Bluewater Jailbird: The Tenth Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Bluewater Thrillers Book 10)

by Charles Dougherty

  His superiors were pressing him for results, especially now that someone up the chain of command had started asking questions about Berger. This situation had spun out of control. His immediate boss wanted him to stake out the beach where the crime had been committed, but he knew that was futile.

  Lucas already knew about the smuggling activity that took place there; everyone did. Upsetting the big-time smuggler who had so many of the police on his payroll would be foolhardy. They all knew about his trafficking in women. It was harmless enough, and in any case, it was condoned by Lucas's higher ups.

  He had asked through the back channel if the mob boss had any information on the killing. The answer had been as expected. None of the man's minions had seen anything.

  Lucas didn't have a solution to his problem, short of finding both Berger and Derek Mitchum. His suggestion to Chirac that she might have something to do with Mitchum's disappearance had been a spur of the moment idea, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked it.

  Whether she had been involved or not, her association with Berger made her a viable suspect, someone that he could use to placate his superiors. Besides, Berger would eventually get in touch with her.

  Mitchum's absence worried him more than Berger's. He understood why she was hiding, although he still thought that she must have had help in her escape. Lucas couldn't explain why Mitchum would be staying out of sight, though. He worried that the fisherman might have been lost at sea.

  He knew that further inquiries would be pointless. People like Mitchum and his friends had a deep distrust of the police that went back generations. They would tell him nothing. He had been shocked when Mitchum came forward and volunteered information to begin with. He shook his head. It was all beyond him.

  His attention focused on the big yacht out in the anchorage, he failed to notice the darkly tanned woman with the short, straight black hair who watched him from a shadowy corner of the bar as she sipped a fruit drink. When he ordered coffee and dessert, she settled her tab and slipped out the back entrance.

  ****

  Liz put away her groceries and decided to skip lunch. The salt fish patty that she'd eaten while she talked to the woman at the snack bar had been filling, and she wanted to get back to the lagoon entrance and see what she could learn from the fishermen.

  On her way out of the lagoon, she'd noticed that quite a few of them were gathered at the shaded picnic tables near the fuel dock, drinking beer and eating. The sun was too high for the fishing to be good right now, but she knew they would head back out in the next hour or so.

  She dropped an empty gasoline jug into the dinghy to provide a pretext for her stop, and locked Vengeance. Ten minutes later, she took her jug and climbed ashore, tying the dinghy alongside a brightly painted, locally built 24-foot boat with two big outboards and a pair of roughly constructed outriggers.

  She went into the little store that sold bait and sundries, and put the jug on the floor.

  "You need oil in it?" the man behind the counter asked.

  "No, thanks. I put it in already. Just gasoline, please."

  He nodded, chewing a forkful of some kind of curry from a Styrofoam box.

  Liz gave him a smile, and he smiled back, swallowing his food. He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. "You in a hurry, ma'am?"

  "Not really."

  He smiled again. "Okay if I finish my lunch before I fill it? Gonna get real busy soon."

  "Take your time," she said. "A friend of mine on another boat bought some fish from a man a few days ago. He said I should look him up. He brought my friend a nice big mahi on his way back in."

  "You get a name?"

  "I think it was Derek something. That sound right?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Derek Mitchum, mebbe."

  "That's it!"

  "Ain't seen Derek in a few days. We gettin' worried 'bout him. He lady, she call lookin' for he this mornin'."

  "Uh-oh," Liz said. "That can't be a good sign. Did he fish offshore? Maybe he's stuck with engine trouble."

  "Not usually. Mos'ly, he fish the drop-off, trollin' for mahi and tuna. But he take the Indian man fishin' offshore las' time he go out."

  "An Indian man?"

  "Yeah. One of them fellahs from 'roun’ the grocery store. You know the grocery store?"

  "In Gros Islet? Mr. Lanjwani?"

  "Yeah, that one. But the man not Lanjwani. I t'ink he name Samir, somethin'. He Lanjwani's wife's brother. You know Lanjwani?"

