"Please, Roz," he said. It took me a minute to figure out who he was talking to, but of course, Aziza's name was Roslyn Clark.
"Curtis!" she said.
"I met Rick almost a year ago," he said. "I was in Montreal doing some promotion for an upcoming tournament. I can't recall who introduced us. It may just be we struck up a conversation at one of the cocktail parties the ad agency had arranged. In any event, he got in touch with me at my hotel, suggested we get together for drinks. I was on my own, and glad to have the company. He took me to the old part of Montreal. We had dinner, some nice wine. Now that I think about it, I paid for it. That should have told me something. Somehow the conversation got around to investments. He told me he was with a big firm in town. I don't know if Roz told you, but we're a bit strapped financially these days. My fault, I know that. I was looking for a way out. Rick told me about this great opportunity, a salvage company that had some real success finding underwater treasure."
"Oh, Curtis," Aziza said. "I can't believe this."
"I'm sorry, Roz," he said. "I really am."
"Continue," I said.
"There's not much else to say. I looked this Star Salvage company up on the Internet. They have a pretty impressive Web site, and looked legit. I called the Montreal firm that Rick said he was employed by, and he was, in fact, there. He told me I'd be getting in on the ground floor on this one, that his firm was having a look at the company right then, and I could get in before the public offering. Not true, I guess," he said, looking at me.
"Probably not, but if it's any comfort to you, you're not the only one who was taken in by Rick. His firm eventually fired him for misrepresentation. And, you know, all of us on the tour thought he was legit, didn't we, if a little bit boring about it? We all believed he was an investment dealer."
Curtis winced. "I found him far from boring. I told him I'd think about it. A month or so later I got a call from him, and I gave him five hundred thousand to invest."
Aziza looked as if she didn't know whether to cry or strangle him. "After a few months, I was beginning to get a little worried about this investment," he went on. "After all, surely the summer would be the right time to do the salvage work, but I had trouble tracking Rick down. I did talk to him once and he said he'd left the company because he wanted to set up on his own. The company was way too conservative, he told me, and there was lots of money to be made for those with vision." Curtis paused. "I know what you're thinking, both of you," he said. "I've been a fool.
"When I saw your tour advertised, Lara, it seemed a great way to check up on Star Salvage. I didn't know Rick would be on the tour, too, and I was none too pleased to see him. I guess he was doing the same thing I was. That's when I found out that not only had Star not yet found the ship--Rick had given me the impression it was just a matter of waiting for the right sea and weather conditions to bring the treasure up--but someone else was looking for it, too.
"Rick told me that everything would be taken care of. When I asked what that meant, he said he was going to discourage the other party. By this time I was in so deep, I actually thought this was a good idea. He didn't succeed, of course. That's all there is."
"No, it isn't," I said. Aziza looked first at me, then at Curtis.
"I don't know what you mean," he said.
"Yes, you do. What were you and Rick doing on the path down to the harbor that night?" He looked wary. "You know, the time you told Rick that he was an incompetent little twit and if he couldn't look after things, you would."
"Curtis!" Aziza exclaimed again. "What night? What path? If you don't tell us everything, absolutely everything, you and I--"
"You were asleep, Roz. It was one of the nights you took a sleeping pill because you were so upset about Kristi. Rick said he was going to take care of the other party looking for the shipwreck. I figured out by then that Rick had money in the scheme, too. He told me Star would find the ship first, but just to make sure, he was going to go down and mess up the other boat a little to slow them down, because he'd made them an offer of some kind which he wanted to reinforce. I think the idea was they'd like his offer a lot more afterwards. I was furious, and I knew if I lost more money, you would maybe never forgive me. I told him to get on with it. He asked me for twenty thousand dollars more to protect my investment!"
"Where did you go after that conversation?" I asked. "It wasn't straight back to the hotel. Down the hill to the harbor? Was it actually you who did the damage to Briars' boat?"
"No, I swear I didn't. I intended to, though. I went down there, to the pier, I mean. I knew the name of the boat: Elissa Dido. I didn't know it was Briars at the time, you know. He's a great guy. I mean, I just had no idea. But the boat wasn't at the pier, it was at anchor. I had no way of getting out to it. So I went back to the hotel. Rick was in the bar, even though it was closed already. I told him to pull himself together, figure out some way of getting out to the boat. I told him to swim if he had to. Then I went to bed. Roz says that the police think he might have been murdered. I didn't do it. The last time I saw him he was in the bar."
"Ever gone scuba diving, Curtis?"
"Sure," he said. "I do all kinds of sports, not just golf. I learned years ago. I don't do it much anymore, just out for a day when Roz and I are on holiday in the Caribbean. Why?" I said nothing. "You think I tampered with the tanks on Briars boat? No way! After Rick died, I just decided to hope for the best, that the right guy would find the treasure, and I'd be home free. After all, Roz had a new contract, so money wasn't going to be a problem if we could just get through this bad patch. I'm sorry, Roz," he said. "I really and truly am. I won't do anything like this again, I promise."
"Do you know how many times you've made that promise, Curtis?" Aziza said.
"I know," he replied miserably. "This time . . ."
"Maybe this is a sickness," she said. "Like compulsive gambling. We could get you help, Curtis. I did when I had a drug problem."
"I don't need help," he said. "I'll stop. I promise."
"You have a choice, Curtis," she said. "You get help, I'll stick with you. You don't, and I'm gone."
"Roz!" he cried. "I got taken in by a crook, that's all. You heard Lara. The guy fooled a lot of people."
"You have a choice, Curtis," she said firmly. She nodded to me and left. In a minute, Curtis went after her.
Later that night, I took out Kristi's list again. So far the woman wasn't batting a thousand, exactly, but she didn't have it all wrong, either. Emile, as far as I'd been able to ascertain, hadn't been charged with fraud. On the other hand, Aziza might not be on drugs now, but she had been. Curtis wasn't blackmailing anyone, but he was being blackmailed by none other than Kristi herself. Rick, too, had been worth checking up on. Kristi most certainly had been right about our little Lolita, Chastity. But there didn't seem much more to be said about that, other than that someone needed to take the young woman in hand, something her mother seemed to be incapable of.
So far Cliff seemed to be pretty much what he said he was, a former dentist with an investment company. I suppose he could have invested in Star Salvage, too, and the best way to find out would be to ask him. That left the trailer-park trash: Nora Winslow. Kristi had hinted that she was manipulating Cliff, which maybe she was. She was certainly overly solicitous about his health. But Kristi had also implied there was something more. Maybe Nora, too, could bear some looking into.