Read Online Surface Tension by Christine Kling - Free Book Online Page B

guys for help, you come in here accusing me?”
    “There is no sign of any forced entry.”
    “Well, Neal had a key to this place at one time. Maybe he made a copy. Or hid one out in the yard somewhere.” My voice was getting higher and more strained. I sounded guilty to myself. But it was Neal, dammit, I knew it. I had to make him understand, but I
    wasn’t willing just yet to tell him about the rage I had seen in Neal that one time. “Detective, I don’t care what you think about all this,” I told him, waving my arm at the mess in the room, “but the truth is I did not kill that girl or Neal. She was dead when I got aboard the Top Ten , and somehow, Neal got off alive. He was here tonight in my cottage. You’ve got to believe that.”
    “No, Miss Sullivan, you’ve got to think about the kind of trouble you’re in. If you don’t have an attorney, I suggest you get one, and I expect to see you at the station tomorrow morning, first thing.”
    After they’d left, I sat on the stool top I had replaced and finished my now warm beer, staring across the room, seeing nothing.
    How had this happened? How, in the course of one day, had I become a suspect, apparently the only suspect, in a murder case? This didn’t happen to people like me. Innocent people didn’t go to prison for crimes they didn’t commit, did they? I was not that naive. Of course they did; innocent people had been found to have spent years in prison, in solitary confinement, even on death row. The thought of prison terrified me. I had to come up with a plan, because if the police weren’t looking for other suspects, someone had better start.
    But just then, I wanted to sleep, and I knew I couldn’t do it in the cottage. I turned off the light, left the porch light on, and locked up. Collazo was right about one thing: I couldn’t see any sign of the lock having been jimmied. I figured there was one place I could sleep safely without having to worry about whether or not anybody was coming back.
    Abaco rubbed up against my thighs.
    “Some watchdog you are.” I rubbed her ears. She seemed very pleased with herself.
    I looked around the beautifully manicured yard with its large live oak tree blocking the view of the stars. It was dark in among the hedges and shrubs, the butterfly garden, and the shed on the far side of the house where the Larsens stored their recreational toys. The night sounds of crickets and the brush rustlings of the creatures who survived in suburbia sounded natural and soothing. Nothing out of the ordinary. Had he really been here? If so, how did he get from the Top Ten offshore to here in the past fifteen hours? Or did I just want so much for him to be alive that I was stretching the evidence to make myself believe it? Maybe it was just a thief, and something—Abaco or a boat or even my returning—scared him off before he could take all the goods. I put my hands under Abaco’s chin and lifted her face. “God, I wish you could talk. It was him, wasn’t it? You’d have torn up anybody else. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Angry as I was about my trashed house, I was more relieved by the evidence that the son of a bitch was still around. Wrapping my arms around the dog’s neck, I whispered, “He’s alive, isn’t he, girl?”
    I walked down the dock and climbed aboard Gorda . Abaco looked at me as though asking permission to come aboard. “All right, you useless dog.” I would feel better with company.
    When Red built Gorda , he knew there would be times he would have to take her down to Miami or up to Palm Beach, and he wanted to be able to sleep aboard. The main wheelhouse had three windows across the front, with the wheel and all the engine instruments on the console below. To starboard, aft of the wheelhouse door, was a chart table with a swing-out stool, and aft of that was a narrow bunk stretched across the bulkhead. To port, through the bulkhead aft, steps led down to the engine room with the tiny