  "No," Liz said. "Just that he owns the store."

  The man nodded. "Lanjwani, he come to St. Lucia an' get marry. His wife's folks, they own the store from way back."

  "Where'd he come from? Do you know?"

  He shook his head. "Foreign. Got some kind of accent."

  "Has anybody seen this Samir since they went fishing?"

  "Yeah. He the las' man see Derek Mitchum. He say Derek drop he off here after dark, an' then Derek goin' on down home to Marigot."

  The man finished his lunch and stood up. "Le's go get your gasoline." He picked up the jug and stepped outside to the gas pump. As he filled the jug, he looked over at the tables where the men were eating and drinking.

  "Sometime, Samir's brother does fish, but I don' see he today." He shut off the pump and put the lid on the jug. "Sixty E.C."

  Liz handed him the money, and he picked up the full jug. "I take to your dinghy."

  "Thank you," Liz said, falling into step beside him. "Nice to visit with you."

  The man smiled. "Nice to see a pretty lady while I eat, instead of a bunch of smelly ol' fishermen. You want me to get somebody to bring you a fresh mahi this afternoon?"

  "Not today, but can I call you in a day or two?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Any time." He set the jug in the dinghy and reached into his shirt pocket, extracting a business card for the fuel dock. "Ask for Joseph. Mebbe Derek come by; I send him to see you. What boat?"

  "Vengeance. That would be nice, Joseph. Thank you."

  "My pleasure, ma'am." He touched his forehead in a farewell salute and turned to take a line from a local speedboat that was pulling in next to the dinghy.

  Liz didn't notice that the man in the speedboat was staring at her as she started the engine and pulled out into the channel.

  ****

  "Who is Derek Mitchum?" Hamid asked. He and Samir were drinking coffee in his office at the store. Samir had heard from his brother, Rashid, about the woman asking questions about Mitchum at the fuel dock by the fish market.

  "The fisherman.” Samir said. “The one I — "

  "The witness?"

  "Yes, emir. That one."

  "And did your brother say what this woman learned?"

  "No. He only heard a few words. She was talking to the man who runs the fuel dock. He told her he'd tell Mitchum she was looking for him, or something like that."

  Hamid sipped his coffee and thought for a moment.

  "I could ask Joseph," Samir said.

  "Joseph?"

  "He's the one who runs the fuel dock."

  Hamid shook his head. "The less attention we draw to this, the better."

  Samir nodded and lifted his thimble-sized cup to his lips.

  "But how could she know about this Mitchum?" Hamid asked. "Did Mitchum talk to anyone besides the police?"

  Samir frowned. "No. I stayed with him the whole time, until I killed him. He was never out of my sight."

  "Remember, Samir, I talked to our friend in the police. They're still looking for Mitchum, and for the Berger woman. They cannot charge her without a formal identification by Mitchum, so they released her, but they are holding her passport. And now, they are looking for her," Lanjwani said.

  Samir nodded. "So she must still be on the island."

  "You said the detective visited the other woman on the yacht this morning, yes?" Lanjwani asked.

  "Yes. You think he told her about Mitchum?" Samir asked.

  "It seems no one but you and the police know his name, Samir."

/>   "The other fishermen saw him with me that morning before he took me out fishing."

  "Yes, but they don’t know he talked to the police, am I right?"

  "Yes, emir. That is right. They didn’t see him with the police. That was much earlier in the morning, and over on the beach, when he talked to them."

  "So they would not connect Mitchum to the murder.”

  “That is so,” Samir said.

  “But the woman was asking about him?” Lanjwani asked.

  “Yes, emir.”

  “She may have connected this Mitchum with you by talking with the man at the fuel dock."

  "That's possible. But then she wouldn't know he was the witness who blamed her friend," Samir said.

  "No, you're right. Did she ask about you?"

  Samir frowned. "About me? But why would she ask about me? I am not connected to her friend or to Watkins."

  "Did the police see you with Mitchum before he talked to them?"

