Death of a Hot Chick

by Norma Huss

  Nope, I’m not thinking about Al. But when it got too dark to read, it was an effort. Think about Nicole and the thirty dollars she’ll bring.

  Okay, thought about that. Think about Kaye. She did, after all, bring Nicole and her boat into my life. Bossy when we were little. Older sisters are like that.

  Thought about that too. Think about growing up in Smith Harbor. All the kids I knew then are still here. Or most of them. Some of them were gone for a while, then came back. Most never left. The bay draws us all. Inland is a different world.

  After nine, my thoughts drifted back to Nicole. She’d come soon.

  ~ ~

  I heard something. Not the fan that whirred overhead. I rubbed my eyes and uncoiled from a most uncomfortable position. I must have dozed off. Nicole hadn’t come at nine, or ten. I’d left the mosquitoes that nipped my arms and gone inside the boat. And I’d believed. Oh, yes, I absolutely knew she’d show up with another thirty bucks to pay for the cleaning supplies.

  Then I heard the voice again. “Help me.”

  “Nicole?” I opened my hatch, looked out.

  Nothing there. Much too late. I’d had a dream, a nightmare to be exact. And why dream of Nicole? Because I expected her to come?

  Had to be close to midnight. So Nicole had stiffed me. Why was I surprised? I wriggled my shoulders, trying to get the kinks out. Squatted, then stretched up. Did a couple of jumping jacks. I’d twisted my back slumping on the settee.

  Then I heard the voice again. “Help me.”

  “Nicole?” I opened my hatch, looked out.

  Her voice came from the dark. “Take it. He killed me. Me!”

  I grabbed my flashlight and stepped out on the deck. “Take what? Who killed you?”

  “Come. I’m here.”

  One tiny bulb glowed further down the dock. I thought I’d seen a flicker of light but there was no one in sight.

  “Where? Where are you?” I stopped, looked behind me, then out into the dark The voice was Nicole’s, but nothing made sense.

  The voice spoke again. “Find my killer and it’s yours.”

  No one. No one in sight, but I felt an urgency I couldn’t understand. I stepped off the boat. “Nicole, I can’t see you.”

  There was no answer.

  I was dreaming. Had to be. Sleep walking, out of the boat and onto the dock. Only a dream intruding on my waking thoughts. I expected Nicole, so.... but to dream of her death? Why? Only in a nightmare.

  The cooling breeze had blown the mosquitos away. I walked down the dock, away from Snapdragon. I rolled my shoulders, trying to work the stiffness out. Water lapped against the boats I passed, seeming to repeat, “Now, now, now.” I heard a car somewhere in the distance. I saw only the dim light from the electric connection console on the dock. But the voice? Nicole’s voice—was she in trouble?

  Again I called. “Anyone here?”

  Still no answer.

  It had been years since I’d heard imaginary voices. Was this a voice from the past? But those were silly voices—a turtle on its back needing help sort of thing. I did what I used to do as a child. I closed my eyes, held my hands to my face with the fingers spread, pulsing into my hair. I made my mind a blank. Nothing, at first. Then I saw water, water overhead, blotting out the dark sky. Heard whispers.

  No, I saw nothing, but I definitely heard something.

  I lifted my head and opened my eyes. Voices, real voices drifted on the still air as a boat neared the dock. A late return from the Wednesday night races? No, much too late. It had to be midnight—or later. I left the finger pier and strolled along the dock.

  “Need help?” I called to the incoming Catalina.

  “Sure,” someone hollered. He cut the engine, and the boat drifted nearer. “Could you grab my line?”

  I’d seen the people before—a young family with their first sailboat. The tethered, life-vested girl whimpered. A boy of three or four rubbed his eyes and yawned. The mother had her hands full, but she said, “How late is it?”

  The father didn’t answer. He threw the line to me. I looped it around a cleat. He hopped off the boat. “I’ll get a boat cart to unload all our stuff.”

