Dead in the Water

by Stuart Woods

  “Bob Cantor called you,” he said.

  “I’ll call him from my room,” Stone said, then ran up the stairs, let himself in, and dialed the number.

  “Cantor.”

  “Bob, it’s Stone.”

  “Thanks for calling; I’ve got some stuff on Elizabeth Manning, but I didn’t think you’d want me to fax it.”

  “What is it?”

  “A guy I know is on the Palm Beach force, and he did a little moonlighting for me. Elizabeth Manning is, rather was, something of a gadfly in the town—a hanger-on, sponger, whatever you want to call it. She writes this column for a newspaper—an advertising sheet, really—and she practically lives on the food she gets at parties.”

  “Any family?”

  “A mother.”

  “Did your man find out anything about her?”

  “She’s a widow in her early seventies; name is Marla Peters, a former actress, ill much of the last ten years with MS. She lives on Social Security and what she earns playing the piano in a hotel lobby at tea time for tips, plus what her daughter brought in. The two of them shared an apartment.”

  “Nobody else at all? A brother or sister?”

  “Nobody. My guy is sure of that; he talked with the mother.”

  “He didn’t tell her anything about the crash?”

  “Nope; I didn’t tell him. He told her he needed some information about some society type from her daughter, asked her to have Elizabeth call him when she got home.”

  Stone sat, thinking about the woman, imagining her taking requests from other old ladies for dollar tips in some faded Palm Beach hotel, scraping by on Social Security.

  “Stone, you still there?”

  “Yeah, Bob; I’m sorry, I was lost in thought there for a moment.”

  “Anything else you need?”

  “No, not at the moment; I’ll call you if I do.”

  “Sure; see you later.”

  Stone hung up, depressed. Before he could move, the phone rang again. “Hello?”

  It was Thomas. “Stone, there’s somebody named Harley Potter on the phone; says he’s a lawyer, wants to talk to you.”

  Now what? “Okay, put him through.”

  “Hello?”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Barrington; my name is Harley Potter of the law firm of Potter and Potter, of Palm Beach, Florida.” The voice was elderly, courtly.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Potter?”

  “I understand you are the attorney for the estate of Paul Manning.”

  “No, that’s incorrect. I represent Mr. Manning’s widow in…another matter. I believe the estate is being handled by a firm in Greenwich, Connecticut.” He gave the man the name of the firm.

  There was a long silence.

  “Is there something else I can do for you?”

  “I wonder, Mr. Barrington, have you, during the past few days, had occasion to meet a Mrs. Elizabeth Manning?”

  “Yes, I have. She arrived in St. Marks the day before yesterday.”

  “Ah, good; I wonder if you could tell me where she’s staying?”

  “Do you represent Mrs. Manning?”

  “I represent her mother, who is an old friend. Usually, when Libby travels, she keeps in close telephone contact with her mother, but nothing has been heard from her, and Mrs. Peters—that’s her mother—is concerned.”

  “Mr. Potter, I’m afraid I have some very bad news. Mrs. Manning was killed yesterday in an airplane crash. She was on her way home to Palm Beach.”

  “Oh, dear God!” the man cried, more upset than Stone would have expected an attorney to be. “Are you absolutely positive? Could there be any mistake?”

  “I’m positive. In fact, I witnessed the crash. It was a light, twin-engined airplane that flies people to Antigua, where they make airline connections. There was an engine fire; the pilot tried to ditch in the water, stalled, and the airplane disintegrated. All three people aboard, Mrs. Manning among them, were killed instantly. I believe the local government has been trying to notify Mrs. Manning’s next of kin, but apparently they’ve not yet contacted Mrs. Peters.”

  “No, I’m sure they haven’t; I spoke with her not ten minutes ago. This is just terrible; Libby’s mother is so dependent upon her.”

  “I suggest you get in touch with the minister of justice in St. Marks, whose name is Sir Winston Sutherland, at Government House in the capital city.”

  “I shall certainly do that. I will want to make arrangements to bring the body home for burial.”

  “I’m afraid that two of the three bodies, including Mrs. Manning’s, went down with the fuselage of the airplane in deep water. I should think that it is unlikely in the extreme that it will ever be recovered.”

  “Oh, how terrible.”

  “Mr. Potter, do you know if Elizabeth Manning had any life insurance?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It occurs to me that you might need an affidavit to establish death. I can supply that, having been a witness, and there was another witness, who I’m sure would be glad to do the same.”

  “Oh, good. Yes, there was a small insurance policy, little more than enough to cover the burial expenses. You are an attorney, you said?”

  “Yes, I practice in New York.”

  “I suppose there will be an inquest.”

  “Yes, I should think so.”

  “I wonder if you would undertake to act for this firm in the matter of obtaining a death certificate and any other legalities which might arise. I’m afraid that Mrs. Peters could not afford to send me down there, and in any case, I would find it physically impossible to make the trip.”

  “I’m leaving St. Marks to return to New York the middle of next week, but until that time I would be happy to handle any details that might come up, including the death certificate.”

  “Let me give you my address and phone number.”