  "No. I was in my brother's boat, out among the yachts. We were hidden from the view of the police by the anchored yachts when Rashid and I made the arrangement with Mitchum. I gave him the money, and he went ashore to talk to the police."

  "But you said you heard him talk to them."

  "Yes. He called me from his cellphone and put it in his shirt pocket so that I could hear his conversation without being seen. This was so that I knew he did what he was paid to do."

  "And then?"

  "After he talked to the police, he came back to Rashid's boat and picked me up. We went to the fuel dock and he bought gasoline and bait, and we went fishing."

  "The men around the fuel dock saw you leave with him, then."

  "Yes, but they won't talk to the police."

  "But what about to the woman?"

  "A white woman? One they don't know? I don't think they would tell her anything, emir. And in any case, she wouldn't have known to ask about Mitchum. Or about me. She must know about Mitchum from the police, or from her friend, Berger."

  Hamid digested that for a few seconds. He nodded. "Did you talk to the woman at the snackette?"

  "Yes. While the woman from the yacht was in here shopping."

  "And?"

  “The woman from the yacht told Clara that she had a friend looking for an apartment; she wondered if Clara knew of any in the area. Clara told her that you rented out the upstairs flat sometimes, but that it wasn't available now."

  "She must be looking for a place to hide her friend," Hamid said.

  "Emir, I'm not comfortable with this woman and her questions. There are too many, and not enough to explain them."

  "Perhaps so, Samir. What are you thinking?"

  "What is one infidel woman, more or less? I am thinking I should stop this before she gets any closer to us."

  "How would you do this without risk to us? There is the yacht — "

  "Exactly. It is perfect, the same as Mitchum."

  "You do not know how to run a yacht, Samir."

  "No, emir, but she does."

  "I see. And your brother Rashid would pick you up out on the sea afterward?"

  "Yes, emir."

  "This has nothing to do with the fact that she's a beautiful young woman?" Hamid grinned at his brother-in-law.

  "No, emir. But of course, I would marry her and convert her to Islam, so that she could serve our warriors in paradise."

  "Of course you would. How selfless of you, to make such a sacrifice. Very well. Save her soul, then."

  Chapter 10

  Liz pulled the dinghy alongside Vengeance and tied it off, reaching down to pick up a bag of groceries, things that she had not found at the store in Gros Islet. She had left the pantry bare when she went to Belgium, knowing that Dani would choose to eat out, so she'd made a stop at the big, U.S.-style supermarket near the mall.

  She lined up her bags along the side deck and climbed aboard. Shifting the bags into the cockpit two at a time, she stepped over the coaming with the last two in her hands. She put them down with the others, while she felt in the pocket of her shorts for the key to the companionway doors.

  As soon as she inserted the key, she knew that the doors were not locked. Frowning, she assumed that she must have forgotten, but that surprised her. She and Dani were both fanatics about locking the boat; petty thievery was a problem in a lot of the places where they anchored. There was no damage to the doors, though, so she decided that she must have forgotten to lock them. She shrugged and opened both doors, sliding the hatch cover back.

  She backed down the ladder and reached for the closest two bags. As she twisted to set them on the counter, a man stepped from the door of the aft cabin, a pistol in his hand. She dropped the groceries and jumped backward, startled.

  "Be quiet," the man said, grinning, his eyes roving over her body. "There will be time for you to scream later. First, you must take me sailing."

  Liz kept her hands open and relaxed, not raised in surrender, but held slightly toward him, so that he could see that she wasn't making any aggressive moves. "Where do you want to go?"

  "It is a nice afternoon," he said. "I think out to the west, so that you and I can enjoy the sunset, perhaps."

  Liz nodded. "Okay," she said. "Whatever you want; just don't hurt me. I'll do whatever you say."

  "You are wise. Now tell me what you need to do, step by step, in order to get under way. Do not do anything that I have not agreed to in advance, or I'll be forced to hurt you."

