Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1) (4 page)

Five

The bright Florida sunshine streamed in through the bedroom window and woke Hayden. She bolted upright, grabbed the alarm clock, looked at the time, shook the clock, and stared at it again.

“Seven-thirty, damn. Don’t even have time for a shower. The hell with it.”

Tiger Cat lifted his head at the sound of her voice. The cat stretched, then languidly circled and curled into a tight ball where his mistress’s restless form had been.

Hayden kicked off the covers and bolted for the closet. She dressed in khaki pants, a light blue cap-sleeved, textured sweater, and a navy blazer.

Sleep had eluded her the night before. No, maybe that wasn’t true. She’d seen the dead face float in front of her eyes more than once. She wasn’t sure whether she was awake or asleep when it happened. The corpse seemed to live behind her eyelids. Experimentally she squeezed her eyes shut. The morning sunshine faded and the bloated face filled her vision.

On her way to work in Key Largo she gunned her car past a deserted house on Craig Key. Something about the place gave her the creeps. She’d returned to the Keys ten years ago and the house had been under construction. Only the weeds had grown taller in all that time. The gaping doors and windows surrounded by dark concrete walls seemed sinister. If there was going to be crime in the Keys, it should emanate from within those walls. Not underwater. Not on her favorite dive.

She pulled into the little asphalt parking area in front of the classic Keys Victorian house that served as the office of Huffman Koons. Today the pale sea foam green and yellow color scheme of the house failed to comfort her. The collection of cars already in the lot dashed any hope she cherished of entering the office unnoticed.

“You look like five miles of bad road, Kent. What happened to you?” Grant Huffman, her boss and friend, greeted her by last name.

“You should see it from my side. It’ll be in the papers.” She gave him a tired smile.

Concern filled his face. “Not again?”

“Again.” She pulled her mouth into an uncharacteristic frown.

She went to her office and closed her door behind her. Looking at her desk, she sighed. As the firm’s lone paralegal, she had the respect of her attorneys, but she also had the workload of a Trojan. The door opened and Hayden looked up to see her boss sit down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk.

“Take the day off, Hayden. You don’t look like you can do anyone any good today. Especially yourself.”

“Thanks for the concern, Chief. Won’t matter where I am.” Her fingers worried the pen she held. “Do you want to hear about it?”

“Do you need to tell me?” The set of his face told her he asked the question as an attorney.

“I need to tell my friend, I don’t think I need to tell the counselor. Maybe you’ll see something in it I don’t. Have you heard of anyone missing, maybe missing on the water?”

He shook his head. “A smuggled Cuban?”

Considering the question, Hayden said, “I don’t know. Never crossed my mind. Maybe, but he didn’t look Cuban.  Of course that could have been from being in the water. And he was wearing swim trunks. All the pictures I’ve seen of the smuggled Cubans, what’s the term? Balseros? Show them fully dressed.” Thoughtfully, sticking to the bare facts, she told him the story of her dive and strove to see it through his eyes.

His concern touched but didn’t surprise her. They’d been good friends for a while. A lot of people, including his ex-wife, thought they had something more personal between them. Hayden sometimes wished they did, but they both agreed, it could ruin a great friendship and a wonderful working relationship.

“I’m so sorry. How awful for you.”

A sad smile crossed her face. “Worse for that poor man. I can almost feel his terror.” She ran both hands through her short brown hair. “I wish I could’ve done something for him. Helped him somehow.” Staring blindly into the space before her, she dropped her hands to the desk and said, “Crazy huh?”

“No.” Grant touched her hand. “Human.” His grey green eyes searched her pale green ones. “You know there was nothing you could have done, don’t you?”

“Yes, my head knows it. My heart feels helpless.” She picked up a file from the stack on the corner of her desk. “If the cops come, you know where to show them.” Her words were half in jest but with an undertone of sadness.

Grant came back to her office just before lunchtime. “What’s up, Chief? You look like I feel.”

“The police are here, Hayden. They want to talk to you.” He paused for a beat. His eyes clouded over. “At the station.”

His words hit her like a slap. It must have showed.

Grant closed the space between them, but paused when she said, “Why at the station? They didn’t do that the last time.” Her stomach went into freefall and dropped to her toes.

“I don’t know, but I think I better go with you. This time as your friend,” he paused, “and your attorney.”

She opened her drawer and removed her handbag. “Grant.” Her voice cracked and tears welled into her eyes. She slammed her fist into the desk in frustration. She couldn’t figure out what she felt. Tiredness coursed through her, followed by grief, whether for herself or the dead man, she didn’t know.

Grant’s hand snaked out and grabbed hers. “Don’t let them know you’re upset. They’ll feed on it like sharks.”

