by J K Franko
Another ripple of laughter.
“We get better every time,” J.C. said.
“Not quite ready for an Oscar yet, buddy, but you’re getting there,” Roy said, patting the man on the arm.
“And so,” he added, turning back to David, whose cheeks were now glowing red from all the attention, and lifting his glass, “nothing pleases me more than to propose a toast to our brand new partner—David Kim.”
“To David!” they all chorused.
“Oh, actually, before we celebrate, and J.C. correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that acceptance can be inferred from the words ‘you motherfucker,’ can it?’”
More laughter.
The partners erupted into a unified chant of, “Sign it! Sign it! Sign it!”
This continued until David put pen to paper, then shook hands and hugged some of his new business partners.
An hour later, pastries devoured and champagne glasses drained, Roy ran into David Kim in the hallway. “Congratulations again,” he said, patting him on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Roy. Really appreciate the opportunity. I’m stoked!”
“You deserve it, man,” he responded with a grin. “Oh, and by the way, minor business thing. Susie’s planned a getaway for the two of us next week. So I’m going to be working from the Bahamas.”
“Sure. No worries. I’ve gotcha covered.”
“I’ll be on email and available by phone. Only thing is, I forgot about the kid from Austin that we’re bringing in... ”
“Harlan? No problem. I can push him off, or if you want, I can meet with him and then loop you in later if things look
vacation in bimini
DAY ONE
Saturday, April 28, 2018
The night before implementation of the plan began, Susie and Roy took care of eliminating all traces of their research and planning. They took out the burner laptops and deleted all files having anything to do with Harlan. Roy ran the Landscaping folder’s contents through the shredder. Then, to be safe, he burned the shreds in the barbeque.
They woke early Saturday morning. Susie tidied the house and locked up. Roy went aboard the Sunseeker to make final preparations for their journey.
Roy is pretty meticulous about this kind of thing. Though he pays a company to maintain both boats and the jet ski, he still checked oil levels, coolant levels, fuel levels manually below decks, and all the strainers. Then he cranked up the generator, switched over from shore power, and brought up all the systems.
He already had waypoints to and from Bimini plotted on the GPS from previous trips. Nevertheless, he ran through their planned route just to be sure.
There was a storm coming in—a small system—which wouldn’t be a problem as far as getting to Bimini, but might put a crimp in their plans. He’d been watching it carefully, checking the NOAA—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association website—every couple of hours for updates.
Roy was a believer in the adage that “A good sailor weathers the storm he cannot avoid, and avoids the storm he cannot weather.” On this occasion, the weather was something they’d have to work with as best they could.
He was finishing his departure checklist when Susie came aboard and joined him on the flybridge.
“All set, Captain?” she asked. “Ready to cast off?”
“Yep. All good to go. You want to do the honors, or shall I?”
She smiled at him. “It’s been a while, so let me.”
“Sure,” he said, stepping aside.
Susie took the captain’s chair and started the engines as Roy went below to the deck level to cast off.
She turned on the bow and stern thrusters and tweaked each gently against the dock to make sure they were operational.
“All clear!” Roy shouted from below.
Susie gently pulsed the thrusters, and the boat slowly glided away from the dock. Once clear, she began to manipulate the two throttles, alternating between port and starboard engines to keep the boat moving straight down the coffee-colored waters of the channel. It was a bit of a trek out to the bay, which—running at six knots—offered plenty of time for the engines to warm up.
Once they entered the green waters of the bay, Susie set course for Biscayne Channel, which would take them just past the tip of Key Biscayne and out into the Florida Straits.
Roy always got a kick out of passing through Biscayne Channel and the view of Stiltsville. Though it was down to only seven houses, at one point there’d been almost thirty wooden buildings in the middle of the bay, lining the sand flats on either side of Biscayne Channel. The destination had been dubbed Stiltsville after the wooden pilings—stilts—on which these buildings were constructed.
Construction of Stiltsville began during Prohibition. The first building—Crawfish Eddie’s—started the whole thing. He sold bait, beer, and food off his shack to local boaters. Others soon followed.
By the 1940s, a number of invitation-only member clubs were operating in the flats—gambling, black market whisky, celebrities. Ted Kennedy had his bachelor party out there.
The exciting days of Stiltsville ended in 1965 with Hurricane Betsy. After that storm, the state declined to issue any new permits for construction and placed restrictions on the rebuilding of existing structures. Commercial operations in Stiltsville were banned altogether in 1969.
Roy marvelled at how something so rustic could have been considered desirable—supply and demand was always his conclusion. Even at its peak, there’d been very few buildings out there, and you could only get there by boat. The exclusivity and remoteness had made them desirable.
Of course, that was then. Hurricanes and government regulation destroyed the businesses. Roy chuckled to himself and wondered which of the two was the more destructive force.
Once you’re out past Stiltsville and through the channel, the path to Bimini is almost due east. The distance is about forty miles. Traveling at twenty knots in good weather, the trip takes about two hours.
