An Incident At Bloodtide

Chapter Nine

It must have been a pretty decent mantra, because, sure enough, I woke up in a hospital bed; I had a blinding headache and a taste in my mouth like rotting fruit, but the evidence seemed incontrovertible that I was alive. Garth was in the bed next to me, his eyes closed and his head swathed in bandages. Mary, her chalky pallor accentuated by the dark rings around her eyes, was sitting between us in a straight-backed chair. She smiled wanly when she saw I was awake, leaned over, and kissed me on the cheek.

"Hello, Mongo," she said.

"Garth?" I asked anxiously.

Mary nodded. "He has a severe concussion, and he may not be awake for another day or two, but the doctors think he's going to be all right." She paused, shook her head. "Somebody on a sailboat saw the two of you hanging on a rope off the rudder of a tanker across the river, and they radioed the ship. A couple of crewmen went over the side on a rope ladder, rigged up a sling, and hauled you aboard. The Sheriffs Patrol brought you to the hospital. You saved Garth's life, didn't you, Mongo?"

"That's our hobby, saving each other's life." I sat up, groaned when a searing pain shot down through my skull, pushed Mary's hand away when she tried to get me to lie back down. "How long have we been here?"

"In the hospital? Two or three hours. What on earth happened, Mongo?" She paused, laughed nervously. "I can't leave the two of you alone together. When I do, you either end up becalmed miles from home, or unconscious and hanging off the rudder of a ship."

"Yeah, well, we played pretty hard even as kids. Mary, Tom Blaine was murdered."

The tentative smile on her face vanished. "Murdered? You're sure?"

"I'm sure. He was murdered by the captain and crew of that particular tanker. They tried to do the same thing to us."

"But they helped rescue you."

"They didn't have any choice. We'd been spotted by another boat, and the captain of that boat probably radioed the tanker on channel eight, which all the barges and tankers monitor for emergency communications. Any other big ship in the area would have heard the call, and there was no telling who else the captain of the sailboat might have contacted. There were witnesses, and so they had to act. But the fact remains that they were in on the attempt to kill us. That's the ship Tom was trying to take samples from when he was killed. Garth and I sailed over to see if we could make a little eyeball-to-eyeball contact with the captain. While we were drifting around over there, somebody on board-probably the captain-made a radio call to somebody. A few minutes later a guy driving a cigarette boat and wearing a ski mask tried to mash us into the hull of the tanker. Then-"

I stopped speaking when I heard somebody else in the room clear his throat. I looked to my right as Harry Tanner emerged from behind a curtain. The Cairn policeman with the handlebar moustache and soulful hazel eyes looked properly concerned, but also uneasy, perhaps even embarrassed. I wondered why. "Hi, Mongo," he said. "Glad to see you're back with us."

"Well, Harry, I'm certainly glad to see you," I replied, watching him carefully. "I have a few things I'd very much like to share with you."

The policeman looked down at the foot of the bed. "I was on the phone down the hall talking to the dispatcher when you woke up, but I got back in time to hear most of what you were just saying."

"You heard me say that the captain and crew of that tanker killed Tom Blaine and tried to do the same to Garth and me?"

Now Harry Tanner looked even more embarrassed. "Yeah, I heard that."

"You know, Harry, damned if it doesn't sound like you don't believe me."

"It's not that I don't believe what you're saying, Mongo-although I can't see how whatever happened to you proves anything about what happened to Tom. You may even be right. But the fact remains that it was the captain and crew of that tanker who saved your bacon by hauling the two of you aboard and then calling the Sheriff's Patrol to bring you to the hospital."

"Only after somebody on a sailboat radioed them, and they knew there were witnesses."

"The first mate says you were warned to get away, that you were too close."

"What about the black cigarette boat?"

"There was a boat like the one you describe stolen from the Haverstraw Marina. They figure it was some kid wanting to take a joyride."

"Wearing a ski mask?"

"You're the only one who saw the driver, Mongo. They found the boat smashed up on a piling at the Tappan Zee Bridge."

"Abandoned, just like Tom Blaine's boat. Harry, I'm telling you an attempt was made to kill us, and the men on board that tanker were in on it. They tried to murder us because we're on to the fact that they murdered Tom Blaine. The engines of that tanker came on after we were dumped into the water."

