Black Swan (12 page)

    "You shouldn't have left your boat. Listen up. I appreciate the help you gave me last night, but you're now busted back to full-time civilian. Any more bullshit and I'll charge you with impeding an investigation."

    "You don't actually think it was suicide," I said.

    "I don't. But Jeffrey doesn't want to rule it out."

"Jeffrey's the CSI? He's a dick."

"And you mean that respectfully," said Poole.

    "Can't you get him back to the Swan so I can go through what actually happened?"

    "They're pulling out now," she said, nodding toward the harbor. "His boss wants him back before the storm. So do the coast guard."

    "The loops in the rope were made with a bowline. And the end was cleated off in a standard figure eight. That's a sailor," I said.

    "Like Myron Sanderfreud."

    I don't usually let my face share what I'm thinking, but not always.

    "Don't glower at the police," said Officer Poole. "It's our job to consider every angle. You'd understand that if you weren't a civilian."

    I closed my eyes and breathed, collecting the bits of myself that were flying freely through the air. When I opened them up, she was still standing there.

    "Sorry," I said. "I do know how hard a cop's job is. I've seen a lot of it up close, more than I ever wanted to."

    She studied me, as if to determine the authenticity of my apology.

    "I'm actually headed for the Swan now. Do you want a lift?"

    I demurred, disappointing Eddie who clearly wanted to ride in the cruiser. Instead, I forced him to jog with me the long way back to the boat, hoping the extra miles would soak up some of my frustration. Which didn't happen, though the black clouds gathering along the northern horizon and the lighter grey swirls streaming overhead started to become a distraction. The sun was temporarily shining through a clear spot, lighting up the autumn foliage against the backdrop of a darkening sky. I noticed the leaves flipping over, exposing a pale delicate underside, a telltale of big weather on the

way according to my old man, who was occasionally right about things like that.

    Eddie noticed it as well, pausing to sniff the air and letting the ground-hugging gusts back brush his fur.

    When I got to the hotel, Poole had apparently come and gone. Only one of the gleaming cars that had brought the unheralded guests was in the parking lot—the Town Car. Anderson Track was standing in front of the gas station that served as the land-based fuel dock. He had his hands on his hips and a smirk on his face.

    "That dog ain't no jogger. Can hardly run in a straight line."

    "You're right about that. Nothing straight ahead about him," I said.

    Disappointed that he hadn't insulted me, he tried again.

    "Runnin' around in your underwear seems like a stupid waste of time to me."

    I stopped jogging and leaned on my knees to catch my breath and feel the freshening breeze cool the sweat off my back. I looked up at him, standing about twenty yards away, forcing us to almost shout back and forth.

    "That's why you're fat," I said. "And these are jogging clothes. I only run around in my underwear on Saturday nights."

    "You are truly begging to get your ass kicked," said Track.

"And you're truly welcome to give it a try."

    He stayed where he stood, deferring the ass-kicking to some future date, which was fine with me, tired as I was from the run around the island and concerned about Eddie getting caught up in the fray.

    I walked the rest of the way to the Swan and was about to head down the path to the docks when Anika stepped out from behind a hedge, appearing suddenly as she often did from the dense foliage she scrupulously attended to.

    "Your cop friend was here," she said. "She wanted to look over the shower again. Took a bunch of pictures. Wouldn't let me talk to her. A hearse took Myron over to New London on the last boat before they closed for the storm. He's going to the medical examiner. Grace wasn't happy about it, but the cops have all the say, apparently. She followed the hearse to the mainland. You think somebody killed him, so I guess that's alright with you."

    I looked around the property.

    "Make sure everything's tied down," I said. "Could have a bit of wind."

    "Oh, geez, you're right. Never thought of that."

    In fact, the area had been scoured of unanchored objects and the shutters on the first floor of the hotel closed and latched.

    "Sorry," I said. "I'm projecting boat anxiety."

    "You should go look after her," she said.

    "I should."

    "But not before I show you my painting."

    "Your painting."

    "Up on the third floor. In my studio. I told you I'd show it to you and this is probably the last chance I'll have before I turn into Dorothy and get blown out to sea."

    She wore a pair of paint-splattered denim overalls over a white tank top that made only a weak effort at containing her upper body. Sweat gathered on her upper lip and across her forehead—despite the cooling winds—and dampened the hair at the edge of her scalp. As if noticing me noticing, she used the back of her arm to wipe it clear.

    "As long as I can bring the dog. Never look at art without a critic by your side."

    The ceilings were high in the Black Swan, so the third floor was more of a climb than expected. The last leg was up a steep and narrow enclosed staircase that building codes had disqualified fifty years ago. It was a true attic, unfinished

and rich in woody mothball smells. Anika asked me to hold Eddie while she put Eloise in a travel case.

    "Your dog might be okay with my cat. Not sure about the other way around," she said.

    She was gone a few moments, then came back and let me in the door. She flicked on a switch that fired up a bank of bright can lights that exposed a huge canvas running parallel with the ridge of the hotel and standing nearly as high. I voiced my first thought.

    "How're you going to get it out of here?"

    She walked to the end of the attic and patted the wall.

    "Through the gable between these studs. With a crane."

    "That's okay with your dad?"

    She gave me the same look I got when I suggested she properly prepare for a big storm. A friendly blend of insulted sensibilities and patient tolerance.

    "I own half the joint, pal," she said. "It's okay with
us
."

