Under Pressure

by Kathy Brandt

  “Let’s just give it some time,” I said. “I don’t want to lose you, O’Brien.”

  “Yeah, more time,” he said, hopelessly. This wasn’t the O’Brien I knew. I could see he was exhausted and I knew he had to be worried about the storm and his boats. I’d heard the weather report on the radio on the way home. In fact, it had been blaring from every vehicle and out of every doorway. Everyone on the island was on edge, listening and hoping to hear that the storm had died out somewhere in the Atlantic. Instead it had been upgraded to a tropical storm with a name—Felix—and it was headed directly toward the BVI.

  “Go home and get some sleep,” I said as he climbed into the Jeep.

  Then I changed my mind. “Peter,” I called, needing to stay connected, wanting him to stay. Be he gunned the engine and was gone before I could stop him.

  I shuffled back down the dock to the Sea Bird. Jimmy and Simon were already halfway through one of the pizzas by the time I joined them. Between the two of them, they managed to consume two entire pizzas except for the slice I had. Then Jimmy went home. Calvin came down and helped us clear out the back cabin so Simon could have a place to sleep and call his own for a few days. I’d been using the space as storage with a little office at one end. We moved all my paraphernalia up to a locker at the marina that Calvin insisted I use.

  Calvin showed Simon the men’s side of the bathhouse. I got him a towel and we both headed to the showers. When I got back to the Sea Bird, Simon was sitting in the cockpit with Sadie’s head in his lap. He was wearing one of Calvin’s oversized shirts and a pair of flannel pajama pants, probably Tilda's—rolled several times at the ankles and adorned with penguins. I had forgotten all about the kid’s clothes. Everything he had was now in the warehouse, being held until the investigation was complete.

  “Jeez, Simon, I guess we need to get you some stuff.”

  “It’s okay, Hannah. These are good and Tilda gave me a toothbrush.” He smiled and held up a red toothbrush with Daffy Duck on the end.

  “You doing okay?” I asked, sitting down next to him and putting an arm around his shoulders.

  “Yeah. Thanks for letting me stay with you.”

  “I’m happy you’re here,” I said and realized I meant it. “Do you feel up to talking about your dad?”

  At some point, we needed to know more about what his father had been doing in the islands and whether it could possibly be related to the crash. I figured it was better here than down at the office with Stark. Stark was a soft touch, but a first encounter with his shaved head, black muscle shirt, and six-five frame could be intimidating, especially to a nine-year-old.

  Simon told me that he and his father had been in the islands for the past week. His father was on business. He was in charge of the big grants at the Woods Foundation. His father had come down to evaluate Enok Kiersted’s project for a foundation grant. Simon thought a lot of money was at stake. He’d gone with his dad to look at Kiersted’s lab in town.

  “It was boring,” Simon said. “They were looking at a bunch of stuff on the computer. I went out on the street and took a bunch of pictures. When I went back inside, I could hear them arguing. Mr. Kiersted was yelling at my dad. I got kind of scared.”

  “What was he yelling about?”

  “Well, people got mad at my dad a lot,” he said. “It seems like it was always about money. My dad never let people push him around, though.”

  The kid had slid farther and farther down in his chair as we’d talked and was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

  “Let’s get to bed, Simon,” I said. “We’ll talk more later.”

  ***

  I woke up confused. Something had jolted me out of a sound sleep. At first I thought I was in O’Brien’s bed at the villa. I was out of bed and standing in the salon in T-shirt and cut-off sweats when I finally realized I was on the Sea Bird. Then I heard the screaming, terrified screaming. It was Simon.

  “Simon, what is it?” I yelled, stumbling to his room and flipping on a light. The kid was sitting up in his bed, eyes wide, tears streaming down his face. I picked him up and carried him out to the salon.

  “Hannah, they were chasing me, the dead people on the airplane. They were coming to get me. They were trying to pull me out to the sharks.”

