by Nero Blanc
“All right, then . . . Doris . . . I’m assuming your husband has finally checked in with you—that you have spoken to him since I was here on Tuesday?”
She took her time before responding. “I can’t say I recall when I last talked to him.”
Rosco scratched the back of his head and sighed as if in total sympathy with women married to fickle men. At the same time he was convinced she wasn’t alone. Rosco raised his voice. “Would you like to know where I’m headed right now, Doris?”
“Can’t say that I care.”
“I’m off to Ed Colberg’s marina. Do you have any idea who I’ll be seeing there?”
Doris didn’t answer.
“The police department, Mrs. Quick. They’re investigating the possibility that the Orion’s fire might not have been accidental.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that boat! I told you already!”
“I’m sure you don’t . . . But as your husband was one of the men who found the Orion, Newcastle PD will want to speak with him. Now, you’re certain you can’t contact him? No phone number? No emergency address? No motel he might stop in?”
“He could be anywhere.”
“The police will check your telephone records if they have a probable cause, Mrs. Quick. They’ll check the records of everyone involved in this thing. They’ll know exactly who you’ve called—and when.”
Doris thought for a moment. Her studiedly bland expression had become a frown of concentration. “Just a minute. I left something . . . cooking on the stove.”
Doris slammed the door and returned two minutes later. Before she could open her mouth, Rosco stepped up close to the entry. “Do you mind if I come in and get a drink of water?” He coughed. “I seem to have something stuck in my throat.”
“You have to go. I can’t talk anymore.”
Rosco placed his hand on the door to prevent her closing it. “It’ll only take a second.” He rubbed his throat and coughed again. “I don’t know what it is . . . Must have been a piece of dust or something.”
“You have to leave.”
“Are you alone, Doris?”
“Please go.” She leaned her entire weight against the door. Although Rosco realized he could easily push past her, he opted not to. He had no legal right to make a forced entry. Instead, he stepped away, and heard Doris Quick slide the door’s drop bolt in place. Then he left the small concrete stoop and walked to the back of the mobile home. All the drapes had been closed, making it impossible to observe the interior.
Rosco returned to the street, slid into his Jeep, and checked his watch. He didn’t have time to wait and see who—besides Doris—exited the trailer; Lever was due at Mystic Isle Yachts at four, so Rosco eased the Jeep out of Duxbury Court, merged onto the interstate, and pulled into the marina parking lot at precisely three fifty-two.
The Orion and Dixie-Jack were berthed in the same locations Rosco had previously visited. The only difference was that both were now cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape ordering POLICE LINE—DO NOT CROSS in bold black letters. Ripped yellow tail ends fluttered in the ocean breeze like kite tails, but those playful gestures only made the crime tape’s presence more incongruous in an otherwise wholesome picture. Inboards, outboards, and sailboats, not under official scrutiny, bobbed gently along the piers. For yachting buffs, the view would have been tempting. Unfortunately, Rosco wasn’t one of them. Even the rhythmic slap of halyard rope against yardarm made him feel vaguely queasy.
There was no sign of Lever or his “unmarked” car, so Rosco entered the marina office, where he found Colberg working on the Crier’s crossword puzzle. The boatyard owner seemed to be filling in answers with surprising ease.
He barely glanced at Rosco; his nod was even less perceptible. “Polycrates,” he groaned in a tone that most people reserved for the discovery of poison ivy or a parking ticket.
“Lever still planning to stop by?” Rosco asked.
“Far as I know.” Colberg glanced up briefly, then resumed his efforts. It was obvious to Rosco their conversation wasn’t going to have an easy flow.
He gestured toward the puzzle. “Looks like you’re pretty good at those things Eduardo.”
Colberg answered with a grunt, then added a dismissive: “If you’ve been doing them as long as I have, it’s second nature. Like filling out a tax form.”
“Right . . . Well, some folks have a little trouble in that area, too.”
Ed tapped the newspaper with the eraser end of his pencil. “Seems this Graham babe’s on a Shakespeare jag today. Macbeth . . . Hamlet . . .”
“You know a lot of Shakespeare, then?”
