Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1) (19 page)

Thirty-Four

The Florida sun streamed in through the windows. The world spun as Hayden lifted her head from the pillows. Tiger Cat curled near her waist on the far side of the king size bed. Falling back on the pillows with a groan, she reached a hand up and touched the back of her head. She felt the bandage and wondered how much taking the adhesive tape off her hair would hurt.

Time for a new haircut, she thought ruefully.

Vague memories of the night before filtered back. Hayden heard someone puttering in her office. She tried sitting up again. This time with more success. The sudden motion caused her to retch. The sound brought Mallory to her door.

“Hey there. How are we today?” Mallory, clad in faded cutoffs and a yellow tank top, had a dust rag in one hand and a mermaid statute in the other. “You know, you should speak to your housekeeper. It’s disgraceful in there.” She pulled her mouth down into a frown and then laughed. “Seriously, I’ve pretty much put it back together. Fingerprint powder was everywhere.”

“What time is it?”

“Two thirty. You deserved to sleep in. I don’t know about that cat of yours. He met me at the door screaming for chow. Speaking of food?”

Hayden waved her hand weakly in front of her face. “No, it would just come back.”

“If you’re still nauseous, you need to go to the hospital. No joke, Hayden. You need to see a doctor. You should be over the effects by now.” She came to her friend’s side and slid an arm behind her back. “Let me help you up. You can test the waters.”

“Do I have any hair back there?” She wasn’t sure what answer she hoped for. No hair meant the tape would come off easier, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a monk-like bald spot either.

“Well, let’s say your mask won’t be pulling for a while.” She smiled and watched her friend carefully.

Cautiously Hayden swung her legs to the floor. Leaning on Mallory she found her slippers and stood, taking first one tentative step and then another. “Hey, know what, the getting up was the hard part. I do feel fine now. My head hurts but that’s about it. Mallory, were you still here when Barton...oh, you brought the photo, you must have been here. Something about that bracelet. Barton didn’t like the bracelet, my having it, or the theft of it.”

“I heard her tell you Kevin and his brother were smuggling Cubans. Does that make sense to you?” Mallory asked.

Hayden walked slowly to the bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out an aspirin bottle. Thoughtfully she unscrewed the cap. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes caught Mallory’s in the reflection.

“I don’t know. Last night I didn’t think so. Today, in the cold light of dawn, maybe. What strikes me the hardest is that I didn’t really know Kevin at all. I wonder what he wanted from me. It had to be something.” She pitched her body so the sink supported her hips and held her silence while she followed her thoughts. “I think he’s known Samantha for a long time. Her family lived next door. Oh sure, it could be one of those things that happened, yada, yada, yada. But, given the proximity of his brother’s house, he had the perfect set up to be with her.”

“Hayd,” Mallory said gently, “this isn’t about Samantha or you. This is about Richard and Kevin.”

She smiled wistfully, ran water into a small cup and swallowed the drug. “Yeah, I know. The proximity bothers me though. Something about the proximity. Do you think she’s in on it?”

“I think you’re grasping at straws.”

“I wonder if that was her car yesterday, the silver one.” Hayden paused and studied her hands. “Yesterday. Seems more like last year. When I think of all the lies…” She opened the medicine cabinet and removed her toothpaste. “I don’t know what Samantha does or drives. She was supposed to be a tourist woman who recently moved here. Someone with money. Lie. Richard was supposed to live up north Florida way and just be moving down here. Lie. He was supposed to be selling his boat to buy a larger one. Given what we know, that might have been true. Why me? Where do I fit in?”

“Location, location, location?”

Hayden shook her head and immediately regretted the action.

“No,” she said, gripping the edge of the sink to steady herself. “Something else. It’s the darnedest thing. I think it was the diving.”

“Diving? This is Marathon, everyone dives.”