Susie set the autopilot to ninety-five degrees, about five degrees south of where she actually wanted to end up in order to compensate for the Gulf Stream current, and then she and Roy sat back to relax.
Crossing the Florida Straits can be simple or deadly. It all depends on the weather. Think of the Florida Straits as a giant oceanic river running from south to north through the deep trough between Florida and the landmass of the Bahama Banks. The water in that trough reaches depths of over 6,000 feet. Ocean liners navigate the surface while all manner of sharks live beneath.
Because the water in the straits flows from south to north, a north wind creates wind-against-tide conditions, resulting in steep waves that can make crossing dangerous. The best crossing conditions are in light to no wind, or with a southerly wind.
For their crossing, Susie and Roy had an easterly wind at about five knots, which made for tolerable conditions. Their greater concern was the weather over the next couple of days, since the forecast showed winds from the north at five to ten knots. Not good news.
“Whatcha thinking, babe?”
“Weather.” Roy looked out to the horizon. The Sunseeker was plowing through two- to three-foot seas like a warm knife through butter. While they felt the movement below, as they were seated well above the action in the flybridge, they were spared a great deal of the discomfort. “Seas like this, it’s not impossible, but the risk level definitely goes up.”
“Well, all that could change.”
“Yeah. We’ll just play it by ear. See what tomorrow brings.”
The Straits crossing is beautiful, something everyone should experience at least once. As you head for the Bahamas, the Miami skyline slowly recedes, fading into nothing. And just about thirty minutes after it disappears (depending on your speed), the island of Bimini comes into view.
At first viewing, the water in the Bahamas
is so strikingly blue as to seem artificial, like blue antifreeze. This is because the islands of the Bahamas are really just the bits of land that peek out from under the water, and are all actually part of a massive limestone shoal called the Bahama Banks.
The submerged part of the shoal is not far underwater—twenty to forty feet on average. The Banks break the waves coming in from the Atlantic and reduce the amount of bottom sediment stirred up around the islands. This, plus the shallow depths and low levels of green-producing phytoplankton, all combine to create that super-blue water.
Susie and Roy navigated onto the Banks and into South Cat Cay. Roy preferred going through customs there because it was generally less crowded. They docked at the fuel station—not that they needed to refuel, but topping off their tank meant not having to pay a slip fee while they passed customs.
At the first port of call in the Bahamas, only the captain goes ashore to present immigration paperwork. So, while Susie handled refueling, Roy walked over to the customs and immigration house. He sat on the porch bench to the left outside the small wooden building until summoned by the immigration officer to enter the left door of the building. The tiny office was neat and well air-conditioned.
Roy presented their passports and visa forms, and answered the usual questions regarding length of stay and so forth. Their passports were stamped and they were formally admitted into the country.
Roy then went back outside the same building and sat on the porch bench to the right until he was asked to enter the right door of the same small building by the customs officer. Roy declared his boat—with the jet ski that they’d brought on the swim platform and one paddleboard as tenders—and again waited for his documents to be stamped and returned to him.
Once all of their paperwork was processed, Roy put everything into a Ziploc bag for safekeeping and returned to the Sunseeker. He then took the helm and ran the boat out of Cat Cay and up north to Bimini, where they docked at the Fisherman’s Village Marina at Resort World Bimini.
While Roy ran a hose over the boat to wash off the sea salt, Susie went ashore to collect the golf cart they had reserved by phone from Sue & Joy’s, the little convenience store and golf cart rental shop next to the marina. While they weren’t planning on moving around much on the island, renting a golf cart was a documentable transaction that could be verified.
By the time Susie returned, Roy had already put the jet ski into the water and tied it near the bow of the boat so as to leave the swim platform clear.
They dined at The Tides that evening, had an expensive bottle of wine, and paid with AMEX, tipping well to ensure that the waiter would remember them. Then, they headed back to the boat.
They sat for a while on the flybridge, sharing a drink and a blanket. There was a cool wind blowing from the north and the air smelled of ozone.
There was an almost full moon out, though it wasn’t visible through the clouds. Roy had factored the lunar phases into his planning. The moon would be full the following night, April 29, 2018 at 8:59 p.m. From that point on, it would begin waning, but would still provide sufficient illumination for what he had planned, provided there were no clouds.
Bad weather was on the way. The critical issue was timing. When would it break, and for how long? Time would tell, but for now they went down below and allowed the boat to rock them to sleep as the rain tapped a lullaby.
DAY TWO
Sunday, April 29, 2018
When Roy and Susie woke the next day, it was to rivulets of rainwater running down the boat’s windows. It looked like the bad weather planned on staying.
They had coffee in the stern cockpit. Roy fiddled about on his laptop, checking emails and sending a few quick responses. It was important that this be a working vacation and that he maintain intermittent but constant contact with the office. The better he maintained contact, the better he could account for his activities and whereabouts.
While he worked, Susie read a book.
At 11:00 a.m., they got into their beach gear and drove the golf cart north where they went for a walk on the beach. They carried with them a map of the island and used Navionics—a GPS boating app—to scout landmarks that would be needed for the implementation of their plan. They did not enter any landmarks or coordinates into the app. Rather, they noted them on paper.
