Poison Ivy (24 page)

It was less than twenty minutes when Steinbicker showed up and stepped aboard. His hair, light brown, was artistically tousled. His tan accented his bright blue eyes. Above his strong jaw his mouth was slightly crooked, keeping his otherwise perfect face from looking too perfect.

“Thanks for giving me a ride, Richard,” he said.

Victoria smoothed her hair. Even though she didn't have television, she recognized that mellow voice.

“No problem. Meet my mate, Victoria Trumbull. Mrs. T, meet the famous TV star.”

“How do you do,” said Victoria, holding out her hand, which Bruce took gently in his.

“Delighted to meet you. I own two of your poetry books and would love to have you autograph them for me. I'm afraid they're pretty well worn.”

“The best kind.” Victoria smiled. “That means they're well read.”

“And well loved,” he said. He then explained to Richard, “I don't have my dinghy. A buddy of mine has it. He's looking after my boat.”

The harbormaster started the engine, Bruce let go the lines, and they were underway.

It was hard for Victoria to believe that only yesterday she'd thought her granddaughter's launch was going to founder. Just yesterday breakers had been smashing against the jetty sending up geysers of foaming water. How quickly the angry sea could calm. This morning the harbor's surface reflected the sunrise and hulls and masts of a dozen anchored boats, all facing the incoming tide.

“Beautiful morning,” Bruce Steinbicker commented.

“It couldn't be nicer. We were worried about your boat and wanted to check on it,” said Victoria. “But yesterday wasn't the best day.”

“Certainly wasn't,” said Bruce, rubbing his chin, still a bit tender from the week with Daphne. “But my boat has weathered worse storms than yesterday's.”

The whaler's wake broke the calm surface of the harbor. Shards of pink, orange, blue, white, and silver mingled the reflections of sky, boat hulls, and masts. A seagull swept overhead, mewling.

“Someone on your boat waved to us,” said Victoria, “but the weather was so foul we had to turn back.”

“A person on my boat?” asked Bruce. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” said Victoria, feeling less sure than she had been. “The person was waving something pink.”

Bruce rubbed his chin again.

“I did ask my buddy to check the boat. I suppose that's who it was. Wonder why he was waving?”

They rounded the jetty and Richard pushed the throttle forward. Outside the harbor a heavy swell was running. The bow lifted and Victoria felt the thrill she always felt on the water. Salt water in her veins, she thought. She would have been a grand sea captain.

They'd know the explanation for the mysterious person on this nice man's yacht. In the meantime, she intended to enjoy the morning. Even though the wheelhouse was sheltered, it was chilly. She put on the two sweaters she'd brought along.

They rounded Husselton Head and passed the gray-shingled summer houses on West Chop. Before the sun was high enough to warm them, they sighted the lighthouse.

Victoria shaded her eyes with her hand. “I'm sure this is about where we were when we saw the boat.”

“We'll spot it in a couple minutes,” said Bruce. “I anchored below the light.”

The whaler surged ahead up the long, gentle swells that lifted them, then lowered them until land was hidden.

Victoria strained her eyes. “There!” she said. “There it is. I see it. Someone is out on deck, waving.”

“Well, I'll be damned,” said Bruce.

 

C
HAPTER
28

Jodi awoke before dawn. Surf crashed on the beach, tumbling the band of cobbles along the shore with a continuous rumble. Heavy swell lifted the sailboat, then dropped it with a sickening lurch. She crawled out onto the deck and peered through the growing light. Through an occasional gap in the breakers she could glimpse the place she last saw Chris.

He wasn't there. Yesterday, she'd watched him get to his feet and stagger a short distance, then collapse. He'd been battered by surf and rocks. He must be dead, his body washed out to sea. She tried to imagine how she'd feel if his corpse drifted past. What would she do?

Her stomach hurt. Her head ached. Her fingers were wrinkled from salt water, her nails were broken.

Her phone was useless. She tried the radio, but got nothing but static. She certainly couldn't swim to shore.

The boat rose, swiveled, dropped.