The policeman shifted his weight slightly, pulled at the ends of his handlebar moustache, shrugged. "Mongo, I'm here because I'm a friend of you and your brother, but also because I was asked by the Coast Guard to get your statement, since you're in the hospital here in Cairn. What else do you want me to do? If you say the props were turning, then they were turning-or you thought they were. I'll put it down. But you know the captain of the tanker is going to deny it."

"Harry, somehow I get the feeling that even if I do tell you what else I want you to do, you're going to inform me that the matter is out of the Cairn Police Department's jurisdiction. Right?"

He flushed slightly. "The tanker's moored across the river, Mongo, servicing a factory in Westchester. We're not even in the same county. Nobody over there is likely to want to make waves-if you'll pardon the expression. The powerboat was stolen from the Haverstraw Marina and ended up in Nyack, so those two departments will look into that. But they're not going to involve themselves with what happens on the river."

"You make the river sound like Dodge City when the marshal's out of town."

"It's not a bad analogy, Mongo. Not a bad analogy at all. The only certain jurisdiction is the Coast Guard's, and they're literally out of town most of the time. But that's who you have to go to if you want to file a complaint with an agency that has unquestioned jurisdiction. I'm not trying to put you off, Mongo; I'm just telling you the way it is."

I wasn't too happy about it, but I knew Harry was right. In fact, we'd already learned a lesson or two about the jurisdiction politics of the river in connection with Tom Blaine's death, so I had no reason to be shocked at what the Cairn policeman was telling me. Garth and I could have saved ourselves the sailboat ride, and unpleasant dumping, because it had gotten us nowhere. The only option we had left was the same one we'd had before going out on the river: give the photos to the newspapers and Cairn Fishermen's Association, and trust that bad publicity and a threatened court action would force Carver Shipping to stop flushing out its tanks in the Hudson and taking on river water. They would undoubtedly mend their ways-at least for a while, until they were no longer in the spotlight. Captain Julian Jefferson and a few other people might even be fired, but they would most likely only be reprimanded, since they had obviously only been carrying out company policy.

And somebody was going to get away with murder and attempted murder.

For all our time and trouble, all we'd received was insult and injury: Garth in a coma, the Coast Guard and police telling us they didn't have jurisdiction, or were too busy preparing for the possibility of terrorists on the river to deal with the terror that was already there. If our clients had been anybody but ourselves, I would probably have advised them to cut their losses and stop wasting our time, and I'd probably have given them back their retainer.

"I gotta go, Mongo," Harry said quietly, reaching over the foot of the bed and gripping my ankle. "The doctors say Garth should be all right, and I'm damned happy the two of you made it through this thing okay. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do for you; I really wish there was. I love the river; that's why I live in Cairn. I don't like these rich hypocrites who live upstream and piss in our water any more than you do, but I'm just a Cairn cop, and Cairn cops don't handle pollution complaints-which is all you've got. I really am sorry."

"It's all right, Harry. I understand."

"I'm going to pass on what you told me to the state police and Coast Guard, Mongo. I'm also going to give the Westchester cops a call, tell them what you say happened, and ask them to keep an eye on that tanker while it's moored over there."

"That's great, Harry," I replied, barely managing to keep my tone free of the anger, bitterness, and frustration I felt.

Harry nodded, then turned and walked out of the room. I turned toward Mary, who was slumped in her chair, holding my brother's hand. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she looked every bit as dispirited as I felt. She whispered, "I told you, Mongo."

"You told me what?"

"Everything that's happened started after Sacra came to Cairn. Now maybe you can understand why I acted the way I did. He's bad luck; I don't know how or why, but he can make bad things happen, just like I told you."

Well, that was all I needed to hear. Up until my beautiful and talented sister-in-law had decided to resume what I considered to be her inexplicable indulgence in nincompoopism, I had been lying there with my splitting headache feeling sorry for myself and raging inwardly at the injustice of it all. Now I was just raging. My fury galvanized me, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The reward for this minor exertion was a renewed assault on the nerve endings in my head and a sudden attack of nausea and dizziness. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths. When I felt I could stand without throwing up or falling down, I hopped down on the floor.

"Mongo! What are you doing?"

