Rip Tide (A Ripple Effect Cozy Mystery, Book 2) (35 page)

"Pizza sounds perfect, Mom! But make it pepperoni, please. I'm afraid I'll never be able to choke down Canadian bacon again without seeing that jerk's face in my mind."

We took a seat on a bench inside after we'd placed our order for an extra-large hand-tossed pepperoni pizza to go. When I spotted an older gal who pranced around as if she owned the place, I walked over to her and asked her if a Paulie Winterkorn was an employee there.

"Captain Hook?" She asked with an amused lilt to her voice. "Sure does. He's right up the street."

Puzzled, I followed her to the window next to the bench where Reggie still sat. The jovial lady pointed to an intersection almost a block further down Market Street. Pacing back and forth was a guy in a pirate costume depicting Captain James Bartholomew Hook, the Disney character who antagonized Peter Pan after Peter cut off his hand and fed it to the crocodiles. The costume, complete with a humongous fishing hook duck-taped to his left hand, and a toy-like steel sword in his other hand, was comical and had to be embarrassing for a grown man to be seen wearing. Just standing at an intersection wearing a pizza banner was degrading enough.

There were cardboard signs draped over Paulie's shoulders; one across his chest that read, "Ahoy there, Mates! Now serving lunch at Pirate's Cove," and another spanning his backside that read, "Offering large three-topping pizzas for only $10."

Laughing almost uncontrollably, I thanked the lady for pointing Paulie out to us. After she had returned to her station, I sat back down beside Reggie, who couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact the comically dressed guy on the corner was the same guy who'd threatened her husband on his own doorstep a couple of hours earlier. "If Cooper knew he'd been intimidated all that time by, well, that 'little weasel-faced dweeb' peddling pizza in a pirate costume, he'd turn over in his grave!"

I had to giggle along with Reggie at her remark. Our quiet giggling turned to out-right laughter again after I quipped, "Well, 'Captain Hook' might be all of that, but he did tell you he was in advertising, didn't he?"

* * *

The guys were sitting on the back deck with Miller Lite bottles in their hands. After I explained what we'd just discovered, we all went inside and polished off the pizza.

"You all ready to go?" Milo asked after Regina and I had cleared off the table and put the saucers and silverware in the dishwasher. I was delighted to see Milo acting almost giddy about our decision to try to locate the murder weapon. He'd told us he had several very possible locations to check out where we might just get lucky and stumble across Cooper's spear-gun. He said, "The Coast Guard and detectives probably searched all the standard places where most guys go spear-fishing, but Cooper, Pinto, and I had some great spots no one else seemed to know about, and like most fisherman, we kept their locations close to our vests. Of course, when we came in the other night it was almost dark, so we'll have to swing by the marina first to fill up."

Rip reached for his wallet instinctively.

* * *

If Earth spun as rapidly as the numbers on this gas pump dial, our planet would be flinging people off it right and left
, I thought, watching the price increasing in leaps and bounds as Milo held the nozzle while filling the fuel tank. I was shocked, but pleased, he hadn't asked us to cover the cost this time. After all, it was his neck we were trying to drag off the chopping block.

"That comes to $98.27," the attendant said casually. Of course, the price sounded nominal to the attendant, no doubt. He probably filled up fuel tanks on the large yachts moored in the marina frequently and was accustomed to totals in the thousands, making our tab sound like chump change.

"Dang it!" Milo exclaimed, reaching into his back pocket.

"What?" Regina, Rip, and I asked in unison.

"I must have left my wallet at the house."

"Of course you did," Rip replied, without even trying to disguise the skepticism in his voice. He turned to give me a look of disbelief as he pulled his wallet out and extracted a credit card that was still warm to the touch from the scorching it had endured the last time Milo stopped for fuel.

Finally, we were underway. Rip sat silently for a good fifteen minutes, still simmering from being screwed over once again by his son-in-law. I leaned over and spoke quietly enough so Milo and Regina couldn't hear me, but loud enough for Rip to make out my words over the roaring of the motor. As usual, he wasn't wearing his hearing aids.

