Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1) (7 page)

Eleven

Officer Janice Kirby watched her sister Elena toss roses overboard. She knew having her sister on the boat during duty hours could jeopardize her job. She didn’t care. Her sister came first. No one could find Elena’s husband’s boat and Janice had no other water access except her patrol boat. Richard, Ricardo, whatever name he used, whenever he used it, Janice had no use for him. That had nothing to do with how Janice felt about her sister though. Blood was blood, and bad taste in husbands didn’t change that.

Elena leaned over the side of the boat. She pulled the petals of each rose off one by one and tossed them over. Janice watched her sister and thought about the differences between them. They were both Cuban. Child refugees of the infamous Mariel boatlift. Their father worked for Castro’s government until he became disillusioned and requested exit visas for his family. Janice still had nightmares where she heard her mother’s sobs. The naked fear in her voice and her screams that her husband had signed his own death warrant.

That had ended their good life in Cuba. Janice, five at the time, and her sister just three, were too young to understand why meat disappeared from their table and fear took the place of joy. Before they left Cuba, her father came home one day after searching for work. Elena skipped up the block to meet him. She and Papa were two of a kind. Light-haired and blue-eyed. Elena saw it happen. A man came out from between two houses, then a loud banging noise and fire spat from the muzzle of a gun. The shot killed their father instantly.

Elena raced home, hysterical and covered in her father’s blood. Janice, attracted by the noise, saw her father drop to the sidewalk. Horrified, she ran after the fleeing gunman, hoping to catch and beat him with a garden rake. Janice lost sight of her quarry. She ran to her father and shook him, trying to wake him up. His eyes fluttered open one last time and he whispered he loved her and to take care of her sister.

They never found the killer. Many men paid for a meal by killing enemies of the state. Two days later Janice answered a knock on the door. A government official asked for her mother. Janice could still see her mother, thin and pale dressed from head to toe in black, a mantilla covering her black hair, reach out for documents. The exit visas had come. There were three. Mama, Elena, and Janice. None for Papi. The man told Mama to be at Mariel at daybreak. They left Cuba, never to return.

Janice shook her head to clear the images. She’d fallen in love with the sea on that rough and cramped voyage. She’d vowed as a five-year-old to catch bad guys. She’d made it. Officer Janice Kirby, marine patrol.

“Elena, come on, don’t lean so far over. Richard isn’t down there anymore.” She took her sister’s shaking shoulders between her two hands and tried to draw her to her breast.

Janice wanted to leave. Originally, she’d given in to her sister’s plea that she only wanted to circle the Humboldt and scatter flowers. She never intended to stay here. A small boat was already tied on to the buoy when they arrived and her sister saw it as an opportunity to pray and think. Janice agreed. She hoped if she gave in they’d leave quicker. Now she wanted to get Elena back to the dock before anyone saw the civilian in the patrol boat.

Sobs wracked the younger woman’s body. Her face was a mask of pain and horror. She hated the sea, never came out, and never wanted to go out on it.

“Richard loved the sea, Janice. It was his mistress.” She tipped her head forward, hiding her face behind a curtain of light blonde hair. “I was with him that night. I…I wanted to show him I loved him.” Her tearful blue eyes looked into her sister’s black ones, seeking something Janice wasn’t sure she could give her.

Something inside Janice died at Elena’s words. Knowing her sister had no knowledge of how to run a boat, she asked, “How did you get home?”

Confusion crossed her sister’s face. “What do you mean? Richard brought me. We fought. I wanted to come home. It was too dark on the water. We fought.” A deep flush mottled her fair completion. “Then…no, that’s not important. He took me home and dropped me at the dock. Then he left again, very fast. Too fast to be safe in the canal.”

“Did he say anything to you that night, before he left? Anything that might help us find out who killed him?”

“Yes,” Elena’s voice was more wail than speech. “Yes, he said he hated me. I would never see him again. I never did, I never saw him. I hated him too. I hated him and wanted him dead. Oh, Janice, I wanted him dead. Did I do this?”

“What are you saying? Are you saying you went out with him again? That you killed him?” Janice’s heart clenched, and she gathered the younger woman in a tight hug. “You are my sister, you can tell me anything. I’ll help you.”

“We went out, I told you that. We went out. Fishing that night, we both went fishing. I hate the water. You know. He beat me. Again. On the water, he beat me. I must have lost consciousness. He said awful things. Then we came back. He left me on the dock. What he said, awful. No man should talk to his wife that way.”

Janice could hardly understand her sister’s words between her sobs. She felt as if she were running through Jell-O. A buzzing noise filled her ears. Her head felt like it had hollow spaces. Her sister had just confessed to murder. That couldn’t be. She missed something.

