“So what are you doing off the boat now? You left her alone and came to shore. In heaven’s name, why did you do that?”
“Sir, Beth told me that Harv Sartorelli is dead. He was electrocuted breaking into her house.”
“Electrocuted here? My goodness, I always expected the feds would be doing that.”
“Well, Robert Matthews did it for them.”
“Matthews? From the B&B? I’ll be…darned. People are just full of surprises.”
“Yes. So all I have to do now is to find Marvin Sartorelli and kill him and we’ll all be safe.”
“No, Wyatt. Tony would still be a danger to us all. I made an anonymous phone call to the B&B saying the Kessler woman is on our boat so Hawk will come here. He may have the cassette tape. Regardless, we can get him on the boat too, and keep him until Tony’s trial. We must stay here.”
“No. I have another problem. Beth told me I killed a
priest
, Mr. Harold!”
“Oh. Are you Catholic?”
“Well, no, Unitarian, but God still won’t like it. It was Gary Grant’s fault. I’m going to fix him too. Then we won’t need that crappy boat.” Wyatt turned and strode toward his car.
Harold followed frantically after him, but he couldn’t keep up. People were looking at them. He shouted, “Come back here or I’m telephoning Lester and telling him you’re fired and the job is over.”
“I have to stop Gary Grant or my life is over. But don’t worry. I’ll take care of Marv too.”
As Wyatt drove out the exit road making one cloud of dust, a second was made on the entry road by a Nash Metropolitan. It squealed to a stop next to the Cadillac. Harold ducked behind a delivery van and squinted at the driver as he emerged from the car and checked the chamber of a small pistol. The hair color was wrong and there was a scruffy beard, but there couldn’t be two such cars. It had to be Hawk. He was large, looked angry, and there was an ominous bulge under his polo shirt from the gun at his midriff.
Harold watched helplessly as Hawk commandeered a fishing boat, started the outboard, and headed for the houseboat. He started for Wyatt’s skiff to follow Hawk to the houseboat but lurched to a stop as a green Chevy Suburban careened into the lot, scattering gravel. The driver parked by the tiny car. Harold stepped back behind the van and watched Marvin Sartorelli ease his girth out of the Suburban. Aloud, he cussed, “Shit!”
Uh-oh, now he’d have to send another fifty dollar check to Reverend Timmy-Bob. And he had to find a gun and go kill Marvin himself. A hand tapped his shoulder. He turned to see an enormous man who smelled of seaweed and machine oil holding a pipe wrench in a gnarled hand.
“You’ll have to move that Cadillac, mister. You’re blocking me from opening the tool shed.”
Another outboard motor choked and sputtered as Marv desperately tried to follow Tom. The marina’s boats were being stolen left and right and the caretaker only wanted his tool chest. Harold couldn’t fight him. The man had to weigh three hundred pounds. He nodded and promised, “Yes, right away.”
Marv’s outboard motor caught and he motored away from the pier.
“Aw, damn it,” Harold cursed.
The big man’s brow furrowed tightly.
“Oh, I didn’t say that to you, pal. Sorry.” He
was
sorry. Now he owed Reverend Timmy-Bob a hundred bucks.
****
As Tom approached the houseboat, he fretted over how he would determine who was on it and where they were holding Beth captive. He circled around to check the side away from the shore and saw her, upper torso dangling from the side of the boat, wedged in a porthole and clutching a water jug. She was a strange girl, really. The boat was listing badly and Beth was only a few feet above the water. No one else seemed to be on board, but he cut his engine a hundred fifty feet away and took out Renada’s pistol. He put a finger to his lip and waved frantically to Beth with his gun arm.
She ignored the instruction for silence. “Tom, thank God. Wyatt’s gone. Come get me out of here before this scow goes under.”
“You’re alone? Where’s Wyatt? Are you all right?”
She rolled her eyes. “I am alone. Wyatt went to town to buy Chinese food and bump off a Mafia assassin. I am not all right, however. I am about to frigging drown, so please, a little assistance if you do not mind.”
He restarted the motor, ran the fishing boat the fifty yards to the houseboat, and secured it where a ladder for getting to and from a skiff was hanging on the side.
The houseboat, once he was on its deck, was smaller than he’d thought. The door in the bulkhead was small too. It looked like you could get stuck right there, forget a porthole. He peered in the main cabin as Beth yelled, “Hurry, Tom!”
