Vandermein

XVII

Did he wait for a witness other than my wife to confess in front of? The woman was already in the pool swimming laps, totally unaware of the earth-shattering confession just above the water.

"Why?" I whispered, as if I were afraid louder words would make it more true.

"I didn't mean for it to happen," he was quick to clarify. "I was tracking a vessel, something I suspected was used for smuggling. It was registered under your name, though you didn't make it very easy to figure out. I planted a tracker on the ship in the cover of night. I wanted to see where it was going, what it was doing." He cleared his throat and scratched the side of his head, staving off the tears that were welling up. "It was all off the books, of course. I had no warrant, and it was far outside my jurisdiction."

"Wait," I held up a finger. "Was the tracker explosive?"

He continued as if I didn't ask. "The tracker was an audio/video transceiver and GPS device. I should have hidden it better, but I was in a rush, and I'm not used to working in the shadows like you." He took the vodka bottle out and took another pull. "Anyway, the crew found it, some woman without a face by the looks of it. She stomped it to pieces, and within the next 15 minutes, the ship was in flames."

I took that in for a moment. "So...you didn't sink the ship?"

"My actions directly contributed to the ship sinking. I should have been more careful, should have gone through the appropriate channels."

"You should have come to me!" Now I was the one shouting.

He shot me an incredulous look. "And you would have helped me?"

"I would have helped me. A ship under my name, sailing away, filled with kids? I would have had a personal interest in it."

"I didn't know about the kids. How could I?"

"How couldn't you? You were tracking the ship, right? What did you think it was shipping?"

"I don't know, Frank. Princesses? Stolen gold? Priceless art? I never know with you."

He had a point. The detective was always one step behind me, following my trail. He had the opportunity to get ahead of me this once, to beat me to he punch. And look how it turned out. He decided he wanted to be the cat, and for me to be the mouse. That was not how the game worked. That wasn't fun. But as angry as I was at him for betraying our unspoken rules, I couldn't go on letting him believe that any of this was his fault.

If it was, then it was equally mine. I started it, after all. I should have predicted there might be some collateral damage when playing games like these. Though I never could have imagined it would be on such a scale.

"Bill, this was not your fault. It was sloppy police work, but not murder."

He didn't believe me. This man was in the throes of a tumultuous shame spiral. The only person who could pull him out was himself.

"What happens when they pull the ship out of water? What happens when they find the missing police tracker? They'll trace it back to me and I'll become a person of interest." He shook his head at the thought. "And here I am feeling sorry for myself. I should be feeling sorry for all those parents instead."

"So why haven't you turned yourself in, revealed what you know?"

"Why haven't you?"

I scoffed. "I know nothing, detective."

He smiled sardonically. "The way I see it, I'm washed up, finished. I've got one last investigation in me and I'm done. I can't keep chasing you forever. Look at all the good it's done the world."

I was listening to him, but something else caught my attention. Not a noise, but a lack of noise. Something faint, some background ambiance had stopped, and I'd been too focused to pay it any mind.

Where was the splashing?

I turned around to see a swimsuit floating in the pool. The pool with a browner tint than I remember. Wet footsteps tracked outside the pool, right up to Boone's chair.

The invisible woman.

"Bill, behind--"

A kick at my chair tipped me over and I heard the detective choking, thrashing around.