Years of police training kicked in. “Then what happened?” Janice handed her sister a fist full of tissues.

“I don’t know. I was on the dock the next thing I knew. Behind our house. Alone and bloody, my head hurt. I remember being on the boat. I remember him hitting me. Everything went red. I remember red. Then—” her voice rose to a wail. “I remember nothing. Janice, Janice, tell me I didn’t kill him. Janice, I couldn’t kill anyone.”

“I know Elenasita, I know. I am your big sister. I’ll help you.” Janice held the sobbing woman to her chest. The sobs that wracked the other woman’s body penetrated deeply into her soul. “I’ll help you,” she whispered into her hair. Their father’s hair.

“I won’t,” interrupted another voice. A man’s voice.

Janice looked up to see Paul, still clad in his dive gear, standing on the stern of the boat ahead of them.

Twelve

The look of horror on Janice’s face amused Paul. Being in control and having the upper hand amused him. He liked Janice, thought she was competent at her job, but she was taking a major risk being out here with a civilian in her patrol boat. He knew they’d both understand she owed him something now.

He’d come to dive the Humboldt again hoping the current hadn’t washed out whatever clues might still exist. The calm clear water was ideal for a solo dive. The depth didn’t bother him. As a public service diver, he’d handled conditions far worse than a typical dive to the deepest Humboldt depth. The buoy line looked like a strand of spun silver from the surface. When he broke the water he could see the entire Humboldt beneath him. The ship appeared to be twenty feet below the surface, not one hundred and twenty. When he reached the fifteen-foot marker, he turned and gave the line a hard tug to test the hook that connected his boat to the buoy. Leaving a boat alone on the surface could leave him stranded. He wanted to stack the deck in his favor as much as possible. It stayed secure.

He continued down from the marker. The inability to see the hole cut in the top of the wheelhouse caught his eye first.
So, Hayden might have been telling the truth.
If he hadn’t known the location, he wouldn’t have realized a hole existed unless he either swam over the top of the structure or went inside. The empty space blended into the overall structure and it looked like some kind of marine growth. He’d dived this wreck a dozen times before and never noticed the access. He understood how Hayden had missed it too.

Gliding over the roof, he shown the bright underwater spotlight he’d brought with him down into the cabin. He noted some damage to the coral that rimmed the hole, but nothing to indicate the extent of the trauma he expected if an anchor had broken through. He swam over the side of the wheelhouse and entered through the old front window.

Even though the artificial reef program and the navy gutted the ship before she sank to make it safe for divers, there were plenty of little hidey-holes. Things were different underwater. Spaces looked both larger and smaller. In the corner near the body’s location, he spotted a shiny object. Swimming closer he saw a black-handled dive knife. Reaching out a gloved hand, he picked it up and inspected it. It looked like it had been down there a while. Shining his light around the same area, he found a spent spear from a spear gun, a fishing lure, two beer cans, a couple of quarters, and a pair of EMT shears divers use. He picked up the sheers, leaving the rest of the items behind. Current eddies must have swirled the stuff into the corner. Whatever he found, it would be hard to prove it belonged to the dead man.

Taking his time, he began to swim the familiar grid search pattern. He mentally divided the cabin into a series of squares and swam each one meticulously. He shone his light over every inch of the wheelhouse. There was nothing more to see. He exited through the door and swam around the side, looking for damage to the coral that might indicate the anchor and the man were dragged in. He saw nothing. He swam to the ascent line and checked his computer.

Looking up through the clear water as he made his ascent, he saw a boat tied on to his stern. He was grateful that whoever the divers were, they were waiting for him to regain his boat before they began their dive. That way he could leave and let them hook the buoy. He made a mental note to check the buoy tied to the stern of the wreck. With two buoys, divers rarely double-parked unless they were together. If the buoy showed damage or was missing, he would include it in his report. When he reached the marker for his safety stop, he saw the State Law Enforcement legend indicating the boat belonged to the FWC flickering through the water waves on the side of the boat behind his. Completing his stop, he rose slowly to his boat, careful to approach from the side furthest from the patrol boat. He pulled himself silently along the line he’d strung from his swim platform to the tie-on line he held in his hand. Silently he mounted the ladder to the stern.

He saw flowers scattered on the surface of the ocean. He recognized Janice, but didn’t know her companion. The two women in the patrol boat were too preoccupied to notice the man standing over them. His silence paid off and the women continued talking while he listened intently, until interrupting them.

“You can’t sit on this information, Janice.”

“Oh, Paul.” Janice’s face reddened. “You frightened me. This is my sister, Elena. Elena, this is Lt. Paul Muller. He’s with the Coast Guard. He was the one who found Richard.”