“Not like I do. Nearly every weekend. Whenever I went out with him and Kevin came along, a boat would pull up after we anchored. Never the same boat, just always a boat. Cappy commented on it a couple of times. You know Cappy goes to out of the way places. Places he’s discovered. He said he felt like he was being followed. He thought someone wanted his GPS numbers for dive competitors. I laughed then but now I’m not so sure. Except I don’t think it had to do with the competition.”

“Okay, what’s the point?”

“Kevin always went his own way underwater. We never dove together, not like you and I. You’ve been with us, you know how he went off alone or would go back into the water because he saw something and wanted a second look. You didn’t come with us too often but when you did, it was a pattern.”

“Yeah, but I never saw a second boat. We always had the place to ourselves.” Mallory stopped. She twirled her hair. Something she did when she was thinking. “No, we didn’t. Remember the dive we did at Joe’s Reef? A second boat anchored on the far side. You’re right, Kevin didn’t dive with us. He took his spear gun and went out shooting.”

“Right. And the note I found in his BC pocket. The date, the time and number. Now it makes sense. It was an information swap. The date and time a go-fast was coming in and the number of refugees. The bad news is, Kevin took the slate. I never saw anyone on any of the other boats. Oh, I saw people, silhouettes  I guess, but no identifiable person. Besides, I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Are you going to tell Barton?”

“Tell what, that other people like to dive? I don’t know. Maybe. I want to call Janice though. We need to talk to her. Tell her about her sister.”

Mallory helped Hayden to the living room and made her sit on the couch. While Hayden punched in the marine patrol officer’s number, Mallory whipped up some omelets and toast.

Hayden and Mallory munched breakfast on Hayden’s covered porch. The smell of breakfast cooking had turned Hayden’s stomach. Once she started eating, she was surprised to discover the extent of her hunger.

The air was warm but a breeze took the edge off the humidity. Mallory did an excellent job of keeping Hayden awake and out of bed. Hayden forestalled Mallory’s concerns by calling her doctor. The doctor assured Hayden there was little he could do for her at this stage and that if she wasn’t vomiting and could stay awake, she’d be out of danger. He did ask to see her to change her bandage though. And he advised her to stay out of the water.

The crunch of oolite in Hayden’s driveway alerted the two women to a new arrival. Looking around the corner of the house, Mallory saw a dark haired woman in jeans and a tank top approaching. It took her a minute to recognize Janice. She beckoned her to come around the porch and join them. The two women brought the marine officer up to speed regarding the events of the previous night.

“And my sister? What about my sister? Did she say anything?”

Hayden looked at Mallory, she wondered how much information to tell Janice about how her sister’s pregnancy occurred. Janice did not like her brother-in-law. Could she handle the details of the nasty relationship? Mallory nodded her head and Hayden launched into the story of the rape and the pregnancy.

“So, she had motive.” Janice sighed. “More motive than she had before. My sister always had a problem in her pregnancies. She faints. Her blood pressure drops and down she goes. It lasts for a month. This is the month.”

“Yes, that happened yesterday. Scared the heck out of us, we called nine-one-one. She refused help.”

Smiling ruefully, Janice said, “You spent a lot of time with nine-one-one yesterday.”

“Your sister told us Richard hit her when she was out on the boat. Hit her and she fell. She must have hit her head. She didn’t remember anything else, not coming back into port, not getting off the boat, not sitting on the dock.”

“What was the fight about? Did she say?”

The two friends shared a look. Mallory cleared her throat and said, “He told her he was leaving her and wasn’t coming back. And he insisted that the baby wasn’t his.”

“The problem is, he left on the boat,” Hayden added.

“Problem?” Janice looked from Hayden to Mallory. “Why would that be a problem? It would explain why nobody ever found the boat. It drifted off after he fell and it’s God knows where now. The Bahamas, Mexico, Cuba, mainland Florida. Who knows where it floated.”

“That doesn’t explain two things. Why he was at Faulkner Marina and—”

“When was the boat at Faulkner?

