‘What’s the orange dot mean?’ Julie asked as we pretended to admire one of the many renderings of seascapes in the Eastaugh Collection.
‘I think it means it’s already been sold,’ Georgina said. ‘Honest to God, can you believe some of this crap?’ We’d reached ‘Wild Girls,’ the painting of the woman with her horse, and I noticed with amusement that it carried an orange dot and would be going to a good home. Ruth contemplated it for a moment, then said, ‘Although she put on a brave face, Miranda was not happy with her mail order dentures.’
It was too perfect. I had to laugh.
‘Oh, that’s so cute!’ Julie pointed to a painting of a cat dressed as a ballerina. She flounced over, leaned closer, moved her sunglasses to her forehead and squinted at the price tag. ‘It’s two hundred dollars! No way!’
‘Way,’ I said.
Julie favored me with a grin. ‘If I had a hundred dollars …’ In mid-sentence, she froze. With one quick motion she flipped the sunglasses down over her eyes, did an about-face and sidled up to her mother. ‘That’s him,’ she croaked. ‘Don’t look now, but oh my God, I think that’s the guy!’
Georgina tucked her chin down, kept her voice low. ‘I need to get Julie out of here.’
‘Mom, mom, I can’t breathe!’
‘Hannah!’ Georgina whispered urgently.
‘Just wait until we can confirm exactly who Julie’s looking at,’ I whispered back. I swung around slowly, casually.
Jack Westfall had made a poor wardrobe choice that morning. Had he shown up at the gallery in a tux, or even a bathing suit, it’s possible Julie wouldn’t have recognized him. But there he stood, schmoozing with a potential buyer, wearing a black polo shirt with a little squiggle on the pocket. Not an alligator, nor a polo pony; not a penguin, nor Pegasus. Not a brand name owned by millions. Oh, no. It was an image I’d seen before – on posters, on signs, in the catalog, on bid sheets. Westfall wore a company shirt, with an Eastaugh Galleries logo.
And if I had anything to say about it, his goose was about to be cooked.
‘Take Julie out the back way, through the photo gallery,’ I ordered. ‘You won’t run into him there.’
For once, Georgina didn’t give me her famous well-aren’t-you-the-bossy-boots glare. She wrapped her arm around Julie’s shoulder and the two of them strolled off into the photo gallery. Not until I’d lost sight of Georgina’s red and white shirt disappearing into the crowds that were mobbing the boutiques just beyond, taking advantage of the half-price sales, did I dare to turn around and look at Westfall again.
‘Ruth, I think I need to kill him.’
‘I will not stop you, Hannah.’
Jack Westfall moved with ease among the passengers, smiling at one here, shaking another hand there. My sister and I watched as he paused to point out a gouache of an owl camouflaged in a tree to a well-coifed blonde, resting his hand lightly on her back as he did so.
‘We are looking at a man who raped at least one girl, kidnapped another, and almost certainly murdered David Warren’s daughter. That’s what a murderer looks like, Ruth, should you ever need to paint a picture of one.’
‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered as Westfall and the blonde moved on to the next painting.
I reached into my pocket for my iPhone. ‘Stand over there, next to that horrible owl thing.’
Ruth looked puzzled, but did as I asked.
‘Now smile!’ I instructed.
Ruth posed in front of the painting, her best ‘say cheese’ face obediently in place.
‘Turn around, dammit,’ I muttered under my breath. After fewer than ten seconds, my wish was granted. Jack Westfall turned, abandoned the blonde, and smiled at someone new just behind me. I moved the iPhone subtly to the right, gave it time to refocus and snapped the bastard’s picture. ‘Got it, Ruth!’ I waved gaily.
Ruth hastily rejoined me. ‘What next, Hannah?’
‘We’re going to tell Officer Martin, that’s step number one. Now that Julie’s identified Westfall as her attacker, hopefully they’ll take him into custody.’
‘Well,’ Ruth said. ‘At least Westfall’s not going anywhere.’
‘True, but I’d feel better if he didn’t have the run of the ship. If he knew that Julie recognized him …’ I shivered at the thought. ‘Come with me to the security office?’
