An Incident At Bloodtide

'I can be reached right here. Make the call now, ask that the meeting be set up for the morning. I don't know how much longer that tanker is going to be around. It's already unloaded its cargo and will probably be filling up with water once it gets dark. Jefferson may be getting ready to take off.'

'How long has the ship been at its mooring?'

'Since late morning.'

'Then you have time. The normal turnaround time at a port of call is a minimum of seventy-two hours, to run routine maintenance checks and give the crew shore leave. If you say this captain's home is in Connecticut, that's probably where he is right now. It's past nine o'clock, and I'm not going to intrude on anyone at this hour. I will call one or more board members sometime tomorrow, during normal business hours. I assume you have copies of these photos, so I will keep them, if I may, in case the people I call want to look at them. It will be up to the CEO or members of the board to decide if they want to give you permission to speak to one of their employees. I will tell them what you have told me, and give you their answer. That's all I can do.' He abruptly stood up. 'Good night, Dr. Frederickson.'

I remained sitting. 'There's still more, Mr. Carver.'

'No, sir. There will be no more.'

'I need to get in touch with your son. I'd like you to tell me where I can find him. In fact, it occurred to me that he might be staying here. Is he?'

For a moment I thought Bennett Carver was suffering a heart attack. He uttered a small gasp as his hostile look quickly changed to one of astonishment, and the blood drained from his face. He staggered slightly, then virtually collapsed back into his chair. 'What are you talking about?' he asked in a voice that had suddenly grown weak and hoarse.

'Are you all right, Mr. Carver?'

He made an angry, dismissive gesture with a right hand that trembled slightly. 'I asked what you are talking about!'

'Your son, Charles. Chick. I need to talk to him in regard to his health, and he gave his probation officer a phony address. Where is he?'

The movement of Bennett Carver's head when he moved it back and forth was slow and deliberate, almost lethargic, unlike his words, which came fast and clipped. 'I haven't seen or spoken to my son in twenty years, Frederickson. I have no idea where he is or what he's doing. Most people don't even know I have a son. How did you find out? And what gives you the right to pry into my private affairs?'

His face and tone of voice indicated to me that he was telling the truth, and I found it quite astonishing. 'I have an update for you, Mr. Carver,' I said quietly. 'One Charles 'Chick' Carver is working for the shipping company you founded, and he's no deckhand. He works out of the main office for a man by the name of Roger Wellington, who's in charge of security. I'm beginning to strongly suspect that one of that department's responsibilities is to make sure that nobody objects too strenuously to Carver Shipping's little sideline of selling Hudson River water to some country in the Mideast. Earlier today, somebody driving a cigarette boat tried very hard to kill my brother and me. Garth's still in the hospital, in a coma. The boat was stolen, and the cops think it was some kid or kids joyriding. I think otherwise; I find it highly unlikely that a kid would boatnap something that big from the Haverstraw Marina in broad daylight. I have a very strong suspicion it was your son driving that boat, and it's going to be interesting to see what individual or company holds the registration on the boat. The captain of that tanker across the river called security to let the company know Garth and I were snooping around on our catamaran, and security ordered your son to take care of business. He's been hanging around the county, you know. Incidentally, I also wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand, literally, in the fall that broke your assistant pastor's back, but that's another matter.'

'You're insane.'

'I may be wrong about a few details, but I'm not insane. One reason I want to talk to your son is to find out just what he's been up to. I can assure you that he has been hanging around and that he does work for Carver Shipping.'

Bennett Carver's face darkened, and his pale green eyes glittered with anger. 'I can't believe they would hire my son and put him in such an important position without at least extending me the small courtesy of informing me.'

'Believe it, Mr. Carver. Check it out. Incidentally, I can't help but note the fact that you haven't objected to the notion that your son might be capable of trying to kill somebody.'

His face darkened even more, but I somehow sensed that his anger was no longer directed at me. 'How do you know Charles is in Rockland County?'

'He tried to insinuate himself into the lives of Garth and Mary, come between them. But now I think he was only doing that to pass the time after he learned that Mary, an old girlfriend, lived in Cairn. He was already here on business. He's calling himself Sacra Silver, and he seems to fancy himself some kind of master of the occult who can cast evil spells. It appears to be an old schtick with him, an act he puts on to intimidate and control foolish and impressionable people.' Like my sister-in-law, I thought, but didn't say so.

'If this man is calling himself by another name, how do you know he's. . Charles?'

'He forced the issue, and I took steps to find out who he really was. I managed to get a set of his fingerprints. He has a police record, he's spent time in prison. He may also have done a stint as a juvenile in a mental hospital. But I'm sure you're aware of that.'

'Charles always wanted to be a chief before learning how to be an Indian,' Carver said softly, slowly shaking his head back and forth as if he were suffering from some neurological disorder. Suddenly his lips compressed, and he shot out of his chair. 'I'll be goddamned if somebody is going to make him a chief in the company I started without at least extending me the courtesy of telling me about it! I'm going to find out what's going on here!'

It sounded good to me. I rose from my chair, then stepped back out of his way as he stormed past me to a telephone on a desk set against the opposite wall. He snatched up the receiver, punched at the buttons.

'Enough!'

I jumped, thoroughly startled, and turned around to see the stooped figure of a woman, presumably Mrs. Carver, standing between the open, louvered French doors leading to what appeared to be, now that the lights in the room had been turned on, a small study off the library. Mrs. Carver had obviously been sitting in the room, in the dark, listening to everything that had been said. She was a slight woman, frail-looking, leaning now with both hands on a silver-tipped cane. Age had bent her body, wrinkled her flesh, and thinned out her white hair, but I could see that she had once been beautiful, with high cheekbones, full lips, fine features. She wore a hearing aid, a kind of mechanical redundancy at the moment, for she had obviously heard enough already and didn't intend to do any more listening. There was nothing frail about her regal bearing, or her voice.

'Hang up the phone, Bennett!'

After a few moments' shocked hesitation, Bennett Carver-multimillionaire, church official, pillar of the community, and general all-around big-time mover and shaker-did what he was told. I'd have done the same thing. Having supervised this, the woman made her slow but majestic way across the room to the small, glass-topped coffee table next to the chair in which her husband had been sitting. She picked up the photographs Carver had placed there, threw them at me. It was a physically feeble gesture, and the photos only made it half the distance to where I was standing before fluttering to the floor, but her fury and strength of will were an almost palpable force, and I felt as if I'd been slapped in the face.

'Get out of here, you nasty little man!' she screamed at me in a hoarse voice that cracked at the top of its range. 'And take your stupid pictures with you! Do your worst with them! But know that if you do anything to hurt my boy, you will regret it for the rest of your life!'

I stayed where I was, considering it a very real possibility that she would start beating me over the head with her cane the moment I walked forward and bent down to retrieve the photographs. I had no training whatsoever in how to defend myself from assaults by enraged octogenarian women.

'You,' Bennett Carver said in a shocked, breathy voice as he stared at his wife. He sounded a little like an owl. Both his tone and face amply demonstrated his surprise and disbelief. 'Carla, you've been in touch with Charles? You got him this job?'

'Yes, I got Charles this job, you old fool! Somebody in this family has to act like a parent, and you gave up on that responsibility twenty years ago! Did you think I was going to disown my own son the way you did?'