Sing It to Her Bones

19

Lights can be deceptive on the water at night. While I clung to the mast, I scanned the horizon for approaching lights that might signal a rescue was at hand. Behind me green and red flashing buoys marked the shipping lanes. I thanked my lucky stars we hadn’t sunk out there where we could easily have been run over by a freighter on its way up to Baltimore with a cargo hold full of new Toyotas. To my right I stared long and hard at a bright white light. Connie and I argued about it, thinking it might be the mast light of a sailboat under power, one near enough to rescue us, but when it hadn’t moved for a while, we decided it must be Venus, always the brightest star in the early-evening sky. Ahead and to my left, scattered lights flashed green or white at two- or four-second intervals, marking the channel into the Truxton, or so Connie said.

The drone of a high-speed motorboat raised our hopes. “Hey! Hey! Hey!” We gripped our flotation cushions by their straps and waved them in the air as the boat passed, unseeing, within two hundred feet of us, swamping us in its wake as it went rooster-tailing by. I inhaled water and coughed, wiping water out of my eyes with a free hand. “See why I hate powerboats?” Connie delivered a rude gesture toward the back of the disappearing boater.

I shivered. “I’m getting cold. How warm is the water?”

“About seventy degrees.”

“That’s okay, then. It’s room temperature. We should be okay.”

“We’ll be fine for a couple of hours, but I don’t want to stay out here too long, if we have a choice. I wish we had something to stand on. Water pulls heat from your body very quickly.”

I hugged myself, tucking one hand under my armpit. “How long do you think it will take them to find us?”

“I don’t know. Soon, I imagine.”

I went back to my original harebrained plan. “Can we swim to shore?”

“No. Two reasons that’s a bad idea. One, it’s a hell of a lot farther than it looks, and two, it’s easier to spot the boat than it is to find a lone swimmer, particularly at night.”

My teeth began to chatter. Connie explained that this was natural, the body’s way of staying warm. For once I wished I had more insulating body fat, but I hadn’t gained back the weight I’d lost during chemo.

“Shivering and chattering’s normal, Hannah. I once took a survival course. They say what you have to watch for are the umbles-mumbles, stumbles, fumbles, and grumbles.”

“Well, I’m certainly not going to stumble out here, but I might grumble.”

Connie, whom I trusted to be experienced with such things, said we should huddle for warmth. She instructed me to wrap my clothes as tightly around myself as possible, then embraced me in a bear hug with our legs twined together.

“That was really brilliant what you did back there,” Connie said after a moment.

“Thanks. I figured if the cancer was going to do me in anyway, I might as well go out in a blaze of glory! Sorry about taking you and the boat along with me.”

Something brushed against my leg, and I freaked, breaking away from Connie with a shriek. “It’s only a fish, silly! I felt it, too.” She grabbed my life jacket by the straps and pulled me back. We floated there, bobbing in the waves.

“Tell me something, Connie. If we’re going to die out here, I’d like to know. What’s really going on between you and Dennis?”

“I think we’re falling in love.”

“But why keep it such a deep, dark secret?”

I felt Connie shrug. “It was too soon after his wife’s death. And in addition to her other problems, his daughter, Maggie, is still grieving. She’s made it very difficult for us to see each other.”

I looked into my sister-in-law’s eyes, just inches from my own. “Why didn’t you tell me this before? What is there to be ashamed about?”

“I don’t know exactly. Perhaps I was feeling disloyal to Craig. Dennis and he had been such pals.”

“I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t share your feelings about Dennis with me, particularly when they were so obvious.”

“It’s silly, now that I think about it. But I thought I was protecting you.”

I was incredulous. “Protecting me? From what?”

When Connie spoke again, her voice was husky with emotion. “I didn’t tell you that Dennis lost his wife to cancer. I knew you weren’t out of the woods yet, medically speaking, and I was afraid you’d think that the first thing a husband widowed by cancer did was to dash off into the arms of the nearest available lover.”

“And you thought, because of Jennifer Goodall…” I squeezed Connie tightly and laughed. “And you think I’m wacky!”

