Dead in the Water

by Stuart Woods

  “Straws to grasp at; God knows I’ve got nothing else. See if you can find me a witness who can, from personal experience, characterize the relationship between Paul Manning and his wife during the last few days they were in the Canaries—ideally somebody who can say he saw a lot of them and that they obviously adored each other.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Anything else you can possibly think of. You understand the situation now and something of what I need. If I’m going to get this woman off I’m pretty much going to have to prove that she didn’t do it.”

  “That’s impossible,” Cantor said. “There were no witnesses.”

  “I’m going to have to do it anyway.”

  “What airline goes to the Canaries?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea; call my secretary and tell her to book it for you, tonight if possible.”

  “Right. Anything else?”

  “Yes, I want you to dig up everything you can on Paul Manning for me—library, Internet, credit report, criminal record, military record, anything you possibly can before you leave for Las Palmas. FedEx it to me here.” He gave Cantor the address and phone and fax numbers. “If you can think of any other avenue to pursue, pursue it; if you need outside help, hire it; if you have any ideas for me, fax them, okay?”

  “I’m on it,” Cantor said, then hung up.

  Stone called his secretary. “Hi, Alma.”

  “Hi, Stone. I saw Arrington this morning; why is she still here?”

  “Don’t ask; she’s not coming. I’m going to be busy down here for at least another week, so scrub anything I’ve scheduled through the middle of next week—reschedule or tell them I’ll call as soon as I’m back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Any calls or correspondence worth bothering with?”

  “Nothing that won’t wait until you’re back.”

  “Oh; call one of the judges’ clerks and find out where they buy robes, then get one in my size and FedEx it to me.”

  “You doing some judging down there?”

  “I’ll explain later. Is Arrington upstairs?”

  “She was on the way out when I saw her; a limo was waiting for her.”

  “I’ll call her later, then.” He gave her his address and numbers. “You can always leave a message at the bar if I’m not here. I’m still sleeping on the boat; it’s all the use I’m getting out of it.”

  “Okay; anything else?”

  “Oh, I almost forgot: Bob Cantor is going to call you in a minute about some travel arrangements. Get him on a plane tonight, if possible, and give him a thousand dollars in cash for expenses. Anything else he needs, get it for him, all right?”

  “All right.”

  Stone hung up. He felt a little better now that he was actually doing something about the mess he was in. He went back downstairs just as Allison was saying good-bye to the businessman.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “An investigator from Paul’s insurance company. If we need any cash for legal expenses, it’ll be in my bank account in Greenwich shortly.”

  “Good; we ought to give Leslie Hewitt his fee up front; it’s usual in this kind of case.”

  “He’s such a sweet old man,” she said. “I just loved him.”

  “Yeah,” Stone said. “Allison,” he said, taking her arm and leading her to a table, “you and I have to talk, and right now.”

  “Sure,” she said. “You’re looking pretty grim.”

  “I’m feeling pretty grim, and I’m going to tell you why.” He pulled out a chair for her and sat her down, then took a deep breath and started in.

  Chapter

  11

  Stone sat her down and talked to her. “I don’t have time to be gentle about this or pull any punches, so here’s your position as I see it. This Sir Winston Sutherland has it in for you, apparently because he thinks it will help him politically. He somehow engineered an open verdict in the coroner’s jury, which gave him a legal basis for charging you with Paul’s murder. Now you’re going to be tried, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

  “Surely any reasonable jury will acquit me,” Allison said. “I don’t really have anything to worry about, do I?”

  “Allison, I don’t know if we’re going to have a reasonable jury. The judge picks the panel, and no objection from me is going to stand; the jury may be all or mostly black, and they may or may not be more likely to convict a white person, I don’t know. All I know is that this is a capital offense.”

  “You mean I could get the death penalty?”

  “Yes, and the way things apparently work on this island, if you’re convicted there’s no other penalty you could expect to get.”

  Allison stared at him, her mouth open. “Are you serious?” she managed to ask.

  “Perfectly serious. What’s more, there’s no lengthy appeals process available; the only appeal is to the prime minister, and he apparently acts on appeals very quickly.”

  “How quickly are we talking about?”

  “The appeal must be lodged within twenty-four hours after the trial ends, and he normally acts on it within twenty-four hours after that.”

  “Let’s look at the worst case,” she said. “I’m tried on Monday—how long is that likely to last?”

  “The way things are done here, no more than a day, possibly two.”

  “Then if I’m convicted on Monday, the appeal has to be filed on Tuesday, and the prime minister would either grant or deny it on Wednesday. If he denies it, then I would be…How do they do it?”

  “Hanging.”

  “I could be hanged…when?”

  “The day after the prime minister acts.”

  She swallowed hard. “So by a week from Thursday I could be dead?”

  “Worst case.”

  She put her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. “What can we do?”

  “Put on the best defense we can, in the circumstances. I had wanted to bring in a top barrister from London, but the judge has precluded that by making Leslie Hewitt the counsel and me his assistant.”

  “Isn’t there anything else we can do?”