Colberg finally looked up. Cynical pride creased his face. “Hell, I was English lit. in college. VP of the theater club, too. Big yuck, huh? Me . . . You try earning a living with a damn degree like that. Course, that was before I took to the beaches.” He paused. “Sales are where the action is my friend. Find something someone wants, dangle it in front of their nose, and sell it to ’em. Of course, in the yacht business it pays to know who has the bucks and who doesn’t.”
“Like Tom Pepper?”
“Not a buyer . . . a looker. Don’t let him fool ya.”
“I always thought the sign of a good salesman was being able to sell someone something they didn’t want.” Rosco said this with a smile, but his eyes remained watchful and hard.
“I got work to do, Polycrates. If you want the good lieutenant, why don’t you wait out on the dock?”
Rosco responded with a cheery, “6-Down: fifteen letters—PRACTICALLY DEAD . . . Good luck with the ‘work,’ ” then stepped outside just in time to see Lever’s brown Ford angle into the parking lot. The lieutenant lumbered out from behind the wheel and walked to the car’s trunk, where his forensics expert, Abe Jones, joined him.
Jones looked like a young Harry Belafonte—a fact not lost on a stunningly large and ever-revolving list of lady friends. Sometimes Jones’s cronies at NPD even referred to him by this pseudonym, although a hearty dose of envy accompanied the jest—especially among those men who were married. Jones accepted their gibes as compliments, which only intensified the macho banter.
He and Lever each hefted a large black case from the Ford and headed toward the Orion. Rosco met them halfway.
“Why does it never surprise me to find you lurking in the underbrush, Polly—Crates?” Lever said as he extended a beefy paw to Rosco.
After they exchanged a handshake, Rosco said, “I like to keep on top of things, Al. It’s amazing how uncommunicative guys like Colberg become once the cops show up.” Rosco looked at Jones and added, “How’s it going, Abe?” The detective was one of the few who had never called Jones “Belafonte.”
“I’m not complaining, Rosco.”
Lever muttered a resigned: “Someone who looks like he just stepped out of GQ better not complain.”
“Exercise, Al, that’s all it takes.” Jones grinned.
“You’ve never exercised a day in your life, my friend.”
“Well, there’s many different forms of exercise, Al. I work out nearly every evening. Hey, if you don’t believe me, I’ll give you a list of corroborating witnesses. Maybe their phone numbers, if you play your cards right.”
“Ho, ho, ho.”
They reached the Orion and immediately switched into serious business mode. Jones placed his case on the dock and sat next to it, letting his feet dangle over the boat’s charred gunwale. He remained silent for nearly two minutes while he studied the wreck. Finally he said, “What a mess. So . . . what do we need to know, Al?”
Lever pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and waved it over the Orion as he searched for a match with his other hand. “Let’s start with what started the fire and what put it out . . .How and when the women exited . . . Did they make it to the inflatable? Or were they forced to jump overboard?”
Jones laughed, shook his head, and said, “Hey, that’s simple enough.” He slid down onto the boat.
Lever fou
nd his matches and turned to Rosco while he lit up. “Not much to do but watch.”
Rosco shrugged. “. . . You never know.”
“By the way, I called L.A. It turns out Jamaica Nevisson’s blood type was A positive.”
“One call? That easy?”
“Never let it be said that Al Lever is a man without friends.”
“A pos. . . . Same as I pulled off the fishing boat.”
“Right. But we don’t know if that was boy or girl blood, do we? Mrs. Pepper was O neg.”
“Yep,” Rosco said. “I got that from Mr. Pepper.” He decided to move the dialogue forward at a brisker pace. “I took a gander at the Dixie-Jack before you got here, Al. It’s been scrubbed down . . . looks like a brand-new boat. You’re going to be hard-pressed to find anything worthwhile on her.”
Jones’s voice interrupted them. “Well, this is interesting,” he called from the Orion’s hulk. “What’d you say put this fire out?”
Rosco looked in his direction. “One of the guys who towed her in said a squall blew in. He figured the rain doused it.”
“That’s not what I’d call a real accurate statement.”
“What makes you say that, Abe?” Lever asked.
