EQMM, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "That was no accident,” Bernd insisted. “Knut deliberately steered the boat into the shallows so that Arne'd go overboard."

  A gust of wind hit the sails and took the yacht a little off-course. More gusts followed. The wind had shifted slightly. I fumbled with the jib sheet, trying to alter the position of the headsail. The break in the smooth motion of the boat hadn't been lost on Karsten, the old sea dog; he opened the hatch, threw a glance at the position of the sails, winked at me, and disappeared again below deck. He and Knut must have had a lot to say to each other.

  Bernd had a lot to say, too. He'd been below deck, he said, when he'd heard a horrible booming noise, and then a dull thud. And only much later had Knut called out, “Man overboard!” but by then you couldn't see Arne anymore.

  There could be a dozen reasons for that, I thought. Knut's boat had just run aground. His first thought probably wasn't to go and see where his crew was. “One hand for yourself, one for the boat,” Karsten had preached. And with the stiff wind from the northeast at seven Beaufort like it was that day, nobody ought to be moving around without a life vest and safety tethers.

  "Anyway, Arne didn't just go overboard. That guy never went overboard before."

  Most people don't get much opportunity, I thought. Not in May, when it's only forty-one degrees in the Baltic Sea. Fifteen minutes. If they don't pull you out by then, you don't stand a chance. And they hadn't been able to find Arne in time. Not with an unmaneuverable boat and the waves so high. Knut had radioed for help, and the Danish rescue team, which knew every current and every vortex, had finally discovered Arne's body. But Bernd wouldn't accept Arne's not being tethered as an explanation for the accident.

  "He didn't need that. He was absolutely sure-footed on the boat."

  With the wind from the northeast at seven Beaufort, strong gusts, and the boat run aground? But Bernd couldn't be dissuaded. Somebody must have “helped” Arne overboard, and he had his suspicions. Knut must have pushed Arne in. Knut had said Arne'd gone overboard from the force of the blow when the boat ran aground, but anyone could say that.

  I'm no crime-fiction specialist, but I've learned one thing from Robert: For despicable acts like pushing a man overboard, there's usually a motive. While I was thinking about what that might be in this case, Bernd leaned forward confidentially again.

  "Knut did it for your skipper! They're friends, you know."

  This made no sense to me.

  "Arne was having an affair with Karsten's wife!” said Bernd, in a tone that suggested that this was common knowledge. “He wanted to come on the Impedimenta with you guys so that he could get a closer look at Karsten, but Karsten said he only took couples."

  "And why would he want to take a closer look at Karsten?” I asked.

  "Because Evelyn didn't want a divorce, and Arne wanted to see if there was anything he could do to change that."

  What had Bernd just said about murder and mayhem among men? Small wonder, if they routinely tackled such a delicate situation so ham-handedly. Even so, I just didn't believe his murder theory.

  "Have you told the police about your suspicions?"

  Bernd shook his head. “I don't speak any Danish. Besides, Knut was always there with me."

  "And where was Heinz-Gunther all this time?” I wanted to know.

  "Probably lying around drunk below deck.” Bernd waved his hand dismissively. “He's only good for two things: drinking too much and making stupid remarks."

  I made a noncommittal noise that could have meant anything. Then I asked Bernd to relieve me at the wheel and headed for the foredeck for a clarifying discussion on the protective duties of a husband, but Robert was asleep.

  * * * *

  That evening, we tied up in the harbor at Assens on the island of Fyn. I was burning to tell Robert everything that had been forced on me that day in spite of my pointed uncommunicativeness and all my signals that I wanted to be left alone. Didn't he always say that there are just two motives for crime—love and money? That is, assuming that Bernd's suspicions had some truth to them? On the other hand, I still couldn't believe that Knut would endanger his boat and his fellow sailors just to get rid of his best friend's wife's lover. Weren't there more reliable methods? I gave the matter some thought, but nothing better occurred to me.

  I couldn't ask my crime-fiction expert, however, because instead of taking a long, romantic walk with me, he'd let himself be talked into playing cards with the others: skat with schnapps. At the end of every hand, a coin toss decided whether the winner or the losers of that hand got a shot of schnapps.