We floated quietly for a while, still wrapped around each other, taking turns holding on to the mast. “You know, I was thinking back there, if we got shot or if we drowned out here, I’d never get to say good-bye to Paul. I’d never be able to tell him how much I really love him.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ve decided that one benefit of dying of cancer is that you usually have time to get your affairs in order. You can prepare your spouse for the time when you won’t be around anymore. It’s like saying a long good-bye.” Connie didn’t say anything, but I thought I saw tears on her cheeks.

I was resting my head on Connie’s shoulder and vice versa, trying to separate navigational markers and lights onshore from the lights of would-be rescuers or a tug towing a barge or another hot-dogging power-boater hightailing it back from dinner on the Eastern Shore. After a while it all seemed a kaleidoscopic blur.

I was cold, and I was tired, so very tired. The next thing I remember was Connie’s voice, spiraling down to me from the end of a long tunnel. “Sing!” it was saying. “Sing!”

“What?” My eyes snapped open, and my head lolled back against the neck roll of my life jacket.

“Sing!” Connie threw her head back, eyes closed, and launched into song, her voice off key, but hearty.

Do your ears hang low

Do they wobble to and fro

Can you tie ’em in a knot

Can you tie ’em in a bow

Can you sling ’em over your shoulder

Like a Continental soldier,

Do your ears hang looooow!

Just before she got to the last line, she punched me playfully on the arm and I joined in, a loooow in perfect two-part harmony that would sound to anybody hearing it from the distant shore like the mating call of a pair of lovesick cows.

“I haven’t sung that song since Girl Scout camp in California!” I sputtered.

“I thought singing would help keep our spirits up.”

In the next hour we warbled our way through every camp song known to God and man-“John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt,” “White Coral Bells”-with a few nursery school songs, like “Eensy Weensy Spider” thrown in for good measure.

I was trying to remember all the words to “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” when a cool breeze fanned my cheek. Connie had raised her head. “I think they’re coming!”

Keeping one hand on the mast, I turned to look. When I first clapped eyes on those flashing blue lights, I did the nautical equivalent of jumping up and down for joy, kicking my feet and bobbing like a Halloween apple. Connie and I screamed, “Help! Help!” and waved our cushions again, hoping they’d be picked up by the rescuers as flashes of white against the dark sky.

The beam of a powerful searchlight pierced the darkness, swept across the water, and passed over us. My throat was raw from screaming and the salt water I’d swallowed. “They missed us! They passed right over us!” Tears of despair ran down my cheeks. Suddenly the beam stopped, shuddered and swept back, focusing on the cushion that Connie held aloft. I kissed Connie on the cheek. “Thank God, thank God!”

The vessel approached at a high rate of speed, the roar of its engine the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. And to think I’d so recently consigned all motor-powered boats to low places in hell. The engine throttled down, and the boat slowed, circling, but the searchlight never left our bodies. As it drew within fifteen feet of where we clung to Sea Song’s mast, I could see that it was an inflatable inner tube-like boat about twenty feet long. The dark outlines of several crewmen moved about on board.

“Ahoy!” one of the crewmen called, and I thought what a quaint, old-fashioned thing to say, but every bit as effective, I supposed, as “Hey there!” “Sit tight. We’ll get a line to you in a minute.”

The boat crept fractionally closer, then stopped, its engine idling. “We can’t get too close to your boat, ma’am. If we get tangled up in it, we might all be in trouble.” Now I could see that the men wore uniforms and life jackets. One of them began to wind up like a softball player delivering a slow pitch. A line uncoiled from his hand, whooshing to our left. I heard a gentle plop as an orange, softball-size float landed not five feet from my head.

“You first, Hannah. Swim to it.”

“How about you?”

“They’ll throw one for me in a minute.”

I dog-paddled to the orange ball and grabbed it with one hand, then wrapped the fingers of both hands gratefully around the plastic rope. Almost immediately a crewman began to pull me through the water, but I was in such a hurry to get aboard that although it hurt my chest like crazy, I hauled myself, hand over hand, along the rope until I reached safety. Panting and almost insane with relief, I grabbed one of a dozen or so white lines looped along the side of the rescue craft. My arms and legs trembled with exhaustion, and it was all I could do to hold on until someone’s strong arms reached over and gently pulled me aboard. I flopped in the bottom of the boat like a stranded dolphin and tried to catch my breath.

