Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [35]
What happened after that was anyone’s guess. Vivian might have gotten hysterical, in which case Williams would’ve had to bring her back on the Jet Ski himself. I could see that happening. Then there was me. It made sense now why they had brought me into it. The Colonel had been telling the truth about that much at least.
With two killings under his belt, Williams couldn’t take the chance of ditching the boat himself, because getting caught would have defeated the purpose of the killings in the first place—getting rid of a blackmailer. Knowing Williams, he would’ve wanted to go; he’d have pleaded his case, but Colonel Patterson would come up with another idea: get Vaughn to do it. Yet there was something wrong with that, too. What if I got caught? It would have all come out anyway. They would not possibly have believed that if I got grabbed ditching the bodies, I would have gone to jail for either Vivian or a hundred thousand dollars. I might be stupid, but they knew I wasn’t that stupid.
The truth was, the Colonel had needed Williams for something else tonight, but whether it was to protect him from Matson’s cronies or for some other purpose I couldn’t yet figure out.
I looked around but didn’t see any bullet casings on the floor, not a single one. Vivian would not have thought to pick them up. I made a mental note to check the upper deck where Matson lay, but I doubted I’d find anything there either. It wouldn’t make much difference, though, not without anything in the engine room to match them against. Still, it would have been nice to know that Matson and his friend had been shot by the same gun. That would have made it Williams for sure: one gun, one killer.
I got my foot under the dead man and turned him over. I bent down and patted his pockets with the hope of finding a wallet. There was none. Since men don’t often go anywhere without at least their driver’s license, someone had obviously lifted it. The killer hadn’t wanted his victim’s identity known. Not that it mattered now. I was going to sink the boat anyway, and the extra dead man made it even more necessary that I do it quickly.
There was nothing else to do but find the sea cogs. It took me less than thirty seconds to locate them and another two minutes to open all the valves. Suddenly there was water rushing in from a dozen spots along the floor. By the time I got to the ladder, the water was already up to my ankles and rising fast. Even so, it would take two or three hours until the boat sank. It would be close, but by daylight The Carrousel would be on its way to the sea floor, and I would be on my way home with a lot of questions and a bad taste in my mouth.
I went back up to the stateroom and walked around with the flashlight, looking for what, I didn’t know, but goaded by the elusive feeling that I had missed something. I played the narrow beam along the bar and behind it. It passed over the television screen and VCR above the bar. Then I stopped and brought the beam back. The light on the VCR was on. I had a strange and not very pleasant feeling.
I walked over and turned on the television and hit the play button on the VCR.
I watched the tape for ten or fifteen seconds just to make sure. That was enough. I had already seen it earlier that day at the Colonel’s house, the house of glass you couldn’t see through. It was Vivian’s tape, all right: Randy Matson’s last production.
I shut off the flashlight and just stood there in the dark for a while, listening to my thoughts. It wasn’t likely that you would kill two men for a racy movie to begin with; it was even less likely that you would leave the tape behind if you had. Vivian might panic and forget, but not Williams, not the man who had once used human ears as cashier’s receipts. So if not for the famous video, then