The Scorched Photograph And The Serpent Cufflink On The Yacht

CHAPTER 5: THE EMPTY CHAIR ON THE TEAK DECK

The roar of the escaping tender’s twin three-hundred-horsepower outboard engines tore through the quiet night like a buzzsaw, echoing off the granite bluffs of Brenton Point. Out on the black water, the low-profile black vessel sliced through the four-foot ocean swells at forty-five knots, its running lights extinguished, vanishing into the heavy maritime fog that was rolling in from the open Atlantic.

On the aft deck of the Marchetti Sovereign, the scene was one of instant, electrifying commotion. Guests were shouting in confusion, while Lieutenant Vance barked emergency tactical commands into his shoulder radio:

“All units, all units! This is Marine One! We have an active fleeing felony homicide suspect on the water! Vessel is a thirty-foot black Midnight Express center-console, heading northwest toward the East Passage of Narragansett Bay! Vector all available interceptors to the Newport Bridge choke point!”

Alistair Finch gripped the teak railing, his knuckles whitening as he watched the white roostertail of foam disappear into the mist. “Mateo, what do you know about Marco’s involvement?”

Mateo stepped to the rail beside the inspector, his weathered jaw set like an iron vice. “Three days before the fire, Inspector, I was working in the wine cellar beneath the library. Marco came down to the cellar looking for a bottle of vintage cognac. He was talking on his encrypted satellite phone to a bookmaker from the Patriarca syndicate in Boston. Marco had lost forty-five million dollars on illegal sports betting and offshore currency derivatives. The syndicate gave him an ultimatum: pay the debt by the end of the week, or his body would be dumped in Boston Harbor.”

Mateo leaned closer, his voice urgent and sharp. “Marco discovered that Vincent’s will left a twenty-million-dollar liquid contingency bond to the estate executor upon Vincent’s death. But if the estate burned, the commercial fire policy had an emergency immediate-liquidation rider that paid out within forty-eight hours without probate review! Marco approached Helena and Wren, proposing the plan. Helena and Wren staged the alibi photo, but Marco personally met a dockside arsonist named Jimmy ‘The Torch’ Varga behind the Newport Lobster Pier at ten o’clock that night! Marco gave Varga thirty thousand dollars in banded cash and the maintenance key to the basement furnace!”

Lieutenant Vance ran toward the starboard boarding ladder. “Inspector! Our 38-foot tactical patrol cutter is idling at the gangway! She’s equipped with twin supercharged diesels and forward-looking infrared thermal radar! We can catch him before he crosses the shoals of Prudence Island!”

Alistair didn’t hesitate. Despite his sixty-nine years, he bounded down the teak companionway stairs with athletic agility, his walking cane tucked under his arm, followed closely by Mateo Cruz.

They vaulted onto the deck of the high-speed police cutter Guardian.

The twin twelve-hundred-horsepower Caterpillar marine diesels roared to life with a deep, chest-thumping vibration that sent tremors through the aluminum hull. The helmsman slammed the electronic throttles forward.

The Guardian leaped onto plane within four seconds, its deep-V hull slicing through the freezing black chop at fifty knots, throwing towering curtains of salt spray sixty feet into the air.

Inside the enclosed wheelhouse, illuminated only by the red and green glow of tactical navigation screens, Lieutenant Vance leaned over the Raymarine radar monitor.

A sharp, glowing red target was pulsing on the digital screen, four miles ahead, rocketing northwest at forty-eight knots through the narrow shipping channel between Conanicut Island and Prudence Island.

“He’s running for the shallow channels inside the bay,” Lieutenant Vance said, his eyes scanning the radar sweep. “The tide is at dead low water. The underwater shoals off the southern tip of Prudence Island are barely three feet deep over jagged granite reefs. If he tries to navigate that channel in this fog without running lights, he will tear the bottom out of his hull.”

Alistair stood beside the radar display, his sharp blue eyes fixed on the black curtain of fog outside the armored windshield. “Marco isn’t trying to navigate the channel, Lieutenant. He knows this bay. His family has kept a private boat slip at the abandoned naval torpedo testing station on the east shore of Prudence Island for thirty years. He has a second vehicle stashed on that island.”

“And if he reaches the mainland by car, he disappears into the interstate network before dawn,” Mateo added, his hands braced against the navigation console.

Lieutenant Vance keyed the tactical radio, his voice hard as iron. “Helmsman, bring the engines to maximum emergency military power. Arm the bow-mounted remote halogen searchlights. We take him on the reef.”

The black water of Narragansett Bay churned beneath the stern of the police cutter as the twin diesels reached their operating temperature. For Alistair Finch, this chase was not merely a pursuit of a fleeing felon; it was the settling of a long moral debt. When Mateo Cruz was sentenced five years ago, Alistair had retired from active service with a hollow, persistent ache in his conscience. He had known that something was amiss in the speed with which the trial had concluded. In his long career, whenever an arson case resolved too neatly, with a servant conveniently taking the full blame while heirs collected eight-figure payouts, the true fire had always been ignited in a private boardroom.