  I can't play skat and I don't like schnapps. So I went for a walk by myself and sat for a while on a park bench near the harbor. It had grown chilly, and I was grateful for the thick sweater I'd packed. I sat and watched the yachts coming and going in the harbor, but eventually it got too dark to see. Suddenly I smelled pipe smoke, and before I could draw any conclusions from this fact, Knut dropped onto the bench beside me. His dark hair and beard made him look grim under the dim harbor lighting.

  "You're not playing skat?” I asked unnecessarily.

  "I was trying to reach my wife, but no one answers the phone. And then I had to phone the police. Tomorrow I can pick up the Sea Otter at Fredericia."

  "Good,” I said. “I mean, that you can get your boat back."

  "Not much else good has happened lately."

  I folded my arms over my chest. “I'm sorry your other passenger was killed."

  Knut nodded. “If I just hadn't made so many mistakes..."

  "What kind of mistakes?” I asked.

  "First off, I believed the guys I took with me. They insisted on sailing around Fyn. I said, ‘Guys, we've got a stiff northeast wind and it's gonna stay like that for days. We'll have to sail head to wind if we want to go around Fyn, and that's a pain. Let's pick a different route.’ But they said no, that wouldn't bother them, they had all kinds of sailing experience, years and years and years ... Well, they didn't do too badly when we started out, but when we sailed out of Fehmarn Sound, it was really rough going. One of them broke a rib because he was fooling around near the companionway, not holding on; the next one's hanging over the railing the whole time, barfing up his guts; and the third one can't be bothered to tether himself, and goes overboard. It was a nightmare.” He kept running his hand slowly through his beard, as if to calm himself.

  "You couldn't know that ahead of time,” I said.

  "But the shallows, I should've known about those,” he countered. “Normally I don't have any trouble at that spot, but the wind'd been bad for days and as strong as it was, it was obvious the water would be shallower there. I'm not a beginner!"

  No, that he wasn't. If I'd understood Karsten correctly, the two of them had been sailing on the Baltic for almost thirty years. But did you ever really know everything? At least, I wouldn't have thought the water level could change so much. But then, I was just a hobby sailor.

  "Did you know them all before the tour?"

  Knut shook his head. “No, otherwise I wouldn't have taken them. I'm sorry you got saddled with them. But I don't know what else I could have done.” He got up heavily, put a finger to his hat in salute, and left me sitting on the bench alone.

  * * * *

  The next morning, the sky was a uniform shade of gray and the wind blew strongly—from the northeast, what else? I aired out the main cabin, which still smelled of schnapps and men after yesterday evening, and was just pouring myself a cup of coffee when Heinz-Gunther emerged from his cabin.

  "I gave up drinkin’ coffee years ago, y'know, ‘cause it's really bad for you,” Heinz-Gunther commented on my breakfast. He sat down next to me at the table, took a piece of raisin bread, and spread liverwurst on it, washing this down with a can of cola with rum.

  "Where's Bernd?” he asked when he was finished.

  "He seems to have signed off,” said Knut, emerging from the head. He had dark rings under his eyes and his face was gray with fatigue. Bernd
had disappeared during the night, taking all his belongings. Fine, I thought. One man fewer to pee all over the toilet seat and talk at me all the time. After my conversation with Knut yesterday evening, I was finding Bernd's idée fixe—namely, that Knut had murdered Arne—completely ridiculous anyway.

  Later that morning, as I strolled the streets of Assen with Robert, admiring the beautifully renovated little townhouses, I had almost forgotten Bernd and his theory. Knut had left right after breakfast to make the minimum repairs necessary to the rudder so that he could take the Sea Otter home. One more man off our ship. That could only improve the sanitary conditions.

  The goodies in the shop window of the bakery looked so inviting that I couldn't resist going in. Without much knowledge of Danish, mostly by smiling and pointing, I bought a whole bag of pastries for later, with coffee. Robert stayed outside; it was embarrassing to him to watch me massacre the language.