  “It’s okay, Simon. It was just a nightmare. There are no sharks and no dead people. You’re safe.” Of course, I was lying. There had been plenty of dead people and sharks, just not in this boat right now. It’s no wonder the kid was having nightmares.

  “I’m here, Simon. Me and Sadie, we’re here.” I sat rocking him until the shaking stopped.

  “Hannah, can I sleep with you?” he asked, too scared to worry about being a baby.

  By the time I fell asleep, I’d been forced to a small strip of mattress against the wall, with my arm around the kid and Sadie sprawled out at the foot of the bed.

  Chapter 16

  They were up in the bow, standing in the dark. Two of them were arguing. They always argued. They’d been arguing for years. The same argument. It was part of the game. It was all about the one’s over-the-top violence and the other’s need. It always reached the same conclusion. They were tied together in a way that would be considered warped by most.

  The third guy stood back, muscular arms crossed on his chest, waiting for them to finish the debate they’d been engaged in since Friday and get on with it.

  “I told you before,” the smaller of the two was saying, “no one threatens me.”

  “That temper—it has cost us,” the other said.

  “You never complained before.”

  “You never went this far before. Now we need to cover ourselves.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll handle it,” the muscular guy finally said, interrupting the exchange. “There won’t be any problems. I’ve already checked the building. It’s locked and there’s a cop out front—just one. Looks pretty casual. He’ll be easy to deal with.”

  “I hope no one spots you. Neither of you look much like your average tourist.” Both were dressed from head to toe in black. The smaller of the two, the one in charge, wore an ugly pair of purple running shoes.

  “Did you ever think about wearing shorts and T-shirt? If someone sees you, there won’t be much doubt that you’re trouble.”

  “No one’s going to see us. That’s the point. No one will ever know we were there. We’ll send the cop on a wild-goose chase, get in, find the thing, lock back up, and we’re out of there. This will be easy beyond belief.”

  They waited for several minutes in the dark near the warehouse. Finally, the kid showed up. He’d been a willing recruit, one of those kids hanging out in town, trying to look tough but actually looking desperate and hungry. All it took was a twenty. It would be more money than he’d ever had in his pocket in his young life. They told him to make sure the cop was gone for at least a half hour and then to ditch him.

  The kid was a star. Even they would have fallen for his story. He ran to the cop, out of breath, real tears running down his face, and seemingly frantic. Seconds later, the cop took off, trying to keep up with the kid.

  The two waited a couple of minutes, making sure that no one else was around. It was a deserted area of the waterfront, commercial, the kind of place where everyone checked out by five, earlier if they could get away with it. Still, it paid to be careful. You just never knew who might wander by. Finally they crept across the open lot and pulled on gloves, quickly picked the lock, and slid the heavy door open just far enough so they could squeeze through. They didn’t bother to close it. They planned to be in and out quickly. Once inside, they flicked on their flashlights and began the search.

  Even though they’d leave nothing that would point to them, the cops would be determined to find out what had been so important on that plane. Especially Sampson. She and her partner had already been asking too many questions about the crash.

  Now, they’d get what they were after and get out of the islands before anyone was
the wiser. Let them investigate all they wanted. They’d not find one shred of evidence of their involvement, even if they did find the body.

  “Found your gun,” the big guy said, shining his light on the Beretta that was lying on the cement floor in a liquid-filled container. He picked it up and looked at the label taped to the evidence tube.

  “Interior cabin—against bulkhead on right, no prints, run ballistics,” he read. “Guess you dropped your gun. Kinda careless, don’t you think?”

  “Give me that,” Purple Shoes said, grabbing the container, emptying the fluid out, and stuffing the gun into a pocket. “They won’t be getting any ballistics off this gun.”

  Fifteen minutes later they had been through everything and had not found what they’d come for.

  “Dammit,” Purple Shoes said. “It’s got to be here somewhere.”

