A Death on The Horizon

by Mark Ellis

  “Yes, of course.” Melissa tried a sudden gambit. “Did you happen to notice if Ms. Svenko was in the company of any person in particular during the voyage?”

  He paused as if unsure about divulging his next impression. “Seems to me, she made the rounds fairly consistently—very professional.”

  “Thank you, Scott. By the way, if you don’t mind my asking, did you vote for Obama?”

  He laughed again. “I can see that you’ve chosen the right profession. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

  “May I ask how you think he’s doing so far?”

  The deck runner’s grin became droll, and he looked as if he feared he had already said too much. “Can I get back to you on that?”

  Melissa felt suddenly as if she were the only person left awake on the ship. The tucked-away lifeboats hung suspended behind her, their shadowy gunwales topped with navy-blue tarps. Just as she turned from the rail, there was a splash of water out from the hull, where she could not see. Not like swimming feet or a flying fish’s breech. It was a slap-splash, a fleshy belly-flop sound, like the fin of something large in these waters, surfacing briefly to wave at the stars.

  Two days had passed since Hailey Dusk visited Viktor’s apartment to deliver Lara’s laptop with an unmistakable warning. One thing was patently clear to Viktor. However much Stamen had loved his daughter, assuming she was capable of romantic love as Viktor understood it, and however much Dusk loved Stamen and wished to carry out her wishes, no such emotional connections applied to him.

  Case closed was the thought that most resonated about Dusk’s appearance, and he did not doubt that she was capable of administering whatever judgment the coven at Deathknell conspired to mete out.

  After reading the first entry in Lara’s Northstar journal immediately after Stamen’s alarming herald vanished into the night, Viktor had found himself reluctant to log back on and read further. He needed time to process what Barb Stamen had given him. Time to process whether he really wanted to know what revelations the file contained and how those revelations might somehow alter the aura of inherent goodness he associated with his daughter’s memory.

  He was the victim of a gesture offered by a deranged woman, and he feared that reading the journal would reveal her derangement in such a way as to goad him into ignoring Dusk’s warning. At the same time, he conversely worried that knowing the content of the journal would expose his own cowardice. That when faced with the grim truth of Stamen’s complicity, he would keep the incriminating evidence to himself—and keep the rest of whatever time he had left on earth safe and peaceful.

  In the end, it was the hope for snippets and inferences of love from Lara, and evidence that she knew he loved her, that moved Viktor to open the laptop again on the second morning after receiving it. There, he shared with his daughter her last living moments.

  6/30/08. The madness continues on the second day. If the ideology behind the three workshops I attended can be extrapolated to highlight the core belief system of mainstream conservatism, they (a) don’t believe in climate change, (b) would rather see a family bankrupted than offer them subsidized healthcare, and (c) find a woman’s right to choose to be an abomination against humankind.

  Most egregious is their reflexive and bogus support for the war in Iraq. Just thinking about all the women and children wasted by Bush’s invasion and occupation makes my skin crawl. Collateral damage is a catchphrase for “don’t give a shit” in these circles. And then there’s this Afghan shit-storm W got us into, and for what? To slaughter more innocents on the way to neutralizing a third-century tribe with only peripheral ties to 9/11? It’s definitely something Cheney’s got cooked up with Halliburton—a pipeline from the Middle East oil fields into Europe, into NATO, to ensure energy hegemony for the Western globalist military/industrial complex. There’s no end to the number of people they’ll exterminate to achieve that.

  Now they have Barack trapped into talking about the “graveyard of empires.” What else can he do, with this horrible albatross Bush hung around his neck? If President Obama waxes too dovish, the neocon nation builders will lay any post-drawdown bloodbath at his feet. It’s all so horribly wrong.

  And it’s not just the Middle East. The Rainier crew is still fighting the Cold War, will do anything to keep pipeline and oil out of the hands of my country. Do anything; kill any number of people to keep Putin’s energy quest behind the Byelorussian line. No mistake, listening to some of the strategists on this ship: If this party regains power, there will be wars unending. America’s bull-crap, free-market creed of rugged individualism and exceptionalism will be stamped on a million headstones.

