Invalid Evidence

by Stevie Mikayne

  She yanked it through the opening and dropped to the water below.

  Ramone was screaming and thrashing. And bleeding badly, by the look of things.

  “Help!” she screamed, hoping somebody at the aquarium could hear her. “Help!” With the end of the fire extinguisher, she banged against the boat. The metal on metal reverberated like a gong.

  “Help us!”

  She listened but couldn’t hear anything over Ramone’s shouts.

  She had to go get him. Step one was to swim under the gangplank. Step two, keep the shark away. Step three, get them both the hell out of the water.

  She dove down, keeping the fire extinguisher out in front of her like a dart gun. To her left, a flash of gray made her scream, and bubbles burst out of her mouth, heading to the surface. She stopped, realizing she was wasting air. The shark passed by her and went back toward the direction of the blood. She kicked her legs fast to get under the gangplank, then surfaced to grab a quick breath. She had to get back underwater where she could see what was going on.

  Ramone was panting hard, holding his arm. “Emi? Where’s Emi?” he panted.

  “I haven’t seen him. Hope he’s hiding.”

  The shark bumped her side and she let go a stream of foam from the extinguisher.

  She surfaced again and shouted, “Come this way! Kick, Ramone. Kick. You have to follow me.”

  He looked at her, wide-eyed, but started side-swimming toward her.

  “He took a bite of my arm,” Ramone cried.

  “I know. You’re bleeding really bad. We have to get out of the water.”

  Suddenly, he shrieked. “He’s got my foot!”

  Jil dove under again and blasted the shark in the face with more foam. It retreated, but not far.

  Jil surfaced. “We have to swim under the gangplank. There’s a rope to the ship’s deck.

  He struggled for breath. “Okay.”

  Jil swam to his side, the shark circling around them. “We’re going together. Big breath, and underwater. I don’t know how much is left in this can.”

  Jil squeezed the trigger, sending off a blast of white foam as they dove under the gangplank, a flurry of kicking and bubbles, and arrived on the other side. Ramone gulped in air as soon as he came up.

  “Over here,” Jil shouted. He tried to follow her, but he was taking in water, sinking and choking.

  Jil dropped the fire extinguisher and pulled Ramone to the side of the boat.

  “Get up, fast. Fast,” she shouted. He grabbed the hose with one hand and tried to pull himself up the boat, but he was bleeding and weak, and doing it one-handed was next to impossible.

  “Help!” Jil screamed. “Someone help!”

  A floodlight went on, somewhere above them. Boot steps boomed back and forth on the wooden deck.

  “Capitaine, ici!”

  She looked up to see the police standing on the side of the deck, flanked by Rebecca and Max.

  “Get him up!” Jil yelled.

  Two officers scrambled over the guardrails and hauled Ramone topside while Jil yanked herself up the fire hose.

  “Holy shit,” she breathed, falling onto the deck. “Holy shit.”

  Ramone lay beside her, blood pouring out of a massive bite on his arm.

  “Papa!” Emi fell onto the deck beside Ramone and he put up his hand on his son’s head.

  “Thank God. Thank God,” he said.

  “Is he gonna die?” Emi cried.

  “Snowball’s chance in hell,” Jil said, pressing his head into her chest.

  Ramone let out an incredulous laugh that was half a groan. “I can’t believe you have more I’ve never heard.”

  “He’s going to be fine, Emi.”

  More rapid French was exchanged over Jil’s head, but she didn’t even try to translate as she watched an officer begin to bandage Ramone’s arm.

  The buzz of walkie-talkies and someone yelling for an ambulance washed over her. She lay down on the dock, her energy completely zapped.

  “You’re gonna need a transfusion,” she said to Ramone.

  He looked up at her and grinned weakly. “Did you at least catch it on camera? My viewers would love this.”

  Emi flopped down on his father’s chest and Ramone hugged him tight.

  Jil squeezed his hand. In the background, sirens wailed.

  “How bad is it?”

  Jil looked at the deck streaked in blood and Ramone’s face, chalk-white in the fading sunlight.

  “Just a flesh wound,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought. God, this job is costing me an arm and a leg.” Ramone laughed weakly, his eyes rolling back.

  “Hey.” Jil shook him. “Don’t go to sleep.”

  He coughed and rasped. “Thanks for saving my life. I owe you.”

  “I could hardly let you die,” Jil said. “I mean, what would your viewers say?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Jil paced around the office at the sea aquarium, waiting for Rebecca to get off the phone. The gendarme had doubled their search efforts since they’d obviously failed to locate Leonard during their first search and he’d been on the island the whole time.

  Jil stopped for a second. Baz had been involved in the drug ring with Leonard. And he’d been there the night Tasha went into the water. Which meant Baz had a lot to lose if Leonard went away.

  Suddenly, everything fell into place and the penny dropped.

  “I think I know where he is,” she said.

  Rebecca put the phone away from her ear.

  “What? Where?”

  “Check Baz’s house.”

  Rebecca looked at her, stunned. “You want me to tell Carole she needs to check her son’s house?”

