Slack tide (13 page)

MacLaren did not know what the going quotation for National Aluminum was and he did not ask. Instead he thought of something else.

"Did you know Carla also had some stock your husband had given her?"

"I knew she had some, but I am not sure what it is worth."

"Why would he do that?"

"Just another of his idiosyncrasies, I guess. I know he gave it to her long before I knew him, and I think the idea was that the income from the stock would take the place of a salary. He wasn't sure that a salary for someone hke Carla would be fully deductible on his income tax, so he let her have the income from the stock instead."

MacLaren was about to comment on the endorsement on the certificates, but she brought up the point before he could speak.

"Of course, the shares weren't actually hers. They were registered in her name on the company books so that she could get the income, but he kept the certificates and he made her endorse them."

"In other words," MacLaren said, "if he ever got sore at her or wanted to cut off her income, all he had to do was turn the certificates over to his broker for sale."

He reahzed as he spoke that the guess he had made that afternoon in Carla Lewis's room had been the right one and explained her hurried trip to New York. He also recalled the scene the night before when the shot had been fired and they had rushed up to find Carla and Neil Acker-man arguing about who had been in the room first, and who had opened Kingsley's steel-hned drawer.

He was still speculating about this when he pulled up in front of the Surrey Inn. He went round to open the car door for her and then walked her to the entrance. It was a rather awkward moment for both of them when they said good night. She couldn't say that she had had a wonderful evening, and he couldn't teU her how much he had enjoyed the trip. He thought about shaking hands and decided against it. The best he could do was to say that she didn't have to worry about what they had done. She said she hoped he was right, and then she had turned and was starting through the foyer.

It was the small glow of light from the curtained port of the Annabelle III that gave MacLaren the idea. It was not the sort of idea that bursts full grown in the mind, but took root slowly from the seeds of curiosity and retrospect.

He had parked his car and walked round the showroom to have a final cigarette on the dock when he noticed the hght. Without actually wondering about it, his mind was instantly busy as he recalled the idea that had come to him that afternoon and the digression that had prevented him from following it up and taken him instead to the island for a talk with Lucille. There had been no one aboard the black-hulled craft then. At no time during the day had he laid eyes on the odd pair, but now, as his thoughts groped backwards, he remembered the bandaid he had put on the big man's middle finger—

For another moment his thoughts hung there, and then, suddenly, his mind began to race. At first he did not believe the conclusion that now came to him. He did not believe that coincidence had so long an arm, but the excitement was churning in him and he could not let go of the possibihty.

For there were now two distinct pictures in his mind. He remembered the hoarse distinctive voice of the Httle man named Lew when he argued about going fishing with his companion the night before. He also remembered the low, hoarse, and rasping voice of the unseen man who had looted the Kingsley safe and had spoken but once.

There could be another gunman with a bandaid on his middle finger. But was it likely that two such individuals could be aboard the Annabelle III while two other identical individuals were robbing Kingsley's safe?

He could find no conclusive answer to the unspoken question, but he knew what he ought to do. He also knew

that it need not be coincidence that had brought the Annabelle III and its odd crew to this particular spot.

He was moving as these thoughts expanded, and when he had reached his second-floor apartment, he went directly to the telephone and put in a person-to-person call to New York. He mentioned the precinct number and said that he would speak to either Detective McCarthy or Detective Lynch. It took the operator a minute or so to make the connection and ask her questions. He heard her say: "Here's your party." Then a voice said: "Detective Lynch speaking."

When MacLaren had identified himself, he said: "You said that if I remembered anything that might be helpful I was to let you know."

"That's right. What have you got?"

MacLaren told his story as best he could. It may have lacked unity and his progression may not have been exact, but he got the facts out and there was no interruption until he had finished.

"What you're saying," Lynch said with some skepticism, "is that the two guys on this cruiser might be the same two guys who puUed the job in Kingsley's place."

