Stuart Woods: Dead In The Water

"He stood on the stern of the boat, held onto the backstay with one hand, unzipped his fly with the other, and peed overboard."

"Ah," said Sir Winston, as if he had caught her in some monumental admission. "This large husband of yours made himself vulnerable for just a moment when he urinated. A small shove, even by a small woman, was all it would take, eh?"

She fixed him with a hard stare. "That speculation, Sir whatever-your-name-is, is not worthy of a reply."

Stone sensed his moment; he rose and addressed the coroner. "Pardon me, Your Honor," he said. "My name is Stone Barrington; I am an American attorney, and Mrs.Manning has asked me to represent her in these proceedings. I wonder if I might put a few questions to her?"

Sir Winston spun and looked at him. "Are you licensed to practice in St.Marks or in Britain?" he demanded.

"No, I am not," Stone said evenly, "but if these proceedings are so informal as to allow the minister of justice to question a witness at an inquest, then perhaps Mrs.Manning might be questioned by someone of her own choosing."

"Well…" the coroner began.

"Are you a barrister? A trial lawyer?"

"I wasn't aware that this was a trial," Stone replied.

The coroner asserted himself. "I will permit Mr.Barrington to put questions to Mrs.Manning, if he believes he can shed some light on this matter."

"I believe I can, Your Honor," Stone said. He hadn't the faintest idea how to address a coroner in a former British colony, but "Your Honor" seemed to do the trick. He picked up a manila folder, stepped forward, and addressed his new client. "Mrs.Manning, how did your husband earn his living?"

"He was a writer; he wrote spy and mystery novels, mostly; he had quite a following."

"And when your husband was preparing to write a book, was it his practice to make notes?"

"Yes, he made very extensive notes, sometimes writing almost the whole book in telegraphic form."

Stone picked up the leather-bound book from Sir Winston's table."In a form like the contents of this diary?" he asked.

"Exactly like that. Paul bought that blank-paged book in Las Pallas specifically for the purpose of outlining a new novel. He mentioned it to me over dinner, and he wrote in it often. He liked to save his notes in a bound form, because the university he attended had asked to be the repository for his personal and professional papers."

"And why, when Sir Winston read you the passages from this outline, did you not mention your husband's usual practice?"

"He didn't give me a chance," she said, casting a withering look at Sir Winston.

"I see," Stone continued. "Mrs.Manning, what was your husband's state of health shortly before his death?"

"Well, Paul had never been seriously ill, but he wasn't in very good shape."

"How do you know this?"

"We both had thorough physical examinations before we set out across the Atlantic."

Stone removed a sheet of paper from the manila folder in his hand and presented it to her. "Is this a copy of your husband's examination results?"

She looked at the paper, then handed it back. "Yes, it is."

Stone looked at the jury and the coroner. "Please follow as I read from the doctor's report." He held up the paper and began to read. "'Paul Manning is a forty-two year-old author who has come in for a physical examination prior to an extensive sea voyage. Mr.Manning has no complaints, but he is desirous of being examined and taking a copy of his medical records on his journey.

"'Mr.Manning is six feet, two inches tall and weighs two hundred and sixty-one pounds, rather too much for a man of his frame. The results of blood tests show a serum cholesterol count of 325 and serum triglycerides are 410. These are both dangerously elevated, the high end of normal being 220 for cholesterol and 150 for triglycerides. Because of these numbers, in conjunction with Mr.Manning's lack of regular exercise and a history of heart disease in his family, I have advised Mr.Manning to immediately undertake a program of exercise, a diet low in cholesterol and other fats, and to bring his weight down to a maximum of two hundred pounds.'"

Stone handed the coroner the page and turned to his client. "Mrs.Manning, did your husband take his doctor's advice and go on such a diet?"

"For about a week," she replied. "Paul was incapable of dieting for longer than that."

"Right," Stone said and addressed himself to the coroner and the jury. "Paul Manning was grossly overweight and had been clogging his coronary arteries with cholesterol for many years. He was, in short, a heart attack waiting to happen, and happen it did, in exactly the way Mrs. Manning has described. You have heard how she coped with this disaster at sea, and I put it to you that she could not have invented such a story. It is simply too heartrending not to be true. This brave woman has lost her husband under extraordinary circumstances and then mustered the fortitude to save their yacht and her own life. You cannot believe otherwise. Thank you for your time, Your Honor, gentlemen." Stone sat down.

The coroner turned to Sir Winston. "Do you have any further questions?"

"None," Sir Winston replied almost inaudibly, looking at his knees.

"Gentlemen," the coroner said to the jury, "do any of you have a question?"

The jury was mute.

"Then I will ask you to retire and consider your verdict."

Stone and Allison Manning sat at the 'bar of the Shipwright's Arms, as Thomas Hardy's restaurant and inn was called, and sipped pina coladas.

"I can't thank you enough," she said. "I'll give you my address in Connecticut, and you can send me your bill."

"For practicing law in a foreign country without a license?" Stone asked. "I'd be disbarred."

"What do you think the verdict will be?"

"You can never tell about a jury, even a coroner's jury, but I believe we answered every point Sir Winston made. I'm optimistic."

"So am I; you did a brilliant job."

"You're too kind. What are your plans now?"

"I suppose I'll go home and settle Paul's affairs. He had a lawyer and an accountant; I'm sure they'll help me. We both made wills before we left on the transatlantic-simple ones, each leaving everything to the other."

"What will you do with the yacht?"

"Sell it, I suppose; I've spent all the time on that boat I ever want to."

"I'd buy it myself-I've always admired Swans-but I think I'm a few years away from being able to afford one. My advice is to get it ferried back to the States-Fort Lauderdale, maybe-where there's a brisk market in expensive yachts."

Thomas tapped lightly on the bar and nodded in the direction of the meeting hall. Stone turned and saw the coroner approaching, an envelope in his hand. They had not yet been out of the meeting hall for half an hour.

The coroner handed the envelope to Allison Manning. "Here is your husband's death certificate," he said. "Please accept my condolences."

"Thank you," Allison replied.

He turned toward Stone. "For what it's worth, I thought you did a very good job." He turned and walked away.

Allison handed the envelope to Stone. "You open it," she said.

Stone tore open the envelope and read the certificate.

"Well," Allison asked, "what was the verdict?"

"It's an open verdict," Stone said. "The jury felt it had insufficient information to assign a cause of death."

"And what does that mean to me,legally?"

"In my opinion," Stone said, "it means you should get the hell out of St.Marks right now."

"Do you mean you think Sir Winston might still come after me?"

"It's certainly possible," Stone replied.

"If you'll forgive me for butting in," Thomas Hardy said, "I think it's more than just possible."

"Thomas used to be a New York City policeman," Stone said, "and he knows how things work here. Thomas, do you have any idea what the airline schedule is?"