The Whaler’s port side dipped as Harry Zylstra stepped aboard. He was wearing a wide-brimmed Tilley hat and carried a plastic supermarket sack.
“Puts on quite a show, don’t she?” he said, propping his butt on the gunwale.
“Made my day,” I said. I gestured toward the hillside north of the marina. “I think I saw the glint of binoculars up there somewhere. Or maybe a telephoto camera lens.”
“Nearly every time she sunbathes there’s an old guy up there somewhere whose wife calls to complain.” From the plastic sack he took two pre-packaged sandwiches, two cans of Coke, and two packets of Dad’s oatmeal cookies. “What’ll you have?” he said. “I got tuna on wheat and ham and cheese on white.”
“I’ll have whichever one is left after you’ve made your choice,” I said.
“Tuna, then,” Harry said, handing me a sandwich, a Coke, and a packet of cookies.
“Thanks,” I said. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a regular Coke, but the sugar and caffeine might help me stay awake.
“Anything happening?” Harry Zylstra asked. “Besides the floor show.”
“Nothing. If my guy is on the boat, he’s staying out of sight.”
We chatted while we ate our sandwiches, reliving old times, then he collected the sandwich wrappings and Coke cans into the sack and went back to work. I went with him to use the bathroom, then returned to the Whaler. I regretted not bringing a book.
Mid-afternoon Addy Shay sunbathed for another hour on a chaise on the afterdeck of the flybridge, then disappeared inside again. Nothing more happened until later in the afternoon, when Val trundled a rubber-tired, four-wheel cart along the float to the Mariposa II, off-loaded bags of groceries on to the afterdeck, and trundled the cart back along the float. She favoured me with a smile as she passed the Whaler. She looked good in sawed-off jean shorts and a tank top.
A few minutes later she returned with another load of groceries. “Harry wants to see you,” she said, as she passed the Whaler. Addy Shay emerged from the Mariposa II’s cabin and began carrying the groceries inside.
“She’s planning a cruise,” Harry said, when I went into the office.
“She knows how to drive that thing?” I said.
“Not hardly. Sam or Val has to take it to the fuel dock or the dumping station. For longer trips she hires a local couple to crew for her. They’ll be going aboard tomorrow.”
“Do you know where she’s planning to go? Or for how long?”
“Nope. But Dickie and Debs will know.”
“Dickie and Debs are the crew, I presume.”
“Yep. Dickie Warwick. Captain Dickie. Calls Debs his third mate, on account of her being his third wife. You want to talk to them? They live in Horseshoe Bay.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But first I need to know if Brandt’s on Addy’s boat.”
“She’s taking on a lot of supplies for just one person, plus Dickie and Debs,” Harry said, as Val took a third cartload to the boat. “Liquor, too, and she only drinks wine herself. Dickie and Debs are Mormons, don’t drink anything stronger than cranberry juice.”
“Can you get Addy off the boat?” I said. “Find some reason for her to come to the office?” If I could get her off the boat, I could take a run at Brandt, if he was aboard, without her getting in the way. I didn’t think it likely that Brandt knew how to use a crossbow, unless Addy had been giving him lessons.
“I’ll try,” Harry said.
He picked up a telephone handset from his desk. He flipped open a three-ring binder and ran his finger down a list of names and numbers. As he began to dial one of the numbers, Zach Jardine’s iPhone rang. I saw my own name on the screen. I went outside to take the call.
“Zach,” I said, looking out over the floats toward Addy Shay’s boat. “What’s up?”
“You’re not going to like this,” Zach said.
“Tell me anyway.”
“She’s gone.”
“You’re right, I don’t like it. What happened?”
“After I talked to you this morning we went to the hotel. I put her in the adjoining room, then ordered breakfast from room service. After we ate, I went to my room to take a shower, then lay down to rest my eyes for a couple of minutes. I fell asleep. When I woke up, I went to check on her and she was gone. The doorman said he might have seen her getting into a cab. Sorry, Riley.”
“Could she have gone back to the boat?”
