Dark Waters (22 page)

They'd been playing for about fifteen minutes when Johnny Mac's mom got a phone call. She talked for just a minute, then came in their part of the suite and said, ‘I have to go out for a bit. You three stay right here. Do you understand?'

‘Yes, ma'am,' all three boys said, almost in unison.

Johnny Mac's mom pointed her index finger at them and said, ‘Stay!' Johnny Mac gave her a look and she laughed as she walked out the door.

‘What's wrong with your mom's legs?' Jacob asked once she was gone.

‘She had polio when she was a kid,' Johnny Mac answered.

‘What's polio?' asked Jacob.

Johnny Mac shrugged. ‘I dunno really. It's something they used to have a lot back in the olden days, but now it's all gone.'

‘So what she has isn't catching?' Jacob asked.

Johnny Mac sighed. ‘No!' he said. ‘That's just dumb!'

‘Well, I didn't know!' Jacob said rather loudly.

‘So, Jacob,' Early said. ‘I'm real sorry Josh and your brother made you do that – stealing that money, I mean.'

Jacob, who had confessed his participation in the mugging of Clifford Dunne to the other kids while at the children's pavilion, looked down at the toys so the two older boys wouldn't see the tears that stung his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not your fault,' he said.

‘I know,' Early said. ‘I'm just sorry they did that to you.'

‘Me, too,' Johnny Mac said.

‘It was awful,' Jacob said in a small voice. ‘The guy smelled awful and there was throw-up on his clothes and snot and boogers, too. He was really gross. And I think he peed himself.'

‘Ooo,' both boys said in unison.

‘That's seriously gross,' Johnny Mac said.

‘Absolutely!' Early agreed.

‘Not only that, but I knew it was wrong,' Jacob said, his voice showing the signs of tears being shed. ‘My mom taught me and Trip both not to steal, but Trip thought this whole thing was just a big joke! I don't think it was funny. 'Cause now Josh is dead and I think it's my fault!'

Johnny Mac and Early looked at each other, then Johnny Mac said, ‘Why do you think that?'

‘Because I said his name real loud! Him and Trip were making fun of me, him mostly, and I said real loud, ‘Josh Weaver! You stop laughing at me!' And I think the drunk guy might have heard me. When he got sobered up, I bet the man remembered what I said and went after Josh.' Jacob began to cry.

Johnny Mac put his arm around Jacob's shoulders and started with what was now his old standby, ‘There, there.'

Early said, ‘Johnny Mac, you think we should tell your dad this?' Which just made Jacob cry all the harder.

‘He'll arrest me!' he managed to get out between sobs.

‘No, he won't,' Johnny Mac said. ‘Even if that drunk man did hear you and he
did
kill Josh, it's not your fault! You had nothing to do with Josh getting killed. Whoever killed him is responsible for all of it, plain and simple.'

Early looked at his friend with admiration, and Jacob looked up with hope in his eyes. ‘You think?' Jacob asked in a small voice.

‘Absolutely!' Johnny Mac said, with all the confidence of a young man who was the son of a steely-eyed sheriff.

Jean called me from Esther's cabin. ‘I called in a sedative to the clinic on A level. Could you pick it up and bring it to Esther's cabin on your way back?'

‘Sure. You left the boys alone?' I asked.

‘I didn't have a choice,' she said, a little defensively, I thought. ‘Rose called and said Esther wouldn't stop crying.'

‘OK, I'll come back now. I'll get the pills and bring 'em to you, then go see the boys.'

‘Well, you'd better. I'm sure one of them is dead by now,' she said in her most sarcastic tone of voice. Then she stopped herself. ‘Oh my God. I'm sorry. I can't believe I said that!'

‘It's OK, babe, I'm on my way,' I told her, hung up and said to Chief Heinrich, ‘I gotta go take care of business. I'll be in my cabin if you need me—'

‘Wait!' Heinrich said, jumping to his feet and almost knocking over Clive and his laptop.

‘What?' I said, my hand on the doorknob.

‘Exactly! What now? Turner wasn't who he said he was! The plot, as they say, thickens! So what do I do now? Remember, this is what you call your bailiwick, Kovak, not mine! I run a tight and smooth-sailing ship. I do not solve murders!'