Giving her attention back to Paul, she said, “It wasn’t what it sounded like. My sister had nothing to do with her husband’s death.”

Paul greeted the statement with a cynical look, but said nothing.

Elena gave a watery smile. Paul casually held his position on the rolling boat. His eyes lasered into the two women, seeking the truth beneath the story.

“I’m sorry, I...I...wanted to see where my husband...This is awful. I don’t know.” Elena stumbled over her words and emotions. Her face was wet with tears.

Paul saw the woman’s blotchy face and felt a pang of pity. She had reason to grieve. And clearly, she’d convinced her sister to bring her out to pay some kind of tribute to her husband. Elena looked nothing like Janice. Her fair hair and light complexion contrasted with her sister’s dark one. He could believe Janice was Cuban. Elena, with the Spanish name, no way. Genes were funny.

“You 10-8?” He asked, using the 10 code for on duty.

Janice nodded her head. “You?”

“No. I came out here on my own. I wanted to look around again, see if I missed anything first time out. I take it you identified the body?” Paul saw Janice pull her sister around behind her. It looked like she was trying to protect her. But from what? Janice had risked her job. She should’ve thought to protect herself first.

He saw Janice swallow hard. “Yes.” She nodded. “I identified the body that night and I informed my sister.”

Paul noticed Janice’s eyes darting back and forth, as if they were looking for something. Classic indication of a lie, learned it in Cop College 101. Made no sense. What would she lie about?

“Elena,” Paul said. “I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know your husband but I’ve heard a lot about him. I know it’s small comfort, but we will have a report soon. Your sister’s agency, the Coast Guard, and the Sheriff’s office are all working together to determine how your husband died.”

“It was an accident,” Elena spoke firmly, each word separated as if testing the English. “But I feel guilty.” The woman looked out over the water. “I fought with him, and he never came home.”

Her eyes met Paul’s and he saw only grief and candor there, no guilt. Maybe her “confession” was nothing more than drama.

“An accident,” she repeated.

“Yes,” Paul said gently. “We
hope
it was an accident. But we want to be thorough. Richard deserves that.”

“You hope? What do you mean, hope? Richard was not the best of men. He could be hard and violent. He was difficult sometimes, but he had no enemies. Don’t believe a lot of what people tell you. Go to those who know him. My Richard, you can’t learn of him after his death.” Elena steadied herself on the Captain’s leaning post behind her sister.

“Have you taken her statement?” Paul asked Janice.

“No.”

“Why are you contaminating her testimony? You shouldn’t be bringing her out here like this. You, of all people, should know you have to stand back now. Why haven’t you had someone take her statement?” Paul’s hand flew out as he spoke, his fingers pointing at Janice, each word emphasized with a jab of his hand held in a karate position.

“You’re right. I can’t argue and I’m not going to take a statement. No one contacted her. They’ve all left her alone, thank God. I don’t think she’s in any shape to give a statement yet.”

“You are her sister,” Paul said. Each word sounded harsh and separate. “You cannot be involved. Does your agency know your relationship to the deceased? They can’t let you stay on and continue to contaminate this case.”

“No. It’s my case. I caught it and I’ll keep it.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll contact your agency and bring them up to speed.” He waved a hand in her direction. He saw fear in Janice’s eyes. And something else he couldn’t identify. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle how I phrase it, and I won’t mention you were out here with her.” His face softened. “That’s a family matter.” He pointed a stern finger at her, “But it doesn’t make it right.”

Janice seemed to deflate before his eyes. He thought he’d have to jump the stern to her boat and support her. This woman needed a couple of days off to get herself back in control. If anyone asked him, he’d say she had a tenuous grip on reality right now.

“Elena, Mrs. Anderson,” he corrected himself, “if you don’t mind, I’ll call you later today to come over and speak with you. Will that be all right?” He tempered his voice, softening it to almost a purr.

“No, no, I’ll be very busy. I have to wait until my sister can be there too. Right, Janice?” She looked at her sister, her eyes beseeching, even coaxing the answer she wanted. “I have to have you there too, right?”

“Elena.” Janice touched her sister’s shoulder. “He’s right. Someone will have to talk to you. I can be there today, if you want. I’ll come and be with you.”

“I’d rather not have you there,” Paul said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “She’s my sister.”

“Sorry. A lawyer, sure, but not you.” Paul was adamant.

“Lawyer, why do I need a lawyer? Janice, you didn’t tell me I needed a lawyer.” Paul was interested to note that Elena’s voice had an edge of panic to it now. A thrill coursed through his body at the sound of her fear.