“The Coast Guard report has a record of his boat being sighted there the night he died. It was in the Monroe County report. There’s a record he got gas. That was early in the day, around two. Kevin said he saw the boat there that night, and his girlfriend corroborated the report.”

“From what you told me, we can discount Kevin and his girlfriend. By the way, you know her parents live next door to my sister. I ran her name after you mentioned it. She has a condo in Ft. Lauderdale but she started to rent that out a couple of months ago. She’s renting a place on the bay behind the airport. Big bucks.”

So, she’d know the boat?”

“Yes, but I don’t think she’s reliable. If Kevin and Richard were smuggling people, she had to know.”

“Why? I didn’t,” Hayden pointed out. She paused for a beat and weighed her words, trying to find some way to soften the impact. “The boat has been found. At least I think it has.”

Janice looked at Hayden. Her face was a study in apprehension and anticipation. “Where?”

The sounds of the palm fronds clacking in the breeze and the birds singing seemed to get louder. Hayden knew her next words would explode Janice’s world.

“At the dock, behind your sister’s house. Sunk. She showed us.”

Janice hid her face in her hands. Her back shook with her sobs. Feeling helpless, Hayden put her arm around her shoulders drawing her closer. The breeze blew the scent of jasmine bushes to them and Janice sobbed harder. “That’s my sister’s favorite perfume. Jasmine. Did you tell Barton?”

“That’s it,” Hayden exclaimed. She pulled her arm from around Janice’s shoulders and looked across at Mallory. “That’s it, the scent I smelled last night.”

“Jasmine? Not a big help, you have it everywhere.”

“No. Aftershave. Paul Muller’s aftershave.”

Thirty-Five

“Mallory, help me get dressed. I’m going to see Paul. I have to see him. I want to see his reaction to me, face to face.” Hayden pushed herself off the chair and promptly grabbed the porch rail. “He said he hoped we could dive together after this investigation ended. I want to remind him of that. I need to see his face when I do.”

“You have a concussion. One of the aftereffects can be—”

“Delusions,” Hayden interrupted. “I don’t think so. Something bothered me from the time I came to. I knew I was missing something. It was just out of my reach. Paul was here last night. Believe me. He broke in here. He grabbed me. He took the bracelet.”

“And he had the key too? Hayden, stop and think. Whoever broke in here last night had access to a key.”

“You told me Barton said they found a screwdriver. I upgraded nearly everything in this house I could. Even though I bought deadbolts, I never took out the little thumb pusher locks. Half the time, that’s all I use. When I forget my house keys, I use the screwdriver I keep in the truck. Duh. See, Mallory, no key required.”

Mallory’s eyes bulged and her face turned a shade Hayden could only describe as puce. “Are you telling me you haven’t been using the deadbolts? Even at night? Especially last night?”

“Yeah. Well.” A red flush stained Hayden’s cheeks. “They’re double keyed, inside and out. I tossed the key in the junk drawer the other day. I was too tired last night to dig it out.”

A mixture of fury and disbelief crossed Mallory’s face. Hayden wanted to run and hide, but she didn’t think she’d get very far. Where was Mallory going with this key tirade? Everything she said pointed to Kevin. No way the guy in the house last night was Kevin. Heat burned her face. She knew what his body felt like, and she knew the woodsy scent of his aftershave. Paul was a different story.

“Then how did the battery get replaced in the bathroom? Hayd, think. Someone with a key came in here yesterday while we were diving, replaced the battery with a dead one and thought they would be able to get in through the bathroom window. It would have worked too. The only reason it didn’t, whoever did it automatically set the alarm when they left. Hayden. You said yourself that you left the alarm off. So someone set it. It had to be someone who did it from force of habit. Someone like Kevin. Not Paul.”

“Kevin gave me back my key. Why do you think the battery didn’t die on its own? You know the trouble I have with that zone.”