"Might as well let it go, dear. He admitted they were in financial trouble, and the cost of fuel and maintenance on a boat adds up quickly. We both wanted to come out today to look for the spear-gun, and renting a boat to take us out would have cost a great deal more than the fuel did." Under normal circumstances my ears would be emitting more steam than Rip's in a situation like this. But at that crucial stage in our investigation, I was intent on finding the spear-gun and needed Rip to be focused on the prize, as well.

He nodded reluctantly, but his mood lightened up and soon he was back in the moment, directing Milo to start at the most likely locations Cooper might have been fishing the Saturday morning of his death.

As we left Aransas Bay and sailed out into the Gulf, Milo said, "First I want to try the place where we had good luck the last two times we fished there. I know the detectives probably searched around every oil rig between here and Florida, but they may not have known about this other special place of ours. It's off a remote island, not much more than a decent-sized sand bar that has a small oyster reef on its east side."

About ten minutes later, Milo appeared startled as he pointed and exclaimed, "What the heck?"

With our older and less efficient eyes, Rip and I gazed in the direction Milo had indicated. When it became apparent neither of us could make out anything but a far-away apparition that could have been anything from a barge being propelled by a tug boat to a Styrofoam cooler that had flown off the deck of a boat while it was in motion, Milo elaborated, "There's a boat out there."

"Boat?" Rip asked.

"What boat?" I added.

Clearly exasperated, Milo raised his voice as if hearing loss was the reason we were stupefied. Of course, in Rip's case, it very well may have played a part. "The boat! Over by the shore line of that island."

"And?" Rip asked. I still couldn't make it out, and I doubt Rip could either. It was unclear to both of us why seeing a boat would have caused Milo's exclamation to begin with, so Rip added, "Is that a problem?"

"It's an oyster boat!" Milo replied, as if that would clear up our confusion about why the boat was even worthy of pointing out. But for me, anyway, it didn't clear up anything.

"Why wouldn't an oyster boat be a normal sighting over there? I can see a sandy island beyond the boat now. Isn't that the one you just mentioned with the oyster reef by it?" I asked.

"Yes, but the reef is nowhere near the size a commercial boat would harvest oysters from. Besides, the reef is right up by the shore, not accessible with an oyster boat to begin with."

"Okay," Rip responded, making it obvious he still had no clue either as to why Milo was so animated by the boat's presence.

"It looks like Pinto's boat." We had gotten a little closer to it by this stage, and Rip, who hadn't put off obtaining new eyeglasses because of the expense as I had, held his hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun. He stared a few seconds longer, and agreed with Milo.

"Yes, I think you're right. It does look like his boat. I can almost make out the 'e' and 'm' at the end of the boat's name on the aft."

As the vessel in the distance rocked in the waves, Milo said, "Yes, I can read it clearly now. That's definitely Pinto's boat, but what worries me is that it looks like it might be adrift. Maybe not, though, because the direction of the wind has the boat at an angle that would block our view of the anchor rope if it's out."

"Can you call Pinto on your phone? Maybe he needs assistance," Rip asked. There was trepidation in both Milo and Rip's voices as they spoke. Were they thinking what I was thinking? Had the killer struck again? Had Philip Bean suffered the same fate as Cooper Claypool? Had he been on the killer's hit list too?

We hadn't had a cell phone long enough to know much about them. Teaching us about new-fangled electronics was a bit like trying to train a cat to shake hands and fetch Frisbees. I repeated Rip's question to Milo. "Can you call him?"

"I have no signal out here and I'm sure he doesn't either. But I might be able to contact him on the marine radio," Milo explained.

All this time, Regina had been sitting silently in one of the aft chairs located on each side of an aerated live well, which, according to Milo, was in need of repair. Reggie appeared more interested in acquiring a suntan than locating a weapon or identifying oyster boats. It became apparent the ramifications of another one of Milo's friends' boats being adrift at sea had not occurred to her when, without even opening her eyes, she asked, "Can somebody hand me a bottle of water out of the cooler?"