“No sign of her. I went to the other marina, too, to see if she was with the kid. He hadn’t seen her and didn’t want to. Do you think Thomason got her?”
“I expect she just got cold feet.”
“What should I do?”
I thought about it for a minute. “Leave word at the hotel to get in touch with you if she shows up there, then go back to her boat. Maybe when she realizes there’s no place to run, she’ll go back there. If not, well, I don’t think it would take the police long to track her down.”
“Unless she found what she was looking for on the boat,” Zach said. “Had it stashed in the dryer maybe.”
“There’s that,” I agreed.
“What’s going on there?”
“I think Brandt and his girlfriend are planning to sail away into the sunset sometime tomorrow,” I said. Harry Zylstra knocked on the window of his office and beckoned to me. “I’ll talk to you later,” I told Zach. I disconnected as I went into the office. “So?”
“She’s not answering,” Harry said. “I tried a couple of times. Should I have left a message?”
“No, it’s okay.”
I went out to the embankment and stood looking through the forest of masts and spars and spreaders to where the Mariposa II was moored. She was about twenty metres from the shore of Fisherman’s Cove and ten metres from the nearest of the floats belonging to the West Vancouver Yacht Club. I decided to wait things out, see what developed. Brandt, if indeed he was on Addy’s boat, couldn’t go anywhere on foot without passing through the security gate at the top of the ramp down to the floats. Nor could he go anywhere in a boat without navigating the narrow channel between the marina and the yacht club floats. Unless he swam ashore, of course …
“Are the floats lit at night?” I asked Harry.
“The yard and the security gates are pretty well lit,” he said. “On the floats there are small lights at each hookup and brighter ones at each utility box.”
“Is there somewhere I can camp out overnight to keep an eye on the boat?”
“Would here be good enough?” He indicated the embankment.
“I’d need to be able to get through the gate.”
“No problem.”
“Are there many people around at night? Are any of the other boats occupied?”
“A couple. We’re not really zoned for live-aboard, but, well, you know there are ways around that.” All it took was an onshore address and, theoretically at least, one night ashore a month. “But it’s pretty quiet at night. And there’s Wally, our night guy. I can hang around, too, if you like. Keep you company.”
“Only if you’ve got nothing better to do. Like sleep.”
“If I get tired, I can crash in the office. Wouldn’t be the first time. I can spell you, too, if you need to grab some zees or a pee.”
Sunset was around nine fifteen, but the light did not fade completely until almost 10 p.m. Harry Zylstra and I sat in aluminum lawn chairs on the embankment overlooking the floats. I didn’t care if Brandt knew he was being watched. Maybe it would rattle him into making a move. Although the Mariposa II’s interior lights were on, the vertical blinds on the side windows of the main cabin were closed, and curtains were drawn over the wraparound front window. Periodically I could make out a shadowy figure moving about in the main cabin. Maybe two. I couldn’t be sure, even with the binoculars.
It was a pretty night,
calm and moonless—according to Harry, moonrise wasn’t until 4 a.m.—with a light haze dulling the stars. Quiet jazz drifted across the water from the yacht club patio, mixing with rock and country and classical from boats and other sources, the mutter of voices, and the rumble of boat engines and vehicles on Marine Drive. Woodsmoke mingled with the smell of salt and seaweed, and the shifting breeze carried the occasional hint of tempura from the Japanese restaurant across from the marina yard. Someone nearby was smoking marijuana.
“I love the smell of marijuana at night,” Harry said, doing a credible imitation of Robert Duval from Apocalypse Now. “It smells like my youth, up in smoke.”
A few minutes before midnight, I sat up as a small Zodiac burbled around the end of the yacht club float into the marina basin, a single occupant silhouetted in the stern. The little outboard shut down as the Zodiac nudged up to the stern of a 30-foot cabin cruiser on the furthest float. I watched through my borrowed binoculars. A figure climbed out of the Zodiac, secured it to a stern cleat, then went below.
“That’s Phil Morgenstern,” Harry said. “Barman at the Eagle Harbour Yacht Club. Lives aboard most of the summer.”
