I glanced up to find Slidell’s eyes on me in chill amusement. “We are about to arrive at that universal goal of all the great philosophers, Rogers. Truth.”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s a lie-detector.”
“Cut it out. Where the hell would you get one?”
“There is nothing esoteric about a lie-detector. Almost anybody could make one. Operating it, however, is something else, and that’s where we’re very fortunate. Flowers is a genius. It talks to him.”
Flowers paid no attention. He ran a long cord over to an electrical outlet, and turned the machine on. Then he began connecting it to me as calmly and methodically as if this were a police station. If it occurred to him at all that there was any quality of madness in the situation, he apparently dismissed it as irrelevant. The whole thing was merely a technical problem. He wrapped a blood-pressure cuff about my right arm above the elbow and pumped it up. Then a tube went about my chest. He threw another switch, and the paper began to move. The styli made little jagged lines as they registered my pulse, blood pressure, and respiration. The room became very quiet. He made minor adjustments to the controls, pulled up the chair and sat down, hunched over the thing with the dedicated expression of a priest. He nodded to Slidell.
“All right, Rogers,” Slidell said. “All you have to do is answer the questions I put to you. Answer any way you like, but answer. Refuse, and you get the gun barrel across your face.”
“Go ahead,” I said. It did no good now to think how stupid I’d been not to think of this myself. I could have asked the FBI to give me a lie-detector test.
“It won’t work,” Bonner said disgustedly. “Everybody knows how they operate. The blood pressure and pulse change when you’re upset or scared. So how’re you going to tell anything with a meatball that’s scared stiff to begin with?”
“There will still be a deviation from the norm,” Flowers said contemptuously.
“To translate,” Slidell said, “what Flowers means is that if Rogers is scared stiff as a normal condition, the instrument will tell us when he’s scared rigid. Now shut up.”
Bonner subsided.
“What is your name?” Slidell asked.
“Stuart Rogers.”
“Where were you born?”
“Coral Gables, Florida.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“The University of Miami.”
“What business is your father in?”
“He was an attorney.”
“You mean he’s dead?”
“Yes,” I said.
“What did he die of?”
“He was killed in an automobile accident.”
There were fifteen or twenty more of these establishing questions while Flowers intently studied his graphs. Then Slidell said, “Did you know a man who told you his name was Wendell Baxter?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And he sailed with you from Cristobal on June first aboard your boat?”
“Yes.”
“And you put him ashore somewhere in Central America or Mexico?”
“No,” I said.
Slidell was leaning over Flowers’ shoulder, watching the styli. Flowers gave a faint shake of the head. Slidell frowned at me.
“Where did you put him ashore?”
“I didn’t,” I said.
“Where is he?”
“He’s dead.”
Flowers looked up at Slidell and spread his hands.
“You don’t see any change in pattern at all?” Slidell asked.
“No. Of course, it’s impossible to tell much with one short record—”
Bonner came over. “I told you it wouldn’t work. Let me show you how to get the truth.” His hand exploded against the side of my face and rocked me back in the chair. I tasted blood.
“You’ll have to keep this fool away from him,” Flowers said bitterly. “Look what he’s done.”
The styli were swinging violently.
“Hate,” Flowers explained.
I rubbed my face and stared at Bonner. “Tell your machine it can say that again.”
“Get away from him,” Slidell ordered.
“Let me have that gun, and give me five minutes—”
“Certainly,” Slidell said coldly. “So you can kill him before we find out anything, the way you did Keefer. Can’t you get it through your head that Rogers is the last? He’s the only person on earth who can answer these questions.”
“Well, what good is that if he keeps lying?”
“I’m not sure he is. Reagan could be dead this time. I’ve told you that before. Now get back.”
Bonner moved back to the door. Slidell and Flowers watched while the styli settled down. Patricia Reagan had turned away with her face down on her arms across the back of the couch. I couldn’t tell whether she was crying.
“Listen, Rogers,” Slidell said, “we’re going to get the truth of what happened out there on that boat if it takes a week, and you have to account for every hour of the trip, minute by minute, and we repeat these questions until you crack up and start screaming. The police will never find you, and you can’t get away. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said wearily.
“Good. Is Reagan dead?”
“Yes.”
“When did he die?”
“Four days out of Cristobal. On June fifth, at about three-thirty p.m.”
“Did you and Keefer kill him?”
“No.”
“How did he die?”
“Of an attack of some kind. The doctor who reviewed the report said it was probably a coronary thrombosis.”
“Did you make up the report?”
“I wrote it.”
“You know what I mean. Was it the truth?”
“It was the truth. It was exactly as it happened.”
Slidell turned to Flowers. “Anything yet?”
Flowers shook his head. “No change at all.”
“All right, Rogers. You read the letter Reagan wrote to Paula Stafford. He said he had twenty-three thousand dollars with him, and that he was going to ask you to put him ashore somewhere. Nineteen thousand dollars of that money is missing. Reefer didn’t have it, and it’s not on your boat. If Reagan is dead, where is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You stole it.”
“I’ve never even seen it.”
“Did Regan ask you to put him ashore?”
“No.”
“In four days he didn’t even mention it?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“How do I know?” I said.
Flowers held up a hand. “Run through that sequence again. There’s something funny here.”
I stared at him. One of us must be mad already.
“You’re lying, Rogers,” Slidell said. “You have to be. Reagan sailed on that boat for the purpose of having you slip him ashore. He even told Paula Stafford that. You read the letter.”
“Yes.”
“And you mean to say he didn’t even ask you?”
“He never said anything about it at all.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“There it is again,” Flowers interrupted. “A definite change in emotional response. I think he does know.”
“You killed him, didn’t you?” Slidell barked.
“No!” I said.
Then I was standing at the rail again on that Sunday afternoon watching the shrouded body fade into the depths below me, and the strange feeling of dread began to come back. I looked at the machine. The styli jerked erratically, making frenzied swings across the paper.
Slidell shoved his face close to mine. “You and Keefer killed him!”