  Suddenly they heard a scraping sound, the door being slid open farther. They doused their lights and waited in the dark, listening. Someone was coming into the warehouse. If it was the cop, that kid would be in deep shit. Then they saw the dark figure of a man stop, lift a bottle to his lips, and take a swig. A bum who had no doubt seen the open door. He started singing an old whaler’s song as he stumbled through the darkness.

  We’ll drink tonight with hearts as light,

  To love, as gay and fleeting

  As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim,

  And break on the lips while meeting.

  The drunk stepped inside and started filling his duffel bag, periodically stopping to swig from the bottle he grasped in his other hand. He looked through the luggage, examining and rejecting a pair of shorts, a watch, the glitter of a ring. Then he stuffed a pair of practically new sweatpants and a T-shirt that said, “Live slow, sail fast,” into his duffel. When he came across a pair of woman’s red crotchless underwear, he held them up, turning them inside out, seemingly trying to figure out how the hell they went on.

  “My day, woman jus’ went without all together,” he muttered, shaking his head. He stuffed the panties in his pocket and kept rummaging.

  He was putting a box of soggy cigars in his bag when Purple Shoes moved up behind him and smashed the butt of the gun into his skull. They left him in a pool of blood and got the hell out of there before the cop came back. They were empty-handed except for the Beretta.

  Chapter 17

  At six the next morning, I stepped off the Sea Bird, careful not to set her rocking in the water. Simon was still sound asleep. I didn’t want to wake the kid. He’d had a rough night. Several times he’d startled in his sleep and mumbled, on the verge of terror. I’d tightened an arm around him and whispered him back from the edge.

  The sun was just climbing past the palms and casting shadows on the sand. A gentle breeze swept down the shore. Tilda had shaken me awake at six. I felt a twinge of guilt that Dunn had been forced to call her to get me up. I had no phone on the boat.

  When I’d left the States I’d made a big deal of crushing my cell phone in the garbage compactor and vowing to never have another. I’d had to carry one every waking hour on the job. I hated the damn things. And everyone had them. What was so important it couldn’t wait? What really pissed me off was sitting in a restaurant, hearing a ring, and everyone within ten feet suddenly rummaging in pockets and purses, sure the call was for them. Then I’d have to listen to the person sitting at the table next to me talking for fifteen minutes. Ever notice how important things sound? Then you pick up the words. “Yeah, I’ll buy milk and bread on the way home.” I once saw a guy so engrossed in his phone conversation that he put butter in his coffee.

  Besides, there are places that I count on to escape. The Sea Bird was one of them. I figured if it was important, whoever needed to talk to me would find a way. Dunn always did. Unfortunately, Tilda was the one who paid for my privacy. He’d called her at the marina and told her I needed to get over to the warehouse—now.

  Tilda offered to keep an eye on Simon and get him breakfast when he got up. She was out hanging laundry when I got up to the marina. Crisp sheets and little girls’ dresses twisted and billowed in the morning breeze. I could hear Daisy and Rebecca chattering upstairs in their room. Rebecca would be getting dressed for school, second grade. Every morning Daisy would stand by the road, longing to go too, as her sister climbed on the bus.

  I promised Tilda I’d be back before lunch and ten minutes later I pulled up in front of the warehouse. Dunn’s car and a police vehicle were already there. Stark pulled up right behind me. I could hear sirens in the distance, coming closer.

  “What happened?” Stark asked, unfolding himself from the car, a donut in one hand, coffee in the other, the morning paper under his arm.

  “No idea. I just got the message to get over here,” I said.

  He handed me the coffee, then leaned into the car and grabbed another from the dash.

  “Want a donut?” he asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “Nice likeness of you on the front page,” he said, handing me the paper.

  When I unfolded it, the headlines screamed Police Detective Teams with Star. Will It Turn to Romance? The picture was the one that Sammy Lorenzo had engineered yesterday on the Wahoo. It looked like Stewart and I were contemplating a sexual encounter right there on the boat.

  “God dammit! I don’t want to hear one word from you about this, Stark,” I said, throwing the paper in a nearby trash can. “Let’s get in there.”