  While we were considering whether to sail to Faaborg or directly to Troense, near Waldemar's Castle—Karsten thought it was important to show us some of Denmark's cultural treasures—it started to rain. Steadily and continually. The sky didn't look as if the weather was planning to change any time soon, so Karsten suggested taking the bus to Odense to see the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. Heinz-Gunther wasn't interested in culture and decided to “wander around” on his own. Karsten then assigned him the task of scrubbing the deck in our absence. Heinz-Gunther's excuse that he was “here on vacation and not to slave away” made absolutely no dent in Karsten's insistence; Heinz-Gunther had successfully managed to evade every bit of work on board thus far.

  We returned to the boat for dinner, where I ventured the opinion out loud over Norwegian pollock in herb sauce that any boat of mine would need to have an oven, because I liked pollock much better when it was baked with an herb crust.

  "Shipwife's nonsense!” grumbled Robert, who was unfortunately sitting too far away for me to kick his shins. I recommend that every woman who receives a proposal of marriage test her prospective husband under extreme conditions before deciding. Suddenly, I wasn't so sure about Robert anymore.

  For dessert, I offered the pastries I had bought earlier.

  "Dessert? I don't eat that anymore, haven't for years. Got too many calories, y'know?"

  "And what about alcoholic beverages? Don't they have any calories?” I asked Heinz-Gunther.

  "Nah, what little I drink, I sweat that all out again!"

  The next morning we sailed from Assens to Faaborg, where we wanted to tour Faaborg Jail, which had been turned into a museum when the prison was decommissioned. The wind was at only two Beaufort and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but Heinz-Gunther stood proudly at the helm wearing a sou'wester, a green rain jacket, a life vest, and a safety tether. And holding a can of beer. Cheers. I joined Robert on the foredeck in the hope of a little romantic smooching; I didn't want to give up on our young marriage just yet.

  "You know what's strange?” asked Robert instead.

  "No."

  "I saw Knut in Assens yesterday."

  "So?"

  "I waved to him, but he pretended he hadn't seen me. You were in the bakery."

  "Maybe he really didn't see you,” I said soothingly, and snuggled up to him; this was a signal to him that we were now segueing to the romantic part.

  "He had to have seen me. But just then another man walked up to him, speaking Russian, I think it was, and the two of them had an argument. At least, it looked pretty threatening. I think the other guy was carrying a concealed weapon."

  I suspected that my true love's crime-writer's imagination was running away with him. He'd just finished a manuscript and was hunting for material for the next one. But when he was in that mood, there was absolutely no point in my trying for romance. I gave up on snuggling and told him about Bernd's theory and my conversation with Knut.

  "None of it fits together,” said Robert. “Unless Karsten and Arne are with the Secret Service and Knut's working for the Russians."

  I rolled my eyes.

  "You see the island over there?” Karsten had called me to the helm. “That's Aero. And the church tower in the distance? That's the steeple at Soby. Just aim straight for it,” he said, and vanished below deck.

  I had barely taken the wheel when Heinz-Gunther appeared and stuck to me again like glue.

  "See, if it was my boat, y'know,” he started in. “If the Sea Otter was my boat, I'da sent somebody, I wouldn'a gone myself."

  "But it's not your boat,” I growled.

  "I just mean, if it was,” said Heinz-Gunther.

  "Maybe Knut didn't have the money to send someone else,” I said. “Maybe—"

  "He's got the bucks for other stuff, y'know?” Heinz-Gunther went on, his tone increasingly whiny. “I know that for a fact. And if you haven't got the bucks to send someone, you haven't got ‘em for a boat. That's how it is."

  "Exactly what are you trying to say?” I asked, replaying Robert's wild fantasies from yesterday evening at top speed.

  Heinz-Gunther upended his can of beer. “I'm sayin’ he's got the bucks, see, ‘cause I saw it for myself."

  "What did you see for yourself?"

  "All that caviar he's got on board, y'know? I mean, I don't eat that anymore, haven't for years. It's disgusting, that stuff—fish eggs, yuck."

  Caviar? On board a luxury yacht, maybe, but on Knut's thirty-foot sailboat? First, I agreed with Heinz-Gunther that caviar was among the things nobody needed. And then I asked him how he knew about it. He evaded the question for a while, went on sucking the last drops from his can of beer and moving toward the companionway as if he wanted to disappear below deck, probably in the direction of his beer stash.