"I'm not saying they did," MacLaren said. "Maybe that voice I heard was my imagination, but I know the man with the gun had a bandage of some kind on his middle finger. I also know that I put a bandaid on the middle finger of this fellow named Nick. I just thought I'd tell you," he said. "I don't care whether you check it out or not."

"AU right, all right. Keep your shirt on. What do these guys look hke?"

"One is sort of small, wiry, mostly bald. He could be in his forties. The other one is bigger and younger. He's got black curly hair and heavy brows."

"Did you hear them use any other names?"

"Up here, yes. I think the Mttle one's name is Lew."

"He's the one with a rasping voice?"

"Yes."

"All right, thanks. It might be something. Oh yeah—and what do you plan to do now?"

"I'm going to bed," MacLaren said flatly.

"Good. And stay there, wiU you? If we're going to do any checking we'd hke to have it official, you know what I mean?"

13

MacLAREN awakened early the next morning. There were no boatyard noises when he looked out the window, but fog had drifted in from the sound and the hne of cruisers stretching toward the river was hazy and formless.

A glance at his watch told him it was ten minutes after seven, but he was wide awake now and so he went to the kitchen to put water on for coffee. Five minutes was his average allotment for a shower and shave, and by the time he had dressed and returned to the kitchen the water was boihng. He was putting the toaster on the table when he

heard the muflSed sound of motors, and as he glanced out of the window overlooking the parking-lot, he saw two cars shde out of the fog and stop.

From where he stood he could not identify them, but when the occupants got out and he saw the two broad-brimmed hats, he knew that at least two of the five men were from the state pohce.

To get a better look, he unlocked the back door and opened it. They were moving away as he glanced down, heading in the direction of the Annabelle III, and like that, it all came back to him.

He was dressed in slacks and shirt and shppers, and he detoured only long enough to substitute loafers for the shppers. Then he was going down the front stairs and across the showroom and unlocking the front door. It was as he opened it that he heard the two shots, the shouts of men's voices, and then the splash of some unseen object striking the water in the inlet.

A state trooper who turned out to be Sergeant Wyre, and a man in plain clothes who was Detective Lynch, came running along the bulkhead and wheeled toward the floating dock. By that time MacLaren was close, and Wyre saw him and yelled a request.

"The outboard, Macl Can we use it?"

MacLaren beat them down the catwalk, and he had already torn off the plastic cover and was reaching for the starter rope when the two men piled in.

"We'll take it," Wyre said.

"Like hell," MacLaren said.

He aheady had the toggle in his hand and he gave the

rope a quick spin. The second yank fired the motor and he swung downstream at Wyre's command.

A minute or so later they saw the swimmer, and Mac-Laren circled to approach from the front. Lynch, his service revolver in his hand, knelt in the bow. MacLaren shoved the motor in neutral, and as the skiff lost way, he saw the flaihng arms and the bald head and knew that this was the man named Lew.

Lynch yelled a loud command and Lew must have heard him because he stopped swimming and his face came up. As his eyes focused, he found himself staring at the muzzle of a gun which was now pointed at his forehead and no more than a foot and a half away.

"All right," he said, treading water and gasping for breath. "You win."

"Back to the dock, Lew," Lynch said. "We'll be right behind you."

The other state pohceman was waiting on the floating dock as a reception committee and he helped pull Lew from the water. He made a bedraggled figure in his dripping pajamas, and he said nothing at all as Wyre and Lynch put away their guns and started marching the man back toward the Annabelle 111. Sergeant Wyre called back over his shoulder to thank MacLaren for his help, and Lynch said something about seeing him later. Then the fog had swallowed them, and MacLaren was left to tie up the skiff and get back to the business of making his breakfast.

McCarthy and Lynch stopped in the office sometime after eight o'clock, after the state pohce had taken Nick

and Lew away. They said they wanted to thank him for his tip, adding that it was lucky for them he had been so observing.

"Did they have the jewehy?" MacLaren asked.

