Martin Billings Caribbean Crime Thrillers

by Ed Teja

  “Oh.” I felt the deflation that comes with the realization of having been quite stupid without even knowing it.

  “Oh.” She echoed, laughing again. “So enough of the long face. And I didn’t mean this as a put down, or anything else. I think that to solve Tim’s problem you do need to plan a little. You might even need to plan a lot, maybe. Your spontaneous side might not be as desirable for Tim’s dilemma as for my love.”

  “I’m glad I am good for something,” I said, knowing how petty that sounded under the circumstances.

  She laughed again. “More than one thing.”

  “What now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What does the master campaign strategist think we should do next to get Tim cleared?”

  “Good question.” I was still trying to digest what she’d told me about why she’d left. Relationships were a subject I flunked in the school of hard knocks. “I guess I should talk to Tim’s girlfriend María. She has to know something useful about what really happened. She might even know where the drugs came from, or at least be willing to make a guess, if it isn’t for the police. And I’d like to talk to Ramón again, privately this time, in a soundproof room.”

  “Maybe María knows how you can find him.”

  I nodded. The thought had crossed my mind too. “And then I should talk to the mysterious Victoria López and find out why she doesn’t want me investigating the case.”

  “The beautiful and mysterious Victoria López,” Maggie corrected. “You seem awfully anxious to see her again. What’s the matter, I didn’t do enough for you last night? Or this morning?” Then she laughed. “God! I made you blush.”

  It was true.

  “I just want to find out what her angle is,” I protested.

  “And Chris could know something. It might help to know what Tim was working on when Antonio saw whatever he thought he saw. I mean he could’ve seen Tim but doing something legit and misinterpreted it.”

  “Chris?” I drew a blank at the name.

  “Tim’s former boss, remember?”

  “Right.” It came back to me. “The one who didn’t like Tim. The one who gave him a bad report.”

  “Maybe Ms. López’s interest has something to do with environmental issues.”

  “You know this Chris?”

  “Sure,” she smiled. “I’m a card-carrying ecology freak. I recycle my diesel oil. I pick up tons of plastic bags to protect the turtles. I’ve given free charters to VIP’s or políticos that Chris’s people needed to impress to get funding. Camping isn’t legal in much of the park, so when they want to show people how magnificent the place is, they put them in a boat and show them around for a few days. Chris usually goes along to make nice with the moneyed people, so I’ve gotten to know him pretty well. In fact, that’s how I ran into Tim down here, you see. I didn’t know he was in Venezuela until I met him with Chris. It was quite a surprise when they showed up together one day. He came to the park, bringing Tim around for orientation. They were getting along pretty well then, so we had a good time.”

  “And then they had a falling out.”

  “That neither of them has ever talked about to me, at least until Tim was arrested. I didn’t have a clue there was a problem between them. I’m just as glad too, because I wouldn’t have wanted to take sides.”

  Chris did seem a good source for background information at least. “Can you arrange for me to meet Chris?”

  She buttered the last piece of toast and handed it to me. “There’s no need. I expect him to swing by this morning. He always comes by about nine on Thursdays.” I raised an eyebrow at this, and she laughed, making me feel silly for my jealous reaction.

  “Thursday,” I said. “It’s Thursday already, isn’t it? My free ticket home melts into ice water tomorrow. I better call Ms. López today and tell her not to bother seeing me off. But I will see if I can arrange for us to meet for a chat.”

  “Good. And María?”

  I thought for a moment. “I’ll have to get her address from Tim. I didn’t think to yesterday.”

  “Why not just take it from the arrest report Wilfredo gave you?”

  I slapped my forehead. “Some detective I am.”

  We were finishing our second cup of coffee when a bright green launch roared into the bay through the cut, its bow well out of the water.

  “There’s Chris now,” Maggie said. After it cleared the cut, the launch made directly for Scape. At the last instant, he cut power and turned the wheel, expertly bringing the launch alongside in a single, fluid motion.

  Chris was about twenty-eight, I’d guess, one of those tall, muscular types who look born to the outdoors. He had longish brown hair, wore cut-off jeans and a faded tee shirt that predictably said Save the Whales.

  “Hey, Maggie,” he called out as he shut off the outboard. He sounded so friendly that my jealous bones started acting up all over again. I could tell that he knew Maggie pretty well, and I wasn’t certain I wanted to know exactly how well.

  “Morning, Chris,” she called back. “Come aboard, the coffee’s hot.”

  As he tied off his launch and climbed over the railing, Chris noticed me for the first time. I could see the curiosity in his eyes.

  “Chris, this is Martin, Tim’s brother.”

  He held out a hand and mumbled something, but I could see that, as glad as he was to see Maggie, meeting me was right up there with getting cholera on his things-I-want-to-do today list. Given the circumstances I couldn’t blame him and tried to ease things by pretending to be more amiable than I felt while he practiced his college wrestler bone-crusher grip. When I didn't wince, he tried to scowl, but he wasn’t worth a damn at scowling, which made me think a lot better of him.

  Maggie explained to him that I was in the country trying to find out what had really happened, such as who had killed Antonio. I could tell that these were not his favorite conversational topics. The aborted scowl tried to reappear.

