Fire Trap

9 - Sailing

"That's fair," he said. "Is there some question about the cause of the fire or Simon's death?"

"I'm encountering a few."

"For instance?"

"Without being specific, I'll just say that death by the gas explosion isn't even at the top of the list of possible causes."

"Who ranked the possibilities?" Richard asked.

"I did," I said, "and there's going to be a second autopsy."

"I'll bet Mark Foringer isn't pleased," he added.

"My father loves understatements."

"Mark's unhappy, but I have his support."

We all ate for a few minutes in silence.

"Let's go on deck and check out the weather," Richard suggested.

Taking our sandwich remains along, we trooped up on deck.

#

Mist still shrouded everything, but a brighter mist, as if the sun were really up there somewhere. You could see the other boats at their slips, though occasionally a heavier patch of fog would blow through and swallow them. I noticed a red and green light out in the bay beyond the marina. "What's that," I said, pointing out my discovery.

"A sailboat coming toward us," Richard said.

"You've got better eyesight than I do if you can see that."

"I can't see it, but only a sailboat under sixty-five feet can display that combination of lights at the masthead. If the light were white, the boat would be sailing away from us. Red and White would mean it was passing from right to left, naturally."

"Naturally," I said. Very shortly he proved correct as a sailboat the size of the Sea Genie glided into the marina under her jib alone. A woman with white hair wearing a red windbreaker stood at the waist of the ship with a line. As I watched, their jib started getting smaller and I realized it was being wound up automatically about the mainstay.

"Roller-reefing," Jean said in response to my raised eyebrow.

"Fred," Richard hailed the man at the wheel, "How's the bay?"

"Clears up over by Richmond," he called back.

"Shall we take her out?" Richard said, turning toward Jean and me with a gleam in his eye.

I checked Jean's ready smile and made up my mind. "I'm game."

Richard immediately began warming up the inboard diesel. Jean extracted a life vest from a compartment under a seat cushion. As I reached for it, I noticed that they weren't wearing any and she picked up on my hesitation.

"If you don't want to wear it, at least sit on it. All the cushions are wet from the fog."

She went below and came back wearing a lightweight pair of plastic pants over her khakis. She handed another pair of rain pants to Richard who slid them on over his shoes.

Within minutes we had backed out of the slip and were motoring out of the marina. I checked the lights on the Sea Genie against my newly acquired knowledge and was instantly confused. We had the same type of colored lights at the top of the mast as the other sailboat, but we weren't using them. We had a single white light there. We did have colored lights, but they were at the front of the sailboat on either side. We also had a single white taillight.

"Why aren't our lights like Fred's?"

Jean was amused at the gears turning in my head. "We're under power. We're not officially a sailboat right now. Different rules."