"That they did," said McCarthy.

"Well, that's a help." MacLaren looked from one to the other. "I wasn't so sure you still didn't think I had something to do with the job."

"We weren't so sure either." Lynch took the three velvet-covered boxes from his pocket. "Thought you might hke to see what they were after."

MacLaren stared for quite a while at the necklace, the bracelet, and the brooch. Even here where the hght was bad, the fire of the diamonds and the emeralds astonished him, and he knew that he had never seen three more perfectly matched pieces.

He voiced his approval with one word. "Wow!"

"Yeah."

"What did they intend to do with tliem?"

"They're not talking," McCarthy said.

"But it's not too hard to figure," Lynch added. "They had a hell of an idea. We never would have started looking for them on a boat or around a boatyard in a milhon years."

"They've both got records," McCarthy said. "And normally after the safe-and-loft boys studied the job, they'd have started combing the city."

"We've aheady checked out that boat," Lynch said. "They hired it from a Long Island City yard for two weeks. They brought it up here where they could keep an eye on Kingsley and pick the right time to hit the safe. They prob-

ably had already cased that town house, and they knew what they were looking for.

"If it hadn't been for your tip they would have come back here and pushed off today or tomorrow for God knows where. They could've gone up into Narragansett Bay to Providence, or almost anywhere along the coast; probably had already made a date with a fence. When they collected, they'd have come back to Long Island City with the boat, and when we finally picked them up we'd have one hell of a time trying to pin that job on them." He shook his head, a note of admiration in his voice. "Nobody would ever have thought of checking back to that Long Island City boatyard or any other boatyard for that matter."

"Yesterday morning they found out about Kingsley being kiUed," McCarthy said, "and they must've sweated it out all day with their fingers crossed, hoping that someone didn't empty the safe before they could get to crack it. We figure they went down sometime yesterday morning and waited around until it was dark. They probably got the ten o'clock out of Grand Central and got off at Say-brook to get a taxi here." He grunted softly. "They reaUy had it figinred," he said. "It was damn neat."

"What happens now?" MacLaren asked.

"They'll be arraigned here," Lynch said. "Then either they waive extradition or we extradite them. That'll be no problem."

"Well, thanks again for the tip," McCarthy said, as he moved to the door.

"Yeah," Lynch added. "If there's anything we can do any time to—"

"There might be something," MacLaren said as his mind went back and a new thought came to him. "The fellow named Lew was out in the dinghy fishing somewhere around the time OHver Kingsley was killed. I don't know where he was, but there's just a chance he might have seen or heard something that could be important."

He hesitated, and said: "Mrs. Kingsley and I are still in a spot. The local people think we may have had something to do with his death. It'll probably stay hke that, at least until they get a report on the autopsy. So—if you should find out anything from Lew that might help, I would appreciate it if you would let me know."

They nodded. They said they would keep it in mind. . . .

By ten thirty the sun had biuned the fog away, the boatyard was humming, and MacLaren had discussed price with a potential chent from Hartford who wanted a thirty-foot sloop built during the fall and winter. Now, moving out on the dock again after having walked to the car with his customer, MacLaren glanced across at the island.

He still wanted to search the cruiser, even though common sense told him that it was probably much too late to hope to find the weapon that had struck down Kingsley. But Danaher was working topside, so he knew any such search would again have to be postponed. Then, as his eyes moved on, he saw someone on the far side of the island and, on impulse, he went down to the skiff and cast off.

Earl Harwell had a canvas on his easel and he sat on a camp stool, facing the mainland across the narrow strip of water separating this from the island. To the right of where the causeway had once been was an abandoned barn with

a sagging roof and what remained of a split-rail fence. Harwell was trying to get this on canvas, and as Mac-Laren stood glancing over his shoulder, it seemed to him that the artist was doing a pretty fair job. He said "Good morning" and Harwell said "Hi," and when there was nothing more, MacLaren squatted down beside him and gave voice to his curiosity.