‘Of course,’ my sister said, and linked her arm with mine as we walked out of the gallery.
We stood like statues in the lobby, waiting for the elevator that would take us to the security office on deck eight. When the elevator doors opened and Officer Ben Martin stepped out, I nearly fell over. He didn’t see us, but veered to the right, striding purposefully toward the piano bar.
‘Officer Martin!’ I called.
Martin performed a neat, military about face. ‘Mrs Ives. How’s your niece this afternoon?’
‘She’s out and about,’ I told him. ‘In fact, that’s what we were coming to talk to you about.’ I touched Ruth on the shoulder. ‘You remember my sister, Ruth.’
Martin stood at parade rest, his hands clasped behind his back. He bobbed his head. ‘I do. Sorry it was under less than ideal circumstances.’
Pleasantries over, I got right to the point. ‘My sisters and I wanted to take advantage of the fifty-percent-off sales, and we just happened to wander into the art gallery. Julie was looking at a painting when Jack Westfall came into the gallery. Do you know Westfall?’
Martin nodded. ‘Very well. Married to the gallery owner, Nicole Westfall.’
I glanced around the elevator lobby to make sure nobody was in earshot, lowered my voice. ‘Julie recognized Westfall as the man who abducted her from Breakers!’
Martin couldn’t have looked more surprised if I had pulled a baseball bat out of my handbag and bashed him over the head with it. When he spoke again, his voice was low, urgent. ‘Mrs Ives, I don’t mean to question your niece, but when I last saw her, she was practically unconscious, and she stated – for the record – that she didn’t remember what the man looked like.’
‘That’s true,’ I admitted, ‘but what else did she say? Do you remember how she described what her attacker was wearing?’
‘Black shirt, black cap.’
‘And?’
Martin grimaced. ‘What is this? Twenty questions?’
Ruth was quick to refresh his memory. ‘She said it was a polo shirt, with a squiggle on the pocket.’
Martin’s head ping-ponged toward Ruth. ‘Don’t all polo shirts have some sort of logo on the pocket?’
It ping-ponged back to me when I said, ‘Some. But if you go to the art gallery right now, you’ll see Jack Westfall wearing a black polo shirt with a unique squiggle on the pocket.’ I drew a representation of the logo in the air with my finger. ‘It’s a stylized E and a G floating on top of a wave. It’s the Eastaugh Gallery logo, Officer Martin. When Julie saw Westfall wearing that shirt it scared her so much she started to hyperventilate. Her mother had to take her back to the cabin.’
Officer Martin stroked his chin with a thumb and forefinger. ‘You’ll want me to arrest this man, I suppose.’
‘Of course I want you to arrest him!’ I sputtered, then lowered my voice a few octaves. ‘If for no other reason than he kidnapped and assaulted my niece. But there’s also the rape of Noelle Bursky and the murder of Charlotte Warren on Voyager to consider. Jack Westfall is the common denominator.
‘Officer Martin, I don’t have access to your crime reports,’ I forged on, ‘but I’ll bet you a million dollars – that’s how sure I am of this – that if you examine cases of rape of teenage girls on Phoenix ships over the course of the past few years, you will discover that the majority of them occurred on ships where Eastaugh Gallery was the art gallery concessioner and furthermore, that the rapes happened, without exception, at the same time as the art gallery auction was taking place.’
It was a long speech, and I stopped to take a breath.
‘Jesus,’ Martin
said. ‘How did you …? Never mind. Warren, right?’
But wait, there’s more, I thought. I explained my suspicions about the Ketamine, and how Kira’s evidence suggested it would have been possible to introduce the drug into Julie’s drink using a straw. Knowing that the straw would had to have been prepared ahead of time, I added, ‘I’ll bet if you search his room right now, you’ll find evidence of that. Ketamine. Straws. Probably hidden in his underwear drawer.’
For the first time since I began talking, Martin hauled out a notebook and jotted something down.
‘So, what are you going to do now?’ Ruth wanted to know.
Martin tucked the notebook back into his breast pocket, his face immobile, grave. ‘As I explained to your sister earlier, I am not a cop. I can’t search a passenger’s room without good reason, and I have no authority to make arrests. I’m sorry, ladies, but the best I can do is take down what you’ve told me and pass it on to the F.B.I. I am simply not equipped to carry out a proper investigation. I don’t have the trained staff, or the facilities. They do.’
