by Matt Lincoln
“Oh, then! You have to tell us about how he got the money to set this place up! It’s always been a mystery, and we have bets going,” she stated authoritatively.
“Francine!” This was the first noise that I’d heard the napping Teddy make so far. He sat straight up and looking stunned and embarrassed by her words.
“What? It’s not a secret. There’s a pool for whoever gets the closest to the truth, and now, with his old friend here, we might actually get the real story.” Francine leaned in toward me and smiled. “Now, don’t leave out any juicy details. I want to know the whole thing, from beginning to end.” She gave me a sly grin to go with her request. “And don’t try to fool me, Header. I’ll know if you're lying.”
“That’s because she’s a witch,” Owen piped up and then sighed, seemingly exasperated by her antics. “You don’t have to tell us anything, Mr. Header. We all know that Lael was a drug dealer back in Miami in those days. Leather pants, silk shirts, pimp cane…” He painted an amusing picture that I couldn’t help but laugh at.
For his part, Lael just sat there and took their jokes. He was enjoying the speculation and didn’t feel the need to correct them in any way. His mind and concentration were only on his fishing now. So, it was up to me to entertain the masses, and I was more than ready.
“Well, it wasn’t drug dealing, nor was he a male escort.” Oh, I could have a lot of fun with this. “The truth is, Lael was heavily compensated for being dependable, trustworthy, and being in the right place at the right time. So, sit back and enjoy because he’s probably going to shoot me for telling this story.”
1
The water was churning far too violently for pleasure cruises today. It was the perfect climate for a certain kind of activity that found the crew of the Maui roughly fifty miles from the Florida coast. Their style of work didn’t matter if the sea was calm or tumultuous. They could dump dead bodies in any kind of weather.
Today, they had to prepare four corpses, three loads of chemical or medical waste and body parts, a few weapons that had been used in murders, and the failed copies of some Quan Yin statuettes that hadn't rendered correctly. Out here, no one would ever find the evidence of these crimes, and that’s what this crew always counted on. In fact, it was their specialty and why they could charge so very much for their services.
The captain of the Maui was a lean, sickly-looking man of Lebanese heritage. He wore metal-rimmed glasses and a ball cap as a set uniform, along with jeans and a plain white tee-shirt, to blend into ports, bays, and wherever the call came to pick up the goods. The choppy waters were making it difficult for his small crew on the main deck to secure the stones to the dead people’s torso as was their standard. So, he got on the comm and called down to them.
“What’s taking so long?” he demanded. “The rain’s not that bad yet.”
True, the rain made the deck slippery, and moving the large stones around in that condition was a messy situation, but they’d done this too many times before to be having issues today. Down on the deck were three individuals: a man who was a Chinese immigrant to Saint Kitts and Nevis, a female American, and a Cuban gentleman serving his political exile abroad. Another crew member, a Haitian woman, was down on the lower deck, securing the rig lift to bring up the rest of the goods they would be dumping today.
They had exploited a very niche market here with the removal and discarding of criminal evidence for a very excessive price. Being in international waters, they found that they could get away with quite a lot, and they did. They accepted a body for the base price of five hundred American dollars, or thirty-one thousand, six hundred and change in Haitian Gourde, or even four hundred, twenty-four Euros, or ten thousand plus pesos. Other currency was welcomed, as long as it was cash and upfront.
Lately, the crew of the Maui had expressed the need to charge more for high-profile bodies that might cause some suspicion among law enforcement in the area. Of course, the extra cost was totally subjective and varied based on the crew members, the day of the week, the weather, and so on and so forth. But who was going to complain about the jacking up of the prices? The people actually using their services? Not likely. It was easier to just pay up and work on your alibi.
The first body was a cheating wife that had been caught by her husband. Actually, the second body was the man she had been having an affair with, so they added an extra two hundred for a double dump. The third and fourth were gang and gangster hits that didn’t need to be found by the Federales or the Coast Guard.
The Maui crew’s methods were simple and effective for discarding the bodies. First, they used a high-tensile paracord that anyone could buy off of the shelf in hardware or sporting goods stores. They had a deal with the brother of the Saint Kitts and Nevis man, who owned a landscaping business. He could and did get some very nice stone and rock shipments regularly. It was a small matter to drill a hole through select ones and thread the paracord into it. That was then tied in several places to the corpses after the teeth were smashed and the tips of the fingers fileted off.
Not all bodies got this special, morose treatment, though. Some merely got the cord and rock and were then slipped over the side of the Maui without another concern. But the crew had found that, again, they could charge more for a better degree of assistance for those that needed or wanted any extra level of protection from the crimes they had committed.
And not all evidence was of the deadly sort. The crew of the Maui offered other aid, as well. Like today, the untreated medical waste from an unlicensed clinic was already sealed in some containers and ready to dump. The rocks were used here, too, mostly out of convenience, but also because rocks wouldn’t ping off of or with modern search equipment. The ocean floor was littered with rocks. Everyone knew that, and that’s why they used them.
