Hunting Houston

by Sandy Steen

  “Let’s make it ten-thirty. I’m tied up between nine and ten, and it’ll take a few minutes to drive to your place. We can stop for lunch along the road.”

  “That’s fine,” Abby said.

  If she needed a reality reminder, Houston had just given it to her. Just a little zap to bring her back to her senses, remind her that she was still an investigator, and he was still a suspect.

  So, she thought, he would be busy between nine and ten in the morning. The same hour he had been busy this morning when she followed him.

  The same hour she would have to follow him again tomorrow.

  When he whipped the T-Bird into the parking lot of the condo several minutes later, Abby had regained her composure.

  She would play her part but, dammit, she was mad. Foot-stomping mad. At Houston for being so blasted charming that she almost forgot she had a job to do. At herself for forgetting. And madder still at Houston because he had reminded her that she wanted to forget. Caught between a rock and a hard place.

  Houston helped her out of the car, and walked her to the front door of the condo. “Thanks, Abby,” he said when they were standing under the glow of the porch light.

  “I think that’s my line. Particularly after such a wonderful meal.”

  “The thanks are for listening.”

  He sounded so sincere. She didn’t want him to sound sincere, grateful or any other damned thing. Being with him was fast becoming an emotional roller-coaster ride. One minute she wanted to cross him off her list of suspects. The next minute she wanted to wring his neck for being a suspect in the first place. And the next minute she was questioning her part in all of this.

  Right now, she wanted him to go home and leave her alone.

  It cost her, but she had to downplay the intimacy they had shared. “You were just being a good host, trying to make me feel better.”

  “Abby, I-”

  “It was very sweet.” She kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Good night, Houston.”

  “Good night, Miss Abigail.”

  Glancing at him as she turned to go inside, she pasted on a smile she hoped looked sincere. “Drive carefully.”

  Once inside, she leaned against the door and sighed. From the instant Houston had mentioned his mysterious disappearing act, she had been antsy to be alone. To be free of the pretending.

  She rubbed her forehead where the bud of a headache was threatening to bloom into a real skull pounder, then kicked off her shoes and headed toward the bathroom for some aspirin. On her way, she realized she still held the flower Houston had given her. For a reason she couldn’t explain and didn’t want to examine too closely, she paused, opened the novel she had been trying to read, placed the bloom inside and closed the book, pressing it between the pages.

  When she walked into the kitchen a moment later to get a glass of water, she glanced over at the fax machine.

  She had received at least two messages.

  From Brax, she wondered? Or maybe responses to the requests for more information. Maybe there was something on one of those sheets that would implicate one of her suspects. Maybe something about Houston?

  Clutching two aspirin tablets in the palm of her hand while holding the glass of water with her thumb and index finger, Abby walked over and picked up one of the faxes.

  It was a report on Gil Leland’s tenure as a San Francisco police officer. She scanned the first two paragraphs and found nothing noteworthy, so she set it aside and picked up the second fax. A very thorough background check on Stuart Baker.

  This one was noteworthy. This one had her setting down the glass of water and aspirin. Had her forgetting her headache altogether.

  Stuart Baker, aka Stu Barber, Stanley Bell, had a substantial police record.

  A criminal record for fraud.

  Chapter 8

  Holding her third cup of coffee since dawn, Abby stood on the lanai overlooking the tropical garden situated in the center of the condos. She had read the two faxes last night, and again this morning. Part of her was relieved. Part of her was incredibly sad.

  She was relieved because, at last, she had information that clearly indicated one of her suspects had the kind of knowledge and experience required to pull off the kind of scam she was investigating. And she was sad because that suspect was Stuart Baker.

  The same man who had dealt with her so kindly after her encounter with the tiger shark. The same man who had been so careful not to bruise her dignity or insult her intelligence. How could that man be an arsonist? It didn’t make complete sense, yet the information was right there in the fax. Black-and-white, plain English.

  “Stuart Baker,” using one of his various aliases, had served time in a Florida prison. He and a cohort had been convicted of working a construction scam, bidding on hurricane repair-work that required a hefty down payment. They took the money, and the homeowner never got the work. He and his partner had each served eighteen months of a three-year sentence.

  Logically, she reasoned that if he had committed fraud once, he might do it again. And to take logic one step further, what would keep him from deciding it was time to graduate from construction scams to insurance fraud?

  So, whether she liked it or not, Stuart Baker had just become her number-one suspect.

  A fact that had not gone unnoticed by Brax. At the bottom of Stuart’s information was a notation that Brax was requesting a cross-check to see if the Seattle torch and Baker had ever served time in the same jail. Or if they had ever lived in the same city or state. Obviously, Brax’s thinking paralleled hers.

  Of course, the question of motive still remained. And since Baker didn’t stand to gain any of the insurance money, there was only one valid motive that Abby could see.”

  Revenge.

  But what kind? Revenge against Houston or Gil for some wrong they had done? Or possibly one that Baker imagined they had done? She had seen Stuart with Houston and had never noticed any animosity. And from what she could tell, Stuart and Gil were friendly. The guy couldn’t be that good an actor.