  I look at some of the women here. I cannot believe this Stepford bitch brigade. I often wonder, just looking at them, if they are merely ideological whores for their husbands, or go-alongs with only enough knowledge to avoid challenging the group-think. Then they open their mouths. These are true believers, often more reactionary than the men. The very idea of choice causes them to go deeply into counsel with their god and come up both immutable with pity and ready to defund the network that helps women keep their right to choose.

  Around us, the profound beauty of the Inside Passage unfolds. There are places like this in the former Soviet Union, but I have seen only images in books and films. I’ve never smelled living pine unsullied by industrial pollution. I have never felt the prehistoric warmth that blows in the summer here nor beheld the magnificence of the flowered meadows along the shoreline, afire with color—marigold, sea-star magenta, and blue ice.

  I feel afraid for my brothers and my sisters.

  Even you, Barbie Doll, my love and my loss, wherever you are.

  My poor sweet lover, deranged haunt of my heart. I beg you to find a woman who can finally make peace with your demons. I beg you to release me to my work.

  The Captain’s Dinner is tonight. According to some shipboard buzz, Captain Squier looks to play a role in the Republican comeback. All for now.

  The morning after talking to what she’d guessed was a gay deck runner and hearing the splash in the water, Melissa massaged her temples deeply while sitting at one of two bench seats on either side of her stateroom dining table. The novelty of being on deck as the Northstar plied the waters in the direction of its namesake provided a welcome opening of the universe for her senses, but ultimately the sunny glare and single-minded pursuits of her fellow passengers put her in need of reflection and solitude.

  In her research, Melissa had divined no trace of anything about Barb Stamen or Deathknell on either the official or the media-generated record of the Svenko case. Nor any suggestion that Lara Svenko was a lesbian. Melissa wondered how the federal and local investigators could miss such salient factoids.

  Her next thought: Had they?

  It seemed impossible that the professional interrogators hadn’t detected the scent of Stamen and her reliquary of all things dead. They could have profiled the webmistress in the time it takes to run a credit check. Were they too wedded to a theory of political murder, too vested in a storyline of liberal death on a conservative cruise? Melissa wracked her Charon memory banks, the years when her investigative specialty was lovelorn and soured passions. Maybe they had talked to Stamen, and maybe her alibi held. Lara’s misfortune had, after all, occurred hundreds of miles from Seattle, in the fathoms-deep center of an Inside Passage channel.

  Melissa went to the small galley sink for an Advil and a glass of water, drained it, and while her head was tipped back, felt the deep softly swelling beneath her.

  The wingnut–killer theory hadn’t panned out. Melissa had pored over the Charon-provided passenger list for the 2008 cruise. Down to the last man and woman, the list was illustrious. Not one conservative on board seemed in the wildest stretch to be capable of throwing a young reporter over the side. They were construction company owners, Jewish accountants, financial sector refugees, beloved warhorses, key campaign adjutants, pro golfers, and commercial real estate moguls. Not one that c
ould be plausibly presumed capable of murder. That left the crew—people like deck runner Miley. They’d been subjected to more scrutiny than the politicos, but again, the link to a killer was never even theoretically established.

  The official local investigation—rubber-stamped by the feds—had closed inconclusively with a strong bias that two White Russians were enough to inebriate Lara’s diminutive body and that she had managed to fall in such a way as to tumble over the four-foot rail. It was rare, but there were a handful of cases on record. Trans Oceanic had lost four overboard in its history, and in one case the body had never been found.

  Melissa had to stop thinking. Crawling into her lukewarm sheets, she felt a rush of tired elation, inspired by the possibility that she had uncovered what those before her had missed, or buried.