The ceiling was frighteningly low, but the room was at least twelve by thirteen feet. He could handle a room that size. The problem was she was further to the front, in one of two tiny sleeping cabins, accessed through an even smaller door. As he approached, he saw that the space the bottom half of her was in was impossibly, dangerously small. She couldn’t have gotten stuck out on the open deck now, could she, he mused bitterly.
“Tom!”
“I’m here. Look, I think I should pull you through from the outside, cool?”
“Not cool. I’m looking at the bloody outside, and there’s no way you can pull me through, nowhere for you to stand or brace yourself. Get in this cabin.”
“You’re sure you can’t sort of wriggle through?”
“Oh gosh, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, I know, I thought it’d be fun to hang here for an hour. Get your pathetic, claustrophobic butt in there.”
She could be bitchy if pressed hard enough. He took a deep breath, forced himself into the trap of a cabin, and grasped the bottom half of her. “I’ve got you, Beth.”
“None too soon, I can almost lick up lake water. Push me through. Not too fast. Watch the left ankle. I screwed it up bad.”
He followed all those instructions as best he could, but he had to put one hand to her crotch to move her. If she felt violated, she held her tongue. He put full force into a mighty push. She screamed and popped out the porthole. He looked out and saw her in the water, clutching a gallon jug. Yes indeed, truly a strange girl. He raced to the deck, prepared to dive in after her, but she waved him off. “I think I can get up the ladder.”
With the houseboat tilting down to her side, it was possible, although painful, for her to hop up a step at a time. They rested on the deck, he feeling triumphant, but their time of glory was short-lived. The boat had begun to level out a bit. Tom suspected that was due to water he could hear running into the bilge. Maybe Wyatt had cracked the hull on a rock; maybe it was only seaworthy enough to sit in the marina with the bilge pump running on reliable U.P. Power Company current. Regardless, the deck being dead level would be of little comfort if the boat were sitting on the bottom of the lake.
He probed her foot and leg carefully. “I don’t think it’s broken.”
“No. It’s sprained. I’ve done it before.”
“We need to get you into that fishing boat. Can you do it?”
“And leave all this?” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Yeah, sure.”
Once he had her safely in his boat, he said, “I’m going back on the houseboat to see if Wyatt left any information, anything about Tony that we can use.”
“I looked earlier. There’s nothing. I hear a motorboat. He must be coming back.”
“Good. I’m still going back on the houseboat. Row this thing around to the rear out of sight. He will board here because the other side is too high. Then I’ll nail him.”
Tom clawed his way up the deck, peeked over the starboard gunwale, and received a new shock. The visitor motoring cautiously toward them was not Wyatt Stone, but judging from the build and hair color was Marvin Sartorelli, Tony’s remaining brother. Tom waited as Marv slowed his boat to come around the bow of the houseboat, and then moved to hide on the narrow deck on the starboard side of the cabin. He clutched the outside wall with both hands to steady himself as the mobster clambered on deck and entered the main cabin.
Tom had seconds to act. He rushed the door, slammed it, and latched it. Marv must have been across the main cabin and in the bedroom already, because it was another two seconds before Tom heard a guttural “Hey, who’s there?” and a banging on the door.
Not pausing for polite conversation, Tom slid down to portside, water now lapping over the gunwale. “Beth,” he said in a stage whisper as she oared the skiff into sight. He climbed down to the skiff and heard glass shattering as Marvin broke out the window in the main cabin.
Tom untied Marvin’s boat from the houseboat and tied it to theirs. Only then did he pull the outboard starter cord. The diminutive motor sputtered, and then it coughed to life. It was not loud enough to cover the noise of Marvin screaming and wood splinters flying. Wood shattered as Marv shot his silenced gun through the bulkhead door, describing Tom and his mother in vulgar canine and anatomical terms. The tilt of the houseboat was more extreme. Something heavy might have shifted in the bilge.
Tom steered the skiff in a long run away from the window until he thought they were out of gunshot range, and then he headed for the shore. Even so, he saw a couple waterspouts a hundred feet behind them. Marvin shooting at them. As they reached the marina, they saw the bow of the houseboat rise skyward. The rear deck was under water.
Once on dry ground, he placed Beth on a bench, massaged her ankle and cursed Wyatt and Marv, and then went to the payphone to call the B&B. Dani answered with a surprisingly polite but nervous, “Hello, Kessler’s Inn.”