  “There are two ways we can go: I’ve already said that we have to put on the best defense that we can, and I’ve got somebody in New York working on that now. He’s leaving for the Canaries right away to see what he can find to help us there. Did you make any friends while you were there? Someone who might testify as to your relationship with Paul?”

  “No, not really; we pretty much stayed to ourselves. What’s the other thing we can do.”

  “Well, we know that Sir Winston somehow finds it politically desirable to try you on this charge; what we might be able to do is make it politically undesirable for him to convict you, or, if he should, to make it desirable for the prime minister to uphold your appeal.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “By letting the press know about your predicament.”

  “On this island? What press?”

  “Not here; in New York, in London; wherever people read newspapers or watch TV.”

  “You want me to become famous?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “I just don’t see how that’s going to help.”

  Stone spread a hand as though he were tracking a headline. “BEAUTIFUL BLOND AMERICAN GIRL LOSES HUSBAND AT SEA! CONNIVING POLITICIAN CHARGES HER WITH MURDER IN BACK-WATER ISLAND NATION!!! It’s called marshaling public opinion; it might bring pressure to bear.”

  “How do we accomplish this?”

  “I’ll call New York and get a public relations firm involved. Can you afford that?”

  “How much?”

  “I’m no expert at this, but I should think fifty to a hundred thousand dollars would go a long way toward accomplishing what we want. Woodman and Weld would hire and instruct them, and you’d have to pay their fees, too. Will the insurance money cover it?”

  “Yes,” she said, but she looked doubtful.

&n
bsp; “What’s the problem?”

  She shrugged. “I just don’t know if I want to be that kind of celebrity. I’m really a very private person.”

  “Allison, let me put this to you as strongly as I can. If we don’t do something you’re going to be a very dead private person. In St. Marks, Sir Winston holds all the cards; he’s in control. But he can’t control the rest of the world. This island subsists mostly on tourism; if he wants to become prime minister he’s not going to want somebody telling the world’s tourists that if they come to St. Marks they’re liable to be arrested, tried, and hanged on spurious charges. That translates into a lot of empty hotel rooms and a catastrophic loss of revenue for the government.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Why don’t I just get the hell off this island? There must be a way.”

  “Didn’t you listen to His Lordship this morning? If you try that and they catch you, it’s tantamount to conviction; they could hang you before the week is out. Even if you made it off the island, they could come after you, maybe extradite you; then you’d be worse off than you are right now; you’d be guilty.”

  She shrugged and said nothing, but she seemed to be imagining something terrible.

  “Will you let me get this PR campaign in gear?”

  “All right,” she sighed.

  “Good. I suggest you get a hundred thousand dollars sent to Bill Eggers at Woodman and Weld as soon as possible. Nobody’s going to want to extend credit to you in the circumstances.”

  “All right; I’ll call my bank in Greenwich; the insurance money is supposed to be deposited there soon.”

  “Allison, speaking of insurance, did you mention to the investigator that you had been charged with the murder of the insured? That might make them reluctant to pay.”

  “It never came up,” she said.

  “Hello, Bill, it’s Stone.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Allison Manning is sending you a hundred thousand dollars from her Greenwich bank tomorrow.”

  “How nice! Do I have to do anything for it?”

  “I want you to get ahold of the hottest PR firm you can find and have them start a campaign in the media to get Allison Manning released.”

  “I believe I get the picture,” Eggers chuckled. “Barbaric islanders persecuting American blonde?”

  “You’re a quick study, Bill.”

  “How much does she want to spend?”

  “I told her I thought fifty thousand would do the job; spend more if necessary. By this time the day after tomorrow I want this island overrun with wild-eyed reporters, photographers, and television crews. See if you can get 60 Minutes interested, but tell them they have to move fast; she goes on trial on Monday, and she could be strung up by the middle of next week. It’s this Sunday night, or nothing.”

  “They’ll want as much background on her as possible.”

  “Call Bob Cantor.” He gave Eggers the number. “He’s researching her husband; tell him to copy you on anything he finds. Paul Manning was a well-known writer, so lots of people should have heard of him. Try to be careful what you release to the PR people; don’t let anything unfavorable get into the mix.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “The firm has got a lot of Washington connections, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Find out who her congressman is in Greenwich, get ahold of him and both Connecticut senators and tell them they’re about to lose a voter. Get them to get on to the State Department and tell them an American abroad is being railroaded. There’s no consulate here, but there’s bound to be one on a neighboring island. Have them issue the strongest possible protest to the St. Marks government.”

  Eggers was laughing now. “Why don’t we get the president to send a cruiser down there to drop anchor in the harbor, with her guns pointed toward the capitol building?”

  “Send a fucking aircraft carrier, if you can.”

  “Are there any communists in the St. Marks government? That always helps, especially in the Caribbean.”

  “Let’s assume there are, for the moment; we can always apologize later.”

  “Call me tomorrow.”

  “Right.” Stone hung up and walked downstairs, where Thomas was getting the bar ready for lunch. “Thomas,” he said, “you’d better prepare for some business. Maybe we can even make up for the New York blizzard.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Thomas said, laughing.