Mallory rolled her eyes and continued. “And he probably stopped at the K-Mart and had another one made before he gave it back. Or maybe he didn’t even plan it, maybe he had a second key anyway and he forgot to give it back to you. No one jimmied the door yesterday afternoon when we came back from diving. Someone jimmied it last night, after someone set the alarm off prying the bathroom window open. Think, Hayden, think.”

Sighing deeply, Hayden looked from Mallory to Janice. She got up and gingerly walked down the porch steps to the mosaic bench in her garden. Sitting down again, she laid her face against the side of the avocado tree feeling the rough bark beneath her cheek. She could accept Kevin as a smuggler. She could accept that he would make money from other people’s suffering. He’d always had a self-interested streak she’d tried to ignore. But to believe he broke into her house, hurt her, and stole something? No. That went against everything she believed.

Reaching up she patted the hand she felt on her shoulder. Janice came around and sat down beside her. “It’s rough to believe someone you love could hurt you. It’s even rougher to believe someone you love could murder. I’m learning that today. But Hayden, it can happen. Did you always change the battery right away?”

“No, not in the little bathroom. It went out often. The screen, that’s where the alarm wires are, is a little rusted. I need to have it replaced. So I’d bypass the zone until I got sick of keying in the bypass code. The alarm guy is supposed to come this week to re-do the screen.” Hayden snorted. “Talk about a day late.”

“Kevin knew you wouldn’t rush to change out the battery.” Janice’s voice was gentle when she spoke. She gave Hayden’s shoulder a quick squeeze of support. “I have to share what you told me about Kevin with my agency. It’s not my investigation anymore. I can’t keep the information and look into it. I’ll have to share about my sister and the boat too.” Her voice broke. “Your information will break the case, one way or another.”

Her relationship with Kevin was over. She accepted that. This wasn’t about fantasy. This was about hard facts. The kind of facts her training taught her to look for. Kevin was involved, no question.

But murdering his brother? Hayden couldn’t believe it. Especially if Richard was Kevin’s meal ticket. Kevin liked the good life. Maybe, just maybe, if Richard’s death was a tragic accident, Kevin was responsible. Hayden reviewed what she knew about her boyfriend. He loved drama. Accidently killing his brother would bring him a lot of attention. And sympathy. No, he would have come forward. He wouldn’t have waited and then tried to blame her. Someone was tipping Kevin off underwater. Telling him times, dates and numbers. Who would have that information? Why were the brothers never caught?

The only person who made any sense was Paul. He knew where the patrols were going. That information was worth a fortune to smugglers. Paul tipped Kevin, Kevin tipped Richard, Richard took his boat out to meet the go-fasts knowing full well that the Coast Guard was in the other direction. Everybody made money.

The no risk factor would appeal to Kevin. Hayden was sure of that. Paul was with her when her regulator failed on the Humboldt. He’d inspected her computer just before they dove. He had ample opportunity to tamper with the hoses. He’d also boarded Cappy’s boat before her dive yesterday. Her tanks were all marked with her name. “Hayden K” in purple marker. A quick jab from a pocket knife.

He had the means and the opportunity to sabotage her gear, both times. If he killed Richard, he had motive. He needed to frame someone. Who better than someone who didn’t have any idea what was going on? She was the jilted girlfriend. She killed the messenger who owned the boat she wanted to buy. Took it for a test run and tossed the owner overboard. Then she scuttled the boat. All circumstantial, but it all hung together.

The only hole in her logic was whether Paul, Kevin, and Richard knew each other. And why anyone would steal the bracelet. How did that tie in?

Turning, she looked into Janice’s kind face. Tears stung her eyes. “I want to see Paul.”

“Then we’ll go. I’ll take you. But I’ll stay in the car, it makes it less official.”

The ringing of Janice’s cell phone interrupted the women. She looked at the number and grimaced. “The office, darn, I’m 10-7 and they know it.” She said using the local code for off duty.

Hayden watched Janice tap the answer key and begin speaking. The color drained from Janice’s face. Despite her own weakness, Hayden reached out to support the woman in case she fainted. When she caught Mallory’s eye, Hayden motioned her over to the tree. Janice clicked off just as Mallory stepped up.

