Bermuda Schwartz (21 page)

I open the car door.

“OK,” I say. “Let's go.” She hops in the front seat. Boggy stays put. “You coming with us?” I ask him.

“No, Zachary. The palms, I must take the hose to them.” “Take the hose to them? That's cruel and unusual punishment, isn't it? This is Bermuda, Boggy, not Singapore.”

He just looks at me. Then he turns and walks away. Sometimes he's just no fun, no fun at all.

 

Teddy Schwartz's car sits in his driveway, but he doesn't answer when I ring his doorbell. We walk behind the house to the dock, where
Miss Peg
is moored. No sign of him there either.

I step over to the boathouse, stopping at a small window by the door. The drapes are drawn, leaving just a sliver of an opening. I peek through it.

Teddy sits hunched over the workbench that had been covered by a tarp when I was there with Boggy just a couple of days earlier. His back is to me. A high-intensity halogen light sits to one side, beaming down on whatever it is that he's working on.

I rap on the door. Teddy jerks around. He's wearing a headband of some sort. There's something hanging down from it, over one of his eyes. Then I recognize it—a loupe, like jewelers use when they are doing close-up work.

Teddy removes the headband, turns off the lamp, and carefully drapes the tarp over the workbench. Then he steps to the door and opens it, smiles when he sees it's me.

“Well, Zack, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“We interrupting you from anything?”

“No, no, not at all. I was just piddling around.”

He closes the boathouse door behind him and steps outside.

I make the introductions between Teddy and Fiona, and we briefly discuss logistics for Ned's service the next day.

“Miss Peg
is gassed up and ready to go. I'm glad she can be of service,” Teddy says. “Now, can I get the two of you a drink or something? It is getting to be that time of day.”

Teddy takes Fiona by the arm, begins ushering her toward his house.

He says, “Have you tried a Dark ‘n Stormy, Miss McHugh? It's our national drink, you know. A shot of Gosling's, a splash of ginger beer, a slice of lime. Just the thing for a warm afternoon.”

“Perhaps another time,” she says, “because we were wondering if
Miss Peg
might be of service right now.”

Teddy stops.

“Now? Whatever for?”

Fiona tells him about visiting Deep Water Discoveries and finding the GPS aboard the boat Ned had used.

“I'd just like to ride out to the site that's marked on the GPS, take a look around,” she says. “Here, let me show you.”

She pulls out the GPS, switches it on. She punches a few keys. The coordinates flash up: N32° 18.024/W064° 52.622.

Teddy studies the display screen for a long time, doesn't say anything.

“Know the general vicinity of where that might be?” Fiona asks.

Teddy looks at her, his eyes hooded now, his expression grim.

“No,” he says.

“Well, that's certainly understandable. There's a lot of water out there,” Fiona says. “Still, it would be easy enough to find. I can't imagine that it's …”

“I really don't think it's a good idea, Miss McHugh,” Teddy cuts her off.

“But there's still plenty of daylight left.”

“Miss McHugh, I told you, I'd prefer not to do it. Not today.”

The tone of his voice makes it clear there's no further need for discussion. And there's no further mention of drinks.

 

“W
ell, that was certainly awkward,” says Fiona as we pull out of Teddy Schwartz's driveway and wind our way back to Somerset Road. Next stop—Ned's house on Bedon's Alley.

“Yeah, there was something a little off about the whole thing.”

“It was like this giant mood shift. One moment he's the gracious gentleman, anxious to pour us cocktails, all friendly and everything. The next he's ready for us to leave.”

“Starting from the moment you brought out the GPS.”

She looks at me.

“You think he recognized the coordinates?”

“I don't think so. I mean, you've looked at those coordinates a couple of times. Can you tell me what they were?”

Fiona thinks about it.

“Thirty-two something, sixty something. Things like that just don't stick with me.”

“They don't stick with most people. That's why they have GPSs. To remember those things for us. An old hand like Teddy Schwartz, all the dive sites he knows, there's no way he recognizes them by their specific coordinates. No, it wasn't that.”

“Was it just the sight of the GPS? Knowing that we had it, that it belonged to Ned?”

