Beside Still Waters (7 page)

             
Mark could feel himself beginning to sweat.  He felt like the rabbi was staring right through him, piercing his very soul.

             
“I have nightmares,” he whispered, feeling like he was having to wrest the words free.  He hadn’t admitted that to anyone, not even his wife, even though she surely knew.  He awoke most mornings screaming, images of the man’s bloody face swimming in front of him.

             
“I’m sure that you do.”

             
“Look, I believe absolutely that it was the right decision.”

             
“But just because you believe it was right doesn’t make it easy to live with.”

             
“No,” he admitted.  “I wish I never had to make it.  I wish it had been Paul at the precinct, me heading to the mountains to try and help.”

             
“So, you wish you were dead instead of sitting here?”

             
And it sounded so terrible coming from the rabbi’s lips that way.  But heaven help him, it was true.  He could have died a hero and he wouldn’t have had to drag his wife through this hell with him.

             
And I would never have known Paul was lying to me, that he wasn’t who he said he was.

             
The mystery of his partner’s true identity still hadn’t been solved.  The coroner was the only one who had discussed it with him.  Knowin
g that the man he’d called Paul
Dryer wasn’t, that the real Paul Dryer was in a mass grave at Green Pastures camp haunted him.

             
It felt like his entire career was a house of cards that someone had knocked over with a single breath, like blowing out a candle.

             
No, not someone.  Me.  I did this to myself.

             
And he had been over it a thousand times in his head and he knew that Paul had known exactly what Mark would do, pushed the right buttons to ensure that Mark would do exactly what he did.

             
“Did I do the right thing?” he whispered, hearing the heartache in his own voice.

             
Jeremiah stared at him for what seemed like an eternity.  When he spoke again his voice was also softer, and he could hear compassion in it.  “What we’re here to discuss is how
you
feel, how you think, and whether that makes you fit for duty or not.  What I believe, what the department believes, these are not the issue.  The only opinion I’m here to give is on whether or not I think you can safely return to your duties as a police officer without putting yourself or others in jeopardy.  And until we’re done, you won’t hear me voice opinions on anything else.”

             
“That wasn’t designed to make me feel good,” Mark said.

             
Jeremiah cleared his throat.  “That’s not my job.”

~

             
Cindy jumped to her feet as the scream was suddenly cut short.  She ran over to the starboard side of the boat.  The scream seemed to have been coming from that direction.

             
She looked over the side and for a moment saw nothing.  Then she made out a disturbance in the water close to the back of the boat.  The water was being churned up and she saw two hands disappear below the surface.

             
“Help!  Someone’s drowning!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.  “Starboard side!  Help!”

             
One of the crew members raced her way and without a moment’s hesitation threw himself over the railing and into the ocean.  He dove under and Cindy watched the spot where he and the passenger had disappeared anxiously.

             
Seconds drug by and her heart began to pound harder and fear flooded her.  Her fingers hurt where she was squeezing the railing with an iron grip.  Another crew member reached her.

             
“Where?” he shouted.

             
She pointed with a shaking finger and he, too, dove into the water.  Before he could go under, though, the first rescuer broke the surface with a gasp.  A moment later she could see Marge’s head as he pulled her up.  The two guys supported her and swam toward the back of the boat.

             
Cindy raced around and was there when they pulled Marge up into the boat.  The older woman was coughing up water and shaking uncontrollably.  Someone quickly wrapped a blanket around her.

             
“What happened to her floatation device?” she heard someone ask.

             
The crew member who’d rescued her shook his head.  “There was something wrong with it.  I had to cut it free.  I lost my dive knife, too.”

             
Cindy followed as they moved Marge to a chair.  The woman had begun to sob.

             
“Her husband’s still in the water,” Cindy said.  “Someone should get him.”

             
“I’m on it,” a familiar voice said.

             
She glanced at Al sideways before returning her attention to the distraught woman.

             
“You’re going to be okay,” she said to Marge, laying a hand on her arm.

             
The other woman shook her head.  “It was terrible.  I thought I was going to drown.”

             
“But you didn’t.  You’re safe now,” Cindy said, in what she hoped was a soothing voice.

             
“For a minute everything was fine and I was looking at the fish and thinking it wasn’t so bad and I was glad I did it.  Then it started pulling me under!”

             
Cindy felt the hair raise on the back of her neck.  “Something pulled you under?  What was it?” she asked.

             
“It was that stupid belt.  It nearly killed me!”

             
“The floatation belt?” Cindy asked.  “The one Al gave you?”

             
“That’s the one.  It just suddenly got so heavy and it was sinking and I couldn’t fight it and I couldn’t get it to unbuckle.  And then...and then I was underwater.”

             
Marge began to cry harder and Cindy rubbed her back, making gentle sounds even as her own mind was racing.

             
Al had wanted her to go in the water, had wanted her to wear that floatation device.  If she had it would be her sitting where Marge was.

