Choke

by Stuart Woods

  “What would it do to the breather?”

  “The symptoms would include weakness and nausea, eventually unconsciousness, finally death.”

  “How long would it take the red and yellow tanks to kill?”

  “Again, a lot would depend on the condition of the breather.”

  “Say a guy who’d had five bypasses and prostate surgery, but who was otherwise in pretty good shape. Top shape, in fact, for his age. The guy swam, played regular tennis.”

  “I don’t know what effect the prior surgery would have, but even in top shape, the breather wouldn’t get far sucking on the red or yellow tanks.”

  “What do you mean by not far?”

  “A few minutes at most-very few.”

  Tommy thanked the woman and left the lab. He got into the car, picked up the cellular phone, and after a couple of minutes, was patched through to the Coast Guard cutter.

  “Lieutenant, this is Detective Sculley.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Tell me the locations where your men found the three tanks, by color, if you will.”

  “The red tank was on the deck of the wrecked ship; the blue tank was maybe twenty feet from the wreck, in the direction of the yacht; the yellow tank was practically under the yacht.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  “Glad to be of help.”

  Daryl spoke for the first time. “So Chandler was wearing the blue tank?”

  “That’s how it looks,” Tommy said. “Let’s ask him.”

  21

  Tommy and Daryl pulled into the Waterfront Market parking lot just as Chuck Chandler was parking the yellow Porsche Speedster across the road.

  “Hey, Chuck,” Tommy called as he got out of the car. He crossed the road to where the tennis pro was waiting, still dressed in whites.

  “Hi, Tommy. What’s happening?”

  “Beautiful car, Chuck; I haven’t seen one in years.”

  “Thanks. I put a lot of work into it.”

  “You restored it yourself?”

  “Everything. I rented a boat shed near Palm Beach when I was living up there, and I restored both the car and the boat over a period of nearly two years.”

  “Is Choke your boat?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Daryl and I were admiring her the other day.”

  “It was a lot of work, but I had a couple of guys helping on the boat. And I got a floating home and a car out of it.”

  “Could we take a look at Choke? I wanted to ask you some more questions, anyway.”

  “Sure, come on down.”

  The three men walked down to the waterfront and boarded Choke.

  “Wow,” Tommy breathed. “I’ve never seen such good varnish work.”

  “Thanks,” Chuck said. “That took a lot of work. Can I get you guys a drink?”

  “Maybe some coffee or tea for us,” Tommy said, catching Daryl’s eye. “You go ahead and have something stronger, if you like.”

  “I think I will,” Chuck said. “It’s been a hard couple of days. Come on below and have a look around.”

  Chuck showed them the saloon and the master’s cabin, and Tommy poked around while Chuck made tea. The engine room was spotless.

  “You do the engine work?” Tommy asked.

  “Yeah, with the help of one of the guys. We pulled the engine, overhauled it, painted it, and reinstalled it with new mounts and hoses.”

  “You’re a pretty handy guy,” Tommy said.

  “Must be genetic; my father could fix anything, and I used to help him in his workshop.” He handed each detective a glass of iced tea, then poured himself a gin and tonic in a tall glass. “Let’s go sit out on deck; it’s cooler.”

  The three men relaxed in deck chairs and sipped their drinks.

  “I know this is a pain in the ass,” Tommy said, “but I need to go over yesterday again. I’d like you to tell me what happened from the moment you arrived aboard Fugitive until I saw you aboard the Coast Guard cutter. Do you mind?”

  “I guess I’ve got one more retelling left in me,” Chuck said. “I arrived aboard Fugitive around ten, I guess.”

  Tommy held up a hand. “Wait a minute, let me go through the drill. You have the right to remain silent, but if you decide to talk to us what you say can be used against you in a court of law; you have a right to an attorney, and if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to represent you. You understand these rights?”

  Chuck looked a little worried. “Tommy, are you arresting me or something?”

  “No, no, nothing like that; you’ll know it when I arrest you. We always have to go through this form, and I want you to understand that it’s important that you tell me the truth at all times.”

  “Sure; want me to go on?”

  “Yeah. You arrived aboard Fugitive.”

  “Right. Harry was at the marina shop getting some beer, but he came back after a couple of minutes.”

  “What did you do while you waited?”

  “Clare and I chatted.”

  “About what?”

  “Just small talk.”

  “Anything about your trip that day?” “No; I didn’t even know where we were going until Harry got back.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, we were out, I don’t know, half an hour or forty minutes when the same thing happened as on the day you came out with us-exhaust began coming up from below.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Harry stopped the engines and turned on the fan to clear the engine room, then I went below to fix the problem, which was the same as before. The hose clips had loosened, vibration from the engines, I guess, and the exhaust was being poured into the engine room, instead of overboard.”

  “What, exactly, did you do to fix the problem?”

  “I put the hose back onto the overboard pipe and tightened both clamps. This time I put some safety wire on the clips to make sure they stayed put.”

  “How long did all this take, exactly?”

  Chuck shrugged. “Eight minutes, maybe-ten, tops.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I came back up, Harry started the engines, and we continued out to our dive spot.”

