Slack tide (15 page)

"AU right," she said, "how much do you want?"

"I was thinking maybe fifteen thousand."

"And where would I get it?"

"You'll have a wad when the estate is settled."

"I haven't got it now."

"Didn't Kingsley give you some stock for a wedding present?"

This, she saw, was the solution, and she was grateful now that MacLaren had insisted on going to the city last night.

"I have four hundred shares of National Aluminum. It's quoted somewhere around forty."

"Sixteen thousand?" Danaher's eyes brightened and he gulped a swallow of his drink. "Perfect. Is it in your name? Can you get your hands on it?"

"I have it now."

"With you?"

"No, but I can get it."

"Okay. So you endorse the certificate and have your signature witnessed either by the bank or a notary pubhc. That way it's as good as cash as far as I'm concerned." He hesitated and there was an edge in his voice when she made no reply. "Well, is it a deal, or not?"

Again she hesitated, not because she did not want to pay him, but because she did not trust him.

"How do I know you're not just making this up?" she asked. "How can I be sure you know what really happened?"

"I'll tell you. I was aboard the cruiser when Kingsley came back. Somebody met him and there was an argument. I couldn't see much but I could hear and I know who it was. I know somebody reached into the cockpit and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the bracket. I could hear a blow and then somebody fell and a few seconds later there was a splash. I don't know if Kingsley fell off the catwalk or whether he was pushed, but a httle later, when I came out of the deckhouse, he was gone.

"Sometime before morning," he said, "the guy must have thought about that extinguisher. I think he went back aboard and threw it into the inlet but by that time it was too late. He threw the wrong one because I'd already taken care of the one that did the job and put it somewhere else. I don't see any of this, you understand?" he said. "But that extinguisher was missing in the morning and that's how it has to be."

"And you can prove this?"

"I was in the CID for a while when I was in the army. I took some courses in criminology. I think there are fingerprints on that extinguisher and if there are they belong— at least some of them belong—to the person who slugged your husband, because I cleaned the extinguisher earher in the day. There's a brown stain on one end with a couple of hairs stuck in it, and any good pohce laboratory can

not only lift the prints but prove the stain is the same blood type as your husband's."

She beUeved this much because she did not think he could have made up such a story so well. But she was still afraid to put her trust in him. As though sensing this, he pressed his advantage.

"I have to get well paid for this," he said, *T3ecause when I teU the cops they're going to give me heU. I'm going to have to think up a pretty good story. I'm going to have to say that I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to put the finger on anyone. I'U have to admit I covered up, and then I'll say that I decided to teU the truth because I knew you were irmocent and I didn't want you to have to take the rap for something you didn't do. . . . Oh, I'll make it convincing enough," he said. "I may have my troubles, but for sixteen grand I'll take a chance."

This, she beheved. She had but one more reservation, and she spoke of it now.

"How do I know you'll do what you say? You could take the stock and then deny everything you've just told me."

"When you dehver the stock, I'U put something in writing. Sort of a receipt that you can show if I renege. That way you can be sure you'U get something for your money."

He put some bills on the table to pay for the drinks and pushed back in his chair. "Give me a ring around a quarter of eight this evening. If you've got the stock with your signature guaranteed and you want to play baU, I'll tell you what to do. If not, you can sweat it out by yourself." He rose, and she stood up with him.

"I'n have it," she said.

"Good," Danaher said. "Because this is the only pitch I'm going to make."

15

DON MacLAREN walked up the main street to a drugstore after he left the Inn and moped through a lunch consisting of a hamburg, a glass of milk, and a piece of apple pie. He was still upset and a httle resentful at what he had seen. He could not understand why Ruth Kingsley should be having a drink with Danaher in such privacy, nor could he understand her attitude.

To compensate for this attack of melanchoha he took refuge in a more practical viewpoint. There wasn't any law that said she had to like him, was there? If she didn't want to have lunch with him, and sluffed off his suggestion of a boat ride, that was her business. Was that any reason to sulk? The honest answer to this was no, but it didn't help him much, and he was still wearing a long face when he went back to the boatyard dock and found the two state pohcemen waiting for him.

