"Look at that." Steve thumped the monitor with a finger. "The bastards stopped. Just like they did off Paradise Key." He watched the seconds tick away on the digital clock on the screen.
Twenty-three seconds.
Long enough to let somebody slip into the water. Somebody like Junior Griffin, who could wait for the Force Majeure to arrive. The mystery boat moved away from the no-name island, then stopped about one mile away. The Force Majeure came into the picture and neared the island.
And suddenly, Steve knew. "Oh, shit!"
"What?"
"Junior didn't swim out there to meet the fast boat. He's not the one they picked up. He's not the one they dropped off."
"But you said-"
"I wish the son-of-a-bitch was the guy, but he's not."
"How do you know?"
"Because Junior didn't know the Force Majeure was stopping there. Griffin swears he never told Junior. And there's no reason to lie about it. Four people got off the Force Majeure before it left Paradise Key. They all knew the boat was going to Key West. But only one knew it was stopping to pick up lobsters and money."
"Who?"
"The guy who baited the traps and put the money in the pots. The guy who's in love with a woman who sautes snapper with bananas. The guy who could get off Paradise Key without being seen, riding his underwater chariot."
"Clive Fowles? Are you sure, Uncle Steve? Maybe Junior and Fowles did it together. Remember when you got thrown out of the hospital?" Bobby held up his right hand and spread two fingers, just as Stubbs had done in the ICU. "Two men attacked Stubbs. Isn't that what he meant?"
"Higher."
"What?"
"Stubbs was trying to raise his hand higher, but he
couldn't." Bobby raised his hand over his head. "Like this?" The boy didn't look exactly like Winston Churchill,
but close enough.
" 'V for Victory,' " Steve said. "The British submariner's favorite expression. Stubbs was trying to tell me Fowles killed him."
"Wow," Bobby said. "What now?"
"I've got to see a man about a chariot."
Forty-four
The device looked like a torpedo with two seats cut into it. Horace Fowles' sixty-year-old underwater chariot. His grandson, Clive Fowles, was hoisting the rusty cylinder onto the platform at the stern of his sparkling new dive boat.
"Need a hand?" Steve walked up to the dock on Paradise Key.
"Thanks, mate. Wouldn't hurt."
Steve hopped onto the rear deck of the boat and put both hands on the nose of the chariot. Fowles turned a winch handle, and two ropes unfurled from a double-sheaved block, lowering the old contraption toward the dive platform.
"Easy now," Fowles urged, giving up a little rope as Steve guided the chariot into place. The craft settled into an indentation in the dive platform, as snug as a gun in a holster.
"Pretty good fit," Steve said.
"It better be, after what Mr. G spent customizing the boat to my specs."
"And your grandfather's specs." Steve pointed at the lettering on the stern of the dive boat: "Fowles' Folly. Wasn't that the name of his midget sub?"
"Right. After Horace graduated from chariots. You remembered."
"Hard to forget. A Norwegian fjord. Your grandfather captains a little tin can that takes on a massive German battleship."
"The Tirpitz."
"David and Goliath."
"It was a miracle he even got into the fjord. Did I tell you Grandpop had to crawl out of the sub and use his knife to cut a mine off the tow line? Can you picture that, Solomon?"
"Not without breaking into a sweat."
"The North Sea's got all these freshwater layers, so it's hard as hell to maintain a trim. The Folly keeps popping out of the water like a crazed porpoise. When she gets to the Tirpitz, there's my grandpop, in the water again, attaching explosives to the big bastard's hull with German sailors firing at him. How would you describe a man like that?"
"The words 'bravery' and 'courage' don't seem to do him justice."
"You're damned right, Solomon. You understand." He swung the block and tackle out of the way and offered a hand to Steve to pull him back onto the dock. "Some people, I tell the story and they don't get it at all."
"I guess I'm attuned to the legacies our fathers leave us. Grandfathers, too, for that matter."
"I tried to live up to mine. Did my part in the Royal Navy."
"But like you said before, the Falklands and the Argentines weren't exactly the North Sea and the Nazis."
Fowles sat down on the edge of the dock and pulled out a small cigar. He put it in his mouth but didn't light it. "What are you getting at, Solomon?"
Steve sat down next to him. "Yesterday, when I was coming out of the courthouse, you wanted something."
"A Guinness Stout. The Green Parrot, mate."
"You asked about the case. You seemed worried about Griffin."
"Sure, I am. I hope he gets off."
"Because you know he's innocent."
Fowles took his time lighting the cigar. A breeze whipped off the water and the flame wouldn't catch. "I think Mr. G's innocent, but how would I know?"
Steve nearly said it then. Nearly said: "You know because you headed underwater on your chariot just like your grandfather in his midget sub. You know because someone in a fast boat picked you up and followed your directions to a nameless island just off Black Turtle Key. You know because you were there."
But Steve's instincts told him not to attack this battleship head-on. Another problem, too. This decent man who worshipped the memory of a courageous grandfather seemed to regard Hal Griffin as a father figure as well as a generous boss. While admiring Griffin, Fowles despised the Oceania project. But would the boat captain, a man who loved all the fishes in the deep blue sea, kill someone and frame Griffin for the crime?
"I think you're a good man," Steve said.
Fowles laughed. "And how would you know that?"
"It's what I do for a living. I make judgments about people."
Fowles tried to light his cigar again. Steve leaned over and cupped his hands, creating a windbreak. The flame caught. Fowles inhaled deeply and looked out over the Gulf.
"If you'll excuse me, Solomon, it's my day off, and I'm gonna take my boat out."
"To the reef?"
"Thought I'd scoot around it a bit."
Steve gestured toward the chariot. "On that human torpedo?"
"Once the Folly gets me there, yeah, I'll take the chariot down. Want to go along?"
"Me? Underwater?"
Fowles blew a trail of smoke into the humid air. "Not scared, are you?"
"No way. I love the ocean and everything in it. Except sharks."
A white heron with matchstick legs strutted along the dock and watched the Fowles' Folly head out to sea. After the boat cleared the dock, a brown pelican dive-bombed just off the port side, flipped over backward, and hit the water with a resounding splash. The bird scooped up a fish and swallowed it whole.
The cigar clamped in his teeth, Fowles manned the wheel, his thinning blond hair whipping in the wind. Steve stood alongside, watching the diamond-studded sea, the sun sparkling off the waves.
"You scuba, right?" Fowles shouted above the wind and the twin diesels.
"Don't worry. I'm certified."
"One of those two-day wonders in some hotel pool?