Jan Burke - Bloodlines

“Perhaps the people left aboard didn’t know how to use it.”

“Think about that for a moment. Put yourself on that yacht.”

O’Connor tried to picture the scene. “Four people on a yacht. One or two go overboard, or one goes over and another tries to save him. The people still onboard are terrified.”

“Yes! You begin to see it.”

“They’ve already lost half of the people aboard, they’re in the middle of a storm, they can’t see the shore.”

“Yes. They are very, very alone. Nothing in this world can make a person feel as alone as the sea, even when she is calm. When she is raging? Ten, twenty times worse.”

“You’d do whatever you could to get someone to help you. Was the radio on an emergency channel?”

“No,” Lorenzo said, then waved a hand in dismissal. “It didn’t need to be. If someone has been to see any movie that has so much as a toy boat in a bathtub in it, they know what to do.”

“They flip switches until the radio lights up, and yell, ‘Mayday,’ into the mike.”

“Exactly. And if they don’t hear voices on the channel they are on, they search for a channel where they hear voices. They’re desperate. They try to get someone, anyone, to help them.” He was silent for a moment, then added, “Sometimes you hear these cries, and they cannot tell you where they are. Not in time.” He sighed.

“But sometimes you do find them.”

“Yes, yes. And the Coast Guard never gives up. Never.”

“No one heard a call from the Sea Dreamer.”

“No-and the Coast Guard was trying to call the Sea Dreamer, because of the child.”

O’Connor sat back and thought over all that Lorenzo had said. Had anyone been on that boat at all? Or was it merely set adrift?

“Strange, isn’t it?” he said aloud. “The parents and two grandparents of that child disappear on the same night the child is taken.”

“Very strange,” Lorenzo agreed.

“Something a human might arrange, even if there was no storm.”

“In fact, I don’t believe the ocean is to blame. The sea is not the one who did this, and neither is the sky.”

O ’CONNOR TALKED TO SEVERAL MEMBERS OF THE COAST GUARD TO GET an opinion of Lorenzo’s theories. All but one said, in one way or another, that Lorenzo was full of hooey. The one who hesitated was in charge of the investigation. He said, “If Mr. Albettini had seen as many of these situations as I have, he might not have come to those conclusions. But perhaps I’ve seen so many, things that aren’t alike begin to look alike-so I will certainly consider his points.”

The others explained Lorenzo’s questions away without much trouble: The group aboard the Sea Dreamer had been wearing expensive evening clothes, and therefore probably didn’t bother with life jackets. They could have all been washed overboard with one wave, before anyone had a chance to use a radio. The key could have been lost overboard as well, or, if two or three of the members of the party went overboard, someone who was inexperienced, panicking at the thought of leaving them behind, might have tried to stop the boat by turning the engine off and taking the key out of the ignition. If that individual was also lost overboard, the key would have gone with him.

O’Connor went back to the Nash, made some notes, then found himself cursing his tiredness, because he had missed asking a question. He went back to the investigating officer and asked, “When did the storm arrive here?”

“Not until about five on Sunday morning.”

“If they were only out on a pleasure cruise…”

“It was preceded by fog and heavy swells,” he added.

“When?”

“The fog? It started rolling in around one, and by two o’clock, visibility between here and Santa Catalina Island was less than one hundred feet.”

O’Connor thanked him and went back to the car.

O’Connor was not a man who simply did as he was told, but exhaustion was setting in, and so he obeyed Wrigley’s orders. He wrote the story, handed it to a copyboy, and walked next door to the deli that had replaced Big Sarah’s diner when she retired. He picked up a couple of ham sandwiches, then went home without going back into the building, not waiting for what he was sure were bound to be fireworks. He had a phone. They could call him.

Thinking about this, when he got home, he took it off the hook. He pulled the 45 RPM adapter off the spindle of his record player and switched the speed to 78. He set a small stack of records on the spindle, brought the changing arm over, and settled it gently over the 78s. He listened to them while he ate-until Nat King Cole’s “Send for Me” began to play. By the second verse he found the lyrics too close to home, and he turned the phonograph off. His appetite lost, he cleaned up, put the phone back on the hook and undressed, then fell asleep.

The phone rang an hour later. He lifted the receiver, heard Mr. Wrigley say, “Your pet theory has been cut. I didn’t want you to find out when you opened the paper tomorrow, so there it is. Get some sleep.”

“I was,” O’Connor answered, and hung up.

He tried to resist falling asleep again, but could not.

At two that afternoon, he was dressed again and on his way out to his car. Just as he fished his keys out of his pocket, he heard the familiar whistle of a Helms Bakery truck. He stopped the light yellow van and bought a doughnut, which he ate as he drove to the hospital.

Jack was asleep. Helen motioned to O’Connor to step into the corridor.

“He sleeps most of the time,” she said, “and when he’s awake, he’s not coherent. Mostly he talks about that damned car.”

“Did they bring his clothes up? The ones he was wearing when he was admitted?”

Her eyes widened. “You’re not thinking of dressing him and taking him out of here?”

“No. I just need to see the clothes.”

They went back into the room, and she opened a cupboard. “Here, take them,” she said, handing him a large paper bag. “Hold your nose when you open it. They reek to high heaven.”

He moved back outside to the corridor, Helen following him. He opened the bag, caught a whiff of its contents, then said, “Have you got a coat with you? Better to do this outside. I’ll meet you on the patio.”

A few minutes later, they had spread a bloodied set of men’s clothing out on the patio.

“Good God,” Helen said, lighting a cigarette. “Do you think he’s got any blood left in him?”

“Sure. He took hits to the nose and mouth,” he said absently. “They bleed easily.” He had been looking at the soles of Jack’s shoes. He set the shoes down and began turning Jack’s pockets inside out. In the pocket of Jack’s suit coat, he found a long, thin, damp leaf.

“I’ll be damned,” he said.

“Don’t expect me to bet against the chance of that happening. What have you got?”

“A eucalyptus leaf.”

She took a drag on the cigarette. “I’m going to guess that you haven’t suddenly developed a mania for botany.”

“Jack saw the car being buried. He really saw it.”

“I should have known. Whenever anyone carries a leaf in his pocket, this is the sort of thing that happens. And all these years, drink has taken the blame for it.”

“He told me that when he came to from the beating, he was in a eucalyptus grove, a windbreak.” He thought back on what Jack had said. “A dairy nearby-I think he said it was across the road from the farm.”

He searched through Jack’s other pockets, but found nothing. He frowned. “His keys.”

“What?”

“The hospital staff found his wallet, his broken watch, but there aren’t any keys. Jack said his keys cut into him when someone kicked him.”