Hi, Benjamin.
Even though in the intro you say you’ve skimped on certain details to avoid patronising the reader, you’ve given enough to leave no doubt as to your expertise as an Engineer with a capital E, as you put it. Even with the best intentions, few but the most ardent enthusiasts of the technical aspects you dwell on will not take you up on the offer thus: “feel free to skip over details of any sort that you might think to be non-germane.”
Elements I liked or was intrigued by:
-The intro. It hooks the reader by enticing him with some dramatic action.
-The non-linear order of events. This ensures the reader doesn’t have to wait around for something interesting to happen. You already know there’s drama; you just have to follow the build-up as the writer walks you through it.
-“There was that comment about being ‘worth my while.’ I’d have gone to her assistance anyway, of course, but her comments sounded like money to me and the idea of money always makes my ears grow long and pointy. I then find it very easy to focus.” 
-Your reference to a gun as a “little friend”. Reminds me of Scarface and that famous line of his.
-If you don’t like Michigan weather, wait an hour or two---It’ll change!---probably for the worse!!
-I admired her calm acceptance of the necessity to do something. And the fact that doing something might include sudden violence was also accepted without demur. – Got me thinking about the not-so-rosy picture of Detroit I’ve heard or seen in snippets here and there, including Eminem’s 8 Mile flick.
The following are my suggestions on grammar.
-Between the gasps of agony – delete “the”
-ordinary week-end – delete hyphen in weekend
-“There was an answering box connected
to the telephone on the desk.” – delete the space between these two lines. Must be one of those instances of distortion you warned of in the disclaimer.
-twenty grand for a week-end – again, delete the hyphen
-use of three hyphens to represent a dash – if you're to be keen on punctuation, a proper dash should be used (—). This can be generated from Word by spacing after two hyphens instead of three
Other comments:
1.-There’s a lot of exposition in non-dramatic segments, which is acceptable in a novel, but you need to tighten it as times it serves little purpose other than to stall the plot. On the other hand, that verbosity is welcome when detailing scenes, for example, where Janice was killed. Helps to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.
PS. This was a neat way to get around the problem of overspeak:
“I could delineate the next several hours in detail. But if I said simply that a group of friends/acquaintances with a mutual interest in boats and the water, who had not seen each other as a group for several months, sat around and ‘gassed’ over drinks and something to eat, I will have said everything that needs to be mentioned.”
2.-You use way too many dashes. This has the tendency to prolong sentences, whereas ideally they should be kept short. For example, thanks to dashes, this sentence is long enough to be a paragraph all on its own:
“By the time all the pre-tests were complete---the rockers, significantly lightened, showed no tendency to fail---it made sense for me to go on directly to Daytona for all the test-connected ‘doings’ there, and afterwards, what with one thing and another---including a relaxation-slash-business trip to the Florida Keys after the Daytona 500---it was the end of March before I stopped living out of my luggage.”
At the very least, you should restrict your dashes to just two in a sentence.
3.-Seeing as it was a matter of life and death, the question arises as to why Janice didn’t call an ambulance after being shot and why Benjamin didn’t call the cops when alerted, opting instead to wade into a potential death trap and altogether too late to save Janice’s life. Unless she was engaged in some illegality and Benjamin was a bit of a Jack Bauer, the avoidance of the authorities leaves something to be desired.
4.-Perhaps using third-person narrative would help to create distance between yourself and the persona in the story, so you can avoid the temptation to explain mannerisms that don't necessarily move the story forward in an attempt to acquaint yourself with the reader.
That's all. Hope this helps.
Cheers,
TJay
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