Dangerous Depths (30 page)

We headed down to the waterfront and walked
along the sidewalk. A breeze was blowing in off the sea.

“Perfect sailing conditions,” O’Brien
said.

I waited for him to get to the point. He
hadn’t been sitting in front of Freeman’s office waiting for me to
talk about the weather.

“I get the feeling you’re avoiding me,” he
finally said.

“Come on, Peter. You know I’ve been tied up
in this thing with Elyse.”

“So much so that you can’t return my call? I
left a message on your machine at the office.”

I’d gotten it but didn’t admit that to
O’Brien.

The last time I’d seen Peter was when I’d
dived out at Billings’s boat a couple days ago, and we hadn’t
really talked since that morning on the
Sea Bird
. I wasn’t
avoiding him but I hadn’t made a point of seeing him either. I
didn’t want to be pressured about our relationship.

“Admit it, Hannah—you’re just plain scared.
When are you going to get over your fear of getting too close?
Instead of letting me help you through Elyse’s death, you’re
pushing me away. You need to let the people who care about you,
help you.”

“Let’s not have this conversation now,
okay?”

“Never the right time is it, Hannah?”

“Look, I know you’re concerned about me and I
appreciate it, but I just need some space. Can’t we just leave it
at that for a while?”

“Okay. The ball’s in your court. You call me
when you’re ready to talk.” O’Brien stormed off and left me
standing there.

God dammit, why couldn’t he let things
be?

***

When I got back to the office, I called
LaPlante. I needed to know whether they had figured out what had
happened to the missing boxes of poison. Her assistant, George,
answered. He told me that no one had taken those boxes to the site.
They were just plain unaccounted for. I queried him again about who
had access. Same story. Everyone who worked at the site had a key
to the lab.

“How many people would that be?”

“Let’s see. There’s the three regular
volunteers—Brian, Liz, and me. A couple of temporary volunteers
also had keys while they were working for us. That would be Elyse
Henry and two Park Service people who came over from Saint John for
a week.”

“Do you have records of all those keys being
returned?” I asked.

“Let me check.” I could hear him rummaging
through a drawer. Finally he came back on the line. “Looks like
there’s only three here, but I had four extras made.”

Obviously, the system involved throwing the
key in the drawer. “Do you remember anyone else being in the lab
besides the authorized volunteers?”

“Just the fellow who visited Elyse. He was
here with her and Brian helping load some boxes on the boat to take
out to the cay.”

“That would be Alex Reidman?”

“Yeah, that’s his name.”

I grabbed a cab and headed up to the Callilou
to talk to Reidman. He’d been like a gnat buzzing around my ear
that I’d brushed away. I didn’t want to believe Elyse could
misjudge anyone so completely. Now the gnat was evolving into a
swarm. Reidman’s anger when he’d found me at Elyse’s office that
morning, then complaining to Dunn that I’d been trespassing, his
prints on the refrigerator… And he’d brought up the dead turtle the
night Mary and I had eaten at the Callilou. He’d probably heard it
was in the trunk of the Rambler.

Along the waterfront, dozens of brilliantly
painted fishing boats were pulled up on the beach and nets were
spread out in the sand to dry. Several fish traps were stacked up
near one of the sheds. I could see a sailboat out in the channel,
mainsail flopping from side to side in the wind—someone having
trouble getting the boat pointed just right.

It was almost three when I got to the
Callilou. There was only one car in the lot, an old brown Plymouth.
The “Closed” sign hung on the front of the restaurant but the door
was open. I went in and hollered a couple times, but the music in
the kitchen was blasting. Jimmy Cliff, if I wasn’t mistaken.

I made my way through the dining room and
past the swinging doors into the kitchen. The chef was standing
near the stove deftly chopping scallions with a huge knife. He
threw them in a pan of butter, swinging his hips and singing. He
wore a jacket that was as starkly white as his skin was black.

“Hello,” I shouted over the music.

“You got a delivery, you can drive round da
back,” he hollered, still bent over his task.

“Actually, I’m looking for Alex Reidman.”

