Skeleton Sea

CHAPTER 47

Tolliver parked the Breaker perpendicular to the Sea Spray, which was roped to the Destiny.

I did not know where to look — at Jake Keasling lounging on the Sea Spray, or at Sandy Keasling standing like a flagpole at the rail of the Destiny.

Sandy settled it, calling out to us, “It's about time.”

Tolliver looked from Sandy to Jake and back to Sandy again. It took him a moment to speak, and then he said, wearily, “You want to explain all this, Sandy?”

The shifting fog had opened above the Destiny and Sandy was sunlit, inflaming her orange-blond hair. But her face was pale as the fog. She gazed from her lofty perch down at us. She said, “Lanny.” She shook her head. “Looks like you landed on your feet. Again.”

Lanny looked up.

“What the hell happened down there?” she demanded.

Tolliver said, “First you tell us what the hell happened up here.”

She looped her arms over the rail. “What happened, Doug, is my brothers and I arrived here to find your boat. With your dive flag up. So I told Lanny looks like the brass has things under control and we can go home, but he said he had a job to do.”

Again, it took Tolliver time to respond. He shook his head. He said, at last, “You arrived here on your boat?” He nodded at the Sea Spray. “You're standing on Oscar Flynn's boat. You want to explain that?”

She glanced at silent Lanny and then at silent Jake. “Eh, what's new, I get to do cleanup. Just so you know, I'm patching some of this together from what Lanny said. From what Oscar Flynn said. So, this morning, he followed Lanny — his boat has some radar-jamming stealth shit. Seems he figured, no surprise, that Lanny might screw up. And Lanny obliged. He detoured to bring me on board and then we detoured and had a little mishap — which reminds me, we were on the Outcast, and Lanny can fill you in on all that. Anyway, I didn't know the Destiny was standing off in the fog during our mishap so I ended up calling Jake for help. And that's why we arrived here on my boat. And then, like I said, Lanny went diving. And then the Destiny sneaked in, surprising the hell out of me.” She paused. “You with me so far, Doug?”

Tolliver just nodded.

“Now, Flynn. He shows up real unhappy about your boat being here, Doug. It seems when he set out this morning he hadn't been expecting you. Seems he picked your boat up on his radar someplace along the way, so when he arrived here he was pissed and suited up to dive.”

Lanny, beside me, flinched.

“Oh, one more thing. Flynn had company on the Destiny—Fred Stavis was also aboard. You just missed him. He's on a Coastie medic boat now.” She waved in the direction of shore. “Got shot.”

We just listened. It was too much. Tolliver opened his mouth to speak and then just shook his head.

“No need to give me that look, Doug. Fred's stable. I got aboard here fast as I could.” Sandy indicated the dive platform and ladder at the stern. “Did first aid, that's all I do, then I phoned the Coasties. And your people. Assume they'll be along soon.”

Tolliver finally spoke. “How did Fred get shot?”

Sandy jerked a thumb at the Sea Spray. “Ask the idiot who shot him.”

The four of us turned to look at Jake. He lounged on the bench at the stern, the bench where Walter and I had sat a week ago preparing to go whale watching, where I'd been sitting when I got my first look at Jake Keasling on the neighboring dock. He looked much the same now, breezy, although his green hair had grown out to show the blond roots.

Jake tipped his head to look up at Sandy. “This idiot saved your life.” Jake shifted to face us. “Never did trust those dudes. Especially after that diver got poisoned — on our beach. I figured if you could prove it was one of the dudes you'd arrest him. Since you didn't I figured it was up to Keaslings to watch out for Keaslings. And that's what this Keasling did. Flynn's on the ladder going down to the dive platform and Sandy's shouting she's gonna call the Coast Guard and then Fred pulls a gun. What else could I do? Self defense.” Jake put his hands in the air. They trembled.

“Jake.” Tolliver struggled to find more words. “Where's the firearm now?”

Jake slowly lowered his hands and picked up a mesh dive bag.

I stared across the water at the mesh bag, sagging with the weight of its cargo. I couldn't tell, from here, that it held a gun. I flashed back to Joao Silva's dive bag on Sandy's boat, a week ago. I hadn't been able to tell, then, what the bag held. Just something colored red. Some kind of weird synchronicity, I thought. Mesh dive bags holding trouble.

I shivered.

Walter was shivering. He said, “I propose that we head back to shore and Doug can continue his questions in a warm office.”

“Works for me.” Jake lifted his hand and splayed his fingers and shook his wrist, giving some sort of okay sign. “You good, Bro?”

Lanny, beside me, was shivering.

I had to speak. “Jake, you're lucky to still have a brother.” It hurt to speak. My throat was raw; breathing canned air; swallowing fear. Swallowing guilt. I looked up at Sandy, still leaning on the Destiny's rail. “And you, Sandy. If you'd shared information instead of building a wall around your castle you might have saved us all a lot of grief.”

Sandy leveled a long look at me, at the four of us on the Breaker, and she said, “I'll live with it.”

We headed back to harbor, Sandy piloting the Destiny and Jake piloting his sister's boat and Tolliver driving the Breaker, throttle opened wide.

Walter and Lanny and I rode in silence, drained to the core.