“Well the rain might have started to do the job . . . slow it down, anyway. It’s hard to tell because it rained the other night, but there’s still CO2 residue all over this thing.”
“Meaning . . . ?”
“Meaning somebody hosed her down with a fire extinguisher. But good.”
“So, the women did it—and then jumped ship?” Lever asked. He made no attempt to hide his confusion.
“No way. If they’d done it, we’d detect footprints; rain or no rain. Two women extinguish the blaze, meanwhile passing through heavy CO2 residue and ashes to reach the boat’s inflatable . . . There’s no sign of that type of activity . . . Besides, the towline is scorched, but also nicely sliced at the end—meaning the inflatable was cut loose while the boat was still burning . . . From the angle and buildup of CO2, it appears that the blaze was extinguished from above . . . My guess is that a larger vessel pulled alongside and dowsed the fire—”
“Let me get this straight,” Lever demanded. “We’re talking about another boat coming to the rescue?”
“Something like that,” Jones answered. “Someone had to be above this fire to extinguish it. The rain helped, sure, but two women in an inflatable sitting alongside in the ocean wouldn’t have had sufficient maneuverability—or height—to fight this kind of fire . . .
“Besides”—he hoisted two blackened cylindrical objects—“here are the Orion’s fire extinguishers. The dials have melted, but judging by the weight, they’re still holding full charges . . . Safety codes require boats up to forty feet to carry two type B-1 extinguishers—which we have here . . . I’m willing to bet this is the only fire-prevention equipment the boat possessed . . . And no one used them. The pins are bent around so tightly it would take someone with a pair of pliers to get them out. A stupid way to keep them . . . useless in an emergency . . .”
“I’ll be back,” Rosco said. He jogged down the pier, crossed to the adjoining dock, and jumped onto the Dixie-Jack. Colberg had left the hatch unlocked in anticipation of Lever’s arrival. Rosco poked around for two or three minutes before returning to the marina office. Colberg was still hunched over the crossword; there were only a few blank spaces left.
“When’s the Dixie-Jack going out again?” Rosco asked. Ed didn’t glance up.
“Not until the cops are finished with her, why?”
“You might want to check her fire extinguishers.”
“What’s the problem?”
“All four are empty.”
18
After Rosco reported the problem of the Dixie-Jack’s depleted fire extinguishers to Ed Colberg, he strolled down the dock and shared the information with Al Lever.
“So it looks like your bartender ‘friend’ lied to you, doesn’t it, Rosco?” was Lever’s smug response.
Rosco shrugged. “He’s no friend of mine, Al.”
“Well, at least it would indicate he probably didn’t start the fire,” Jones said.
Rosco looked down at the Orion, where Abe was still making his inspection. “You’re suggesting this was intentional?”
“I don’t know . . . It’s hard to tell at this point. I’ll have to get these samples back to the lab. But initially, I’d say the boat was torched. First off: we’ve got a diesel engine here—or what’s left of it. Igniting diesel fuel requires a lot of effort; it doesn’t usually happen accidentally. The fuel won’t explode like gasoline. It takes more than a wire short or spark to get it going . . .
“Another thing: most of these newer boats are constructed with flame-resistant materials. You have to work to activate a solid blaze. Obviously it can be done. Douse a surface with a combustible . . . something like that. Look what happened here—” Jones waved a hand above the Orion’s remains.
Lever interrupted. “So, what’s your call, Abe?”
“Well . . . it seems like we’ve got the remains of a couple of oil lamps in what’s left of the cabin. Definitely a nono on any type of boat. Why anyone would have them is beyond me, but I’m guessing the lamp oil probably instigated the fire . . . Now, you can suggest that the things rolled off the table when the Orion slapped into a wave, but my mind doesn’t work that way. It’s fishy; it stinks; it doesn’t belong in the picture . . . Besides, it’s my understanding that these women were too experienced to carry that type of lamp in the first place—”
“But it’s possible . . .” Lever said, thinking out loud.