“Oh, sorry dar ma’am,” he said, turning and
reducing the volume. “What dat you be sayin’?”

“Alex Reidman? Is he here?”

“Naw, ain’t seen him around at all dis fine
day. Can I be helpin’ you?”

“You know when he’ll be back?”

“No. Da man weren’t here when I got in.
Usually he be back in time for da dinner crowd.”

“Thanks.” I headed out the door as he cranked
the volume up to deafening levels.

I went back through the dining room and
stopped at the hostess stand. The steps up to Reidman’s apartment
were behind it, carpeted in deep red plush. What the hell. The chef
would never hear me up there, that’s for sure.

At the top of the stairs, artificial ferns
stood sentry on either side of double doors, a brass knocker on
each, especially made with Reidman’s monogram, ASR. Same initials
as on the contract in Freeman’s office.

I lifted one of the knockers and let it drop,
the sound echoing down the steps. I waited for a couple minutes,
then tried the door. It was unlocked. I eased it open slowly and
called out, then stepped inside.

The apartment was just as Elyse had
described. I found myself standing in one expansive room. The
ceiling towered above and angled off to a peak at a stone wall from
which water trickled down into a pool. The remaining walls were
glass, with the panoramic view of ocean. Reidman’s apartment and
the restaurant below had been built right out on the point in the
rocky outcropping, the terrain dropping straight down to the shore,
where waves crashed off the rocks.

The interior was done in angles and lines,
strictly modern, wood floors polished to a fine hue. He’d decorated
the place in black and white, accented with chrome, marble, and
glass. I didn’t know much about art, but the stuff he had scattered
around looked expensive—some abstract oils and several stone
sculptures. The place was a completely closed environment,
air-conditioned and sterile. Not a balcony or deck opened to the
outside. It felt a little like a fishbowl. I’d have gone nuts
living here, unable to open a window or step outside to the ocean
air.

I wandered through the place, looking for
anything that might tell me more about Reidman. There wasn’t
much—tables spotless and uncluttered, a couple of
Architectural
Digests
strategically placed on the glass coffee table in front
of a black leather couch.

The entire apartment seemed more like a
showroom than a place to live.

There was a door off to the right. I turned
the knob. It was locked. Odd, a locked door in an apartment where
the front door was left unlocked. Reidman obviously didn’t want
anyone wandering into that room—clearly I needed to get in there. I
knelt and examined the lock. Pretty basic. I carried a set of tools
on my key chain for just such occasions and had the door open in a
matter of seconds.

This was Reidman’s office and den, the only
place that really looked lived in. There was a stereo, a TV, and a
couple of lounge chairs in one area. The other corner held a
high-tech complex of computer equipment, fax machine, copier, you
name it. A coffee machine in the corner was still on, the pot half
full—a reminder that Reidman could be back any minute.

I took a quick look around his desk: bills
from purveyors, several marked overdue; a business checkbook for
the restaurant; daily deposits; employee check stubs. I opened the
desk drawers, thumbed through bank statements. In the bottom drawer
under a stack of restaurant stationery was a separate set of bank
statements for ASR Associates. The last deposit had been a nice
round $100,000. The account balance was close to $750,000, but had
been down to almost zero the month before. Where was that kind of
money coming from and what the hell was Reidman doing with it?

I opened a nearby file cabinet, oak and
antique. I was about to pull out a file labeled
Deeds
when
the music from the kitchen quit and I heard voices. It sounded like
Reidman was giving the chef grief.

I eased the file drawer closed, stuffed the
bank statements back under the stationery, took a look around the
room to make sure I’d left it the way I’d found it, and pulled the
door closed and locked behind me. I had just settled on the leather
couch and opened a
Fortune
magazine when Reidman walked
in.

“Alex,” I said, putting on the most innocent
smile I could muster. “I hope you don’t mind. The door was open.
Your chef said you wouldn’t mind if I waited for you.”

“No problem,” he said, but I could tell he
was not pleased to see me. I set the magazine down and gave him
another one of my winning smiles.

“What are you doing here, Hannah?”

“I thought you could help me figure a few
things out.”

“I can try,” he said.

