Janine Marie - Rigging a Murder 01 - The Single Shoe Mystery (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

“
Now what?”

M
y curiosity was piqued, to put it mildly. Why was John hanging out at the club with Catherine when his wife was in hospital needing him, and why was he going to the  Atlantis? Just as interesting, why was Trent following him? Looking up the top of the dock, I was happy to see Thomas chatting with some other club member. I wondered if I could get to the Atlantis and back before he returned. I did, after all, have a good reason to go to big Hatteras yacht: someone had make sure that John was told about his wife; he couldn’t possibly know or he would be by her hospital bed. Jumping off the boat, I walked quickly to the Atlantis. Thomas would be furious to learn that I was following Trent who was following John when I should be minding my own business and packing up the boat.

Looking back, I was happy to see that Thomas was still deep in conversation and that several other club members had joined him, forming a small circle at the top of the dock. So I quickly darted up the dock that the Atlantis was moored on, relieved that I was now out of Thomas’s sight.

I was surprised to see that the dock was empty, with the exception of the small overnight bag that John had been carrying. Looking very out of place, the bag was just sitting in the middle of the dock, and I wondered why John would drop the bag there. The Atlantis was the only boat on this dock, which was the last dock in the marina, so there was nowhere else for him or Trent to go. They had to be on the boat, or else they would have had to walk past me as I made my way here.

My eyes moved again to the overnight bag and then to the yacht. Should I pick up the bag? It would give me another reason for boarding the Atlantis…. If I didn’t do something quickly, I might as well go back to our boat. So instead of standing around looking foolish, I picked up the bag, thinking to myself, John must have gotten distracted, talking to Trent perhaps, and put the bag down and forgotten it, so I should just take it to him; I need to tell him about his wife anyway.

Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, with bag in hand I walked to the stern of the boat and boarded. The boat was quiet, too quiet; where were the crew? I walked up the stairs through the outdoor seating and dining area to the main cockpit sliding glass door and knocked and knocked, but no one came, and when I finally tried the door I was surprised to find it locked. What should I do now? I could see into the main salon and dining area through the sliding glass door, and the rooms were deserted. Now what? Where could they all be? I wondered, as I looked around the marina. All the neighboring boats were buttoned up tight and clearly empty. With a sigh I decided to put the bag on the cockpit table and turned to return to our boat.

It was as I was walking to the table that I heard the bang, followed by a muffled scream—a woman’s scream of “Noooo!”—It definitely came from somewhere below. My first thought was Catherine: Was she in trouble again? Still clutching the bag, I turned and ran along the narrow side deck to the side door where the galley was. Darn, locked again!

I continued, circumnavigating the yacht, past the bow lounge seat and back to the cockpit and up the long curved stairway to the pilothouse deck. Finally I found an open hatch. Quickly I went down the inside stairway to the glamorous main deck landing. I decided that the main salon, dining room, and galley were empty, as I had already seen inside those rooms through doors and windows as I ran around the outside of the boat. So I turned in the opposite direction, heading toward the bow and master stateroom. Here I collided with Trent, who was just leaving the master stateroom.

“Trent, what are you doing here?” I stammered.

“Why do you have Wiffy’s bag?” Trent wheezed simultaneously, holding his stomach and looking at the bag I was still carrying, which had swung forward and knocked the wind out of him in the collision.

“Wiffy’s bag?” I repeated, looking at it. “No, it’s John’s.”

Still breathless, Trent pointed at the dirty and worn embroidery. Looking closely at it, I saw that it was a stylized GB3.

“GB3,” I read, and shrugged.

“It stands for ‘Georgina Braise-Bottom the Third.’ I bought it for her when we were first married.”

“Oh, Wiffy’s real name is Georgina… I always wondered if she had a real name,” was all I could think to say. Then, “It was on the dock, John had the bag…. Why did John have Wiffy’s bag? And why are you following him?” I asked, my senses coming back to me.

“I’d better take Wiffy’s bag home to her,” Trent said, reaching for the bag.

I handed it to him. “Thanks,” he said, looking at the bag, puzzled. “I haven’t seen this bag for years. Actually I thought it had been given to Goodwill.”

“Trent, what are you doing here?” I inquired.

“What are you doing here?” he countered.

“Um, uh, John’s wife Stella is in hospital, and I saw him walking down the dock so I thought I should tell him.”

“That was nice of you, but I really don’t think he cares.” He turned and pointed to the master bedroom scene he had previously been blocking by standing in the small doorway.. A champagne bottle and glasses, messy bedding, and strewn clothes all over the floor told the story.

“But where are they now?” I asked.

Shrugging, Trent said, “I don’t know. I was about to up to the pilothouse to see if they were in the hot tub.”

“No, they’re not, I just came from there,” I said, shaking my head. “Anyway, I’m thinking we should just leave, clearly they want to be alone… why else would they have locked all the doors? How did you get in, anyway? The only open door I could find was the pilothouse.”

“Locked? No, I came in the main salon door, it wasn’t locked, actually it was open partway.”

We looked at each other in confusion. “We’d better go,” I said.

We turned and walked back down the short hallway and up the stairs to the pilothouse.

“It’s locked,” I said, trying the hatch door.

“What? Let me try,” Trent said, edging past me and handing me back the bag.

After some pushing and shoving I asked, “How did we get locked in? Aren’t doors supposed to lock from the inside?”

“Are you sure you came in this way?”

