Dead in the Water (6 page)

Thunder shuddered the floor; another container had been deposited onto the deck.

“Ms. Hamilton?” Donna said. Ruth blinked. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” Ruth murmured, and took a gulp from her cup. She felt woozy, out of kilter. Maybe she needed to lie down.

A momentary flash of another, larger bottle swallowing up the real
Morris
shot through her mind. They were imprisoned inside, blithely drinking dishwater, totally unaware …

She took a deep breath. The image vanished. Swallowing, she let the soapy tea dribble down her throat.

And thought of her husband.

And wished—oh, how she wished!—that he were there.

April 7, 1797
,
in the shipping lanes of the Owhyhee route

A shroud lay in a launch; blood—both caked and fresh—splattered on the canvas that whipped with the wind and the waves. Sodden and weighted from the hail of rain, the slaps of whitewater, green. Like echoes in a tube, thunder and curses hounded the bier as it clung to the tops of the ocean mountains, hovering there, poised for the deluge, the capsize.

Within the shroud, Thomas Reade, captain of the
Royal Grace
, thrashed with fury. His blood-soaked hands clenched into claws that kneaded the canvas, searching for the seams. Blackness, blackness and the filthy wet of an old, worn sheet. His nails ripped from their roots as he struggled to find the opening, frenzied, raging, shouting. The very raindrops sizzled with his rage, and he cursed his treacherous shipmates and promised them:

I’ll not die, you weaklings, you fish! I’ll have you for my belly timber. I’ll have you for slaves
.

You think you’ve murdered me. But I’ve prayed, prayed to the sea, and she’ll not desert me. I’ve sacrificed to her—given her our little brother, our best—ah, me boyo
!

And she loves me
.

Ay, and she’ll save me
.

And I’ll be back, a thousand times a thousand, to pay you back for this. For them that sails the seas, I’ll come. And they’ll wish they’d never even thought of living, because I’ll drag them down to the bottom of the sea
.

I’ll drag them down, this I swear
.

A thousand times a thousand
.

Six hundred miles from the Owhyee Islands, on the rough Pacific sea.

John Fielder leaned over the taffrail with his arms spread, the rosy wind blowing his hair. Droplets of water clung to his glasses. Donna didn’t know what the hell he was reciting, but the
Morris
was alone, alone-alone-alone, a lot, lot alone, on the water. It was almost sundown, and there was just the ocean, the boat, and the darkening sky. Nothing else, for miles and miles and miles. It was very unnerving.

John turned around and smiled at Donna, Ruth, and Ramon. “That’s from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’ ”

“Cheerful,” Donna drawled. Her sundress whipped around her thighs and she smoothed it down; noticed that he noticed, didn’t mind.

He looked at her. “Do you know it?”

She shook her head, a bit embarrassed. He was a doctor,
for God’s sake, probably went to school until he was thirty, and her claim to higher education was a couple of business classes (typing and dictation) at Mesa Junior College. She still couldn’t type; she’d been in a panic then, completely freaked out and unable to learn anything. Well, it had been a shock, sailing into the Country Cafe, their restaurant, for the twelve thousandth time, only to discover that her mother was putting it up for sale and moving to Albuquerque to be with Aunt Leslie.
Yeah, Mom, and thanks a shitpile; I stick around and sling hash for you while the boys go off to have lives, and now I’m thirty and you’re splitting on me
?

Didn’t even give her part of the proceeds. Loaded up a U-Haul, gave her a kiss, and now she sent Christmas cards and cheap turquoise jewelry. Typing courses, fuck.

Thank God for the silver-haired police officer—Marcellis, still walked a beat in El Cajon—who suggested the police academy. Well, they sure as hell didn’t teach poetry there. If the Rhyme of the Whatever even was a poem.

“It’s great,” John said, and Donna realized she’d been drifting out to sea again. Ha ha. “It’s about a man on a sailing ship who shoots an albatross. He’s doomed to sail with a ghost crew and—”

“Oh,” she cut in, brightening, “I do know it. He’s the Flying Dutchman, right?”

He paused and cocked his head, as if he were running through the rest of the story. Finally he smiled. “Why yes, I guess it is. I guess it’s the same thing.”

Triumphant, she gave her shoulders a modest shrug. Not so ignorant after all.

Below them, the
Morris
’s propeller geysered up balloons of water, great packets of bubbles that burst apart and sprayed their faces. Gray octopus shapes pulsed below the surface, surprises the sea was keeping to itself.

“It’s his crew that dies,” Ruth supplied. “The Ancient Mariner is the captain. And there’s a Spirit that propels his ship toward a ghost ship.”

Donna shifted. “A spirit like a ghost?”

John nodded. “Yes.”

“Or a force of nature. Some kind of motivation,” Ruth cut in.

John’s brows rose above his glasses frames. “I never thought of it that way. But you’re right. It could be simply a force. But didn’t the ship come to him? It found him? And there was a beautiful woman aboard. Death in Life? Life in Death? She was the thing that cursed him.”

“Behind every great man,” Donna said, and drew a chuckle from John. She warmed a bit, though she was growing uneasier by the moment as the sun sank down, down, down toward the rabbit hole of water, water everywhere. The vastness made her feel insignificant.

And a bit helpless. If there was one thing in the world she hated more than feeling uneducated, it was feeling helpless. Helpless got you squat.

“And his crew is filled with dead men?” Ramón asked.