I wobbled over to the wardrobe in a corner of the room, opened it, and was pleased to find my clothes-which is to say the swimming trunks, T-shirt, and tennis sneakers I'd been wearing. It would be just enough to get me back to the house without fear of being arrested for indecent exposure.

"Mongo-?"

"Listen to me, Mary!" I snapped, wheeling on her. Fury lent strength to my legs, my voice. "Your old boyfriend, Sacra Silver, isn't bad luck, he's bad news. That magic act of his is as phony as his name. Did it ever occur to you to ask yourself why he just happened to pop up in Cairn at this particular time? Why now? Haven't you ever wondered what his real name is?"

She frowned slightly, slowly shook her head. "To me, he was always just Sacra Silver."

"His real name is Charles Carver, and he's the son of your fellow churchgoer, pillar of the community, and former shipping magnate, Bennett Carver. He works for the company his father founded, my dear, and my guess is that his job is to act as some kind of enforcer. I think he originally came to Cairn because word had gotten to company headquarters that Tom Blaine was about to cause them grief, and it was Charles 'Chick' Carver's job to run interference, to stop Tom. After he got here, he found out that you lived in the neighborhood, and he thought it might be fun to pass the time by visiting an old girlfriend and playing one of his little games, just to see what would happen. You're rich now, and more famous than you ever were. You would be quite a prize for him, and he had nothing to lose-or so he thought, at least-by making a play for you. But I think his real reason for coming here in the first place was to deal with Tom Blaine."

Again, Mary slowly shook her head. She seemed confused, doubting. "You're saying you think Sacra had something to do with Tom's death?"

"It's a working hypothesis. I'm not saying he activated the engines himself, but he may have ordered it-or approved it. Either way, it would make him an accomplice to the murder. He's the troubleshooter, the one who gets the call when Carver Shipping's interests are threatened. Well, he got a call earlier today, from the captain of that tanker across the river where Garth and I were nosing around. I'm willing to bet a lot of money that it was Chick Carver who stole that boat and then tried to ram us into the ship. For all we know, that cigarette boat may not have been stolen at all; maybe it belongs to somebody employed by Carver Shipping. I'll check that out when I get the time; there can't be that many black cigarette boats with slips at Haverstraw Marina."

"Mongo, I don't think you should just leave like this," Mary said, rising and clasping her hands together nervously. "The doctors say you suffered a concussion too."

"If I have a concussion, it's a mild one-and it's not my first. It'll pass. I've got myself a beauty of a headache, but I can walk, and my vision is clear. I don't know how long that tanker is going to hang around, and I can't afford to waste time lying around here. I'm going to check myself out. I'll be back as soon as I can."

I stepped behind a screen, slipped out of my hospital pajamas, pulled on my trunks, T-shirt, and sneakers. Then I stepped back out. Mary had sat down again, but her hands were still clasped tightly together. She looked very uncertain and worried.

"I'm afraid I'm not dressed too well for travel. I'd like to go back to the house to change, if you don't mind."

"Of course, Mongo. But-"

"And maybe you'd be so kind as to loan me money for a cab. I don't quite feel up to jogging."

Mary picked up her purse and rummaged through it, while I went over to Garth's side and looked down at his still form. The anger in me was deep, surging and rising like a high tide. Mary found a ten-dollar bill, handed it to me. I started for the door.

"Mongo," she called after me, "where are you going?"

"To look for a tall, ugly thread to yank."

It was six-thirty when I arrived back at the house. The tanker was still at its mooring across the river; its cargo of fuel oil had been delivered, and it was riding high in the water, a broad band of rusted orange undercoating indicating that it hadn't flushed out its tanks and started to take on river water-yet. I went into the house, out onto the deck, and took a photograph of the tanker, just for the record. It was overcast, with dark thunderheads rolling low in the sky, and I took two more photographs at different exposures. Then I took a long, hot shower, dressed in dark slacks, shirt and tie, and a sports coat. I seriously wanted a drink, but suspected that alcohol wasn't the best thing in the world for my persistent, throbbing headache. I opted for three aspirin and a glass of seltzer water, then picked up the telephone.