“Do you know if Elyse had any reason to bring
any rat poison back from Hermit Cay?” I asked.

“That’s a funny question. I don’t see why she
would. What makes you ask?”

“They found several boxes missing. When I
found her office trashed on Thursday, there were a few of the
pellets scattered on the floor. Didn’t know what they were till I
saw them at LaPlante’s lab.”

“Maybe she had rats at the office,” he
suggested.

All of a sudden everyone had rats. “Did you
ever go into her specimen refrigerator for anything?”

“Why would I do that?”

“We took prints after the break-in. Got a
nice clean one off the refrigerator handle that matched the one on
the wine bottle I pulled out of the
Caribbe
wreckage. Was
thinking it might be yours.”

“Hell, I guess I opened the fridge. I stopped
by one afternoon when Elyse was working at the microscope. She
asked me to pull out a sample for her.”

Nothing like the miracle of recall at the
appropriate prodding. I supposed it could be true.

“So Elyse never talked to you at all about
what she did on Sunday?”

“I told you. I didn’t see Elyse on Sunday.
Last time we’d been together was for dinner on Friday night.”

“One other thing, Alex,” I said standing. “I
was wondering about ASR Associates. I didn’t know you had another
business.”

“My other business is just that—my business.
Come on, I’ll walk you out.” He took a quick glance at his office
door and then opened the front door and locked it behind him.

***

I wanted to know what was in the file
Deeds
that I’d found in Reidman’s office.

If I hurried, I could get to the island clerk
and recorder’s office before they closed. I knew any property
transfers would be filed there.

The clerk glanced at his watch and gave me a
dirty look when I walked in.

“We be closin’ in twenty minutes,” he
said.

“I’d like to look through the land
transactions that have occurred in the past, say, six months,” I
said.

“That will take me at least a half hour to
pull and you got to be lookin’ at it here. I think you better come
back in da mornin’.”

I flashed my badge and a fifty. “How about
you stay long enough to pull the records and I’ll lock the door
when I leave? I’m a police officer and this is urgent.”

He plucked the bill out of my hand and headed
to the back.

While he was collecting the material, I used
the phone to call Stark. He’d spoken with Eleanor Billings. She
said she’d seen turtles nesting on Flower many times in the years
she’d worked there—wasn’t anything she gave much thought to. When
Stark asked her about the poison, she remembered Teddy telling her
he’d seen some boxes marked hazardous in one of the sheds and that
he intended to ask Freeman about it.

“So much for Freeman’s story that there were
no turtles nesting on Flower. Why lie about it?” Stark asked.

“I’ve got some ideas. I’ll call you back.” I
hung up as the clerk returned balancing a twelve-inch stack of
bound printouts. He dropped them on the desk behind the
counter.

“You can work here. I don made a fresh pot a’
coffee. Just be sure to turn it off when you leave and lock da
door.”

“Hey, thanks.”

“No problem. I can be usin’ dis money.” He
pulled on his cap and left.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, then settled
in. The printouts were organized by dates. I started with the most
recent transactions. There were records of stores being bought and
sold, building permits being applied for and approved, records of
parents transferring their home to a child.

By the time I got to the bottom of the stack,
I’d found four entries with ASR Associates as the new owner,
including Flower. Officers were listed as Neville Freeman,
president; Alex Reidman, vice-president and treasurer; and Sylvia
Freeman, secretary. ASR had gotten the other properties for
amazingly little, and Flower had simply been transferred. All of
them were up near North Sound and made a nice ring around the
sheltered bay.

At least some of the money moving in and out
of the account had to be going toward these properties. Where the
hell was Reidman getting that kind of money? Elyse had said he’d
left a lucrative business in finance in the States. He probably had
made a bundle, more than Elyse had ever suspected. And he’d have
made contacts. He may have brought in a few investors.

I could think of only one reason that Freeman
would agree to turn Flower over to a corporation and then buy up
the surrounding property. That would be for development. They
planned to turn the gorgeous bay into something less beautiful but
more lucrative. Those stakes that Stark and I had found were
probably the layout for the first structure.