Backwater Bay (Kurt Hunter Mysteries Book 1)

by Steven Becker

  At some point I must have dozed off. I smelled the coffee before I opened my eyes. Cracking them, I saw sunlight already streaming into the room and Justine in the kitchen. She was wearing one of my Park Service shirts.

  “That’s a better look on you than me,” I said.

  “That would be a matter of perspective.” She handed me a cup of coffee. “Looks pretty nice out.”

  I remembered she had to be at work later and started moving, trying to disguise the obvious signs that I wasn’t a morning person. I was all right after a few minutes, but the transition between sleep and life was hard. I pulled it together, sucking down two cups of coffee in the process, and a half hour later, we were headed out the door.

  “The body was just around that bend,” I said, pointing to the deep-water cut between the two mangrove-covered islands straight off the dock. I had to force myself to pay attention to the wind and water instead of watching her bend over and release the bowline from the cleat. They say a river is different every time you step into it; the ocean is that times four after adding in the tides and current.

  The wind had the boat pinned against the dock, and I tried to remember the proper technique from my Chapman piloting book. Before I could recall it, Zero came bounding out of the house. Becky followed with Jamie on her hip.

  “I’d be watching the wind if I were y’all. Supposed to blow later,” she said.

  Justine was down on one knee petting Zero. “Just going into the little lagoon there to check something out.”

  “Ray has a honey hole in there. Pulls a half-dozen lobsters at a time from that cut there. Current running as it is, I expect you could too.”

  Justine stood. “Lobster, for real? That would be awesome.”

  “I’ll go fetch you a tickle stick and net,” Becky said, handing Jamie to me.

  With the two-year-old in my arms, we walked toward the path and I called Zero over. Placing the baby on the dog’s back, we did what Jamie liked most—Zero rides. Seconds later he was shrieking with joy. I held his back and Zero walked proudly forward. Becky scoffed at our shenanigans and handed Justine the two-foot-long stick and net.

  “Y’all know how to use these?”

  “Sure. I usually dive for them,” she said, and turned to me. “Do you have a mask and fins?”

  I was getting out of my element. Of course, I knew it was two weeks into lobster season, but it was my first year there and I hadn’t had a chance to hunt for them yet. “Sure. May be big on you.”

  She looked at Becky and realizing that she was almost my size turned back before the woman understood her appraisal. “We’ll make it work.”

  I handed Jamie off to Becky and went back to the boat. Becky followed and went for the bowline. I saw what she was doing and called for Justine to come aboard. After I started the engine, Becky released the line but kept a wrap around the cleat. Setting the throttle to reverse, I backed away from the dock, using the bow as a pivot point. When I had the stern into the wind, Becky released the bight and tossed the line onto the deck. I continued to back away until I could move forward without getting blown back into the dock. I pushed the throttle forward, and Becky waved and Zero barked as we moved away from the dock.

  With the wind blowing in our faces, I could feel the drag on the boat as we idled into the cut. Once we turned the corner into the small lagoon, the mangroves gave us shelter and the water settled to a light chop. “Right there,” I said, pointing to the spot where I’d found the body. Ten feet before I reached it, I dropped the Power-Pole and cut the engine.

  “How deep is it?” Justine asked.

  The usually turquoise water was off colored due to the wind. “Five feet here,” I said. “Must be near high tide; it was only three feet yesterday.”

  “Mind if I take a look?” she asked, stripping off her shirt. A minute later, clad in bra and panties, she took the mask and fins and slid over the side.

  As she finned around on the surface, I wondered if she was able to see anything in the murky water, but a minute later I saw one leg lift, and barely making a ripple, she slid under the surface. Time stood still as I watched the water. It was definitely over a minute before I saw her blond hair and then her huge smile.

  “She was right. There’s lobster there.” She took a few strokes toward the boat. “Toss me the net and stick.”

