A Masked Murder, page 16
Ideas surged in Autumn’s mind, each one brilliant for a moment, but time consuming and impractical in real life. Radar could track the boat, but she didn’t even know how many of the small harbors and piers had radar, or how far it stretched. Tracking his phone might be possible, but if he was a criminal worth his salt, which he clearly was, then he would have turned his phone off. He probably had a burner ready.
They could circulate his description at the airports, but she hadn’t taken an actual copy of his passport. More and more, Autumn was beginning to realize that this man had most likely given her details that were entirely fake. He was going to disappear, unless they could catch him now.
Decisions had to be made. Tough ones.
“I really need some direction from you, honeybunch! Left or right?”
Two sets of lights were ahead. The one to the left was heading further north to a small peninsula along the coastline that was home to a scenic harbor town. The one to the right was heading on a more direct route, looking as if it was going to one of the towns that were closer to Magnolia Bay, one of those whose skyline could be seen from the island’s east side.
Going to a small town on a peninsula seemed like a waste of time and effort for a man whose personality had been practical and cool-minded. She remembered the way that Pringle had stirred his coffee and eaten his breakfast. No excess effort had been wasted. His movements had been economical and precise. A man like that would choose a more direct route when fleeing to make a getaway.
“I think he must be the left one,” she decided.
“Left it is.” Julian swung the boat that way so sharply that Autumn almost lost her footing, grabbing at the side to keep her balance as the boat powered forward. The good news was that they were going to get there fast.
“Here we come,” Julian shouted, leaning forward and clutching the wheel, looking as if he was a jockey riding toward the finish line. “Here we come! I have to say, Autumn, I’m pretty mad about all of this. I feel like I was used and deceived in a very underhanded way by this criminal. It’s time for payback.” He waved his arms furiously. His turquoise robe streamed out behind him as the boat reached maximum speed.
"Just remember…" Autumn grabbed one of his waving arms. "Remember, we do need to be careful, okay? This man is a good planner. He may have another of those hunting knives. We have to treat him as dangerous.”
“No!” Julian said defiantly. “He has to treat me as dangerous! I really am mad, Autumn, and you don’t want to come up against me when I’m mad.”
Autumn stared ahead. She wished she felt more reassured by Julian’s clear desire for payback. But, as the lights of the other boat got closer and closer into view, she found the knot in her stomach was pulling tighter.
“It might not be the right boat,” she cautioned. “We do need to make sure about this. Just wait. Slow down, or we’ll ram it!’
But now, the occupants of the other boat had been alerted. They must have heard the scream of the speedboat’s engine and seen its rapidly approaching lights.
There was a silhouette, a man with the boat’s light behind him, standing on the prow and looking their way.
Was it Pringle? She thought it was. She recognized the shape of his head and the distinctive, sharp angle of his nose.
“Mr. Pringle?” she shouted.
She didn’t know if he heard her, but he definitely wasn’t responding.
A moment later, she changed her mind. He had reacted to her shout, or maybe just to the oncoming lights.
The craft, which was a medium sized commercial boat, turned abruptly away from them. And then, it sped up, water churning.
Pringle was determined to make his escape, whatever it took.
Now, the chase was on.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
“It’s him, and he’s fleeing,” Autumn yelled. The other boat was a lot bigger, and it would have a more powerful engine. Whoever the skipper was, Pringle must have done some fast talking. Maybe the skipper of this boat was an ‘ask no questions’ type, or he was in on the deal, or Pringle had offered him more money if he could get there faster.
Either way, the boat was now powering away from them, scudding over the water of the lake, as Autumn’s stomach knotted. She got on the phone to Ben.
“We’re heading across the lake,” she yelled.
“What?” Ben replied. There was a lot of noise in the background. It sounded as if he might be boarding a boat, too.
“We’re heading across the lake!”
Jolting over the other boat’s wake, the phone was nearly knocked out of Autumn’s hand. She clutched again at the speedboat’s slippery side.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Across the lake. Chasing him!”
