The Devil's Deep

by Michael Wallace

  Tomás called for his father. Ernesto gave his own start when he saw Wes and Becca, then turned as if to retreat into the house.

  “You don’t get out here right now I’m going to shove this knife into Tomas’s belly,” Wes said. “Come on. Slowly, too.”

  The older man stepped slowly onto the porch with hands in plain view. Wes took stock of both men. Neither suffered a visible wound. Wes had stabbed someone down there, but it wasn’t one of these two.

  Becca rested her hand on Wes’s wrist. “Wes,” she said in a low voice. “Take it easy. We don’t need more enemies.”

  Wes nodded and forced himself to release some of the anger. He relaxed his grip and stepped back a pace, then lowered the knife into a non-threatening position. “Getting attacked puts me in a bad mood,” he said in Spanish.

  “It wasn’t our fault,” Ernesto said. “What happened is—”

  “Wait a minute,” Wes said, thinking he could play Tomás’s ignorance of English to his advantage. “Start over. In English.”

  The older man switched to English. “We are just waiting. Two men came in a boat.” His earlier fluency had devolved to a thicker accent and uncertain grammar. He repeatedly licked his lips.

  “Yeah? Then what?”

  “I don’t pay much attention. I thought maybe they come to ask for gas for their boat. Or to ask if we see dolphins. But they had a gun. They tell us to go back.”

  Wes turned to Tomás and said in Spanish. “Tell me what happened.”

  Tomás looked at his father, who nodded. Tomás repeated what his father had said. The two stories matched. He had to assume that Tomás hadn’t hidden his English skills in the same way that Wes had hidden his Spanish.

  “And you got back here,” Wes said in Spanish. “And you called the police, right? And whoever would be responsible to come get two lost divers off Isla del Caño?”

  An uncomfortable silence. “No,” Tomás answered. “But we did go back later, when we thought it was safe. Circled the island, looking for you.”

  “Who were those men?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Ticos? Americans?” Wes asked.

  “Spanish speakers,” Ernesto said. “But they didn’t have Costa Rican accents. Mexico, maybe?”

  “Not Mexicans,” Tomás said. “We get telenovelas on TV and they don’t talk like that. But my father is right. They weren’t Ticos.”

  Becca tapped Wes on the shoulder and nodded at the knife. He handed it over and the two men visibly relaxed. Wes looked to the older man. “Where’s your daughter, Ernesto?”

  The two men shot each other looks. “My daughter? Do you know her?”

  “Rosa was Becca’s coworker.”

  Again, silence.

  “She’s gone. Never told anyone where she was going.”

  “What do you mean, she’s gone?” Ernesto asked. “Where?”

  “No idea. Could be that someone wants to hurt her.”

  “Impossible. He promised.”

  “Yeah, well he was a liar,” Wes said. “Unless Rosa came back to Costa Rica. Did she?”

  “No, she’s still in the United States. She called a couple of weeks ago,” Ernesto said.

  “Papá,” Tomás said. “But you tried to call last week. And her phone…”

  Wes said, “It was disconnected, right? Rosa moved out suddenly. Or someone wanted to make it look that way. Did you know she quit her job without telling anyone? Becca says Rosa wouldn’t have done that. She was a good worker.”

  “She is a good worker,” Ernesto said. “A good girl. Where is she? What happened to my daughter?”

  “Maldita sea. I don’t know what happened. That’s why we’re here. To find out if Rosa is okay and find out what happened to my uncle.”

  Ernesto switched to English and tried again with Becca. “Where is my daughter? Please, tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Wes switched to English. “We’ll tell you everything we know. But first you’ve got to tell me how my uncle died. Was it an accident or did someone kill him?”

  “Nobody kills him,” Ernesto said. “Because he doesn’t die on that dive.”

  It was like Javier told them back at the house. “Then where did he die?”

  “I don’t think he died anywhere. They send a—how do you say?—helicóptero.”

  “They sent a helicopter?”

  “He was alive when he left here. And I hear later that he is still alive, that they fly him back to United States.” He turned to his son and said in Spanish, “I’m going to tell him everything, yes?” Then, back at Wes, “He is shot here, in the back of the head. There was an arrow sticking out of his head when he came onto the boat.”

