by David Evans
Finally, they slept. For Cutler, it was the first solid six hours of sleep he had had in months. Cathy was on her left side, with Cutler sculpted into her curves, and both slept in a semi-foetal position.
It was a repeat experience the following morning; the difference was they ate a hearty breakfast Cathy prepared instead of sleeping after they had made love.
Finally, Cutler got around to the main reason he had come to see Cathy. Cutler wanted to know if she had heard of anyone who had got through the red tape and ignorance surrounding those who had disappeared at sea, and could she give him any pointers or assistance.
Cutler was an experienced investigator. He knew that if he were to find out what had happened to Elisa, he would need help; he would need someone who could navigate the problems and get him to see the right people—someone in the know.
Cathy had heard of an organization; in fact, she had had a full discussion with the founder last year on a flight back from Egypt. Cathy retrieved the black, leather-bound diary from under the cushion of her white cloth sofa and began to scan through it.
“Cheryl Ross lives in Everglade City down in Florida. Her husband went missing several years ago while leading a school trip on the Large Pink Boat,” Cathy explained.
“Large Pink Boat?” Cutler asked, confused.
“Out of Fort Lauderdale, Nassau registered. They gave it the name thinking it would attract the youngsters, and it does. Drinking age is twenty-one on land. Go five miles offshore heading to the Bahamas and it comes under the law of the registered authority, and that happens to allow drinking at eighteen years old. Parents organize trips for the kids when they pass major exams, pass their driving test, you name it. They have to be sixteen to travel without a parent and believe me, it is full of them,” Cathy continued.
“Cheryl’s husband, Don, went missing during a cruise on the ship, and no one could throw a light on his disappearance. To cut a long story short, Cheryl launched an investigation when no one would help her.”
“You mean no one investigated this, either from here or in the Bahamas?” Cutler asked incredulously.
“No, no one was willing to investigate it. She hired private detectives from New York. I met her on a trip back from Egypt. She had gone there to talk to a family who had been on the ship at the same time and had witnessed an altercation. She was convinced her husband had been murdered. Last I heard she had taken a file to the police in Fort Lauderdale on the case, but as it was in Bahamian waters, they said it was out of their jurisdiction. I think she’s still trying to get the Nassau police to investigate,” Cathy explained.
Cutler wrote down the name and address and jotted down notes; this was routine. It was not that his memory was poor, it was his training that had been instilled in him.
They were not Cutler’s strong points: commitment, and goodbyes. He assumed Cathy would take it as fact that he would come back and see her soon. Cathy fretted she may have slept with him too quickly. Maybe he had tasted the forbidden fruit and now would move on to the next orchid.
Cutler realized he could not settle down until he had kept his last promise to his father, to find out what had happened to Elisa. The night of love and passion had brought Cutler some semblance of clarity, for the first time in months.
***
Werner was locked up and not going anywhere for months. Richter was safely resettled in Scotland, and the money was safe in a Swiss bank in Geneva. Cutler could afford to let the Werner investigation simmer on the back burner for several months. Cutler wrote out his request for a six-month sabbatical to his senior in the agency. He was sure there would not be a problem; after all, his boss knew he was not 100 percent committed in his present state of mind.
Chapter Fourteen
Cheryl Ross was in her early thirties. She had outgrown the youthful lustre of life, and the loss of her husband had etched some sorrow lines around her eyes. She could be described as growing older gracefully, certainly in her appearance and dress code. She was petite, at five foot two, but looked taller in the high heels she wore at any time of the day. She wore Burberry with long, silk scarves and matching accessories.
Elisa had been missing five months by the time Cutler met with Cheryl. He had taken a flight down to Miami. After a quick transfer from the airport, he settled down for the night in the Thunderbird Hotel on South Beach.
Following an early morning swim, he picked up the Hertz rental car, a Chevrolet. The two-hour drive across Alligator Alley, until he reached the turning for Everglade City, was stunning but uneventful. The lush green foliage on either side of the road contained perched eagles scanning the ground for snakes and rodents.
Everglade City was not what Cutler expected; it was a small town on the edge of the Barron River on one side and Lake Placid on the opposite side. He drove down Copeland Avenue, which had stilted houses interspersed with some local businesses; he passed the white wooden buildings with small green lawns surrounded by picket fences. Cutler turned left on West Broadway until he went as far as he could, then he came to Riverside Drive.
The intense humidity, as compared to Miami, hit Cutler straight away as he exited his air-conditioned rental. Cutler had found the address quite easily in what was a small town; the name Everglade City was an exaggeration off the scale.
Cheryl lived in a timber-built house that rested on stilts. Her Range Rover, parked under the stilts, rested alongside a small airboat. He climbed up the fourteen white wooden steps till he emerged on a good-sized, square balcony, equipped with a refrigerator for beers and a swinging hammock. Cutler could see there was netting that could be rolled down on all three open sides to keep the hordes of mosquitoes and other flying parasites out after dark.
Cutler did not need to tap on the external netted door, as the dog barking from within had announced his arrival. After the initial introductions, which included a brief introduction to Spike, a black Shar-Pei with enough wrinkles to keep a plastic surgeon busy for life, Cheryl escorted Cutler out onto the rear balcony which overlooked the Everglades.