The man who came to the door of the soaring Victorian mansion on the banks of the Hudson in Upper Cairn had to be in his mid-eighties, but he obviously took good care of himself, and looked fit. He had a full head of wavy silver hair, and a somewhat cherubic face fit for a Macy's Santa Claus, except for the pale green eyes which were bright, suspicious, and which would not be reassuring to children who had misbehaved during the year; he looked like the kind of Santa who, while fair and willing to listen, would not hesitate to leave coal in the stocking of any miscreant. He was about six feet tall, and his body had the kind of gaunt look displayed by people who have recently lost a lot of weight in a short time. There was a definite air of authority about him.

"I'm Robert Frederickson, Mr. Carver," I said, extending my hand. "I very much appreciate your agreeing to see me on such short notice."

He shook my hand. "I've heard of you, Frederickson. I believe your brother is married to Mary Tree, who's a member of my church. It's why I agreed to see you. You don't live in Cairn, do you?"

"No, sir. New York City. I'm just visiting."

"Well, Mary is a member of my church, and she and Garth are my neighbors, and so I'm happy to extend you this courtesy." He paused, narrowed his eyes slightly. "You're not here to talk about that American flag business, are you?"

"No, sir. It's something else entirely."

"Come in."

I followed him through a foyer of dark wood brightened by fluorescent lights, down a corridor, then through a door into a richly furnished library that smelled of old leather. There was a walk-in fireplace, and Impressionist oils on all four walls. The bookcases were decorated with models of sailing ships, and hanging above one was a framed captain's license. Bennett Carver, it seemed, was more than just a man who'd made a lot of money with big ships; he obviously loved ships themselves, and the sea, and knew the challenges of both firsthand. I thought it reflected well on him.

"Would you like a drink, Frederickson?" he continued, motioning for me to sit down in one of two leather armchairs set in front of the fireplace, which was currently serving as the summer home for an enormous, flowering cactus.

Would I ever. "Maybe a club soda, please."

He produced a glass and some ice from a small wet bar to the right of the fireplace, poured some club soda into the glass, brought it over to me. "Let's get down to business, Frederickson," he said, sitting down in the armchair across from me. "I don't mean to be rude, but I recently had some minor surgery, and I tire easily. I usually go to bed quite early. Just what is this important matter that you wish to discuss with me?"

"Carver Shipping."

"You may have come to the wrong person, Frederickson. I'm retired. I took the company public a while back, sold it. I retain a substantial portion of stock, but I have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the company. It's run by a board of directors. I have no duties. Aside from the rights due any stockholder, I have no power, no say."

"I understand, sir, but I suspect that you have a continuing interest in the company you founded, and that interest is more than purely financial. You seem to be a man who takes pride in the things he creates, and would be concerned with how something he had created was being managed by its current caretakers."

"That's true. What's your point, Frederickson?"

"Carver Shipping's tankers are illegally washing out their bilge, ballast, and storage tanks in the river after they unload their shipments of oil. Then they're refilling those tanks with river water, which they're probably selling in the Middle East-most likely to Kuwait. I can't prove if, or where, they're selling it, but I can show that the tankers are loading up on water. In fact, there's one across the river doing it right now-or about to do it. If you care to check it out, all you have to do is watch out your window for a few minutes, while there's still light." I paused, reached into my jacket pocket, withdrew the packet of photographs I had brought with me, handed it to him. "Those are before and after pictures of Carver Shipping tankers-heading upriver to deliver their oil cargoes, heading downriver after. As you can see, they're all riding just as low in the water going as coming. They're carrying something back with them, and the only thing it could be is river water."

Bennett Carver looked through the photographs, then set them down on a glass-topped coffee table to his left. Then he looked back at me. He definitely did not seem impressed. "Water? The important thing you wanted to talk to me about is tankers carrying river water?"

"You don't seem to take it very seriously."

"I'm not sure just what there is to be taken seriously. River water? Do you anticipate a shortage?"

"The water isn't theirs to take and sell, Mr. Carver. It belongs to all of us. And they pollute the river when they flush their tanks to take it on."

"Have you notified the Coast Guard?"

"They don't take it seriously either-or they don't take it seriously enough. I got the impression they feel they have more important things to worry about."

The silver-haired man with the pale green eyes thought about it awhile, then said, "Assuming they are shipping the water to Kuwait, or some other Middle Eastern nation that needs it, some people might call it a worthwhile endeavor. It may even be legal."