“We need to get there! Where are you now, Autumn?”
“We’re heading to the south of the harbor now, far out on the water. I’ll try and send you a location.”
With the boat jouncing over the waves, that wasn't the easiest thing to do. She nearly dropped the phone again and then nearly fell right over as the boat swerved once more. A wave showered over her, spattering her phone's screen as she tried her best to navigate to the app that would allow her to send a live location. That was what Ben needed, and then he and Officer Warring could come and join the chase.
“Oops.” Wedging herself between the boat’s side, and one of the now-slippery seats, she nearly sent Ben the photo of Max she’d taken that morning on the walk, because his golden-yellow face had looked so cute against the green grass. Perfect though the photo was, he didn’t need it now! She corrected her error, this time managing to get into the right app, her shoulder bashing against the boat’s side, and more water splattering over her.
“He’s trying to avoid me, but he’s not going to. I’m closing in on you. Watch out. Here I come!” Julian threatened, his hands welded to the boat’s wheel. Another wave hit the boat, and Autumn gritted her teeth. This wasn’t going well. Her screen was now totally blank.
She prodded it frantically, smearing the water across the glass. Nothing. Nothing at all.
The boat swerved again, causing her stomach to lurch, and then, she remembered the unwelcome fact that her battery had been low.
At this critical time, her phone had died.
Pocketing her useless phone, she stared frantically back at the lights of the harbor, that looked small and faraway. There was no way that Ben and Officer Warring would find them now. She and Julian were on their own.
Julian didn’t seem to care. He was channeling his inner pirate.
“We’re going to board you. I’m going to catch up and board you!” The engine screamed as he fought to maximize its power even more, so that the boat leaped over the dark, turbulent waves. Autumn felt a mixture of sheer terror and a strange exhilaration as she realized that despite the other boat being bigger, Julian was closing in.
“You think you can mislead me this way? Force me to become an accomplice to murder?” He was really mad about that. So mad that he was pushing the boat past its limits, intent only on reaching the fleeing man.
“Arrrr!” he shouted, just as a pirate might do.
The boat ahead was tossing and swaying, caught in a tidal wash that Julian was able to avoid.
“Just a little to the left here, and we won’t capsize. I’m a natural sailor, sweetheart. I have been from the moment I first headed out onto the water.” He glanced back at her reassuringly.
“We need to think about what we’re going to do when we do catch up,” Autumn pleaded. Julian was not thinking that far ahead. All his focus was on reaching the other boat.
Although she couldn’t see the skipper, Autumn could see Pringle. He was standing in the boat, staring back at them, his fists clenched.
“We are going to get you!” Julian yelled. The boat leaped over another line of waves, and Autumn clutched the side hard as it landed. Now, they were in the other boat’s wake. There was only a few yards separating them. She could even hear Pringle’s voice, sharp and stressed over the waves. He was shouting instructions. One of them must have been to turn, because the boat ahead veered sharply sideways. But Julian was ready, twisting his own wheel immediately, so that the evasive maneuver worked against the skipper, and bought him some extra distance.
“I’m closing in!” he shouted. “Be afraid, if you’re not already. Be very afraid.”
Autumn felt terrified to death. Clutching the side of the boat, she knew that events were running away with her in every sense of the word. Their fugitive was fleeing, the gallery owner was rabid with rage, and if he kept up this speed, then in approximately ten seconds, they were going to crash right into the other boat.
“Don’t you think you should slow down?” she shouted, wishing she’d had time to send Ben her location.
But there was no response from the gallery owner. With a judgment that was impeccable, he roared closer and closer to the fleeing craft.
“Come here!” he called to Autumn, beckoning her impatiently over. “Come here and hold the controls. I’m going to board!”