When lunchtime rolled around, they weren’t that hungry. Instead, they went down to the master stateroom. Roy caught Susie’s hand and smiled at her, mischievously, before kissing her. She responded. Her hungry kiss was his cue to slip a hand up her t-shirt and cup her bikini-clad breasts before fumbling to free them and then delicately allowing his palm to touch her nipple. They continued kissing—slowly, in anticipation of what was to come.
It wasn’t long before Roy felt her nipples harden under his touch. They giggled like school children before she pulled him back onto the bed, where she crawled backward until her head hit the headboard.
“Ouch!”
More giggles as he tugged at her bikini bottoms and she pushed at his trunks.
Sometimes they would linger on foreplay, other times it was oral, and, although they never discussed it, Susie would usually lead.
Not today.
Roy climbed on top and was inside her sooner than she expected, the surprise eliciting a delighted squeal from her. He was different this time—urgent—and it excited her.
Susie raised her legs and Roy placed his arms under them, locking the fronts of his elbows into the backs of her knees, lifting them up and out. Susie’s hips began to buck in synch with her groans, and Roy let one hand slip down and rub hard, fast circles against her clit, knowing the stimulation would push her over the edge. As she climaxed, he stopped thrusting and started grinding his pubis into hers. Her first orgasm was barely over before Susie whimpered and came a second time. That was Roy’s cue to thrust faster and faster until he exploded inside her.
Sex on the boat always felt different to them. They could never decide whether it was the gentle movement of the craft bobbing on water that accentuated the rhythmic thrusts of lovemaking or the subconscious knowledge of proximity to the primordial soup of the sea. Regardless, it was something that they both enjoyed and had missed.
Afterward, they had mimosas and reviewed the ‘Harlan plan’ in detail one more time. The plan was risky, but it involved multiple points at which they could change direction and/or abort.
The key points of the plan were settled.
There was only one point they still hadn’t agreed on. Whether to drown Harlan, or kill him first and then sink his body.
Roy had always been for drowning. It wasn’t a question of pain or suffering. He simply felt that, if they drowned Harlan, there was less risk of any bodily fluids contaminating the crime scene. His view was purely practical.
Susie had taken a more philosophical view. She felt that just leaving Harlan to drown didn’t bring them closure. They had undertaken the task of avenging Kristy, and through her, Camilla. That meant actually taking Harlan’s life. Leaving the killing to a third party, even if that third party was the sea and death was assured, somehow felt to Susie like copping out.
“It’s like Game of Thrones. When a lord condemns someone to death, he acts as the executioner. If you pass sentence, you should swing the sword.”
Roy didn’t get it, but in the larger scheme of things, it was a minor point. And as they say, “Happy wife, happy life.” So, he had agreed to provision for a direct kill option. The question was, how?
They’d considered drugs, but the only drug available to them without creating a trail for the police was a bottle of Xanax that Susie had left from when she’d been dealing with Camilla’s death. Susie felt that there was a certain poetic justice in using pills to kill Harlan. But while the Xanax could certainly tranquilize him and likely render him unconscious, they’d learned with some research that they didn’t have enough of the drug
to actually kill him.
In the end, they’d settled on two direct kill options. Both were very hands-on. The first was suffocation—either via plastic bag or via strangulation (which, technically, could cause death by both impeding respiration and by limiting or stopping the flow of blood to the brain). To this end, they had purchased a box of Hefty trash bags—kitchen size. Roy had tried one on, and it fit over his head nicely.
The other option was the ice pick. The thrust of an ice pick directly into the heart would cause almost immediate death. If it wasn’t removed from the victim’s body, the amount of blood lost outside the body should be zero. And, even if it was removed, blood loss would be next to nothing.
Of the two options, Susie was for the ice pick. Roy, again, felt that the Hefty was probably the better approach. In the end, they had decided to prepare for both, as well as drowning, and make the final decision in real time.
At five, Roy went up top and turned on the grill. He cooked tuna steaks and asparagus. They were forced to eat in the cabin, as the weather had not improved. At nine o’ clock, they decided to call it a night.
DAY THREE
Monday, April 30, 2018
Roy was up early, puttering around the boat. Susie woke to the sound of him moving about and the smell of coffee. She rose, poured herself a cup, and joined him on the flybridge.
The sun was up, the air humid from the evaporation of recently fallen rain. It was cloudy and windy, but at least it was dry.
“Better weather today,” Susie observed.
“Yeah. According to NOAA, the Straits are still at three to five feet. Not ideal.”
“No. Well, if not today, there’s still tomorrow.”
“Let’s see how things evolve. Maybe we give it a shot.”
They decided to go for a walk, making sure to pass by the security cameras in front of the hotel. They went into the gift shop—which also had a security camera—and bought a tube of toothpaste. Then they returned to the boat, where Roy checked email and responded to messages. Then he read as Susie watched TV.
