29
Shortly before sunrise, the Coast Guard had towed Psyche to New London, where Tom’s investigative unit was stationed.
Tom and Conor were waiting at the dock. Last night’s moon was setting in the west, and Tom watched the sloop glide through the dawn mist. She looked ethereal, a moonlit ghost. Many times, Tom had investigated boating incidents where fatalities had occurred.
It could be anything from someone slipping on a wet deck and going overboard to an accidental crack on the head from a wildly swinging boom.
Whenever he encountered a vessel where death had occurred, he saw it differently.
It was as if not only the human aboard had died—he felt as if life had gone out of the vessel as well.
The Reid brothers boarded Psyche. She had initially been processed at her berth on the island—finger and palm prints lifted, blood samples from the handcuffs and the bulkheads swabbed.
Tom knew that the Hinckley Pilot’s length was thirty-five feet overall, but that was on deck—bow to stern.
At the waterline, the sailboat’s length was twenty-five feet, with plenty of overhang fore and aft, making Psyche a sleek-looking beauty.
Tom and Conor climbed down the companion ladder into the cabin.
The beam—the width of the boat—was nine feet, making the salon quite narrow.
The sloop had once been elegant, outfitted for style and comfort.
But the bulkheads and the door to the forward cabin had been soundproofed with layers of foam, and chains had been bolted into the sole—the floor of the boat.
There were bookcases and storage lockers behind the insulation.
The team had pulled down sections of foam in order to look inside the lockers, and lumps of it were scattered around.
“Do you really think Suzanne lived aboard?” Conor asked.
“She had the dockage receipt.”
“But living in a torture chamber?”
“Let’s figure that out,” Tom said.
“Do you think she—or anyone—really used that?” Conor asked, pointing toward the small mosaic-tile fireplace—more like a woodstove—tucked into the corner. “Or is it just for show?”
“People do use them,” Tom said.
“The Coast Guard must love that,” Conor said. “An open flame on a sailboat out at sea.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “One of our favorite calls—a drunk captain who forgot to close the stove door before turning in, a spark lighting the boat on fire.”
“Must be hard for you to get fireboats to the scene out at sea in time,” Conor said.
“Yep,” Tom said, glancing at his brother. “Making small talk? You must be nervous.”
“Why would I be nervous?”
“I can think of a few reasons.”
“Look,” Conor said. “The way I see it is that Joe Harrigan is in charge. Officially I have no say. But you’re a Fed, and you’ve got jurisdiction on this boat and any other boat, and I’m helping you. Right?”
“You’re a shadow investigator,” Tom said.
“Whatever you want to call me,” Conor said. “Can we get going here?”
“Sure,” Tom said. He noticed that Conor’s frown had deepened. He knew his brother better than anyone. And he knew that to Conor, solving the case would get him back on track to the altar. The devastation of the last few days had made their wedding seem cursed. Conor and Kate needed each other.
The two brothers split up in the small space.
Tom watched Conor head into the forward cabin.
Tom stayed in the main salon. He looked in all the open lockers.
They were empty, and he was sure that the police had collected their contents for evidence.
Law enforcement agencies didn’t always work well together, but Tom had a good relationship with Joe, and he was confident they would share information.
He had to peel back insulation that was covering the bookcases, and he found an interesting array of volumes.
There were folders of nautical charts, books about marine science, field guides to birds and marine mammals, books about stars and the night sky, books of poems, a few thrillers and romance novels, Moby-Dick, The Perfect Storm, and some blank journals.
He half expected to find at least one edition of Beauty and the Beast, but there were none.
“Hey!” Conor called from the forward cabin. “They missed something.”
Tom went to meet him. The cabin was shaped like a triangle, the apex being the bow of the boat.
There was a V-shaped platform covered with cushions cut to measure.
It formed a double bed. Conor had pulled the cushions off.
At first, the platform beneath them appeared to be solid.
But Conor used a pocketknife to pry up the center section, revealing a shallow compartment containing a stash of photographs.
Each six-by-four photo showed a young woman wearing an old-fashioned white gown.
Each woman’s face was hidden by a black mask.
They wore jewelry—earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings.
Two of the photos had been taken right here, with the subject lying on the V-berth.
No restraints or wounds were visible. Three shots were unmistakably of the bedroom in the stone mansion on Bellevigne Island.
