Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1) (15 page)

Twenty-Seven

“What’d Cappy say?” Hayden asked as she jumped out of the Tahoe to help Mallory wrestle her nitrox tanks into the truck. “We leaving these at Seahorse to get them filled? I don’t want them in the truck when we stop. They can go off like little sidewinders you know. Derek had an overheated tank shoot a valve through his windshield.”

“I never believed that story but yes, we’re dropping them off at Seahorse. I thought I’d get some thirty-two percent.”

Hayden knew Mallory was referring to the percentage of nitrox she intended to use for her dive mixture. Thirty-two percent would allow her to dive safely to approximately one hundred and thirty feet. For a trained diver, nitrox was safer than regular air. The nitrogen buildup she would experience in her blood would be less and she would be able to have a longer dive time.

The two women settled in the leather seats of the Tahoe. “Did you find out what happened on your street this morning?” Mallory asked.

“No.” She chewed her lip and debated whether to tell Mallory about the car that slowed in front of her house. “I almost went down to the crowd, but…I hate the feeling of being a gawker.” She shuddered. “If I thought I could help…”

To cover her emotions, Hayden hit the radio button tuned to the country western station. Mallory reacted by rolling her eyes and reaching between the seats to fish out the CD case Hayden kept on the back floor. Mallory selected a CD and prepared to hit the load button when Hayden reached for her hand.

“Wait,” She commanded. “Did you hear the news intro? The next story is about a body found in Marathon. Let’s listen and then you can put in Jimmy Buffet.” Hayden laughed at her friend’s reddening cheeks. “I know, who else would you put in the CD player?”

Both women listened when the news began. A dog walker found the body of a young woman washed up near a boat ramp in Marathon. No identification yet, but the woman appeared to be between eighteen and thirty. She looked like she’d been in the water for no more than a few weeks. Hayden shuddered. Her mind filled with images of what a day-old body in the water looked like. The newscaster continued to explain that early indications were a Cuban smuggling operation gone bad. The Coast Guard and FWC were looking for more bodies.

“I’m glad I don’t own a dog,” Hayden said. “What a rotten way to start your day. I guess that’s what was going on at the end of my block. They were down far enough to be at the boat ramp.” She reached over and hit the CD button.  The sounds of Jimmy Buffet filled the cab of the truck.

“You OK?” Mallory asked. “You look a little pale.”

Ignoring the question, Hayden joined the traffic of U.S. 1 and asked, “Where do you want to go?”

“Big Pine?”

Making a choking gesture with her hands, Hayden said, “Okay brat, after that—no wait, after we go to Big Pine and after we drop off the photo and do an advertisement in the Keys paper and after we pick up your tank and after…”

“Alright, enough, I want to go to the Humboldt.”

The Tahoe’s brakes and Mallory both squealed when Hayden swerved into a parking lot and stopped short. Hayden heard her blood pound in her ears, “No.” She swiveled in her seat to look Mallory full in the face. “I don’t want to go back there.” She spaced each word out carefully. A chill touched her and goose bumps rose on her skin. “It’s a bad luck dive to me. And after this morning…No.” She turned to look out the windshield, her knuckles showing white through her skin as she gripped the steering wheel.

“God, Hayden, you scared the heck out of me with that skid stop.” Mallory laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “Richard wasn’t a smuggled refugee. I want to see the opening in the top wheelhouse for myself. And I want to look around to see if you missed anything. At that depth, two heads are better than one. You know what it’s like down there. You see all these wonderful things you want to talk about when you get back to the boat. Then you surface and you can’t think of one.”

“It’s pointless, Mallory. Do you know how many divers have been down since I found Richard? Do you know how many divers went because I found Richard? Forget it. There’s nothing left to see.”

“Or there’s a lot stirred up. One way or the other, I want to go.” Mallory blew her chocolate colored bangs out of her eyes. “And you need to get back on the horse. It’s your favorite dive.”

Hayden heard the metal in Mallory’s voice and refused to reply. She’d known Mallory long enough to know her mind was made up, and she was not going to be able to change it. Instead, Hayden pointed the truck’s nose back onto U.S. 1 and down to Big Pine trying to untangle the images of dead bodies in the water from her thoughts.

“Turn there,” Mallory shouted, looking at the plat map on her lap. “That’s Jolly Roger Lane. Now, go over the bridge, onto Jolly Roger Island. Follow the street around and the Anderson lots should be the first three at the end of the street. Wow, these are some classy digs. No old Florida conch here.”