  She had to sleep. It didn’t matter whether luck or calculation had put her at the captain’s table for tomorrow night’s Captain’s Dinner—it was important she not look like a haggard, sleepless reporter. She had to appear to be enjoying herself, lest sharp eyes—and there were many onboard the ship—might divine something odd, and watch-worthy, about her. Nestling in, she found that she hardly needed her blanket. Wasn’t it expected to get cold up here at night, even in summer, especially under the kind of crystal-clear skies that rained starlight on the first night of the journey? A warm wind came through the portal window. Below it, the dark waters scudded by.

  A creepy ex and a death at sea. Stop thinking. Sleep…

  Chapter Fifteen

  The standing ovation Rad received upon entering the Kodiak Room the night of the Captain’s Dinner offered a clear demonstration of his embattled party’s appreciation. The applause started as soon as he appeared in the doorway of the plush dining room and only heightened as he made his way to the ceremonial table. The beaming faces made him feel like a dark horse after a big win. The GOP was on the hunt for fresh talent, and he had dropped smack-dab into the pool of potential candidates. Only one thing could have made the moment more perfect: Nancy.

  On the way to his seat, Rad noticed that Grant Sharpe had stood, and was clapping with the approval of a proud father. The talk star was enjoying renewed popularity since the election, a signal in the wilderness for defeated Republicanism. The trimmed-down host was surely this year’s exemption from having to participate in the captain’s table lottery. Everybody who bought a ticket was eligible for one of five available seats, but the choice of the sixth guest was subject to the cruise council’s discretion. On the fated cruise of 2008, it had been Dick Armey.

  Beyond Sharpe, the lucky five who’d won the table were easily identifiable as true believers, establishment version—with one exception.

  The exception was seated just left of him in the circle, an attractive young woman. The seating arrangement was denoted by tented gold-leaf cards, and hers said, Sue Ross, Lewis & Clark Pioneer Log. Here was a definitive back-to-school journalist, if Rad guessed correctly. He flashed a mariner’s grin, said, “Ms. Ross,” and found his smile demurely reciprocated.

  Looking around the marvelously appointed dining room, he noticed that Cocaptain Briggs was sitting at a table nearby, which meant that Navigator Holdren had the bridge. They alternated each year for the Captain’s Dinner, and Rad was glad to see that good Democrat Briggs seemed to be graciously tolerating the right-wing gospel spinning around his table.

  Two tables over, it was clear that Rad’s arrival had interrupted whatever political war story Alvin Alderson had been regaling his table with, but Alderson looked happy to make such room for the entry of his illustrious Arbor Glen neighbor.

  Across from Alderson sat a man not so easily compartmentalized. He had to be late forties, yet golden curls framed a youthful, intelligent forehead. There was something unsettling about his comportment: the tolerant air, limbs set professionally in desk mode, eyes blazing with noncommittal intensity. His presence was as vaguely unsettling as Alderson’s was comforting and the young reporter’s appealing.

  It was customary for the ship’s captain to raise a toast and offer a standing dedication before the salad course.

  “I’m Captain Radley Squier—” The words were barely out of his mouth when the applause started up again. There was nothing to do but beam back. Rad felt a glimmer of what US Airways Captain “Sully” Sullenberger might be experiencing. Every think tank in the land was attempting to make a keynote speaker of the heroic pilot who’d brought his crippled Airbus down on the Hudson River, saving every life on the flight.

  Rad let the applause die down. His plan tonight was to channel the corporate style of the man he considered to be 2012’s front-runner, Mitt Romney.

  “On behalf of Trans Oceanic and the Northstar, I welcome you to the 2009 Rainier Policy Institute cruise.”

  In 2006, he’d toasted Roger Ailes, in absentia, on the tenth anniversary of Fox News. In 2007, he lauded George and Barbara Bush, and in 2008, he saluted the troops who were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Times had greatly changed. Beaten badly in the last election, his listeners would be hyper alert to any inferred political aspirations. He wasn’t about to grant their wishes so easily. If public service was in his future, the timing of the announcement was something he was determined to choose for himself.

  The weather had turned overcast in the late afternoon, and the resultant waves swelled so that even the Northstar’s hull was subject to their undulations. There was an infinitesimal swaying of the blood-orange café curtains as Rad lifted his glass and the room grew suddenly quiet. He knew they were cutting through the heart of a channel as wide as Lake Huron.

