The Pandora Box (16 page)

“I’m not going anywhere without you, not even to the gas dock,” he declared. “One disappearance is enough.”

“Send Marion or Starr with me then, and you won’t have to―”

“What are you up to, Dee?”

“Hawkins, I have to call Devlin.”

“Then why didn’t you come right out and say so?”

“Because I don’t feel like arguing about it. I have to touch bases with him at least once before we go. I can’t just take off for a month with no explanations, I’ll get fired.”

“What are you going to tell him when he asks questions?”

“He won’t ask questions.”

“He’s human, isn’t he?”

“He’s a newspaper editor. And no, they’re not human. All I have to do is tell him I’m on the story of a lifetime, and his lips are sealed. He’ll put me on an expense account and run interference if anyone else comes around asking questions.”

“You have that kind of pull?”

“So far. I still need the extra memory card, though.”

“All right, but we’ll have to make it fast. Starr can top us off on the fuel and we’ll meet them over there.”

Dee didn’t mention the fast talking she would have to do to get Devlin to say yes. Outside the drugstore, she pressed the work button on her cell phone, and hoped he would not be too busy to answer. He answered on the second ring, and it was nearly a minute before she got a word in.

“Dev, do you want me to come home and type up press releases or do you want pure, unadulterated, gut-wrenching controversy? Now, what I have here is a follow-up on Wyngate...you liked the Wyngate pieces, didn’t you, Dev?”

There was a silence, a huge sigh, and then finally, “It’s the best you’ve ever done. It’s going to blow the top right off this town. Probably start an investigation of state hospitals from one end of Oregon to the other. And the way you broke it up into three parts, painting the whole picture, never dropping the bomb until you’ve got them right where you—I say it was brilliant! True to your form, kid.”

“Thanks, Dev.”

“The first part’s coming out this week. But listen, you’ve got me worried running out after the old guy kicked off. I’ve had the law down here asking questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

“The typical kind they ask about people who were the last to see somebody alive.”

“But, Dev, I wasn’t.”

“According to them, you were. Considering the cause of death was insulin overdose that doesn’t look so good.”

Dee gasped. “Insulin overdose!”

“Having cops in my office two days in a row doesn’t look so good for me either.”

“What did you tell them?”

“What I always say. You went on vacation, like usual. But the second guys were investigators or something. You’ll have to answer to them when you get back. Don’t worry. I already told them you left town two days before it even happened.”

“Two days?”

“You said on the machine you left Sunday. Coroner’s report said Peterson died on Tuesday. Looks like your source paid the band, kid. It’s too bad, even if he was an old geezer.”

“He was more of an old geezer than you think. But it was my fault and I feel horrible about the whole mess. How could it have leaked out? You wouldn’t believe the lengths I went to just to keep this thing under wraps. One more day and I would have had him out of there!”

“You did great, don’t worry about it. Peterson probably talked and they’re trying to set the dogs on you. The article turned out to be hotter than we realized. Some pretty big jobs are about to topple. So you did the right thing. The best place for you is a thousand miles away from any member of the Wyngate staff.”

Hawk, having been pacing the sidewalk a short distance away, came up alongside her. “Hurry up, baby, we’ve got a tide to catch.”

“Dee —” Devlin’s voice rose. “Who was that―are you on a fling?”

“No, of course not. That was just...the captain. He talks like that to everybody. Sort of.”

“Are you alone with him?”

“No, Dev, I’m not.”

“Well, it’s a good thing. Because if somebody like you can fall for that stuff, I’ll lose my faith in humanity. By the way, what am I supposed to do with the Caribbean thing? It’s all set.”

“Give it to Scotty. He was upset with me for beating him to Wyngate anyway. Maybe it’ll soothe some ruffled feathers.”

“Maybe I’ll have to use it for my own ruffled feathers. After nine years, that ungrateful bum walked out on me without even giving a notice.”

“What?”

“That’s right. I come in Monday morning and what do I get? A message from you that you went off on some cruise and my number one reporter packing up his desk. Had to have the carpenters in to patch the hole I punched in my own office wall. The guy really got to me.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He was like the silent Buddha. Possessed or something.”