  "I won't tell a soul, Scout's honor,” I said conspiratorially. And at that moment it paid off that I hadn't been quite as unpleasant to him as the others.

  "Well, I guess I can tell you. See, it was that time, that night, I ran out of beer. And then I got to thinkin', maybe Knut's got some in the hold, ‘cause, well, the boat's always riding so deep, and I was thinkin', Knut's got beer and schnapps down there, and then I can borrow some. But it was just caviar. And not little jars, either, like your granny gets at the supermarket for Russian eggs or something, y'know? It was really big cans. And not even any vodka with it!” His voice betrayed deep disappointment at this last fact.

  "Thanks for telling me,” I said. He nodded briefly and went off in the direction of his beer.

  I would have steered toward the church steeple at Soby for hours. I would even have sailed right into the church, the townscape permitting, if it meant I had my peace and quiet. But Heinz-Gunther had barely disappeared in the direction of his cooler when Karsten took his place. My dear sweet husband Robert was—on the foredeck, naturally. He was practicing knots and doubtless thinking up new fictional crimes while I was smack in the middle of the real thing, so to speak. A real crime. Because my brain had quickly made the connection between caviar and Russians packing concealed weapons. Maybe I was just conjuring up a cliché, but unfortunately, I never got the chance to think about that.

  "I need to ask you something,” said Karsten.

  "Ask away,” I said bravely and stared even harder at the church tower of Soby.

  "You talked to Bernd for quite a while."

  "Mmmm.” Actually, it would be more precise to say that he talked to me.

  "What'd he say?"

  That he thinks your best pal's a murderer. “He was pretty upset about Arne's death. They'd evidently known each other for a long time."

  "Really? I didn't know that. And what else?"

  Before Karsten could start in with the “just wondering” business, I chose open confrontation. “Why do you want to know what Bernd told me?"

  "Because ... because ... I don't know how to say it."

  Preferably condensed. “Just spit it out."

  "Bernd—I, that is ... Bernd's dead."

  The church tower at Soby vanished for a second, but th
en I had it again in my sights.

  "How'd it happen?"

  "I don't know much myself. He was found shot to death in the harbor in Fredericia, near Knut's boat."

  Oho. “When?"

  "Yesterday evening. The police questioned Knut. First the accident with Arne, and now another passenger shot dead. Knut's not allowed to leave the city."

  Karsten, as it developed, wanted to turn around—would I ever get to see the church tower at Soby up close?—and go back to Fredericia, to be there for Knut. He offered to pay our way home and return the money we'd paid for the tour, but Robert wanted adventure and I was his wife. Even Heinz-Gunther declined the chance to leave.

  The weather was horrible all the way to Fredericia. We had to sail head to wind and waves and finally resorted to the motor, because we had neither the room nor the patience to tack at Lillebelt. Karsten's worries had infected us all.

  "Will you admit I was right?” said Robert, as we stood in the pantry listening to the grinding of the diesel motor and setting out coffee and cookies for us all. “Something's fishy here. Presumably Bernd wanted to go back to the Sea Otter and look on his own for proof that Arne was murdered,” he went on. “But what could he find?"

  I told him of Heinz-Gunther's discovery of the caviar.

  "Slowly the pieces are coming together,” Robert said. “What if Knut's using his boat to smuggle caviar?"

  "Then he'd make enough money that he wouldn't need to offer tours to paying guests,” I replied.

  "But he'd have to go on doing that as cover,” Robert insisted.

  "And who's Bernd, then? A police detective, undercover? A spy? And what about Arne?"

  Robert considered. “Maybe Bernd and Arne are working together. Knut could have discovered that they were on his heels. Maybe he just waited for a gust and then deliberately maneuvered the boat so that Bernd would fall and hurt himself; that was his way of trying to get rid of him. That would explain why Bernd was so intent on staying on board."

  That it would, but I couldn't imagine Bernd, with his best friend and his psychotherapist, as a police detective. Or were they just part of the perfect cover? At any rate, there were too many maybes in that scenario for me.