Cutler accepted a Coke from the outside fridge while admiring the two enormous pelicans perched on the balcony surround, eagerly staring into the mass of water, waiting for their next feed to swim on by.
Cheryl explained that she had been a financial auditor for a large multinational firm prior to her husband Don’s death. Several months after he went missing, and because of her constant searching for the truth, she had suffered what has been described as a nervous breakdown. She lost the high-paying job and saw her five-year-old daughter, Esme, removed and placed in foster care. To this day, two years on, she had been unable to get her daughter back, as the authorities still felt she had mental health issues. Cutler discovered these supposed mental health problems had more to do with her drive to find the truth about her husband than the perceived paranoia the mental health representatives had labelled her with. Cutler knew exactly how she felt, as he had been going through the same emotions and feelings over the past several months.
Within a couple of hours, both Cheryl and Cutler had settled into conversation. The talked about their losses, and family, things they had not discussed with any other living soul. The clarity created an honest and open discussion that would normally be restricted to the closest of friends and confidants, rather than two people who were virtual strangers.
Cheryl explained to Cutler in no uncertain terms that the lost ones and dead at sea had virtually no rights. They crossed national and international borders, and this caused responsibility issues. There were problems with who investigates and where to investigate, as the missing person could have disappeared miles away from where it was reported. She also discovered that police forces are not set up to investigate such disappearances.
Many disappearances are put down to misadventure or suicide, with the odd exception where someone had seen an altercation and witnesses came forward.
After Cheryl’s husband had gone missing, she had approached her local police, the Ba
hamian police, the FBI, even Interpol, all to no avail. She pestered them, harassed them, and this was one of the reasons she was not allowed her child back. When she mentioned Esme, a sadness fell over her.
Cutler explained that he had been hitting brick walls since Elisa had gone missing as well. Furthermore, with his background and contacts, if there were anything to know, he would have got the data, but the information was just not there. Yes, there were missing person's reports, but not a whole lot more. All the checks and counterchecks generally undertaken for a missing person or murder on the mainland were simply missing for Elisa, and it seemed for most individuals who went missing at sea.
Cheryl told Cutler that she had travelled to Egypt before her nervous breakdown. One member of the ship’s crew had anonymously sent her a letter saying that an Egyptian couple had mentioned that they had seen a fracas on deck, and it might have involved her husband; they gave the forwarding address of the family.
Cheryl had travelled to Cairo to meet the Yacoub family. They met her in a café overlooking the plains of Giza. Any time before her husband’s disappearance she would have been amazed at the sight of the three pyramids, with the Sphinx placed forward of them and lit up by the setting sun, but not now.
Mr and Mrs Yacoub met her in the café at the appointed time. Over Egyptian, apple-infused tea, they explained they had seen two young men beating up an older man. The Yacoubs confirmed it was Cheryl’s husband from a photograph she showed them. Mr Yacoub expressed his regret and shame; he said he had been worried about his wife, and ushered her away. He had been cowardly, he said. The next morning, Mr Yacoub reported the incident to a steward. They had not known the elder man on the floor receiving the beating was missing until they received the phone call from Cheryl.
Cheryl had at first been bemused, as the ship owners denied having received any reports of any incidents on that cruise, apart from the report that her husband was missing. Cheryl thought that a crew member had not bothered to log it, or it had been glossed over by the company. In the end she believed it was her husband’s cabin steward, Emilio, who sent her the letter but try as she might, he would not agree to see her.
Cheryl and Cutler were so deep in discussion they had not noticed that the sun had gone down over the Everglades. The light came on automatically and illuminated the immediate area. Outside the balcony, the darkness was intense due to the overwhelming over-illumination you are exposed to in any other city. The oppressive heat of the day was replaced by the humid atmosphere which envelops the Everglades at night.
After several bites, Cheryl pulled down the fine netting to keep the mosquitoes and other night-time parasites away from them. She took a short break, leaving Cutler with a Budweiser, and returned with sirloin steaks and a bowl of salad. Cheryl turned on the gas grill, and after coating the thick steaks in olive oil, she threw them both on the grill.
“Medium rare,” Cutler asked politely, as his nostrils flared to take in the aroma of the cooking steaks.
They both ate in comparative silence, enjoying the food and the noises of the night kept at bay by the net.
Over the next few hours, they discussed their options in detail. They brought up both sensible and outlandish ideas; the problem was, it always came back to money. Neither the governments nor the ship owners were willing to finance investigations nor were they prepared to have the publicity that went with it. This was definitely not the case of any publicity is good publicity.
Cutler had known within two weeks of Elisa going missing that there was no set organization to investigate people lost at sea. It was a Bermuda Triangle; facts went into one police force or another, and nothing ever came out. He also knew that if he was going to keep his promise to his father, he was going to have to take some considerable time away from the Secret Service. In fact, what he had planned may mean a permanent break.
Cheryl was smart, driven, and sane, as far as Cutler could make out. All too often people in authority make the mistake of underestimating or categorizing driven people as mentally unstable. Cheryl had suffered a nervous breakdown due to the stress and loss of her husband, and subsequent revelations concerning his death.