The rest of the photos appeared to have been taken elsewhere—a location Tom had not seen before.
“I can’t tell,” Conor said, leafing through the photos, “if they are alive or dead.”
“I was thinking that too,” Tom said. “We can’t see their eyes behind the masks. Is it the same mask, by the way? And are these different women, or are there multiple photos of the same one?”
“Judging by hair color, some are different,” Conor said. “Unless he made them wear wigs.”
“Wigs?” Tom asked.
“He dresses them up,” Conor said. “The gowns look Victorian—as if they belong in a museum. And he wants them to look like princesses. Ruffles and lace, prim and proper. Even the jewelry.” He pointed at one photo.
“Three strands of pearls here . . .” He flipped to another shot, another girl. “And here.”
“What’s that?” Tom asked, pointing at a shiny object on a bureau in the background. “Is that a crown?”
“Looks like a tiara,” Conor said.
“Same thing,” Tom said.
“He likes shiny things,” Conor said. “Look at the hands. Each woman is wearing a diamond ring.”
“As if they’re engaged. Does he kidnap women who are about to be married?”
“I think he fantasizes that the women belong to him—possession, a promise to love him,” Conor said. “Each one is engaged to him, and no one else can have her. But maybe you’re right. Maybe destroying other people’s love is what he wants.”
Tom figured that was projection. He stared at his brother, knowing that he had just experienced someone trying to destroy the love between him and Kate: Belinda.
Conor continued searching the cabin. Tom left him there and went out into the galley to seal the photos in an evidence bag.
Once that was done, he began searching through cupboards, the ice chest, and the oven.
Nothing stood out. The sun had risen over the dockside buildings, throwing shards of light onto the harbor.
He glanced out a porthole on the starboard side, but his attention was drawn to the glass itself.
It sparkled, and there appeared to be a flaw.
He put his face very near the surface to examine it.
Marine glass was thicker than regular window glass, tempered to withstand the impact of rough weather and collision as well as extreme temperature variations.
These side ports were fixed and did not open.
When he looked at the porthole straight on, he saw nothing but a view of the harbor.
But when he tilted his head and looked at it askance, he saw tracing—lines as fine as spiderwebs.
“Hey, Conor,” he called.
“What?” Conor asked, coming out of the forward cabin.
“See this?” Tom asked.
Conor leaned close to look. “It’s there, and then it’s not,” he said.
“Right,” Tom said. “It’s very faint. Focusing depends on how the light hits it. But what does it look like to you?”
“Not sure,” Conor said. “Someone drew on the glass?”
“Or wrote on it. Are those words?” Tom asked. “Or numbers?”
The brothers stared at the shimmering, disappearing traces. Tom snapped a photo with his iPhone. Conor moved along the bulkhead to look at the other portholes—two on each side.
“There’s some here too,” Conor said, pointing at one on the port side.
Tom examined the faint tracing. He moved his head close to the glass and, without touching the surface, tried to look at the marks sideways, to see if there was any sign that they had been drawn or scratched on the inside of the glass.
He went up on deck, walking from one side of the cabin to the other, and looked at the portholes from those perspectives.
Nothing was visible, but he took more photos and returned to the cabin.
“Who drew these things?” Tom asked. “And with what?”
“I don’t think they’re drawn,” Conor said. “Those marks are etched right into the glass itself.”
“You can’t scratch this stuff,” Tom said. “It’s hard as a rock. Marine glass is sand-casted—heated and cooled and reheated. Tempered glass.”
“I’ve seen marks like this before,” Conor said. “I was working a murder at a girl’s boarding school—an old-money place, one of the First Ladies went there—and some of the windows had initials and dates scratched in.”
“With what, glass cutters?” Tom asked.
“Diamond rings,” Conor said.
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” Conor said. “The girls used diamond rings to leave their marks—so they would be remembered. It was the kind of school where generations from the same family attended, and daughters would find their mothers’ or grandmothers’ old rooms by looking for their names in the windowpanes.”
“That’s another world,” Tom said.
“Diamonds are harder than tempered glass,” Conor said.
“Apparently,” Tom said.
Tom and Conor stared at the delicate, glittering lines in the glass, and they knew that someone had wanted to be remembered.
Or to be found.