Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

As I put the fabric into a clean specimen bag, I heard a thud on the deck. I sat quite still and listened, straining my ears. The cabin was so well paneled, you couldn’t hear much above you. Then another, gentle thud. Two people had boarded the boat. Navy children playing around the docks?

I stuck the specimen bag in my pocket. Holding the knife firmly, I went to the door and turned out the light. I waited inside the room, listening. Through the hallway I could hear a faint murmur of male voices. These were grown-ups, not children.

Footsteps moved overhead, toward the bow. At the stern an engine turned over and caught. The boat, which had been floating aimlessly with the water currents, started vibrating and then began moving slowly backward.

I looked around for a hiding place. There was none. The card table and the couch offered no protection. Through the porthole in the lounge’s starboard wall I watched a destroyer slide by, then the gray concrete of a breakwater, and finally a small white channel market, its light flashing green as it swung around. We were out of the channel into the open lake. Straining my ears near the door, I heard the sharp slapping noise of wind on canvas: they were raising the sails. Then more voices, and finally a footstep on the carpeted stairs.

“I hope you’re not going to play hide-and-seek with me, Miss Warshawski. I know this boat much better than you do.” It was Grafalk.

My heart pounded sickeningly. My stomach turned over. I felt short of breath and too weak to speak.

“I know you’re here-we saw your car on the quay.”

I took several diaphragm breaths, slowly exhaling on a descending scale, and stepped into the hallway.

“Good evening, Mr. Grafalk.” Not the world’s greatest line, but the words came out without a tremor. I was pleased with myself.

“You’re a very smart young woman. Knowledgeable, too. So I won’t point out to you that you’re trespassing on private property. It’s a beautiful night for a sail, but I think we can talk more easily down here. Sandy will be able to manage the boat alone for a while now that the sails are up.”

He took my arm in a steely grip and moved me back into the lounge with him, turning the light back on with his other hand.

“Do sit down, Miss Warshawski. You know, you have my heartfelt admiration. You are a very resourceful lady, with good survival instincts. By now you should be dead several times over. And I was impressed with the reconstruction you gave Paige, quite impressed indeed.”

He was wearing evening clothes, a black suit tailored to his wide shoulders and narrow hips. He looked handsome in them, and there was an expression of suppressed excitement in his face which made him appear younger than he was.

He let go of my arm and I sat in one of the leather-covered straight-back chairs next to the card table. “Thank you, Mr. Grafalk. I’ll have to remember to ask you for a reference the next time a client inquires.”

He sat down facing me. “Ah, yes. I fear your clients will be deprived of your services soon, Miss Warshawski. A pity, since you have the brains and the skill to be of help to people. By the way, who are you working for now? Not Martin, I hope.”

“I’m working for my cousin,” I said levelly.

“How quixotic of you. Avenging the memory of the dead Boom Boom. Paige says you don’t believe he fell under the Bertha Krupnik by accident.”

“My parents discouraged a faith in Santa Claus at an early age. Paige never struck me as terribly naive, either-just reluctant to face facts which might upset her comfort.”

Grafalk smiled a bit. He opened the latched liquor cupboard and pulled out a decanter. “Some Armagnac, Vic? You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? Warshawski is an awkward name to keep repeating and we have a long conversation in front of us… Don’t blame Paige, my dear Vic. She’s a very special person, but she has these strong needs for material possessions that go back to her early childhood. You know the story of her father?”

“A heartrending tale,” I said dryly. “It’s amazing that she and her sister were able to go on living at all.”

He smiled again. “Poverty is all relative. At any rate, Paige doesn’t want to jeopardize her current standard of living by thinking about anything… too dangerous.”

“How does Mrs. Grafalk feel about the situation?”

“With Paige, you mean? Claire is an admirable woman. Now that our two children are through school she’s thoroughly absorbed in a variety of charities, all of which benefit profoundly by Grafalk backing. They claim the bulk of her attention and she’s just as pleased to have mine diverted elsewhere. She’s never been very interested in Grafalk Steamship either, unfortunately.”

“Whereas it has Paige’s breathless attention? That’s a little hard for me to picture, somehow.”

“You’re sure you don’t want any Armagnac? It’s quite good, really.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” My stomach warned me against putting any more alcohol on top of last night’s St. Émilion.

He poured himself some more. “Paige is in a position where she has to be interested in what interests me. I don’t mind knowing I’ve got her her attention-it’s quite intense and delightful whether bought or volunteered. And I’m afraid the steamship line is the thing I care most about.”

“So much that you killed Phillips and Mattingly, got Phillips to push my cousin off the wharf, and blew up the Lucella Wieser to protect it? Oh yes. I forgot Henry Kelvin, the night watchman in Boom Boom’s building.”

Grafalk stretched his legs out and swirled the brandy in his glass. “Technically, Sandy did most of the damage. Sandy’s my chauffeur and general factotum. He planted the depth charges on the Lucella -quite a diver. He was a frogman in the navy, served on my ship in World War II. When he was discharged I hired him. Anyway, technically, Sandy did the dirty work.”

“But you’re an accessory. The law holds you equally responsible.”

“The law will have to find out first. Right now, they seem extremely uninterested in me.”

“When they have the evidence that Phillips received his head wound here in this lounge their interest will pick up considerably.”

“Yes, but who’s going to tell them? Sandy won’t. I won’t. And you, I’m afraid, aren’t going to be with us when we return to port. So you won’t.”

He was trying to frighten me and succeeding rather well.

“Phillips called you Saturday night after he got my message, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m afraid Clayton was cracking. He was a smart enough man in his way, but he worried about details too much. He knew if you told Argus about the invoices his career would be finished. He wanted me to do something to help him out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do at that point.”

“Why’d you kill him, though? What possible harm could it do you if word got out that you’d been involved in some kickbacks in assigning cargoes? You own the controlling interest in Grafalk Steamship-your board can’t force you to resign.”

“Oh, I agree. Unfortunately, even though we hadn’t involved Clayton in the-uh-mishap to the Lucella , he knew my feelings toward Martin too well. He suspected I was responsible and threatened to divulge that to the Coast Guard if I didn’t protect him with Argus.”

“So you smashed a hole in the side of his head-What’d you use? One of these andirons?-and sailed him down to the Port. Putting him on the Gertrude Ruttan was a macabre touch. What would you have done if Bledsoe hadn’t had a ship in port?”

“Used someone else’s. It just seemed more poetic to use one of Martin’s. What made you think of it?”