The Deep Blue Alibi

The images clicked by again, the boat nearing the tip of Griffin's island.

'Does it stop anywhere?' Steve asked.

'I don't know. I just speed-clicked through these before. I mean, it didn't seem important. There's no way it followed the Force Majeure.'

'Don't get defensive. You're doing a great job, kiddo. Now, please slow it down.'

Bobby hit more keys. On the screen, the boat remained in the same place inside one of the grids. Then it started moving again. 'There, Uncle Steve. It's stopped, but only for like thirty seconds.'

'And that's Paradise Key.' Even from high altitude, he could spot the lagoon with the huge house on the small island. 'Maybe two miles away, right?'

'I know what you're thinking, Uncle Steve.'

'Oh, you do?'

'Yeah. You think Junior Griffin swam out to meet the boat. It picked him up and took him to the no-name island. He waited for the Force Majeure, sneaked aboard, and shot Mr. Stubbs with the speargun.'

'The thought crossed my mind.' He gestured toward the screen. 'Keep going.'

Bobby clicked to fast-forward mode. After a blur of images, the photos slowed to a crawl. Now both boats were on the screen. 'This is where the speedboat passes the Force Majeure.'

'How fast they going?'

'Really fast. Like maybe fifty knots.'

'In a big hurry to go nowhere.'

The mystery boat slowed as it approached Black Turtle Key. Precisely where Griffin's lobster traps were submerged just offshore a no-name island. Bobby had been partly right. The boat hadn't followed the Force Majeure. It didn't have to; it got there first.

'Look at that.' Steve thumped the monitor with a finger. 'The bastards stopped. Just like they did off Paradise Key.' He watched the seconds tick away on the digital clock on the screen.

Twenty-three seconds.

Long enough to let somebody slip into the water. Somebody like Junior Griffin, who could wait for the Force Majeure to arrive. The mystery boat moved away from the no-name island, then stopped about one mile away. The Force Majeure came into the picture and neared the island.

And suddenly, Steve knew. 'Oh, shit!'

'What?'

'Junior didn't swim out there to meet the fast boat. He's not the one they picked up. He's not the one they dropped off.'

'But you said-'

'I wish the son-of-a-bitch was the guy, but he's not.'

'How do you know?'

'Because Junior didn't know the Force Majeure was stopping there. Griffin swears he never told Junior. And there's no reason to lie about it. Four people got off the Force Majeure before it left Paradise Key. They all knew the boat was going to Key West. But only one knew it was stopping to pick up lobsters and money.'

'Who?'

'The guy who baited the traps and put the money in the pots. The guy who's in love with a woman who sautes snapper with bananas. The guy who could get off Paradise Key without being seen, riding his underwater chariot.'

'Clive Fowles? Are you sure, Uncle Steve? Maybe Junior and Fowles did it together. Remember when you got thrown out of the hospital?' Bobby held up his right hand and spread two fingers, just as Stubbs had done in the ICU. 'Two men attacked Stubbs. Isn't that what he meant?'

'Higher.'

'What?'

'Stubbs was trying to raise his hand higher, but he

couldn't.' Bobby raised his hand over his head. 'Like this?' The boy didn't look exactly like Winston Churchill,

but close enough.

' 'V for Victory,' ' Steve said. 'The British submariner's favorite expression. Stubbs was trying to tell me Fowles killed him.'

'Wow,' Bobby said. 'What now?'

'I've got to see a man about a chariot.'

Forty-four

THE HUMAN TORPEDO

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.'