by Andrew Mayne
Ocean Tech Yard is Winston Miller’s old boatyard. It’s the only place I clearly remember seeing Stacey as a girl, other than some possible run-in at the Elbo Room or maybe the mall.
I pull over on the strip of gravel between the highway and the fence surrounding Winston’s boatyard on the side away from the canal.
The two big sheet-metal buildings still stand alongside various boat lifts, supports, and other leftover equipment. The dilapidated dock remains, too, although it looks like it’s on the verge of collapsing.
Beyond that, it’s a ghost town. I grasp the fence and peer through, as if making visual contact will somehow cause the past to come alive again.
In a way, it does.
I remember our boat at the time, the Sea Castle, propped up on supports as Winston worked on the hull and outfitted it with a variety of gadgets like radar, side-scanning sonar, and even an underwater camera.
Dad got a Japanese television station to help pay for the refit in exchange for the television rights and part of any recovered bounty as we explored the Bermuda Triangle for lost treasure.
It was a bit of a con on Dad’s part. He knew it wouldn’t be hard to find something out there. The Bermuda Triangle is huge and filled with shipwrecks—like any other heavily traveled shipping route.
But with Japanese viewers, it made for great television—at least in theory. The network loved the idea of this seafaring family out in the remote ocean—remote for Japan—chasing down ghost ships and pirate plunder.
What was supposed to be a three-week trip ended up lasting only five days when the producer, the son of the head of the network, got incredibly seasick and decided that we should fake the whole thing off the coast of Fort Lauderdale while he supervised from the penthouse of the Yankee Clipper hotel and busied himself with local prostitutes.
This was fine by us. It was already a BS expedition to begin with and mostly a way for Dad to get someone else to pay for the refit of the Sea Castle.
We ended up shooting a bunch of stuff at night, faking some wreckage and getting shots of my brothers and me running around the deck, pointing at nothing and shrieking. We had a blast—and no idea how it would all be edited together.
Three months later we got a VHS tape from the producer and viewed the final result. It was the most bizarre thing we’d ever seen. My brothers and I loved it.
In the “documentary,” we were attacked by ghosts in the middle of a storm after finding lost pirate-ship treasure, only to have it vanish the next day. Or something along those lines. We never had anyone translate it for us. All we know for certain is the special-effects spirits swirling around the deck looked like they had been lifted from some other movie.
The show was a bit of a ratings hit, and there was talk of another until the producer got involved in some scandal back in Japan.
It was during this period that I first met Stacey and the ugly ducks she used to feed by the dock.
The ducks are now gone. I suspect even they know the dock is a death trap.
“You looking to lease?” asks a woman from behind me.
I turn around and see a familiar face—Angie Woodward. She’s the Jamaican woman who ran the paint store in the warehouse next to the yard.
I look over and see the paint store is still there.
“Hey, Ms. Woodward!”
She recognizes me and returns a big smile. “Well, if it isn’t the Sea Monkey.”
Sea Monkey was yet another of my brothers’ nicknames for me. We’d scrounge for quarters and go spend them in the gumball machines in Angie’s store, filling ourselves with Boston Baked Beans, Mike & Ikes, and M&Ms. I try to smile back without wincing.
“Come here to have a look around?” she asks.
“Sort of. How long has it been empty?”
“Winston got rid of most of his stuff right before the bankruptcy. I think he worked something out with the owners, though. He still comes by and gets equipment.”
“Really?” My heart races. “When was the last time you saw him?”
Angie thinks for a moment. “A few weeks, I guess. Maybe more.”
“Oh.” I’d been hoping it was more recent than that—like this morning. Meaning there’s a chance that Winston isn’t dead like his daughter. “And Stacey?”
Angie’s face changes. “You heard?”
“Yeah.” I don’t tell her how. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“A couple of years. Winston mentioned her now and then, but I never saw her. Her boyfriend came around here sometimes with Winston. Raymond, I think?”