“Dani, this is Tom. I’ve got Beth, she’s going to be fine. Wyatt gassed her in Mildred’s driveway and he really did have her on a houseboat like your mystery caller said. We’re at the marina.”
“Oh wow, honey, that’s fabulous. That skinny dork actually kidnapped her all alone?”
“I’m afraid so.” He kept an eye on his patient. “Beth says he’s some kind of detective. Are Gary and Robert out looking for her?”
“Yeah. They should phone in soon and I’ll call them off. Hey, they found where Wyatt’s been staying; he’s at that little campground down the road from Aunt Mildred’s.”
“I know where it is. I’ll pay it a visit. Dani, telephone Mildred and tell her Beth is safe. We’re on our way home. Are you there alone?”
“Yup, but I’ll be safe for now. The cops are running up and down the road watching the place looking for you. I expect them to park a cruiser at the door any minute. Oh, and he’s not here now, but remember that a new guy is staying here, the one Renada checked in last night. She did more than that with him, I suspect. She was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Poor Robert, earlier today he took her home to stay with his mother and she’s cheating on him. Tom, are you really all right?”
He was, actually, much better than all right. He had managed irrational fear and recued Beth. He had outwitted Wyatt and Marv, at least for now, and most importantly, Beth was safe. “We’re all right, Dani, but after Wyatt left and I got Beth, Marv came to the boat. So he is very much alive.”
“Marv? You’re sure?”
“Uh-huh. While he was inside we locked him in and got away with both our motorboat and his. The houseboat’s sinking. He shot at us from it, and by now he’s probably crawled out a window and is swimming in here holding his gun in his teeth.”
“Oh, Tom, Marv can’t swim. None of the brothers can. Angelo took lessons, but I don’t think he got the hang of it either. You’ve probably killed another of Tony’s brothers. He’s going to start to get pissed.”
****
On reflection, Harold concluded it wasn’t the end of the world. Wyatt had reported Harvey Sartorelli was dead by electrocution. From what he’d just observed, Marvin Sartorelli had gone down with the rented houseboat, unless he’d learned to swim in the last year. Tony was in jail.
Perhaps Wyatt didn’t see Hawk and the girl return safely to the marina and the befuddled kid didn’t know that Marv was fish food. He could spend the rest of his days looking for Marv and it would suit Harold fine. He could murder a hick grocer and get life in a Michigan prison and that would be fine too. After all, he
had
killed a priest.
Harold went to Marv’s green Suburban and found it unlocked. Papers and maps were scattered haphazardly in the back seat. Organization was not Marv’s strong suit. One paper was a poor photocopy from a Houghton realtor describing a “romantic” Lake Superior cottage. Grainy picture inserts showed a run-down cabin under some power lines. There were driving instructions that Marv had annotated. He wouldn’t be using them again. Harold cleaned out the Suburban and put the stuff in his Cadillac.
He needed the cassette tape and he had to find out if Hawk or Danielle had it. The best thing was to go back to the B&B as an innocent guest. In his spare time he’d make sure Hawk continued to lie low until he went home to testify. He’d plumb the mysteries and the flesh of Renada Schneider.
After he had the tape, after Tony was convicted, he could forget Hawk and Danielle too, but that was days or weeks away. He decided he had only cursed aloud because the big caretaker with the wrench had unnerved him, and he didn’t need to send any money to Reverend Timmy-Bob.
****
Seeing no cop car near the B&B, Tom took a shaken Beth home to Dani’s care and rushed to the campground. He flogged the Nash mercilessly and the temperature gauge was in the red when he reached Blissful Bass Bay Campsites. An ancient tree trunk of a woman with a thick Finnish accent admitted him after he lied to her about which campsite he was visiting. He drove within view of Wyatt’s site. The Firebird was there. He approached stealthily, Renada’s little pistol drawn. Twenty feet from the tent he heard sobbing. Wyatt was
sobbing
.
Gun still in his hand, he tentatively pulled open the tent flap. Wyatt lay alone on the floor in a fetal position nervously twisting a length of rope. He eyed the gun more with anticipation than fear. “You’ve come to shoot me. Go for it. Or, I’ll do it myself if you give me the gun.”
Yeah right, that’s going to happen
. Tom sat on a camp stool. “How about some explanations, Wyatt?”