  I handed them down to her and without a word, she swam off again. It took her a minute to find the spot, and she stayed on the surface for a moment, catching her breath. Suddenly her body inverted. She flipped into a pike and disappeared. She wasn’t gone long this time, and when she came up I saw something in the net.

  She swam to the boat. “You okay if I grab a few more?”

  I wasn’t sure how this would play out with Martinez if we were discovered and didn’t know what to say. The lagoon had only one entry, and I figured I would hear a boat approach long before it reached us. “Sure, go for it,” I called back, taking the net and dumping the lobster on the deck.

  While she went back for another try, I looked around the lagoon, feeling paranoid that even if we weren’t spotted, I wasn’t doing anything to find out who the Jane Doe was. Justine broke the surface with the net raised triumphantly over her head, and distracted now, I looked around the deck of the boat. The built-in fish boxes were crammed full of gear. I found a bucket, which I filled halfway with seawater, and placed the lobster in it. By the time I had finished she was back with another.

  I didn’t want to be the mean old dad, pulling the plug on the party, but I was getting nervous. We had four lobsters now and she had gone back for more. I missed her entry and was looking around the lagoon when she surfaced. From the expression on her face, I knew right away that the lobstering was over for the day.

  6

  Justine pulled the dark object toward the boat, fighting the weight as it dragged her down. At first, I thought it was another body. Feeling like an idiot for just staring at her struggling to keep her head above water without losing whatever she had, I pulled up the Power-Pole and carefully idled over to her. She approached the transom dragging the object behind her, then it disappeared and she swam toward the transom. I checked to make sure the engine was in neutral but thought better of it and shut it off when she reached the ladder. She hung on for a minute and caught her breath.

  “I found the gear,” she panted. “It’s below the boat.”

  “You want me to get in and help?”

  “No, just toss me a line and I’ll hook it up.”

  I grabbed a line from the forward hold and uncoiled it. “Ready?”

  “Yup. Hand me the end and feed it back,” she said, taking the end of the line.

  I fed the line back to her until she stopped and then, figuring the depth was about ten feet, let a few more coils drop into the water. She swam in a circle and when she had found her spot, she dropped under the surface. It took less time for her to tie the line to the gear than to bag a lobster and she was quickly back at the boat. I grabbed her hand, not failing to notice the water beading off all the right parts of her body, and helped her aboard.

  “Come on. Let’s see what we have,” she said, pulling the line.

  “Just keep the slack out,” I said, and went to the helm, where I started the engine, and followed the line until it was vertical in the water. I had learned a few boating lessons in my time there, and one was how to lift an anchor. Lifting the gear from the bottom was the same concept.

  Together we pulled the surprisingly heavy load to the surface. I saw the tank, and then the buoyancy compensator hanging below it. Once it was secured, I turned to her. “Do we have to do anything special to protect it?”

  Justine thought for a second. “If it’s been in the water as long as I suspect, there’s no forensic evidence left, but we should do the best we can. Let’s just get it aboard and have a look.”

  We pulled the line closer to the boat and when I could reach the air valve, I grabbed it and swung the tank and BC over the gunwale and
onto the boat. Water slopped onto the deck and we stood there looking at the gear as a handful of crabs crawled out of the weight pockets. It wasn’t my call what to do next, and I waited for Justine to decide.

  “It’s a mess, but we still need to preserve it. Do you have any garbage bags or a tarp?”

  “At the house,” I said.

  “We should probably head back and get this processed,” she said. The enthusiasm that had shown on her face after catching the lobsters was gone. In its place was another look, a cross between worried and excited. She looked something like a kid with a new toy who wasn’t quite sure how to use it.

  “Martinez might be a problem with this. You being out here and coming back with evidence. Can we go ashore after he leaves?”

  She thought about it for a second. “The sooner we get it back, the better, and I have to be at work at five.”

