Cast into Doubt (6 page)

‘Mrs Sloan?’ DeWitt repeated. ‘Could you come now?’

‘Yes, all right,’ Shelby mumbled.

‘It’s just outside and down the hallway,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘We can speak privately. If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Yes,’ Shelby said. ‘All right.’ She got to her feet and followed the FBI agent. They left the chief’s office and entered a wide hallway with cubicles along the right hand wall. The hallway was crowded with people milling around, sitting on the industrial carpeting, or leaning against the wall. They were clearly Americans, judging by their sporty, casual clothing. Most everyone, men and women both, were sunburned, and wearing shorts and fanny packs, hats and, often, sunglasses. Others, similarly dressed, were already seated in the cubicles, talking across desks to policemen. Shelby glanced at Agent DeWitt.

He answered her unspoken query. ‘Chief Giroux and his team are still questioning people from the ship. They’re talking to passengers as well as crew. Anyone who might know something, or have seen what happened,’ he said.

Shelby nodded and followed him into a small, bare office. He closed the door behind him. Suddenly it was quiet.

The agent sat down at the desk opposite her and folded his hands in front of him. ‘I know this is very difficult,’ he said. ‘I understand if this becomes too much for you, but we really need your cooperation.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Shelby.

Agent DeWitt nodded. ‘All right. Good. Now, did you speak to your daughter in the last few days? Did she call you from the boat?’

‘Yes, she called a couple of times. She has a son. A four-year-old. Jeremy,’ Shelby whispered. ‘She never left him before. She liked to talk to him.’

‘How did she sound to you?’ the agent asked.

Shelby closed her eyes and tried to remember. ‘She sounded . . . normal.’

‘Cheerful?’ he asked. ‘Having a good time?’

Shelby opened her eyes and gazed at him. ‘Do you think my daughter is . . . dead?’ she asked.

The agent would not be drawn into speculation. ‘They’re still searching,’ he said.

‘How long can someone survive in the water like that?’ Shelby asked, pressing the palms of her hands on the desktop.

‘I’m no expert on the water,’ said DeWitt. ‘You’d have to ask someone from the marine unit about that.’

‘I’d like to do that, right now,’ Shelby said.

Agent DeWitt’s expression was opaque. ‘When we’re done here. First, let’s get back to the phone calls. You said she sounded normal . . .’

Shelby could feel her eyes filling with tears.

‘Mrs Sloan, I know you want to help your daughter,’ he reminded her. ‘This is the best way for you to help.’

Shelby nodded and wiped the tears away with the side of her hand.

‘Normal,’ he repeated. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘No. Why?’

‘How about her husband?’

Shelby frowned at him. ‘What about him?’

‘Were they getting along?’ Agent DeWitt asked.

Shelby frowned. ‘Chloe and Rob? Yes. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Why are you asking me about Rob?’

‘It . . . it has to be asked.’

‘Why?’ And then she understood. ‘Oh no. You don’t think . . .’

‘We don’t have any reason to suspect your son-in-law. To be clear, we have surveillance tapes which show him at the sports trivia contest where he said he was.’

Shelby shook her head. ‘So . . . ?’

‘Right now we are leaning toward the theory that this was an accident.’

‘But it just doesn’t make any sense,’ Shelby cried. ‘How can someone accidentally fall overboard?’

‘It’s not that difficult,’ said Agent DeWitt grimly. ‘Not if a person is inebriated.’

For a moment Shelby stared at him in disbelief. ‘Inebriated? You mean drunk? You think my daughter was drunk?’ Shelby let out a mirthless laugh and shook her head.

‘She wouldn’t be the first person . . .’ he said.

‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but you don’t know my Chloe. She’s a health nut,’ said Shelby. ‘She was worried that I was going to give her son junk food while she was gone.’

Agent DeWitt held her in his steady gaze without speaking.

Shelby rattled on. ‘I’m not saying that my Chloe never took a drink. I mean, it’s possible that she had a drink or two. But how drunk would you have to be to fall overboard?’

Agent DeWitt sighed slightly, and picked up a paper that was lying on the desk in front of him. He frowned at it. ‘Probably very drunk.’

Shelby spoke firmly. ‘Obviously.’

‘Mrs Sloan, are you aware that your daughter had a problem with alcohol?’

Shelby was stunned. She felt as if he had smacked her across the face. ‘That’s a complete lie,’ Shelby cried. ‘That’s just not true.’