The body parts came from a variety of places. Some were dug up corpses used for experimentation or cultural rituals. Others were medical waste. Some were warnings to criminal organizations and penalties dealt upon guilty members. They all needed to disappear, and international waters were a suitable place not to get caught.
A weapons dump required no real effort on the crew’s part, overall. They placed each item in a solution of rubbing alcohol, which could be easily purchased anywhere, as soon as it got on the boat. It stayed there until they got to their location, and then the weapons were wiped down with a rough cloth while the person who was overseeing it wore cotton and latex gloves. Those were also available to purchase just about anywhere one found gardening supplies.
Lastly, they’d only recently come into a market that was entirely new to them. The captain had been contacted through a friend who worked for an American company that needed some rare items disposed of discreetly.
When they’d first been approached for this, they laughed about it. Then they saw the monetary figure that was being offered, and it became much less funny. This firm in Florida made figurines and collectibles, but sometimes, they messed some up. It was never very much, and so far, they’d handled less than a dozen. And instead of tossing the items or recycling them, they actually wanted them soaked in an IPA bath and then tossed into the ocean. It seemed like overkill to these entrepreneurs aboard the Maui, but money was money. If those rich, crazy Americans wanted them to dump some collectible art into the ocean, sure they’d do it. For the right price.
It took about an hour for the crew of the Maui to finish the day's work. They would take showers and change their clothes as they always did before they reached their home port in Saint Kitts and Nevis. Everything that they’d touched and worn got placed in a disposable trash bag and taken to the nearest laundromat. There, they washed everything in lots of chlorine bleach and generic laundry soap.
It wasn’t uncommon for other ship’s crews to head there first for a fresh set of laundry before going off to their next place, home, or trip. The smart business person that set up the laundromat right by the docks was making a pretty penny, and they knew it.
The c
rew of the Maui always wore pale and faded clothes, and no one was the wiser. No one thought anything of it. Once the clothes were clean and dry, they discarded the trash bag. They always came with a new one in their back pocket, and no one gave it a second thought. Who would? It was a common sight, a widespread practice, and it was no one’s business. That’s what they all counted on.
But today’s trip was turning out a little different. With their work done, the showers had begun, but the captain got a shock when he was monitoring the radio, and it brought in an SOS call from a boat not far from them. The boat’s call sign was registered in England, headed to America. That struck a chord with him, and he remembered something about a valuable collection coming in that his art friend in Miami had mentioned only a few days before. The captain wondered if maybe, just perhaps, this could be the same boat, now distressed, that processed the valuables.
Their message said that they were taking on water, and they needed help, badly and immediately. This other captain said that they’d hit something in an accident and were unable to make the necessary repairs in time. They just needed help. The captain listened for anyone else in the area to respond, and when no one did, he got an idea. If no one was going to their aid, then why shouldn’t they? He quickly looked up their call sign and was amazed to find that the ship was heading to the Florida Coast.
He used the comm to let the rest of the crew know what he was planning. “Sounds like a rich ship heading to America. Might be a little something for our trouble if we look in on them.” He didn’t bother to let any of them respond. “Altering course to intercept. Get ready.”
The crew did just that. They weren’t averse to piracy. It was just that they’d found a better way to make a living now. But that didn’t mean that they were above diversifying themselves now and again. They came upon the vessel, listing to the port, and without having to look very hard, they could see a chunk of the hull that had gotten torn away by something that maybe the current weather could have produced. But that wasn’t going to stop him or his crew from doing what they’d come to do.
The Maui crew called out from the deck of their ship for any survivors to let themselves be known.
An older man, very distinguished-looking in a brown suit and his white, wispy hair, climbed up to the English boat’s deck and waved at them with both of his arms in the air. “Hello there! Yes, please! Help us!”
The captain of the Maui gave the order to secure the two boats together so that they could go offer aid. It should have alarmed the older gentleman when they came across carrying rifles and pistols, but he just seemed so happy to have someone come and help them that this didn’t seem to register as a dangerous sign.
The man had been hit on the head by the looks of him. It appeared to be the result of something falling on him, or even him falling down at some point. He had a large gash along his forehead, running down to his left eye. The blood was starting to clot, but not entirely yet. He was shaking, but that could have been due to his age. He appeared to be about seventy or so, a little on the frail side, but portly around the middle.
The crew of the Maui swiftly boarded and began to look around for signs of this boat’s crew or passengers. The Maui captain came right up to the older man and smiled at him.
“What happened to your boat?” he demanded with the same gruff voice he used on his own crew.
“Oh, I don’t know exactly.” The frail man had an American accent. “I was asleep in my quarters when I heard a lot of shouting, and then the alarms went off on every deck. I put on my shoes and went to see the captain about it and then I fell and,” he touched his forehead where the wound was, “by the time I was back on my feet, the crew was running around, saying that we were collecting water, or taking it on, I think.”