  “Who was driving the boat?”

  “Harry.”

  “Where was Clare all this time?”

  “She and I sat on the afterdeck and chatted.”

  “What about?”

  “Just small talk-her tennis game, whatever.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, we arrived at the place, and I went forward to deal with the anchor. Then Harry went, below and handed up three tanks, one for each of us. There’s a compressor in the engine room.”

  “Harry handed up the tanks?”

  “Yeah. Then we started getting into our gear. Harry was ready first, and he went on ahead of us.”

  “Do you remember which tank Harry was wearing?”

  “Yeah, it was the red one, I’m sure. I remember the color when I saw Harry on the bottom.”

  “Why didn’t Harry wear a life jacket?”

  “I suggested that he should, but he said he never bothered. Funny, I could swear he was wearing one the last time we dove together. Do you remember, Tommy? You were there.”

  “I believe he was,” Tommy said. “So you gave Harry the red tank, and you chose which one?”

  “Harry picked the red tank for himself, and Clare said for me to use the blue one, said it was the guest tank. She took the yellow one.”

  “You’re sure she said that?”

  “Positive, just as I’m positive Harry chose the red tank for himself.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “Harry started out before I even had my gear on, and Clare expressed some concern about that, asked me to catch up with him.”

  “Was she ready by that time?”

  “No, I was ready before she was; I helped her on with her tank, then I went after Harry. He had given me a compass course and
a distance.”

  “How many minutes would you say Harry was ahead of you?”

  “Hard to say, exactly; maybe two minutes, five at the outside.”

  “Go on.”

  “So I followed Harry out to the wreck. It was further than he had estimated, I think, and there was a current, a knot or two, running. I had to correct my course. The visibility wasn’t so hot, so I was very close to the wreck before I saw it. I was starting to feel sick.”

  “Did you see Harry then?”

  “Not immediately, not until I got closer. Then he was in plain view on the wreck’s deck.”

  “Describe what you saw.”

  “He had gotten out of his tank, but he was still attached to it by the connecting hose. The regulator wasn’t in his mouth; his eyes were open, and there was blood in his mask. I knew he had stopped breathing, because there were no bubbles coming from his mouth.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went straight for him, and got hold of his wrist. I pulled off the mask, because I knew it was no good to him. I wanted to get him to the surface as quickly as possible. But then I vomited, spat out my regulator in the process, and I really panicked. I yanked the cord on my life jacket, it inflated instantly, and I popped to the surface, kicking to get there faster. When I reached the surface, I was retching and strangling on saltwater at the same time. I guess I was lucky to survive.”

  “Did you think about going back for Harry?”

  “There was no way I could have done it. It was obvious to me that something was wrong with the air in my tank, so I had nothing to dive with, and Harry was at sixty feet. Also, I was having a lot of trouble breathing properly, coughing up vomit that had gotten into my windpipe. I felt exhausted, and when I started back toward the yacht I had to drop my tank so that I could make it.”

  “How long did it take you to get back to the yacht?”

  “I don’t know-a lot longer than it had taken me to get out to the wreck, because I was so tired.”

  “Make a guess.”

  “Well, it must have taken me five or six minutes to reach the wreck, and probably twice that long to get back.”

  “Where was Clare all this time?”

  “I saw her hanging on to the diving platform, vomiting. I guess she had tried to follow Harry and me, but had gotten sick and turned back.”

  “Did you ask her what had happened?”

  “No, we were both in pretty bad shape. I helped her onto the platform and out of her tank, then I took a few deep breaths and went up to the cockpit and radioed the Coast Guard.”

  “How long before they arrived?”

  “Twenty minutes, half an hour. They must have already been in the area.”

  “What did you and Clare talk about while you were waiting?”

  “I told her about Harry, but she didn’t really respond. She seemed to be in shock or something.”

  “But you weren’t in shock?”

  “God knows I was shaken up, but I felt better with every breath I took. By the time the Coast Guard arrived I was feeling perfectly normal. I guess Clare was, too, although she didn’t say anything. The lieutenant commented on how well we both looked.”

  “You didn’t feel the need of going into a pressure tank, to avoid the bends?”

  “No, we were at sixty feet, which is deep enough to make a very slow ascent advisable, but I guess I was down too short a time for that to be a problem; it was sort of what divers call a bounce dive. There was a tank on the cutter, and they offered it to me, but I didn’t think I needed it.”

  “Anything else you care to add?”

  “No, I guess that’s about it.”

  Tommy took a deep breath and blew it out. “Well, we’ve kind of got a problem here, Chuck.”

  “What problem?”

  “Some of your answers don’t jibe with some of Clare’s answers.”

  Chuck furrowed his brow. “Such as?”

  “Tell me again, how long were you in the engine room?”

  “Eight, ten minutes.”

  “Clare said it was more like forty-five minutes.”

  Chuck’s eyes widened. “That’s ridiculous; it was a simple job, and it didn’t take anywhere near that long.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Something else: Clare says you handed Harry the red tank and her the yellow tank and chose the blue one for yourself.”

