Andrew Gross - The Dark Tide

Oh, Charlie… Karen picked a piece of debris out of his hair.

So many things hurtled back to her. The night they first met-at the arts benefit-Charlie all decked out in his tux, with a bright red tie. The horn-rim frames he always wore. What had he said that charmed her? “What did you do to deserve to sit with this boring crowd?” Their wedding at the Pierre. The day he opened Harbor, that first trade-Halliburton, she recalled-everything so full of hope and promise. How he would run along the sidelines at Alex’s lacrosse games, living and dying with each goal, shouting out his name-“Go, Alex, go!” clapping exuberantly.

The morning he’d called to her up in the bathroom and said he had to take the train into the city.

Karen brushed her fingers along his face. “How did you let this happen, Charlie? What do I tell the kids? Who’s gonna mourn you now, Charlie? What the hell do I do with you?”

As much as she tried, she could not forgive him. But he was still the man with whom she’d shared her life for almost twenty years. Who’d been a part of every important moment in her life. Still the father of her kids.

And she had seen, in the repentance of his eyes yesterday, a picture of what he so desperately missed.

Sam. Alex. Her.

What the hell am I gonna do with you, Charlie?

“Karen…” Hauck came up behind her and placed his hands softly on her shoulders. “It’s time to let them do their job.”

She nodded. She put her fingers on Charlie’s eyelids and closed them for the last time. That was better. That was the face she wanted to carry with her. She lifted herself up and leaned ever so slightly against Hauck.

One of the officers stepped over to Charles and zipped up the protective bag.

And that was all. He was gone.

“They’re going to let us go,” Hauck said in her ear. “I gave them my contact info. If stuff comes out, and it’s likely it will, they’ll want to talk with us again.”

Karen nodded. “He came back to the States, you know.” She looked at him. “For Samantha’s graduation. He sat there in a car across the street and watched. I want him home, Ty. I want him back with us. I want the kids to know what happened. He was their dad.”

“We can request that the body be sent back once the medical examiner has gone over it.”

Karen sniffed. “Okay.”

They climbed back onto the Sea Angel and watched Charles being lifted into the police launch.

“Those people found him, Ty…” Karen fought back a rising anger in her blood. “He would’ve come back with us. I know it. That’s why he called.”

“They didn’t find him, Karen.” The troubling image of the large black schooner he’d seen grew vivid in his mind. “We did. We led them directly to him.” He looked over Charles’s ransacked boat. “And the real question is, what the hell would they be looking for?”

Maybe they had been, Karen finally admitted as she went over and over the horrible image of Charles the next few days.

Maybe they had been set up. Maybe they did lead them directly to him.

Who?

Hauck told her about the black sailing ship he’d seen the day before. That he’d also seen on Dietz’s wall. Karen even remembered a plane circling high above the island as she and Charles said good-bye, though it hadn’t registered at the time.

Still, none of that mattered to her now.

Seeing Charlie-his poor, bloated body, whatever he’d done, whatever pain he’d caused, that’s what haunted her. They’d spent half their lives together. They had shared just about every joyful moment in each other’s life. As Karen reflected, it was hard to even separate her life from his, they were so intertwined. The tears returned, and they came back with mixed, hard-to-understand emotions. He had died all over again for her. She could not have imagined, having lost him a year ago, then having held in such pent-up anger toward him, that it could be so cruel. The who or the why-that was for Ty to solve.

They flew home the following day. Hauck wanted to get back into the country, before the investigation there rooted out that Steven Hanson had no past. Before they would have to explain things in full.

And Karen…she wanted to get out of that nightmare world as quickly as possible. When they got home, Hauck left her with her friend Paula. No way she could be alone. She had to finally open up to someone.

“I don’t even know how to begin,” Karen said. Paula took her hand. “You just have to swear, Paula, this is something between us. Us alone. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Rick.”

“Of course I won’t, Karen,” Paula vowed.

Karen swallowed. She shook her head and let out a breath that felt like it had been kept inside her for weeks. And it had. She looked at her friend with a flustered smile. “You remember that documentary, Paula?”

THAT SAME AFTERNOON Hauck went into Greenwich. To the station. He bypassed saying hello to his unit and went straight to Chief Fitzpatrick’s office on the fourth floor.

“Ty!” Fitzpatrick stood up, as if elated. “Everyone’s been wondering when we’d see you again. We got a few doozies waiting for you if you’re ready to come back. Where you been?”

“Sit down, Carl.”

The chief slowly retook his seat. “Not sure I like the sound of that, guy.”

“You won’t.” Before he started in, Hauck looked his boss firmly in the eye. “You remember that hit-and-run I was handling?”

Fitzpatrick inhaled. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, I have a little more information I can add.”

Hauck took him through everything. From the top.

Karen. Charles’s number in the victim’s pocket. His trip down south to Pensacola. Finding the offshore accounts, how they all tied back to Charles. Soberly, he took Fitzpatrick through his escapade down at Dietz’s house. The chief ’s eyes grew wide. Then his scuffle with Hodges…

“You must be fucking shitting me, Lieutenant.” The chief pushed back from his desk. “What sort of evidence did you have? What went on down there-not to mention not reporting back immediately that you fucking shot someone-was totally illegal.”

“I don’t need a handbook refresher, Carl.”

“I don’t know, Ty.” The chief stared. “Maybe you do!”

“Well, before that, there’s more.”

Hauck went on and told him about the second hit-and-run in New Jersey. How Dietz had been a witness at that one, too.

“They were hits, Carl. To keep people silent. To cover up their investment losses. I know that what I did was wrong. I know I may have to be cited. But the accidents were set up. Murders, Carl.”

The chief put his fingers over his face and pressed the skin around his eyes. “The good news is, you may have found enough to reopen the case. The bad news is-it may be part of the case against you. You know better, Ty. Why the hell didn’t you stop right there?”

“I’m not quite done, Carl.”

Fitzpatrick blinked. “Oh, Jesus, Mary…”

Hauck took him through the last part. His trip to St. Hubert. With Karen. How they’d located Charles.

“How?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Hauck shrugged. “We just did.” He told his boss about finding Charles’s body on the boat. Then how he’d slightly misled the investigators there.

“Jesus, Ty, were you trying to break every fucking rule in the book?”

“No.” Hauck smiled and shook his head, finally done. “Just seemed to happen naturally, Carl.”

“I think I’m gonna need your badge and gun, Ty.”

BEFORE HE LEFT, Hauck went over to a computer on the second floor. Members of his squad came up to him excitedly. “We got you back now, LT?”

“Not quite,” he said with an air of resignation, “not just yet.”