“And what is this boat’s cargo? How many crew?” The captain was still smiling, as if to reassure him that all was going to be well. “I need to know so that I can make preparation for all of you on board my ship, you see.”
This probably sounded very reasonable to the older man, so he answered truthfully. “Oh, it’s just me and my luggage. I have some valuables that I’m bringing back from Liverpool. The crew, oh,” he stopped to think about it, “I would say that there are maybe four men here, including the captain.”
The Maui crew heard this, as they had been listening to every word the man had said. The captain asked one more question as he patted the older man on the shoulder, reassuringly. “And is the crew down below, working on the hull, I presume?” He was feeling very fortunate to have come across this boat, very fortunate indeed.
“Well, yes,” the older man nodded his head, “They want to stop the leak if they can.”
That was all that they needed to hear. With their guns raised and at the ready, the four crew of the Maui headed below decks. The older man stayed on the main deck with the captain, who continued to ask questions about the valuables he was traveling with.
“So, do you know what this boat was carrying?” he spat gruffly. “What type of cargo the Captain had brought on?”
The man in the brown suit seemed to be getting a bit confused, but that most likely was from the injury to his head. “I do not, sir. I know nothing about the crew’s intentions, other than my own transportation needs.”
This old man didn’t seem to be of much use, overall. The Captain decided to send him off and to rely on his own crew’s ingenuity and scavenging skills to turn a profit. “You’d better go get your luggage, sir, so that we can get it onto my ship before you sink.” It was a very distasteful thing to say, but the captain was just himself: a rude, blunt sort of creature.
“Alright, I’ll go down and gather my things. Please wait for me.” That should have gone without saying, but the old man seemed determined not to be forgotten. As he was moving down the narrow steps to the next lower deck, there was gunfire and yelling heard throughout the ship. The captain couldn’t be sure, but it did sound like it was coming from the area where the crew was working on the water problem.
The Captain gave the old man a feeble smile to reassure him that all was going to be well. He didn’t want to let on in any way that these men and women hadn’t come to help. He called out loudly to cover up the sounds of the gunshots. “Quickly, go gather your things. I’ll wait here for you.” He needed to stay here on the deck to oversee and keep order.
Hopefully, the old man didn’t see what this truly was. Once the Maui crew had gathered anything of value from the ship, they were going to kill all the people on board and sink the vessel unless it was already too far gone. In that case, it was all the better for them. Less work that his crew had to do to cover up their crimes.
There was more gunfire, this time down where the cabins and living quarters should be located. They were taking care of any loose ends, no doubt. The captain soon saw his crew of the Maui dragging food and fuel supplies, along with some other finds, onto their own boat from this one from his vantage point on the main deck. One of them was laughing rather loudly and not moving quite as fast as the Captain preferred.
The Captain angrily rushed over and grabbed his own crew member by the shirt collar. He slapped him hard across the face. “We aren’t here for fun, you idiot.”
He dragged him closer to his own face, and he could smell the stench of liquor on the man’s breath. The Captain became enraged and threw the man to the deck and proceeded to kick him over and over again.
His crew member yelled out, then curled up in a ball as the kicks continued. One foot caught the man in the mouth, busting out several of his teeth in a bloody mess. The Captain turned to one of the other crew with a snarl on his lips. “Get this filth back to the ship and keep him away from me.”
He then surveyed the rest of the crew, all working faster and much quieter.
“Quickly!” the captain bellowed. “Take whatever you can and get off of this wreck. It’s going down too fast to do a full search.”
He turned to see the old man making his way up the n
arrow stairs toward him when one of the Maui crew stepped out in front of the man, blocking him from getting to the rest of the deck.
She didn’t flinch as she raised her pistol and fired at the older man, hitting him fully in the chest and knocking him back and to his knees. Then she turned back and joined the rest of her crew in collecting their findings as the Captain nodded in appreciation at the job she’d done. They were underway again in a matter of minutes. All the crew of the Hester was dead now, and everything, well, almost everything, of value had been carried away to the Maui.
The captain was upset at having not found the old man’s valuables, though. They had wasted too much time talking to the other crew and that stupid, old man.
The crew member that had been responsible for searching the cabins came to report. “I didn’t find anything but old letters and books. I tore the place apart looking for anything that we could sell, but I found nothing, Captain.”
“Fine. There probably was nothing here in the first place, or they lied to get help.” The captain spat this out with the voice of a very, very unhappy man. “Get back to work.”
As their boat moved away, the Captain called them all together to see just what they had gotten from the now submerged Hester. He greedily scanned the food stuffs, the fuel and repair supplies, and the loose cash they’d managed to grab before escaping to the relative safety of the main deck of that boat and then to their own.
“And you searched all the cabins? The crews’ as well as the old passenger’s?” He asked one man in particular.
The crew member hesitated as he tried to answer. “Like I said, nothing but books and papers. And the second one, well, it was completely empty.”
“What about the crew’s quarters?” The captain asked, stepping closer to intimidate his crew with just a look and action. “I suppose this is where you found the money?”