Holding the address propped in front of her on the steering wheel, Hayden identified Elena’s house as the two-story home built up on stilts. Hurricane Georges’ hit the area pretty hard back in the late 1990s. A lot of homes were lost, especially this close to the ocean. The rebuilds were all on stilts so they could qualify for hurricane insurance. The lower levels used for parking, storage, and sometimes illegal guest quarters.

“Holy guacamole, that’s some house,” Hayden said. The blue and white home seemed to extend back almost to the lagoon edge. There was a built-up area she saw from the driveway that held what looked to be a swimming pool. The lot to the east held nothing but closely clipped grass and some palm trees. The lot size was big, at least ten thousand square feet. Something should have been on it, or maybe had been prior to Georges. Next to the empty lot loomed a house identical to the one Hayden stood in front of now, except it was green and white. Obviously, the Andersons harbored desires of building a compound. Now that real estate prices in the Keys were so depressed in the wake of the foreclosure crisis, they might still pull it off.

She didn’t want to look at the house on the west. The Penmartin house.

“It won’t bite,” Mallory said as if reading her friend’s mind. “In fact, it looks like no one is home. I don’t see Kevin’s car. You can look, get it out of your system. It’s kind of pretty.”

Hayden forced herself to turn and look at the house. It must have escaped George’s wrath. The house sprawled over the lot mingling several Keys styles. Originally, it looked like it was a ranch house. Someone added a second story and two pointy eyebrow dormers. A roof deck extended out over the garage. On top of the dormers, a widow’s walk surrounded by a white fence perched precariously looking out over the lagoon. Sitting behind the house was what looked like a fifty foot Bertram. Blinding white and gorgeous in the afternoon sun. A dive flag hung limply from the mast. Unusual for a Bertram. They were more often rigged for fishing.

Dragging her gaze from her rival’s house, Hayden said, “Let’s go. I think Elena is expecting us.”

The woman must have been standing behind the door. Up close, Hayden noticed the ethereal quality some women get when they’re expecting. She looked like a natural blonde. Her skin was tan, though, and didn’t look like it would burn easily.

“My sister told me I should trust you. Talk to you. The children are at school. We can talk alone. Come, follow me into the kitchen, we’ll be comfortable there.”

“Mrs. Anderson.”

“No, Elena. Mrs. Anderson is my mother-in-law.” Elena’s mouth settled into an unattractive scowl.

“OK, Elena. I used to date your brother-in-law, Kevin.” Hayden wasn’t sure what Janice told her sister. She didn’t want there to be any false pretenses or expectations on Elena’s part. “That’s why Richard called me. To come get Kevin’s belongings, and to show me a boat he had for sale. I’m a paralegal—not the police—and I’m not sure what questions to ask you. Why do you think the police suspect you?”

“Police, no. I don’t know they suspect me. Oh, maybe, because I’m the wife and because Richard, well, sometimes he would...” Elena looked down at the little bump in her lap and plucked her skirt with her fingers. She looked back at Hayden and then to Mallory. Her blue green eyes were saucer-sized, and shiny with unshed tears. “Get a little out of hand.” She finished.

“Did he hit you?” Mallory asked gently.

Hayden was relieved Mallory was willing to take over the questioning. This was more her area of expertise.

Elena looked Mallory directly in the face. “Yes. Sometimes he did. We fought a lot. I think he must have complained to his parents, they want to kick me out of the house. Let me get some coffee.” Elena rose and walked to the cupboard and took down three mugs. Carrying them in one hand, she went to the coffee pot and proceeded to fill all three. “Cream, sugar?”

“What did you do before you were married?” Hayden asked.

“Waitress.” Elena smiled. “The three mugs gave me away?”

“Why would they want to throw their grandchildren out? Especially their unborn grandchild?” Hayden voiced the question that had nagged at her since Grant told her about the Anderson’s plans.

Coloring deeply, Elena said “They don’t like their...what they call brown grandchildren. They don’t like me because I’m Cuban. And maybe because of the waitress thing, a little. Richard came home one night. I don’t know where he went. He came back with the boat. It was late. He was upset. He came into the bed and well...” She waved her hand back and forth, blushing deeply. Finally she said, “He took me. Things had been bad for a long time. It was the first time in a long time and the last time ever. That’s how I got this little baby, the one I’m carrying. He said the baby wasn’t his. I don’t know if he told his parents that too. I wanted to leave but I didn’t know where to go. It was bad between us. I loved him though.”

Hayden looked at Mallory and shrugged slightly. This line of questioning was getting them nowhere. She had motive. But could she kill her husband, even accidentally, and be so calm about it?

