Dead in the Water

would come back married. He was looking forward to the prospect.
    Then the night began to go wrong. In San Juan, their first stop, he learned that his flight to St. Martin, the next leg, had been delayed by two hours. In St. Martin, the connecting flight to Antigua had also been delayed, and by the time he had arrived there, the light twin that would take him to St. Marks had already left and had to be summoned back at great expense. He had reached St. Marks sometime after 3:00 A.M. Nevertheless, he had been met by the charter agent and taken to the boat, a Beneteau 36, a roomy French design, and had, without unpacking, fallen dead into the double berth in the little owner’s cabin.
    He got out of bed and stumbled naked into the little galley and found half a jar of instant coffee in a cupboard. Shortly he had found the gas tap in the cockpit, boiled a kettle, and made himself a really terrible cup of coffee. While he drank it he took a stroll around the interior of the little yacht, a very short stroll indeed. He was glad there would be only the two of them aboard.
    There was a very nice dining table, some books, no doubt left by previous charterers, and a small television set. He wondered what he might receive on that. He turned it on and, to his surprise, found himself looking at CNN. The marina must have a satellite dish, hethought. He slid into the navigator’s seat, the leather cool against his naked buttocks, and looked around the chart table. All the island charts were there, plus a small Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, a VHF radio, and everything else they needed to navigate in the islands.
    He found some stale cereal and ate some, watching CNN. A major snowstorm would reach the New York City area by evening, and travel was expected to be disrupted. Thank God Arrington is getting out this afternoon , he thought. He washed his dishes, then unpacked and put away his clothes. A swim might be nice, he thought; he got into some trunks and climbed into the cockpit.
    As he did, a yacht of about forty-five feet hove into view, under engine. It had a dark blue hull and teak decks, and her name, Expansive , was lettered on her bow in gilt. Two other things about the yacht caught his eye: the mainsail was still up, and in tatters, and it was being steered by a quite beautiful young woman. She was small and blond, wearing a bikini bottom and a chambray shirt knotted under her breasts, leaving a fetching expanse of tanned midriff showing between the two. The yacht passed within twenty yards of Stone’s boat, but she never looked at him. Oddly, no one came on deck to help her dock. He started to go and help, but a yellow flag was flying at the crosstrees, signaling that the yacht was arriving from a foreign port, and he saw a uniformed customs officer waiting to take her lines. Stone watched the somewhat clumsy operation and wished he had gone to help. He’d have liked a closer look at the woman.
    He put down the boarding ladder, then dove off thestern into the bright blue water, which turned out to be exactly the right temperature—about eighty degrees, he reckoned. Maybe later today he’d call somebody in New York and gloat. He swam out about fifty yards into the little harbor, then sprinted back to his boat, hauling himself up the boarding ladder. He got a towel from below, made himself another cup of the awful coffee, and settled into the cockpit to get some sun on his all-too-white body. As he did, he saw the customs officer leave the yacht and, at a dead run, head for the little police shack fifty yards away. Odd.
    A moment later, the customs officer emerged from the shack in the company of two police officers, one of them of rank, judging from his uniform. The three men marched rapidly back toward the blue yacht and went aboard, disappearing below. Stone watched with interest to see what would happen next. Ten minutes passed before the young woman skipper appeared on deck wearing a cotton dress. Accompanied by the three uniformed officers, one of them carrying a small nylon duffel, she walked toward the police shack and disappeared inside.
    What the hell was going on? Stone wondered.
    He kept an eye on the police shack all afternoon. Finally, sometime after five o’clock, the woman left the shack in the company of two uniformed policemen, got into a waiting car, and was driven away. Stone didn’t know what sort of trouble she was in, but he felt for her, alone in a foreign place, at the mercy of