Dangerous Depths (28 page)

“Maybe she found them somewhere, maybe the
same place this turtle got into them, and wanted to talk with you
about it.

“I’d like to take a few of these pellets with
me if that’s okay and compare them with the ones I found in Elyse’s
office.”

LaPlante scooped some into a plastic bag and
sealed the top. “Just don’t mix these in with your cereal by
mistake,” she said.

“Thanks.” I took the baggy and stuffed it in
my pocket. “Would you let me know what you find out about those
missing boxes?” I asked.

We left the turtle with LaPlante. She would
send tissue samples over to a lab in Saint Thomas to confirm the
presence of the poison. Those results could take weeks.

***

I left Liam and Tom at the dock and headed
over to the hospital. I’d finally worked up enough gumption to go
see Jillian. I knew I couldn’t ignore the kid. Damned if on the
way, the Rambler began to sound like a bunch of maracas shaking
under the hood. By the time I limped it into the shop, the noise
emanating from the engine was more like a steel band. I left it
there, wondering if it was long for this world. It had been through
a rough few days. The mechanic was upbeat about it though.

“Hey, no problem. I be havin’ her running
like a top in no time.” But this was the same guy who had worked on
the car earlier in the week. He’d called it good after he’d pulled
the grill out, done some minimal engine work, and looped a bungee
cord through the open driver’s window and around the back window to
hold the door closed. I told him to fix everything—the engine, the
body damage—whatever it took, I’d pay. It was a stupid expense for
the old car, but I wasn’t about to let it go to the junkyard. I
left it sitting there in the lot, looking forlorn, the grill in a
lopsided grin, and walked the remaining three blocks to the
hospital.

Jilli and Rita were in the lounge, heads
together, talking, when I got to the unit. I thought about turning
right around and heading out the way I came. I didn’t want to
interrupt. About then Jilli saw me and a tear trickled down her
cheek. There was no turning back now. I went over and sat beside
her. Rita gave me a quick smile, said she’d let us talk alone,
hugged Jilli, and left.

“I’m so sorry about Elyse,” Jilli cried,
throwing her arms around me.

“I know,” I said, fighting back the tears
that were building. I did not want to break down. I’d had enough of
it—the tightening in my throat, the hollowness in my chest. No
stopping it though. The two of us sat with our arms around each
other in complete meltdown until Jilli lifted her head.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked her.

“Yeah. How about you Hannah?”

“I’ll get through it,” I said. We talked a
while about her staying home and getting counseling.

In the lobby on the way out I found Rita
waiting for me.

“You know, Ms. Sampson, I owe you my
apology—and my thanks,” she said. “I know you were the one who
asked Mary to check on Jilli that day after you visited. At the
time, I was upset about your interference, and Mary’s. But the two
of you and Elyse saved her. I wish I could thank Elyse. I can’t
believe I was so blind. I almost lost my daughter.”

At seven-thirty the next morning Stark and I
were on our way into the office. He’d come by to pick me up at
Pickering’s Landing since I was again without a car.

“Did you get the coroner’s report on
Billings?” I asked him. He was holding a jelly donut with one hand
and steering his car with the other.

“Yeah,” he said. “He died from the head
wound. No surprises there.”

“What about the wrench, the other items we
brought up from the scene?” I sipped from the coffee that Stark had
picked up for me.

“Like the coroner said. None of them fit the
pattern of the wound. We got partials on the wrench but they were
Billings’s. Coroner is still saying crowbar.”

“What about drugs or alcohol?”

“Neither turned up,” Stark said as he put the
rest of a donut in his mouth.

“No alcohol?”

“Nope,” he muttered through crumbs.

“Freeman told his wife that Billings was
drunk the afternoon he’d been out on Flower.”

“Couldn’t have been. It would have shown up
in the blood test.”

“Yeah.” I wondered why Freeman would lie
about it.

“Lab could have mixed up the results. It’s
been known to happen. I’ll check it out. That white stuff you
collected was just what you thought—flour and sugar. Cigarette was
American, Marlboro. Lab sent it for DNA, but you know how that will
go. Could be weeks for results to come back.”