“Thank goodness we found you!” said a familiar voice.

“Dennis! How’d you-”

“I’ll explain in a minute.” A towel appeared from somewhere; then I was wrapped in a blanket and hustled out of the wind. In less time than it took for me to sit down, Connie’s white-clad legs appeared on deck. Dennis himself had pulled her aboard. Almost before her feet hit the deck, he had gathered her up in a fierce embrace.

“Oh, Connie, Connie! Thank God. Let me take a look at you.” He held her at arm’s length as if checking to see if anything was missing or broken, then cradled her face in both his hands and stared into it for a long minute. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you.” I saw Connie’s arms lift from where they hung, dripping, at her sides, and wrap themselves around his neck. She kissed him then, long and hard, his arms snaked around her waist, and he lifted her feet nearly off the deck. Everyone but me was busily looking elsewhere.

“Where are the others?” a female crewman asked. I could see the beam of the searchlight she held sweeping the water around the mast in ever-broadening circles.

“He was on the boat,” I cried. “We threw him a life jacket. But I didn’t see him come up after the boat went down.”

“You radioed a man overboard.”

“That was Liz Dunbar,” Connie said matter-of-factly, as she, too, was cocooned in a blanket. “She got clobbered by the boom and went over about two miles from here.”

Dennis settled Connie next to me, then turned to consult one of the crew. I snuggled deeper into my blanket, figuring we’d be stuck out there for hours while the coast guard searched the bay for Liz and Hal. I found myself nodding, unable to keep my eyes open. Might even have dozed off for a bit.

Suddenly I was aroused by a flurry of activity-motors, flashing lights, crew shouting back and forth-as another boat, this one from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, pulled up alongside.

Once again Dennis seemed to take charge. “Call SMC,” he told the crewman at the wheel. “Make sure they’ve got some divers on the way. Then let’s get these women ashore.”

This time when Dennis said we’d go to the hospital, I didn’t argue. As we waited in separate cubicles under the bright lights of the emergency room with only a thin curtain between us, Connie and I learned that Frank Chase had been found and airlifted to University Shock-Trauma in Baltimore. No one could tell us how he was doing. Eventually we were examined, our temperatures taken, and an earnest young doctor from Poland, whose nametag had no vowels in it, pronounced we were suffering from mild hypothermia. Several hundred dollars later he sent us home with instructions to keep warm and drink plenty of hot liquids. Some thoughtful person even produced hospital scrubs for us to wear and returned our wet clothes, neatly folded, in a plastic garbage bag.

An hour later, at home, dressed like Christmas morning in flannel pajamas, Connie’s terry-cloth robe, and a pair of fleece-lined slippers from L. L. Bean, I cornered Dennis in the living room.

“How did you know where we were, Dennis?”

“It’s a long story.”

I glanced at Connie, sitting next to him on the sofa. “I think we have time to hear it,” she said.

Dennis rested his coffee cup on the arm of the sofa and balanced it there with two fingers. “I was at the nursing home, talking with my informant…”

“Your informant works at the nursing home?”

“Not exactly. He lives there.”

“Lives there?”

“You bet! He’s too frail to take care of himself, but there’s nothing much wrong with his mind.”

“Your father-in-law? I don’t believe it.”

“Oh, he’s a clever old chap. Last October he overheard one of the orderlies discussing a drug deal, and naturally he told me. I’d been aware of Hal’s involvement with drugs for almost a year, but the rascal’s been careful. Supercareful. According to their records, the coast guard boarded Pegasus down in Florida last year, ostensibly for a routine inspection, but they couldn’t find a thing. I’ve been keeping my eye on him ever since.”

Connie plucked at Dennis’s sleeve. “How much is it worth to you to break this case wide open?” She told Dennis about the hidden compartment on Pegasus, giving appropriate credit to me, I’m pleased to say, and I watched as his eyes widened in amazement.