“That doesn’t sound like Scotty.”

“Well, I got news for you, kid. That message you left on my machine? That didn’t sound like you, either.”

19

Overboard

“I am off,” I thought sadly, “and shall I ever get back?” ~ Nellie Bly

“I think Scott Evans may be following us.” Dee tightened the drag on her fishing line.

The afternoon sun was beating down and the wind was so light that
Pandora’s
usual six knots had slowed down to three over a smooth, glassy sea.

Dee had donned the nearest yellow rain hat to keep the glare off her face and it was an unusual accessory to the white, lace-trimmed, cotton undergarment she was wearing. It was a one-piece, sleeveless affair that might have passed for a set of long underwear if the material wasn’t so light and the legs hadn’t barely reached her knees.

“Scott Evans?” Marion lowered the book she was reading and made a quick scan around the horizon from where she was sitting on the other side of the cockpit. “Dee, there isn’t another boat out there.”

“Not literally. He’s got the chart, so he doesn’t have to. But he doesn’t have the journal, so he won’t be far behind.”

“He certainly is the last person on earth I can picture doing something like this.” Marion picked up her book again and did a double-take when she glanced over at Dee. “Good grief, if you take anything else off you’re going to be indecent.”

“It’s blistering hot out here.”

“Then go change into something cool.”

“Hawk said if I left my watch one more time we were going to have a man overboard drill. And I wouldn’t put it past him. Besides”—she carefully reeled in a few feet of line—”it covers more than a bathing suit.”

“It’s the way it covers. You don’t want to be provocative do you? Suppose one of the guys woke up early?”

“Marion, for the last two nights of this heat spell, or whatever it is, I have been dragged up here in this very outfit because it’s the only cool thing I have to sleep in that’s decent.”

“Well, no wonder Hawk’s been showing more than a little interest. You can’t complain if you’re going to lead him on.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not his type.”

“His type is anything female, and I hope you realize that. In a situation like this you have to be doubly careful. Even if it means sleeping in your clothes.”

“I have been. But it’s been way too hot. Don’t worry. Neither of them will be coming up here anyway. This late afternoon watch when they’re both asleep is the only peace I get. I feel like I’m in the Navy.”

“More like the fishing fleet, with that hat on.”

“My nose is sunburned.”

Marion, who had only recently come on deck, was well equipped with sunglasses, a visor and a Hawaiian print shorts outfit. She returned her attentions to the book. She read a line she had already read twice and then closed it again. “I tell you, I just can’t picture Scotty doing something like this, he’s too much of a pansy. You know he used to ask for a copy of every recipe I collected for the coastal cooking column?”

“He still does. I figured he just likes to cook. A lot of men do, you know.”

“I sort of miss writing about food. I wonder if Devlin would let me come back on a part-time basis when I finish my novel. Do you still have the cooking column?”

“Yes, but I’d be glad to give it back to you because I’m overloaded.”

“I can’t picture Scotty stealing anything either.”

“Well, if you could have seen the way he acted when he found out I was going to blow the whistle on Wyngate...he didn’t seem the type to break into my house, go through my files, and steal the chart, but he did. Besides that, Devlin said he quit last Monday. Maybe he doesn’t mind boats so much, after all.”

“But remember the fuss he made about the fumes when they were painting his house? I think he’d get deadly sick on a sailboat.” Marion reached for a nearby bottle of tanning oil and began to spread some more over her legs. “And all by himself? Definitely not.”

“Maybe he isn’t by himself.” For the next few minutes there was only the steady click, click, click of Dee’s reel as she brought in more line. “He was snooping around Wyngate when I…” There was a snag, a sudden forceful yank, and her pole bent into a crescent curve over the rail. “I got a bite!”

“Oh, gads,” Marion replied with disgust. “I hope it isn’t another one of those grouper things like you pulled up yesterday.”

“No, this is bigger…it feels like…something really big!”

“That’s what you said yesterday.”

“Where’s your enthusiasm, Mare? We could be eating like royalty tonight.”

“Let me know when you pull up a tuna, then I’ll be interested.”