  Jil put a hand on her arm. “Trust me. That’s the one place she wouldn’t have looked before.”

  Rebecca blew out a huge breath. “If you’re wrong about this…” She didn’t finish that thought. Instead, she barked into the phone in French and then hung up.

  “They’re checking now. You can tell me on the way to the police station.”

  Rebecca grabbed her purse and they hurried to the jeep.

  “If they find him,” Rebecca said, “I want to be there when they bring him in.”

  They squealed out of the parking lot and onto the main street.

  A few minutes later, the call came in. Rebecca answered on the car’s speaker. “We’ve got him. He was hiding in the closet at the residence.”

  “Are you charging him?”

  Carole’s voice was clipped. “You bet your ass. You tell your friend there thanks for the tip.”

  Rebecca glanced at Jil. “That means she’ll have to arrest her son as well,” she muttered.

  Jil pursed her lips. “Thanks for catching the asshole,” she returned. “And hauling us out of the water. We appreciate it.”

  “We’re even. See you soon.” The line clicked off.

  “How did you know?” Rebecca asked.

  Jil shrugged. “Leonard had to have help on the harbor. He had to know when the harbor masters were out, where they were, what they were doing, and when the ships were coming in. He couldn’t see all that from the sea aquarium. He needed a man on the inside.”

  “So that’s why Baz has been working at the wharf. I thought it was grief over losing Tasha.”

  Jil sighed. “Nope. Greed. Baz had to be in on the take. I saw him do a handoff to a taxi driver the day after I got here. Leonard must have been supplying him with drugs in exchange for his information. It all makes sense now.”

  “But do you think he had anything to do with Tasha’s murder?”

  Jil shook her head. “No. I’m pretty sure that was all Leonard. Baz was there, but he wasn’t the one who put her in the tank.”

  They pulled up to the police station in time to see Leonard, handcuffed, led into the station. They got out of the car for their front row seat.

  Leonard saw Jil and his face blanched. He kept his eyes on her, even as they led him
into the building, and the police officer forcibly turned his head to get him inside. Baz came next, his head down. He was visibly shaken.

  “How old is that kid?” Jil asked.

  “Barely eighteen,” Rebecca answered. “Just wrecked his whole life.”

  Carole watched from the side as Baz was led into the station. She held her hat in her hand, and her face was drawn tight.

  “Just a minute?” Rebecca said to Jil.

  “Sure. Take your time.”

  She watched as Rebecca approached Carole. The way they talked, moving in each other’s space so casually, so intimately. It was no question they’d once been close.

  Finally, Rebecca returned and got back in the car. “Up for a drink?”

  Jil buckled in. “You bet. But first a long shower, a new set of clothes…”

  “And then lobster,” Rebecca finished.

  Jil gave her a wink. “You read my mind.”

  * * *

  That night, as Jil and Rebecca sat on the couch, watching the moon come up over the ocean, Carole called.

  Rebecca switched on the video and set her tablet on the table so Jil could see.

  “I was going to wait until the morning, but I thought you should know now. It’s just so unbelievable.”

  “What is it? What did you find?” Rebecca asked.

  “Well, first of all, cocaine, prescription pills, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of goods. But get this. We also found a dozen diagrams detailing exactly how much space is in a whale’s stomach. Methods of getting whales to swallow balloons. And emails between him and another guy talking about hazmat suits and opening a whale’s stomach as it’s on the open water.”

  “What? What does that even have to—”

  “Oh my God,” Jil cut in. “That was his plan. That’s why he wanted the whale euthanized.”

  Rebecca turned to her. “Why?”

  Jil jumped up, almost spilling her wine. “That’s how he planned to get it all off the island. I wondered how he could possibly achieve that.”

  “You couldn’t. Not without help, and not unless you had a serious blind eye from the harbor masters,” Carole said. “Which, unfortunately, is possible. But it would be very expensive.”

  “Right,” Jil said. “The amount of debt he was in, he couldn’t afford to pay anyone on the take, or risk anyone knowing about his plan. That left him with an awful lot of drugs to get off the island unnoticed.”

  “Yes,” Carole put in triumphantly.

  Rebecca looked at her like she’d landed from another planet.

  “Think about it—what do you do with a whale carcass?” Jil said.

  “Well, normally we’d send it for scientific study—”

  “If you didn’t know what killed it. Or if you did?”

  “Take it out to the ocean. Let the marine life take care of it.”

  “Which would make it the perfect vessel for hundreds of pounds of smuggled drugs, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re not serious.” Rebecca’s jaw dropped. “Get the whale to swallow the balloons. Dump the whale’s body in the ocean. Somebody comes to rendezvous, collect it. C’mon, really?”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” She instantly thought of Ramone.

  “How much did you say he owed in debts?”

  “A cool two million dollars.”

  Rebecca sat back. “Two million dollars. How do you even get that far in debt?”

  “I don’t know, but with the guys who are going to be after him, he’d better hope he’s going to land in jail for a long time.”

  “For murder? I’d say he’s going away for life.”

  “Carole, how is Baz?” Rebecca asked.