  Since the information on Baker was brand spanking new, Abby tried to rethink the entire scenario. She wanted to approach it in a fresh new way, in light of revenge as a motive. And what she came up with a few minutes later, was a whopper.

  Maybe the revenge wasn’t directed at the partners at all. Maybe it was directed at Shelley Leland.

  What if Baker had fallen in love with the boss’s wife? And vice versa. What if she’d had her little fling, then gotten tired of dallying with the hired help and called it quits? And what if Stuart Baker hadn’t wanted it to end? Maybe, Abby thought, she was dealing with a classic case of, “If I can’t have her, no one can.”

  Or, what if Baker simply came on to Shelley Leland and she rejected him, then threatened to have him fired?

  But none of this jibed with the fact that Abby doubted Baker had the money to pay someone to set the explosives. Of course, if the “someone” was an old cellmate, money wouldn’t be an issue. That didn’t exclude the time element. How far in advance had Baker, or anyone for that matter, known that Shelley intended to join Houston? Gil was already on Hilo and had been for two days. Just how last-minute was last-minute? Early the same morning of the trip? The night before?

  Her questions only seemed to birth more questions. And all the questions brought her back to the details. And details could make or break a case. As unlikely as it might seem at the moment, Abby knew it was possible that once she had the answers, the details would fit together snugly enough to convict.

  The first step was to wait and see if Brax found a connection between Baker and the Seattle torch. If they could tie the two together, they would have a solid base on which to proceed.

  The only major flaw in Abby’s theory was her own perception of Stuart Baker. Try as she might, she just couldn’t convince herself that he was capable of murder.

  It was her damned instincts again. Were they trustworthy or not? Had she lost her edge, lost her keen sense
of being able to read a suspect? The fact that she was asking herself such questions spoke to her still-high level of doubt.

  She hated having to analyze herself at every turn, but she couldn’t afford to be wrong. There were some very pertinent facts pointing to Stuart Baker’s involvement. Weighing those against her recently unreliable instincts, she had to admit that even though he was not her only suspect, he was definitely the hottest.

  Then there was the report on Gil Leland.

  Abby couldn’t put her finger on it, but she had a feeling that there was something missing in all of the information about his career with the San Francisco police. More accurately, something… unsaid. Almost as if the author of the report had deliberately composed it in black-and-white terms. No shadings, no nuances. That fact alone posed questions in Abby’s mind.

  If her experience had taught her nothing else, it had taught her that human nature plays a role in every investigation. Nothing is ever just black-and-white.

  Granted, every police department has policies and procedures, certain formats to deal with the necessary paperwork. And, in all honesty, she couldn’t say that the report on Leland contained anything damaging, personally or professionally. There was just something about it that didn’t feel right to her.

  For one thing, after only a year on the force, he had repeatedly requested, and finally received, a transfer to vice. Shortly after he joined vice, he had gone undercover for over six months. The end result was that he had been one of the key officers in a bust of one of the biggest gambling rings on the West Coast. He had even received a commendation. After that, he had worked vice until he left the department five years later.

  By themselves, none of the facts were unusual. But Abby kept remembering Houston’s comment the day she first met Gil.

  This man will bet on anything.

  Was Leland a gambler?

  Nothing in any of the background information indicated that he was. If he had been in debt, that fact certainly would have turned up in the original investigation. Besides, if he had needed big bucks to cover gambling IOUs, the size alone would have made the debt extremely difficult to hide. Difficult, but not impossible.

  And if Leland had a betting habit, what brand of insanity was it that threw a gambler into close contact with men who were only interested in feeding such a habit? In Abby’s experience working with police departments, they were careful to evaluate the men they sent undercover for any areas of weakness—any areas where working undercover could prove to be damaging, and therefore unproductive to the job.

  Again, there was nothing in Leland’s data that indicated he had any such weakness or propensity. At least, no more so than the average individual. Everybody bought a lotto ticket occasionally, or dropped in to the local bingo parlor.

  Abby’s stomach growled, reminding her that she needed something more than caffeine. She wasn’t done with picking apart the fax on Leland, but it would have to wait until later. At least, she could satisfy herself that something positive had come out of the two faxes.

  First, there were only two, not three. And at the bottom of the report on Leland, Brax had written a note: Sinclair’s data unchanged since original investigation. Why wastepaper?

  She sighed. Of course, Houston wasn’t completely off the hook. There was still his little vanishing act to deal with. And deal with it she must.

  Abby wolfed down a quick bowl of cereal, grabbed her purse, and headed off in search of Houston.

  This time she parked and waited down the street from the dive shop until he came out, then she followed him. And was surprised when he pulled into the parking lot of the same recreation center she had noticed the day before. She pulled over across the street and watched.

  Houston got out of his car, walked to the back and opened the trunk. He removed several brightly colored plastic rings about the size of a dinner plate, closed and locked the trunk, and went inside the building.