“Raul?”
“Yeah. Raul. Nice guy. Quiet.” She walks over to the padlock on the gate and produces a key from her pocket. “Have a look around, if you like.” She points up to the tall boat-storage building across the water near a skyscraper filled with condos. “Who knows how long before it all changes.”
“Thanks,” I reply as I step through the gate. Even more memories begin to surface.
“Just lock up,” she calls after me before walking away.
I walk across the cracked asphalt, trying to understand how the place could have shrunk over the years.
When I was ten, it seemed so much bigger. Of course, I was smaller, and there was a lot more going on here back then.
I walk over to the dock and give the rotten wood a wary glance. Stacey would sit here and feed her ducks pieces of bread as they quacked and jostled around her feet.
We thought Stacey a little odd. In retrospect, I can only imagine how lonely she must have been. Back then it seemed weird how she’d tag along with us and try to insert herself into our play.
I remember Harris teasing Robbie that Stacey was his girlfriend. In response, Stacey grabbed Robbie’s hand and grinned. She also liked telling us “secrets” to try to win our friendship. It was little-kid stuff. Like how her dad had a lady friend or how nobody was allowed in the secret building out back.
Harris claimed the building was a painting booth and had dangerous fumes. Stacey insisted otherwise.
We tried peeking in through a window once and saw only a bunch of tools. Winston caught us looking, grabbed Stacey by the arm, and dragged her around the corner and gave her a spanking.
We all felt guilty as she sobbed, but the moment her dad went back to the other warehouse, Stacey turned the tears off and went back to her annoying self.
The secret building . . . I hadn’t recalled it until now. I’d always assumed it was just a huge paint booth, like Harris said.
I walk to the back of the yard and spot the large metal building. The roll-up door and entrance remain as I remember them.
Out of curiosity, I try the door handle, and it opens. The morning sun streaks in through a window, the same one we peeked through long ago, illuminating part of the interior.
The acrid smell that hits my nostrils tells me that Harris wasn’t kidding about it being used for painting. But that doesn’t appear to be the only thing it was used for.
Rows of benches line the walls, and massive chains hang overhead. The kind you use to lift engine blocks. This workshop looks a lot like the other one in the yard.
Maybe this is where Winston fitted out drug boats?
The realization hits hard. Stacey was right about this being a secret.
I poke my light around the benches, looking for anything suspicious—not exactly sure what “suspicious” would look like, other than, well, suspicious.
I spot a wastebasket in the corner with some newspapers stuffed into it.
They’re from last year. Not exactly incriminating, but from after the time Winston was supposedly evicted.
At the bottom there’s a car magazine, AutoSport. Raul’s name is on the label, but the address isn’t the boatyard’s.
Interesting.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHORE LEAVE
Jackie steals a french fry from Run’s plate and dips it into my barbecue sauce. We’re sitting at a picnic table inside Tom Jenkins BBQ, a favorite o
f ours since Run and I were teenagers. It’s a small place with a line that frequently goes out the door.
I keep a wary eye on the entrance, studying every face that comes inside. Run notices this but doesn’t say anything. He can tell what’s going through my mind.
Meeting him and Jackie here felt like a horrible idea, but my daughter was starting to get worried, and we’re still trying to pretend everything is okay.
The story we told her is that I have a case requiring me to work odd hours. It feels wrong lying to her—especially when she could be vulnerable too—but there’s no easy way to explain to your kid that there are people out there that may want to kill her mother and go through her daughter if they have to.
For his part, Run’s been keeping a careful eye on Jackie. Two tables over sits Raymond Gunther, a friend of Run’s from way back. Run’s family hires him occasionally as security for their various businesses.
Gunther “conveniently” showed up at the restaurant, as far as Jackie’s concerned. He’s actually been shadowing Run and Jackie every time they leave the house, and he’ll be parked across the street when she goes to school on Monday.