  He gave me a hard look. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  I laughed. “This is becoming an epidemic. No one around here knows anything.”

  “If he was watching for fish, there wouldn’t have been anyone there to see what did happen—except for the killer, of course.”

  “Unless someone passing by saw something and doesn’t realize that it had anything to do with the case.”

  He shrugged. “In some cases, I think that people really don’t realize it when they do know something important.”

  “You at least know more than I do about the background of the story. If you don’t mind just telling me the little you know, I can piece it all together. Something you know just might click with things other people have told me.”

  “I really don’t know what I can tell you,” he said stubbornly. “I spend my time mostly in Puerto La Cruz, or at least I did, until Tim got arrested.”

  “Still...”

  “I don’t really have time to sit and talk. With Tim in jail, I’m stuck doing both our jobs. Right now, I have to make a tour of the park. Some of our readings have to be taken at specific times or they aren’t useful. I only came by because on Thursday we have to take a large number of readings and make observations as well as do some garbage pickup. Maggie often helps out if she has time.”

  “And you enjoy her company.”

  “Sure, but I really need the help, so I always swing by.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Today you can take us both along and we will both help.”

  “Why?” Suspicion gave his face a funny, twisted aspect, and I decided I wanted a chance to play poker with this boy. The higher the stakes the better.

  “Several reasons. For one thing it will give us a chance to talk. I’d appreciate it if you explained the work Tim did at the time to me. It might be useful or might mean nothing, but until I know…Maybe it will help. Second, Maggie says it is a worthy cause, and I want to help. If that isn’t en
ough for you, how about the simple matter that Mochima is a beautiful park and I haven’t seen it in a long time.”

  He began to realize that I wouldn’t give him an easy out, so he flashed an insincere smile and gave in. “Okay,” he said. “But we will be at it all morning. The work takes priority over talk.”

  “Fine. When we get back, I’ll buy you lunch.”

  He smiled and said, “Bring some drinking water.”

  “One sec,” Maggie shouted, ducking below decks.

  I grabbed my cup from behind a cushion in the cockpit and retrieved my sunglasses from the instrument panel. When Maggie returned with a thermos, we climbed into the launch. Chris’s twin vee launch had a center helm console and a wooden canopy for protection from the sun. It was a sensible boat. He had two outboards. One was a husky ninety horsepower motor that he used, he said, for making time on the run from Puerto La Cruz to Mochima. The second was an economical twenty-five horse model, for poking around. It was a good arrangement. For safety and reliability each motor had its own fuel tank. A large red plastic tank in the back of the boat fed the small engine. When we were aboard, Chris showed us where the life vests were stored under the seats and the location of the fire extinguisher.

  “I’ve been told that I’m a bit obsessive about safety equipment,” he told us.

  “That’s fine by me,” Maggie said, and I nodded my agreement. There are far worse things to be anal about.

  Chris turned his head to check the big motor as he fired it up, but not before I caught a trace of a smile cross his face. When the motor roared to life, we untied the lines from Scape and pulled in the fenders. Chris poured on the throttle, making the launch surge forward. He turned and pointed the bow back through the cut, heading along the five-mile run to the entrance into Mochima’s sunken valley, a place called Punta de Aguirre. It was named for Lope del Aguirre, the Spanish pirate who once sacked Nuevo Cádiz on the island of Cubagua, which was one of the first European settlements in the New World.

  Outside Mochima proper, he turned past Bahía de Manare, back in the direction of Puerto La Cruz. We cruised in the deep blue water close to the face of the cliffs. I could see under the cliffs where the Caribbean Sea was eroding the land, making attractive caves. Eventually another layer of rock would sheer off and fall into the water, and the process would start all over again.

  Chris motioned for us to come near the helm.

  “Most of the work we are doing right now is in the area of Ensenada Tigrillo,” he said over the roar of the motor. We nodded. Suddenly Chris raised his arm and pointed. “Look!”

  When we followed his gaze, we saw two humpback whales leaving Tigrillo and heading out to sea.

  “Beautiful,” Maggie whispered, barely audible over the roar of the big outboard.

  The lead whale raised its tail, then ducked its entire massive head and pointed its tail straight up. It dove and the tail disappeared without a ripple. The second whale did the same.

  We rode in silence for a long time.

  Finally, Chris shook his head, as if to clear it. “Damn, I like this job,” he said.

  I could understand why.

  “What are you checking in Tigrillo?” Maggie asked.

  Chris looked thoughtful. “There are a lot of different investigations going on, but the two most important ones at the moment involve monitoring the water temperature, which is related to studies of the coral, and, believe it or not, garbage patrol.”

  “Garbage? What kind of garbage?”

  “All kinds. Old tires, plastic bags full of household garbage, beer cans, just about anything you can think of.”

  “Who would toss junk like that in these waters?” Maggie asked, her disgust visible.

  Chris shrugged. “Almost everybody. Day-trippers come in powerboats for the weekend and can’t be bothered to take their garbage home with them. And, of course, there are also the fishermen who live in the area.”

  “Fishermen?” I asked. “They’d throw garbage bags out on the beaches they fish from? Isn’t that a bit like fouling your own nest?”

