The Raft

  Chapter 28

  “Maggie! Maggie! Maggie!” Rachael repeated, peppering Maggie's bruised face with kisses. Square in the center of the room, sitting behind a cast iron table, Maggie's hands were in cuffs. The cuffs were threaded through a loop on the top surface of the table. She could hardly rise from her seat, much less embrace Rachael, and she recoiled like a henpecked child under Rachael's barrage of affection.

  “Okay, okay.” Maggie struggled to maintain some composure. Rachael satisfied herself with one final kiss on Maggie's lips and then let her be.

  “I thought you were dead,” Rachael gasped. “Gandalf...”

  “And I would have been if you hadn't taken my gun,” Maggie said with no small amount of honest relief. “Goddamn crazy son of a bitch pulled out his hog leg the second we got up on deck. I don't think he got off a shot.”

  “Are you hurt? Did you get hit?”

  “No, no. I reached for the pistol, but it wasn't there. Good thing, too, or they'd have shot me down like an animal. But you're hurt.” Maggie nodded at Rachael's face.

  “I panicked. I got your gun and came up the ladder after you. I got the butt of a rifle to the teeth. I think I broke some.”

  “And Gandalf?”

  “He died. I saw him take his last breath.”

  “Shit,” Maggie nodded her head forward.

  “What was he thinking?”

  “I don't know,” Maggie shook her head as it lolled forward. “I don't know, he went...” She snapped her head up. “He went ape shit.”

  “Ape shit? This whole situation is ape shit, Maggie. They must have heard the shooting back on the Raft. It'll only be a matter of minutes and they'll come storming through the blockade.”

  “Mmm,” Maggie murmured.

  “Maggie? Gandalf is not going to be the last person to get shot today. This whole situation is going to explode, and all you can say is 'Mmm'?”

  “I think I understand it now,” Maggie said, raising her head.

  “Understand what?”

  “Who killed Meerkat.”

  “What?” Rachael had to quickly rearrange her mental furniture. That's right, the murder. She'd almost completely forgotten. And now Gandalf was dead, too. “How? Who?” Rachael couldn't decide which was the more critical question.

  Maggie's eyes suddenly grew wide. The sound of feet in the corridor beyond grabbed her attention. “This is going to go by fast, Rachael, but I need your support. No matter how crazy the shit I say sounds, you've got to back me up, okay? I've still got a chance at this – a chance to make the FBI back down, but I'm going to have to play it fast and furious, you got me?”

  “No, I -”

  “Just...” Maggie grunted in desperation. “Gandalf killed Meerkat, okay?”

  “What?” The accusation hit Rachael like a locomotive.

  “Just -”

  But the door to the room was swinging open.

  “Alright, Ms. Straight,” Special Agent Galahad said as he stepped into the room. He was still wearing his blue and white BDUs, as he had been earlier that morning in the Salmon Bay Café. Flanking him were the two armed men who'd escorted Rachael out of her cell. “Here's Ms. Bigallo, alive and well, standing right in front of you. Are you ready to talk now?”

  “Yes,” was all Maggie said.

  Galahad, as always boyish and handsome, took the chair across the table from Maggie. The two goons remained standing.

  “Good. Now, Ms. Bigallo called me to say that you had critical information in the case of Joanna Church's murder, and that this information can only be relayed to me in person. And then you show up and start a gunfight before anyone's had a chance to even open their mouths. What the hell is going on here, Maggie? You were almost killed. Ms. Bigallo, for her part, was, too. Was that really your plan? To shoot away your troubles? These men are the US Coast Guard,” Galahad said, nodding back at the two men with rifles. “Members of the Armed Forces of the United States. You couldn't have possibly thought you'd win in a gunfight with these guys, did you?”

  “No,” Maggie shook her head vigorously. “No, and I had no idea what Gandalf was planning. As you know, I came aboard without a firearm, I think that speaks volumes for my intentions, Special Agent.”

  “Mmm,” Galahad shrugged.

  “No, I kept our appointment this morning with every intention of delivering on the promise that Rachael made to you on the phone: the identity of the murderer of Joanna Church, or Rebbecca Oldrich, or whatever her name eventually turns out to actually be.”

  “Well?”

  “But I did you one better, Agent, I brought you the murderer himself.”

  Special Agent Galahad shifted in his seat, taken aback. He glanced at Rachael, attempting to read something in her expression. “The dead man? He killed the girl?”

  “Yes,” Maggie nodded. She attempted to emote with her hands, forgetting they were shackled to the table. “But something went wrong, he must have guessed my intentions. It was my fault for not disarming him before we arrived. But such a thing isn't done aboard the Raft, you understand. If I'd have asked for his gun, he'd have certainly known what I was attempting to do.”

  “But he came anyway?”

  “I told him it was the only hope of saving the Raft. And I meant it. Handing over Meerkat's murderer was the only hope we had of convincing you to back down from this reckless blockade. And Gandalf's death hasn't changed that.”

  “So you deliver me another corpse?”

  “Sadly, yes. Though that was not my intention.”

  “And this is going to make the United States Government back down? Turn tail and run? From the combined might of a floating hippie commune?” Kid Galahad's voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “It will, once I tell you why Gandalf killed Joanna Church,” Maggie said calmly, looking down and fidgeting with the cuffs on her wrists.

  “Really?” Galahad said after a pause. He could see through Maggie's transparent bluff.

  At least he thought he could. Maggie wasn't about to back down. “Yes. And once I explain this whole grizzly affair, in front of a member of the free press mind you, I think you're going to be more receptive to making peace with a certain floating hippie commune.”

  “Really?” Galahad said again, chuckling. But this time his bravado wasn't quite so polished. Something about Maggie's tone had him worried. “Then why don't you enlighten us all,” he said. Maggie opened her mouth to begin, but Galahad interpreted. “But let me assure you, Ms. Straight, there will be no deals.”

  “We'll see, Special Agent,” Maggie said.

  “Yes, we'll see,” Galahad repeated back, leaning back in his chair.