  “Let me.” I grabbed my flashlight. They definitely needed help, but had one of them called? Was that what I’d heard? One of the children? I passed a cart nearby, stenciled in fading letters, “Property of Smith Harbor Marina,” and loaded with greasy engine parts. Just beyond, the marina’s cart corral was empty.

  Had a child called out and I’d sensed it somehow? The killing part, that was pure nightmare. But the call for help? Or was that only one of those imaginary voices I once listened to?

  Further down the dock I saw a splintered piling among the solid ones, one out of every three electrical hook-ups lit, and more loops of raveling line than I cared to count. No carts. I kept looking and found one with its single wheel broken. Then I spied one at the far end of the marina, the end that never seemed to have working light bulbs. It was one of the largest carts, abandoned just off the property.

  “The killer. Find him.” The voice was dim, perhaps not even there. Nicole’s voice. No, only a senseless voice in my head, a continuation of a dream not quite finished.

  I lifted the handles and yanked them. The cart was too heavy. “Another one full of something.” In the dark all I saw was a mound. A workman hadn’t removed his tools. I flicked on my flashlight.

  There were no tools, no heaps of parts, or coils of line. In the circle of light a slim white hand lay atop the fabric pile.

  My heart pounded, but I whispered, “Hey, are you sleeping in there?” I shook the wheelbarrow handle. The hand slid down beside the designer jeans. The head, with its fine, straight blonde hair, tipped back.

  “Nicole.” I reached out to touch her, then pulled my hand back from the soaking wet, cold sweater.

  I flashed the light directly in her face. Nicole...sleeping?

  Unconscious? I pressed below her chin, checked for a pulse. None.

  “Take it...now!”

  I’d heard those words before. Had I heard them again?

  Nicole lay curled and crumpled in the boat cart, her knees nearly meeting her chest. I stepped back. No, I didn’t hear anything. I had to call the police. My cell phone...back in the boat. Could I leave her body? I had to. And....

  The waves and the wind whispered, “Now, now, now.”

  I slid two fingers into her hip pocket and slowly pulled out the plastic bag.

  Chapter 2

  Thursday, July 20, 2:11 am

  My entire body shook. I pulled my sweater tightly around my shoulders. A slight breeze blew off the water and through the marina, but the day’s heat had barely dissipated.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Had one of the state troopers asked a question?

  “You don’t know the names of the people in the boat? Yet you went to get a cart for them?”

  Lizzie spoke up. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. Stop badgering her.”

  At least I remembered Lizzie’s name, but I knew her from way back. She’d always been around boats, drifting from one marina or anchorage to another. She was a snoopy, grandmotherly type who lived like a hermit on an old boat at the edge of the marina.

  One of the state cops said, “Those people should have waited for us.”

  “They had little kids. They were tired.” After a moment, I added, “They didn’t even see the body.”

  “But you don’t know them.”

  “I’ve seen them a time or two. I don’t know their names.”

  The second officer stood inches from my face. “So you went for a cart. Why?” The troopers weren’t from Smith Harbor.

  “Boaters help each other, you know? The kids were tired, they had their hands full.”

  “You’re damn tootin’,” Lizzie said. “I’d a helped if I’d been here.”

  “But you did know the deceased,” the first trooper said.

  “I’m working for her. Was working for her. Fixing her boat.”
I wished he would look in Nicole’s other pocket. “She said she’d be back, so I waited for her. Anyway, I tried to, but I fell asleep.” Would he give me anything out of that other pocket, like the thirty dollars? No way. “I guess I got a few mosquito bites.”

  “You notice that dead woman is wet,” Lizzie told him. “I suspect the killer wanted to wash off the blood. Probably been shot, but not here, because I woulda heard it. I hear everything. Nothing gets by this one.”

  “Then you heard the body being dumped in the cart,” the trooper said.

  “Maybe.” Lizzie shifted from one foot to another, a sure sign that she was inventing a story. “Yeah, I musta heard something. Problem is, I was watching my TV and any little bump coulda been some static. Lotta that around here.”