             
Unless no one figured out where I was in time
, she realized with a shiver.  It had been her screams for help that had brought the crewmen to rescue Marge.  She felt like she was going to be sick.

             
The ocean that had looked so beautiful and serene just minutes ago now looked ugly and dangerous to her.  She wanted nothing more than for them to turn the boat around and get back to dry land as soon as possible.

             
“Marge!”

             
She looked up and saw an older man rushing toward them, his face contorted in fear.

             
“Marge, are you all right?” he gasped as he dropped down beside the woman and wrapped his arms around her.

             
Cindy didn’t know if Marge actually answered him or just burst into tears again.  She stood up and moved back a few feet trying to give the couple their space.  She looked around and noticed that nearly everyone seemed to be back onboard the catamaran.

             
Ten minutes later they were on their way back to the port.  A crewmember had explained that everyone onboard was going to be given a voucher for a free excursion since the trip was being cut short.  They wanted to get back as quickly as possible so that Marge could be checked out by a physician.  Cindy privately thought they should also be checking out all their safety equipment at the same time. 

             
The mood back was incredibly subdued as even the unaffected passengers seemed to be speaking in hushed tones.  Death, or even a close call, could do that to people.  It subdued and sobered.  That was what it had done to her so many years before.

             
Her brother, Kyle, came to mind.  A brush with death had had the opposite affect on him.  If anything it had made him louder, more exuberant, more reckless.  She’d never been able to understand his attitude or truly forgive him for it.

             
Cindy stood up and walked the length of the boat to stretch her legs.  She kept careful hold of the railing as she did so.  As she moved to the bow of the ship she realized that she was looking for Al.  The thought of him holding out the faulty life preserver to her hadn’t left her mind and she wished she could ask him a few questions about it.

             
Al, however, was nowhere to be seen.  He must have been with the captain.  Disappointed she made it all the way around the catamaran and back to her seat near Marge and her husband.

             
Marge seemed to have stopped crying but both she and her husband still looked pale and shaken.  Cindy couldn’t blame them.  Neither could she help but wonder if either of them would ever venture into the water again.  Somehow she doubted it.  Marge didn’t seem like a get-back-on-the-horse kind of person.

             
Not that I should judge
, she thought sadly.  There were so many things that the death of her sister had kept her from doing.  If she was honest with herself there were times where she almost envied Kyle.  His freedom and uninhibited joy in life were two things she could only dream of.  Still, as the life preserver incident illustrated, her fears and limitations could very well be all that had kept her alive over the years.

             
When they made it back to the dock there was an ambulance waiting for Marge.  She protested that she was fine but ultimately relented and allowed herself to be whisked away to the hospital.  Cindy huddled with the other passengers waiting to be given their vouchers and sent on their way.

             
She kept looking for Al, but she didn’t see him.  That perplexed her a bit.  Maybe he was too embarrassed to show his face given that he was the one who’d handed Marge the faulty life preserver.  He shouldn’t be embarrassed.  It was an accident.  It could have happened to anyone.

             
What if it wasn’t an accident?

             
Cindy blinked as the thought entered her mind unbidden.  It was ridiculous.  She couldn’t even fathom how one would go about sabotaging one of those life preservers.  And besides, who would possibly want to hurt Marge?

             
Then she remembered how Al had tried to discourage Marge from taking that particular life preserver, wanting instead to leave it for Cindy.

             
What if he, or someone else, was trying to hurt me?

             
She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

             
Crazy.  Paranoid.  That’s what she was.  There was no possible reason anyone, least of all some stranger on a tour in Hawaii, would want to harm her.  She was just jumpy.  Too many brushes with death and danger had made her that way.  It was exactly why she needed this vacation. 

             
I have to relax
, she told herself. 
If I’m spooking this easy here, imagine how much worse it will be when I’m back home
.

             
She dug into her purse for her cell phone.  She wanted to call Jeremiah.  She froze, though.  What could he do other than tell her to stop looking for killers under every rock?  She hesitated, still wanting to talk to him.

             
Finally she dialed his phone.  It rang four times then went to voicemail.  She hesitated and then hung up.  No need to alarm him needlessly.

             
At last a crewmember handed her a voucher and said she was free to go.  She crammed it into her purse and headed for the van that would take her back to her hotel.

             
Several other passengers crammed in with her and a minute later they were off.  Cindy was relieved that hers was the first stop.  She had to crawl across two other passengers to get out of the van but she finally made it.  Once on the street she opted for some more shopping and sightseeing.  She still had several hours before dinner and she wanted to make the most of them.

             
For lunch she grabbed a pineapple Dole Whip from a small stand and ate it as she walked.  She bought a flower for her hair and carefully fastened it on the right side of her head as she was instructed.  Flower on the right side was single; flower on the left side was taken.

             
“Let all young men know you in the market,” the woman who sold the flower to her told her with a thick accent.