How would Price react? His boat gone, Chris dead. Omigod! She couldn't even think the word
dead.
He'd have returned from the grocery store during the storm. Perhaps he'd sheltered under an overturned boat with the bag of groceries, probably all soggy.

Surely, he would find them. Rescue them soon. Today.

Rescue her, she corrected herself. She shuddered when she thought of Price's reaction. Oh, Chris! His death was her fault. His daughter, playing softball with her son.

That made her think of her four boys. Her husband. She'd misled Jonah. When the storm hit and the boats weren't running, he'd probably assumed she'd stayed safely in a hotel on the mainland. How would she explain this whole horrible, ghastly situation to him?

She held onto the wheel as a swell passed beneath the boat, lifting it. A seagull cried. She shivered.

The torn jib flapped idly in the morning's breeze. She glanced again toward the rocky point where Chris had landed. If only I'd thought before I started the engine. I should have figured the anchor would dig in again as the water got shallower. It was my fault the rope wrapped around the propeller. Chris would never have fallen overboard. He's dead, and it's my fault.

She was not a churchgoer, but she prayed. Please, dear Lord, let me see my boys and Jonah again. I'll confess the whole awful story.

She thought of Roberta Chadwick on the yacht and a hot flush of shame washed over her. Roberta probably didn't believe she was doing anything wrong by stealing our papers. She probably didn't see it as plagiarism.

We kidnapped her.

We should never have kidnapped her.

That's what we did, kidnapped her. A criminal offense.

Jodi's last meal was yesterday's breakfast. But she wasn't hungry. She couldn't think of eating. Chris would never eat again. She sat numbly on the cockpit seat, her mind closed. She pulled her feet up onto the seat and wrapped her arms around her legs, rested her head on her knees.

*   *   *

Howland Atherton, who lived near Paul's Point, was walking his dogs along the rocky beach, bracing himself against the wind, when he saw what looked like a mound of red cloth washed up by yesterday's storm. Bowser, his mostly black Lab, raced ahead to investigate. Howland held onto the collar of Rover, his mostly German shepherd, who was whining to join the investigation.

“Bowser! Here, boy, come here!” but the dog paid no attention. He'd taken some of the red stuff in his jaws and was trying to tug it free.

Howland went over to pry the dog loose. What seemed like detritus from a distance, turned out to be a red jacket covering a man, probably in his thirties. At first, Howland thought he was looking at a dead man washed off a fishing boat by the storm. He steeled himself for the sight of death, the sad and broken remains of a person who had lived and loved just a few hours ago.

But as he got closer, the body took a shallow breath.

Howland pulled out his phone, sheltered it from the wind with his hand, and punched in 911, hoping to get a signal. When the communications center answered, he explained about the half-dead man.

“Paul's Point? You gotta be kidding,” the dispatcher said. “It's going to take one hell of a long time to get the EMTs there.”

“The man's alive,” said Howland. “Hypothermia. I'll do what I can to warm him.”

“Stay with him,” said the dispatcher. “We'll get there soon as we can.”

Howland ordered the two dogs to stay, which they did, and stripped off his down jacket to cover the man. A redhead. Under a sloughing-off layer of sunburned skin that made him look like something long dead, he was deathly pale. His skin had a bluish tinge. His eyes were closed. His lips, chapped and raw looking, were parted, and he breathed through his mouth in shallow gasps. His jaw had a light stubble of beard. Howland felt for his pulse. Weak.

A fire. He had to get a fire going. He always carried a disposable lighter and a pocket knife, a holdover from his boyhood scouting days. Plenty of wood had washed up, but it was soaking wet. Searching along the shore for dry wood he found dead branches on the beach plum bushes that clung to the cliff, and broke off as many as he could. The bark was wet but the inside was dry.

He collected a good-sized stack of wood and piled it in a semicircle around the man to shelter him from the wind. Once the fire was going, the wet stuff would dry out enough to burn.

Before taking the dogs for their walk, he'd stopped at the post office and still had bills and catalogs in his pocket. For once, he was grateful for junk mail. He crumpled up the pages, arranged the beach plum twigs on top, and piled the smaller pieces of wet wood where they would dry and burn. He held the lighter under his electric bill and was satisfied at seeing it burst into flame. The twigs flared up, the small pieces of wood started to glow.

