The Deep Blue Alibi

Forty-four

The device looked like a torpedo with two seats cut into it. Horace Fowles' sixty-year-old underwater chariot. His grandson, Clive Fowles, was hoisting the rusty cylinder onto the platform at the stern of his sparkling new dive boat.

"Need a hand?" Steve walked up to the dock on Paradise Key.

"Thanks, mate. Wouldn't hurt."

Steve hopped onto the rear deck of the boat and put both hands on the nose of the chariot. Fowles turned a winch handle, and two ropes unfurled from a double-sheaved block, lowering the old contraption toward the dive platform.

"Easy now," Fowles urged, giving up a little rope as Steve guided the chariot into place. The craft settled into an indentation in the dive platform, as snug as a gun in a holster.

"Pretty good fit," Steve said.

"It better be, after what Mr. G spent customizing the boat to my specs."

"And your grandfather's specs." Steve pointed at the lettering on the stern of the dive boat: "Fowles' Folly. Wasn't that the name of his midget sub?"

"Right. After Horace graduated from chariots. You remembered."

"Hard to forget. A Norwegian fjord. Your grandfather captains a little tin can that takes on a massive German battleship."

"The Tirpitz."

"David and Goliath."

"It was a miracle he even got into the fjord. Did I tell you Grandpop had to crawl out of the sub and use his knife to cut a mine off the tow line? Can you picture that, Solomon?"

"Not without breaking into a sweat."

"The North Sea's got all these freshwater layers, so it's hard as hell to maintain a trim. The Folly keeps popping out of the water like a crazed porpoise. When she gets to the Tirpitz, there's my grandpop, in the water again, attaching explosives to the big bastard's hull with German sailors firing at him. How would you describe a man like that?"

"The words 'bravery' and 'courage' don't seem to do him justice."

"You're damned right, Solomon. You understand." He swung the block and tackle out of the way and offered a hand to Steve to pull him back onto the dock. "Some people, I tell the story and they don't get it at all."

"I guess I'm attuned to the legacies our fathers leave us. Grandfathers, too, for that matter."

"I tried to live up to mine. Did my part in the Royal Navy."

"But like you said before, the Falklands and the Argentines weren't exactly the North Sea and the Nazis."

Fowles sat down on the edge of the dock and pulled out a small cigar. He put it in his mouth but didn't light it. "What are you getting at, Solomon?"

Steve sat down next to him. "Yesterday, when I was coming out of the courthouse, you wanted something."

"A Guinness Stout. The Green Parrot, mate."

"You asked about the case. You seemed worried about Griffin."

"Sure, I am. I hope he gets off."

"Because you know he's innocent."

Fowles took his time lighting the cigar. A breeze whipped off the water and the flame wouldn't catch. "I think Mr. G's innocent, but how would I know?"

Steve nearly said it then. Nearly said: "You know because you headed underwater on your chariot just like your grandfather in his midget sub. You know because someone in a fast boat picked you up and followed your directions to a nameless island just off Black Turtle Key. You know because you were there."

But Steve's instincts told him not to attack this battleship head-on. Another problem, too. This decent man who worshipped the memory of a courageous grandfather seemed to regard Hal Griffin as a father figure as well as a generous boss. While admiring Griffin, Fowles despised the Oceania project. But would the boat captain, a man who loved all the fishes in the deep blue sea, kill someone and frame Griffin for the crime?

"I think you're a good man," Steve said.

Fowles laughed. "And how would you know that?"

"It's what I do for a living. I make judgments about people."

Fowles tried to light his cigar again. Steve leaned over and cupped his hands, creating a windbreak. The flame caught. Fowles inhaled deeply and looked out over the Gulf.

"If you'll excuse me, Solomon, it's my day off, and I'm gonna take my boat out."

"To the reef?"

"Thought I'd scoot around it a bit."

Steve gestured toward the chariot. "On that human torpedo?"

"Once the Folly gets me there, yeah, I'll take the chariot down. Want to go along?"

"Me? Underwater?"

Fowles blew a trail of smoke into the humid air. "Not scared, are you?"

