The vessel approached at a high rate of speed, the roar of its engine the most beautiful sound I have ever heard. And to think I’d so recently consigned all motor-powered boats to low places in hell. The engine throttled down, and the boat slowed, circling, but the searchlight never left our bodies. As it drew within fifteen feet of where we clung to Sea Song’s mast, I could see that it was an inflatable inner tube-like boat about twenty feet long. The dark outlines of several crewmen moved about on board.
“Ahoy!” one of the crewmen called, and I thought what a quaint, old-fashioned thing to say, but every bit as effective, I supposed, as “Hey there!” “Sit tight. We’ll get a line to you in a minute.”
The boat crept fractionally closer, then stopped, its engine idling. “We can’t get too close to your boat, ma’am. If we get tangled up in it, we might all be in trouble.” Now I could see that the men wore uniforms and life jackets. One of them began to wind up like a softball player delivering a slow pitch. A line uncoiled from his hand, whooshing to our left. I heard a gentle plop as an orange, softball-size float landed not five feet from my head.
“You first, Hannah. Swim to it.”
“How about you?”
“They’ll throw one for me in a minute.”
I dog-paddled to the orange ball and grabbed it with one hand, then wrapped the fingers of both hands gratefully around the plastic rope. Almost immediately a crewman began to pull me through the water, but I was in such a hurry to get aboard that although it hurt my chest like crazy, I hauled myself, hand over hand, along the rope until I reached safety. Panting and almost insane with relief, I grabbed one of a dozen or so white lines looped along the side of the rescue craft. My arms and legs trembled with exhaustion, and it was all I could do to hold on until someone’s strong arms reached over and gently pulled me aboard. I flopped in the bottom of the boat like a stranded dolphin and tried to catch my breath.
“Thank goodness we found you!” said a familiar voice.
“Dennis! How’d you-”
“I’ll explain in a minute.” A towel appeared from somewhere; then I was wrapped in a blanket and hustled out of the wind. In less time than it took for me to sit down, Connie’s white-clad legs appeared on deck. Dennis himself had pulled her aboard. Almost before her feet hit the deck, he had gathered her up in a fierce embrace.
“Oh, Connie, Connie! Thank God. Let me take a look at you.” He held her at arm’s length as if checking to see if anything was missing or broken, then cradled her face in both his hands and stared into it for a long minute. “I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost you.” I saw Connie’s arms lift from where they hung, dripping, at her sides, and wrap themselves around his neck. She kissed him then, long and hard, his arms snaked around her waist, and he lifted her feet nearly off the deck. Everyone but me was busily looking elsewhere.
“Where are the others?” a female crewman asked. I could see the beam of the searchlight she held sweeping the water around the mast in ever-broadening circles.
“He was on the boat,” I cried. “We threw him a life jacket. But I didn’t see him come up after the boat went down.”
“You radioed a man overboard.”
“That was Liz Dunbar,” Connie said matter-of-factly, as she, too, was cocooned in a blanket. “She got clobbered by the boom and went over about two miles from here.”
Dennis settled Connie next to me, then turned to consult one of the crew. I snuggled deeper into my blanket, figuring we’d be stuck out there for hours while the coast guard searched the bay for Liz and Hal. I found myself nodding, unable to keep my eyes open. Might even have dozed off for a bit.
Suddenly I was aroused by a flurry of activity-motors, flashing lights, crew shouting back and forth-as another boat, this one from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, pulled up alongside.
Once again Dennis seemed to take charge. “Call SMC,” he told the crewman at the wheel. “Make sure they’ve got some divers on the way. Then let’s get these women ashore.”
This time when Dennis said we’d go to the hospital, I didn’t argue. As we waited in separate cubicles under the bright lights of the emergency room with only a thin curtain between us, Connie and I learned that Frank Chase had been found and airlifted to University Shock-Trauma in Baltimore. No one could tell us how he was doing. Eventually we were examined, our temperatures taken, and an earnest young doctor from Poland, whose nametag had no vowels in it, pronounced we were suffering from mild hypothermia. Several hundred dollars later he sent us home with instructions to keep warm and drink plenty of hot liquids. Some thoughtful person even produced hospital scrubs for us to wear and returned our wet clothes, neatly folded, in a plastic garbage bag.
An hour later, at home, dressed like Christmas morning in flannel pajamas, Connie’s terry-cloth robe, and a pair of fleece-lined slippers from L. L. Bean, I cornered Dennis in the living room.
“How did you know where we were, Dennis?”
“It’s a long story.”
I glanced at Connie, sitting next to him on the sofa. “I think we have time to hear it,” she said.
Dennis rested his coffee cup on the arm of the sofa and balanced it there with two fingers. “I was at the nursing home, talking with my informant…”
“Your informant works at the nursing home?”
“Not exactly. He lives there.”
“Lives there?”
“You bet! He’s too frail to take care of himself, but there’s nothing much wrong with his mind.”
“Your father-in-law? I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, he’s a clever old chap. Last October he overheard one of the orderlies discussing a drug deal, and naturally he told me. I’d been aware of Hal’s involvement with drugs for almost a year, but the rascal’s been careful. Supercareful. According to their records, the coast guard boarded Pegasus down in Florida last year, ostensibly for a routine inspection, but they couldn’t find a thing. I’ve been keeping my eye on him ever since.”
Connie plucked at Dennis’s sleeve. “How much is it worth to you to break this case wide open?” She told Dennis about the hidden compartment on Pegasus, giving appropriate credit to me, I’m pleased to say, and I watched as his eyes widened in amazement.
“When we discovered the doctored keel, we called you at home, but Maggie told us you were at the nursing home. We were on our way there when-well, when we got diverted.” She curled up on the sofa and rested her head in Dennis’s lap, all pretense aside.
Dennis laid a gentle hand on her back. “I didn’t know a thing about that. When Dad gave me the tip that a shipment was going out tonight, I rushed straight down to the marina to see what was what. When I saw your car in the parking lot”-he stroked the hair back over Connie’s temple and smoothed it behind her ear-“I was surprised. Then I checked the office and found Frank Chase, lying in a pool of blood. He was alive, but barely. I called an ambulance, then went looking for you, fearing the worst. When I discovered Sea Song’s slip was empty…” He paused to clear his throat. “Well, I hot-footed it back to the office to call the coast guard. They had just received your May Day, so I asked them to swing by the marina and pick me up. The rest you know.”
“Liz tried to kill us,” I said.
“Because you found out about her involvement with the drug ring?” His fingers made little circles on Connie’s back, moving up and down the bumps along her spine. “I have to confess that I never suspected Liz of being involved with drugs. And certainly not Frank.”
“I don’t think Dr. Chase was. He was only involved with Liz and Hal in the cover-up of Katie’s murder.”