  Carole glared. “He’s dead. That’s how he is.”

  Jil and Rebecca exchanged a look.

  “Sorry for what you’re going through,” Jil said.

  Carole took a deep breath. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for being a…well, you know.”

  “As you said, we’re even.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” Rebecca said, and they disconnected.

  Jil smiled and stood up to clear the drinks from the table. “And now that this is over, I’m going to plan my flight home.”

  Rebecca stood too, bringing the plates to the counter. “I can’t thank you enough for your help.”

  “What are you going to do with the sea aquarium?”

  “Well, actually…I’ve decided to let the protestors help.”

  “Really?”

  “Crazy, right? They’ll raise money to buy the orcas and we’ll send them to an ocean sanctuary. But the dolphins and the sharks are staying. We’re going to continue with the therapy program, minus the picketers. I think it’ll be okay. Ramone said he’s got some ideas for marketing on social media.”

  Jil laughed out loud. “You’ve seen him?”

  “This morning.”

  “Wait till he tells you all the details. You’re going to love it.”

  “Come on. I’ll drive you back to your hotel. You can enjoy one last night of peace and quiet on the island, minus any death threats.”

  “That will be great.”

  As Jil and Rebecca hopped out of the Jeep outside Jil’s hotel, a motorcycle roared to a stop beside them, and the driver took off her helmet.

  Jil’s gaze went from the tight leather coat to the short brown hair. It took her a second to recognize the captain of the gendarme, minus her uniform.

  “Ready?”

  Rebecca smiled and took the extra helmet that Carole offered her.

  “See you around, Jil. Your check is already at your headquarters in Rockford.”

  Rebecca hopped on the back of the motorbike and wrapped her arms around Carole’s waist. With a crank of the throttle, Carole kicked it into high gear, leaving Jil staring and chuckling to herself.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Jil checked her watch for the thirtieth time and decided to take one last walk down to the harbor before she went back to her hotel and got ready to catch the next flight out of here.

  Ten days on a tropical island had deepened her tan and all the beach walking had strengthened her legs, but she missed home. It was time to get there. She chucked all her clothes in a suitcase and hailed a cab.

  But she had one more stop to make first.

  Ramone was sitting up in bed when she entered the room.

  “You’re alive!”

  “I am. And I hear you caught the canary. Congratulations.” His right arm was bandaged in multiple layers of gauze and slung to his shoulder, but his color had improved a lot since the last time she’d seen him.

  Jil rolled her eyes. “How many pints of blood did you need?”

  “I don’t know. I was afraid to ask. A lot. They have me on some good pain meds. I can hardly feel my toes. But the bite will make for some good viewing when these bandages come off.” He grinned.

  “I hear your YouTube channel is about to become official. Way to go!”

  “It’s already taking off like a rocket ship. I posted this morning about the shark attack, and the story’s already got thousands of views.”

  Jil punched his good arm. “Thanks for coming to save me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, thanks for saving my ass in the end. Shark versus fire extinguisher. Who knew?”

  Jil laughed. “Hey, listen, I didn’t have a lot at my disposal!”

  “You’re dressed up. You’re not heading out?”

  “Yeah, just on my way to the airport now. My girlfriend’s husband just died. I’ve got to get home.”

  Ramone nodded. “Too bad. Sorry to hear. But thanks for everything. Come back soon for an actual vacation, would you? We’ll put you up and everything.”

  “I don’t know. The way this vacation turned out, I think maybe I’ll be shooting for Europe next!”

  Ramone lowered his voice. “I hear there aren’t many good sharks there.”

  She kissed his head and said good-bye. “Let me know w
hen you go viral. I want to pop a bottle of champagne.”

  He waved as she got to the door. “I’ll miss you around. But absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Still not here,” Father Makarios said, his frown deepening.

  Jess paced around the anteroom. Her feet clacked loudly on the old wooden floors, and she didn’t miss the effect on her former students. They looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

  “There’s a huge accident on the highway, Miss. Maybe she got stuck.”

  With a distracted nod, Jess paced to the door, peeked out, and shut it again.

  “We have a substitute canter,” Father Makarios said. “She can do everything except the offertory hymn, which she doesn’t know.”

  “That’s the most important one,” Jess whispered back. “Everything else I guessed at. That one, he chose.” Tears kept clouding her eyes, and she fought to stay standing. Moving forward.

  The mourners were beginning to grow restless in the pews. The funeral was supposed to start at ten. It was now ten fifteen.

  The back door opened, and Jess turned around. When she saw Jil standing there, her knees went weak, and she had to lean against the back of a chair.

  “How did you make it back?” she asked. In a black dress and heels, no less.

  “Red-eye through Florida,” Jil replied.

  They looked at each other for a long moment. Jil wouldn’t approach unless Jess made the first move. An implicit agreement, and one that had never hurt her more than at this very moment.

  She held out her hand and Jil grasped it tightly, once, before letting go.

  “Miss Kinness?” said one of the students.

  Jil turned around and smiled. For the day, she’d don the persona of the teacher she’d impersonated for those four months she was undercover at St. Marguerite’s.