"I doubt very much that selling a public resource for private profit is legal, Mr. Carver. It's easy enough to check out. But washing out their tanks in the river is definitely illegal. You live on the river, and I'm frankly surprised you aren't offended that somebody's dumping toxic chemicals in your backyard."

The old man flushed, and anger gleamed in his bright eyes. "You're out of line, Frederickson. I was living in Cairn, on this river, before you were born. My father and grandfather were fishermen, and our family lived in a shack that stood on this very property. So don't tell me I don't care about environmental matters. Ask the local fishermen who contributed large sums to their association, to the Clearwater, and just about every other environmental group you can name that's been set up to protect this river. I have lent support to legislation that adversely affected my own company's operations and profits."

"But you're not running things any longer, Mr. Carver, and it looks to me like the people who are in charge now aren't following the same enlightened policies you did. I'm here speaking to you because I thought you might still care about the image of the company, and might still have enough influence to get them to stop what they're doing."

"Will you take these photographs to the press?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"What makes you think anybody would be interested?"

"I'm not sure anybody will be. But a thing like this can sometimes create quite a stir of bad publicity for a company, and this company still bears your family name."

He grunted, nodded curtly. "I'll make a deal with you. I'll place a couple of calls to look into this matter, see what the story is. When I have the information, I'll get back to you. Is that good enough for you?"

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Carver. I think you're going to be unpleasantly surprised at how difficult it's going to be to get answers out of those people. They're going to be downright upset when you bring up the subject."

"What are you talking about?"

"There's more to it."

"What?"

"Tom Blaine, the riverkeeper. He-"

"I knew Tom well, Frederickson. He was a deacon in our church. That was a terrible thing, the accident that happened to him."

"I don't think it was an accident, Mr. Carver. At the time he died, Tom was working hard to gather enough evidence against Carver Shipping to force the Coast Guard and other authorities to take action. Some of the ships must wash out and refill their tanks at night, so Tom was diving at night. He was underneath a tanker, taking samples as the pollutants were being flushed, before they could be diluted in the river. I believe somebody on board that tanker, probably the captain, knew or was tipped off that Tom was diving that night, and he started up the main engines while Tom was under the ship. That's called murder."

"That's utterly absurd, Frederickson. Do you believe anybody, much less a licensed captain, would kill a man over a boatload of river water?"

"People have killed other people over a lot less. And we're talking about lots of boatloads of river water over an unspecified period of time, profits earned that may not be recorded on the company's books, maybe unpaid taxes. The federal government may not give a damn about them heisting water, but tax evasion is a whole different matter. Besides, the captain of this particular tanker-the one that's parked across the river right now-has a lot to hide. He's a drunk. My brother checked with Motor Vehicles, and it turns out he lost his driver's license in Connecticut, where he happens to live. He's been involved in oil spills, and he just might have been afraid that, if he got caught, he'd be made the fall guy for the whole illegal operation. Maybe he panicked; maybe somebody intimidated him. I don't know. But I do intend to find out exactly what happened."

"Have you gone to the police or Coast Guard about this particular. . theory?"

"When it comes to things floating, sailing, and motoring on that river out there, it's very difficult to get the police in any one section to say, 'Oh, yeah, we'll look into that.' It seems that whatever happens on the river is someone else's responsibility. The Coast Guard is the one agency with undisputed jurisdiction on the entire length of the Hudson, but right now they're acting like they don't want to be bothered."

"Obviously because they don't believe anybody's been murdered."

"Yeah, well, the fact that the particular tanker that probably killed Tom is moored across the river right now lends the matter a certain sense of urgency, Mr. Carver. I have reason to believe that the captain who was in command of that ship on the night Tom was killed is on board now. I'd very much like to interview him before he leaves."

"Do you actually believe he would admit to starting up his engines while there was a diver under his ship?"

"I don't know what he'll admit to before I talk to him, Mr. Carver. I just want to hear what he has to say about the whole affair. Once he leaves, I assume it will be another month or more before he comes back again. I'd like to talk to him now, before any of this other information becomes public, before you talk to any of his superiors."

"You intend to just walk up to the man and ask him if he's guilty of murder?"

"I'm not sure what I'm going to say to him. I just want to talk to him about the matter face-to-face, and get his reaction."