Agent DeWitt was stone-faced. ‘We have surveillance video of your daughter playing bingo that evening. At one point, she passes out at the table and falls off her chair.’

‘No,’ Shelby scoffed. ‘Maybe she was ill. Seasick.’

The agent looked at her steadily. ‘Two other couples at the table had to help her back to her room. She couldn’t walk unaided.’

‘No, no that’s not possible,’ said Shelby. She was trying to picture Chloe – trying to imagine her falling-down drunk. The only image which came to her mind was of her own mother, passed out on the bathroom floor, and Shelby calling out, trying to rouse her, pushing the door up against her, trying to force it open. Chloe? No. That wasn’t Chloe. ‘No. Wait a minute. What you’re saying . . . I don’t . . . no. I mean, it’s possible to get a little high without meaning to . . . that could happen to anyone . . .’

Agent DeWitt sighed and tapped his forefinger on the pile of papers on the desk. ‘I have a statement here from a bartender on the boat. Apparently she ordered seven double-vodka tonics that night.’

Shelby stared at him.

Agent DeWitt smoothed down the papers on the desk. ‘This was not an isolated incident. She repeated this behavior every night that she was on board the ship.’

Shelby’s face flamed.

‘You didn’t know,’ he said. It was not a question.

FIVE

‘
M
y Chloe?’

‘You didn’t know about her . . . problem.’

‘Her problem?’ Shelby repeated, stunned and bewildered.

‘She never mentioned this to you.’

‘No.’ Shelby tried to align this news in her head with her fixed image of her daughter. A girl who worked for a doctor, who was ever vigilant about her health, her tidy home, her orderly needlework. Chloe? A drinking problem? No. A drinking problem was her own mother, forgetting to wear underwear to a block party and lifting her skirt to scratch her thigh. Kids laughing. Howling. Not Chloe. Never. Shelby doubled over, as if she had taken a blow to the stomach.

Agent DeWitt watched her patiently.

‘I don’t understand,’ Shelby wailed.

‘Were you close to your daughter?’ Agent DeWitt asked.

Shelby knew what he was thinking. She must be the worst mother who had ever lived not to know this. ‘Yes. She was my whole world,’ Shelby said.

‘She may have wanted to spare you,’ he said.

Dimly, Shelby knew that it could be true. If Shelby ever noticed that she seemed irritable, or in a blue mood, Chloe denied it. ‘But why? Why would she get drunk? She was happy with her life,’ Shelby cried.

Agent DeWitt shrugged. ‘It’s a disease.’

Shelby stared ahead, her face flaming. How many times had she scoffed when people tried to excuse Estelle Winter’s behavior as a disease? Shelby had always seen it as a choice. Diseases were something you couldn’t help getting. Something genetic. An inheritance. Something her mother might have passed down to her granddaughter. Her mother who had never remembered Shelby’s birthday and had spent her children’s lunch money to buy another bottle. But Chloe was not anything like her grandmother. Not in any way. ‘You don’t understand. My Chloe has a son. She’s the most devoted mother. Ask my son-in-law. She would never—’

‘I’m afraid, it’s your son-in-law who informed us.’

‘Rob?’

DeWitt nodded.

Shelby’s frantic gaze met his cool, hazel eyes. ‘What did Rob say?’

Agent DeWitt shook his head, as if to say that he was not going to share that information. ‘You can ask him about it. It’s not as if we are basing our conclusions solely on what he said. As I told you, we have sworn statements from a number of people who saw her drinking heavily during the course of the cruise.

‘I think we have to proceed on the assumption that her . . . fall . . . was the result of her diminished capacity. She was extremely intoxicated, and perhaps she became disoriented when she was alone in her cabin. Her judgment was impaired. We are surmising that she may have stepped outside on to the balcony, leaned over too far and lost her balance. Now, we’re still questioning people, hoping to find an actual witness. But even without a witness, it seems pretty clear what occurred.’

Slowly, Shelby rose to her feet. ‘I have to talk to my son-in-law,’ she said.

‘I have a few more questions,’ said Agent DeWitt.

‘No,’ said Shelby, holding up a hand to stay him. ‘I can’t.’ She walked through the doorway and stepped into the crowded hall.

‘Hey,’ one of the passengers, a paunchy, sunburned man in a t-shirt, long basketball shorts and sandals, a madras bucket hat covering his head, said in a loud voice, ‘how much longer are we going to be stuck here?’