  Liz had thought he looked familiar. As the boat swung to her anchor, the light coming in the hatch shifted, putting his face in shadow. She recognized him as the man who had come by yesterday morning offering her souvenirs of woven palm fronds. The boat swung again and his features were illuminated. East Indian, she thought.

  "I told you," he said, "to explain to me what you must do to move the boat."

  Liz bobbed her head nervously and chewed on her lower lip. "I ... I can't do it by myself. I need some — "

  She saw the blow coming. He had telegraphed his punch, shifting his body and aiming the gun away from her as he drew back to deliver a vicious, roundhouse slap with his left hand. She stepped inside the arc of his hand and drove her right thigh up into his groin, her weight behind the movement. He bent forward, but the power of her strike lifted him, and he fell back against the galley counter.

  Anger mixed with agony on his face as he started to point the gun at her again. She swung her left forearm into his right wrist, knocking the pistol from his hand as she drove her own center of mass through him, leading with her right elbow. She planted it squarely under his Adam's apple, the force of her blow lifting him clear of the floor again as she felt and heard the crunching sound of his larynx being crushed. She took a half-step back and lunged forward. As she followed through, she brought her right shin up into his groin, but he was finished.

  She watched as he dropped to his knees, his hands clawing desperately at his ruined airway. His eyes, round with fear and surprise, locked on hers in a fixed stare. "You can watch the sunset in hell, asshole," she said, as she watched him suffocate. He fell to the side, and she was satisfied that he was dead. Not sparing him another glance, she stepped over his body to look in the aft cabin. There was a grubby backpack on the berth, but nothing looked out of place.

  She made a fast inspection of the boat to be sure there were no other surprise visitors as she considered what to do. Her assailant's clothes were dry, so he must have come by boat. She mounted the companionway ladder, standing so that she could just see out, and studied the surrounding waters. There was no sign of another boat, except for her neighbors in the anchorage.

  She ruled out calling the police; she had no faith in them at the moment. She needed to dispose of the body, and she wanted to get out of St. Lucia.

  Someone was reacting to her questions; but who was it? Given that she had escaped their first foray, she reasoned that their second would be more aggressive. She decided to take Vengeance out to sea as her visitor had sugges
ted. Whoever these people were, they had made Derek Mitchum disappear; she thought they probably had something similar in mind for her.

  She thought about clearing out with customs and immigration, but decided it was too risky. She didn't know who these people were, or what connections they might have. She would just leave, and Vengeance would disappear. Besides, if her visitor had an accomplice who was watching, he would expect Vengeance to leave, and quickly.

  When all this was over, she would find some way to clear up the paperwork. In the meantime, she would pretend to be sailing locally, cruising the territorial waters of St. Lucia, if anyone in authority challenged her.

  She climbed out into the cockpit and crouched on the side deck where she'd tied the dinghy. Stepping down into the dinghy, she tipped the outboard up so that the foot was out of the water. She didn't like to tow the dinghy with the engine on it, but she couldn't afford the time to rig the hoist and lift it off. Someone was probably watching her, thinking that she was following her assailant's instructions as he stayed out of sight. She picked up the heavy towing line and climbed back onto Vengeance.

  In less than five minutes, she had tied the dinghy astern, fired up the diesel, and retrieved the anchor. There were a few small local boats moving around Rodney Bay as she steamed out to the west past Pigeon Island, but no one appeared to be paying any attention to Vengeance.

  It was a beautiful day, and the easterly trades were blowing at 15 to 20 knots. Once she was clear of the sloppy, rough water that came from the swells breaking over the shallows along the coast to the north, she throttled back and turned into the wind, letting Vengeance drift as she uncovered the main and mizzen sails.

  Keeping an eye out for approaching boats and seeing none, she raised first the mizzen and then the main. She shut down the diesel and turned the bow out of the wind, filling both sails. She sheeted them in close-hauled and unrolled the yankee jib and the staysail, leaving their sheets slack. She turned the bow further out of the wind and let the luffing headsails push the bow around further while she eased the sheets on the main and the mizzen for a beam reach.