“That's the only thing I can think of.”

“But why?”

We're still muddling that over when I spot the street marker for Bedon's Alley. I whip off Somerset Road and follow Bedon's Alley to a cul-de-sac. A yellow cottage sits under a stand of eucalyptus trees.

I pull the Morris Minor into the driveway, look at Fiona.

“You up for this?”

She nods.

“Yeah, I think so. Has to be done.”

We get out of the car and walk up to the front porch of the house. The front door is partly open.

Fiona knocks.

“Hello …?”

No answer.

Fiona gives the door a push, steps inside. I follow her.

For such a small place, it's a big, big wreck—sofa and chairs overturned; drawers pulled from cabinets, the contents scattered everywhere; the refrigerator open and food spilled all over the kitchen floor.

“A dog's breakfast, this is,” Fiona says.

“That another colorful Aussie colloquialism?”

Fiona ignores me as she picks her way across the living room, negotiating a path toward the bedroom. She moves past a small mountain of books. The bookshelf that once held them is a heap of splintered wood.

As Fiona nears the bedroom door, she lets out a gasp, freezes. Then she raises her arms, backs away from the door.

A small, dark-haired woman steps from the shadows of the bedroom. She holds a speargun, cocked and ready to fire, a three-foot steel shaft with its double barb leveled at Fiona.

“I'll shoot,” the woman says.

She's twitchy, on the point of hysterics.

She wears a faded chambray shirt that falls to her knees, baggy khakis with the cuffs rolled up, red Converse sneakers.

“Just take it easy,” I say.

She swivels, points the speargun at me. But the odds aren't in that shot. She aims again at Fiona.

“Who are you?”

“I'm Ned's sister,” says Fiona.

The woman shakes her head. “You're lying!”

“No, no, really.” Fiona reaches for a pocket.

The woman stiffens, raises the gun. “Don't move!”

Fiona freezes.

“I was just getting my wallet so I can show you some ID.” Fiona's voice is calm, soothing. “Is that all right … Polly? That's your name, isn't it?”

The woman nods.

“OK, show me,” she says.

Fiona pulls out her wallet, flips it open. The woman leans in and looks at it. She's skeptical. She studies Fiona, thinking.

“You're really Ned's sister?”

“Yes, really,” Fiona says. “I swear.”

“OK, if that's the case,” says the woman, “what did Ned give you?”

“What did he give me?”

“Yes, what did Ned give you before he left Australia? If you're really his sister then you'll know that.”

For a moment it seems as if Fiona doesn't have an answer. Then it comes to her.

“Jack Black,” she says. “His dog. A Clumber spaniel. I had to leave him with my mum and dad.”

The woman relaxes, but now she has the speargun trained on me.

“So who is he?”

“A friend,” says Fiona. She opens her arms. “We're here to help, Polly. Really.”

The woman hesitates, then drops the speargun. She covers her face with her hands.

“Oh, my God,” she sobs.

And Fiona rushes to embrace her.

 

A few minutes later, we've restored a small semblance of order to the living room. Fiona shares the couch with Polly. I hold down one of the chairs.

“I got here just a few minutes before you did,” Polly says. “The first time I'd been back in three days, ever since Ned …”

She stops, chokes up. Fiona pats her back, comforts her.

“I've been staying with a girlfriend not far from here. I couldn't face everything. But then I just figured, you know, get over it, Polly. It's time to get on with your life. Plus, I'd left a lot of my stuff here. Clothes, my yoga mat, a bunch of personal things. I'm really attached to my yoga mat. It centers me, you know? Anyway, I couldn't put off coming by here any longer,” Polly says. “But I walked in and saw all this and I just freaked out. And when you drove up and got out and came walking in, well, I just totally lost it. That speargun, it was Ned's. I don't even know how to work it.”

“Well, you were faking it pretty well,” I say. “You must have gone out on the boat with Ned and seen him using it.”

“Are you kidding? I don't even know how to dive.”

“And you work at a dive shop?”