“I had a restraining order. Janice made me get it. She was right. That cop, the one we saw on the ocean. He must have found out about that.”

“What cop?” Mallory asked quickly before Elena got off on a tangent and Hayden forgot. “Who did you see? Was it when you and Richard were on a boat?”

“No, when I went with Janice on her patrol boat. We went out to where you found Richard. I was miserable. I brought flowers to toss on the site.”

“Who saw you?” Hayden asked. Elena should never have been in Janice’s boat. The FWC forbade civilians on board, unless they were in trouble or under arrest. Even Hayden knew that. No wonder Elena was reluctant to discuss how the police associated her with the murder.

“Janice called him Paul. We tied on to his boat. Janice didn’t know it was him when we tied on. It was just another boat out on the water, no markings. We tied on while I scattered the flowers. He came up from his dive. He saw us. You won’t tell, will you? I don’t want Janice in trouble. This is my trouble. I begged her.”

“Why?”

“Why don’t tell? I don’t understand.”

Hayden got up from the table and walked to the window, the sound of diesel engines starting attracted her attention. The big white Bertram next door belched exhaust.

“No, why did you go out with him that night? You went in the boat, didn’t you?”

Elena nodded. “The night he died, I decided I had to prove to him the baby was his. I wanted to make my marriage work. He was going out on his boat. I asked him to take me. He didn’t want to. Finally, he did. It was a mistake.”

Her voice broke and she inhaled deeply. She rose and walked to the refrigerator and poured herself an orange juice. When she sat at the table, she plucked a paper napkin from a holder made of Popsicle sticks and folded the napkin into a fan.

Hayden moved from her place at the window and placed a hand on Elena’s shoulder. “I can only guess how hard this must be for you. But if you don’t help us, we can’t help you. Did you tell Janice Richard asked you to go fishing and you agreed?”

Elena looked up at Hayden, her eyes swimming with tears. “Yes. I lied. I was afraid what she would think if she knew I begged him.” She looked down at her hands and lifted her fingers one by one. Then she said, “Richard and I were out on the boat, we fought, he said he was leaving and I couldn’t keep him. We said a lot of awful things. He hit me. I fell and hit my head on something in the boat. I woke up on the dock. He’d put me in a chair. The boat was gone. Richard was gone and I never saw him again. If he died that night, it was my fault. I upset him. I wanted to put the flowers to say,” Elena shrugged a little, “to say I was sorry.”

Kneeling down in front of the woman, Hayden said, “Did you tell the man, Paul, about this?”

“No. I was trembling when he caught us. I told Janice, about the fight I mean, but I don’t know if he heard. He kept looking at me like he was measuring me for a dress. Janice was holding me and telling me it would be all right. I don’t remember everything that happened when he was there. I was upset.”

“If you were out cold, you couldn’t have killed your husband,” Mallory said.

Elena frantically plucked at the napkin she had so painstakingly folded. Hayden watched in fascination, fully expecting her to tear it into shreds. A quick glance at Mallory told her she was just as confused by the woman’s actions. So far, everything was pretty straightforward. She was a suspect because she was the wife. Albeit a pregnant one. That didn’t change the history of violence.

The color drained from Elena’s face and a light sweat broke out along her forehead. “I’m, I’m sorry. I feel a little…” The pregnant woman slumped forward. Hayden grabbed her just in time to keep her head from smashing into the table. Mallory jumped up to look for the telephone.

Hayden propped the woman back in the chair and went to the sink for water and a wet towel. The window faced the Penmartins’. Glancing out, she  noticed a large silver car parked in the driveway and wished it was some kind of rescue vehicle. Bringing the water and a towel to the stricken woman, she began to wipe her forehead, neck and wrists. Elena moaned and stirred. “Stay quiet, we’re calling for an ambulance. Help will be here soon. Has this happened before? Have you had anything to eat?”

“No,” Elena moaned.

“Let me get you some...”

“No, no ambulance. I’m fine. I have to show you something. Help me out to the dock.”

“No way, Elena. You can’t go out in this heat right now. Stay here and let the paramedics check you. You won’t have to go with them if you don’t need to. Stay here.”

“No.” She pushed herself up from the table using what seemed to be the full strength of both her hands and arms. She swayed slightly when she gained her feet. Determined to go outside, Hayden took one arm and Mallory the other. They allowed Elena Anderson to lead them out to the dock.

“The water here is deep, at least thirty feet. They used to have sailboats here.” Elena shook both women off her arms and walked right to the end of the dock. Pointing down she said, “Look.”

Following her finger, the two women barely made out the top of a submerged boat.