  Chapter

  12

  Stone dialed the number and waited. “This is Stone Barrington,” his own voice said. “Please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you.” “Arrington?” he said into the phone. “Pick up, Arrington.” Nothing. He hung up.

  He felt he had done all he could for the moment, so he left the room above the restaurant and walked down to his chartered yacht; he was weary and aching, as if he had run several miles. He fell onto his bunk and slept.

  A rapping on the hull woke him; a glance through the hatch showed him dusk outside. He poked his head up.

  Allison was standing on the pontoon between their boats. “How you doing?” she asked.

  “How you doing is a better question.”

  “I had a little cry; now I feel better. Come over and have some dinner with me?”

  “Sure, I’d like that.”

  She held up a finger. “One condition: no talking about my problems; I’ve put them out of my mind until tomorrow.”

  “Agreed. Give me time for a shower? I’ve been asleep, and I’m a little groggy.”

  “I hate a groggy date,” she replied. “See you in half an hour.”

  Stone hunted down his razor, then squeezed himself into the tiny head and turned on the cold-water shower. In St. Marks, it wasn’t all that cold.

  He rapped on the deck of the big blue yacht and stepped aboard.

  “Come on down,” she called out from below.

  Stone walked down the companionway ladder, which, on a yacht this size, was more a stairway. Allison was at work in the galley, and the saloon table had been set for two, side by side. Whatever she was wearing was mostly concealed by a large apron.

  “Can you make a decent martini?” she asked.

  “I believe I can handle that.”

  “The bar’s over there.” She pointed. “Just open those cabinet doors.”

  Stone followed her instructions and found a handsome bar setup, nicely concealed. He found a cocktail shaker, two glasses, and ice cubes, then the gin and vermouth. “You sound awfully cheerful,” he said as he mixed the drinks. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s a gift,” she said. “For my whole life, when faced with something awful, I do as much as I can, then I put it out of my mind. I mean really right out of my mind. Then I find that the next day, things seem clearer.”

  “That’s a great gift,” he said.

  “You can cultivate it if you work at it.”

  He handed her a martini. “I’ll start right now.”

  She was sautéing chicken breasts in a skillet on the four-burner gas range, which was large for a yacht.

  “When did you find time to get to the grocery store?” he asked.

  “I didn’t. I provisioned in the Canaries, and I’ve got lots of cold storage here, plus a large freezer. There won’t be a salad, though; sorry about that.”

  They clinked glasses. “Better times,” Stone said.

  “I’ll drink to that.” She took a swig of her martini. “Expert,” she said.

  “A misspent youth. I tended bar in a Greenwich Village joint one summer, during law school.” He leaned against a galley cabinet and sipped his drink. “Tell me about you,” he said.

  “That’s easy,” she replied. “Born in a colonial village in Litchfield County, Connecticut, father a country lawyer, mother a volunteer for this and that; went to local private schools, then Mount Holyoke, in Massachusetts; did a graphics course at Pratt, in Brooklyn, worked as an assistant art director for an ad agency in Manhatta
n, met Paul, married Paul; lived…well, lived. What about you?”

  “Born and raised in the Village, father a cabinetmaker, mother a painter; NYU undergrad and law school. NYPD for fourteen years, eleven of them as a detective.”

  “Why’d you quit?”

  “A very bad boy put a twenty-two slug in my knee, and the force quit me, gave me their very best pension. That’s the short version; I won’t bore you with the long one, which involves a lot of department politics and a very strange case I worked on. Anyway, once off the force, I crammed for the bar, and an old law school buddy hooked me up with Woodman and Weld.”

  “How much money do you make?”

  The bald question stopped him for a moment, then he recovered. “I made about six hundred thousand last year,” he said. “My best year so far.”

  “You’re doing well, then.”

  “By New York law firm standards that’s only middling, but I have a lot more freedom than I would as a partner in a firm. I’m lucky that I can pick and choose my cases. If I want to bugger off to St. Marks for a week’s sailing, I can manage it.”

  She put an oily hand against his cheek. “But you got stood up, didn’t you? Poor baby.”

  “That’s me.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Name’s Arrington Carter; she’s a freelance writer.”

  “And when the blizzard was over, what kept her in New York?”

  “She’s writing a New Yorker profile of Vance Calder.”

  “Ooooh, lucky girl.”

  “I guess. She’s known him for a while; matter of fact, she was his date the first time I met her.”

  “And you won out over Vance Calder? You must be sensational in bed.”

  He laughed. “You think that was it? I always thought it was my boyish charm.”

  She gave him a bright smile. “That, too.” She opened a sealed packet of smoked salmon and arranged the slices on two plates. “First course is almost ready,” she said. “There’s a bottle of white on the table; will you open it?”

  Stone went to the table, found a corkscrew, and opened a bottle of Beringer Private Reserve ’94, then tasted it. “Excellent,” he said. “Was Paul a connoisseur of wines?”