  I saw her glance at the equipment lying on the deck and realized she was anxious. “I’ll get Mariposa to give me a heads-up on what’s going on at the office.” The Jamaican receptionist was my only real ally at headquarters. Martinez and his confidant, counterpart, or whatever she was, Susan McLeash, were paper-pushing, by-the-book bureaucrats. The other officers who lived and worked on the islands were mostly responsible for the campgrounds and day-use areas. I had some contact with them, but our paths seldom crossed.

  “Okay. I wouldn’t want to start trouble for you,” she said.

  I felt like I was making the wrong decision, not facing up to my boss, but let it go as we approached the dock. The wind was in my favor now, and well before we got there, I asked Justine to put out the fenders and ready the dock lines. Taking my time, I stopped a good thirty feet away to see what the wind and current were going to do and eased the boat against the dock. It had been so well done that not even Zero noticed our presence until Justine set foot on the dock.

  He came bounding out of the house, barking and running toward us. After he skidded to a stop, Justine reached down and petted him while I unloaded the lobsters onto the dock.

  Becky appeared in the doorway smiling. She came over and gave me a quick lesson in how to clean them. After putting on thick gloves to protect my hands, I twisted the tails from the bodies and used the pointy end of one of their antennae to clean out the innards. When I was done, I carried the tails into the house and put them in a bowl in the refrigerator. Justine followed me in with Zero on her heels.

  “I was thinking we could have some lunch,” she said. “Maybe have a look at the gear too, before we bag it.”

  I was all in favor of anything that would kill a little time before we went back and also let me spend some time with her. “Sounds good. I’ll go call Mariposa and light the grill.”

  “I’m going to grab a shower,” she said, heading to the bedroom.

  I was feeling good about having company here and I went outside to start the grill. It was then my phone rang and my day started going downhill.

  “What the hell were you doing in the lagoon where you found the woman for the last few hours?”

  I had to hold the phone away from my ear, Martinez was screaming so loud. Several thoughts crossed my mind. The first was the question of why he was tracking me. From previous experience, I knew the GPS on the Park Service boats tracked and recorded our movements, but why was he so concerned with what I was doing that he had to monitor me? Or was watching his agents from the comfort of his desk his idea of doing his job?

  “I thought there might be something in there to help establish her identity.” It was close to true.

  “Once again, Hunter, as soon as the body goes to Miami-Dade, it’s theirs. Now, seeing as I can’t trust you to do your job, I want a written schedule submitted by five o’clock this afternoon detailing which areas you will be patrolling and when for the rest of the week. The schedule will need to be corroborated with written reports. And, by the way, I know you’ve got company out there.”

  It was one thing to know about where the boat was, but how did he know I had someone here? I had to assume, if he knew that much, he knew who she was as well. I told him I would be in the office in a few hours. The sliding glass door from the living room opened and I disconnected before he replied. Justine stood there, and I forgot the call for a second. With her wet hair down to her shoulders and my favorite T-shirt looking a lot better on her than it ever would on me, I had to fight myself to stop staring.

  “Who were you talking to?” she asked.

  “Martinez, who somehow knows that you’re here and we spent the morning in the lagoon.”

  “That puts a damper on the party,” she said. She walked toward me, took the tongs from my hand, and turned the lobster tails. “I saw some salad stuff in the fridge.”

  The lobster was great, and I tried to put on a happy face as we talked about the morning. There were promises of more adventures to come and I was feeling really good until our plates were empty and we stared at each other with that “what now?” look. “I have to do some paperwork for Martinez. If you want I can take you back and do it there.”

  “I’d like to have a quick look at the gear before we go,” she said.

  It was already starting to stink when we hauled the tank and BC onto the dock. I thought about hosing it down but knew it would harm any evidence. As it turned out, Justine wasn’t as concerned, probably knowing the salt water had already destroyed everything. She hosed the gear off and started disassembling it. Scuba equipment was foreign to me, so I left her to it and went inside to make my plan for Martinez. I had a pile of tourist maps of the park that I gave to lost or grounded boaters after highlighting the shoals and navigation aids. With one of these, I took a Sharpie and marked off five equal sections. Adding the days of the week to each, I folded it up and put it in my pocket. That was my plan.