‘We’re going to get this done as quickly as possible, people,’ said Agent DeWitt. ‘I want to thank you all for your patience.’

‘This is my vacation,’ the man called after him. ‘We want to get back on the damn boat and get moving again.’

Some of the other passengers grumbled agreement, while others tried to shush the irate passenger.

Shelby’s face flamed and she lowered her head. She blinked away the hot tears in her eyes and tried to thread her way through the crowd.

‘Hey, what did he ask you about in there?’ demanded the man in the t-shirt.

‘They’re trying to find a witness,’ Shelby said in a shaky voice, avoiding his impatient gaze.

The man raised his voice and looked at the bedraggled crowd. ‘Listen, if anybody here saw that dame go overboard, do us all a favor and speak up, will ya? So we can all get out of here.’

Shelby looked up at him, her cheeks flaming. ‘That dame is my daughter,’ said Shelby.

The complaining man looked startled. ‘Sorry,’ he said gruffly. His expression was grumpy, but he was clearly reddening from embarrassment.

Shelby turned away from him. The people in the crowded corridor parted, creating room for her to pass through. They watched her warily.

As Shelby hurried through the crowd, a woman reached out a hand and stayed her. Shelby looked up and saw a dried-out stick of a woman with lifeless brown hair and kind eyes. She was wearing a sprigged blouse, a pale blue A-line skirt and shiny white sneakers. A man in a plaid, short-sleeved shirt, who could have been her twin brother, stood nearby, looking sympathetically at Shelby. ‘You’re Chloe’s mother?’ the woman asked.

The sound of her daughter’s name from this stranger’s lips caught her by surprise. Shelby nodded, wiping away her tears.

‘Don’t mind that guy. Some people ought to be ashamed of themselves. This is a tragic situation. Don’t they know what’s important?’

‘Darn right,’ said the man standing beside her.

‘My name is Virgie Mathers, and this is my husband, Don. We’re on this cruise for our fiftieth anniversary. We played bingo with your Chloe. And she was a real nice gal. She was sweet as could be. Told us all about her son. And her quilting. Right, Peg? Peggy and Bud were there too.’

The old woman indicated a stocky, balding, middle-aged man. The pudgy, sweet-faced woman who was holding his arm and leaning on a metal cane nodded enthusiastically. ‘Very nice girl,’ said Peggy stoutly. ‘She was just having a good time.’

Bud raised his eyebrows. ‘She was pretty wasted.’

‘Bud, hush. You don’t know that. She might have been feeling sick is all,’ said Peg. ‘You got a little sick yourself on this boat.’

‘That’s true.’ Bud admitted.

‘Are you the people who tried to help her?’ Shelby asked.

Don gallantly shrugged off the suggestion. ‘We didn’t do much. We walked her back to her room. She kept saying she was sorry, but it wasn’t necessary. We were happy to help her.’

‘That’s for sure,’ his wife, Virgie, agreed.

‘It’s just awful what happened to her,’ said Peggy, ‘A young girl like that. With a husband, and a little child. Got her whole life ahead of her.’

Peggy’s husband, Bud, nodded solemnly in agreement. ‘Terrible thing.’

Despite her middle age and obvious infirmity, Peggy had a soft, unlined face, and pink cheeks. ‘The poor thing,’ she said gently, and, for a moment, Shelby felt grateful if these people were the last her daughter had seen.

Virgie wrapped her cold, bony fingers around Shelby’s hand. ‘Now, don’t you give up just yet. They still might find her. I was reading somewhere that people have been known to survive a fall from a ship like this. Don was in the Navy. He would know. Isn’t that true, Don?’

Don winced. ‘I don’t know about that . . .’

‘Mr and Mrs Ridley,’ Agent DeWitt called out. He was gesturing to Bud and Peg.

‘He wants to talk to us,’ said Bud anxiously. ‘We better go.’

‘I’m sorry about all this,’ said Shelby.

‘Oh, heavens, don’t you be sorry,’ said Peg. ‘We’re just sorry this happened.’

All the others murmured agreement.

Shelby felt hot tears spring to her eyes again at their kindness. But their recounting, however downplayed, of Chloe’s last evening on the ship had closed around her heart like cold fingers.

‘Thank you for your kindness,’ said Shelby to the couple as Bud cleared a path for his wife who dragged one leg as she walked and leaned on her cane.