Dee couldn’t reel any more line and the tip of her pole seemed fastened to something solid instead of a lively fish. She peered over the side. “Nuts, I think I’m just caught in the propeller or something.” She reached over the rail and gave the line a tug “Yep. Stuck fast.”

“I don’t see how you could enjoy fishing so much when it’s mostly just false starts and jerks and getting the line tangled up every few minutes. How could you enjoy that?”

“I guess I had to learn to enjoy it. Or I would have spent my whole childhood relegated to baiting hooks for my brothers. I was raised on a lake, remember?”

“Why, Dee…” Marion put the cap back on the tanning oil. “I’ve just figured out your whole problem in life!”

“Hey, that sounds pretty serious. Hand me those little pliers out of the tackle box, will you? I don’t want to let go of this pole. It’s one of Starr’s expensive ones. He’d flip if I dropped it overboard.”

“You’ve been competing with men all your life.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I mean, the reason you’re thirty-one and never bothered to get married. You’re too busy competing with men to ever fall for one.”

“I haven’t run into any worth falling for, Marion. That’s the problem.” The line went slack before she had time to snip it. “That’s funny...”

“It’s not funny it makes perfect sense.” Marion sat down beside Dee at the rail. “Don’t you see? Being raised in the country with four older brothers—brothers who had the chance to grow fit and strong and confident—It gave you too high a standard. Now that you live in the city, nobody has much of a chance at stacking up.”

Dee set the pliers aside and tried reeling in the line again. “It gave me a double standard. Like the way my brothers used to rough and tumble and do all kinds of fun stuff. But let me jump into anything close to a brawl, and—thwack! My brother James would wop me across the backside and say, ‘Dee-Dee!’ like I had just committed some mortal sin.”

“You’ve been on your own a long time, and I don’t notice you brawling with anybody. I’d say the opposite. The peacemaking type.”

“That’s the thing. By the time I got off by myself, it was too late to change. I tell you if my conscience had a face, it would look like James.” Her line slowed, resisted, and pulled to a tight stop again as soon as she locked the reel. “Gosh—I still have something on here!”

For the next few minutes Dee was totally engrossed in pulling and tugging, and trying to reel in, inch by inch, whatever the heavy weight was, that was now practically doubling her pole in half. At first, she was on her knees on the seat, and then she was standing with one foot braced against the rail for better leverage. “Get the—the net, Marion! I can’t hold him—up close for long―he’s―he’s too strong for me!”

Marion dutifully lifted the net out of a seat locker and took a position at the rail. But without any enthusiasm at all, since yesterday’s experience with the grouper had given her a sudden, cold drenching that dried to a salty stiffness on her skin.

“Here he comes―he’s coming! Are you ready, Mare?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

“Head first—or he’ll swim right out!”

“OK, OK. But try not to let it splash so much this time, for heaven’s sakes. I really don’t―”

There was a jerk on the line, a tremendous thump and Dee lost her balance and toppled against the rail. She felt the pole begin to slip from her grasp. “Oh, no!” Her prize fish leapt through the water’s surface only a few feet away.

In the brief seconds before it splashed down again in a deluge of cold spray over the entire cockpit, it revealed itself to be fourteen feet of ugly, writhing, jaw-snapping shark.

Marion screamed. The very thought of trying to wrestle that angry head into three feet of net was out of the question, and she tossed the offending tool aside as if it had suddenly become too hot to hold.

Starr came charging up the ladder wearing nothing but a pair of red boxer shorts.

Hawk was following close behind and emerged just as the shark leapt one more time before making a deep, last ditch dive for the sea.

“Dee―let go!” Marion screamed.

“A blasted shark on my salmon pole!” Starr found pliers to cut the line.

“Where’s your safety line?” Hawk reached for Dee and missed, just as she was yanked, pole and all, over the side. “Grab the tow-line!” he called to her even as he snapped the jib sheets free of the winch locks to dump the sails at the same time. “It’s right behind you—swim for it!”

“No―the shark!” She flailed in a panic away from the boat. “The shark!”

Hawk swore and stepped up on the transom. “Turn her around, Starr.” And he dove over the stern.