“When we discovered the doctored keel, we called you at home, but Maggie told us you were at the nursing home. We were on our way there when-well, when we got diverted.” She curled up on the sofa and rested her head in Dennis’s lap, all pretense aside.

Dennis laid a gentle hand on her back. “I didn’t know a thing about that. When Dad gave me the tip that a shipment was going out tonight, I rushed straight down to the marina to see what was what. When I saw your car in the parking lot”-he stroked the hair back over Connie’s temple and smoothed it behind her ear-“I was surprised. Then I checked the office and found Frank Chase, lying in a pool of blood. He was alive, but barely. I called an ambulance, then went looking for you, fearing the worst. When I discovered Sea Song’s slip was empty…” He paused to clear his throat. “Well, I hot-footed it back to the office to call the coast guard. They had just received your May Day, so I asked them to swing by the marina and pick me up. The rest you know.”

“Liz tried to kill us,” I said.

“Because you found out about her involvement with the drug ring?” His fingers made little circles on Connie’s back, moving up and down the bumps along her spine. “I have to confess that I never suspected Liz of being involved with drugs. And certainly not Frank.”

“I don’t think Dr. Chase was. He was only involved with Liz and Hal in the cover-up of Katie’s murder.”

I told him what we had learned about Katie’s becoming pregnant by Hal, about her plan to pass the baby off as Chip’s and how, when that plan fizzled, she had tried to get rid of the child with disastrous results. “When they salvage Sea Song, I think you’ll find that the gun that shot Frank Chase was the same one used to shoot Katie.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” He shot me a wink. “Thanks to you, it looks like two cases got solved today. Maybe three. The orderly we arrested is David Wilson’s brother. We’ve impounded David’s van. I suspect we’ll find traces of his encounter with your car on his bumper. If so, he’ll be charged with attempted murder and reckless endangerment, in addition to any drug-related charges we can pin on him.”

“Good!” Privately, I hoped Dennis would lock them up and throw away the key.

Dennis checked his watch. “It’s midnight, sports fans. You gals will be wanting to get some sleep.”

I had to ask him. “How about Hal?”

“If he’s still in the boat, the divers should have found him by now.”

“Do you think he’s still alive then?”

Dennis gently lifted Connie’s head off his lap and slipped one of the sofa pillows under it. She was fast asleep. He crossed to where I sat curled in the armchair and perched on the ottoman at my feet. “There’s a chance, but slim. Sometimes there are air pockets.” Clenching my fists until my fingernails left crescent-shaped impressions on my palms, I relived my panic in the car as the water from Baxter’s pond closed in on me. “There’s also a small chance he swam to shore,” Dennis continued, “but I think that’s one in a million.”

“I can’t excuse the drugs, but Hal wasn’t a killer. Not really. He just got caught up in the crossfire between Liz and Frank.”

“But he certainly seemed determined to get rid of you and Connie. I can never forgive him for that.”

Neither could I.

Dennis startled me by taking my hand. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve located Paul. I talked to him from the hospital. He’s leaving the Cape now and should be down here by morning.”

I was amazed. “But how did you find him?”

“Simple, really. Just called the local police, gave them Paul’s license number, and they cruised around North Truro until they found his car parked somewhere along Beach Drive. You should join him up there, Hannah. Great house, I hear.”

He patted my knee, then stood to go. “You girls going to be all right now?”

“Of course. And thanks, Dennis. Thanks for everything.” I stood and gave him a hug, trying to ignore the pain that shot across my chest as I did so. “I’ll make sure Connie gets to bed.”

“Thanks. I’ve got some loose ends to tie up. University Hospital says Chase should be stable enough to interview by morning.”

I walked him to the back door and held it open as he stepped through it onto the stoop. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Sure. What is it?”

I closed the screen door and studied Dennis’s face in the porch light. Huge moths wheeled out of the blackness and made kamikaze runs against the screen. “If Dr. Chase is well enough to talk, will you ask him something for me?” And I told Dennis what I wanted to know.