“That’s not the point. I’m upset because I have nothing to be upset about. I expected them here for a statement. Not for questioning. That’s what the trip to the station means, doesn’t it? Questioning.” Hayden squared her shoulders, opened her handbag, and took out her compact. She gazed into the mirror and grimaced at her reflection. “I’m tired. I hardly slept last night. This stinks. It’s not going to get any…”

The sound of someone clearing their throat stopped Hayden in mid-sentence. Grant spun around. A woman wearing the forest green uniform of a Monroe County Sheriff Deputy stood in Hayden’s doorway. The hungry look on her face frightened Hayden.

“You have no business coming in here,” Grant spat. “Unless you have a warrant you haven’t shown me. This is a private office.”

The officer smiled around a toothpick she rolled in her mouth. “Door was open,” she said. “No harm in walking up to it.” She reached beside her and touched the jamb as if to prove she hadn’t entered.

Hayden raised her hand to stop Grant from saying anything further. She came around the desk, noted the nameplate on the woman’s ample breast, and offered her hand. “Officer Barton,” she said professionally. “Why don’t you come in? I’ll be happy to give you my statement here.” She turned and walked back to her desk.

“As you can imagine, I had rather a sleepless night.” Hayden stood in front of her seat. With a wave of her hand, she offered one of the visitor chairs to the officer. “I would like to get this over with. Tell you what little I can, and start to put it behind me.”

Barton took two forward steps in response to the gesture then stopped and crossed her arms over her chest. The cop’s brown eyes bored into hers with the intensity of someone looking right into her brain.

“No thanks. My captain wants you to come down to our office on Plantation Key. He prefers to take statements there. You can follow, or ride with me.”

The matter of fact tone left no room for argument.

With a glance at Grant, she asked, “You coming with her?”

Grant nodded and opened the door wider, all but ushering the tall cop out. “She’ll be with me. I don’t want her driving right now.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hayden gathered her handbag and double-checked, making sure she had her wallet and identification. A frisson of fear brought goose bumps to her arms. She’d somehow become the center of the story. She had no idea why or when. The worst she’d anticipated included giving a long statement and having to look at photographs of the man in the wheelhouse. Being questioned as if she was a suspect never crossed her mind. Nobody treated her like a suspect the last time she found a body.

Hayden shook her head to clear it and answered Grant’s cocked eyebrow with a shrug of her shoulders. Looking up at him she said, “Let’s get this over with. This is not how I planned my day. You either, I guess.”

Six

As a rule, Hayden loved traveling in Grant’s Jag. He bought a new one every year, even after Ford took over the brand. The cars were always cherry red. Didn’t matter if the color was standard, he paid for custom paint in the years it wasn’t offered. Today the warmth of the caramel colored leather seats and the new car smell heightened the hollow feeling in her stomach. To quell her fear of the coming interview, she gazed out the window at the ocean views. Even the glorious turquoise blue of the water failed to calm her.

She remained in her seat after Grant parked the car in the lot in front of the white stucco building housing the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. The walls swayed and danced in her vision. Blinking hard, she cleared the image. Her hand groped for the door handle and grabbed empty air. With a start, she realized Grant was holding the door open.

Embarrassed, she offered him a weak smile. “I’m scared.”

“It will be fine.”

For a moment, when she entered the cool of the building, her throat closed and she couldn’t breathe. Grant looked at her. Hayden read the alarm in his face. She opened her mouth and closed it again when she was unable to force any sound past the obstruction. The woman behind the counter was saying something Hayden couldn’t catch. The pounding of her heart drowned out the words. Terror rose in her like a wave. Grant reached out and grasped her arm.

“Can you get her a glass of water?” Grant said to the officer who wanted them to follow her. “I think she’s going to faint.”

The woman hurried off in the direction of the rear of the building. Hayden shook herself and the world fell back into place. “I think I’m okay.” She daubed perspiration from her upper lip. “Let’s get this over with.”

A muscle jumped in Grant’s jaw and his eyes searched her face. His expression told Hayden he didn’t agree with her assessment of her well-being. When the officer returned, he took the triangular paper cup and handed it to Hayden. She drained it in one long gulp and handed the empty cup back to the waiting officer.

“Ready now?” the uniformed woman asked.

Hayden gave a slight nod in response to Grant’s questioning look. She and Grant followed the cop to a small room located in the middle of a very long hallway. From the outside, the building looked much smaller. Hoping her fear didn’t show on her face, Hayden took a deep breath and walked into the interrogation room.

An unwelcome dampness filled her eyes. She blinked to clear them. In an effort to calm herself, she studied her surroundings. A grey metal table sat bolted to the floor flanked by four metal, straight back, chairs, two on a side. The walls were cinder block and painted a stark white. A metal lamp hung suspended from the drop ceiling over the center of the table. The compact fluorescent light fixture inside curled around itself exposed and naked. Hayden couldn’t decide if the lamp came out of the box ugly or had sacrificed the bottom in the distant past when the CFL bulb was too big to allow it to fit.

