The Raft (4 page)

“But what really sent the Raft into a
tailspin was my pricing model. I sold my service as a subscription.
It worked for me because I had a steady income, and it worked for
my clients because they didn't have to raise funds for each and
every case they wanted heard. The only caveat, however, in my
system is that I only hear disputes between two parties who are
paid-up members in good standing with me. You couldn't sue an
outsider, it all stays in the family. That way, my impartiality is
maintained. Get it? Both parties are paying me, so neither has the
upper hand.”

“Doesn't that mean you pretty much have to
have everyone on the Raft as a client for the scheme to be
practical?”

“Exactly,” Maggie said with no small measure
of pride. “And that's what Rafters do. Pay two, three, or even four
competing Magistrates to make sure their bases are covered. It's
called selling your franchise. Giving up a small amount of your
freedom so you're covered by the largest possible legal umbrella.
You get to sue in my court, but also get sued. Either way, you have
to abide by my decisions.

“Many other Magistrates have switched to my
subscription model to stay relevant. It's competitive law
enforcement. You dryfoots think that out here we're a lawless bunch
of no-good beach bums, but in reality we're exactly the opposite:
your average Rafter is positively swimming in law and order.
Redundant and competitive, maybe, but more than just one emergency
number to call when you're in trouble. And all for a fraction of
the price of one good lawyer on dryland.”

“And Horus is a dues-paying member of your
clan?”

“Much to my eternal shame, yes.” Maggie moved
from behind the helm. She had maneuvered the
Soft
Cell
out of the main current of traffic and towards the
shore of Bainbridge Island. There, near the tree-lined beach of
Fort Word, a lone ramshackle boat sat moored. Maggie began to reef
her sails, slowing her vessel.

“And he's
paying
you? He's paying you
to come after him like this and arrest him?”

“That's right.” The sailed furled, the
Soft Cell
lost its momentum as it closed in on the cluttered
vessel. Maggie quickly moved the length of her boat and stepped up
to the pulpit. “Me and perhaps the other half-dozen Magistrates he
subscribes to. I just got here first.”

“And having this franchise gives you police
powers over him?”

“It's all in the contract he signed,” Maggie
said. As the bow of Maggie's vessel touched up against the moored
craft, she reached out and caught hold of the parked vessel. In a
long, smooth series of motions she began to lash the two craft
together.

When she'd finished, Maggie pulled herself
erect and examined the cluttered deck of the other vessel. “So, I
have his franchise, and that makes me his cop,” Maggie continued.
“And Meerkat, too. I had her franchise, too. You take the good with
the bad. But when you've taken money to do a job...”

As Maggie stood at the gunwale of the
Soft
Cell
, she began to ready herself to leap across to the
cluttered deck of the moored vessel beyond. As she did, she drew a
small, black, polymer revolver from the waistband of her jeans and
leveled it at the foreign deck.

Chapter 4

“You're carrying a
gun
?” Rachael asked
in shock, her mind sent into a spin by the idea that Maggie had
been secretly armed this whole time. Maggie gave her a patronizing
glare, and hopped across the gap between the two vessels. “This is
Horus's boat?” Rachael changed the subject, deciding to let the
pistol go for now.

“He christened her the
Straight Dope
,”
Maggie said in a whisper from the far deck. She was moving
cautiously towards the companionway of the untidy craft, pistol in
hand. The danger of the moment slowly dawned on Rachael. She was
still perched in full view on the cockpit bench of the
Soft
Cell
, but quickly ducked low as Maggie came around to cover the
cabin of Horus's vessel. “It can't be said that Horus lacks a sense
of humor,” Maggie continued, almost matter of fact.

After a quick glance down into the depths of
the
Straight Dope
's cabin, Maggie vanished down into its
companionway. She appeared again moments later, tucking the small
pistol back into her belt.

“Nobody's home,” she said.

Who was this woman? Rachael marveled.
Suddenly, Rachael was having trouble reconciling the Maggie she had
known from five years prior with the Maggie who'd just hopped
aboard a strange ship, armed, without even a flutter of
trepidation.

Maggie looked at Rachael cowering behind the
gunwale and smiled. “Well, are you coming aboard?”