  “Like a spear gun?”

  “Yes, a spear. The other man said it is accident, but I don’t know.”

  Wes imagined a fishing spear lodged in the skull. And he thought he knew who this other person was, but he needed confirmation. “The other man. You know his name?”

  “His brother. A man named Bill.”

  “Oh, god,” Becca said. “Wes.”

  The confirmation came as a blow. Uncle Bill had shot his own brother with a spear gun.

  “So what about Rosa?” Becca asked Ernesto. “How is she involved?”

  “The brother wants us to keep quiet. I am afraid. My son is afraid. He was rich American and maybe he says that it is our fault. But this man, your…tío, right?”

  “My uncle, yes. My Uncle Bill.” The words tasted bitter in his mouth.

  “Your uncle said he will give us some money. He was warning us and also telling us that Rosa can go to school in the United States, to be doctor. You know, that is her dream, to be doctor.”

  “So you sold him out, is that it?”

  Ernesto shook his head. “Sold out? I don’t understand.”

  “You took some money and let Bill kill my Uncle Davis.”

  “Poor man like me, with poor family, we don’t always choose what happens. You understand?”

  “Right, I understand,” Wes said. “And meanwhile Rosa is missing, because you trusted her with my Uncle Bill, who, apparently, tried to kill his own brother.”

  Ernesto and Tomás tensed at this. Whatever else these men where, they were worried about Rosa and that made them dangerous.

  “Wes,” Becca said in a warning voice.

  Wes acknowledged her warning with a nod. To Ernesto, he said, “You’ve got the things we left on the boat? Here? Good, why don’t you go inside and get them and then we’ll tell you what we know about your daughter, Rosa. I promise, we’ll do everything we can to help.” He switched to Spanish. “But be straight with us. I’m not messing around.”

  Ernesto sent Tomás for their things, then took the chairs on the patio and arranged them. The three of sat down and Tomás soon joined them.

  “Please, tell me about my daughter. Please.”

  Wes kept the edge in his voice. “You have to finish, first. Tell me everything that happened that day and how Rosa got involved.”

  Davis and Bill Carter had called from Puerto Jiménez. They’d hired the Solorios on two other occasions, diving at Maranenco Rock and Campanario. This time they wanted to spear fish. Ernesto and Tomás had played cards on deck while the two men dived. After about a half hour, Bill had come to the surface, agitated, babbling in Spanish and English about an accident with the spear gun and holding his older brother, who floated face down with a spear imbedded in the back of his skull.

  To everyone’s surprise, Davis was still alive when they hauled him onto the deck. Ernesto performed mouth-to-mouth while his son raced toward shore. Davis survived the trip to shore and they sent Rosa to radio for help. A helicopter came and carried the two men to the hospital at Neily, near the border with Panama. Last Ernesto and Tomás had seen, Davis Carter was still alive.

  Wes stopped them to repeat everything for Becca in English. He turned back to the men and addressed them again in Spanish. “Was there a woman
?”

  “You mean Davis’s wife?” Ernesto asked. “She wasn’t on this dive.”

  “Davis said she’d flown back to the States,” Tomás said.

  “But what about Rosa?” Wes asked. “Did she go with the helicopter?”

  “No, what happened is that a few days later a doctor came, said he was from the hospital in Neily. Said the family had hired him to clear up loose ends in Agujitas.” Ernesto looked troubled. “I asked him what he meant. He said it had been an accident—anyone could see that—but that there were people who’d cause trouble for the family if they found out. It was wrong, but…but we went along.”

  “You have to understand,” Tomás broke in. “There are no opportunities here. My sister is such a smart girl and a hard worker. She speaks very good English. What can a girl like her do in a place like this? Clean hotel rooms for tourists? Marry some fisherman and give him eight children?”

  “So we worked out a deal,” Ernesto said. “The Carter family and this doctor would help Rosa go to the United States to study medicine. We didn’t want any money, just an opportunity for Rosa. And we’d keep our mouths shut. If anyone asked, we didn’t know the Carter family and we didn’t know what had happened to Davis Carter.” He lifted out his callused hands in a gesture of surrender. “And that’s all we know.”