  “Very much so,” Chris said. “But I see it as two problems. Problem number one is economic. If they don’t throw it on the beach, or in the sea, or behind some rocks, what do they do with it? There aren’t any designated pickup spots ashore, and the people in the towns don’t want the fishermen’s garbage added to their own, because they think the cost of garbage collection will go up. And they are probably right.

  “Next comes the problem of education. The fishermen think the sea has an unlimited capacity for holding garbage. They don’t care about what they can’t see and although the stuff washes up on the beaches, the fishermen don’t see that as a problem. If the fish are still around, then whatever they are doing must be okay. Of course, if the fish die off, it is because of something someone else did. You can’t win that one easily either.

  “I worry the most about plastic bags and the plastic that holds six packs of beer cans. They kill a large number of turtles every year, and we are coming into turtle breeding season now. The turtles use several beaches in this area. Those beaches are supposed to be restricted, but there is no way to enforce that, and some people seem to think not using them for picnics means it's okay to use them as a landfill. We are fighting a losing battle on that one.”

  As we came around the point and into a pass, I thought we must be getting near where Antonio was killed.

  “Can you point out Antonio’s family fishing camp?” I asked.

  He nodded. “It will be coming up soon on the port side.” He pointed at the hill. I could see a small shack at the top. “That’s where he was killed,” he said simply.

  “Was he a friend of yours?”

  Chris shook his head. “No. I'm not friends with any of the fishermen out here. My work puts me at odds with them too often for that.”

  “How is that? Because they trash the beaches?”

  “Sort of. Mostly because I represent the group that wants to restrict the fishing season to preserve various species, they don’t see me as helpful. Oh, we don’t hate each other or anything, but I’m a thorn in their side and they in mine. It doesn't make me want to drop in on them for a beer after work.”

  I considered that. “Then you didn’t think Tim’s friendship with Antonio was a good thing?”

  He laughed. “Tim wanted everybody to love him. I told him that wasn’t in the cards, but he was set on being the big peacemaker. He would resolve all our differences. But it compromised our work. He couldn’t see it or wouldn’t. Either way, he wasn’t able to do the job I wanted done or the job he was paid to do.”

  “Is that why you had the group change their mind about letting him replace you?”

  He nodded. “Partly. But to be honest with you, I had a plan that backfired. I had hoped that without Tim at the ready to replace me, they’d let me stay on here. I've finally gotten the hang of the local excuse for Spanish and can actual start to make friends. But, no, they worry that a field worker goes native if he stays too long in one place. The organization doesn’t like that. They prefer that, no matter what, I go back to the States and spend a year or two in Washington, doing desk work and taking refresher training, before I qualify for a new assignment in the field.” He sounded bitter.

  “And you don’t want to go back to the States?”

  He grimaced. “I took this job to get out. And now, I know it probably doesn’t seem like much to you, but I run my own show.”

  His eyes were off somewhere. “When I go back to the U.S., I’ll be treated like a cross between a minor functionary and a graduate student. I’ll make the same paltry salary I make here, and have to live in crappy, expensive housing, and pay for city transportation. No, I don’t want to go back, thanks very much.”

  I pointed over at Isla Cariacao as it came into view. “The Cumaná cops tell me that’s a hot spot for drug transfers.” He ignored me as if he hadn’t heard me, so I asked, “Do you
ever see any of the drug action? Is it a problem for you?”

  His face grew dark. “It’s not a problem for us because we mind our own business. We see nothing but factors that affect the ecosystem. If they were throwing plastic bags in the water, then we’d notice. But we’d never talk about what might be in those plastic bags.”

  “Don’t get angry,” I said.

  “I don’t need your criticisms.”

  “I wasn’t criticizing.” I glanced at Maggie but could see that she had been as surprised by the outburst as I had been. “I'm just curious if the drug activity is as obvious as the cops said. They think that Antonio saw some sort of drug deal on that beach in broad daylight. I just wondered if you thought that likely. I’m not asking you to name names.”

  He slowed the boat, swinging the helm to run into El Oculto, the big bay to the south of Punta Tigrillo.

  “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat,” he said, looking upset. “We get a lot of crap from people who think that because we are out here, we ought to serve as general watchdogs for the DEA. As far as illegal activity goes, we have to play the same game as the fishermen—be invisible. Do your job and nothing extra and see nothing else. It’s the only way to live long enough to accomplish anything.”

  The boat came down off its plane as Chris throttled back, the bow dropped, and we entered near a small cactus-covered island at a staid displacement motorboat pace. The island was maybe eighty feet in diameter and made a dome just off the shore. We looked into the clear water and saw that the island was ringed with coral, mostly brain coral.

  “Something broke a lot of the coral,” Maggie said. “The coral heads have been toppled over.”

  “Nobody did that.” Chris said. “That is, no one in particular did it. The coral is dying because the water is too warm and warm water kills coral. Notice that it is bleached white. That’s because the color in coral comes from some organisms that live in the coral. The warm water kills them, and the coral turns white. It’s another aspect of the El Niño phenomenon, or maybe of global warming. There’s a lot of argument about that.