“Oh, okay...” Rachael climbed to her wobbly
feet and stepped up out of the cockpit. She watched the gap between
the two vessels as they bumped and danced in the choppy water. It
made her woozy. She felt dizzy. Maggie held out a hand and Rachael
took it, hopping to the other craft with Maggie's support.

“Okay?” Maggie asked, still smiling.

“I- It's...” Rachael replied, flustered.
Still holding Maggie's hand, standing close, she could smell the
flowery scent of whatever shampoo Maggie had used to wash her long,
dark hair. Rachael realized that she hadn't hugged Maggie hello,
what with all the other shocking surprises of their reunion. In
fact, she hadn't touched her at all until Maggie had held out her
hand to help Rachael transition between the two vessels.
Reflexively, Rachael swung in and gave Maggie an uncomfortable hug.
Maggie guffawed.

“Well, it's good to see you, too,” Maggie
chuckled.

“I just realized... hello.”

“Hello.”

Rachael let go. It was an uncomfortable
moment.

“Be careful,” Maggie broke the tension,
letting go of Rachael's hand. “This is probably a crime scene.”
Maggie turned, looking over the untidy cockpit, pondering the
detritus.

“Thank you, Miss Marple,” Rachael said,
woozily stepping down towards the companionway. “This isn't my
first crime scene, you know.”

“Oh, of course,” Maggie replied, lifting a
soggy blanket from a bench and finding only garbage underneath.
“Then you're the expert. This is
my
first time. What are we
looking for?”

“Seriously?” Rachael shot Maggie a sideways
glance.

“Seriously...”

“Well, clues I suppose... evidence... and I'd
say signs of a struggle, but in this mess I don't know how you'd
tell.” Rachael leaned down and inspected the cabin below, down
through the companionway. If the deck was messy, then the main
cabin was a garbage heap. “Has the ship been tossed? Was someone
looking for something?”

“No,” Maggie replied. “It's always this
messy.”

“You've been aboard before?”

“Oh, sure,” Maggie dismissed. She was opening
the engine compartment and stooping to look inside. “Horus is
always in some kind of trouble.”

“He lived here with Meerkat?”

“Mmm.”

“We should wait for the police,” Rachael
said, her curiosity giving way to discomfort. “We could be
contaminating the scene of the crime.”

Maggie closed the engine compartment with a
thud. “As I said, we need to find Horus
before
the dryfoot
cops arrive. But I see every indication that he's gone and put his
boots on.”

“Done what?”

“Fled to dryland.” Maggie pointed up at the
tree-lined shore a dozen yards from the moored boat. “Horus is
gone, moored here. He killed Meerkat, for whatever reason, and fled
to dryland. I suppose I should take it as a compliment.”

“Compliment?”

“He'd rather answer to the dryfoot police
than me.”

Maggie stood surveying the junk all around
her, thinking. “His stash,” she said. A light in her eyes
flashing.

Maggie pushed past Rachael, climbing down the
short ladder into the main cabin. She stepped through the piles of
clothes and discarded blankets and opened a set of cabinets in the
galley. Rachael followed, lowering herself carefully below deck.
She resisted touching anything, half in disgust and half out of
concern that anything on the boat could be evidence.

Maggie tapped at the back of a cabinet, found
what she was looking for and slapped the wood with the palm of her
hand. The back panel of the cabinet gave way and Maggie pulled out
an extra large zip lock bag full of vegetation.

“My, that's a lot of weed,” Rachael said in
admiration. Maggie hefted the zip lock bag in her hands. It was at
least two to three pounds.

“Horus wouldn't have left without his
personal stash,” Maggie contemplated.

“What? His drugs? I thought you said he was a
dealer?”

“He is. But this is his own special BC stock.
Not for retail sale. If Horus was running for his life, he wouldn't
have left this behind. He thinks he's going to come back...”

“He must have left in a hurry. He
panicked.”

“Sure, but he's not
that
afraid of
me,” Maggie pondered. “And he'd have been safer out here, aboard
the Raft, from the dryfoots...”

Something was bugging Rachael. “How did you
know that was there?” Rachael asked, pointing at the zip lock
bag.