The silver-haired old man gazed at me steadily for a few moments, then squinted slightly and asked, "Just what is your interest in this business, Frederickson? Is someone paying you and your brother to investigate Tom's death?"

"You said Tom was a member of your congregation, and I know from talking to my sister-in-law that you're a devout man. What's your interest in going to church?"

He seemed taken aback by my question. He considered it for a while, said, "To pay homage to the God of the universe, Dr. Frederickson."

"But God would still be God whether or not you went to church to worship. What you're saying is that attention must be paid."

"Yes."

"Tom Blaine was a man who spent all his adult life trying to clean up and keep clean what must surely be one of God's greatest creations, that river outside your window, for all of us. As a result of that work he died alone, horribly, in the cold and dark under that river. Maybe it was an accident; but then again, maybe it wasn't. Attention must be paid. If nobody else is going to pay attention, then I guess it's up to Garth and me to do it. If Tom was murdered, that's sacrilege in the place where I worship. It has to do with responsibility. If someone murdered Tom Blaine, I want to fix the blame. It's my way of paying attention, and my brother's."

"I don't understand your answer."

"Then I guess I didn't really understand your question. It doesn't make any difference. I'm here to ask you to use your influence to get me an appointment to talk with the captain of the tanker moored across the river."

He considered my request as he studied the cactus in the fireplace, then looked back at me and shook his head. "I don't know, Frederickson. I can certainly alert board members that Carver Shipping may be inadvertently violating environmental regulations, but for me to do what you want is another matter entirely. The captain of any ship is an important and powerful person. I find it highly unlikely that any captain would agree to meet with you, or that the company would pressure him to do so, just so that you can accuse him of murder."

"I simply want to ask Captain Julian Jefferson a few questions. I have a suggestion as to how you might approach whoever is in a position to get me a talk with Jefferson."

"What would that be?"

"If I can get a meeting with Jefferson, then I won't be interested in pursuing the matter of their little water-shipping sideline, and the pollution that goes with it. Other people are working on that, and I'm satisfied that the work Tom started will be finished. There probably will be minimal publicity, if any. I'm less discreet. I'm interested in investigating the circumstances of Tom's death, and if Carver Shipping won't cooperate with me, I am going to use certain contacts that I have in the media to try to assure that Carver Shipping gets very bad notices, complete with photographs, on what they've been up to. What I'm talking about has nothing to do with petty fines, Mr. Carver. It's not guaranteed, but it's possible that a lot of people are going to be upset when they learn that Carver Shipping has been sucking up free water, our water, to sell overseas, and dirtying up the Hudson River in the process. Nasty things could be said and written. Tell that to the board of directors."

Bennett Carver stiffened, gripped the edges of his armchair, and glared at me. "That's blackmail pure and simple, Frederickson."

"You call it what you want. To my way of thinking, they should have demanded an investigation, or started one of their own, when it was learned that one of their tankers could have killed Tom-accidentally or otherwise."

"I'll tell my contacts on the board of directors what you said, Frederickson," the old man replied coldly. "I assume you can be reached at your brother's home?"

"I can be reached right here. Make the call now, ask that the meeting be set up for the morning. I don't know how much longer that tanker is going to be around. It's already unloaded its cargo and will probably be filling up with water once it gets dark. Jefferson may be getting ready to take off."

"How long has the ship been at its mooring?"

"Since late morning."

"Then you have time. The normal turnaround time at a port of call is a minimum of seventy-two hours, to run routine maintenance checks and give the crew shore leave. If you say this captain's home is in Connecticut, that's probably where he is right now. It's past nine o'clock, and I'm not going to intrude on anyone at this hour. I will call one or more board members sometime tomorrow, during normal business hours. I assume you have copies of these photos, so I will keep them, if I may, in case the people I call want to look at them. It will be up to the CEO or members of the board to decide if they want to give you permission to speak to one of their employees. I will tell them what you have told me, and give you their answer. That's all I can do." He abruptly stood up. "Good night, Dr. Frederickson."

I remained sitting. "There's still more, Mr. Carver."

"No, sir. There will be no more."

"I need to get in touch with your son. I'd like you to tell me where I can find him. In fact, it occurred to me that he might be staying here. Is he?"

