"Yeah, well, we played pretty hard even as kids. Mary, Tom Blaine was murdered."
The tentative smile on her face vanished. "Murdered? You're sure?"
"I'm sure. He was murdered by the captain and crew of that particular tanker. They tried to do the same thing to us."
"But they helped rescue you."
"They didn't have any choice. We'd been spotted by another boat, and the captain of that boat probably radioed the tanker on channel eight, which all the barges and tankers monitor for emergency communications. Any other big ship in the area would have heard the call, and there was no telling who else the captain of the sailboat might have contacted. There were witnesses, and so they had to act. But the fact remains that they were in on the attempt to kill us. That's the ship Tom was trying to take samples from when he was killed. Garth and I sailed over to see if we could make a little eyeball-to-eyeball contact with the captain. While we were drifting around over there, somebody on board-probably the captain-made a radio call to somebody. A few minutes later a guy driving a cigarette boat and wearing a ski mask tried to mash us into the hull of the tanker. Then-"
I stopped speaking when I heard somebody else in the room clear his throat. I looked to my right as Harry Tanner emerged from behind a curtain. The Cairn policeman with the handlebar moustache and soulful hazel eyes looked properly concerned, but also uneasy, perhaps even embarrassed. I wondered why. "Hi, Mongo," he said. "Glad to see you're back with us."
"Well, Harry, I'm certainly glad to see you," I replied, watching him carefully. "I have a few things I'd very much like to share with you."
The policeman looked down at the foot of the bed. "I was on the phone down the hall talking to the dispatcher when you woke up, but I got back in time to hear most of what you were just saying."
"You heard me say that the captain and crew of that tanker killed Tom Blaine and tried to do the same to Garth and me?"
Now Harry Tanner looked even more embarrassed. "Yeah, I heard that."
"You know, Harry, damned if it doesn't sound like you don't believe me."
"It's not that I don't believe what you're saying, Mongo-although I can't see how whatever happened to you proves anything about what happened to Tom. You may even be right. But the fact remains that it was the captain and crew of that tanker who saved your bacon by hauling the two of you aboard and then calling the Sheriff's Patrol to bring you to the hospital."
"Only after somebody on a sailboat radioed them, and they knew there were witnesses."
"The first mate says you were warned to get away, that you were too close."
"What about the black cigarette boat?"
"There was a boat like the one you describe stolen from the Haverstraw Marina. They figure it was some kid wanting to take a joyride."
"Wearing a ski mask?"
"You're the only one who saw the driver, Mongo. They found the boat smashed up on a piling at the Tappan Zee Bridge."
"Abandoned, just like Tom Blaine's boat. Harry, I'm telling you an attempt was made to kill us, and the men on board that tanker were in on it. They tried to murder us because we're on to the fact that they murdered Tom Blaine. The engines of that tanker came on after we were dumped into the water."
The policeman shifted his weight slightly, pulled at the ends of his handlebar moustache, shrugged. "Mongo, I'm here because I'm a friend of you and your brother, but also because I was asked by the Coast Guard to get your statement, since you're in the hospital here in Cairn. What else do you want me to do? If you say the props were turning, then they were turning-or you thought they were. I'll put it down. But you know the captain of the tanker is going to deny it."
"Harry, somehow I get the feeling that even if I do tell you what else I want you to do, you're going to inform me that the matter is out of the Cairn Police Department's jurisdiction. Right?"
He flushed slightly. "The tanker's moored across the river, Mongo, servicing a factory in Westchester. We're not even in the same county. Nobody over there is likely to want to make waves-if you'll pardon the expression. The powerboat was stolen from the Haverstraw Marina and ended up in Nyack, so those two departments will look into that. But they're not going to involve themselves with what happens on the river."
"You make the river sound like Dodge City when the marshal's out of town."
"It's not a bad analogy, Mongo. Not a bad analogy at all. The only certain jurisdiction is the Coast Guard's, and they're literally out of town most of the time. But that's who you have to go to if you want to file a complaint with an agency that has unquestioned jurisdiction. I'm not trying to put you off, Mongo; I'm just telling you the way it is."
I wasn't too happy about it, but I knew Harry was right. In fact, we'd already learned a lesson or two about the jurisdiction politics of the river in connection with Tom Blaine's death, so I had no reason to be shocked at what the Cairn policeman was telling me. Garth and I could have saved ourselves the sailboat ride, and unpleasant dumping, because it had gotten us nowhere. The only option we had left was the same one we'd had before going out on the river: give the photos to the newspapers and Cairn Fishermen's Association, and trust that bad publicity and a threatened court action would force Carver Shipping to stop flushing out its tanks in the Hudson and taking on river water. They would undoubtedly mend their ways-at least for a while, until they were no longer in the spotlight. Captain Julian Jefferson and a few other people might even be fired, but they would most likely only be reprimanded, since they had obviously only been carrying out company policy.
And somebody was going to get away with murder and attempted murder.
For all our time and trouble, all we'd received was insult and injury: Garth in a coma, the Coast Guard and police telling us they didn't have jurisdiction, or were too busy preparing for the possibility of terrorists on the river to deal with the terror that was already there. If our clients had been anybody but ourselves, I would probably have advised them to cut their losses and stop wasting our time, and I'd probably have given them back their retainer.
"I gotta go, Mongo," Harry said quietly, reaching over the foot of the bed and gripping my ankle. "The doctors say Garth should be all right, and I'm damned happy the two of you made it through this thing okay. I'm sorry there's nothing I can do for you; I really wish there was. I love the river; that's why I live in Cairn. I don't like these rich hypocrites who live upstream and piss in our water any more than you do, but I'm just a Cairn cop, and Cairn cops don't handle pollution complaints-which is all you've got. I really am sorry."
"It's all right, Harry. I understand."
"I'm going to pass on what you told me to the state police and Coast Guard, Mongo. I'm also going to give the Westchester cops a call, tell them what you say happened, and ask them to keep an eye on that tanker while it's moored over there."
"That's great, Harry," I replied, barely managing to keep my tone free of the anger, bitterness, and frustration I felt.
Harry nodded, then turned and walked out of the room. I turned toward Mary, who was slumped in her chair, holding my brother's hand. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she looked every bit as dispirited as I felt. She whispered, "I told you, Mongo."
"You told me what?"
"Everything that's happened started after Sacra came to Cairn. Now maybe you can understand why I acted the way I did. He's bad luck; I don't know how or why, but he can make bad things happen, just like I told you."
Well, that was all I needed to hear. Up until my beautiful and talented sister-in-law had decided to resume what I considered to be her inexplicable indulgence in nincompoopism, I had been lying there with my splitting headache feeling sorry for myself and raging inwardly at the injustice of it all. Now I was just raging. My fury galvanized me, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. The reward for this minor exertion was a renewed assault on the nerve endings in my head and a sudden attack of nausea and dizziness. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths. When I felt I could stand without throwing up or falling down, I hopped down on the floor.