  Definitely one of Lizzie’s stories. If she’d heard a little bump, she’d have been outside in a flash. Like she would have been if she’d heard the young couple returning with their boat. Like she would have been if she’d heard me at the boat cart. The only thing she’d heard was the patrol car siren as it turned into the marina. She’d appeared ten minutes later, which was just enough time to get dressed.

  “What time was that?” the second trooper said.

  Without looking at a watch, Lizzie said, “Exactly thirty-seven minutes ago.”

  Except, it couldn’t have been. Nicole was dead before that.

  “Let’s hear it again,” the officer said, looking straight at me. “It was after midnight and you hadn’t been out of the boat since Miss Joline left?”

  I rubbed my itching arms. “I’d been on deck. Nicole said she’d be back, and I said I’d watch for her.”

  “Then you were out of the boat.”

  “But not off the boat. I sat right there, in the back, before I went inside.”

  “And whose boat is it?”

  “It belongs to Nicole.” With a jolt, I realized I should have added, “and me.” How could I explain that title to anyone but Wes?

  The trooper must have kept talking, but I didn’t hear him. Instead, I remembered her voice. “Take it,” she’d said. “It’s yours.” When I saw her body, I’d known what she meant. A trade-off. Tit for tat. Not payment for supplies. Strictly a business proposition. She didn’t give up much—just the title to one boat completely useless to a dead person. In exchange, she wanted something quite impossible—the killer’s name. And, she expected me to find him.

  ~ ~

  8:30 am

  Under the grime, Snapdragon was white gel-coat with one blue stripe the length of the cabin. Stainless steel grab rails were placed at strategic spots. A handsome boat once, she would be again when I was finished. I’d started at the logical place yesterday, the roof of the pilot house, then on to the bow. But the roof needed more attention. There were no steps like on newer boats, and the deck box wasn’t quite tall enough, but the raised roof over the V-berth was. I lifted my bucket, then crawled on top of the cabin. The second scrubbing was harder—the remaining dirt, almost a stain, was stubborn. Still, under the sheen of the water more and more of the surface shone. Snapdragon was a beauty, even if she wasn’t a sailboat.

  Was she really mine now? No matter who she belonged to, there’s absolutely nothing better than working on a boat, bringing her to life. I could happily work for days, doing nothing else, but I wouldn’t. I’d have to look for another job—one to pay for food.

  “Ahoy, the boat.”

  Another cop, but I knew this one, Smith Harbor’s own. “Hi, Doug. I mean, Officer Yarnell. I guess you’re helping the state police?”

  He glanced up, then back down at the paper in his hand. “Cyd Denlinger?” he asked like he hadn’t been at Al’s memorial service two weeks before. Not to mention that his whole family had lived two doors down from my family and I’d been the weirdest, most annoying brat in the neighborhood. Or even that I’d been one of his loyal backyard detectives for a whole glorious summer. He added, “Oh, yeah. You’re one of the Landis kids. And the state troopers were covering for us last night.”

  I nodded, and he went on like I really wanted to hear old memories. His eyes lit up and he suppressed a laugh. “That accident was my first case. Did you know that? You were sure mad at that guy. Can’t say I blame you. DUI. Gregory Norris, right?”

  I pulled my brush out of the bucket, but that didn’t stop him.

  “He turned himself around, I hear.”

  “So they say.” I moved to a new spot and continued scrubbing.

  He finally got the hint. “You found a body. I believe you also identified Nicole Joline. How did you know her?”

  I sat back on my heels and gave him my full attention, since he was now talking murder. “I’m doing a job for her. Cleaning and minor repair of this lobster trawler. She planned on selling Snapdragon.”

  “And you are still working for her? Or are you just fulfilling jobs already paid for?”

  Did I actually want to tell Doug the boat was mine now? If it was. “Let’s just say I might as well keep working until everybody stops asking questions. How about that?”

  “Oh, yes, I do remember the younger Cyd,” he said, which I ignored completely. He didn’t wait for any comment I might make, just asked the next question. “How well did you know Nicole Joline? Have you known her long?”