"No way. I love the ocean and everything in it. Except sharks."

A white heron with matchstick legs strutted along the dock and watched the Fowles' Folly head out to sea. After the boat cleared the dock, a brown pelican dive-bombed just off the port side, flipped over backward, and hit the water with a resounding splash. The bird scooped up a fish and swallowed it whole.

The cigar clamped in his teeth, Fowles manned the wheel, his thinning blond hair whipping in the wind. Steve stood alongside, watching the diamond-studded sea, the sun sparkling off the waves.

"You scuba, right?" Fowles shouted above the wind and the twin diesels.

"Don't worry. I'm certified."

"One of those two-day wonders in some hotel pool?

Arse-over-tits a couple times and you think you're Jacques Cousteau?"

"Hey, c'mon. I've dived the Little Bahama Bank. Maybe I'm a little rusty, but so's your grandfather's chariot."

Fowles laughed and nodded toward a cooler. "Beer if you want it."

Steve declined. He hated burping into the regulator.

"So, mate, why'd you really come see me today?"

"I told you. I thought there was something else you wanted to tell me. Something about you and Griffin. Maybe having a falling-out."

"Maybe you're not as good at judging people as you think."

"You were mad as hell about Oceania. I'm betting you did something about it."

"I made no secret how I felt. I told Mr. G that Oceania was a mistake."

"But you couldn't convince him not to do it."

Fowles checked the compass, turned a bit more northwest, and gave the throttles a little more juice. "Like I told you before, the boss heard me out. I asked him to consider scuttling the hotel and casino. Maybe just do a tour business. Glass-bottomed boats and catamaran trips to the reef. Mr. G said I was talking about a rowboat while he was building the Queen Mary."

"That had to piss you off."

"The man's been good to me." Fowles ran his hand across the polished teak wheel. "A custom forty-twofooter titled in my name. Everything state-of-the-art. I take Delia's coral kissers out to the reef for cleanups and census-taking. I got no complaints."

"Ever think Griffin was paying you off just to go with the flow?"

The boat passed through a channel between two small islands. "A man makes certain compromises."

"What'd Delia say when you told her about the new boat?" Steve asked.

"She told me to turn it down. We had a bit of an argy-bargy about it."

Not surprising. Delia Bustamante would no more take a bribe than cook her plantains in margarine.

Steve decided to cast a line in the water. "You violated your principles. Then you felt guilty, so you tried to stop Oceania."

"What in bloody hell are you talking about?"

They were in open water, the boat riding on plane, smoothly hopping the three-foot seas. Steve was amidships the Tirpitz with nowhere to go. "At the dock that day, after everybody got off the Force Majeure, I think you took the chariot out. I think you were picked up by someone in a fast boat, and you led them to that little island near Black Turtle Key where you knew Griffin would stop."

"What for? To kill Stubbs?"

"If you thought that would stop Oceania, maybe. Chances are, the next guy wouldn't be so easy to bribe. And with all the scrutiny he'd be getting, Griffin probably couldn't even try."

"You been in the sun too long, Solomon."

"Okay, how's this? Maybe you didn't shoot Stubbs. Maybe the guy who picked you up was the shooter."

"Setting up my defense for me? Going to be my barrister?"

"C'mon Fowles. You want to tell me. Who'd you take out there? Who did the shooting?"

"You're cracked, mate." He slowed the boat as they neared a stretch of shallow water that shimmered red from coral underneath. "Maybe the reef will mellow you out."

Fowles cut the engines, opened a compartment, and began hauling out wet suits, masks, and fins. "The tanks are below. You gotta carry your own. I'm not your valet."

They slipped into the gear in silence. Fowles' demeanor had changed, Steve realized. Not so surprising. He'd just accused the man of being an accessory to murder, if not the murderer himself.

They were untying the chariot from the dive platform when Steve said: "No last-minute words of advice?"

"Watch out for sharks," Clive Fowles said.

SOLOMON'S LAWS

11. If you're afraid of taking a big lead, you'll never get picked off. . but you'll never steal a base, either.