  Wes filled in Becca on the rest of the story. When he turned back to Ernesto, he continued in English so that she could help him with the details. “Now it’s our turn. We’re going to tell you what we know about Rosa. But I don’t think you’re going to like what you hear.”

  “Something happened to her?” His voice tight, worried.

  “Yes,” Becca said grimly. “I am afraid so.”

  The man put shaking hands to his temples. “Ay, Dios mio. Ay, mi hijita.”

  Chapter Twenty:

  Wes felt shaken by what he’d done to the Solorios. He’d left Ernesto weeping, broken. Tomás agitated, pacing across the patio. They’d sent Rosa to the United States to attend medical school. Instead, the girl had taken a job as an aide in a center for the mentally retarded and as far as either Becca or Wes knew, had never taken so much as a single class. And now she was gone. Her apartment, deserted. Her personal belongings, abandoned. Nobody had heard from her and Wes and Becca had every reason to believe she’d fallen afoul of someone trying to cover up Davis Carter’s death.

  In the street, Wes wrestled with his own turmoil. This horrible secret his family was hiding. Uncle Bill had shot Uncle Davis in the back of the head with a spear gun. They’d flown him out of Agujitas in a helicopter to a hospital in Neily and then what? Back to the United States to die? Why? And why had his mother agreed to hide the secret?

  Wes and Becca studied the Land Rover again before approaching, watching the houses and the shadows, and the people entering the pulpería and then leaving again with bags of vegetables or a loaf of bread. At last, Wes popped the door and they inspected the interior before loading their stuff, changing quickly from their dive skins and into real clothes, and driving north, out of town.

  “My mom has to know,” he said. “That’s how she’s involved. She knows that Bill killed Davis. But why would she cover for him?”

  “I’m sorry, Wes,” Becca said. She put a hand on his forearm as he shifted, then left it there for several seconds after he returned his hand to the steering wheel. “Just keep thinking clearly. You can’t get muddle-headed because it’s your mother.”

  “You’re right, but…it’s my mom.”

  They drove in silence. It was black on the road, with no other cars. A peccary scurried through the cone of light cast by their headlights. A few minutes later, something else shambled by on the right shoulder. About five miles out of town, Wes stopped the car and stepped into the night. He could hear no other cars and see no other lights. Just frogs, birds, and the buzz of insects. Within seconds of stopping, moths, gnats, and hundreds of other bugs swirled around their headlights.

  Becca came out to stand by him. “Talk to me, Wes.”

  “It has to be about money. That’s all my mom thinks about.”

  “She married your dad, though. And you said he was poor. That he couldn’t keep a job and racked up debt.”

  “Yeah, it’s funny. It’s like my mom never thought about money until she needed some. Then she never thought about anything else. As for why she married my dad?” He shrugged. “Grandpa Carter wanted all his kids to work for Northrock. Give their lives to it like he had. So my mom goes off to school at the college her dad chose, in the major he had picked. Accounting. And she meets my dad, you know, who is full of energy, but scattered. And of course, Grandpa doesn’t approve. So she breaks up with him before she graduates and comes home to work for Northrock.

  “There was this big project in Maine. A flooded road that needed to be rebuilt in the winter. I’m hazy about details, cause Mom doesn’t talk about it much, but she screwed up somehow. There’s a big fight and my Mom went back to my dad. They eloped to Niagara. Really pissed off my grandpa.”

  “And that’s when he cut her off?”

  “Right. I don’t think she’d thought it through. Dad said she acted like money didn’t matter, because she’d always had plenty of it. Bet that changed in a hurry.”

  “Seems pretty harsh on the part of your family,” Becca said.

  “It wasn’t just them. I think Grandpa would’ve taken her back. But my mom’s proud. And my dad, he didn’t help with the money. What is it they say? If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging? So the theater fails and he buys a radio station. Somehow borrows a bunch of money and then it goes under, too. My mom was trying to pay for nursing school and working crazy hours and my dad is talking about opening a used bookstore and teaching himself to play the guitar. Totally oblivious to our money troubles. And my mom, I swear she would have turned to prostitution to pay the bills, if she’d thought there’d be takers.”

