Stuart Woods - Choke

“What do you think was making you sick?”

“Must have been something in the tanks.”

“Where are your tanks?” he asked, looking around.

“I ditched both of them,” Chuck replied. “We were too weak to handle them.”

“Is that right, ma’am?” the officer asked Clare.

Clare shrugged and said nothing.

The lieutenant leaned over the railing again. “There are three tanks down there somewhere; bring me all of them, if you can.”

The divers went into the water.

The lieutenant came back. “You said there’s a compressor aboard? I’d like to take a look at it.”

“Below,” Chuck said, nodding at the stairs. “In the engine room.”

The officer disappeared below. He was gone less than five minutes, and when he came back, he was carrying a foot-long piece of clear plastic tubing by his thumb and forefinger. “Ever seen this before?” he asked.

“No,” Chuck replied.

The lieutenant nodded. “Funny,” he said, “neither of you look very sick to me.”

It was nearly dark when the cutter came alongside the Coast Guard dock near Key West Bight. Fugitive, driven by a Coast Guard crewman, docked behind them. Chuck saw Tommy Sculley and a very young man waiting on the dock. He waved at Tommy and Tommy waved back. When the gangplank was down, the policeman came aboard and introduced himself and the young man to the skipper.

“Come to my cabin a minute, will you, Detective?” the lieutenant said.

“Sure,” Tommy replied. “Chuck, stick around, will you. Mrs. Carras, we’ll take you home in just a few minutes.”

Clare nodded. She had changed into shorts and a tight T-shirt. Chuck thought she didn’t look at all like a widow. He went and sat next to her.

“I’m sorry about Harry, Clare,” he said. “I had hold of him, but I think he was already dead; then I got sick, and I had to let him go.”

Clare nodded. Her face was still expressionless, and the tears had stopped.

Tommy, and the lieutenant appeared on deck again. “Give me another couple of minutes,” he said to Chuck and Clare. Then he followed the lieutenant aboard Fugitive. Chuck saw the two men go below.

When they returned to the cutter, Tommy approached Chuck. “I need to talk with both of you,” he said. “Why don’t we do it at Mrs. Carras’s house?”

“Sure,” Chuck said, gathering up his gear. He took Clare’s arm and escorted her down the gangplank to the police car. This police stuff had to be done, he supposed; a man was dead, after all.

Chuck and Tommy sat on a sofa in the Carras living room; Clare was downstairs in her bedroom, changing clothes; Daryl, the younger cop, sat on the opposite sofa, notebook at the ready. Tommy motioned to him.

“Put that away for now,” he said to the younger man, then he turned to Chuck. “Listen to me,” he said. “I want you to tell me everything that happened, from the time you got on the boat this morning, and don’t leave anything out. I haven’t read you your rights, so this is off the record, just between you and me and Daryl, okay?”

“Rights?” Chuck said, alarmed. He had watched enough television to know what it meant when the police started advising somebody of his rights.

Tommy put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about that right now; I just want to know what happened out there today.”

Chuck started at the beginning and related everything he could remember about that day, from the time he’d set foot aboard Fugitive until they had returned to Key West.

Tommy listened with complete concentration, occasionally asking a brief question. When Chuck had finished, Tommy looked at him with some sympathy. “You’ve had a rough day,” he said. “Why don’t you go home and get something to eat. We’ll talk more later.”

“Thanks,” Chuck said. “I’ll do that.” He was relieved to have this session over with.

“Where do you live?” Tommy asked. “Daryl will give you a ride.”

“Aboard my boat in Key West Bight,” Chuck replied. “I can walk; it’s only a few hundred yards.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Tommy said.

As Chuck left the house he turned back to see Clare leaving her bedroom and starting up the stairs. She was wearing a simple cotton dress, and she looked beautiful. But then, she always did.

Chuck walked slowly back toward the Bight, feeling exhausted. Maybe Meg would fix him some dinner. As he neared his boat, something seemed wrong, but it took him a moment to figure out what it was. The catamaran was gone. The berth next to Choke was empty.

Chuck didn’t bother with dinner. He fell on his bunk and was immediately asleep.

Clare waited until the policemen had been gone for an hour, then got into the car and drove north. She parked in an empty supermarket parking lot and dialed a number on the car’s phone.

“Hello?”

“It’s me.”

The voice tensed. “Tell me.”

“It’s done.”

There was a whistle of relief at the other end. “Any problems?”

“No, it went pretty much the way you said it would. I stayed close to the boat, so when I got sick I wasn’t in any real trouble.”

“How about Chandler?”

“He tried to get Harry to the surface, but he had to let him go. The Coast Guard came and looked for him, but there was a current running, and he had drifted away.”

“Damn! I was counting on an autopsy.”

“So was I, but they recovered all three tanks, so that may not matter.”

“Harry’s body might turn up yet,” he said. “Sometimes they do; you read about it in the papers.”

“I guess.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just tired. It’s been one hell of a day.”

“Try and get some sleep tonight,” he said. “We can meet tomorrow.”

“No!” she blurted out. “We can’t go anywhere near each other, maybe for weeks.”

“I can’t stay away from you that long,” he said, and his voice was shaky.

“You have to. Florida has capital punishment, remember? And these days they’re in a mood to use it. We have to be very, very careful, and that means staying away from each other until I can get Harry’s estate sorted out and make some sort of move.”

“I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “But I’m not going to like it.”

“Neither am I,” she replied. “I’m going to miss fucking you.”

“I know you,” he said. “You can’t go long without sex. You’ll have Chandler in bed again in a week.”

“That might do us some good,” she said, “but I don’t think he’s going to want to be anywhere near me.”

“Why not?”

“Because before we went diving, he broke it off.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“I don’t know. God knows I was keeping him happy.”

“I believe that, but I just don’t get it.”

“Neither do I. Maybe he was feeling guilty about Harry.”

“I doubt it; there was nothing in his history that suggested any guilt about husbands.”

“Another woman,” she said. “That would account for it.”

“I don’t believe another woman could stack up to you, husband or no husband.”

“You’re sweet, baby, but that’s my best guess.”

“I can sniff around and find out.”

“No! Don’t you dare follow him, or me either. We have to be very, very cool. Things went well, and I think they’re going to go even better. What I told the cops will make sure of that.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I have to go now. Remember, no contact at all. I’ll call you when I think it’s safe.”

“Whatever you say, lover. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Good-bye for now.” She hung up, started the car, and drove back to the house.