  Stone wrote down the information.

  “You may send your bill here.”

  “I would be glad to render this small service as a courtesy to Mrs. Peters,” Stone said.

  “You are very kind, sir. Ah…” He paused as if unwilling to mention something. “Mr. Barrington, Libby spoke with me before she left, and I was under the very distinct impression that she expected to realize some financial benefit from the estate of her former husband. Are you aware of any such benefit? Even a modest sum would mean the world to Mrs. Peters.”

  Stone winced. “I am aware that there was no mention of the first Mrs. Manning in Paul Manning’s will,” he said, “and that the alimony required by his divorce decree had expired.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that is correct,” Potter said. He sighed deeply. “No bequest, eh?”

  “I’m afraid not, but I will raise the subject with Mr. Manning’s widow.”

  “Would you? I would be so very grateful. Mrs. Peters’s health is not good, and I’m very much afraid that without her daughter’s help she will be unable to afford to stay in her apartment, and I don’t know where she would go.”

  “I’ll speak to Mrs. Manning about it,” Stone said, “and I’ll be in touch with you on my return to New York next week.”

  “Good. I won’t mention this to Mrs. Peters until I hear from you; I wouldn’t want to get her hopes up, you know.”

  “I understand,” Stone said.

  “One other thing, could you learn the name of the insurance company representing the owners of the airplane? If it crashed because of a mechanical problem, Mrs. Peters might be eligible for a payment from the policy.”

  Stone was anxious to get off the phone before he was saddled with any other duties. “Yes, yes, I’ll inquire about that.”

  “I’ll look forward to hearing from you, then.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Potter.”

  Stone hung up and lay back on the bed. It was worse than he could have imagined; and he didn’t know whether Allison would honor her agreement. He went back to work and tried not to think of the old lady at the piano in Palm Beac
h.

  Chapter

  36

  The inquest was held in the same village hall that had been used for the inquest into the death of Paul Manning, the coroner was the same, and the jury was indistinguishable from the first one. The only difference was the absence of Sir Winston Sutherland, who, apparently, could see no political advantage in attending.

  Stone and Thomas gave their testimony, and then the mechanic employed by Chester’s air taxi service was called and questioned by the coroner.

  “State your name,” the coroner said.

  “Harvey Simpson,” the mechanic replied. He was black and appeared to be in his early forties.

  “Mr. Simpson, are you a fully qualified aircraft mechanic?”

  “Yessir, I am. I done my training in Miami, and I worked in Fort Lauderdale for eight years before I come home to St. Marks.”

  “How long had you done mechanical work on Chester Appleton’s airplane?”

  “For eleven years.”

  “The same airplane?”

  “No, sir; Chester bought this one six years ago.”

  “Was the airplane in good condition?”

  Harvey Simpson straightened in his seat. “Yessir, it certainly was. I did an annual inspection on the airplane last month; I always kept it right up to snuff.”

  “What about the port engine?”

  “That was the newest of the two. I installed it eight months ago, and it only had five hundred and ten hours on it.”

  “How long is an engine good for?”

  “That one was rated for two thousand hours.”

  “So Chester had only used a quarter of its expected life?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “At the time of the annual inspection, did you find anything wrong with the engine?”

  Harvey Simpson opened a plastic briefcase and removed a book. “I got the engine logbook right here,” he said. “There’s a list of what I done to it.”

  “My question was, did you find anything wrong with the engine?”

  Simpson consulted the logbook. “I found two exhaust brackets broken. That’s a common fault; vibration weakens the metal. I replaced both brackets. The compression on all the cylinders was in the high normal range; that’s a pretty good indicator of the health of the engine. All the airworthiness directives and service bulletins were up to date on it.”

  “We have heard testimony that the engine caught fire; can you think of anything that might have caused this to happen?”

  “No, sir,” the man said emphatically. “I did a fifty-hour inspection on the engine three days before the crash—that includes an oil change—and there wasn’t nothing wrong with it.”

  “What, in your opinion, could cause an engine fire in that airplane?”

  “Leaking fuel would be about the only thing, sir, but I checked all the fuel connections during the fifty-hour inspection, and they was all tight.”

  “Nothing else could have caused the engine fire?”

  “Well, a bad exhaust leak, maybe, but there wasn’t no exhaust leaks, either.”

  “So you have no explanation for the engine fire?”

  “No, sir, I don’t, and believe you me, I’ve done some considerable thinking on the subject. If I had the engine back and could inspect it, I might be able to tell you what caused the fire, but…”

  “Quite,” the coroner said. “Does any member of the jury have any questions for Mr. Simpson?”

  A tall black man stood up. “I’ve got a question,” he said.

  “Go ahead and ask it,” the coroner replied.

  “Harvey, Alene Sanders, who got killed in that crash, was my wife’s sister-in-law. What I want to know is, who’s going to pay for killing her?”

  Simpson shook his head. “I don’t know, Marvin. Chester didn’t have nothing but that airplane and his house.”

  “What about insurance?” the man demanded.

