The Short Forever(20)
“I thought you, Erica, Monica, and I ought to get our stories straight.”
Now Stone was awake. “Straight?”
“We should be in agreement.”
“About what?”
“About what happened.”
“Is there any disagreement about what happened?”
“That depends on how you see it.”
“The yacht gybed, and James went overboard, then I did.”
“The yacht didn’t gybe; Sarah gybed it. She knew what she was doing.”
Stone resisted the thought. “Lance, how much sailing have you done?”
“None, to speak of.”
“Then you don’t really understand what happened. Boats accidentally gybe all the time; people sometimes get hit with the boom. James was unlucky.”
“So that’s the story you’re sticking to?”
“It’s what happened; I was there, too, remember?”
“You weren’t on the yacht after James went overboard.”
“No. Did something happen then?”
“Very little. Sarah seemed . . . Well, I had the distinct impression that her only real concern was getting you out of the water.”
“Tell me exactly what happened after I went in.”
“I heard you yell, ‘Stop the yacht,’ and then Sarah yelled, ‘Gybing back.’ Or maybe it was the other way around. Why would she gybe back?”
“To get the sails on the same side of the boat.”
“But she didn’t gybe back,” Lance said. “She just turned into the wind.”
“That was the right thing to do,” Stone said. “When I looked back and saw the yacht, the genoa was aback, and that would stop the yacht.”
“Sarah wouldn’t start the engine—not at first, anyway. I asked her to, and she ignored me.”
“She did start the engine; she came back for me.”
“Only after I pointed out that you were still in the water.”
“She would have been stunned by what happened,” Stone said. “We were lucky she was able to function at all.”
“She was as cool as ice,” Lance said.
“Lucky for me.”
“All right, Stone,” Lance said. “You’re the lawyer. How should we handle the inquest?”
“Tell the truth; relate the facts as they happened; don’t offer any opinions, unless you’re asked, then be circumspect. The family is certainly going to have a lawyer there, and—”
“He’s already arrived,” Lance said. “Sir Bernard Pickering, QC. Very famous barrister, I’m told. A polite shark.”
“Then he’ll tear you and the others to pieces if you begin to imply that what Sarah did was intentional. Stick to the facts; don’t make reckless charges. Have you been questioned by the police?”
“Yes, but not the girls. I told the police they were too upset to talk yet.”
“What did you tell the police?”
“I played dumb, told them I don’t sail, don’t know anything about it.”
“Which was the truth.”
“After a fashion.”
“What do the girls think happened?”
“They don’t seem to have a clue.”
“Did they question Sarah?”
“No, she’s been locked in her room, except to have meals brought in. She won’t even talk to her parents, but I think the barrister is probably talking to her by now.”
“That’s as it should be.”
“So you don’t think what Sarah did was deliberate?”
“Of course not. I know her quite well, you know, and I’ve never seen her exhibit any behavior that would cause me to think she might want to kill her fiancé. She was marrying him, after all; if she wanted to be rid of him, she’d have dumped him in a straightforward manner. She’s a very decisive girl.”
“And you don’t think that’s exactly what she did?”
“I mean she’d have broken the engagement, told him to get lost. That’s pretty much what she did with me, except that we weren’t engaged.”
“How did all this happen?” Lance asked.
“We’d been seeing each other for a while, had been mostly living together in my house. Somebody from my past turned up—a man my partner on the NYPD had sent to prison for murder some years before. He began killing people close to me, and Sarah was, naturally, very frightened. Then he planted a car bomb outside a gallery where Sarah was showing her paintings. We managed to get everybody out before it went off, but after that, she just wanted to leave the country as quickly as possible. She asked me to come with her, and initially, I agreed, but then, at the airport, I changed my mind. She got on the airplane and, as far as I know, never looked back. I didn’t hear from her again after that.”