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“After school,” Kara prompted, “you went out on your boat. Around one? Later?”
“Twelve thirty,” Whitney said. “We went over to the north side of Shaw Island. Our best friend lives there. She broke her leg last week and we wanted to cheer her up and surprise her with a picnic. Then we got to playing games at her house and talking and left.”
“What time was that?” Kara asked. She appreciated that Marcy was letting her run the interview. She hadn’t wanted a partner but agreed with Matt that having a local cop with her would be an asset.
“Six, a little before. We’re supposed to be back by eight. It usually takes about forty-five minutes to sail from Shaw back to the harbor, but it was such a gorgeous night, we took our time. And Ashley wanted to take pictures,” Whitney added. “She’s anamazingphotographer.”
Pictures... Kara needed to come back to that.
“In your original statement, you said you passed theWater Lilyas it was coming out of the port after seven p.m.”
“Yeah.”
“How fast was the boat going?”
“Not very. It was still in the control area.”
“Between four and five knots,” Ashley said.
“Five miles an hour,” Pete explained.
Ashley nodded. “We were coming in and had just turned the sails to slow down as we approached the harbor. Neil waved to us—we waved back. He blew his horn to sayhi.”
She looked down at her hands.
“You were close enough to recognize Neil?”
“He was in the bridge—we were just shy of maybe a hundred yards? They didn’t have a big wake, so I wasn’t worried about getting caught up in it. I think Neil was waiting until we passed by before picking up speed. He was real considerate like that.” Ashley bit her lip.
“So you passed each other and then he increased speed. About how long after you waved did you see the explosion?”
“I didn’t,” Whitney said. “We’d passed theWater Lilyand I dropped a line and went to pick it up. I heard the explosion.”
“I saw it,” Ashley said quietly. “I had turned around to tie the line and the bow just...burst. They were going at least fifteen knots by then, maybe more, he’d picked up speed, and it was like the boat just collapsed into itself. People...” Her voice cracked.
“It’s okay,” Kara said quietly.
“They just fell off the boat. Thrown off, I guess. The boat kept moving forward after the explosion—momentum.”
Whitney took her sister’s hand. “I turned around and there was smoke where the boat was supposed to be,” Whitney said. “And then I saw the back of the boat, but the front was just...gone. The stern was bobbing, tilted, and...we wanted to go back to help, but then there was a second explosion.”
“The fuel tank,” Marcy said. “It was the fuel tank, according to the reports.”
The sisters nodded in unison but Kara didn’t think they really registered what Marcy was saying. “The alarms were going off in the harbor and the search and rescue boats were coming and we couldn’t... I mean, we couldn’t do anything,” Ashley said. “I wanted to. We wanted to.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” Kara said. “There were no survivors, and you would have put yourselves at risk if you got closer. But your instincts are good.”
Pete cleared his throat. “You did the right thing, girls.”
“When you got to the port, what did you do?”
“Called our dad,” Whitney said. “He was already there.”
“I heard the explosion,” Pete said.
“Did you stay at the dock?”
“Yeah, everyone was watching. Dad helped us with our boat.”