“Sure . . . But to tell the truth, my lab work will only confirm that the lamps were involved in the blaze—if that’s the case—it won’t tell you who or what—”
Again, Lever interrupted. “Anything’s possible until we prove otherwise . . . What else, Abe?” Al lit another cigarette, took a long drag, and coughed loudly.
Jones hesitated until Lever’s coughing jag slowed, then resumed his analysis. “Well, let’s continue with the premise of arson . . . Now, whoever started this fire was smart, but not quite smart enough. If the intention was to send this baby to the bottom real quick, then whoever torched it seriously miscalculated the propane tank—”
“What do you mean?” Rosco asked.
“Well, most people would expect propane to build a fire’s intensity, but depending on the position of the tank, it can have an opposite effect, like it probably did here . . . See, when the propane tank gets hot enough, it blows like a giant firecracker. That’s because of the natural expansion of the gas. It doesn’t matter whether the stuff is flammable or not; the same thing could happen to a scuba tank . . .” Abe looked from Lever to Rosco for signs of comprehension. Both men nodded.
“Now, on the Orion, the explosion sent the entire deck skyward—the deck and most of the cockpit—opening up the boat’s interior, as you see here . . . Actually, I’m surprised the Coast Guard didn’t find pieces of composite Fiberglass floating around out there . . . Anyway, as the propane burns off, it quickly dissipates in the atmosphere. So, the explosion and concussion it causes can effectively blow out a preexisting fire . . . I’m betting dollars to doughnuts that’s what happened here . . . The propane explosion may not have suppressed the fire entirely, but it sufficiently reduced it—allowing our three fishermen to finish the job with handheld extinguishers.”
“But who started it?” Again, Lever was thinking out loud.
“What about this guy Colberg?” Jones said, pointing to the office. “I mean, come on, fellas, we all know he scuttled those boats three years ago for the insurance money. No one’s ever proved it, is all . . .”
Rosco shook his head. “I’m no Colberg fan, but I doubt he’d risk killing two people in the process. Insurance fraud’s one thing, murder’s something else.”
Lever coughed again as he took another drag on his cigarette. “Anything’s possible.”
“Yo
u’re sounding like a broken record, Al.” Rosco said this in a friendly tone, then grew serious. “If Abe is correct and the fire was intentional, then the boat wasn’t the target. The women were. I’d say we’re talking homicide.”
Lever stiffened at the suggestion. “I’d like to see some bodies before I open up a murder case.”
“They’ll wash up,” Jones said. “They always do. Might take a couple of weeks, but you’ll find them . . . unless the sharks got them . . . Then you just find a few pieces . . . But they’ll show up. Trust me.”
“The sharks in this case might be three fishermen.”
“Whoa . . . Whoa . . . hold on there, Rosco,” Lever said, “That’s making a huge leap. Where did that come from?”
“Like you said, Al, anything’s possible. Without any bodies, how can you rule out the potential of a kidnapping? I pulled Jamaica’s blood off of the Dixie-Jack.”
“You pulled A positive, Rosco. We don’t have confirmation on whose blood that is and you know it.”
“All I’m suggesting, Al is that anything’s possible . . . The women could be alive, for all we know—and in the custody of kidnappers. Maybe not our fishermen, maybe another boat got to the Orion first . . . Or picked the women up in the dinghy . . . Or . . . yeah, they could be dead.”
Jones cleared his throat and said, “Don’t look now but here comes trouble.”
Rosco and Lever turned to follow Jones’s stare. Marching down the dock toward them was a bulldog-shaped man in his early sixties. He was almost bald, but what remained of his snow-white hair was buzzed as short as a Marine drill sergeant’s. Clint Mize, senior insurance adjuster for Shore Line Mutual, had fond memories of his years in “The Corps.” He nodded briskly to the men as he approached.
“Lever . . . Jones . . .” Mize shook Rosco’s hand and cracked what he considered to be a joke: “You back with the NPD, Polycrates?” Then he cocked his head toward the Orion. Again, the gesture resonated with Marine-Corps precision. “What’s the official status here?”
“That’s just what we were discussing.” Rosco gave Mize a quizzical look. “I thought Colberg said the Orion was insured by A.M.I.? What’s Shore Line’s interest in this?”