“Yes, he’s the only living person,” Ruth replied. “And he has such a terrible thirst; it’s all he can think of, and—”

Donna lost track of the conversation as she focused on the drowning sun. Ghost ships, and ghosts. Kids’ stories.

And ghosts. Before she realized it she was thinking about the little boy. Death spasms, right in front of her. Her stupid ankle. Hell.

She shook herself and flashed a fake, generalized smile at the others. People who dealt in violence—and death was the ultimate violence—had to learn how to compartmentalize their minds. It had been nearly two years since her first corpse, an old man who died of a heart attack, and she still hadn’t developed the knack. Glenn had quizzed her about her choice of a freighter to Hawaii, if it was too soon to go back into the water, so to speak. Maybe she’d figured she had something to prove. Or to get over. She told him it was none of his business what she did.

“Yes, it is,” he’d answered breathlessly. “It most certainly is.”

“And there’s the symbolism of the woman of course,” John was saying.

Ah, the symbolism of the woman. There always was one, wasn’t there? The woman behind the man, push-push, pull-pull;
and so he runs off, leaves his old lady to mind things—Country Cafes, for instance—doesn’t come back. What the Marines needed was a newer, younger wife. So Dad took off way before Mom did. Waited until the kids were grown up, at least. Almost grown up, anyway: Baby Donna had been fifteen. That was pretty good of him, ha.

Good men didn’t leave in the first place. And Glenn was the best, the very best there was.

“Ah, the woman,” Ramón said huskily. He brushed his fingertips against Donna’s forearm. “
Señorita
? Are you watching?” Though she kept her face impassive, she wanted to chuckle at his pseudo-intensity. Far be it from her to wound his male ego, but with this action, he’d now hit on every woman aboard. Ruth had been first, flattered but taking him no more seriously than Donna did now. She’d treated him kindly, like a wayward child. But Elise van Buren-Al-phabitch had practically taken his head off. Dumb-dumb should’ve known he was circling a shark when he’d moved in on her.

So now it was Donna’s turn, and she waited for the rest of his routine to purr forth, as if she were watching a stand-up comedian.

“Are you? Watching?” he murmured into her ear. His hot breath made her lobe tingle. What the hell. She was single.

Alone.

“Yes, yes, I’m waiting for your flash.” Big guy; how he puffed up at that. Christ, sometimes men were awful simple.

There was some commotion on Donna’s right, closer amidships, where Phil and Elise had been sitting on deck chairs, reading their books and not speaking. Donna had no idea how Phil had finessed the situation, but the couple had stayed aboard the
Morris
. During the hour Donna and the others had chatted and watched the ocean, she’d also watched Phil. Now and then he leaned toward his wife, as if watching for a chance to engage her. Steadfastly she kept her gaze on the pages. The love on his face, and the yearning, struck a chord; Donna prayed she’d never looked at Glenn that way, especially not in public.

“I’m going inside,” Elise announced, slamming shut her
book. She swung her legs onto the deck and rose in a graceful motion. She was tall and lithe; as Carlos in vice would say, “
Bien preservada.
”

Phil opened his mouth—probably to ask permission to come with her; c’mon, man, don’t be such a weenie—but shut it at the last minute and stayed where he was. Looking sad. Donna thought about inviting him to join them but shit, he was a big boy, and if he wanted to come over, he would.

“So you were saying?” she said abruptly. Everyone stopped talking and looked at her.

She shrugged. “Sorry. I was drifting there.”

“Easy to do,” Ramón offered gallantly. Please, dude, maintain, she thought. As far as she was concerned, a little Latin lovejive went a long way.

No one spoke, and Donna never did find out what topic they’d shifted to after the poem. Now they stood in a line, studying the horizon. Mr. Saar had sent everyone out to see the fabled green flash, when the ocean lit up with phosphorescence at the precise moment of twilight.

After a time, the ocean punctured the sun and syrupy crimson oozed onto the water. Triangles sloshed in prisms of acid-green, turquoise, orange, deep purple—tropical cocktails garnished with slices of crystal whitewater. Donna thought about having a beer.

The group stood at the stern, gazes obediently trained on the horizon, while beneath them the wake luffed and gurgled and a fine spray misted their faces. A distance away, Kevin, a young, hairy surfer who was working in the galley in exchange for a lower fare, muttered at a crew member and glanced nervously at Donna. Drug deal, maybe, but probably for something benign like a lid of marijuana; Kevin wasn’t the type for hard stuff. Everyone aboard knew she was a cop, and the guilty were prancing around like ballerinas.

The sun melted into a semicircle.

“Okay, it should happen any second,” Ramón announced. The onlookers held their breath. Donna sighted down his outstretched finger and squinted.

“There!” he shouted, jabbing the air. “There! Do you see it?”

“Oh!” Ruth cried. She laid her forefingers on either side of her chin. “Yes! It’s beautiful!” She smiled at Donna and John.

The doctor cocked his head. “I think I did.” He laughed. “What was it supposed to look like?”

“A thin green line,” Ramón told him, gesturing with his hands. “Glowing, like.”

“Mmm.” John lifted his chin and considered.

“Yeah!” Kevin called from his place. He waved at Ramón.

Ramón touched the back of Donna’s hand. “You saw it?”

“No.” Donna lifted her shoulders, shook her head, dropped her arms to her sides. “I guess I missed the magic moment.”

Ramón’s brows knitted as he pointed out to sea. “But it was there.”

“I saw it,” Ruth repeated. John was still craning his neck. One for sure, one uncertain.

Donna made a peace sign and pointed it at her eyes. “Not for these. Sorry.”