“Yeah, go figure, huh? The owner of the dive shop, he's a regular at the Onion. That's the other place I work. Matter of fact, I'm supposed
to pull a shift tonight. I really didn't want to, but this friend called up begging me and …”

She stops, seeming to have lost her train of thought. Not surprising, since she is all over the place. It's probably one-half nerves and one-half the fact that she's a bit of a space cadet. Cute kid, but ditsy.

“Where was I?” she says.

“You were talking about the dive shop owner,” I say. “Belleville's his name, right?”

“Oh yeah, Bill. He was always hitting on me, asking me out. I kept telling him no. Not my type, a little too old for me. He's OK. I mean, he gave me a job. I really needed the money—it's crazy expensive here—so I took it. But it's not like I do any of the real diving stuff. I just run the shop, handle the retail side of it, answer the phone, book trips, that sort of thing.”

“So that's how you met my brother,” says Fiona. “Working at the dive shop?”

“Yeah, the very first day. And we just clicked, right from the start. I mean, he was gorgeous, that curly blond hair of his, the whole Oz thing going on. He wasn't just a dive bum, you know, like some of the others. He was smart. And passionate. About everything. He was just so … so Ned, you know?”

“Yeah,” says Fiona. “I know.”

Polly wears a rawhide necklace with a piece of red glass in the shape of a bug dangling from it. One of her hands goes to the piece of glass, rubs it.

Fiona says, “I know this might be difficult, Polly, but I have to ask: Do you have any idea who might have killed my brother?”

Polly shakes her head.

“No, just like I told the police—I have no idea at all. That's all I've thought about, believe me. I've racked my brain.”

Were I the snide sort, I might say it took precious little racking, but …

“Did the police ask you what Ned was doing out there the day he was killed, Polly?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you tell them?”

Polly starts to say something, stops. She looks away.

“I guess I didn't exactly tell them everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I told them that Ned had gone out diving, which was true. But I told them that I didn't know exactly where, which wasn't true. I thought it might get Ned in trouble.” She lets out a nervous laugh. “Isn't that crazy? He was already dead. But I wasn't thinking. I was scared. I thought I might get in trouble, too.”

“Trouble?” Fiona says. “Trouble for what?”

“For not having the permit,” Polly says.

“What permit?”

“I don't know, this government permit Ned kept saying he had to have before he could do anything else.”

I say, “Are you talking about a salvage permit, Polly?”

“Yes, that's what he called it,” she says.

I share with Fiona what Teddy Schwartz told me a few days earlier about Bermuda salvage laws, how prospective salvors are supposed to apply for a permit with the curator of wrecks before anything can be removed from a site.

“The curator of wrecks. Yeah, that's where we went,” Polly says. “I remember the name on the office door. Guy with a beard …”

“Dr. Michael Frazer,” I say.

“That's him. Nice guy. Kinda cute. Very friendly. Comes into the Onion every now and then. He really helped out Ned a lot. Especially with all the paperwork for the permit. Ned had almost completed everything and was getting ready to turn it in,” Polly says. “He'd heard from other people that he really didn't need to get a permit, that no one else ever did, but Ned wanted to do things by the book. He knew what he'd found was important and he planned on dotting his i's and crossing his t's.”

Fiona says, “What had Ned found, Polly?”

“Something old, something really old.” Her brown eyes widen. “A shipwreck. That's where he found this.”

She reaches for her rawhide necklace, holds out the red glass ornament that dangles from it so we can see it better.

“You know what that is?” Polly asks.

“Looks like a bug of some sort,” I say. “A beetle or something.”

“It's called a soul-saver, a Phoenician soul-saver. Old-time sailors used
to wear them on long voyages. They believed that if they died far from home and the beetle ever made its way back to a sailor's family then the sailor's soul would be saved.” She rubs the glass beetle, lets it fall back around her kneck. “Anyway, Ned found it on the wreck and gave it to me. Technically, he wasn't supposed to take anything from down there, you know, but this one little thing, he thought it would be all right. At first, it kinda gave me the creeps to wear it. I was thinking, like, whoa, this has got some old-dead sailor guy's soul in it, you know? But then I got over it. After Ned died and everything, it's kinda like it's got his soul in it. Know what I mean?”