I handed her the water and wondered for the four thousand and eighteenth time if she and my
real
daughter hadn't been accidentally switched in the hospital nursery after their births.

After much finagling with the knobs to control the squelch and tune in to frequencies by Milo, we finally heard Pinto's voice. It came over as a crackling sound, cutting out more often than not. "Is ____you____? Can you____me? I can't ____out what____ __ing."

"Yes, yes! It's Milo! Can you read me?" The relief in his voice and on all of our faces was evident. Not including Reggie's face, that is, which was busy having another round of sunscreen slathered on it. But the important thing was that Pinto was okay. Or alive, anyway.

"Crackle, crackle, crackle. What____ ____ doing ____here?"

"What are
you
doing? Why are
you
out here?" Milo spoke loudly into the hand-held microphone.

Crackle,
crackle
, ____ thought ____
low humming sound
, so that ____ could____ ,
loud startling squelch sound
, and now ____
crackle
,
crackle
,
screech
, heading ____ ____ ____ ina ____
silence, high-pitched squawk, and then more silence
, is what we heard emitting from the radio.

"Must have lost the freaking signal," Milo muttered, pounding on the radio as if that might help in some way. It was the same technique Rip used when he tried to repair the television, refrigerator, and pretty much every other electronic apparatus that had stopped functioning properly. It wasn't working for Milo any better than it'd ever worked for Rip.

While Rip stood at the helm steering the boat, Milo tried several more times to contact Pinto, to no avail. So we could make out his words, Milo shouted, "I have a signal now. Don't know why he can't hear me. But I think he might have been saying he was heading back to the Fulton Marina where he moors the boat. I'd still like to know what he's doing out here in the first place."

"Me too," Rip hollered back. Where Milo had sounded concerned, Rip sounded suspicious. I was apprehensive, as well, wondering if this might turn out to be one of those cases where a perpetrator returns to the scene of his crime for whatever reason.

"I'm going to try to cut him off if he heads this way."

"Okay. Good! I'll turn the helm back over to you."

It was several minutes later before our paths converged. When Pinto realized we were trying to stop him, he brought his boat to a halt. His motor was still running in neutral when we pulled up alongside the
Hook 'em
. Looking up at Pinto in the taller vessel, Milo yelled out, "Whatcha doing out here, Pinto?"

"Well. I, um, just wanted..." Pinto paused to gain control of his emotions. He appeared both embarrassed and distraught. There were dark circles under his eyes and he appeared ten years older than he had when we joined him on the oyster run just a couple of days earlier. Finally, he spoke again. "I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Cooper and it's been bothering me more than I'd anticipated. Haven't slept well since I heard about his death. I just can't believe someone would do such a thing to a guy like him. He has always—"

Choked up, Pinto couldn't continue. He shut off the motor of his boat and sat down wearily on the edge of the hull. Milo had trouble speaking, too, as he replied, "I know. I know, buddy. I can't believe it either. I'd introduce you to my in-laws, but I heard you've already met."

"Hello, Pinto," I said. Rip also greeted the oysterman before Milo continued speaking. "As you may know, I was one of the prime suspects in his murder because of our friendship and business association. Also, I'm sorry to say, we had a bit of a dust-up in Crabby's parking lot the night before his death."

Pinto shrugged, unconcerned, and as was his nature, didn't ask for any of the juicy details. "Boys will be boys."

"Yeah, I know," Milo replied. He hung his head and swiped at a tear making its way down his cheek. "But I went way, way too far that day, Pinto. I acted so foolishly, so over-the-top violently, and, well, I hurt my best friend. I hurt him bad. More than anything, I wish I could turn back the time and tell him I loved him that night in the bar, and just left the fact he'd lied to me go unmentioned. I knew he was having a tough go of it, fighting demons he couldn't beat. I should have offered to help him, not lashed out at him."