For a moment I thought Bennett Carver was suffering a heart attack. He uttered a small gasp as his hostile look quickly changed to one of astonishment, and the blood drained from his face. He staggered slightly, then virtually collapsed back into his chair. "What are you talking about?" he asked in a voice that had suddenly grown weak and hoarse.

"Are you all right, Mr. Carver?"

He made an angry, dismissive gesture with a right hand that trembled slightly. "I asked what you are talking about!"

"Your son, Charles. Chick. I need to talk to him in regard to his health, and he gave his probation officer a phony address. Where is he?"

The movement of Bennett Carver's head when he moved it back and forth was slow and deliberate, almost lethargic, unlike his words, which came fast and clipped. "I haven't seen or spoken to my son in twenty years, Frederickson. I have no idea where he is or what he's doing. Most people don't even know I have a son. How did you find out? And what gives you the right to pry into my private affairs?"

His face and tone of voice indicated to me that he was telling the truth, and I found it quite astonishing. "I have an update for you, Mr. Carver," I said quietly. "One Charles 'Chick' Carver is working for the shipping company you founded, and he's no deckhand. He works out of the main office for a man by the name of Roger Wellington, who's in charge of security. I'm beginning to strongly suspect that one of that department's responsibilities is to make sure that nobody objects too strenuously to Carver Shipping's little sideline of selling Hudson River water to some country in the Mideast. Earlier today, somebody driving a cigarette boat tried very hard to kill my brother and me. Garth's still in the hospital, in a coma. The boat was stolen, and the cops think it was some kid or kids joyriding. I think otherwise; I find it highly unlikely that a kid would boatnap something that big from the Haverstraw Marina in broad daylight. I have a very strong suspicion it was your son driving that boat, and it's going to be interesting to see what individual or company holds the registration on the boat. The captain of that tanker across the river called security to let the company know Garth and I were snooping around on our catamaran, and security ordered your son to take care of business. He's been hanging around the county, you know. Incidentally, I also wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand, literally, in the fall that broke your assistant pastor's back, but that's another matter."

"You're insane."

"I may be wrong about a few details, but I'm not insane. One reason I want to talk to your son is to find out just what he's been up to. I can assure you that he has been hanging around and that he does work for Carver Shipping."

Bennett Carver's face darkened, and his pale green eyes glittered with anger. "I can't believe they would hire my son and put him in such an important position without at least extending me the small courtesy of informing me."

"Believe it, Mr. Carver. Check it out. Incidentally, I can't help but note the fact that you haven't objected to the notion that your son might be capable of trying to kill somebody."

His face darkened even more, but I somehow sensed that his anger was no longer directed at me. "How do you know Charles is in Rockland County?"

"He tried to insinuate himself into the lives of Garth and Mary, come between them. But now I think he was only doing that to pass the time after he learned that Mary, an old girlfriend, lived in Cairn. He was already here on business. He's calling himself Sacra Silver, and he seems to fancy himself some kind of master of the occult who can cast evil spells. It appears to be an old schtick with him, an act he puts on to intimidate and control foolish and impressionable people." Like my sister-in-law, I thought, but didn't say so.

"If this man is calling himself by another name, how do you know he's. . Charles?"

"He forced the issue, and I took steps to find out who he really was. I managed to get a set of his fingerprints. He has a police record, he's spent time in prison. He may also have done a stint as a juvenile in a mental hospital. But I'm sure you're aware of that."

"Charles always wanted to be a chief before learning how to be an Indian," Carver said softly, slowly shaking his head back and forth as if he were suffering from some neurological disorder. Suddenly his lips compressed, and he shot out of his chair. "I'll be goddamned if somebody is going to make him a chief in the company I started without at least extending me the courtesy of telling me about it! I'm going to find out what's going on here!"

It sounded good to me. I rose from my chair, then stepped back out of his way as he stormed past me to a telephone on a desk set against the opposite wall. He snatched up the receiver, punched at the buttons.

"Enough!"

I jumped, thoroughly startled, and turned around to see the stooped figure of a woman, presumably Mrs. Carver, standing between the open, louvered French doors leading to what appeared to be, now that the lights in the room had been turned on, a small study off the library. Mrs. Carver had obviously been sitting in the room, in the dark, listening to everything that had been said. She was a slight woman, frail-looking, leaning now with both hands on a silver-tipped cane. Age had bent her body, wrinkled her flesh, and thinned out her white hair, but I could see that she had once been beautiful, with high cheekbones, full lips, fine features. She wore a hearing aid, a kind of mechanical redundancy at the moment, for she had obviously heard enough already and didn't intend to do any more listening. There was nothing frail about her regal bearing, or her voice.

