Lifeguard - James Patterson [56]
Stratton and his cronies were still winding around the dock. They walked to the next-to-last berth and climbed aboard this enormous white yacht, Mirabel, the kind of gleaming white beauty you couldn’t take your eyes off. Stratton acted as if he owned it, greeting the crew, taking the others around. Trays came out—food, drinks. The Tres Assholes had the party thing going: booze, cigars, sitting around on Stratton’s yacht as though they owned the world.
“Oooh-wee,” the black fisherman up the way whistled.
Three long-legged model types were making their way in high heels along the dock. They climbed aboard the Mirabel. For all I knew, they might’ve been the same girls who were performing at Rachel’s that night.
Stratton seemed pretty familiar with one of them, a blonde in a short red dress. He had his arm around her, introducing the others to his friends. They started passing around drinks and pairing off. The fat one started dancing with a thin redhead in a waist-baring T-shirt and denim skirt.
Stratton dragged Red Dress onto a bench seat. He started kissing and feeling her up. She wrapped a long leg around him. Then he got up and took her by the arm, a bottle of champagne in the other, and with a joke to his buddies disappeared below.
“Some show,” I said to the fisherman.
“Many the night,” he said. “Sure beats the red tail this time of year.”
Chapter 66
“WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?” Ellie rose from her kitchen table, staring at Tess’s rap sheet.
“I can’t tell you that, Ellie.” I knew how pathetic that sounded. “But it’s from someone with clout.”
“Clout?” She shook her head. “This isn’t clout, Ned. The police don’t even have this information. I’m risking everything by getting involved, and you can’t tell me who else you’re talking to?”
“If it makes you feel any better,” I said sheepishly, “I didn’t tell him about you, either.”
“Oh, great, Ned,” Ellie chortled, nodding, “that just makes everything swell. I always knew this was an inside job. Now I have no goddamn idea whose.” I saw her thinking. “If Liz set up her husband on this affair . . .”
“I know,” I said, finishing the thought for her, “she could’ve set him up on the art, too.”
Ellie sat back down, an expression that was part realization, part puzzlement. “Could we be all wrong about Stratton?”
“Let’s say she did set up her husband on this.” I sat down next to her. “Why go after my buddies? And why did they have to kill Dave?”
“No,” Ellie said, shaking her head, “that was Stratton. I’m sure of it. He was double-crossed. He thought it must’ve been you.”
“So who the hell is Gachet, Ellie? Liz?”
“I don’t know. . . . ” She took out a pad of paper and scribbled some notes at the counter. “Let’s just stick with what we have. We’re pretty certain Stratton had a hand in killing Tess. Clearly, he found out about the scam. And if he did, chances are good he knows his wife was behind it, too.”
“Now we know what all the bodyguards are about,” I snorted. “They’re not so much to protect her. They’re there to make sure she doesn’t run.”
Ellie curled one leg under the other, yoga-style. She picked up the rap sheet. “I figure we can either take this and hand it over to the PBPD. Who knows what they’ll do with it. . . .”
“The person who gave it to me didn’t want me to do that, Ellie.”
“Okay, Ned.” Ellie looked at me a little crossly. “I’m game. What did he want you to do?”
“Clear myself, Ellie.”
“Clear yourself, huh? Meaning what, you and me?”
“This woman’s in a shitload of danger, Ellie. If we could get to her . . . If she could help us prove a connection between Stratton and Tess, maybe even the art, that would be enough, right?”
“What do you want to do, kidnap her? I told you, I already tried —”
“You tried your way, Ellie. Look —” I spun around and faced her—“don