Double Dog Dare (The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series) (10 page)

“New moon,” Miles murmured thoughtfully.

“Right.  Rachelle never used a dive light when we were together. She claimed that both of our lights in the water made it too bright. And we anchored far enough away from the reef that the lights wouldn’t disturb the marine life.”

I was confused, and my expression must have shown it.  “Usually with a night dive your only light is your dive light,” Miles explained
, “and whatever ambient light is on the surface. That’s the whole point.  On a dark night, with no shore lights or boat lights, and only one dive light, it would be hard to notice the excess bubbles if you were using air at a faster rate than normal.  Or if there was a leak.”

“Right,” said Alex briefly.  “And I didn’t.”  He took another drink of
scotch.  “At forty feet she started panicking, grabbing at my regulator.  She was completely out of air.   I started buddy breathing, but she was in full-blown panic, sucking air like a freight train, and when it was time to give the regulator back, she wouldn’t.    I finally got it back from her, but in the struggle I think she got disoriented.  She pushed off and started swimming the other way.  I tried to go after her, but the currents were stirring up a lot of silt.  I couldn’t see her, I was running low on air, I had to surface.”

Mile
s said, “Did you search the caves?”

“Not then.  When I got to the boat
, I ditched my gear and did a shallow dive with my light, hoping she’d seen the boat light and was swimming toward me.”  He gave another brief shake of his head. “Of course, time was out.  I must have known that, but you have to try. I went back up and sounded the claxon for help.  I got new tanks and went back down.  There were a couple of other boats out that night, eventually somebody came.  But we never found her.”

Miles’s face was very somber, and I knew that, as someone who had actually been beneath the water, he was living the horror of that night in his mind.  I mentally retracted whatever wish I might have expressed to learn to scuba dive.  And I literally could not imagine the desperation of the moment when a
man had to choose to leave his wife behind or die.

Miles said, “Why did you only have one regulator?”

“I sent my equipment in for repair when I was down last month.  Hadn’t had a chance to pick it up.  I was using a spare.”  He was quiet for a moment.  “She was a good diver.  That was the one thing we had in common.  You never expect something like this to happen. I still don’t understand how it did.  Was it my fault she died?  I don’t know.  Maybe there was something I could have done. But I know I didn’t kill her.”

Miles said, “Did the police ask about life insurance?”

Alex gave him a look that was half admiring, half resentful.  “They did. And they were disappointed.  Her policy contained a hazardous activities exclusion.  So does mine.  Scuba diving, as you know, is a named hazardous activity.  The policy won’t pay a cent.”

And there went the last possible motive.
  Unless…

Miles had the same thought, but asked the question with a good deal less tact that I would have.  I
was beginning to see the advantage of having him around.  He said, “Did Rachelle ask you for a divorce?”

Alex looked so startled I couldn’t believe he was acting.  “What?  Who told you that?
”

I glanced at Miles.  “Your sister mentioned it. She said they had lunch before she left to come here.”

Alex frowned a little.  “Really? Why would they do that?”

I said, “I thought they were close.”

“Were they?” He shrugged.  “Maybe.  I guess they might have worked together once or twice.  I think Susan introduced her to some people—her understudy, I think, and maybe a director.”  Something must have shown on my face, or Miles’s, because he added defensively,  “Okay, so I didn’t keep up with every little detail of her life.  But the girl was crazy about me.   This whole trip was her idea. Jeez, that’s all I need, for the press to get hold of a rumor about divorce.”

Because if it could be proven that Rachelle had been about to divorce him, taking all of her money plus half of his business, that might be a motive for murder.  Maybe. 

I said, “Speaking of the press, aren’t you worried that coming out like this for drinks only a couple of days after your wife died will make you look bad?”  I could remember more than one case where a spouse, or even the parent of a missing child, had been convicted by the press long before trial simply because he or she had failed to grieve properly. 

He darted a
hard glance at me. “No,” he said flatly.  “I’m a free man. And an innocent one.  I’ll do what I damn well please.”

He was
so
going down.  For a moment I actually felt a little sorry for him.

“That’s why,” he went on, and tossed back the last of his
scotch, “I’ve decided to beat the blood-sucking bastards at their own game.  I’ve called a press conference for exactly…”  he glanced at his watch, “fifteen minutes from now on the harbor side deck  to clear this thing up once and for all.  I won’t be held hostage in my own home, and I refuse to live my life under a cloud of speculation.  I can’t stop people from making up their own stories, but I can at least get the truth out there.”  He smiled thinly. “You’re welcome to attend, of course.  In fact, you might have saved yourself some time by skipping the drinks and watching it on television.”

“Gutsy move,” Miles said
.

“Actually, it was
Susan’s idea,” he said.  He glanced at his glass as though hoping it might magically refill itself.  “I guess she’s good for something.”

There was a slight tightening of the corners of his lips, but Miles said nothing.  His silence was more condemning than any words could have been, as I had had the opportunity to discover on more than one occasion.  And it didn’t take Alex more than a few seconds to catch on. 