I don’t know what it’s costing Run to have Gunther do this, but I’m not in a position to make much of an argument. Jackie is as much his daughter as she is mine. I get it. I’ve decided to do everything I can to put a stop to this; so has he.
Run grabs a piece of okra from Jackie’s plate and pops it into his mouth. “Mmm . . . Retaliation.” He garbles the word between bites.
“Remaliation?” Jackie mocks him. “Mom must have done your homework back then.”
“Hardly,” he replies. “I had perfect grades.”
“Perfect Cs,” I say.
“Yeah. They were all Cs. Perfect.”
“So, did you guys, like, study together?” asks Jackie.
“All the time,” Run replies, suppressing a tiny grin. What he doesn’t say is that we used homework as an excuse to go out on the boat, make out, party, and do all the things a couple of horny free spirits do when they’re young and immortal.
Jackie uses another stolen fry to trace a circle in the sauce on her plate. “Do . . . do you ever miss it?”
She’s getting old enough to realize our dysfunctional family dysfunctions in a weird way. When she was younger, she just assumed it was normal that Mom and Dad lived separate lives and made time for the kid. Now she sees that we’re not like divorced couples and not even technically a couple.
That’s not to say Run and I haven’t hooked up every now and then, but we only do it with the full understanding that it’s a casual thing.
I’ll admit that I feel a twinge of jealousy when I see him out with another woman, but I’m free to do the same. But I’ve turned down a lot of guys because they simply don’t hold my interest like Run. I’d rather spend a long evening in the bathtub thinking of old times than have some awkward, desperate fling I know I’ll regret. Which I’ve done more than once.
Run looks up at me, waiting for my answer. The solution to the mystery of why Mom and Dad get along so well with each other—even have a kid together—but stay apart.
Jackie’s asked me similarly probing questions recently, like if I’ve ever been mad at Run or if he’s ever been really mad at me—trying, I assume, to figure out if one of us cheated on the other.
“I miss a lot of things about being young,” I reply.
Jackie rolls her eyes at my answer. “Right. Like nickel movies and riding your dinosaur to school.”
“Did you just call me a cavewoman?” I reply. “The penalty for that is half a hush puppy.” I take a bite from one of hers.
“I was thinking . . . ,” Run says after a few moments of silence.
“I’m proud of you, Daddy. Keep it up,” Jackie replies.
Run puts his hand in front of her face. “I was thinking about getting you a muzzle. But I was also thinking maybe we all take a vacation.” He hastily adds, “I’d get us some rooms, and we could go somewhere. Maybe skiing. Maybe Australia?” He gives me a hesitant glance, already afraid of the repercussions of saying something like this in front of Jackie.
“Oh my god! Australia?” she blurts out excitedly.
I have to measure my tone. Run is suggesting that we run away for a while. Although that may not be the worst idea, Jackie doesn’t realize for how long he means. And then there’s the fact that my problem could follow us there or be waiting when I get back.
“I have my work,” I reply. “Maybe a father-daughter trip wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“What? No,” Jackie cries. “We should go together! Like . . . like a family. You two can get separate rooms and pretend you don’t like each other and then go touch each other’s butts when I’m not around.”
“Jackie!” I say.
Run covers his grin and faces away.
Touching butts has been the family phrase for sex since Jackie was in kindergarten and came home trying to explain the pornographic act one of her classmates had seen on the internet. Hearing the term still gets a smirk from Run and me. We’re too savvy to Jackie’s tricks to issue a denial.
“I’ve got work, hon,” I reply.
“When will that be done?” she asks.
“I don’t know . . .” I’m struggling here. What do I tell my daughter?
“That sucks.” She crosses her arms, sits back, and fumes. “Why can’t we be normal?”
Gut punch.
Run is about to say something, but she interrupts him. “I can’t figure out which of you is more selfish.” She stares at me. “But I think I know now.”