I lowered the binoculars and sat back. Harry stifled a yawn.
“Don’t feel obliged to stay all night,” I said.
“I’m good for another hour or so,” Harry said. “How long are you going to keep at it?”
“If nothing happens by dawn I’ll go aboard and stir things up.” Something occurred to me. “Is Addy’s boat equipped with an alarm?”
“Yeah, it is,” Harry said. “But the alarm company cut her off. She couldn’t ever remember the activation code and kept setting it off. Makes a godawful racket.”
The interior lights of the Mariposa II’s main cabin went out, but the lower deck lights still shone through the amidships portholes. The afterdeck was lit by pot lights in the flybridge overhang. They went out a few minutes later.
Chapter 28
I struggled to stay awake, aided by the uncomfortable metal frame of the lawn chair. Harry Zylstra’s head lolled as he dozed in his chair. Every few minutes, I raised the binoculars and scanned the Mariposa II and the nearby boats. Harry stirred.
“I think I’ll go inside,” he said, standing.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“Can I get you anything? Another coffee?”
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Shout if you need me,” he said. I told him I would.
Half an hour after Harry went inside, a flicker of movement near the stern of the Mariposa II caught my eye. I raised the binoculars and saw a dark figure clamber on to the boarding platform from an inflatable dinghy and climb the steps to the afterdeck. Unsecured, the dinghy floated away.
“Hell,” I said, half under my breath.
I’d been wrong. Brandt hadn’t been hiding out on the boat after all, but somewhere nearby, waiting until dark to go aboard. But as the figure paused at the sliding door to the main cabin and looked around before
disappearing inside, there was something about the breadth of the shoulders that made me swear again.
It wasn’t Chaz Brandt; it was Lawrence Thomason.
Leaving the binoculars on the chair, I opened the security gate, which Harry had left unlocked, and went down the ramp to the floats. The sectional float on which the Mariposa II was moored was twice the length of a football field, but it seemed longer as I made my way toward the boat, armed with nothing but a long steel flashlight and a hefty flat-bladed screwdriver, both borrowed from Harry. My stomach was tight and my hands felt hot and tingly with adrenaline.
As I neared the Mariposa II, I tried to keep to the shadows in case someone was watching from the darkened cabin, but if anyone were watching, I would be clearly visible. The lower cabin lights were still on. I hunkered down on the T-float and tried to peer through a porthole, but the curtains were drawn. I moved toward the stern and stepped on to the boarding platform, transferring my weight gradually from the float to the boat so as not to alert anyone aboard to my arrival. The boat was big enough that my weight likely wouldn’t cause much movement, if any at all, but better safe.
Thankful for the crepe soles of my desert boots, I climbed the steps and crept across the afterdeck to the flybridge companionway, which was to starboard of the door to the main cabin. Concealed by the companionway bulkhead, I took a quick look into the cabin through a gap in the vertical blinds. The cabin was only dimly lit, but there didn’t appear to be anyone in the salon or the galley.
I stepped out of the protection of the companionway bulkhead. Before resorting to the screwdriver, I tried the door. It was unlocked. Slowly, cautiously, I slid it open only as far as necessary to slip through into the salon. Leaving the door open, I stood for a moment, listening, letting my eyes adjust. I heard muted voices from below. I moved forward through the salon to the galley, heart freezing as I nearly tripped over the step up to the galley.
“Be careful with that thing,” a man said. I recognized Lawrence Thomason’s voice. “You wouldn’t want to shoot the lady, would you?”
“Yeah, that would be a shame,” another man said. Chaz Brandt, I presumed, as I cat-footed through the galley to the partly closed hatch to the lower deck. Brandt didn’t sound as though he cared one way or another about shooting Addy Shay.
“Look,” Thomason said. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay? Just give me what I want and I’ll be out of here. Then you two can go back to your fun and games.”
“And what is it you want?”
“The money, of course. What do you think?”
