An Incident At Bloodtide

'Carla-'

'Don't you 'Carla' me!' the stooped woman shrieked at her husband, her voice rising even higher. 'If you'd been a decent father, none of the things Charles has suffered would have happened! He loved and admired you so much! All he ever wanted was to be like you, and you turned your back on him!'

Bennett Carver extended his arms imploringly toward his wife, but he stayed where he was. 'Carla, don't you remember the things he would do? Don't you remember all the money we spent for doctors and hospitals? None of it made any difference. He wouldn't change. He was never happy unless he was making somebody else unhappy. He couldn't stay out of trouble.'

'I don't care what he did! I don't care what people say he's done now! He's my son! I want-!'

I'd been trying to make myself even smaller than usual, but now Carla Carver once again took cognizance of my presence at this little family tete-a-tete, and exception to it. 'I told you to take your filthy pictures and get out!' she keened in a high-pitched, breathy scream, and came toward me, brandishing her cane in the air.

I got out, fast. Since I did have copies of the photos I had brought to show Bennett Carver, as well as the negatives, I thought it a wise decision to leave the ones on the floor behind.

It was raining hard when I came out.

I drove back along the river, just to make sure that the tanker that had almost certainly killed Tom Blaine was where I had left it. It was, although it took some heavy-duty squinting to make out the dark shape across the river in the wind and rain of the summer storm. I had brought no raincoat, so I ducked inside the house to get one of Garth's umbrellas before going back to the hospital.

Garth was still unconscious. The doctors were at once happy to see me back and a bit miffed that I had left without their permission. I told them I was all right, that I had survived worse knocks on my head, and that I would rest and take aspirin for my headache, which had become so persistent I had almost, if not quite, gotten used to it. I was going home. The doctors didn't like that idea. We negotiated, and I agreed to let them take some X rays. They did, confirming their initial diagnosis of a mild concussion, and agreed it would be permissible for me to go home as long as I didn't engage in any strenuous activity for two or three weeks; I was to come back if the headache persisted for more than twenty-four hours. I signed a release form, then went back to Garth's room to sit with Mary for a while. I checked with the nurse on duty to make certain Garth's condition was stable, then went back to the room once more to say good night to Mary. The day's doings had caught up with me, and I was thoroughly exhausted; I badly needed the rest I had promised to take, and if the information Bennett Carver had given me was accurate, I still had better than twenty-four hours to decide how to attack the problem of the tanker and its killer captain before the ship set out for the sea.

Wrong. When I got back to the house and used Garth's binoculars to check once more on the tanker, it was gone from its mooring.

Chapter Ten

The disappearance of the tanker disturbed the nasty little man very much, and I kept peering out into the driving rain, looking for some dark shape, the glint of anchor lights, unable to believe that Julian Jefferson not only would have weighed anchor two days before his scheduled departure but would be getting under way with both a thirty-knot wind and the tide against him. Stunned, thinking that maybe the blow to my head had affected my vision, I kept adjusting the focus of the binoculars as I scanned the river. But there was nothing wrong with my eyes, or the binoculars; the tanker was definitely gone.

Obviously, Mother Carver had called Sonny to warn him that trouble was brewing, and Sonny had gotten on the horn to tell Julian Jefferson to haul ass immediately for the open sea, where he would be immune to the further attentions of the nasty little man, and virtually anyone else for that matter.

I hurried to Garth's office, picked up his New York directory, and looked up the number of the Coast Guard Command on Governors Island. I started to dial the number, then slammed down the receiver in disgust and frustration. I knew exactly what the Coast Guard was going to do-nothing. Richard Marley had already rejected my request that his agency investigate Tom Blaine's death, dismissing the idea that it could have been murder, and there was no way they were going to stop a seven-hundred-foot-long, multi-ton tanker-which, considering the haste of its departure, might not even be carrying purloined water-just because a certain private investigator wanted to talk to its captain.

I glared at the phone, thinking of my brother lying in a coma in the hospital, of Tom Blaine's horrible, lonely death, and the fact that the tanker and captain that were an integral part of the affair were getting closer to the open sea with every second that went by. Once the ship got out into the Atlantic, I suspected there was little likelihood it would ever again enter the territorial waters of the United States, or that I would ever be able to find Julian Jefferson. Not that it would make any difference if I did. I had no proof of anything but water theft, absolutely nothing else to go on but suspicions and a loose thread who called himself Sacra Silver.

Checkmate. Carver Shipping and Julian Jefferson might or might not eventually be called to account for pollution and water theft, but it was looking more and more likely that the whole cast was going to get away with murder and attempted murder. Black magic indeed.

Without the slightest notion of just what it was I intended to do, knowing only that I had to do something and do it now or forget about it, I slammed out of the house, got into my car. I jammed the gears into reverse, spinning my tires on the gravel driveway as I shot out into the street. At a decidedly unsafe speed, I headed toward 9W, the narrow, twisting, and dangerous highway that ran roughly parallel to the river. I glanced at my watch. I had been at the hospital a little more than two hours, and the tanker had been at its mooring when I'd gone back. I had no idea how long it took to get something that size under way, but I presumed at least a half hour-maybe more, if it had begun taking on water after dark. So 82Q510 had been under way for ninety minutes or less. With the tide and wind against it, I didn't think it could have gotten all that far.

I caught up with the ship, faintly backlit by lights from towns on the opposite side of the river, at Haverstraw Bay just below Croton Point, six miles or so from the Tappan Zee Bridge. I couldn't be absolutely certain that the dark hulk, dimly outlined by the white points of its running lights, was the tanker I was after, but I was certain enough; I had seen no other traffic on the river, and the chances that Jefferson had continued north toward the narrow section of the river at Bear Mountain were nil. Although it might have been wishful thinking, considering the poor visibility, it looked to me like the tanker was ploughing heavily through the water, riding low, as if it might have greedily taken on one last load of illegal cargo before trying to scamper away. That was potential good news, if I could find anybody in authority who cared one way or another.

It would be hours before the massive tanker chugged into the choppy waters and swirling tides of New York Harbor on its way to the sea. I had plenty of time to get to Governors Island to rant and rave at Captain Richard Marley, or whoever else was on duty; if the Coast Guard still refused to stop the tanker pending an investigation of whatever it was I could get them to investigate, then I would start placing calls to every influential person I knew, looking for one soul who might be able to persuade the Coast Guard to intervene, to stop the ship just for an hour or so to inspect its illicit cargo, and then maybe. .

Right. All my ranting and raving was going to get me, along with a buck and change, was a ride on the New York subway, along with a loss of credibility and influence with anybody I asked to intervene to stop a ship I claimed was carrying a great big load of. . water. I had zip. The lumbering tanker I was now leaving behind me might as well be on another planet for all the good my chasing after it was going to do; by midmorning it would be out of sight of land, beyond the reach of any United States authority. I was just wasting my time, gas, and bridge tolls.

I found all of this highly aggravating, which undoubtedly explains why I abruptly cut off 9W onto the access ramp to the Tappan Zee Bridge when I saw the flashing yellow lights in the middle of the great span, indicating construction in progress. The problem of the tanker and its rogue captain was, I thought, going to require a much more personal, hands-on approach than I could ever hope to persuade the Coast Guard to take; I suspected that among the construction equipment I hoped to find on the bridge would be something I could use to try to facilitate