  Back on the dock, Zero was hovering over the gear and Justine, trying to decide which was more interesting.

  “Want me to get rid of him?”

  “Nope, he’s my buddy.”

  “Okay, but if he’s in the way . . .”

  She shook her head. “Look, I found this in one of the BC pockets.”

  “It’s just a socket wrench,” I said. “And what’s that?” She held out something covered in algae. I took it from her and turned it in my hand. It was some sort of mounting plate with two predrilled holes. I figured it measured about six by three inches and brushed the green gunk off of it.

  “I’m not sure. I think she was some kind of commercial diver.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “Divers try to carry only what they need. Look at all the clips on the vest,” she said, toying with the brass clips attached to rings sewn into the vest. “There are half a dozen here, and they look well used. Most recreational divers would only have one or two.” She held one of the hooks up in the daylight and I could see the wear on it.

  I looked at the BC with a new eye now. “Does the other gear tell you anything?”

  “Regulator is well used but pretty straightforward. There is no octopus, which reinforces my theory.”

  It was good to know we had a theory. “What’s an octopus?”

  “You really need me, don’t you? If you’re gonna be Ranger Rick out here, you need to learn some stuff.”

  I couldn’t argue that and let it pass.

  “An octopus is an alternate air source. If your dive buddy runs out of air, the extra regulator allows them to breathe off your tank.”

  “Got it, and the fact that there isn’t one means whoever used this equipment didn’t dive with a buddy. Where would you dive alone?”

  She laid out the BC and I could see discoloration. “A lot of commercial divers work alone: cleaning or making repairs at dock. That might explain the wetsuit as well. If she were working under barnacle covered hulls, she would want it for protection.” She continued her inspection.

  “Looks like wear and tear, not anything from trauma,” I said.

  “Yes, like she was rubbing up against something.�
�� She turned the BC over and we saw the torn waist belt and straps. “That pretty much confirms Sid’s propeller theory. Cut right through the straps.”

  My knees were starting to hurt from squatting and I got up and paced the dock. She had set the tank off to the side and it caught my eye. The thigh-high cylinder had a milled metal finish and worn stickers on it. I moved closer to examine them and felt Justine behind me. There were at least a dozen stickers, some worn to just their base color by the BC straps. Several were from gear companies, but one looked official. “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Oh, wow. It’s the inspection sticker. I should have thought about that. Every year the tank needs to get a visual inspection, or VIP. There should be a dive shop’s name on it.”

  I looked closer and saw the shop’s name. The address was in Miami Beach. “I’m thinking we finally have a legit lead. Whoever inspected the tank might know our Jane Doe.”

  “Let’s go. If you can get past Martinez, we have enough time to stop by before I have to go to work.”

  “Deal,” I said, and started picking up the gear and loaded it on the boat, thinking about how to deal with Martinez.”

  “You just show him your map and distract him, I’ll take care of the gear.”

  There was nothing like a little collusion to bring two people together, and with the gear loaded we took off for the headquarters building.

  7

  Sometimes when you don’t overthink something, it just works. I wish I could say that about my relationships. I had already wrecked one, and looking over at Justine, I promised myself I’d be more careful. They said women were like boats. Maybe if I mastered one, I could master the other. I was feeling pretty good about the boat thing when the center-console slid right into the slip without incident. I was two for two today, and it gave a good boost to my confidence. I guess Becky and Ray’s coaching was paying off.

  “Give me a minute to get inside,” I said to Justine, leaving her aboard. She huddled under the T-top to avoid the rain that had just started. We had decided to leave the scuba gear in plain sight, and if Martinez said anything, the story was that Justine had been diving on the site and the equipment was hers. Hopefully, he’d be so focused on me that he wouldn’t see the torn straps on the BC. As it turned out, the ruse was not necessary.