She explained to Cutler that she had, with some difficulty, purchased a photograph of everyone under the age of twenty who had been on the cruise. It had not been easy; she had single-handedly tracked down the photographer from the cruise her husband had undertaken. Matt Rice, known to all his friends as Basmati, no longer worked for the cruise line industry. He now worked as a crime scene photographer for the crime scene unit working out of Tampa.
Once Cheryl had tracked Basmati down, he was a mine of information. The digital age had revolutionized his trade, and he kept a digital record of every cruise and of every photograph he had taken.
The reference he filed it under was 12987, and this was the disc with everyone’s first photograph aboard the ship. The cruise lines ensure that about fifteen photographs and more are taken of every guest on-board, but it can be a bit hit-and-miss. What is not hit-and-miss is the picture captured by the digital camera for their ship’s pass, and Basmati downloaded these images, as well as keeping his own. He loaded them onto his computer and entered a filter. Within the hour, he had a download of every picture of males under the age of twenty-one on the ship that week; one hundred and twenty-nine young men in all.
“I had shown all hundred and twenty-nine photographs to Mr and Mrs Yacoub, when sitting in the moonlight a hundred yards away from the Sphinx. The Egyptian couple meticulously studied the photos and identified the two boys. Two days and several hundred dollars later, I had a notary sign the Yacoubs’ statements in front of them all to say they were true accounts,” Cheryl recounted.
“You had good, solid leads,” Cutler replied.
“On my return to the States a few days later, I gave the statements to the police in Fort Lauderdale. They basically said it was up to the Bahamian police force, as it had happened in their waters. The Bahamian police refused point blank to investigate anymore. They also claimed the investigation had been closed and recorded as a suicide, and, therefore, no crime. I tried every law enforcement agency I knew, but no one wanted to know.”
“The evidence was circumstantial, but strong evidence. You have sworn statements and two names to go with, and no one wanted to know,” Cutler said, somewhat perturbed.
“After that I tracked down one of the lads. His name is Bernard Rothhelm, and he lives in Palm Beach. I went there but could not get past the security at the gate. The place just oozed money. I wrote to his parents and explained the circumstances, and within two weeks, I had been institutionalized, and had Esme removed. It took nearly a year to get out of the institution, and I still cannot get Esme back. I’m ashamed to say I have been fighting that for the past two years, not concentrating on my husband’s death.”
“Sounds like exactly what I would want you to do, if I were the boy’s parents,” Cutler said.
Cheryl offered him a room for the night, as it was clear to them both they still had more talking to do in the morning, and Cutler had drunk several Budweisers. She retired to her room, leaving Cutler on the veranda drinking a final beer, and with an awful lot of thinking to do.
When Cheryl arose early the next morning, she cooked a Canadian breakfast of thick bacon, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes with maple syrup. She was surprised to find him still on the veranda, with a stockpile of empty Budweiser bottles.
As they sat down to breakfast, Cutler had the look of a man who had seen the light. He waded through the meal with gusto.
“Cheryl, it’s obvious no one cares. Even in my position, where I have access to different investigative authorities, I am clueless on where to go and who to see within the present system,” Cutler said with resignation.
“That’s exactly what I’ve been saying!” interjected Cheryl.
“Well, when one meets a wall, one must find a way to get around that wall, even if that means building a new bypass,” Cutler said.
“Everyone calls me Cutler, Cheryl. I’m kind of used to it now,” Cutler said gently. “In plain language, we need to set up our own investigation team, set up a company that investigates across borders and across police forces. If the police don't investigate, we will do the investigations. If they don't act on our findings, we will take out advertisements; go to the local television stations, etc.” Cutler went on.
“That is all well and good, but that takes money. I’m barely hanging onto my house after paying for my own trip to Egypt after the loss of my job,” Cheryl said dejectedly.
“I have money, easily enough money to set this up, and to bankroll investigations for several years to come. Plus, we could take donations,” Cutler said.
“You have money? You never said,” Cheryl inquired more excitedly.
“Well, let’s say I have access to a fund. The less you know about it, the better. But it is nothing illegal,” Cutler explained, half-heartedly believing it.
Cutler had fought his conscience. He felt he was betraying everything he stood for by using the money. He listed down on one side of a piece of paper all the reasons not to do this; on the other hand he wrote down all the reasons he should follow this course of action. He had four reasons not to move forward, and twenty-five reasons why he should. His mind was settled; he knew he had no option.
Chapter Fifteen
Attorney Seppi Von-Baer was the legal brains of the outfit; Delegate Frau Uebering had corrupted him when he was still at school in Dresden. Von-Baer was their one and only attorney. Von-Baer knew the set-up; he knew their secrets. And, above all, they owned him, lock, stock, and barrel.
He was the delegate’s lover. Before that he was her son’s friend, and then foster son. He had been besotted with her, even as a young boy of twelve. Delegate Frau Uebering had ushered him to her bed a year later, and he had become her constant plaything, her boy toy, their relationship a carefully guarded secret.