‘And by then, the evidence will be gone …’ Ruth let the thought die.
I’d already been down that path with Officer Martin. I knew it was a dead end. What we needed at that moment simply wasn’t in the man’s job description. ‘I’m disappointed, of course,’ I told him, ‘but I understand that you’re just doing your job, and I appreciate the time you’ve given us so far.’
To give him credit, Martin looked genuinely sorry when we thanked him and said goodbye.
‘Thanks for nothing,’ Ruth muttered as we watched Martin disappear into the piano bar. ‘What’s next, Hannah?’
‘I think it’s on to Plan B,’ I said.
TWENTY
‘A conjuring performance cannot be properly and thoroughly appreciated by anyone who does not know something about the art, for the attraction is not – or should not be – wholly centered in the secret, however wonderful it may be.’
David Devant (1868-1941), My Magic Life,
Hutchinson, 1931, p. 116
‘What’s Plan B?’ Ruth wondered as we made our way down the corridor that led to our stateroom.
‘Hell if I know,’ I said.
‘David Warren is going to be royally pissed,’ Ruth predicted. ‘He’s worked so long and so hard. This was a big breakthrough for him.’
‘I’ll give him a call. But I don’t think he’ll be surprised. He’s been dealing with cruise-line politics for a lot longer than I have. Out here in international waters, it’s a whole other world.’
I slotted my sea pass into the lock.
Once inside, I stuck my head into the cabin next door. Julie sat on her bed, swaying to music that was leaking – chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka – out of her earbuds, and playing a game on her iPhone. If the encounter with her abductor that afternoon had upset her, she was hiding it well.
I drew Georgina aside. As I described our meeting with Officer Martin, my sister’s face grew progressively more concerned. ‘What are we going to do about Julie, then? What if Westfall …?’ She couldn’t finish the sentence, but I could fill in the blank. I shivered.
‘We’ll keep Julie close, of course,’ I said. ‘It’s only one more day.’
Georgina agreed. What choice did she have? ‘No more late nights at Tidal Wave, that’s for sure.’
‘Look at it this way,’ I said, sitting myself down on the foot of her bed. ‘Jack Westfall is a cocky bastard. He’s gotten away with rape before, and he thinks he has done it again. He uses drugs on his victims so even if they do remember seeing him, their testimony will be unreliable. What a power trip.’
‘Westfall has no idea that Julie has identified him,’ Georgina rationalized. ‘As long as he thinks he’s in the clear, I suppose she’ll be OK. It’ll be my job to keep it that way!’ Suddenly, she straightened. ‘What about dinner tonight? It’s formal. Since we missed it the first time, Julie has her heart set on going so she can wear one of her new dresses.’
‘I don’t think you need to worry. David Warren told me that the Westfalls almost always eat at the second seating, so I think we’re good to go.’
‘Julie!’ her mother called. ‘Ju-lee!’
Julie yanked out her earbuds. ‘What?’
‘If you ran into Jack Westfall, what would you do?’ her mother asked.
Julie puffed air out through her lips. ‘Walk right past and pretend like I don’t know him, of course. Duh. You think I’m one of those “ooooh ooooh something’s making a noise out in the woods so let’s go see what it is” kind of bimbos?’
Georgina sighed. ‘Fourteen going on twenty.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
Back in the cabin I shared with Ruth, I called David’s stateroom and left a message that I needed to see him. I asked the operator to connect me to Buck Carney’s cabin, too, but he didn’t pick up either, so I hung up, figuring he’d be easy enough to track down. With the focus now on Jack, I was hoping Carney had taken some pictures at Breakers! that could help us where the security cameras had failed. I also needed to telephone my husband and bring him up to speed.
Until Islander entered the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at Norfolk later that evening, cell phone reception was simply a fantasy. We could have Skyped from the library, of course, but then everyone within earshot would have overheard the conversation – both sides.
After discussing a plan of action with my sisters, I used the cabin phone to telephone Paul.
