Dead in the Water

years pass before you saw him again?”
    “Only two or three years passed before I saw him the first time,” Forrester said. “I ran into him in a restaurant in Miami, Florida. He was working as a journalist for the Miami Herald , and I was working for a travel magazine in New York.”
    This was information new to Stone, and he wondered why Forrester had not brought it up before. “Did you renew your acquaintance on that occasion?”
    “Yes, we had dinner together.”
    “And when did you next see him?”
    “At a baseball game in New York City, some five or six years later. Paul was covering sports for the Herald , and I visited the press box with a reporter friend.”
    “And did you renew your acquaintance on that occasion?”
    “Yes, we had dinner again after the game.”
    “And when was the next time you saw Paul Manning?”
    “Only a few weeks ago, in Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands.”
    Stone felt relieved to be back on familiar ground. “And how did you come to meet him?”
    “I was doing a travel story on the Canaries, and we were taking some photographs at the Las Palmas yacht club. I ran into Paul at the bar late in the afternoon.”
    “And did you renew your acquaintance on that occasion?”
    “Yes, we talked for an hour or so, and Paul invited me to have dinner with him and his wife aboard their yacht.”
    “Did you detect any change in Paul Manning from your previous knowledge of him?”
    “Only that he had grown much heavier and was sporting a full beard. Otherwise, he seemed the same happy person I had always known.”
    “Did you, in fact, dine with Mr. and Mrs. Manning aboard their yacht?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “How long did you spend in their company that evening?”
    “I didn’t return to my hotel until nearly midnight, so I suppose I must have been there five or six hours.”
    “What was your impression of the Mannings as a married couple?”
    “They seemed very happy together; it was obviously a very successful marriage, by almost any measure.”
    “Did they express affection for one another?”
    “Almost constantly. They frequently held hands or kissed. I was impressed that they prepared the meal together and enjoyed doing so. I’ve not known many husbands and wives who could share the galley of a yacht successfully.”
    “Did Paul Manning make mention of beginning to write a new novel?”
    “Yes, he said he was making notes for a new book, and he planned to begin the writing as soon as they were home in the States. He said he planned to call it Dead in the Water .”
    This was news to Stone, something else Forrester hadn’t mentioned. He decided to mine this vein. “Did he mention that he was keeping notes in a book?”
    “Yes, he showed me a leather-bound book that he had bought in a shop in Las Palmas.”
    “Would the bailiff kindly show Prosecution Exhibit Number One to the witness?”
    The bailiff handed Forrester the book.
    “Is this the book Paul Manning showed you?”
    Forrester leafed through the early pages. “Yes.” He held up the open book. “You see, he wrote the title, Dead in the Water , at the top of the first page.”
    “Mr. Forrester, you are a professional writer. Please look through the text of the book and tell me if what you read might correspond with the sort of notes a writer might make prior to beginning to write a book. Take your time.”
    Forrester read several pages while the courtroom waited. “Yes,” he said finally, “this seems very much tome to be a set of notes, though an incomplete one.”
    “Does it appear in any way to be a diary?”
    “Certainly not. It does not describe the relationship between man and wife that I saw in Las Palmas.”
    “After the Mannings sailed from Las Palmas, did you see them again?”
    “Yes, on the island of Puerto Rico, to the south.”
    “Would you describe the occasion, please?”
    “We were there gathering information for my article, my photographer and I, and I saw the yacht in the marina there. Paul asked me on board for a drink and told me that they were sailing almost immediately.”
    New information again. Stone wished that Forrester would stop elaborating on what he had said earlier. “Was Mrs. Manning present?”
    “Yes, she was.”
    “Had anything in their relationship changed that you could observe?”
    “No, they still seemed to be the same happy couple I had seen a couple of days before.”
    “Were you present when they left the harbor?”
    “Yes, I was standing on