“All right,” he said brusquely.  “I know she asked you stand bail for me.  It was her idea, not mine.  You got what you came for, I told you everything I know.  Do it, don’t do it.  I’ve got plenty of other friends.”  He waved the waitress over. “I have to get out there.  We’ll have a game of golf next time I’m out your way.  Put this on my tab, sweetheart,” he told the waitress, then looked at me as he stood.  “Nice to meet you, Raine.  You seem like a sweet girl.  Probably too good for this SOB.”  The way he said it was supposed to be joking, but there was absolutely no mirth in his eyes.  “Take care.”  He nodded to Miles.  “Miles.”

I watched him cross the room with a mixture of astonishment and distaste.  I looked back at Miles.  “I feel like I need a shower,” I said.

“You and me, too, sweetheart.”  The fact that he made no attempt to turn that into a double entendre only proved how distracted he was. “So, what did you think?”

“Oh, I think he’s going to jail,” I assured
him, “as soon as the police can scrape together some kind of motive.”

“I think so, too.  I’m also going to offer bail.”

I stared at him.  “What?”

“Relax.  There’s no way in hell a judge is going to set bail, and this way I get to look like a hero.”

To whom? I wondered.  Alex, or Susan?

“But first,” Miles added, “I’m going to start looking for a new security company.  It
’s just a  little too much of a coincidence to me that there’ve been over two dozen  break-ins in the past two years in properties that he manages.  Either he’s not very good at what he does or—”

“He’s not screening those ex-con employees of his very well,” I supplied thoughtfully. 

“That one’s got my vote.  Either way, now that he’s in the spotlight it won’t be long before other big clients start noticing the coincidence, if they haven’t already.  I give that company six months.”

“So even if he doesn’t go to jail, he’s screwed.”

“Barring a huge influx of cash and a few years to rebuild, yes. Want to go to the press conference, or have you had enough?”

I thought about it for only a moment. 
“I’ve had enough
and
I want to go.”

H
is expression was wry.  “Not that I’m surprised, but do you mind if I ask why?”

“I’m protecting your investment. If
Mr. Barry by any chance manages to come off as more sincere in his public statement than he did to us, he might actually get bail. In which case you might want to reconsider your ambitions to be a hero.”  

He regarded me with a touch of amused resignation in his eyes and a small shake of his head.  “Well, at least you had twenty
-four hours of vacation.”  He laid a bill on the table and stood up, extending his hand to me.  “Shall we go?”

So much, I supposed, for my vow to be normal for a week.  I felt a little bad about that, and as we left the building for the brilliant sunshine of the wide deck that encircled the building,
I slipped my arm around Miles’s waist and gave him a squeeze, pressing my head against his shoulder.  “That was hot, by the way,” I said.

He lifted a quizzical eyebrow
, pulling out his sunglasses.  “The way I over-tipped?”

“The way you interrogated the suspect.  I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“In my line of work it’s called ‘reading the table’.  And you’d be amazed at the things I have in me.”

“So I’m beginning to suspect.”
 

As we came around the corner we found the deck blocked off by orange cones, beyond which black electrical cords snaked toward a lect
ern upon which several microphones had been mounted.  I recognized the logos of a couple of US entertainment news organizations on those microphones, and the green lawn below the deck was populated with almost a dozen reporters and camera men. 

“Rachelle
Denison must have been more famous than I realized,” I murmured as we went down the steps toward the lawn.  “There are a lot of reporters from the States.”

“If you were a reporter
in Arkansas or Detroit with a chance to cover a story in St. Bart’s, would you turn it down?”

“
Good point.”

We found a place at the edge of
the collection of  reporters, but close to the deck.  I could see Alex Barry, looking appropriately somber, talking quietly to his sister. I don’t know why I was surprised to find her there.  She was wearing a simple summer suit with her hair pulled back, and in contrast to the distress she had displayed this morning, she looked calm and in control.  Looking up, she noticed Miles, and her face softened a little as she acknowledged him.  He nodded back to her.  There was nothing more to it than that, but it made me uneasy. There were other people on the deck with them, one of whom Miles identified as Jeff Lennox, an attorney, and a couple of others who, from their stance on either side of the door, I suspected were security guards.  And standing somewhat to the side, not a part of Alex’s entourage but clearly interested in it, was a small neat man in a suit that I immediately identified as a policeman.  I have an instinct for them.

Alex Barry glanced at his watch,
stepped to the lectern, leaned forward into the microphone bank, and said, “Thank you all for coming. I’m Alex Barry.  I’d like to make a brief statement, and then I’ll take your questions.  I want to be as forthcoming with you as I can, so I’ll tell you everything I know.  And thank you in advance  for your patience and understanding during this very difficult time.”

He was a completely different man than the one who had so cavalierly tossed back
scotch while relating his story only a few moments ago.  I glanced at Miles and saw one corner of his lips curve faintly upward in contempt.

Alex went on, “On Friday night, my wife
went for a dive off the Pain du Sucre reef.  It was one of our favorite places, and we dived it many times before. Rachelle was an excellent diver, and the reef is considered safe for all divers.  For reasons we haven’t yet determined, Rachelle used up the air in her tanks sooner than anticipated, and we were forced to surface early.  Even though I tried to share my tanks with her, she became disoriented and panicky, and started swimming away from the boat.  I tried to rescue her but had to surface when I, too, ran low on air.”  A dramatic pause, and then he continued in a broken voice.  “I never saw Rachelle again.”