Secret Prey

vanished.’’
    ‘‘But there isn’t any doubt that the boat sank?’’ Lucas asked.
    ‘‘What? Have you found out something?’’
    ‘‘No-no-no. Just . . . your tone of voice.’’
    ‘‘Well . . .’’ Again, the trembling lip. ‘‘It’s been almost impossible to put this behind me, because nothing was ever found. No body, no boat debris, nothing. After he disappeared, all kinds of inspectors went to the bank, and they came and questioned me to make sure he hadn’t taken off with some money. I mean, every time I get a phone call at home that I’m not expecting, I halfway think it’s going to be his voice.’’
    ‘‘But you really think the boat sank.’’
    ‘‘Yes.’’ She nodded firmly. ‘‘In fact, I even think I know what happened. Do you sail, Mr. Davenport?’’
    ‘‘I have. I’m not particularly good at it.’’ Weather was a sailing fanatic, as her father had been, and they’d gone out almost every warm weekend, and for a long two weeks in the Caribbean.
    ‘‘When a boat goes down, there’s almost always lots of debris,’’ Ingall said. ‘‘You know the enormous amount of stuff sailors carry around with them—books and logs and guides and all kinds of paper. Andy had even more of it than most people. Business papers and references and so on. Plus the boat had a lot of wood. So if it had blown up, like some people thought, they’d have found something . But they didn’t find anything. So you know what I think?’’
    ‘‘What?’’
    ‘‘What I think is, it was a cool day, and Andy had the autopilot on and he’d gone below. While he was down there . . . the keel fell off,’’ she said.
    ‘‘The keel?’’
    ‘‘Yes. The keel on our boat was about four thousand pounds of lead, held in place with four huge steel bolts. You normally couldn’t even see the bolts, without pulling up parts of the sole—the flooring.’’
    ‘‘Yeah.’’ He knew what a sole was.
    ‘‘Anyway, I think the nuts worked off the bolts, from vibration, and then, with some sudden strain, the keel simply fell off,’’ she said. ‘‘If that happened, the boat would have turned turtle just instantly, and water would have started pouring down the companionway and the whole thing would have sunk in a minute or two. There are cases known like this. They’re rare, but it sort of explains everything. There wouldn’t have been time for life jackets or anything, and the inflow of water would have kept everything inside. It would’ve been just . . . glug.’’
    ‘‘But that’s a rare thing.’’
    ‘‘Yes—but.’’
    ‘‘But.’’
    ‘‘We kept the boat in Superior, and there’s this old guy up there who pretty much lives on his boat. Not technically, because they don’t allow that, but he’s around day and night. When I was up there during the search, he told me that Andy’d had somebody working on the boat the night before he disappeared. He didn’t pay much attention, but he said he’d noticed the guy had pulled up the sole and stuck it in the cockpit, out of the way of whatever he was doing. He assumed the guy was working on the plumbing, but he could have been working on the bolts. Maybe there was something wrong with them. Or maybe he did something that messed them up.’’
    ‘‘Huh. Was your husband there that day? When the work was being done?’’
    ‘‘No, not that day.’’
    ‘‘Did he often hire people to do work when he wasn’t there?’’
    ‘‘From time to time. I mean, good boat-repair people are like plumbers or electricians. They’ll schedule you for some work, but something happens on another job and it gets stretched out, or they get free earlier than they think. So lots of times we’d just give them the key and the go-ahead to do the work whenever they could get there.’’
    ‘‘Did you know that work was being done?’’
    ‘‘No. But sometimes he didn’t tell me. The boat was more Andy’s thing than mine.’’
    ‘‘Did anybody ever talk to the guy who did the work?’’
    ‘‘Nope. We looked around, but nobody ever figured out who it was. We had a guy we’d used quite a bit, but he said he didn’t know anything about it. And nobody ever really saw the guy doing the work. He did it in the evening, mostly after dark. And he wasn’t there very long—so that made me think it wasn’t the plumbing, which would take a while. The only thing I could think of that you’d pull up the sole for, and wouldn’t take long,