“Yes I’m sure” I snapped.

“Okay, okay, it looks like this hatch locks with a key on the inside and someone has taken the key.”

We turned and headed back down the narrow stairs to the main cabin, intending to go out one of the sliding doors on the main floor.

“So why are you here?” I again asked Trent as we were walking.

He shrugged. “Shoes, if you can believe it. I’m looking for a certain pair of shoes—”

“Please don’t!” came a faint cry, interrupting Trent.

Trent and I stopped and looked at each other.

“I think that cry came from the lower deck,” I whispered.

“What should we do?” Trent said.

“We can’t just leave!… Follow me,” I said, and continued down the next flight of stairs to the lower deck with the guest cabins and laundry room.

Standing in the small square wood-paneled hallway, we looked around. There were two guest cabins, a laundry and storage room, and then a hallway leading to the bow where Lorenzo’s office was located. All the doors were open and the rooms looked empty. I turned and started to walk toward Lorenzo’s office in the bow when Trent gently grabbed my shoulder and pointed to the opposite direction, to the stern. We had a silent exchange, and then I shrugged and followed him through a hidden doorway—one I would never have seen, clearly Trent knew this yacht better than I did—then down a narrow passageway to the stern where the large engine room was located.

Trent carefully opened the door and we peeked around it into the dark room. Slowly, I reached around and pushed the light switch on, illuminating a narrow corridor between twin CAT C32 ACERT diesel engines. Seeing nothing unusual, I pushed the light off. We were stepping back out the door when we heard rustling and a muffled sound like “Mmahhmgh.” Turning the light on again we ventured into to the room, quietly calling, “Catherine? Are you there?”

Suddenly I felt a shove from behind and I stumbled headlong into Trent, pushing him into the room and hard against the port engine. “What! Ouch!” exclaimed Trent.

“Couldn’t you two just leave well enough alone?” came a gruff voice from behind us. Then the lights went out and we heard the door lock.

“Trent, stand still,” I whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” he asked. “They know we are here.”

“I don’t know—because it’s so dark, I guess,” I replied still whispering.

“Can you find the lights?”

“Yes, I think so. Here, hold the bag so I don’t trip on it,” I said, pushing the bag in the direction of his voice.

“Ouch, that’s my head.”

“Sorry.” I turned with my arms out stretched and started to slowly feel my way around.

“Wrong way—you almost stuck your finger in my eye,” Trent said as I turned around.

I eventually found the door, then the light switch. I have no idea how long it took but it seemed to take hours in the pitch black.

“Thank God,” Trent exclaimed, as the lights came on and we tried the door.

“It’s locked, of course,” I replied, frustrated. “Let’s look around, maybe we can find something to help us get out of here.”

Trent headed down the short narrow corridor between the engines as I started to look through the compact workbench and toolbox.

“Janeva… remember that sound we heard?”

“Sure,” I replied, turning and holding up a tool that looked like it might be useful. “Trent—what’s wrong?!” His face was completely white.

“You had better come and see.”

Still holding the tool that looked like a big pipe wrench and made me feel safer, I walked toward him.

What I saw made me drop the wrench as both hands went to my mouth to suppress a scream. Catherine was naked and covered in blood, she was gagged and her hands and feet bound with zip ties. How we could have missed her when we first looked in the room was incredible, though it was true that she was curled up in the fetal position in the corner, behind the Genset. But we had almost left her there.

“Is she alive?” I whispered.

Trent reached over to feel her wrist, then he took off her gag “Yes, barely.”

“Let’s untie her; we have to get out of here,” I said.

“Easier said than done. We need scissors or a knife to cut the zip ties,” Trent said.

“Scissors… no, I didn’t see any of those but I did see a box cutter that should work.”

“Now what?” Trent asked me after we had freed Catherine. She was breathing better but was still unconscious. We had torn strips from our clothing to wrap the deep cuts all over her body and slow the bleeding. And I’d wrapped her as best I could in my sweatshirt and some boat rags I had found when I found the pipe wrench, since we needed to keep her warm. “We are still locked in.”

“Do you think John did this, or was it the crew?” I asked.

“I’m pretty sure I saw the crew getting into a taxi cab. John and Catherine were already on the boat.”

“The whole crew, the same three crew members who were with them in Canada?”

“I think so, but I don’t know. Who really looks at staff anyway?”

“It’s important Trent. Remember the two who disappeared in Canada? Were they on the boat? How could they have escaped the RCMP? And come back to finish the job, to finish what they started in Canada when they killed Lorenzo?” I said angrily.

“Sorry. Janeva, I’m pretty sure it was the same three who had been with them in Canada. I really don’t know how they slipped past the RCMP—and Customs. You were there, too…. It’s not like the Canadian authorities took it lightly. There had to be 20 officers crawling around, plus the Coast Guard scuba divers.”

“You’re right…. Are you sure that ALL the crew got in the taxi?” I replied with a sigh.

“No, but none of them went back down the dock. I’m sure of that.”

“How?” I demanded.

“I had to talk to John about the goddamn shoe or Wiffy would kill me, so when John and Catherine went down the dock I ordered a drink and sat at the window and watched everyone who went up or down the ramp. I saw the crew leave, then a while later I saw John come up the ramp and go to his car and return with a bag.” Seeing my raised eyebrows, he added, “I didn’t know it was Wiffy’s bag. I was too far away to see the monogram.”