Choke Read Free Page B

ready.
    “Warren Porter,” the man replied. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my tender?”
    Tommy flashed his new badge. “Key West PD; name’s Sculley.”
    “How did you get here so fast?”
    “I was having dinner, just like you.” Tommy turned to the man driving the boat. “Are you new on the yacht?”
    “No, sir,” the young man said. “I worked for the previous owner.”
    “Were you in charge of maintenance?”
    “Yes, sir. She’s maintained to the hilt, you can take my word for it.”
    “Take his word for it,” the accountant said. “I’ll show you my first yard bill.”
    “Was there a gas system for cooking?”
    “Yes, sir, two twenty-gallon bottles, both stowed on the port quarter. The system is … was first-rate, conformed to all the Coast Guard regulations.”
    “What kind of fuel did the engines use?”
    “Gasoline. Fairly unusual in a boat of this size, but the guy who built her wanted as much speed as possible for the weight of the engine, and diesel didn’t cut it for him.”
    They reached the site of the explosion, and Tommy looked around. “Jesus H. Christ!” he said. “There’s nothing left.” All he could see were small pieces of flotsam, some of them still on fire. They added an eerie glow to the moonlight.
    “There’ve got to be some bigger pieces,” the skipper said, “but they’ve probably sunk. I mean, nothing short of an atomic bomb could reduce a sixty-foot boat to such splinters. I’ll bet we’re sitting on top of some major wreckage.”
    A siren sounded, and from around a point appeared a large vessel wearing a lot of lights.
    “Here comes the Coast Guard,” Tommy said. “I got to ask both of you some questions before they get here. Anybody aboard the boat?”
    “No,” the accountant said. “We all came ashore for dinner at Louie’s.”
    “Thank God for small favors,” Tommy breathed. “Who cooks?”
    “Nell,” the skipper said. “She’s my girlfriend; we’ve both been on the boat for over three years.”
    “Does she know what she’s doing with the gas system? How to turn it off and secure it when it’s not being used?”
    “You bet she does,” the skipper said. “She knows as much about the boat as I do, and she’s a careful girl.”
    “Is it just possible that she might have been in a hurry to get ashore with everybody else and forgot to turn off the gas at the bottles?”
    “Well, maybe,” the skipper admitted. “Normally we just turn off the gas at the stove and not at the bottles, unless we’re leaving the boat for a longer period of time.”
    “So you could have had a leak?”
    “It’s possible, but not likely. We’d have smelled it.”
    “Did you have a gas detector aboard?”
    The skipper shook his head. “It went south a week ago. It was on my list of things to replace while we’re in Key West.”
    Tommy nodded. Enough little problems to make an accident were emerging. “Was she insured?” he asked the accountant.
    The man nodded sadly. “Yeah, but there’s a ten-thousand-dollar-deductible, and insurance won’t pay for all the time I put in finding this boat and negotiating the sale.”
    “Let me say two words to you, Mr. Porter,” Tommy said. “Casualty loss.”
    The accountant looked a little happier.
    It was past midnight when Tommy got to the hotel room he and his wife were living in until they found a place. He sneaked in, trying not to wake her.
    “Have fun?” Rose asked.
    “A fucking ball, sweetie,” Tommy said, crawling into bed. “The smell of burning yacht does wonders for your digestion when you’ve just had a great meal.”
    “Well, I guess you don’t have to worry about it being too dull down here,” Rose said. “What happened?”
    “Looks like an accidental gas explosion that ignited the fuel tanks. Nobody aboard, thank God. I don’t think I could have taken the smell of burning flesh after that dinner.”
    “You like it here already, don’t you?”
    “I guess we did the right