With his robe flying behind him, revealing startlingly white legs, and boxer shorts with yellow lemons on, Autumn could see he was an intimidating sight. At any rate, the skipper looked terrified as he turned to see them closing in. And she had no choice but to grab the controls from Julian, feeling them shuddering with the speed, as he clambered up onto the boat’s prow. Then, with a flying leap, he was over, and onto the other boat.
Autumn cried out in surprise as, robe flapping, he thudded down, slipping and sprawling, but managing to scramble to his feet almost at once. The lake was churning around them from the evasive sailing and the sheer speed at which they’d been going. Autumn, her hands tight on the controls, was worried that the two boats would collide. The skipper was slowing down now, shouting with anxiety.
And Pringle was on the warpath, leaping toward Julian.
“Get off this boat,” he shouted. Then he beckoned to the skipper. “Throw him overboard and take me where I paid you to go!”
He advanced toward Julian, his arms outstretched. Was that the flash of a knife in one of them?
Julian retreated fast, now looking a lot more scared than he had been. The boat was wallowing now, almost at a standstill, and Autumn had managed to keep pace with its slowing, while also avoiding crashing into it. Not bad for someone who was quite a novice sailor. She was shaking from the adrenaline – but the battle wasn’t over yet.
The skipper turned from Pringle to Julian, looking at a loss as to what to do.
“Please, just stand back, and don’t get involved,” Autumn begged him, shouting as loud as she could.
Pringle glared at her, then turned back to the skipper. “No! Don’t listen to her. She’s just the owner of a bed and breakfast. I’m the paying customer and I am ordering you to help throw this man overboard. Then she’ll be kept busy rescuing him, and we can get away.”
“No! Don’t do it.! You’ve already murdered one person.” Autumn pleaded, remembering Julian’s lack of swimming prowess. He’d already fallen out of a boat today and nearly drowned, and that was with a pier in grasping distance. There wasn’t a hope of her rescuing him, unless she jumped in too.
“He deserved it. Stafford needed to be dead, for me to realize my investment value. If this man stands in my way, then he deserves it too,” Pringle said coldly, advancing onto Julian, who gave a terrified squeak, backing away.
Where were the life jackets? Autumn looked around, wondering if she could throw him one. But she was too far off. It would land in the water.
There wasn’t going to be time for her to put one on herself. The skipper was advancing, clearly having decided to throw his lot in with Pringle. Julian was retreating fast toward the back of the boat, and soon he’d have nowhere left to go. Could she maneuver the speedboat closer and try to save him? As she worked the controls, doing nothing much but make waves, and not bridging the distance of a few yards, Autumn saw where the retreating man was headed.
At the very back of the boat, in a storage nook, she saw a plastic wrapped parcel that she recognized.
It was the paintings! The artwork that Pringle had bought as part of his collection. He’d left it downstairs at the bed and breakfast when he’d checked out, and now, here the parcel was, on the boat.
Suddenly, as the threat of danger closed in, Autumn saw how Julian could use what he had available.
“Julian!” she yelled. His head jerked around, and she saw the expression on his face was that of a man who was regretting his life choices.
Well, she could help.
“That parcel!” She pointed. “It’s the Stafford works!”
For a blank moment, he stared at her. Then, light dawned.
Reaching back, he grabbed the parcel. Holding it high in his hands, he turned to face the two approaching men – the furious looking Pringle, and the wild haired, muscular skipper.
“Stop right there!” he yelled. “Or this goes overboard!” He waved the parcel frantically above his head.
Both Pringle and the skipper stopped dead. The skipper glanced at Pringle, clearly waiting for guidance.
“You wouldn’t do that,” Pringle said. “You wouldn’t do that. I paid you for those damned paintings! I’ve done what I needed to, to make sure of their value. Now drop them!”
“No such chance.” There was a taunting note to Julian’s voice. “Get back! If you don’t take three big steps back, over they go. They’ll get soaked. This water will get through the plastic in no time. Imagine how the paint will smudge and the canvas will warp. Your investment will be ruined.”
