But all the damned sails looked alike to Ridley, as Larkin roared out into the bay, plowing through the outer ring of racers, leaving sailboats rocking in the launch’s wake, earning curses and shaken fists.
And then he spotted them! The bat-like craft was already a third of the way through the northbound fleet, bearing northeast.
“There!” Ridley yelled, lowering the glasses, pointing out the Penny. Falk spied the powerboat at the same time, and stood up to shield the woman.
“Federal officers!” Larkin yelled, pulling his automatic, firing a round in the air. “Halt where you are!”
Luke started to winch down the Penny’s sails, but didn’t move quickly enough for Larkin. The fed opened fire again, and these weren’t warning shots. He was aiming at Luke, shooting to kill. Wild slugs kicked up tall splashes on both sides of the Penny as Larkin struggled to steady his aim in the bucking motor launch. Other racers were shouting now, veering their crafts away from the gunfire.
Letting go of the wheel, Larkin stood up, grasping his weapon in a two-hand hold. Leveling his sights on Falk, he began squeezing the trigger — and a halo of red mist suddenly sprayed from his right ear. Stumbling sideways on rubber legs, Larkin toppled out of the launch, plunging into the waves with his pistol still clutched in his fist.
Ridley stared at Luke and Aliana, who were clearly unarmed. Then he wheeled around, scanning the other boats around him, filled with stunned, staring witnesses.
There wasn’t a weapon in sight. Yet his partner was sinking slowly into the deep green waters, dead as a stone, a look of utter surprise frozen on his face.
Ridley hadn’t drawn his own weapon and made no move to now. Instead he raised his hands in the air, circling slowly to show he meant no harm. Taking the wheel of the launch, he brought the boat about, heading back to the spot where Larkin had gone under.
The dozen yachtsmen who saw Larkin fall assumed he was just a drunk, that the whole scene was some kind of crazy charade. They looked on, waiting for him to flounder to the surface, sobered by the icy lake.
When he didn’t, several men leapt overboard, trying to find him. But they were too late. Larkin was already far below and still sinking. A yachtsman dialed 911, but it would take nearly an hour for a police boat with divers aboard to motor out to the fleet.
In the furor, nobody noticed the trimaran moving off, working its way through the racing boats on an easterly course.
“I don’t understand,” Aliana said, manning the helm while Luke reset the sails. “What happened back there?”
“Somebody saved our lives,” Luke said, measuring the distance with a practiced glance. “Damn. That was one helluva shot. Eighteen hundred yards at least.”
“But it couldn’t have been Deacon. I sent him back to Detroit.”
“Then maybe it was someone else. My grandfather taught me everything I know, including how to shoot. He was a sniper in Korea, won the Silver Star.”
“We must go back. They’ll arrest him.”
“I don’t think so. At this distance there’s no way to tell who did what. Whoever fired that shot took Larkin out in front of a hundred witnesses to make sure we couldn’t be blamed. He opened the door for us, Aliana. We have to go through it.”
Back at the boathouse, Gus settled into his deck chair with Razz at his feet, sipping a beer, watching the last sails vanish over the horizon. He’d already used Luke’s acetylene torch to reduce his ancient ‘03 Springfield to slag and ashes. It was a pity to destroy such a fine old weapon, but he’d watched C.S.I. on the TV. The police could do wondrous things with evidence nowadays. Like tracing a gun to the man who fired it. Destroying the weapon was a prudent move. Gus might be getting on, but he still had his wits about him.
And he still had a few skills. He hadn’t killed men at a distance in many years, but the terrible arts a man learns in his youth are embedded in his bones, impossible to forget, even when he wishes he could. As Luke found out after Iraq.
His grandson and Aliana would do well in Cree country. She was a pretty little thing and very intelligent, a trait far more useful than beauty.
He even admired her evil temper, so much like Kathleen’s. Living with such a woman might be difficult at times, but it would never be dull.
If the law did come for him, it wouldn’t matter much. Any trouble would be only temporary. His true love and most of his friends were already in the next world. He knew more people there than here.
When he was a boy with the Cree, the old ones said a man nearing the end of his time would hear an owl call his name. A foolish superstition.
Here on the Point, Gus often heard owls, horned owls and great grays hooting deep in the forest. They never spoke to him. Only to each other, in their own tongue.
But in the gathering dusk, as the shadows settled gently over the lakeshore, he found himself listening to the wind whispering through the tall pines.
Waiting for the cry of an owl to pierce the soft silence.
Hoping to hear his name.
Copyright © 2011 Doug Allyn
Mystery Sonnet:
Agatha Christie
by Shawn Matthew Hannigan
Copyright © 2011 by Shawn Matthew Hannigan
Cheating the Hangman
by Judith Cutler
Fans of this historical series featuring early 1800s Reverend Tobias Campion won’t want to miss Judith Cutler’s two novels starring the sleuth: 2008’s The Keeper of Secrets and 2009’s Shadow of the Past. The British author also has two recent novel-length installments in her Lina Townend antiques-dealer series, which frequently appears in EQMM at short-story length. See Ring of Guilt, Severn House Publishers (February 2011) and the earlier Silver Guilt.
Of all the days in the Church calendar, Easter is surely the most important — when the Master I serve defeated death that we might all be saved. This particular Easter Day I was given the joy of celebrating Holy Communion twice over — once with my own dear friends in Moreton St. Jude and once at All Saints, Clavercote. The incumbent of this parish, never very assiduous in his duties, had recently and at the shortest of notice informed the bishop that he was about to travel on the Continent for the sake of his health. Why, with Europe in its present state, the Reverend Dr. Nathaniel Coates did not choose to repair to Bath or to Cheltenham, no one knew. Suffice it to say that the church in his care was but half full, and there was surprisingly little joy in the voices raised in the Easter hymns.
Having blessed them all and offered what I hope were comforting words, I mounted my faithful Titus and set off for the village I now thought of as home — although my parents, in the vastness of their Derbyshire estate, would have disagreed. The shortest route was through the woods of Lord Wychbold’s estate, though the rides were badly maintained and the byways little more than rabbit tracks. Lord Wychbold, a man in his seventies, led the quietest of lives, receiving no visitors and only venturing out if he considered the occasion was pressing. Perhaps if he had set a better example, more of his estate workers would have been in church today.