The man groaned.

Howland bent over him. “You'll be okay, buddy.”

*   *   *

Before dawn, when the black of the sea was still merged into the black of the sky, Bill O'Malley grabbed a flashlight and he and Price Henderson followed the same route they'd traversed the evening before—down the cliff to the boathouse. The cliff path was slippery from yesterday's rain and Price fell twice, the second time skidding a dozen feet and fetching up against a lush vine that he couldn't make out in the dark.

“That was close,” he gasped, getting to his feet unsteadily. “I was headed for the edge of the cliff.”

“Vine stopped you?” asked O'Malley.

“Thank God it did.”

“Poison ivy,” said O'Malley, shining the flashlight on the glistening leaves. “All over the place. Great erosion control.”

“Hell!” Price stumbled and fell again. “I'm sensitive to the damn stuff.” He scrambled up, trying to avoid the tough vine that had entangled his feet. His shoe came off and he retrieved it gingerly. It was still too dark to make out details.

“When we get down to the cove, soak yourself with seawater. It helps some,” said O'Malley, sounding amused.

“Not funny,” muttered Price.

When they reached the foot of the cliff, waves were lapping gently along the edges of the cove.

“I'll take care of the boat,” said O'Malley, “You better wash yourself. Get the oil off.”

O'Malley checked out the motor and turned on the blower. Price waded into the chill water, clothes and all, until the water was above his waist. He ducked under, spluttering as he emerged, and scrubbed his hands and feet with sand.

“Climb aboard,” O'Malley called out from the boathouse. “There's a towel in the cabin. Let's go.”

They headed out into the lightening dawn. Price shivered in his wet clothes.

O'Malley shucked off his sweatshirt and tossed it to Price. “Here, put this on.”

“Thanks,” said Price.

The line between sea and sky emerged, the sky pale pink, the sea a steel gray. As they reached the middle of the cove, the clouds flared with gold and rose. The water had calmed somewhat since the night before, but was still rough.

They were well out into the middle of the cove before Price spotted his boat close to the far shore and to their left. “There she is!”

“She's stern into the wind. That's odd,” said O'Malley, changing direction to steer toward the disabled sailboat.

“Hey, there's Jodi!” Price stood up and waved his arms over his head. Wind slapped and fluttered his wet trousers against his legs. “Something's wrong. She's all hunched over. I can't see her face. Where's Chris?”

*   *   *

Chris was on a stretcher. The EMTs summoned by Howland Atherton had carried him the long distance from his resting place on Paul's Point to the closest dirt road. He was now in the Tri-Town Ambulance heading for the Martha's Vineyard Hospital. He was conscious, could talk, but had no idea where he was or who he was.

“Temporary amnesia,” Erica, the lead EMT, had told Howland before they'd taken off. “He seems to be in good shape otherwise. Probably fell off a fishing boat in the storm. It's lucky you found him. He's really, really lucky to be alive.”

*   *   *

Roberta Chadwick had been violently seasick during the storm. Her prison boat lifted and dropped, swung back and forth, rocked in crazy unpredictable directions. She wanted to die. She'd looped an arm around the ladder on the port side and heaved up everything in her stomach, then tried to heave up her stomach as well. She'd finally gone below, flopped onto her bunk, and fell into a fitful doze. When she awoke the next morning, the storm had passed and heavy swells shifted the boat in a slow rhythm that made her almost as sick as the stormy confusion of the day before.

She hadn't eaten. She felt weak and helpless and depressed. It seemed as though she'd been held captive for months, not days.

Her new life had developed a routine that was like nothing she'd ever followed before. Wake up when the sun comes up. Heat water. Breakfast. An apple or an orange. Cereal. Bathe. Walk around the deck. Watch for rescue boats. Read. Write. Lunch. Check supplies. Walk. Write. Read. Watch. Supper. Read. Write. Rinse out underwear. Bed.

Except for her seasickness during the storm, when she wished to die, she'd begun to appreciate her peaceful, contemplative life. There was a certain freedom to it. Her only responsibility was survival, and that was simple.