Taking a closer look, she wondered if the light concealed a microphone. If there was any truth in television, it should. She noted an extra wire wrapped around the hanging pole of the lamp and decided it was a microphone cord. The knowledge that they needed her permission to tape the interview was cold comfort. A large clock that displayed the usual twelve-hour reading on the circumference and military time circling inside decorated the wall. A mirror with black curtains on either side completed the grim decor.

Grant place a hand in the small of her back and guided her to a chair. He sat next to her. The police officer receptionist left them, closing the door behind her.

“I feel like I’m in a bad dream…” Hayden began.

“Go over the story again, as much as you can remember. Tell them what you know. Resist the urge to explain or speculate. Just the facts, ma’am.”

Hayden appreciated Grant’s attempt to lighten the mood, but couldn’t manage a smile. “I don’t know much. Only what I found.”

Grant patted her hand “Then that’s what you tell them.” He paused a moment. His eyes drilled into Hayden’s. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

A feeling like bubbling soda in her veins shot through her. He knew her too well.
Nothing about Sunday, but everything about Friday and Saturday.
She was grateful when the door opened, cutting off any reply she could make. Officer Barton entered accompanied by a man dressed in civilian clothes, who Barton introduced as Detective Landsdown.

“Thank you for coming,” the detective said. “We’ll try to get you out of here as quickly as possible.” He held up a small tape recorder. “Do you mind? We don’t have a shorthand reporter available.”

“If it will get us out quickly, no. We don’t mind,” Grant said. “We’ll want a copy of the transcript, and we reserve the right to discontinue taping or go off the record at any time.”

Landsdown nodded in agreement and pushed the button. He cleared his throat. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the small room. He announced the date, time, and who was present. Then he filled about fifteen minutes asking general non-threatening questions. Hayden was familiar with the technique from being present at numerous depositions. Instead of relaxing her, her heart pounded in her chest waiting for the detective to get to the meat of the interview.

“Why were you diving the Humboldt?”

Her fists clenched in her lap at the change of direction. Carefully choosing her words and sticking to bald facts, Hayden repeated what she had told Paul and Officer Kirby. She’d gotten to the part about finding the body when Landsdown interrupted.

“How well did you know the victim?”

A trickle of sweat ran down her back. “I don’t think I did.”

“Don’t think. What does that mean? You either did or you didn’t.” The detective leaned forward and emphasized his words by mashing his index finger against the table.

“I’d like to see some kind of evidence supporting that question. Ms. Kent has never said or implied she knew the deceased.” Grant leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index finger.

The detective stood and went to the heavy metal door. “I’ll bring the report in. Are you her attorney? We thought you were accompanying her in an employer/employee capacity.”

“Does she need an attorney?” Grant shot back.

“No. No one needs an attorney in this matter. Not yet. Nobody’s charged. We’re looking for the background facts here, not speculating.”

Officer Barton said, “Detective Landsdown is leaving the room for a moment.” Her words reinforced the notion of a tape recorder and possibly a video camera capturing the scene. Would they have to get permission for that too? Hayden didn’t know. She made a mental note to ask Grant.

Grant rubbed his eyes again. It was his “tell.” He did it when he was nervous and didn’t know what was best for his client. Hayden’s mouth went dry. His lack of self-confidence frightened her.

To calm herself, Hayden sat back and took in her surroundings again. The room had no windows and inadequate air conditioning. She heard the off/on cycle of an air conditioner compressor rumbling through the small ceiling vents, but the air didn’t seem to circulate. Droplets of perspiration gathered in her hairline at the nape of her neck. A nervous energy filled her. Her thoughts ricocheted like an uncontrolled pin ball game in her brain.

The format of the questioning troubled her. She’d found a dead accident victim. At least that’s what she thought. The setting and the questions made her speculate that the death was anything but an accident.

Landsdown returned to the room and handed Grant a file. Hayden, seated next to him, pushed herself upright and tried to read over his shoulder.

“Please have a seat, Ms. Kent.” Barton partially stood as she spoke. Her tone made the words an order, not a request.

“But it’s my file.” Hayden danced from foot to foot in confusion.

“No, ma’am. It’s the incident file.”

Grant closed the file and handed it back to Landsdown. “Did you recognize the man in the Humboldt?” he asked.

“No, Grant. Should I have? Is he someone you think I know?”

Instead of answering, he said, “Continue your statement and then I’m sure we can leave and go back to the office.”

Despite the heat, Hayden shivered. More than anything she wanted to go home, not back to work. Get out of this little airless room and cuddle up in bed with Tiger Cat. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Can you play back the tape? I’m not sure where I left off.”