  Dunn was inside kneeling next to a body. “It’s Capy,” he said as we walked up.

  “Christ,” I muttered, trying to maintain my cool.

  Everyone on the island knew Capy. He lived in a tumble-down structure in the trees. He had once been a skilled fisherman, operating one of the most profitable fishing boats in the islands. That ended the year his wife died of cancer and the big fish got scarce. He started drinking hard. Then he’d lost his boat one night in a storm. He’d told anyone that would listen that there’d been demons under the angry sea.

  Folks watched out for him, made repairs to his shack, brought him supplies, and left him cigarettes when he wasn’t around. Capy would not accept charity but often wandered the docks looking for the treasures that others considered trash—usually that amounted to discarded fishing gear, maybe an old blanket.

  Now he was lying in a pool of sticky black stuff. His white hair was matted in it. His breathing was labored, raspy. I knelt next to him and took his wrist, his pulse was fluttering and skipping. I heard the ambulance screech to a halt outside and the siren go silent. About time.

  Two medical techs rushed in and went to work trying to get him stable. He had lost a lot of blood. Whoever had hit him had not intended that he ever get up. When the medics placed him on the stretcher, he was muttering something about red underwear.

  “Who would hurt Capy?” I asked after they loaded him in the ambulance and sped away, sirens again blaring.

  “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.” Dunn was pissed about the old man, as angry as I’d ever seen him, fists knotted, his face set in hard lines.

  Stark was standing nearby, running his hands over his bald head. “What about the guard who was supposed to be watching the place?”

  “Seems some kid came yelling about a man attacking his mother,” Dunn said.

  “Where is the cop now?” I asked.

  “Over there. His name’s Sergeant Josephs.” Dunn pointed to the uniformed officer sitting in a corner, hanging his head.

  Stark and I went to talk with him. Josephs was beating himself up about what had happened.

  “The kid rushed up all out of breath, said his mother’s boyfriend had come home drunk and was threatening her with a butcher knife. Man, that kid was good. I never even questioned him. I followed him all the way down to the post office. About the time I realized he was leading me in circles, he disappeared around a corner.

  “When I got back here,” he continued, “it was getting light. I saw the door was ajar. I came inside a
nd found Capy. First, I figured he’d broken in and passed out. Then I saw the blood and called it in right away.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “Naw, I know better than that.”

  “What about this kid?” I asked. “Did you recognize him?”

  “No. It was real dark. He was a skinny kid, all legs and arms, must have been around twelve. Had a baseball cap on, maybe black, dark blue with one of those Nike symbols on it. Wearing it sideways like the kids do. He wore baggy jeans that he had to keep pulling up, and a big shirt. He looked like half the kids in town—you know, the ones who are trying to look like rappers.”

  After Gil Dickson dusted for prints, we spent the next hour in the warehouse trying to re-create some sort of scenario. The lock had been picked. More than likely whoever had broken in had wanted it to go unnoticed. They’d probably planned to simply lock it back up and be long gone before Josephs got back.

  But then Capy had gotten in the way. He’d probably found the door open and gone in, looking for more junk or maybe just a quiet place to finish his rum. He’d been unable to resist the stuff he discovered. In Capy’s duffel we found Lorenzo’s box of cigars and a couple of items of clothing that we knew had been in the luggage. Obviously he’d interrupted someone with more sinister intentions.

  Burglary had not been the motive. Debra Westbrook’s jewelry and the Rileys’ expensive camera equipment were right where we left them. When we checked our list of the items we’d recovered, we found absolutely nothing missing—except for the gun.

  “What do you think?” Stark asked as we walked out to our cars. “Was that gun what they were after?”

  “God knows,” I said. “We need to see if Dickson’s gotten anything on those serial numbers.”

  When we got back to the office, the mechanic’s lawyer was sitting outside Dunn’s office waiting to pounce. He started making all sorts of demands, the most outlandish being that his client should be released immediately. Fat chance. The guy had tried to kill two police officers, namely Stark and me.