  “Didn’t. My sister Kaye knew her. Pretty well, I guess. She was her teacher.”

  “That would be your sister the college professor at Hanson Academy, right?”

  Did he keep tabs on every family in Smith Harbor? At least he didn’t run down the list of our whole family with Kaye’s mostly absentee husband, my sister Pearl with her namesake Pearl Mesta’s complex of striving to be the hostess with the mostest, or my parents and grandmother who amiably inhabited three separate apartments in a four-plex on the bay. “Yep, that’s the one. When Nicole wanted someone to work on her boat, she asked Kaye. I met Nicole on Monday.”

  “Right now I’m interested in how you happened to find the body.”

  Did he want the whole story? Had he read the State Police report? I went with an abbreviated version. “I went for a cart for the folks on that boat. Just being helpful.”

  “When did you last see the victim alive?”

  “A few hours before that. Yesterday. Here. Then she left.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “Someplace to get thirty dollars to pay for the supplies I bought. From a friend, I think she said.”

  “Cyd, that’s your statement? She went to get thirty dollars?”

  “Yes. She’d just paid for a dinghy. She was....” Why tell him more? He didn’t believe me, and I knew why. “Nicole Joline,” and “wealthy” were practically synonyms. Stubbornly, I kept up the explanations. “She only had twenty-two dollars in her pocket. She said she’d go get thirty more to pay for the supplies I got.” He could believe what he wanted.

  “Leaving that for a moment, did you see anything unusual before you found the body?”

  What was unusual? The light bulb was out? Definitely not unusual. Lizzie didn’t show up at the actual murder? Fortunate for her and definitely unusual, but nothing the cops wanted to hear. I’d heard a call for help, told to find a killer, and stuck my hand in a dead person’s pocket?

  “No, nothing unusual.”

  Officer Doug kept asking questions. What was Nicole wearing? Why had I helped the people in the next boat? Had I seen anything unusual before yesterday? Where would I be moving when I left the boat?

  “When I leave the boat? Leave Snapdragon, you mean?”

  “Yes, I’ll need to know your address.”

  Was it the time to say, “It’s my boat now?” No. “Until the job is done?” Possibly. But I said, “I hadn’t planned on leaving. Not soon, that is.” That should cover every eventuality.

  “Oh? Let me know when you do,” Yarnell said, then asked, “Have you contacted anyone else about this? Told anyone, I mean.”

  “Why? Is it a secret that Nicole Joline died?”

  �
��I don’t want to find out you’ve held out on the police to go to the media.” Of course he meant, “Don’t tell your newspaper friend Teddy Huertes.”

  “Look, I told the state troopers everything I know. I haven’t gone anywhere since.” I could have added any number of things, like, “I get your message.” Of course, I didn’t say that, not until he’d walked back to his patrol car and taken off.

  He didn’t mention anything about not talking at all. Which was good, for I’d already called my sister. And at any moment Kaye would drive up, demanding to know even more.

  ~ ~

  Half an hour later, Kaye arrived. Her eyes were red, although she’d tried to cover any trace with makeup. “I can’t believe it,” she told me. “Nicole was such a sweet person.”

  I grabbed a tissue and handed it to her. “I can’t believe it either. She was so...so alive!”

  Kaye nodded. “Vibrant.” She blew her nose and reached for another tissue before she went into retrospect mode. “Nicole was insecure when she first started as a freshman at Hanson Academy. I’ve... She...” Kaye straightened her shoulders, blinked the tears away, and went on like she always did. “She succeeded beyond anyone’s possible expectations. She became a confident young woman.”

  Confident, definitely. “And awfully convincing too. Somehow, even if she irritated me, she won me over before she left. I sure don’t know how she could be irritating and so convincing all at once.” Kaye dabbed at her eyes, so I kept talking. “Why would anyone kill her? Maybe those business deals were too sharp. She could be abrasive, but that’s no motive for murder.”

  “Abrasive? Nicole? Are we talking about the same person?”

  “You know what I mean. Absolutely certain that she’d get her way. Not particularly understanding of another’s needs.”