  Simpson shook his head again. “Chester stopped paying the insurance last year. Said it was too much, it was going to break him.”

  The man shook his head and sat down. Stone shook his head, too. That answered Harley Potter’s question.

  “All right, then,” said the coroner, “the jury can retire to consider their verdict. I won’t recess for another fifteen minutes, because I don’t think it’s going to take long.”

  The jury retired, and everyone stood up to stretch. Stone turned to find Hilary Kramer of the Times and Jim Forrester of The New Yorker in the row behind him.

  “What brings you two here?” Stone asked.

  “Nothing else to do,” Kramer replied. “Not until your case begins. I’ll file a short piece on the crash. You happen to know anything about the Manning woman, Stone?”

  “As a matter of fact, I had a call from a lawyer in Palm Beach. She left an elderly mother—no other family.”

  “No insurance for the mother, either,” Kramer said, jotting down some notes. “Got the mother’s name?”

  “Marla Peters; a widow and retired actress.”

  “Address?”

  “No idea.”

  “The lawyer?”

  “Harley Potter of Potter and Potter.” He looked at Forrester. “I don’t see you taking any notes, Jim.”

  Forrester grinned. “I’ll clip Hilary’s piece; it’ll all be in there. It’ll be no more than a marginal reference in my piece.”

  “I guess not,” Stone agreed.

  “What was Elizabeth Manning doing down here?” Kramer asked.

  “She wanted to know if she was mentioned in Manning’s will. She wasn’t.”

  “I heard you and she were looking over some documents in the Shipwright’s Arms,” she said. “What were they?”

  “Paul Manning’s will; she wanted to see it.”

  “When were they divorced?”

  “Something like ten years ago, I think.”

  “When were they married?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “You’re a font of information, aren’t you?” Kramer said suspiciously. “Is there something you don’t want me to know?”

  “Hilary,” Stone said, “why would I keep information from you?”

  She was about to reply, but the jury was returning.

  The coroner waited for everyone to be seated, then spoke. “Have you gentlemen reached a verdict? If so, read it.”

  A man stood up. “We find that Chester Appleton, Alene Sanders, and Elizabeth Allison Manning met their deaths by misadventure,” he said, then sat down.

  The coroner rapped sharply on his table. “A verdict of death by misadventure having been found, these proceedings are closed.”

  Stone made his way forward and introduced himself to the coroner.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Barrington, I remember you from an earlier inquest.”

  “That’s right. A law firm representing the next of kin of Mrs. Elizabeth Manning has asked me to act for them in St. Marks. They have requested a copy of the death certificate, so that Mrs. Manning’s estate may be probated.”

  “Of course,” the coroner said. “I’ll give you an original.” He sat down, took a pad of blank certificates from his briefcase, wrote one out, signed it, and handed it to Stone. “There you are,” he said. “Nice that this inquest is so much simpler than the last, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  He smiled a little. “Not as interesting, though.”

  Stone smiled with him. “No, I guess it isn’t.” He shook the man’s hand and left the hall. To his relief, the two journalists had disappeared.

  Back at the Shipwright’s Arms, a fax was waiting for him.

  Dear Stone,

  Just a quick note to let you know I’m not dead. My research is going well. I’ve been spending all my time with Vance, who has been a dear. I’ve been staying at his house, which is very beautiful, and I’ve met many friends of his. The life out here is really wonderful.

  Oh, Chip McGrath at the New York Times Book Review has asked me to review a big
new book on the history of Hollywood and the studios—front page of the review, if you can believe it. It’s a nice showcase for me.

  I might stay out here for a week or two when I finish the piece. This California living gets under your skin.

  Got to run. We’re off to dinner.

  Love,

  Arrington

  Stone was hurt. After all he’d said to her in his letter, she hadn’t even referred to it. Then it hit him: his letter had gone down with Chester’s airplane, in Libby Manning’s purse. She had never received it. He swore at himself for not remembering that before now. I’ll write her tomorrow, he thought. First thing.

  Chapter

  37

  Stone returned to Expansive with some trepidation. He was not looking forward to talking with Allison about this, partly because she did not need additional problems while facing a trial for murder, and partly because he did not relish a scene with her, and he had come to know that she was adept at scenes.

  To his surprise, he found her packing.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, stuffing things into a duffel. There were two others, already full, on the aft cabin bed.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked. He really wanted to know.

  “Sure,” she said, “next week. I didn’t have anything to do, so I thought I would get some things together, and then when the trial is over I can get out of here pronto!”

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to get out of here,” he said. “What will you do about the boat?”

  “Oh, I don’t know; probably take your advice and sell it in Fort Lauderdale. I don’t want to think about the boat; I’m sick of it, and once I’m out of here I never want to see it again.”

  He could understand that, too. “We have to talk for a minute,” he said.

  “What about?” She kept packing.

  “Could you stop that for a minute? I need your full attention.”

  She stopped packing and sat down on the bed. “Okay, shoot.”

  He sat down beside her. “I had a call from a lawyer in Palm Beach who represents Libby’s mother.”

  Her eyes widened. “How the hell did he know to call you?”