Plot

Mike's good friend is killed in a boating accident, but Mike feels someone may have tried to murder him. Investigating several potential suspects leads him to believe his friend is really still alive.

The Coast Guard receives a mayday call from Barry Knox, Mike's friend, from aboard the Ingrid, which Barry and Mike built together, and which is named after Mike's deceased wife so that she would also be with them in spirit. Shortly thereafter, the Coast Guard finds only debris of what they assume used to be the Ingrid, Barry's presumed dead body not located. But the pieces don't fit together for Mike, who believes Barry was murdered, initially due to the mayday call in relation to the fact that Barry and his girlfriend, Connie Gilman, the daughter of his accountant, were supposed to be at Mike's for dinner at the time of the supposed accident. Mike's suspicions are strengthened when he learns Eugene Riles, his construction company business partner, has filed an insurance claim for Barry's death. Mike learns, in turn from Riles, that the company books seem to indicate that $220,000 is missing, Riles suspecting, under the circumstances, that Barry had something to do with those missing moneys. The more Mike gets into the case, the more it seems the boating accident had something to do with Barry's business, and his on-going competition against a rival firm owned by Emory Taggart. The key seems to be the mayday recording, which someone wants to hide very badly.—Huggo