  Abby waited a couple of minutes, then got out of her car and walked to the front door. She peered inside the lobby to make sure Houston wasn’t where he could see her. Satisfied he was out of sight, she dug into her purse until she found what she was looking for. Then she opened the door and walked up to the woman behind the desk.

  “Excuse me.” She held up the small notepad. “Mr. Sinclair left this in his car, and I’m pretty sure he’ll need it. Can you tell me which room he’s in?”

  The woman glanced up from her computer printout and looked Abby up and down, then shrugged. “He’s where he usually is. In the pool.”

  “And which way is that?”

  “To your right.” She returned her attention to the printout. “Around the corner.”

  “Thanks,” Abby said, tucking the now useless notepad back into her purse.

  Following the woman’s directions, and the splashing noises, Abby arrived at an Olympic-size indoor pool. There were three women sitting and talking at the far end of the pool, but no Houston in sight.

  Then she heard a series of childlike squeals mingled with a deep male voice. Off to one side of the large pool was a smaller “baby” pool. Three youngsters, age three or four years, she guessed, were perched on the rim of the pool. A young woman, looking to be in her twenties, with a whistle hanging around her neck, was on the edge beside the kids.

  And in the middle stood Houston.

  Abby hung back, concealing herself behind a partial wall that shielded the entrance to the rest rooms. She stared, still at a loss as to why Houston was here.

  As she watched, he started giving instructions, speaking gently and directly to the children. Then he lifted one of the children, a little boy, onto his tummy in the water, instructing the boy to kick, kick, kick. The child performed the task, and his little friends applauded. Houston set the boy back on the edge of the pool, praising him for a job well-done. Then it was the second child’s turn. Then the third. The young woman with the whistle assisted.

  Clearly, Houston Sinclair was teaching preschoolers how to swim. But why?

  Continuing the instructions, he clasped his hands together, and stretched them out in front of him, demonstrating the ready position to dive. Several times he leaned forward, showing his students how their hands and arms should be when they hit the water.

  But Abby noticed that the young woman did all of the underwater demonstrations. Standing in water almost up to his waist, Houston helped the kids with their kicks and strokes. And several times he did demonstrate how to glide.

  But without actually putting his head underwater.

  And when he finally did, it was to help a scared little boy. Very gently, very patiently, Houston coaxed the child to put his face in the water. They did it together. And both of them came up a little wide-eyed, but proud.

  So, that’s why he’s here, she realized. And why he’s kept what he’s doing a mystery. He was trying to overcome his fear of the water by teaching these kids how to swim.

  Tears blurred her eyes as she watched him with the children. He was trying to take back his life, take back his courage. Working through his own fear by trying to teach kids not to be afraid. Trying—no—doing it, one day at a time.

  One tiny stroke, one small kick at a time.

  And what better place, or what better support than children? Children—unconditionally accepting, trusting.

  The outside world would see nothing strange about his teaching. After all, he was a certified diver. His business centered around water sports and activities. Undoubtedly he was a qualified lifeguard, and trained to teach these wet, wiggling munchkins.

  But Abby now knew the real reason.

  In that moment, for all intents and purposes, Houston Sinclair ceased to be a suspect in her investigation. The man she was watching humble himself in front of a child could never have committed the kind of violence that had destroyed a boat and taken a woman’s life. He didn’t have it in him.

  Without proof, without anything but her heart as a guide, Abby knew Houston was innocent.
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  Very quietly and unobtrusively, she left the recreation center and drove back to her condo.

  When she opened her front door to Houston forty-five minutes later, she looked at him in a whole new light. He was no longer a suspect. He was just a man. A man she was powerfully attracted to.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling.

  “Ready?”

  “For anything.”

  A half hour later, they were winding their way north on Highway 30, through the mountains, and it was easy to see how Maui had been nicknamed “the valley isle.” Abby soon discovered that Houston’s use of the term “terrific scenery” was a gross understatement. The scenery was nothing less than breathtaking.

  The road, scarcely more than a trail at some points, took them through peaceful pasturelands, and past lush jungle. It took them through tiny villages tucked quietly away from the mainstream of a busy world. And over passes where a wall of mountain defined one side of the road, and a sheer drop of several hundred yards straight down to a roaring surf defined the other. The word spectacular was woefully inadequate to describe the beauty surrounding them.

  Deciding that lunch was in order, Houston pulled off the road in what appeared to be an area of thick jungle. No restaurant in sight. Not even a roadside park.

  “C’mon,” he said, removing a blanket and a picnic basket from the trunk of the T-Bird. “You’re going to love this spot. Gotta do some climbing, but it’s worth it. This place has got everything. A great breeze, and a view to die for.”

  She eyed the narrow path he indicated, almost overgrown with vegetation. “You’re sure?”

  “Trust me.”

  The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Abby thought, as she followed him. Now that she was almost certain that Houston was innocent of any wrongdoing…

  Almost?

  Call it an old habit, credit it to years of training and experience, but she couldn’t completely dismiss the possibility—although she wanted to—that even though Houston didn’t commit the crime, he might have known about it.