“Anything on the charring?”

“Yeah, big surprise—gasoline with a little
oil mixed in it. Whoever did it probably just dumped a tank of gas
from their dinghy engine down into the hull.

“By the way, last night we arrested Jergens
and the Coopers, that couple that owns the
Libation
.”

“Jeez, Stark. Glad you got around to
mentioning it. What happened?”

“Mahler and Snyder followed them to BVI Sail,
heard a lot of shouting and scuffing in the office, and busted in.
Mr. Cooper was lying on the floor and his wife was on Jergens,
scratching the hell out of him. Mahler pulled her off. Damned if
Jergens’s desk wasn’t strewn with a bunch of stolen goods—several
expensive watches, credit cards, a diamond bracelet, rings,
earrings.”

“Jergens say anything about Billings or
Elyse?”

“No, but the Coopers say he was with them the
night Billings’s boat went down.”

“You believe them?”

“Can’t see why they’d lie about it. Doesn’t
seem to be much love lost between them and Jergens.”

“So where the hell does that leave us?”

“Suppose Jergens could of hired someone else
to do his dirty work.” Stark was licking jelly off his fingers.

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine Jergens
wanting to miss that kind of fun. It’s what he gets him off.”

“Well, I don’t think he was the one on
Billings’s boat.”

I was having a hard time adjusting to the
fact. Though I hadn’t put together the how or why, I’d been sure
Jergens was responsible for the attempt on Elyse and for Billings’s
death.

“One other thing,” Stark said. “I got the
results of those prints that you lifted in Elyse’s office. Folder’s
there in the back seat.”

“Did you look at it?” I reached behind me and
grabbed a manila folder.

“Yeah. No matches to any prints in the
database,” Stark said. He honked at the car in front of us then
swerved around it, waving at the guy.

I opened the file and examined the two thin
sheets of paper. It was just as he said, no matches, which meant no
one who had left a print had ever been caught in a crime. There was
one thing though. The print that Dickson had lifted off the
refrigerator matched the prints on the wine bottle that I’d
recovered from the
Caribbe
. I was pretty sure that they had
to be Reidman’s. He’d told me he’d brought the bottle of wine to
the
Caribbe
.

Of course, the fact that Reidman’s prints
would be in Elyse’s office was not really surprising. He’d been in
there the day I’d gone to check it out and probably often enough
before to see Elyse. But on the handle of her specimen fridge? Why
would he ever have a reason to open it? I planned to ask him.

***

At the office Stark and I started by talking
with the couple from the
Libation
. They were young, scared,
and willing to spill it all. We separated them. I took Lynn; he
interrogated Geoff. They told identical stories. They’d come to the
islands two years ago from Britain and never wanted to leave the
BVI. They had invested all their saving in buying the
Libation
and had been about to lose it all. They’d been sure
they could make the business work, given a little time. They
started stealing from yachts a few months back, taking cash and
anything they could sell easily. They said it was only until they
could get their feet under them and make a go of the business.

Unfortunately, Jergens had found out what
they were doing when one of his charterers told him that he’d seen
the Coopers boarding a BVI Sail boat. Jergens made an excuse, told
the guy the
Libation
often made deliveries in the evenings
and that it wasn’t a problem. Then he’d gone to the Coopers and
said he wanted in and threatened to go to the police if they didn’t
comply. He’d cased his own charterers and told the Coopers which
boats to go after.

Neither one of them admitted to knowing
anything about Billings. They’d seen him out in his boat now and
then, but had never spoken with him. And they had no idea what we
were talking about when we asked about Elyse. Or about dead
turtles.

“Too bad,” I said after Stark and I finished
comparing notes. “They really got in over their heads. Stupid.”

“Yeah, I don’t think they’re tied up in
anything but theft though,” Stark said.

“Dammit, everything leads to dead ends. Let’s
go see what Jergens has to say.”

He was sitting in the interrogation room,
with his arms crossed over his chest, barely containing his anger.
His face was set in a stony gaze, eyes blazing.