Chaz Brandt laughed. There was no humour in the sound. “Christ, you’re even dumber than you look if you think I carry more than pocket change around with me.”
“Okay, so where is it?”
“Nowhere you can get at it. Now get the fuck out of here.”
“Not till I get what I came for. Okay, so you’ve stashed it offshore somewhere. Give me the account numbers and the name of the bank.”
Brandt laughed again. “Jesus, you really are a moron, aren’t you? You think I’m going to hand over the account numbers just because you ask for them? You’re not exactly bargaining from a position of strength, you know.”
“Give them to me or I’ll snap her neck like a twig.”
“Go ahead,” Brandt said, a shrug in his voice. “You’ll only weaken your bargaining position.”
“Enough talk,” Thomason said. “Give me what I want or you’ll regret it.”
“And how do you figure that?” Brandt said.
“I’ve got your wife and kid,” Thomason said.
“So what? I don’t give a shit what happens to Terry. She’s nearly as stupid as that dimwit. And the kid’s not mine, anyway.”
“What about your sister and her kids? Do you care what happens to them?”
“Not particularly,” Brandt said.
“I don’t believe you,” Thomason said. I did.
“You know,” Brandt said. “You’re absolutely right.”
“Uh. About what?”
“We’ve talked enough.”
Oh-oh.
“That’s better,” Thomason said.
“You won’t think so after this,” Brandt said.
His words were punctuated by a hard, twangy snap, followed almost instantly by a meaty thunk and a
woman’s scream. I threw open the hatch and bounded down the companionway. The master stateroom was at the aft end of a short passageway. The door was open. Lawrence Thomason sat on the deck, his back against the foot of the king-sized master berth. A crossbow bolt protruded from the right side of his chest, an inch or so to the left of where his nipple would be. Blood bubbled on his lips with each laboured breath.
Adrianna Shay screamed again as I charged into the stateroom. Chaz Brandt was trying to reload a crossbow, clumsy in his haste an
d his lack of familiarity with the weapon. I snatched it out of his hands. He made a run for the door. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him to the deck at Addy Shay’s feet, causing her to scream yet again. She had a good set of lungs.
Kneeling on Brandt’s spine, I tossed the crossbow on to the master berth.
“Jesus Christ,” Addy Shay said. “Fuck-fuck-fuck.”
“Addy, calm down. Take it easy.” Blood ran from a wound on her right upper arm, two inches below the point of her shoulder. Thomason breathed in wet, bloody gasps. Brandt squirmed under my knee. “Lie still,” I said, and squeezed the back of his neck.
I looked around for something to secure him. There was a lamp on the bedside cabinet. Still kneeling on his spine, I stripped the electrical cord from the lamp and, holding his arms behind his back, made three quick turns around his crossed wrists. I folded up his right foot and tied the lamp cord off around his ankle, trussing him like a roped calf ready for branding.
“Let me look at you,” I said to Addy. Her upper arm had been gouged by the crossbow bolt sticking out of Thomason’s chest. It was more than a scratch, but not serious. She was one very lucky lady. “You’ll be okay.”
Keeping an eye on Brandt, I knelt by Thomason. His eyes were wide with fear. His hands were wrapped around the shaft of the bolt.
“Take it out,” he pleaded, wheezing, blood in his mouth, on his lips, dripping from his chin. “Take it out.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.
Addy Shay squeaked, yanked open the door to the master head and knelt over the toilet, retching. Harry Zylstra burst into the stateroom. “Holy shit.”
Watching Brandt, I took out Zach Jardine’s iPhone, but couldn’t get a signal. There was a cordless phone on the bedside cabinet. I lifted it out of the charging cradle and handed it to Harry. “Call 911. Police and ambulance. Tell the operator a man’s been shot through the right lung with a crossbow bolt.”
“Christ,” Harry said.
Chaz Brandt tried to sit up, struggling against his restraints. “Untie me, for fuck’s sake!” he yelled, as Harry went out into the passageway to make the call. “This crazy bastard shot that guy, not me.”
The Evil That Men Do Page 22
