She’d giggled through the process of getting the dinghy into the water and climbing in. There had been a litany of “ooopsy-daisies” and hilarity over her tipsiness. She’d squealed like a little girl whenever the dinghy was rocked by a swell, and she’d been laughing when a wave sloshed into the boat and knocked her off balance.
She’d stopped laughing when he shoved her overboard. Ocean water had filled her mouth, silencing her scream as she went under. He’d gone in seconds after her and had hooked his elbow around her neck from behind as she’d struggled to the surface.
It was a lifesaver’s maneuver, which she’d relaxed against, until realizing that he wasn’t keeping her afloat, but holding her under. Then she’d begun to fight. He’d promised to make it quick, but she hadn’t allowed it. It had seemed to take for bloody ever for her to die.
He’d let go and pushed away from her, swum back to the dinghy, and hung onto the side of it until he’d regained his breath. Once recovered, he’d peeled off his clothes. He’d practiced doing this in shallower swells. It was harder to accomplish than he had counted on, and took more time, but eventually he was down to his Speedo.
He’d sent his shoes adrift and made a tear in his shirt before letting it go. Then he’d tied his remaining garments together and attached them to a fire extinguisher he’d taken from a cabinet on the yacht. He’d placed it in the dinghy while Elaine was pouring another round. The heavy canister sent his bundle of clothing to the depths.
The hardest part of the whole ordeal had been to overturn the dinghy, which, clearly, had been designed not to capsize.
Then he’d swum. He’d estimated that it would take him at least an hour to reach the shoreline, although he couldn’t be precise about how far the dinghy had drifted from the yacht. He’d rested periodically but pushed himself.
He was twelve minutes off on his timing, but had missed his destination by only thirty yards. As he’d walked to where he’d left the car, he’d watched the tide erase his footprints almost as soon as they were formed.
The car was a heap that he’d bought months ago off a we-tote-the-note lot. He’d paid in cash and had the title made out to Howard Clement. He hadn’t bothered to register it. He’d scraped off the VIN number. He was confident it could never be traced to him.
He had parked it in a clump of scrubby palmetto with a lacy overlay of kelp that had washed onto the beach. In the unlikely event that his tire tracks were ever detected, they would be difficult to imprint. He’d pulled on the pair of latex gloves, which he’d carried folded inside his swimsuit, then reached for the magnetic box he’d secreted beneath the car and used the fob inside to open the trunk. He’d lifted out the roll-aboard he had ostensibly packed for a getaway, but which actually contained everything he needed to undergo a metamorphosis.
The backseat of the car served as his chrysalis.
When he’d emerged an hour later, gone were the ponytail and door knocker. He’d shaved his head, leaving only a ring of hair on the lower third. He covered the tan line on his scalp with a khaki Gilligan hat.
He’d dressed in a pair of unshapely cargo shorts and a loud Hawaiian print shirt he’d bought in Key West two and a half years ago, when he’d determined that his next target would be the lovely Talia Shafer who lived in Charleston, a city that attracted thousands of tourists wearing ungodly attire. He’d padded the front of the shirt to simulate middle-age spread. He slid his feet into a pair of rubber flip-flops. He’d chosen eyeglasses that were nondescript and could be purchased for a few dollars in just about any retail outlet.
When he’d looked at himself in the rearview mirror, he’d laughed out loud. Not even his wife, not even the woman he’d just drowned, would recognize him.
He replaced everything he’d used in the roll-aboard for disposal later. Before closing it, he took out a wallet, an old and well-used one that he’d bought at a flea market, and checked to make sure the necessities were there. The driver’s license had been issued in Georgia, the photo taken after disposing of the fuzzy wig he’d worn as Marian Harris’s shy money manager, Daniel Knolls, and before he grew out his hair and beard to become Jasper Ford.
He had a credit card in the name of Howard R. Clement. The card was over a year old and had just enough charges on it to remain active. The wallet also contained the modest amount of currency that Jasper Ford had withdrawn from an ATM three days ago. He’d put the wallet in the back pocket of his shorts.
Last, from a zippered pocket in the lining of the suitcase, he’d taken a
small velvet drawstring bag and transferred it to the front pocket of his cargo shorts, sealing it inside with the Velcro strips attached to the fabric. He’d patted the pocket with affection and smiled.
As of tonight, his collection had a new addition.
After locking the roll-aboard into the trunk, he’d driven off the beach. His initial plan had been to head straight up the coast, perhaps traveling as far as Myrtle Beach tonight, where he would get a room and lay low for several days, at least until the hubbub had died down and the search for him and Elaine was discontinued.
Then he would return and choreograph Talia’s suicide. Acquaintances would conclude that she’d been led to it by grief over the deaths of her good friend and husband, whose body, regrettably, had never been recovered.
It had been a very workable plan. But as Howard Clement had been chugging along a major thoroughfare in his clunker, a convoy of emergency vehicles had forced him and other motorists to pull onto the shoulder so they could pass. They had been headed in the direction of the shore and the marina.
Could it possibly be? he’d asked himself.
Over the course of his illustrious career, he had never made a spontaneous decision. Never. But this one time, he had yielded to temptation. Acting on impulse, he had changed his route.
Now, as he gazed down at the body on the beach, he supposed it had been Elaine’s fake tits, acting as flotation devices, that had caused her body to wash ashore so soon. He had reckoned on it taking a day or so, if indeed it ever did.
But there she lay, faceup, covered with a yellow plastic sheet. A police helicopter flew over. Its downwash flipped back a corner of the sheet to reveal her hand. No one except Jasper seemed to notice.
“Jesus, you just never know, do you?”
Jasper turned. Standing close behind him was a gum-smacking redneck wearing jean cut-offs, combat boots, and a tank top featuring a coiled cobra with dripping fangs. Revolting. “Sorry?”
“When you get up in the morning, you don’t figure on it being your last.”
“You’re right there, buddy,” said Howard, in the nasally twang of his newly assumed persona.