“Got nothing to say to either one of you
assholes. You can just take me back to my cell.”

“Fine. Let him rot down there till he finds
himself a lawyer stupid enough to represent him,” I said to Stark,
and opened the door.

“You think you can threaten me?” He was posed
for an attack, then thought better of it. Nothing like having Stark
leaning against a wall, flexing muscle.

“I wouldn’t call it a threat,” I said. I was
stalling though, hoping he’d start talking.

“I didn’t have anything to do with those
thefts. That couple came to me trying to sell that stuff. I was
about to call the police when those two cops busted into the
office.”

“That’s not the story the Coopers are
telling.”

“It’s my word against theirs.”

“Not really. We got a warrant to search your
property. Found a lot of stolen goods in that desk of yours and in
the storage shed out back.”

Jergens was trying to come up with a good
reason that these things were on his property. I figured now was
the time to really catch him off guard.

“Why did you kill Teddy Billings?” I
asked.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Teddy find out you were stealing?” Stark
asked.

“Damned if you’re going to pin any murder on
me!” Jergens stood suddenly and threw his chair at Stark. Stark
ducked and the chair shattered against the wall. Before Jergens
could get his hands on him, Stark had him pinned in the other chair
and I’d cuffed him.

“What about Elyse Henry?” I insisted. It was
my turn to be pissed off.

“You two are crazy. Never heard of this
Billings, though I’d have loved to have gotten my hands on Henry. I
wouldn’t have killed her though, if you know what I mean.” He
smirked and leaned back, tilting the chair on its back legs.

The thought of him putting his hands on Elyse
made me sick. I kicked the chair hard and Jergens went crashing to
the floor. I left him lying there and stomped out.

“Well, that was productive,” Stark said as he
stepped out behind me.

When we got back upstairs, Dunn waved us into
his office. Mahler was there. He’d been following up on Jergens and
the Coopers and was beginning to put the pieces together to make
the case against them.

“Jergens was over on Saint Thomas trying to
pawn some of that jewelry,” Mahler said. “We should be able to nail
him cold on these thefts.”

“The thing is, he left Tortola on Saturday
afternoon and wasn’t back till midday Monday,” Dunn said, turning
to me. “Mahler talked to the pawnshop owner and the clerk at the
hotel where Jergens stayed. That means he wasn’t on the island the
night Elyse’s boat blew.”

More dead ends. I told myself we weren’t
really starting from scratch, but it sure felt like it.

When in the dark, ask a reporter. I found
Betty Welsh sitting on the edge of her editor’s desk, lecturing him
about the need to do more complete coverage of the campaign.

When she saw me, she waved, turned to her
boss, tossed him a look, and left him sitting there. Betty did what
she wanted, boss or not. No one told her how to do her job. She got
away with it because she was the best reporter in town.

I followed her down the hall to her office,
which was decorated in muted greys and blues. I figured that Betty
designed it that way so that nothing competed with her outfits.
Today she wore green stretch pants with a long tunic shirt in red
paisley. Her earrings looked like clusters of red grapes. She
looked like a Christmas tree.

”I heard what happened, Hannah,” Betty said,
closing her office door. “I am so sorry about Elyse. If there is
anything I can do, please let me know.

“As a matter of fact, there is. I saw you
talking with Teddy Billings outside the Callilou. I’m sure you
heard he was killed. Did you know him?”

“Never saw him before that morning, but I
wanted to know what his ranting at the fund-raiser was all about.
It was obvious he had been on the verge of accusing Freeman of
something.”

“What did he tell you?” I asked. I knew if
anyone could wring information out of a source, it was Betty.

“Not much. He said Freeman fired him because
he wanted him off Flower. He said something was going on out there
that Freeman didn’t want him or anyone else knowing about.”

“I don’t suppose he said what?”

“No. He wanted to make sure he was right
first. He promised he’d get back to me about it,” she shrugged,
resigned. “Guess that’s one story I won’t be writing.”

“You’ll have a story,” I told her, “when I
figure out the ending.”