“Do you still have a photo of the bracelet?” Janice croaked.

“Barton took it last night. I have the shot in my camera. I didn’t erase the sim card.”

The three women went into Hayden’s office. She paled when she realized she hadn’t seen the camera since the robbery, never occurred to her to look for it. Mallory pulled open a drawer and took out the camera.

“It was under the desk between the leg and the wall.”

Smiling gratefully, Hayden fished around under her desk until she found the photo printer. Sitting down, she made a copy of the picture and handed it to Janice.

“My God,” she hissed. “It all ties together. Pobrecita.” Janice used the Spanish word meaning poor little girl.

She turned and shuffled into the Florida room as if she was an old woman beaten by the weight of the world. Hayden and Mallory looked at each other and rose to follow her.

“I know there’s something about that bracelet, Janice. I just don’t know what. Barton changed totally when I showed her the picture. Now you’re doing the same thing.”

“My family came here in the Mariel boat lift. My father died a few days before our visas came from Castro. They murdered him. Once he died, we could go.” She gazed at the picture in her hands but her thoughts were elsewhere. “I remember life in Cuba. I couldn’t wait to get out, to come to the U.S. My father told stories of how wonderful life would be. My mother practiced English and made Elena and me do the same. Freedom, you could smell it, taste it, you just couldn’t have it in Cuba. You knew you could here. You knew the air was sweeter, the sky bluer, and life better. If you had to fight and maybe die to come to the US, you did.”

A cloud passed over Janice’s face. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

Hayden nodded and led the group back to her office.

While Hayden looked for the magnifier, Janice took a deep breath and continued, “The girl who owned this bracelet. Her body washed up yesterday at the end of this street. Her mother lives in Miami. She paid for her daughter to come here. Paid smugglers. But the call from Krome never came. Immigration never told her that her daughter arrived. Relatives in Cuba confirmed she’d left the island on a go-fast. When the papers reported the body, they said it was probably from a botched smuggling job. The woman’s clothes were Cuban. The mother, she denied it could be her daughter’s body. It had no charm bracelet. She never took her charm bracelet off. The charm bracelet her mother gave her, when she left her in the care of her highly placed uncle before she left Cuba.”

Janice looked at the photo again. Her finger traced the charms spread out against the dark background. “Against all evidence, she hoped her daughter missed the boat, was still in Cuba hiding. She’d bought her daughter a place on the boat to celebrate the girl’s birthday.”

Both American women were silent. They didn’t know what to say. Nothing in their lives prepared them to understand the depth of desperation and suffering that drove a person to pay an exorbitant amount of money to stand shoulder to shoulder on a tiny overcrowded boat over some of the roughest seas in the hemisphere.

The sun streamed into Hayden’s office. The cheerful yellow of the walls seemed out of place with the suffering that showed in Janice’s face and posture. Hayden wheeled her deck chair beside her. Janice stared out the window at the avocado tree. “Janice, I don’t know what to say. I am so sorry. Was she family?”

“No, not in the blood sense. In the emotional sense, yes. My sister, I need to go to my sister.” Janice caught herself. “The Monroe County police will want to talk to her. I need to call in the sunk boat. Have that raised and see what we see. I hope to God Elena is not involved in this. How else can the boat be sunk at the dock though?”

“Can she drive a boat? Could she get it back to Big Pine alone if Richard went overboard?”

Janice replied with a negative shake of her head. “My sister hated the sea since the day we left Cuba. She was sick the entire time, from the moment we left until the moment we landed. Still, I don’t know if she could handle the boat. Desperation makes us do things we don’t think we can. Getting back to their dock, that’s tricky. You go in a small channel, turn in a second channel, canal really, and then it opens into the lagoon behind their house. The lagoon is deep. Oolite to build the roads on Big Pine came out of it, some for Flagler’s railroad too, they say. It has to be sixty feet in the center. It’s about thirty feet behind the houses. At night, I don’t know if I could find my way back in. And I work on the water. I’m a cop. I have to think like a cop, not like a sister. I’ll be with her though, all the way.”

