Soames, the FBI agent in Southport, had found the letter. It was in the door of the Topaz’ refrigerator, in the electrical shop at the Harley boatyard, along with a large Manila envelope containing $19,000. It was a thick door, wood on the outside and enameled steel inside, and packed with insulation. Keefer had taken out some screws, pulled away the steel enough to remove some of the insulation, and put in the envelope. That wasn’t what caused it to need repairs, of course; the trouble was in the refrigeration unit itself and had begun the first day out of Panama. If Keefer hadn’t been an indifferent sailor who never paid any attention to what went on aboard a boat he might have known I’d have it overhauled when we got to the yard.
Reagan had worked it out very cleverly. The letter was in a separate airmail envelope, stamped, addressed to Paula Stafford, but not sealed. The money was in this large Manila deal he’d found on the boat; it had originally held some Hydrographic Office bulletins. But he hadn’t merely stuffed the money in, by single bills or bundles; he had packed it in a dozen or more individual letter-sized envelopes and sealed them, so that when the big one was closed it felt like a bunch of letters. It was sealed—or had been until Keefer tore it open.
The letter read:
Yacht Topaz
At Sea, June 3rd
My Darling Paula:
I don’t really know how to start this—I write it with a heavy heart, for if you read it at all it will only be because I am dead. The truth is that I have been troubled by angina for some time, and yesterday I suffered what I think was a coronary attack. And while there is no reason to think I might have another before we reach port, I felt I should write this just in case one did cause my death before I had a chance to say my last good-by to you.
I am afraid this has changed my plans for the future that I wrote you about, but if I arrive safely in Southport we can discuss new ones when we are together. I still have all your precious letters that have meant so much to me. They are in an envelope in my bag, which will be sent to you in case I have a fatal attack before we reach port.
My darling, I hope you never receive this letter. But if you do, remember that I love you and that my last thoughts were of you.
Forever,
Wendell
“Very neat,” Bill said. “This one would have been open in the suitcase, so you’d read it to find out whom to notify and where to ship his stuff. And naturally you wouldn’t open a sealed package of old love letters. Inside the sealed envelope with the money there was another note to her, this one signed Brian, saying he’d put the other suitcase in a bonded warehouse of the Rainey Transfer and Storage Company in New York. Enclosed was the storage receipt and a letter signed Charles Wayne authorizing the Rainey people to turn the bag over to her. He told her to get it, but if Slidell caught up with her to turn it over to him rather than try to run any longer.”
I nodded. It made my face hurt. “Apparently we were wrong, though, about Keefer’s first seeing the money when he went to search the bag for medicine. The big envelope was already sealed then. So he must have seen Reagan when he was fixing it up.”
Bill grinned. “Well, it’s lucky old Nosy Keefer smelled even more and bigger money in the letter and decided to hang onto it too. If he’d thrown it overboard, you might have been an old man before it was settled to everybody’s satisfaction that Reagan did have a bad heart. Think of trying to run down the doctor who wrote the prescription for those nitro pills, with the places Reagan had been and the names he’d used the past two months.”
“Lay off,” I said. “It still scares me. Have they found out yet who Slidell is?”
He lighted a cigarette and gestured toward the paper. “Big-shot hoodlum from Los Angeles. Several arrests for extortion and a couple for murder, but no convictions. The bonds came from three or four big bank robberies in Texas and Oklahoma. They’re not sure yet whether Slidell actually took part, or just planned them. Ran with the cafe-society set quite a bit, or what passes for it in Southern California, and owned a home in Phoenix. Funny part is he came from about the same kind of family background Reagan did, and was well educated, even a couple of years in medical school. Bonner was his bodyguard and hunker and general muscle man. The FBI was able to talk to the Stafford woman last night, and they got the suitcase out of the warehouse in New York, but they’re still buttoned up as to how much it was. They’re pretty sure she didn’t know anything about where it had come from, or that her boy friend’s real name was Clifford Reagan. When he closed the book, pal, he closed it.”
I looked out the window. “What about Bonner? Nobody’s said anything yet.”
“Justifiable homicide, what else? They took her statement this morning. Were you supposed to stand there and watch him kill her?”
I didn’t say anything. In the movies and on television, I thought, you point the gun and everybody obeys, but maybe they didn’t run into Bonners very often. There hadn’t been any choice. But it would be a long time before I forgot the horror of that moment when he kicked out with his legs and nudged his head against me in the reddening water. If I ever forgot it.
I was waiting impatiently when Patricia Reagan finally came to see me that afternoon. She’d gone back to close the house and get her things. She was fully recovered, and looked lovely except for a little puffiness on one side of her face. I wanted to pay for the damage to the furnishings and having the phone reinstalled. We argued amicably about it and finally decided we’d share the responsibility. We talked for a while, sticking pretty closely to boats and sailing, the things we both knew and loved, but it trailed off and she left.
She came back again, the following afternoon, and it was the same thing. I was waiting eagerly for her, she seemed prettier each time, and apparently was glad to see me, she smiled, we talked happily about the Bahamas and about her future in photo journalism, and how we’d go out to the Islands where she could shoot some really terrific pictures, and then it began to trail off and we grew polite and formal with each other.
Just before she left, Bill and Lorraine showed up. Bill had already met her, but I introduced her to Lorraine.
After she’d gone, Lorraine looked at me with that old matchmaker’s gleam in her eye. “There’s a really stunning girl, Rogers, old boy. What’s between you two?”
“Her father,” I said.
I had a card from her after she’d gone back to Santa Barbara, but I never saw her again.
Charles Williams, The sailcloth shroud
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