  “I’m sorry, Wes.”

  “The weird thing is she can be fiercely loyal. She visits Eric two or three times a week. She never left my dad even though it was his fault she couldn’t get her head above water. So it’s crazy that she’d go along with this.”

  Becca said, “We’ve got to keep going. We need a plan. And one that doesn’t involve standing in the dark getting swarmed by bugs.”

  “We can’t go back to Casa Guacamaya. Whoever those two guys were, they knew how to find us. They’ve got to know about the beach house.”

  “But we’ve got to. All our stuff is there. I don’t care about the clothes or luggage, but what about our passports, money, that sort of stuff? I don’t even have my plane tickets.”

  “I do,” he said. “I’m paranoid, so I carry that stuff with me.”

  “I’m paranoid, too, and that’s why I don’t.” She gave a wry smile. “I always hide it somewhere in my room. Sorry.”

  “That’s just bad luck. Don’t worry about it.” He thought for a moment. “So what if we go back and wait for them to come to us? We can lure them in, set up trip wires or some kind of booby trap.”

  “This isn’t Home Alone,” she said. “They might come with guns. They might just set the house on fire with us in it. Or they might be waiting for us already. And what about Javier? We going to bring him into this?”

  “He might be the one who told people we were here.”

  “Maybe. You willing to take that chance? The guy’s got a wife and kids. You want to put them in the crossfire?”

  “Well, no,” he said. “I sure as hell don’t want to hide, either.”

  “If you’re going to have a showdown, do it in Vermont. Where you can trust the law. Where your uncle will have to think twice about coming after you because he’ll be at risk, too. Instead of just hiring people down here to do the work for him.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Can we get in the car first? Something just flew up my nose and there’s a bug the size and volume of a Japanese Zero circling my head.”

  “Right,” he s
aid, going back to the Land Rover. They started up again.

  “What’s that road we pass on the way to Casa Guacamaya, just before the last river?” Becca asked.

  “Off to the left? There’s a bar called La Brisa. It’s maybe a quarter mile north of the house.”

  “Do they have beach access?”

  “Sure,” Wes said. “What’re you thinking?”

  “Say we park the car at the bar, then walk up the beach, come to the house from that direction instead of the road. All those trees, it’ll be dark. We could scope out the house and see if it’s safe.”

  “That’s better than the booby trap idea,” he admitted. “Okay, so we come from the beach, decide it looks okay, then run in and get our stuff. What then? Find a place to stay in Puerto Jimenez?”

  “I don’t know. The town’s not big enough to hide in. Maybe go to the other side of the golfo?”

  Wes said, “How about this? We swing through Puerto Jimenez just long enough to drop off what’s left of the gear at Tropical Adventures. Leave it on the front porch with a note. We’ll get our stuff, then drive to Golfito. Hang out there until our flight leaves the day after tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Wes turned his mind back to what had happened to his uncle. A few minutes later, he said, “I feel like we’ve got all the pieces, but I don’t know how they fit together. Why would Bill bribe the Solorios to cover up the accident? And then convince Charlotte that her husband had died in Costa Rica instead of the United States?”

  “That’s the easy part,” Becca said.

  He turned his attention from the road, confused by her confidence. “What do you mean?”

  “The point is, your Uncle Bill thought he’d killed his brother. Maybe an accident, maybe not. Doesn’t matter, either way. Thing is, Davis didn’t die. The Solorios called for help. Davis made it to shore and he made it to the hospital. Still alive. According to Javier, they flew him home in an air ambulance. Are you sure he died?”

  It was simple and obvious. “My god, you’re right. He’s still alive!”

  Wes hit a pothole, hard. He’d lost attention and was driving too fast and now he almost veered off the road while Becca gripped the dash. When he fought the car under control, the tire was thumping, rapidly deflating. He stopped the car with a curse and stepped into the night air for a second time. He glumly inspected the flat tire, then opened the back and rooted around for the jack and tire iron. He loosened the nuts holding the spare tire to the back of the Land Rover and took it down. Becca got out to help. And predictably, it started to rain.