That first day established the pattern of the ones that followed. In the morning Connelly was relatively sober and he talked about what a good guy he was and how badly Elsie had treated him. In the afternoon the two men played gin rummy until Connelly passed out at the table; then Quinn would deposit him on a bunk and go up on deck with a pair of binoculars to see if there was any sign of activity on Aguila’s fishing boat, the Ruthie K. In the evening Connelly started in drinking again and talking about Elsie, what a fine woman she was and how badly he had treated her. Quinn got the impression that there were two Elsies and two Connellys. The evening Elsie who was a fine woman should have married the morning Connelly who was a good guy, and everything would have turned out fine.
On the fourth afternoon Connelly was snoring on his bunk when Quinn went on deck with the binoculars. The Captain, a man named McBride, and two crewmen Quinn hadn’t seen before had come aboard with their gear, and there was a great deal of quiet activity.
“We get under way at midnight tomorrow,” McBride told Quinn. “There’s a 6.1 tide. Where’s Nimitz?”
“Asleep.”
“Good. We can get some work done. You coming with us, Quinn?”
“Where are you going?”
“Nimitz is dodging the enemy,” McBride said briskly. “My orders are top-secret. Also our friend has an engaging little habit of changing his mind in mid-channel.”
“I like to know where I’m going.”
“What does it matter? Come on along for the ride.”
“Why the sudden burst of friendship, Captain?”
“Friendship, hell,” McBride said. “I hate gin rummy. When you play with him, I don’t have to.”
Quinn focused the binoculars on the Ruthie K. He couldn’t see anyone on board but a small skiff was tied up alongside that hadn’t been there on the previous days. After about fifteen minutes a woman in jeans and a T-shirt appeared on the bridge and hung what looked like a blanket over the railing. Then she disappeared again.
Quinn approached Captain McBride. “If Connelly wakes up tell him I had to go ashore on an errand, will you?”
“I just took a look at him. He’d sleep through a typhoon.”
“That’s fine with me.”
He went back to Jurgensen’s office, borrowed a skiff and rowed out to the Ruthie K. The woman was on deck, and the railing by this time was lined with sheets and blankets airing in the sun.
Quinn said, “Mrs. Aguila?”
She stared down at him suspiciously like an ordinary housewife finding a salesman at her front door. Then she pushed back a strand of sun-bleached hair. “Yes. What do you want?”
“I’m Joe Quinn. May I talk to you for a few minutes?”
“What about?”
“Your sister.”
An expression of surprise crossed her face and disappeared. “I think not,” she said quietly. “I don’t discuss my sister with representatives of the press.”
“I’m not a reporter, Mrs. Aguila, or an official. I’m a private citizen interested in your sister’s case. I know her parole hearing is coming up soon and the way things are she’s pretty sure to be turned down.”
“Why? She’s paid her debt, she’s behaved herself. Why shouldn’t they give her another chance? And how did you find me? How did you know who I was?”
“I’ll explain if you’ll let me come aboard.”
“I haven’t much time,” she said brusquely. “There’s work to be done.”
“I’ll try to be brief.”
Mrs. Aguila watched him while he tied the skiff to the buoy and climbed awkwardly up the ladder. The boat was a far cry from the spit and polish of the Briny Belle but Quinn felt more at home on it. It was a working boat, not a plaything, and the deck glistened with fish scales instead of varnish, and Elsie and the Admiral wouldn’t have been caught dead in the cramped little galley.
Quinn said, “Mrs. King, an associate of your brother, told me your married name and where you lived. I was in Chicote the other day talking to her and a few other people like Martha O’Gorman. Do you remember Mrs. O’Gorman?
“I never actually met her.”
“What about her husband?”
“What is this anyway?” Mrs. Aguila said sharply. “I thought you wanted to discuss my sister, Alberta. I’m not interested in the O’Gormans. If there’s a way I can help Alberta I’m willing to do it, naturally, but I don’t see how the O’Gormans come into it. All three of them lived in Chicote, that’s the only connection.”
“Alberta was a bookkeeper. So, in a sense, was O’Gorman.”
“And a few hundred other people.”
“The difference is that nothing spectacular happened to the few hundred other people,” Quinn said. “And within a month both Alberta and O’Gorman met up with quite unusual fates.”
“Within a month?” Mrs. Aguila repeated. “I’m afraid nor, Mr. Quinn. Alberta met up with her fate years and years before that, when she first started tampering with the books. Not to mince words, she was stealing from the bank before Patrick O’Gorman even came to Chicote. God knows what made her do it. She didn’t need anything, she didn’t seem to want anything more than she had except possibly a husband and children, and she never mentioned even that. I often think back to the four of us, Alberta, George and Mother and I, eating our meals together, spending the evenings together, behaving like any ordinary family. And all that time, all those years, Alberta never gave the slightest hint that anything was wrong. When the crash came I was already married to Frank and living here in San Felice. One evening I went out to pick up the newspaper from the driveway and there it was on the front page, Alberta’s picture, the whole story...” She turned her head away as if the memory of that day was too painful to face again.
“Were you close to your sister, Mrs. Aguila?”
“In a way. Some people have described Alberta as cold but she was always affectionate towards George and me in the sense that she liked to buy us things, arrange surprises for us. Oh, I realize now the money she was spending didn’t belong to her and that she was using it to try and purchase what she didn’t have: love. Poor Alberta, she reached out for love with one hand and pushed it away with the other.”
“She had no serious romance?” Quinn said.
“She had dates occasionally but men always seemed puzzled by Alberta. There were few repeats.”
“How did she occupy her spare time?”
“She did volunteer work and went to movies, lectures, concerts.”
“Alone?”
“Usually. She didn’t seem to mind going places alone, although Mother always made a fuss about it. She considered it a reflection on her that Alberta didn’t have lots of friends and a busy social life. The truth is, Alberta didn’t want a social life.”
“Didn’t want one, or despaired of her ability to get one?”
“She showed no signs of despair. In fact, during my last year at home, she seemed quite contented. Not in the happy, fulfilled sense, but as if she’d resigned herself to her life and intended to make the best of it. She settled for spinsterhood is what it amounted to, I suppose.”
“How old was she then?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Isn’t that a little early to settle for spinsterhood?” Quinn said.
“Not to a woman like Alberta. She was always very realistic about herself. She didn’t dream, the way I did, of an ideal lover tooling up to the front door in a red convertible.” She laughed self-consciously and put her hand on the rail of the boat in a gesture that was both proud and protective. “I never thought I’d be happy in an old tub that smells of fish scales and mildew.”
She paused as if she expected Quinn to contradict her, and Quinn obliged by stating that the Ruthie K was not an old tub but a fine seaworthy craft. “But to return to Alberta, Mrs. Aguila. In view of her years of embezzling, I can’t agree with your description of her as ‘realistic.’ She must have known that one day she’d be caught. Why didn’t she stop? Or run away while she had the chance?”