere else.”

  Right. Makes sense. If he couldn’t tow the boat up to Tobermory, he would’ve been looking at probably six hundred kilometres, three Great Lakes and eight locks to get past Niagara Falls down the Welland Canal. I was sure it would have been a nice trip, but if he’d done it he’d still be several days away. And still alive.

  “Alright, start checking boat rental companies, see what you can find. Run his credit cards, find out where he’s been. And if he rented the boat, have it reported stolen so they’ll give us the coordinates.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he said, turning back to face his computer again. His hand made its way back to the mouse but before the white knuckles could set in again, he turned to me. “You guys should turn in. Probably going to be a long day ahead of you. Deana said you’ve been working since six this morning.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at my watch for the first time since we’d arrived. It was almost midnight. I was going to be useless the next day if I didn’t at least get some sleep.

  Then I realized that we weren’t the only ones who started at six. “Deana’s been on that long as well though, hasn’t she?”

  “Yeah, but she’s off for the next four days and is happy to get some overtime pay.”

  I nodded. The days before kids were great for making extra money, and I’d usually take overtime whenever I could get it. These days, you almost had to put a gun to my head. Although if my arm was twisted by throwing in a free wreck dive…

  I rounded up Kara who was lost in the statements from Steve and Amelia and the evidence and items we’d seized. It was a lot to go over.

  “Detective,” she began, stopped dead in her tracks by one of my many variations on the ‘evil eye’. “Lincoln, any news?”

  “Yeah, but we can go over it on the walk to the hotel.”

  “Why, I’ve still got more to do.”

  I pointed up at the clock in the room, it’s large black one through twelve circling around a smaller, red thirteen through twenty-four. I hated those clocks, even if we did do everything by military time. They always reminded me of hospitals.

  “Oh, wow,” she said. “Alright, let me just put this stuff away neatly.”

  Even in someone else’s office, she was the neat one. Maybe her desk wasn’t an anomaly, maybe it wasn’t just a first day thing.

  Maybe it was there to stay, a constant reminder of how cluttered and disorganized my desk was.

   

   

  We woke early the next morning, after only a few hours sleep. I was last to get up, typical of me, and I woke to Kara’s incessant banging on my door. It was far worse than any alarm clock. I quickly threw on my suit pants and an undershirt and opened the door.

  “Jesus. It’s about time.”

  “It’s not even seven. Why are we getting up this early.” She was about to answer when I spoke again. “And remember, you didn’t drive four hours or dive yesterday.”

  “They found the boat.”

  “Shit. Why the hell didn’t they call me?”

  “They tried, I tried. I was about to hoof down the door if you didn’t answer.”

  I’d have to check my cell. Had I turned it down? That’s right, a few games of Solitaire to help me fall asleep… and always without the annoying sounds. Way to go, Detective. Sleep through a murder case.

  “Where is it?”

  “About twenty kilometres off shore, and about si
xty south of here. Georgian Bay side.”

  Tobermory sat at the northern end of the Bruce Peninsula, Lake Huron to the west and Georgian Bay to the east.

  “So, near Wiarton then?”

  “They figure that’ll be the best spot to leave shore. They’ve already got a couple of boats in the water, all ready to go.”

  “Alright, you ready?”

  “Yeah.” I could see it in her face, the things she might have said were I not her superior of only two days: ‘have been for a while,’ ‘what else was I going to do while you were sleeping?’ The days of poking fun at me would come, but it would take her a little while. It was one of those stupid aspects of a paramilitary organization… an unyielding rank structure.

  And until you knew how the superior was, whether they could take a joke in stride or would fly off the handle, you played it safe.

  “Grab us a cruiser and meet me back here.”

  “There’s one waiting outside. Therault is driving.”

  “Dave’s just pulled a twelve. He up for it?”

  “He looks better than you do,” she said, then recoiled a bit. “I mean, I have some Visine in my room if you want it.”

  “That bad, eh?”

  Kara just nodded. I knew it was that bad. I always woke up looking like I’d just been smoking with Cheech and Chong, my eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed.

  “I’ll be down in five.”

  Kara nodded again then turned and walked down the hallway. I shut the door and sprang into action, shaving and suiting up as fast as I could.

  As promised I was outside in five minutes, my tie only slightly crooked and a single piece of toilet paper blotting a razor cut. At least I had my gun.

  I climbed into the backseat behind Dave, surprised Kara had