  “Not true. Clare told me to use the blue tank; she said it was the guest tank!”

  Tommy nodded slowly. Then he produced a plastic bag from his pocket and held it up for Chuck to see. Inside was a twelve-inch length of clear plastic pipe. “Chuck,” Tommy said, “have you ever seen this before?”

  22

  Chuck stared at the plastic pipe as if it were a poisonous reptile. “Yeah, I guess I’ve seen several thousand feet of that kind of tubing in my time. It’s used a lot on boats.”

  “I don’t mean this kind of pipe in general,” Tommy said. “I mean this piece of pipe in particular.”

  He didn’t at all like where this was headed. “I don’t know how to tell that piece of pipe from other pieces of the same pipe,” Chuck said. “What’s going on, Tommy?”

  “Chuck, I think we’ve established that you’re pretty handy on a boat, or with anything mechanical. Would you say that’s a fair judgment?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that Harry Carras wasn’t handy at all with mechanical things, that he never did his own work on his boat, that he didn’t know how machinery worked. But you do.”

  “I guess I’m a little slow, Tommy. Why don’t you just spell it out?” Chuck braced himself.

  “Well, it started with the lieutenant on the Coast Guard cutter. After arriving aboard Fugitive he went below to the engine room, and he found this piece of plastic pipe on the floor, right next to the air compressor.”

  “So?”

  “He also didn’t find any safety wire on the hose clips securing the exhaust pipe.”

  “That’s crazy; I’d put it on there less than an hour before. Safety wire doesn’t just come off by itself.”

  “Never mind that; let me go on with the lieutenant’s theory.”

  “What theory?”

  “Listen to me, Chuck,” Tommy said. “The lieutenant thinks that this piece of tubing might have been used to join two larger pieces of hose together. Could that be?”

  “Well, if they were the right diameter, you could put each end of the smaller tubing into a piece of larger tubing and extend the length a few inches.”

  “Let me ask your opinion on this,” Tommy said. “Could this piece of tubing have been used to join together the exhaust hose from an engine with the intake hose of the air compressor?”

  Chuck’s jaw fell, and he didn’t speak.

  “Chuck? What’s your opinion of that possibility?”

  Chuck swallowed hard. “You think I did that, Tommy?” he asked.

  “I just want your opinion, Chuck. Could you join those two pieces of equipment together like the lieutenant thinks?”

  “Yes, you could. Assuming the different hoses were the right diameters. Is that what happened, Tommy? Did somebody deliberately charge our tanks with exhaust from an engine?”

  Tommy leaned back in his chair and sipped his tea. “We had the air in the tanks analyzed. Two of the tanks had enough carbon monoxide in them to kill in a matter of minutes; the third tank was contaminated, too, but not enough to kill in such a short time, just enough to make whoever breathed it sick after a few minutes.”

  Chuck stared at the detective. “And the third tank was the blue one, my tank?”

  “That’s right, Chuck. Do you see where I’m headed here?”

  Chuck nodded. “I’m afraid I do.”

  “Help me out, here, Chuck; show me how you couldn’t have done this.”

  “Maybe Harry was running the engine and the compressor at the same time, and the compresso
r intake sucked in the exhaust from the engines.”

  “Nice try, but the exhaust pipes are on the stern of the boat, and the intake for the compressor is around on the starboard side, well away from the exhaust.”

  “I was only below for ten minutes,” Chuck replied. “That wasn’t enough time to connect the engine to the compressor and fill the three tanks.”

  “The lady says you were below for forty-five minutes.”

  “That’s not true, but even if it were, the engines weren’t running.”

  Tommy raised a finger. “Good point. I need some more points like that, Chuck. How long would it take to fill three tanks like that?”

  “I don’t know, without knowing the output of the compressor. Certainly it was smaller than the ones you’d see at a dive shop, where they’re filling dozens of tanks a day.”

  Tommy turned to Daryl. “Make a note of that; I want to know the output of Carras’s compressor and how long it would take to fill three tanks.” Tommy then turned and pointed to the marina across the bight. “Chuck, how far do you figure it is from here to Fugitive’s berth over there?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a hundred and fifty yards.”

  “You a good swimmer Chuck? Could you swim over there, at night maybe, and fill those tanks?”

  “I’d have to start Fugitive’s engines to do that,” Chuck replied. “That would get noticed at night. Security’s pretty good over there.”

  “Another good point,” Tommy said. “Keep ‘em coming.”

  “All I can do is tell you the truth, Tommy.”

  “So far you haven’t told me the whole truth, have you, Chuck?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When the three of you were cruising out to that wreck, what did you and Clare Carras talk about?”

  “I’ve told you.”

  “Yeah, but Clare has told us something different.”

  “Told you what?”

  “Chuck, how long has the affair been going on?”

  Chuck looked back and forth at the two detectives. “What did Clare say we talked about?”

  “She said she told you she was breaking it off, that she loved Harry, and that even though he was impotent, she didn’t want to leave him for you.” Tommy leaned forward. “Is that your recollection, Chuck?”