Landsdown nodded and Barton keyed the rewind button on the small recorder. A high-pitched squeal filled the air for a few seconds. A voice Hayden barely recognized as her own erupted from the microphone.

Memory refreshed, Hayden continued carefully concentrating on just the facts. Both Barton and Landsdown interrupted from time to time. Their questions jumped around all parts of her story. When she finished, she sat silently for a moment, wondering if Grant would signal the end of the interview.

“Are we finished here?” he asked.

Hayden’s relief was short-lived when Landsdown shook his head. “When you descended initially, did you see any indication someone was on the wreck?” Landsdown asked for the third time.

Frustration tinged her voice. Hayden responded sharply, “No. There were no other boats on the mooring balls. I couldn’t see into the wheelhouse coming down the line. In fact, I didn’t even realize the wheelhouse had an opening in the roof until the second dive. The one with the Coast Guard lieutenant.”

“And you claim to be familiar with the wreck?”

Hayden heard the disbelief in the detective’s voice.

“Yes. I’ve been down there multiple times. I don’t generally go into the upper wheelhouse, I do occasionally enter the lower cabins and one time I swam up the spiral staircase. The upper wheelhouse seems so small…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t like going into overheads. Even when I dive the wreck with a group, I stay outside and watch if anyone goes into the upper deck wheelhouse.”

“Why?”

“I just said.”

“No, why watch?”

“In case I have to go in, if my dive buddy got in trouble, I’d go in. I’ve never gone to the roof of the room though. Never swam over the wheelhouse. Always around it and I never realized it had a partial opening.”

“You don’t think the anchor caused the break in the roof structure.”

Grant’s admonition about speculation rang in her head. She considered her answer carefully, and not seeing any harm said, “No. From what I saw, there was little fresh damage. The floor under and around the anchor had litter, but not chunks of it.”

“What made you go in this time?”

“I didn’t go in.” Hayden gritted her teeth in frustration and looked at Grant for help. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Didn’t these people listen?
Forcing her voice level, she continued, “I told you what happened and how I found the man. Without the grouper, I may not have gone to the wheelhouse at all. Especially since I had no buddy with me.”

“And you determined the amount of litter as you call it from the outside?”

“Yes. I didn’t inspect the roof so I can’t say what kind of fresh damage the upper surface had, but there was not a lot of junk on the floor.”

“Why did you dive alone?” Landsdown tapped the tabletop with the back of his pencil. The eraser made a light thunking noise.

“I had some thinking to do. I think best underwater. I have some decisions to make and I want to have a clear head to do it with.”

“Such as?”

“That’s none of your business.” Color flooded her face. Grant looked at her curiously. She did not intend to elaborate for these people. Her personal life concerned none of them. Nor did it concern what she found on the wreck.

“Why don’t you tell us, and let us decide whether it concerns us.” Landsdown smiled briefly as he spoke. The smile never reached his eyes.

“I’d like to go now. I got no sleep last night. I’m tired, it’s hot, and I think we covered everything that’s germane.” Hayden stood again hoping she could wrest control of the meeting from the officer and detective. She wondered if she could open the door or if it had some kind of controlled lock mechanism. There had to be an escape route in case an interview turned violent. She looked at the three other people around the table. A hopeless feeling chilled her stomach. She resumed her seat and chided herself for acting like a civilian. She was a paralegal. Even though she’d never been in an interrogation room, she’d seen enough transcripts to know she was behaving like a fool.

“Okay,” Landsdown said as if no interruption occurred, “what kind of decisions?”

“May I have a moment alone with my client?” Grant asked.

Hayden’s jaw tightened at the reference to her as a client. What was in that file?

“This isn’t an interrogation, counselor. We’re only getting a statement here.”

“So the answer is no?” Grant snapped his leather notebook portfolio shut and stood. “Have Ms. Kent’s statement typed up, get a copy to my office, and I’ll review it and have her sign it.” He pulled a card from his card case and handed it to Officer Barton. “We’re leaving now. She is right. Her personal reasons for diving have no bearing on your investigation at this stage. If it develops they do, then we’ll discuss them.” He glanced at the red light on the still recording tape machine. “I’d like a copy of the tape of this session as well.”

Landsdown and Barton looked like Grant slapped them. Barton looked at the detective, who responded with a shrug. “Okay, we’ll get the statement to you. Thank you for your time and for coming down to speak with us.” Landsdown recited the pro forma departure speech as he opened the door to the tiny room.

Hayden and Grant moved down the long corridor through the lobby and across the parking lot without speaking. The silence was uncomfortable, but Hayden couldn’t think of a thing to say.

He opened the door to the Jag for her. As she stepped past him he said, “We have to talk.”