Cast in Stone by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online

don't mind me saying," he said.
    "So
I understand," I said.
    Predictably,
Richmond had a story.
    "I
remember one year, it was just after the war, late forties, early
fifties, some time in there, he led the Candidate's Parade down
Fourth Avenue dressed up like Mahatma Gandhi." He slapped his
knee. "He was leading this mangy old goat on a leash. Everybody
loved it. It was swell. I'll never forget it."
    Neither
would anyone else. Seattle was like a reformed drunk, pious and
sober, but secretly nostalgic for its wild youth. I'd heard all the
stories so many times that the line between how I remembered him and
the stories I'd been told was forever muddled, leaving me with a
blurred image of the old man that was, I suspected, more apocryphal
than real. I changed the subject.
    "Nice
name-—Chipper."
    "Yeah,
if you're a beaver," he said, studying the water. "Nasty
little fellow."
    He
shrugged. "He's my Helen's third attempt at connubial bliss. If
I don't keep him working, they'll move back in with us."
    "I
wouldn't really have hurt him," I confessed.
    "Too
bad."
    We
sat in silence gazing out at Elliot Bay, still and
    unbroken
in that brief lull between morning and evening breezes. I watched a
bufflehead. The small diving duck flicked beneath the surface, stayed
an eternity, and then popped back to the surface twenty yards from
where it went under.
    "I'm
sure you understand why we can't talk to anybody about the accident,"
he said finally.
    "How's
about off the record?"
    He
looked at me like I'd just hawked a lunger onto his shirt front.
    "What's
your interest in this, anyway, Waterman?"
    I
fished in my pocket and produced a business card.
    "Working
for?" He pocketed the card.
    "The
Sundstroms."
    "Then
how in hell can it be off the record?" He spat disgustedly,
beginning to rise.
    I
laid it out for him. The missing money. Heck's suspicions, the whole
unlikely tale as told to me, culminating with the truck hitting Heck.
He settled back, resting his arms along the top of the bench, rocking
slightly.
    "You're
being straight with me?" he said.
    "I've
told you the story just like it was told to me."
    "So
your interest in this has nothing to do with litigation?"
    "I
don't do insurance work. I can't guarantee anything about what
the Sundstroms might do later, but right now this is about peace of
mind."
    "And
the Sundstroms don't think it was an accident?"
    "They
don't know what to think." "That makes three of us."
"How so?"
    "I've
got half a million invested in that vessel. Just had it completely
refurbished. Brand new twin Cummings three-seventies. New water,
propane, satellite dish. The whole works, inside and out. I checked
that boat out myself. You know, if you want something
    done
right . . . Five of us took it up through the San Juans to Vancouver.
Some of the best men I've got, been with me for years, went over
every inch of it. I've been in this business for thirty years.
Believe me, Risky Business was leaking nothing."
    "Sometimes,
with boats—"
    "And
she wouldn't take on any crew, not even a pilot."
    "You
offered?"
    "Hell,
I insisted, but she didn't want to hear about it."
    "Why'd
you back off?"
    "Don't
think I haven't asked myself that one." "And?"
    "First
of all, that particular boat was damn near foolproof. We try to set
them up that way. If you're going to lease boats to the public,
they'd better not be rocket science. Everything electric. Directions
for everything. Hell, you've got about fifty thousand pounds of boat,
with less than four-foot draft. It's not easy to fuck up in a
fifty-two-footer. Motor during the day; put up at night; don't hit
anything too hard. Not much to it. It had every kind of safety gear
in the world. VHF, radar GPS, depth sounder, autocom-pass,
autopilot—the thing was loaded. Hell, it had a Whaler with a
fifty-horse. Like I said, pretty much idiot-proof. Even Clarence
could have gotten the thing down to Baja without a problem."
    "Clarence?"
    He
jerked a thumb back to the rental office. "Chipper."