Pringle and the skipper stared at each other.
“Better get back,” Pringle muttered. Take three steps back, like he’s telling you.
They had a confession, Autumn realized. Pringle had literally confessed to the crime. Now, they had a stand-off. It wouldn’t last forever. If only she had a working phone. This would be a great time to call the cops.
But as she had the thought, Autumn saw lights in the distance, coming from the direction of the harbor and chugging toward them fast.
“Attention. Listen up. Police approaching!”
Ben was sailing the speedboat, she saw with a leap of her heart, as the boat closed in. And in the front, holding a powerful flashlight in one hand and a loudhailer in the other, stood Officer Warring.
“Attention!” he bellowed into the loudhailer. “Stand back. Put your hands in the air. This is an arrest, Mr. Pringle. Hands in the air, now!”
The flashlight caught the stricken expression on Pringle’s face as he stared from Autumn, to Julian, to the approaching speedboat.
It was the expression of a man who was finally trapped. He raised his hands, and the skipper did, too.
With relief so intense that it weakened her knees, Autumn knew that the danger was finally over, and the killer would be safely brought to book.
EPILOGUE
“It all sounds so tremendously thrilling,” Willow said. Autumn saw her sister’s eyes were shining as Autumn relayed the story.
It was mid-morning the following day. The arrest had already made news all over town. After breakfast service – where Mrs. B had announced that she would be staying on the island and in fact, booking an extra two days – Autumn had headed to Willow’s shop to update her sister. She’d been stopped three times along the way by locals. Molly from Sweetly’s Treats had been one of the trio to congratulate her. Thom, heading out of the grocery store, had been another. And Annie, the owner of the fragrances shop, had been the third.
“It was exciting, yet nerve-racking,” Autumn admitted. Perched on the stool by the till, she reached down and rubbed Max’s head. She’d brought him along, of course. “I was really worried, for a while, that we’d all capsize and fall into the lake after a horrific crash. Luckily, Julian kept the killer at bay by threatening to throw the paintings overboard. Ben kept a lookout for where we might be on the lake, and when he saw two lights moving fast, he realized that this had to be us, pursuing Pringle. So he told Officer Warring, and the two of them headed that way. They arrived just in time to make the arrest. Mr. Pringle is in prison now, and we had to give witness statements that we had heard him confess to the crime. I’ve been interviewed twice by the Magnolia Herald.”
“I can’t believe that Julian was in on it, and then regretted his actions and started helping you instead,” Willow said. “I’m glad he wasn’t the killer. He has such a fun personality.”
“Trust me, the skipper of the other boat, and Pringle, didn’t see his fun side,” Autumn said wryly, remembering the white-hot rage that had overcome Julian.
“It must have been such an experience.” Absently, Willow arranged the packets of homemade cookies into a neat pile on the shelf by the till.
“It was terrifying at the time,” Autumn said. “But afterward, it felt really good. As if we’d come out the other side of danger and had a great adventure.”
She smiled to herself, remembering how she and Ben had headed to the late-night bar at the harbor after having finally wrapped up with the police. Over glasses of wine, they’d talked for more than an hour, reliving every pulse-pounding moment.
The biggest pulse-pounding moment of all had happened when they had left, and they'd held each other, and then, just outside the door of that bar, they'd had another kiss. A long, passionate kiss, one that had left Autumn’s knees weak and her stomach fluttering.
“What’s that smile for?” Willow asked, immediately pinpointing Autumn’s mood.
“Just remembering how amazing Ben was through all of this,” she said, feeling her cheeks flush.
“Aha. I’m sure he was. I guess that brought you closer?” Willow said, quirking an eyebrow.
“It did,” Autumn admitted. She couldn’t wait to see Ben again. They were going on a dinner date on Wednesday. Imagine being in a real relationship again – one that wasn’t eroded by constant fights, but that had strong bonds forged by going through a high risk experience together.