They were in plain clothes, and when they had identified themselves, they asked if he could ferry them over to the island. They went aboard the Kingsley cruiser when he returned to the dock, but they did not stay very long. He saw them start for the house, and now he moved upstream to the rigging-dock where a rebuilt engine was being in-

stalled in a thirty-two-foot cabin cruiser. As the gin pole lowered it neatly into place, he lent a hand until, sometime later, one of the workmen touched his arm and pointed across to the island.

The two policemen had apparently finished their job, whatever it was, and were now gesturing to indicate that they would hke a ride back. MacLaren went over to get them and deposited them back on the dock. He did a bit of bailing on the skiflF until they got into their car and drove away. Then, because there seemed to be no sign of hfe on the cruiser, he went back to the island and started the search which had already been postponed on two occasions.

The fire extinguisher bracket in the cockpit was still empty. He knew there was a foam-type extinguisher beneath the engine-room hatch but this did not concern him. He knew there were three other hand extinguishers, one in the crew's quarters in the bow, one in the deckhouse, and one on the bulkhead separating the galley from the forward cabin.

He examined the extinguisher in the deckhouse first. It was bright and shiny, and although he did not touch it, he could find nothing about it that was out of the ordinary. He went below to the galley and discovered that this extinguisher was right where it should have been. The light was not very good here and he looked at it several seconds before he actually saw it. He had to re-focus and study it to realize that the brass surface was stained and spotty, its once shiny finish etched with corrosion. Then, slowly at

first but gathering momentum, the significance of what he saw became clear.

The basis of his conclusion was a sound one and came from his knowledge of the cruiser and Harry Danaher's practices. A layman might have found nothing unusual in that extinguisher, but MacLaren knew what salt water could do to such a surface. Danaher, for all his faults, was a spit-and-pohsh man, and since an extinguisher, safely out of weather, could not have acquired such corrosion vdth Danaher around, it meant that this particular extinguisher had, until recently, been somewhere else.

Like that, the answer came to him. For of the extinguishers aboard, only the one in the cockpit was exposed to the spray and weather.

If his hunch was right, this extinguisher had very recently been in the cockpit. Someone had exchanged it for the extinguisher that had originally been here in the galley. There could, he reaHzed, be other reasons for such an exchange, but he clung to the one that gave him hope that he might have found a worthwhile clue.

He did not touch it, and he left the boat as quickly as he could. He did not think anyone had seen him as he got into the skiff and rode across to the floating dock. It was not until he stood in front of the showroom door that Sergeant Wyre appeared around the corner, put a coin in the soft drink machine, and extracted a bottle of Pepsi-Cola.

The sight of the uniform and the familiar face started a series of conflicting thoughts in MacLaren's head. He had no intention of following up his fire extinguisher theory personally. Whether or not the idea had value was some-

thing for the pohce to decide, but he did not want to confide in the sergeant until he knew just how Kingsley had died and what the medical examiner's verdict was to be. He spoke of this when the sergeant lowered the bottle after having poured half its contents down his throat.

"What about that autopsy report?"

"Supposed to be in this afternoon sometime."

"Don't you even know how he died yet?"

Wyre thought it over. He held the bottle up to the hght to see how much remained and then finished it off.

"I can tell you this much if it helps any," he said, putting the empty bottle in the near-by case. "There were two wounds on the back of Kingsley's head. One was superficial, and the other wasn't."

MacLaren's "Ahh—" was an involuntary expression of rehef. Then, with a sudden exultancy, he said: "I told you that block of wood couldn't have kiUed him."

"Sure. But that don't mean you couldn't have socked him again later."

"Nuts."

"I don't say you did, understand. That's for the heuten-ant and the county dick to decide."

"Nuts."

