Head Shot

36

'Of al the fatally stupid things I have seen, sir,' said the sheriff's marine patrol lieutenant, 'they don't come any more stupid than that… or any more fatal. Lighting a charcoal barbecue in the middle of a crowded marina, with al that fuel around…'

Dwayne Traylor shook his head and looked at Skinner. 'So far, in addition to Mr Wylie's cruiser, we've lost four other boats, and had serious damage to three others. There are no dead… other than the guy himself, and he's as dead as you can get… but one lady has gone to the emergency room with burns to her arms and face, and with most of her hair frazzled.'

The young man glanced into the treatment bay, behind the yacht club's reception area. Joe Doherty lay on a long leather-topped table; a doctor was leaning over him, putting stitches into a long gash on his cheekbone. 'How's your buddy?' he asked.

'Okay, I hope,' the Scot answered. 'He was out for three or four minutes after the explosion. I told him he should go to hospital; he told me I should go to hell.' He glanced at the officer. 'Did you call Sheriff Dekker?'

'As instructed, sir. He was on the tennis court, but when I gave him your names and told him what had happened, he said to give him ten minutes to shower and he'd be on his way.' Traylor frowned. 'He called you Deputy Chief Skinner, sir. From where, exactly, may I ask?'

'Edinburgh.'

'As in Edinborough, Scotland?'

'More or less.'

'Deputy Chief of what?'

'Well, I'm not a fucking visiting fireman, however you put it here,'

Skinner snapped, irritably. He stopped, then apologised. 'I'm sorry, son.

No need to bite your head off. I'm a policeman; deputy chief constable.'

'And your buddy, Mr Doherty there; is he Scottish too?'

'Son of a bitch!' came a shout, from the treatment table.

'Does that answer your question?'

Lieutenant Traylor grinned. 'I guess so.'

'Tell me,' the Scot asked, 'do you have many incidents involving moored boats?'

'Not like this one, sir, I'm happy to say. Last Thanksgiving I arrested a guy who was drunk and launching fireworks from his boat in a marina complex a little further down the lakeside. He told me they were distress flares. They may have been, but I stil charged him with public disorder and breach of half-a-dozen county ordinances, and took him into custody, for his own safety, and everyone else's.

'That was an exception, though; most boat-owners are responsible people. They have to be. They're indulging in a very expensive hobby.

Apart from the capital cost of these cruisers, the berths in places like this are expensive, and marine insurance doesn't come cheap.'

'So what Jackson Wylie did was exceptional too?'

Traylor hesitated. 'Cooking on deck on an open fire, rather than in an enclosed galley, is stupid, sir, like I said, but truth be told, it's common enough behaviour.'

'Have you seen many accidents like this one?'

'A couple of smal fires, maybe, but nothing on this scale. Do you know if there's a Mrs Wylie?'

'I don't believe so. I heard she died a few years back.'

'Children?'

'None that I know of.'

'In that case, the executors, whoever they are, had better pray that the insurance company takes a sympathetic view, otherwise the other boat owners, and especially that lady with the frazzled hair, will sue the ass off the estate. If that happens, Mr Wylie better leave a hell of a lot of money to pay off al the claims.'

The lieutenant was looking over Skinner's shoulder as he spoke, towards the door to the marina reception. Suddenly he stood, and came to attention. 'Good afternoon, Sheriff,' he exclaimed.

'Afternoon, Dwayne,' said Bradford Dekker, barely glancing at him.

Instead he looked anxiously at the big Scot. 'Bob, how are you? How's Mr Doherty?'

For a second Skinner's inbuilt cynicism came to the surface, and he wondered whether the sheriff's concern was for his friend or for the potential fall-out from the FBI if its deputy director had been injured seriously in a sloppily managed facility in his territory.

'I'm fine,' he answered. 'Joe's got a hole in his head, but they're stitching it up right now.'

'What happened? Traylor gave me the outline, but…'

'There wasn't much more than an outline, Brad. We were walking towards Wylie's boat when it went up like a fucking candle.'

'There wasn't any warning?'

The DCC shook his head. 'Not that I can remember. Al I saw was the fireball.' He frowned as the recollection of his dizzy spell came back to him. For a second he thought he was about to have a recurrence, but the feeling passed. 'I can't really swear to anything.'

The neither,' said Joe Doherty, from the doorway to the treatment room. 'I remember turning to talk to Bob, then coming round in here.

Was there anyone else on Wylie's boat?'

Traylor sucked in his breath. 'We have no reason to think that there was, sir. None of the other owners saw anyone else. However, we won't be able to say for sure until we've been over what's left of the Hispaniola.'

'You mean it's still afloat?'

'Just and no more. They have pretty good fire-fighting equipment here, and the local volunteer crew responded quickly. They got the fire under control before she burned down to the waterline.'

Doherty raised his eyebrows as he looked at Skinner, wincing as the gesture tugged at the fresh stitches along the side of his head. 'That's a break, eh, Bob?'

'Maybe, but if it is, it'll only be a small one… and none at all for Jackson Wylie.'

'What…' The young lieutenant looked at them, puzzled.

'Tell your technical people to stand down. Sheriff,' said Doherty to Dekker. 'I'm bringing my best team up from Quantico to go over that wreck.'

'You think there's a connection to Mr Grace?' exclaimed the police chief.

'God preserve my country from elected public officials,' Skinner bellowed. 'Of course there is, Brad. They were partners in the same law firm, they're both bloody dead, and neither from natural causes!'