‘Get him fingerprinted and send the fingerprints to the FBI database. Might take a while to get results. Ask them to also run a sheet on whoever the prints belong to; kill two birds with one stone that way. My boys are alone so I gotta get to my cabin. Oh, do you have my cell phone number?' He didn't so I gave it to him, then headed out of the security area.

The clinic was at the other end of A level, so I went down there – I could have walked half of Longbranch in the same time! – got the pill; there was just one – and headed to Esther's cabin. She was on the other side of the ship from us, but it was starboard to port, not bow to stern, so it wasn't that far.

Jean opened the door when I knocked on it. ‘Here you go,' I said, handing her the little packet with the pill in it.

‘Thanks, honey,' she said. ‘And I'm sorry about that crack—'

‘Forget about it,' I said, leaned inside and kissed her lovely mouth. ‘I'm off to find the boys now.'

I left and headed to the port (or the starboard, I have no idea, but I like to pretend that I do) side of the ship, and to our suite. The boys were sitting on my bed, lined up like little peas in a pod, their legs dangling off into space.

‘Hey, guys,' I said upon entering the suite.

‘Boy, Dad, am I glad to see you!' Johnny Mac said, jumping down from the bed and coming to take my hand. ‘Sit here,' he said, indicating Jean's bed. I sat and Johnny Mac went back over to sit next to little Jacob, who was sitting in the middle of the two bigger boys. ‘Jacob has something he needs to tell you about, Dad. Just listen, OK? It's not Jacob's fault, and I think you'll understand that once you hear the whole thing, 'k?'

‘OK,' I said, wondering what new horror awaited.

Jacob took a deep breath and said, ‘When Josh and Trip were making me take that money from that man, Josh was teasing me and—' He looked at Johnny Mac, who nodded his encouragement. ‘And I said something like, “Josh Weaver, you stop that.” I'm not sure exactly what I said, but I know I used his whole name.' And then he clammed up.

I nodded my head for him to go on, but nothing happened. Finally I said, ‘Is that it?'

‘Yeah,' Johnny Mac said, stretching the small word out to at least two syllables. ‘That means that man, Mr Dunne? He could have heard Jacob say Josh's
whole
name and so he went after Josh for his money, and Josh wouldn't tell him where it was, so Mr Dunne stabbed him!'

‘Then shot him!' Early said.

‘Then chopped off his head!' Jacob offered.

‘Well,' I said. ‘That's good, boys. I'll give this information to Chief Heinrich.' I stood up but the boys still sat on my bed. I sat back down. ‘Was there something else?' I asked.

‘You gonna call him?' Johnny Mac asked.

‘Who?' I asked.

‘Chief Heinrich!' Johnny Mac said.

‘You mean now?' I asked.

‘Well, yeah! This is a good lead, right?' Johnny Mac said.

I looked at the three eager faces. ‘You're right son, this is a good lead. And I think it deserves more than a phone call. Let's go down to Chief Heinrich's office and tell him about this in person!' I said, hopefully getting myself out of my son's tiny doghouse.

And so off we went.

Emmett picked up the phone and dialed the number for Darby Hunt's home. His mother, whose name was listed on Darby's release papers as ‘Elizabeth,' (he remembered Mrs Atkins saying Beth wanted to change her name since she was named after the old bat) answered on the third ring with a resounding, ‘What!'

‘Mrs Hunt, this is Emmett Hopkins with the sheriff's department—'

‘You killed my boy!' she screamed and hung up the phone.

Emmett sighed and sat back in his, or Milt's, swivel chair. Well, that hadn't gone well, he thought. He squared his shoulders and said out loud, ‘Nothing to it but to do it,' got up and yelled down the hall to Holly, ‘I'm headed to old lady Hunt's house. If I never come back, Holly, you're in charge until Milt returns.'

‘Hot damn!' he heard his civilian aid say then giggle. For some reason, Emmett figured she wasn't taking him seriously.

He got in his squad car and headed to the defunct subdivision where Elizabeth Hunt lived. Fancy name, Emmett thought, for such a cranky old bitch. He got out of the car, walked up to the porch and rang the bell. There was no sound of movement from the inside. He knocked with his fist. Still no sound of movement. Then from behind him he heard the unmistakable sound of the cocking of a shotgun. He turned slowly around, his hands well away from the forty-five caliber that rested on his hip.