“I...” Maggie suddenly blushed. “It's for
glaucoma,” she hedged.

“You have glaucoma?” Rachael smirked.

“I could... any day now...” Maggie smiled,
then chuckled. They both let themselves have a light moment,
forgetting for a second the reason they were there.

“Then that's it,” Rachael said with finality.
“Meerkat is dead and Horus is at large on the mainland. He's the
police's problem now, this is a dead end.”

“Mmm,” Maggie grunted. She put down the zip
lock bag and gave the messy galley a pass with her eyes. At the
head, she pushed in the small folding door.

“We can bring the cops here to the
Straight Dope.
Give them what we've got. Perhaps when they
realize that Horus is no longer aboard the Raft, it'll take the
wind out of their sails. Surely, if it's obvious that Horus isn't
hiding aboard the Raft, the Coast Guard is going to have a hard
time justifying boarding Raft ships.”

“Mmm,” Maggie grunted again.

“Do you have anything more constructive to
add than 'Mmm'?”

“How about motive?” Maggie said, reaching for
something in the tiny bathroom. She came back with a small, empty
cardboard box.

“What's that?”

“A home pregnancy test. At least the box for
one.”

“Meerkat was pregnant?” Rachael's eyes
widened.

Maggie shrugged. “It's a potential motive for
murder.” Maggie gently returned the box to the shelf above the
toilet, closing the folding door carefully. “Do you have any
contacts at the coroner's office? Do you know when Meerkat's
autopsy is scheduled?”

“I can make some calls.” Rachael pulled her
phone from her pocket. “Horus would kill Meerkat 'cause she was
having a baby?”

“He might,” Maggie mused, “if it wasn't
his.”

Chapter 5

Maggie was lost in thought, standing in a
light drizzle on the deck of the
Straight Dope.
Rachael was
making her calls. Maggie was so consumed in her musings that she
failed to notice a long, thin, top-heavy boat emerge from the rainy
haze of the cold morning and cut a course through the chop towards
her.

It only caught her attention when the narrow
vessel began to come about. Its pilot had obviously caught sight of
who and what the
Straight Dope
was rafted up to. It nose
turned and its engine revved, filling the air with the pained whine
of a struggling two-stroke.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Maggie hollered. She leapt
from the deck of the
Straight Dope
and back aboard the
Soft Cell
. She was quickly disentangling the two vessels as
Rachael hung up her call.

“What's going on?”

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Maggie repeated, thrusting
a finger after the fleeing vessel.

“What's that?” Rachael strained to make out
the aft of the receding ship.

“Chemical,” Maggie replied. The mooring lines
of the
Soft Cell
were free. The ship was drifting away from
Rachael and the
Straight Dope
.

“Chemical what?” Rachael asked, then realized
she was being left behind. “Hey, wait!”

“Jump,” Maggie ordered.

“What?”

“Come on, he's getting away!”

Rachael jumped. Her bare feet caught the deck
of the
Soft Cell
. Maggie caught her and pulled her
aboard.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” Maggie said a third time,
rushing to get to the helm of her vessel. As soon as she was behind
the wheel she gunned the throttle. The
Soft Cell
jolted
forward, kicking up a wake behind its small propeller. Quickly, it
reached its top speed, perhaps no more than eight miles and
hour.

Luckily, the top-heavy vessel's top speed was
no greater. Slowly, ponderously, Maggie was closing on the
lumbering vessel, while the whine of its two-stroke pieced the air.
It was, perhaps, the slowest, weirdest chase Rachael could imagine.
She could have jumped out and swam faster than both vessels. But
Maggie was gritting her teeth with anger and struggling against the
currents to keep her vessel on course. She was closing, she almost
had her prey. Determination radiated from her.

“Who is that?” Rachael asked again. Despite
the languid pace of the pursuit, Rachael's excitement was building.
She held the grab rail before her with white knuckles.

“Chemical Ali,” Maggie said, not taking her
eyes away from the chase.

“Who?”

“Chemical Ali G,” Maggie added. It made no
sense the more she elaborated. “Horus's piece-of-shit homey. If
anyone knows where Horus is... take the wheel,” Maggie
commanded.