"Hang up the phone, Bennett!"

After a few moments' shocked hesitation, Bennett Carver-multimillionaire, church official, pillar of the community, and general all-around big-time mover and shaker-did what he was told. I'd have done the same thing. Having supervised this, the woman made her slow but majestic way across the room to the small, glass-topped coffee table next to the chair in which her husband had been sitting. She picked up the photographs Carver had placed there, threw them at me. It was a physically feeble gesture, and the photos only made it half the distance to where I was standing before fluttering to the floor, but her fury and strength of will were an almost palpable force, and I felt as if I'd been slapped in the face.

"Get out of here, you nasty little man!" she screamed at me in a hoarse voice that cracked at the top of its range. "And take your stupid pictures with you! Do your worst with them! But know that if you do anything to hurt my boy, you will regret it for the rest of your life!"

I stayed where I was, considering it a very real possibility that she would start beating me over the head with her cane the moment I walked forward and bent down to retrieve the photographs. I had no training whatsoever in how to defend myself from assaults by enraged octogenarian women.

"You," Bennett Carver said in a shocked, breathy voice as he stared at his wife. He sounded a little like an owl. Both his tone and face amply demonstrated his surprise and disbelief. "Carla, you've been in touch with Charles? You got him this job?"

"Yes, I got Charles this job, you old fool! Somebody in this family has to act like a parent, and you gave up on that responsibility twenty years ago! Did you think I was going to disown my own son the way you did?"

"Carla-"

"Don't you 'Carla' me!" the stooped woman shrieked at her husband, her voice rising even higher. "If you'd been a decent father, none of the things Charles has suffered would have happened! He loved and admired you so much! All he ever wanted was to be like you, and you turned your back on him!"

Bennett Carver extended his arms imploringly toward his wife, but he stayed where he was. "Carla, don't you remember the things he would do? Don't you remember all the money we spent for doctors and hospitals? None of it made any difference. He wouldn't change. He was never happy unless he was making somebody else unhappy. He couldn't stay out of trouble."

"I don't care what he did! I don't care what people say he's done now! He's my son! I want-!"

I'd been trying to make myself even smaller than usual, but now Carla Carver once again took cognizance of my presence at this little family tete-a-tete, and exception to it. "I told you to take your filthy pictures and get out!" she keened in a high-pitched, breathy scream, and came toward me, brandishing her cane in the air.

I got out, fast. Since I did have copies of the photos I had brought to show Bennett Carver, as well as the negatives, I thought it a wise decision to leave the ones on the floor behind.

It was raining hard when I came out.

I drove back along the river, just to make sure that the tanker that had almost certainly killed Tom Blaine was where I had left it. It was, although it took some heavy-duty squinting to make out the dark shape across the river in the wind and rain of the summer storm. I had brought no raincoat, so I ducked inside the house to get one of Garth's umbrellas before going back to the hospital.

Garth was still unconscious. The doctors were at once happy to see me back and a bit miffed that I had left without their permission. I told them I was all right, that I had survived worse knocks on my head, and that I would rest and take aspirin for my headache, which had become so persistent I had almost, if not quite, gotten used to it. I was going home. The doctors didn't like that idea. We negotiated, and I agreed to let them take some X rays. They did, confirming their initial diagnosis of a mild concussion, and agreed it would be permissible for me to go home as long as I didn't engage in any strenuous activity for two or three weeks; I was to come back if the headache persisted for more than twenty-four hours. I signed a release form, then went back to Garth's room to sit with Mary for a while. I checked with the nurse on duty to make certain Garth's condition was stable, then went back to the room once more to say good night to Mary. The day's doings had caught up with me, and I was thoroughly exhausted; I badly needed the rest I had promised to take, and if the information Bennett Carver had given me was accurate, I still had better than twenty-four hours to decide how to attack the problem of the tanker and its killer captain before the ship set out for the sea.

Wrong. When I got back to the house and used Garth's binoculars to check once more on the tanker, it was gone from its mooring.