‘Hey, Miz Hunt,' he said to the old lady whose body was balanced against her walker, but whose shotgun was snug tight to her shoulder and chin. ‘How you doing?' Emmett asked. He was watching her trigger finger. ‘Sorry about your boy, but you know we had nothing to do with that. I'm trying to find out who shot him, is what I'm doing.' Eyes on the trigger finger. ‘I was hoping you would talk to me about that horrible night, when Darby got shot—'

The finger moved and Emmett hit the deck. The blast blew over his head, taking out a shrub and some brick veneer. She was in the movement of unloading the other barrel when Emmett hit the walker, sending Elizabeth Hunt over backwards. The buckshot went into the air, and Emmett pulled the old lady under the eaves of the house as it came back down to earth. She was hitting him the entire time he was trying to keep her from getting hit by the buckshot.

‘You son-of-a-bitch!' she yelled. ‘I'm gonna kill you! You killed my boy, now I'm gonna kill you! I'm a good mama!'

Emmett managed to cuff her and call it in. Then he sat down at the open door of his squad car and just watched as she screamed expletive after expletive in his direction. His worse-case scenario regarding Darby Hunt's mama had come true. And he'd lived through it. He grinned. ‘Way to go, Emmett,' he said out loud.

Chief Heinrich and Clive were both sitting in the outer office, staring at the fax machine. Nothing was happening in that arena. So I said, ‘Excuse us, Chief, but Mr Connelly here has some more information he'd like to share.'

Heinrich stood up and turned to the boys, crossing his arms at his chest. ‘Yes, Mr Connelly?'

Jacob looked at Johnny Mac, who nodded encouragement, whispering, ‘You can do it, Jacob!'

Turning back to Heinrich, Jacob recited his earlier confession. Heinrich looked at me. ‘I think we might want to bring Mr Dunne back in for questioning.'

I gave a stern face. ‘In light of this new information, I think we should haul his ass in here and interrogate him,' I said.

Heinrich looked at Jacob. ‘Will you be willing to do a line-up, Mr Connelly?' he asked.

Again Jacob turned to Johnny Mac, who again nodded. Back to Heinrich, the boy puffed out his chest and said, ‘You bet, sir!'

Then we headed back to the cabin for bedtime.

The next morning was our last full day at sea, and our last day to figure out who killed Josh Weaver and Lance Turner before the coast guard and Galveston police boarded the ship. I wanted to find out if they were killed by the same person, or to discover if there were two killers aboard. I couldn't imagine that they weren't killed by the same person. If there
were
two killers, maybe Gypsy Cruise Lines should think about doing psychological profiles of their passengers before letting them on-board.

But the two different methods of dispatch had me wondering. Most killers find a method they like and stick to it, but Josh was strangled and Lance was poisoned. Strangling – even a fourteen-year-old – takes strong hands, and by the marks around Josh's neck, big hands – a man's hands. Poisoning, on the other hand, was historically a woman's method of murder. Lance had been seated at the table between two women: Crystal Weaver and Esther Monte. Crystal had been flirting with Lance and ignoring her heartbroken husband whose son had just been murdered – heartless but not homicidal. Esther, on the other hand, had been fairly loud in landing her flag atop Mount Lancelot – or whoever he was, since we now knew he was not Lancelot Turner, engineer, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But if either woman was at fault, where in the hell did they get cyanide on board a ship in the middle of the Caribbean?

Maybe Esther had meant the poison for the flirty Crystal rather than her new hunk Lance. Or – and I liked this – Esther found out Lance was not who he said he was and had done something to uncover who he really was and what he was after. Like maybe he was a private detective undercover as a passenger to find dirt on Esther for something. Esther had said she'd used all her savings to come on this trip – how did I know this was true? What did any of our group really know about each other? With the exception of the Weavers and the Tulias? And I just had their words for that. The only thing I really knew about Esther was that she had a daughter named Lyssa. There was no doubting Lyssa was her daughter – they were practically doubles. I think I could accept on face value that she was from Atlanta, because she told us this in front of Lyssa and most kids would say, ‘Atlanta? No, Mom, we're from Cleveland,' if it had been a fib.