“Jackie . . . ,” I protest. “We’re here with you now.”
“Oh yeah? Maybe I’d like to see both of you at the breakfast table. Maybe I’d like to fall asleep on the couch watching a movie between you guys. Maybe I’d like to have a mom and dad who love each other.” She tries to hold back her tears.
“We do love each other,” says Run.
Jackie points to me. “I want to hear her say it.”
Damn. Once again, I’m reminded that growing older means finding new ways to experience pain.
“I love your father,” I reply.
“My father? My father? Oh, do you mean the man sitting across the table from you? Why can’t you just look at him and say, ‘I love you’?”
Run puts his arm around her. “Baby, it’s complicated. Sometimes people just aren’t meant to spend their whole lives together.”
“Is that what you really think?” She glares at me. “If Mom asked you to try being together, what would you say?”
Run makes a half laugh, trying to think of how to answer the question.
It seems my daughter has learned ninja-level manipulation tactics. I want to blame that on time spent with Run’s mother.
“Things are complicated,” I reply.
“The C word. Your favorite excuse. Dad loves you. I know he goes out with other women and all, but did you know you’re the last one he . . . touched butts with? I heard him tell Uncle Gunther that. He loves you. But you don’t love him. I get it.”
“Jackie . . .” I’m at a loss for words. I want to tell her how I really feel about Run. I want her to understand that our situation’s more about how I feel about myself. Run is perfect in his way. Me . . . ? I . . . I’m just trash that floated into his path.
I’ve always wondered if Run only stuck around because I got pregnant. The reason I turned down his hasty marriage proposal was because I hated the way it looked—like I got knocked up to trap him.
That’s what his mother thinks every time she looks at me. That’s what Run’s yachtie friends say behind my back.
It’s what I secretly think about myself.
I knew I’d never be able to hold on to him, so I did the next best thing—got us drunk, fooled around to the point we didn’t know how to spell condom, much less use one, and got pregnant so he could never really leave my life.
I don’t think that’s really why it happened
, but I can’t convince myself it’s not at least partially true.
I got pregnant so he wouldn’t leave, and I refused to marry him because I couldn’t admit to myself why I did it.
Ten years of denial, and now it has a face. A beautiful face covered in tears, looking at me, begging me to tell the truth: I love Run.
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHOALS
Raul Tiago’s address from the magazine label leads to a one-story white box in an older part of North Miami. The lawn is well kept, and a small row of stunted palm trees lines the circular driveway. Although his car is missing from the carport, there’s no pile of newspapers or leaflets by the door to suggest there’s a decomposing body inside.
On the way over, I stopped at a Wendy’s, texted with Jackie, and did a little internet sleuthing. I found five Raul Tiagos in South Florida. None of them had this address.
Oddly, one of the addresses was in downtown Fort Lauderdale, fairly close to the marina. If I had to guess, I would have pegged that one for his place, not this house.
It’s possible that he had two homes—which also makes it possible that the police went to the other one and not this one . . . which means I could be about to find a decomposing body after all.
I have no plans to break and enter. But I’ve smelled enough decomposing flesh to get a pretty good idea if a dead human is nearby. The trick is to walk around the house and smell the air-conditioning vents, pet doors, window seals, or anywhere else air escapes. I took a whole seminar on this subject. That was a fun experience. Our inspector, a retired forensic specialist, had all kinds of samples in plastic containers for us to smell. Some things can never be undone.
My nose twitches a little when I approach the front door and get a whiff of a semisweet scent. The door is open a few inches behind a screen door, and I feel a slight gut flutter at the thought of pushing it all the way open and seeing Raul’s body.
After what happened in the canal and on my own boat, I’m fairly certain I haven’t seen my last dead body.
“Hello?” I call out before pulling open the screen door.
From somewhere inside there’s the noise of a television and rapid-fire Spanish. To my out-of-practice ear, it sounds like a telenovela.