Wyre adjusted his hat and shrugged. There may have been an incipient grin on his hps. "Well, you asked me and I told you," he said. "See you." He gave a half salute and disappeared round the comer.

MacLaren stopped below Sam Willis's bedroom window and yelled up at him as he had done the other day.

"You up there, Sam?"

"Hell, yes," the voice came back. "You know damn well I'm up here."

The cluttered room was just as MacLaren had remembered it. Willis glowered at him from the easy chair, and his injured ankle was propped up. The .22 rifle stood near by, the Scotch cooler was within easy reach, and the low table was cluttered with magazines, the two binoculars, and a scratch pad on which WiUis had been doodUng.

"What the hell happened down there this morning?" he asked querulously. "Somebody was shooting."

"Yeah." MacLaren grinned at him. "If it hadn't been for the fog you'd have seen it all."

"Well—tell me about it, damn it."

"I'll trade you."

"Trade me for what?"

"Information." MacLaren eased down on the edge of the chair. "I'll tell you what happened this morning and you teU me what you saw the night Kingsley was kiUed."

"What makes you think I saw anything?"

Because he wanted to keep Willis in a reasonably good humor, MacLaren let the question pass and launched into an account of what had happened aboard the Annabelle III that morning in the fog. He made no mention of his own part in the matter, but simply suggested that the po-hce had acted on a tip.

"Just my luck," Willis said when MacLaren finished, "to have something like that happen with the inlet all fogged in. Day after day I sit here and see nothin'—"

"You see plenty, Sam," MacLaren interrupted.

"Sometimes I do."

"You heard what happened to Kingsley, haven't you?"

"Sure I heard."

"It was around nine o'clock," MacLaren said. "I know you were in this room and I know you hadn't gone to bed. You've got the mind and the instincts of a busybody, and you've got a fine pair of night glasses here." He leaned forward. "I think you saw what happened on the dock," he said. "I wish you'd tell me about it."

WiUis rubbed his long nose and directed his glance out the window. "Yeah," he said finally. "I saw the fight. I saw the girl throw something at Kingsley and I saw him dive into the inlet."

Somewhere in MacLaren's chest a nerve tightened as new hope expanded swiftly within him. He found he was holding his breath before he said: "Did you see him pull himself into the dinghy?"

Wilhs was still looking out the window, and he took time to consider the question.

"Not exactly."

"What do you mean, not exactly?"

"I saw him swim over to the dinghy. I saw him kicking alongside of it as he headed for the island. Then I lost it."

MacLaren did not beHeve this. He said so. Because he was so intent on learning just a httle more his voice became blunt and aggressive.

"You saw more than that, Sam."

WiUis leaned back in his chair and picked up the pencil. Then, suddenly, his face seemed to close up and the eyes were withdrawn. He began to doodle, and MacLaren saw

that a series of eights covered the pad, some thin, some fat, some large, some small. Some of them had faces drawn in the loops and others contained pencil marks that had no form nor any pattern.

"I told you what I saw," Willis said finally, and now his tone was sullen. "You think these binoculars have got infrared lenses? You think I'm a magician or something?"

"All I'm saying is that these are the same kind of glasses the Navy used during the war when they could get them. No night is all black. With these glasses even the stars give some illumination. There'd be reflected hght from the office showroom and the house on the island—even from the lamps on Main Street. If a captain could see from the darkened bridge of a ship at sea, I think you could see enough from this room, especially if the light was out, to know that Kingsley reached shore. If you could see that much you also must have seen what happened after that."

Even before he finished he saw the stubbornness working on the man's face. The half-closed eyes were again hostile and the mouth tightened.

"Are you caUing me a Har?"

MacLaren looked right at him before he rephed. He could not beheve that this was the whole truth, and something about Willis's manner and attitude disturbed him greatly. He was not sure why. He could have accepted a spirited and perhaps caustic reply. Such a reaction would have been characteristic of the man, but he had not expected to find such obvious hostility and resentfulness. Finally, sensing that he could expect no further co-operation, he stood up.