“Before you call Monroe County, please, let’s go see Paul,” Hayden begged. “I think I should go in alone but I don’t want to drive. Not with my head the way it is. I want to see him when he sees me.”

“I can’t go with you now. It would muddy the waters. There’s no reason Mallory can’t go. Do you have a small tape recorder?”

“Err, isn’t that illegal?”

“Yes. And we wouldn’t be able to use it either. But what I’m suggesting is you dictate your impressions as soon as you leave him. When they’re fresh. Before you have a chance to forget or color anything. You’ve had a blow to the head. Your memory may be faulty. It’s a safeguard.”

Hayden pinched her lip between her thumb and forefinger. She had a tape recorder, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to do it that way.

“She’s right.” Mallory spoke from the doorway. “You may forget, it would be the best way. I’ll drive you.”

Hayden kept turning and looking out the back window making sure Janice was in sight. They had convinced her that to tighten the case, she needed to be nearby. Mallory drove Hayden to the Coast Guard station and would wait in the lobby. Janice would park in front of a defunct dive shop right off U.S. 1 on the bay side. She’d wait for the women there and would supervise Hayden’s dictation, asking questions from a law enforcement standpoint.

The closer they got to the Coast Guard Station, the more Hayden’s head hurt and the surer she was about the scent she’d smelled the night before.

Hayden walked up to the reception desk. “Paul Mueller, Hayden Kent to see him.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant Mueller is out on his dinner break.” The duty officer pointed towards the bank of chairs lining the wall. “You can wait for him over there if you like. He should be back soon.”

Twenty minutes later, his dinner break over, Paul walked into the lobby of the station from the parking lot. Paul’s eyes narrowed and his smile dimmed when he spied Hayden and Mallory sitting in the lobby. Noting the response, Hayden smiled her brightest smile. Recovering quickly, he came up to Hayden and smiled a greeting.

“Looking for me?” he asked.

“I’m sorry to bother you. Especially so soon after you were so kind to me. I wanted to show you something I found. I thought it might help your investigation.”

“Sure, come on back. Are you two together?” He indicated Mallory sitting next to Hayden.

At Hayden’s nod he added, “Why don’t you join us?”

Paul opened the swinging gate between the public and private areas and stepped back for the women to pass. Hayden breathed deeply. Her jaw tightened in disappointment. She smelled a different scent. Paul’s aftershave had a more woodsy scent. Whoever met her in the hallway of her house last night wore a different aftershave than Paul now wore.

Although Paul walked behind Hayden, he asked no questions about the bloodstained gauze bandage on the back of her head. Gauze that Mallory had assured her looked so gory she’d offered to change it.

Taking a seat in his office, Hayden withdrew the photo from her handbag. Handing it over the desk, she watched carefully. Paul took the photo and glanced at it. He blinked twice, quickly and dropped the photo to the floor. Leaning over, he picked it up. Returning upright, he studied the photo. “Is there something I should be seeing here? Some reason I should be interested in this bracelet?”

“Someone broke into my house last night and took it,” Hayden stated baldly. “Monroe County seemed to think it was very important. Tied somehow to the death of Richard Anderson and human smugglers.” Hayden took a deep breath. She thought she might be going too far. But if he had broken into her house last night, and given her this awful headache, she wanted him to know he hadn’t won.

There were other people involved and she had a few cards herself. She felt Mallory tense alongside her. Ignoring the unspoken warning, taking a shot in the dark, Hayden continued, “People don’t smuggle in a vacuum. Anderson probably worked with his brother. My ex-boyfriend. The way I see it, Kevin used his county position to help figure out the patrol sectors.”

“And this concerns me how?” A muscle jumped in his jaw.

At a loss, she said, “You have an investigation, don’t you?”