Seawitch by Kat Richardson Read Free Book Online Page A

I—let me think. Who went with Cas . . . ?” She closed her eyes. “There were five all together. Cas, Les, some bimbo friend of Les’s . . . Ruth . . . Ireland, I think. One more woman—I remember it added up to two couples and the captain, but not Reeve that time. . . .”
    “The captain?” I asked.
    Linda opened her eyes and blinked at me, not sniffling in spite of her reddened nose and eyes. “Yes. Cas hired a professional captain—John Reeve—to manage the boat most of the time. Cas wasn’t really very good at handling her and he was too lazy to sit behind the wheel when he could be on deck, getting a tan or fishing or just drooling on his female guests. This was kind of a rushed trip, so the group was smaller than usual and Reeve didn’t go—it was usually seven to ten guests, plus Cas, Captain Reeve, and another hand or a cook.” She paused to dab at her eyes. “But not this time, which I suppose is why I . . . thought it was something it wasn’t.”
    I looked at her expectantly.
    She shook her head. “No cook or extra hand this time. The boat had been modernized and didn’t need as many crew as it did originally, so it could go out with just two as long as the passengers weren’t picky. The usual hand was booked, so Cas was doubling for the crew. Reeve wasn’t available, either, so they took his assistant, a guy named . . . Gary Fielding. Really young. I wasn’t sure he was competent, but I didn’t really care until the boat didn’t come back and then everyone was asking me about the crew. I didn’t know anything. I thought it was John Reeve who’d been with them until he turned up talking to the press. Reeve said this Gary kid had his license and had crossed the bar a dozen times as a pilot—whatever that means. It seemed to make a lot of people shut up, so I suppose it’s important, but I don’t know.”
    She stopped, an odd look on her face. Then she said, “Janice. Janice Prince. That was the other woman they took. She was a boater. One of those floating trash that tramp from marina to marina, looking for a trip anywhere in exchange for crew work.” “And other things,” she implied with a lifted eyebrow and a cynical quirk to her mouth.
    Starrett, Carson, Fielding, Ireland, and Prince . . . that matched the list the insurance company had given me. The messes in the cabins had left me with the impression of more, but maybe it was just the remains of whoever—or whatever—had invaded the boat and taken or driven the passengers and crew away. . . .

FOUR
    T here wasn’t a lot more we could get out of Linda Starrett. In spite of her own protests about its implausibility, she seemed to cling to the idea that the death of her friend was connected to
Seawitch.
Even a crazy idea can be comforting when you’re confused and upset, which she clearly was. She didn’t hold up much longer and soon asked us, her voice shaking, to go. Solis and I walked down the curving brick drive to the sound of her heavy wooden door thumping closed behind us like the seal of doom.
    At least the fog had begun to thin a bit and returning to our cars was less of a passage through mystery than arriving had been.
    “What do you make of it?” Solis asked as we neared the cars.
    I shook my head. “The whole curse thing is ridiculous. I’ve got the paperwork and there’s nothing about questionable parts from another boat being used on
Seawitch
. Part of the boat’s value was that it was all vintage and intact—a lot of wooden boats that age aren’t. And Mrs. Starrett’s idea that her friend’s death was somehow connected to the boat seems more like the sort of hysterical fancy some people glom onto when they’re upset and can’t ever shed. I suppose we could ask for Odile Carson’s autopsy report, just to be sure. . . .”
    “I also think it’s unlikely to be a homicide, but I’ll make the request. What of the rest?”
    “I think we need to get that log book dried out