‘Sweetheart! I was hoping you’d call.’ He sounded so cheerful, I hated to burst the bubble.
I twisted the telephone cord around my finger, trying to calm my nerves. ‘Not sure you’ll be so happy when you hear what I have to say.’
‘What’s happened? Is everyone OK?’
‘Sort of,’ I told him. ‘Do you have a piece of paper and something to write with?’
While Paul grunted, cursed, ranted and raved, using words of power I didn’t even know were in his vocabulary, I filled him in on the previous twenty-four hours. Then I told him what we wanted him to do.
After I hung up, with reassurances from him that everything would be OK, Ruth checked in with Hutch. Hutch agreed to cancel his appointments for the day, swing by to pick up Paul and drive up to Baltimore where they would bring Scott into the picture.
I imagined the pow-wow: a tenured college professor, a prominent attorney and a well-respected C.P.A. The F.B.I. would never know what hit them.
When David Warren returned my call he asked to meet me in Athena, the casino bar. Hoping it wasn’t smoking hour at the slot machines, I agreed. When I arrived, he was sitting on one of the banquettes near the window. A glass of white wine sat waiting for me on the coffee table. ‘That was thoughtful,’ I said as I sat down next to him.
As I predicted, he expressed no surprise over Martin’s reluctance to clap Westfall in irons and perform a thorough search of his cabin.
Knowing that his main concern was not Julie or Noelle, who had survived, but to avenge the murder of his daughter, who had not, I said gently, ‘But, surely you can turn this information over to the F.B.I. agent working your daughter’s case. It has to be relevant.’
‘There is no case,’ he said sadly. ‘Charlotte’s death was ruled accidental, possibly suicide. Case closed. And Westfall will never confess to it.’
‘But they can nab him for kidnapping Julie, and maybe pin Noelle’s rape on him, too. He could go away for a long, long time. That would be better than nothing.’
‘I’ve lost my daughter, Hannah. I’ve lost my wife. I’ve spent the last year of my life trying to get justice for Charlotte, and I’m not going to stop now.’
While I considered what David had just said, I twirled the wine glass slowly in my hands, admiring how the multicolored lights of the casino shape-shifted in the condensation. Justice! Justice for Charlotte had been David’s all-consuming purpose. Together we’d tracked down her killer – and found Julie and Noelle’s attacker, too. It wasn’t per
fect justice where Charlotte was concerned, for sure, but I prayed David would settle for that and move on with his life.
‘The sensible thing is leave it to the F.B.I.,’ I said at last. ‘My sisters and I have decided we have no choice but to do that.’ I explained about the troika of fuming father/uncles that would be descending on the Baltimore field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation like enraged bulls. ‘I figure you know that’s the sensible thing to do, too. But, if you have something else in mind, please, tell me how I can help.’
David considered me over the rim of his martini glass. ‘Do you know how to get rats out of your drainpipes, Hannah?’
I smiled. ‘Call the Orkin man?’
David actually laughed. ‘No, you flush them out.’
‘ “Where the river Weser, deep and wide, washes its walls on the southern side …” I quoted.
His dark eyes gleamed with a spark of recognition, but perhaps it was simply a reflection of the casino lights. He leaned back and sipped his drink appreciatively. ‘Ah, yes. “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” ’
I could have bitten off my tongue. I’d forgotten that when the Pied Piper wasn’t paid for getting rid of the town rats, he’d used his magic pipe to lure their children away, never to return. ‘I know the poem by heart,’ I told him, hastening to change the subject. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” too. Shall I recite it for you?’
David chuckled. ‘ “The very deep did rot: O’ Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs, upon the slimy sea.” ’ He winked, raised his glass. ‘Thank you, Sister Mary Carmelina at Sacred Heart Academy, may your soul rest in peace!’
‘So, David,’ I asked after a bit. ‘How do you now plan to lure this particular sea-going rat out into the open?’
He took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘I wasn’t on the Voyager and neither were you, Hannah. We’ve got to make Westfall believe that somebody has finally put two and two together. That somebody has twigged to what he’s been up to.’
I was pretty sure I knew where David was going with this. ‘Pia Fanucci.’
Dark Passage Page 17