  “I know this ship better than I know my own home,” he began. “I’ve walked her decks at all hours, in all weather, and welcomed a great many friends aboard. It has been my great pleasure and privilege. For this reason, I dedicate the 2009 Rainier Policy Institute cruise to the Northstar.”

  The rightness of the gesture was immediately apparent. In a room full of brainpower that would soon lock in mortal combat with the Democrat machine, he had made it all about the ship. He had given them respite from the campaign to come, and the gratitude was palpable.

  Alvin Alderson’s grin of approval was busting out. The reporter at Rad’s shoulder, Ross, had also succumbed, and she inspired a flashing memory of the Russian journalist who’d gone overboard on his watch, the woman he wished could be at his dinner tonight.

  At odds with the consensual acclamation was the roguishly handsome hard case seated across from his neighbor. He was clapping, but nothing about him linked him to his dinner companions.

  It seemed too neat when the impeccably dressed gentleman seated to Grant Sharpe’s right

  spoke up at the captain’s table. “You’ve always deflected the idea of seeking public office, Mr. Sharpe, saying that you don’t want to take the pay cut.”

  Rad noticed as Sharpe’s eyes rose from his drought of scotch on the rocks.

  “Call me Grant.”

  “Yes sir, Grant. In light of how radically things have changed since the advent of Obama, is it possible you might consider running for the good of the country?”

  Sharpe was never taken off guard in public, and this night was to be no exception. For all Rad knew, the entire line of questioning had been orchestrated. But even if it hadn’t, the eye creases that formed when Sharpe smiled were as untroubled as the strains of Chopin struck up by the Kodiak Room’s string quartet.

  “I’m glad you asked,” he said, setting his drink on the snow-white tablecloth.

  Sharpe stuck to his guns, explaining like he always did, that he believed he could do more for the cause of liberty, freedom, and the American way behind his platinum microphone than he could ever do in public office. He waxed about how, once elected, the pressures of myriad public constituencies and interests materialize. “It takes a leader like Reagan,” said Sharpe, “the Great Communicator himself, who listened but unfailingly took principled stands always within the bounds of his values.”

  Sharpe explaine
d that he didn’t have any problem taking firm stands. “It’s just all the listening you have to do. And sometimes the people you have to listen to are certifiably not acting in the best interests of the Constitution and the country. I don’t think I’d be good at that.”

  From Rad’s left elbow, the Pioneer Log reporter jumped at the conversational transition. “Mr. Sharpe, Grant, I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank you again for your escort to the ship yesterday.”

  “It’s true,” Sharpe affirmed to all-around looks of interest. “Happy I could be of assistance, Ms. Ross.” Then Sharpe grabbed the lull with both hands. “Captain Squier, if I may be so bold, have you ever considered running for public office?”

  Rad had heard enough to suspect that the whole discussion was manufactured to this end. “Well, Grant, I like to think of myself as being politically astute, civically involved. I like to think I bring a worthy perspective to the debate.”

  “Are you sure you’re not already a politician?” quipped Sharpe, eliciting a new round of approval. “It’s a big decision,” he intoned, savoring a sip of scotch. “The party needs good men and women to run for office, but the game—due to Democrat insanity—is so vicious, so personally destructive, that anyone would have to think twice, even if it involved a pay increase.”

  Rad let the King of Talk have the last word and was relieved when reporter Ross intervened with a topic-changing question for Sharpe. “How do you like the party’s midterm chances?” Sharpe answered Ross’s question to a surging coda from Chopin. “My dear, may I formally invite you to my talk in the Wapiti Room at ten thirty tomorrow morning? I can’t promise to handicap the field just yet, but I’ll tell you what I think we, assuming you’re with us, need to do to win.”

  “Thank you, sir,” replied Ross, leaning forward in her chair like a high school journalist enamored of the handsome quarterback. “I’ll be there.”