    I only half heard her, since I'd already been swept up by the painting itself. It was a rectangular concoction of precisely rendered swirls, each formed by a slightly different palette of colors and shades. Taken as a whole, it was an orderly composition, but as you moved in closer, greater variation was revealed, especially where seemingly separate swirls intersected.

    "Interesting," I said.

    "Doesn't that usually mean something sucks?"

    "No. It means the painting's interesting. I like looking at it."

    "You an art lover?" she asked.

    "Not exactly. I just like the stuff I like. How did you get half the Swan?"

    "Nosy, nosy. Axel and I sold the Subversive stock my father gifted us when we were born, when it wasn't worth so much. The Swan was my idea, so I put my money where my mouth was."

"You're a programmer, too?"

    "I did a little as a kid. Nothing like Axel, who was all in. It was the Fey family's version of fun. Other girls played dress-up and went on vacations. I wrote code."

    "And painted pictures," I said.

    "And painted pictures. Axel joined Subversive. But I found art a better way to express an analytical creation than i's and o's. Left brain, right brain. The only part of me that's in balance."

    "Balance is over-rated."

    "Maybe by your standards," she said. "I know your whole history. I think imbalanced and out-of-control were two of the more flattering adjectives applied to you."

    "Don't believe everything you Google," I said, pointing over at a flat screen monitor hooked up to a CPU.

    "You didn't tell me you ran a big lab, and that the lab ran on N-Spock," she said. "You missed out on the later versions. They're a lot more robust."

    "Can't say the same for me. My earlier version had a leg up."

    "That's not what I see," she said, moving closer. "Design engineers really do it for me."

    "Anika," I said, "no go. One woman at a time is complicated enough."

    "That's entirely no fun at all."

    "You should have thought that through when you marooned yourself on an island."

    To punctuate the point, a gust of wind slapped the window at the gable end of the attic. We both looked over.

    "It's just a sou'wester," said Anika. "The Swan's been through a lot worse than that."

    "I should get back to the boat."

    "Next time a girl invites you up to look at her paintings, you'll know what to expect."

    Before I could react, she kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were fuller and softer than Amanda's and her smell a rougher sort, though more than pleasant enough. I headed for the staircase and she followed.

    Back out on the docks, I could see that conditions had continued to deteriorate. There were now white caps out in West Harbor, which generally meant about fifteen knots of steady wind speed. The breakwater was still holding the worst of it back, but the chop just outside the docks was hardly restrained. I re-checked the dock lines and the placement of fenders around the
Carpe Mañana
and made a few adjustments. There's an unwinnable debate among sailors over where to weather a storm—out of the water, in the water, at a mooring, tied up at a dock, and so on. Unwinnable because you only knew the right answer after your decision proved to be disastrously wrong.

    When the light drizzle that had greeted me when I came down from the attic turned to solid rain, I climbed aboard and went below, where Amanda had a late breakfast waiting. She looked a little nervous, but wouldn't admit she was. I ate my food then took Eddie out for what could be the last time for a while. As confirmation, the rain fell harder, now slanted by the force of the wind.

    I got us below again as lightning lit up the sky, and a crack of thunder followed seconds later, betraying the lightning's proximity. Eddie had spent the first two years of his life living in the pine barrens of Long Island, a feral dog directly connected to the natural world. I think that explained why he gave little notice to things like thunder and lightning, or heavy rainfall. I couldn't say the same about his human shipmates, as we anxiously battened down the hatches, entombed in the luxurious yellow-lit cherry cabin, hunkered down to wait it out.

T
here wasn't much to do after that but listen to the roar outside and try to distract ourselves by reading books pulled from the boat's library, pre-stocked with hardbound classics, and playing the calmest music we could find on Amanda's iPod, which was jacked into the boat's sumptuous audio system. Predictably, the shore power flicked off to the accompaniment of a huge blast of lightning and thunder. There was no immediate effect on us, since everything we needed, including the lights, ran off the battery banks. Even with the battery charger off-line, we had at least twenty-four hours of reserves without firing up the engine.

    I opened the companionway hatch, which was protected from the rain by the canvas dodger overhead, and looked down the docks at the Swan. With the sun still up it was hard to know for sure, but it was likely the whole neighborhood, if not the island, was off the grid.

    Before poking my head outside, I'd turned on the anemometer—the gauge that read wind speed. It was mounted on an instrument array at the helm, so I had to climb into the cockpit to read it. A steady thirty-five knots, or roughly

forty miles per hour, with gusts to fifty. Enough to be uncomfortable, but not so dangerous there at the dock. I examined all the lines—the ones on the windward side were taut enough to play a bass line, but doubled up as they were, staunchly held us off the pilings.

    I was about to duck back out of the rain when I saw a guy in full rain gear running toward us down the center passageway. He yelled my name.

    "You gotta come with me," said Mr. Two Trees, his dark, rain-streaked face looking through the tunnel formed by the hood of his jacket. "It's Poole."

    "What happened?"

    "You gotta come now. Bring water and blankets. It's bad."

    I went below to break the news to Amanda. She took it as she always did, alarm in her eyes, but her face set in false equanimity. I ignored Eddie's pleas to come along and put my foul weather gear over my wet T-shirt and jeans. I gathered up some blankets and threw several water bottles into the dry bag. I looked at my cell phone, which had lost service. I grabbed my handheld VHF radio and turned on the more powerful version built into the navigation panel.

    "Keep it on sixteen, the universal distress channel. Monitor whatever's going on out there, it might include a message from me."

    Two Trees was waiting for me in the Swan's parking lot in his old Toyota.