The Stranger in the Lifeboat(39)

“I told him to stop wasting his time. It wasn’t worth it. Don’t get me wrong. I had plenty of issues with the rich. But not like Benji.

“Then his mom got injured at the factory, and he quit school to take care of her. That was a raw deal. She did nothing wrong. A scaffold she was on collapsed, but that factory built a case against her so they wouldn’t have to pay lifetime health coverage. Imagine getting too injured to walk, and then being blamed for it. No wonder Benji was angry.

“I came back to visit them once. I was in the navy at that point, and Aunt Claire was in her wheelchair—it was the last time I saw her alive. Benji was still going on about why she was even working in that factory, and where was the father who should have been responsible for them? He said he’d go after the bastard himself if he ever knew who he was. But Claire took that secret to her grave.”

He paused. “Or so I thought.”

LeFleur looked up. “What?”

“My ma had moved back to Ireland. A few years later, she got cancer. I was with her one night, near the end, when she told me something she’d sworn to never tell anyone. She said that Benji’s father wasn’t only rich, but he’d become a pretty famous businessman. And that poor Claire had to read about him in the American newspapers.”

He hesitated. “And that his name was Jason.”

LeFleur blinked hard, his thoughts racing.

“Lambert?” he said.

“I have no idea. Whatever his last name was, my mother couldn’t remember it. She died a month later.”

“So how did Benji—”

“I told him! Ahhh!” Dobby howled and rolled his eyes toward the roof. “Stupid! Stupid! He was going on about things. Why he was so poor. Why he never got a break. He was in bad shape, and I felt sorry for him. But when he started in on his deadbeat dad again, I told him to stop, he was never going to find the guy, and even if he did, nothing would happen. That’s when I shared what my mother had said. I blurted it out. He just stared at me, dumbstruck.”

“When was that?” LeFleur asked.

“A month before he started working on the Galaxy. He must have sought Jason Lambert out. Rich guy? From Boston? Right name? Honestly, I never even thought about a possible connection—until you read me those pages. But I see it now. Because Benji was so distraught.”

He dropped his head into his hands. “Jesus. It all makes sense.”

“Wait. You’re saying he was so mad at his father—”

“I never said Lambert was his father—”

“He was so mad at a guy named Jason that he decided to blow up a yacht? To get revenge? Come on.”

“You don’t understand. He was desperate over—”

“What about the mine? Are you saying you never told him how a limpet mine worked?”

Dobby sighed. “Years ago. I was telling him a navy story. I can’t believe he remembered that.”

LeFleur adjusted his grip on the gun and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“This is all too convenient,” he said.

Dobby thought for a moment. “Maybe not. Did you ever hear of something called confabulation?”

“No.”

“I knew a musician who went through it, years ago. It’s when someone confuses something they imagined for a real memory.”

“That sounds like lying to me.”

“But it’s not lying. The person honestly believes what they’re saying. It can happen when someone has a really bad trauma.”

“A trauma.”

“Yeah. Like losing a loved one. Or getting blown off a ship and trying to survive in the ocean. The experience makes you believe things you know aren’t true.

“All that time Benji wrote that he was talking to me, he must have been talking to himself, doubting himself, torturing himself—”

“Stop!” LeFleur interrupted. “So Benji didn’t have a father. Lots of kids don’t. They don’t sink a yacht to make up for it.”

Dobby locked his hands behind his neck and stared into the sunbeams.

“You’re missing the point, Inspector.”

“What point?”

“Who was he writing to? Who’s that whole story directed to? What’s the name on the front of that notebook?”

Dobby looked straight at the inspector. “Don’t you see? This isn’t about Jason Lambert. It’s about Annabelle.”

LeFleur squeezed his eyes shut. His shoulders slumped.

“Annabelle,” he mumbled. “Right. So where do I find her?”

“You don’t,” Dobby said. “She’s dead.”





Twelve





Land





The ride back was mostly silent. As the sun fell, the exclusion zone took on an eerie grayness. LeFleur never liked being here late. It was ghostly enough during daylight hours.

“You understand I’ll have to hold you in custody,” he said. “Until I can check your alibi.”

Dobby looked out the window. “Yeah. I get it.”

“I’ll have to charge you with something.”

“Whatever.”

“What should I charge you with?”