Just Add Salt (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 2))

by Jinx Schwartz

  “Doesn’t get more plain than that. You practically ask him to marry you and he turned you down? I’d take that as carte blanche to look elsewhere. I’m not even sure he warrants a dump notice. Why didn’t you tell me this before? Weren’t you still planning on this Mexico trip with the guys until they took off for Kuwait?”

  “Yes, I was. Silly me, I guess I thought the cruise would draw us closer. Maybe give Lars a change of heart? Nuts to that, he’s only called me once. Every other time I’ve talked to him, either we called Jenks, or Jenks called you.”

  “True. So just what is Lars’s life plan?”

  “Uh, well, uh, nothing important.”

  Jan does not waffle well. She wasn’t telling me something. “You aren’t telling me something.”

  She also folds easily. “Lars said he and Jenks were going to travel extensively and that they couldn’t do that if they were committed. I didn't want to tell you, but....”

  My heart froze. My hand, the one on the outboard throttle, was equally frozen.

  “Uh, Hetta, don’t you want to slow down a little before we, like, hit the dock?”

  I couldn’t speak or move.

  “Hetta!”

  Her shriek finally broke through my shock and I realized we were bearing down on the pier, and the large shrimp boat tied to it. I swerved at the last minute, sideswiping the barnacle encrusted hull and then doing a one-eighty.

  We hit our own wake and were almost launched, ass over teakettle, into the harbor. As I pitched forward, the safety lanyard on my wrist wrenched the dead man key from the outboard, and it instantly died fifteen feet from the pier. A giggle made me look up. Lining the pier was a worried looking man in uniform, some stoic fishermen, a tittering group of small children and a couple of smiling dogs.

  With as much dignity as possible, I shook my head, reinserted the safety, restarted the outboard and putted to the boarding ladder.

  “Sorry, Hetta. I probably could have picked a better time to tell you the Jenkins brothers’ life plan. You okay?”

  “Yeah, just heartbroken. I wonder when Jenks was going to get around to telling me?” I looked up at the smirking males on the dock. “Men. I hate ‘em. Do you think it’s too late to become lesbians? Or nuns?”

  “Count me out.”

  “Some friend you are. All I ask is one lit-tle thing, like change your sexual preference, or join a nunnery, and look what happens.”

  By the time we climbed up the ladder from the dinghy to the top of the pier, we were cackling wildly. Our audience, including the insolent dogs, wisely scattered.

  Using Fabio’s directions, we headed for the Capitanía, the Port Captain’s office, to check into the country. Even though it was his job, Fabio seemed reluctant to go into town. I told him I wanted to do the port clearance, anyhow, for the experience, but I had another motive: San Carlos is a small town and I wanted to orchestrate my cover story, which would spread like wildfire. By now everyone in town knew there was a gringo yacht in the harbor, which wasn’t all that unusual. However, sticking around for more than a day or two was.

  If I thought I’d have trouble convincing the man behind the desk that we were just two ditzy boat broads waiting for our boyfriends to show up so we could fish our way down to Cabo San Lucas, I was dead wrong. I recognized him from the pier when I made that amateurish landing.

  “Welcome to San Carlos, señoras,” the man said as I handed him our papers. He was dressed in crisp khakis, epaulets on his broad shoulders. Shortish, darkish, probably thirtyish, he had cow eyes to die-ish for.

  I stuck out my hand and gave him the full benefit of my four hundred dollar tooth-bleaching. “Señoritas, Capitán,” I purred. He gave my hand a little squeeze before letting go, all the while ogling the entire length of tall, blond, blue-eyed Jan who, as per our plan, giggled and batted her eyelashes.

  Reluctantly returning to his duties, he shuffled through our papers. “I see,” he observed in heavily accented, but grammatically correct English, “you have an American boat captain, Ernesto Garcia.”

  Huh? I saw Jan opening her mouth to say her own, “Huh?” so I preempted her. “Yes, sir.”

  “And the boat, I see she is yours, Miss Cow-fee.”

  I tried to blush. “Well, you know, a present. From my boyfriend. He’ll be here in a week or so.”

  “A very nice present. When he arrives, you must add him to your crew list. I do not see your other passenger’s name on your papers.”

  Rats. Chino said he was born here, so this guy probably knew damned well who was on our boat. Enter Hetta Coffey, valley gal. “Oh, him. He’s not crew. My boyfriend? He was, like, afraid we’d be bored and get in trouble? So he hired Dr. Yee? To tell us girls all about whales and maybe take us snorkeling? Marine biology is sooo, interesting, right Jan?”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed, overdoing the Marilyn Monroe bit in my opinion. But not Sebastian Lujàn, as his badge read. He was eating it up.

  Being the clever girl I am, I deduced that since our admirer’s name badge didn’t match the one over the door, he wasn’t the real port captain, but an assistant. Lujàn, Lujàn, where had I heard that name?

  “Please,” he offered, “let me be of service. I will make certain you are not bored.”

  “Why, thank you. What a sa-weet man you are.” I elbowed Jan. Enough was enough.

  He tore his eyes from Jan and began stamping papers. I surveyed the sparse office, checking out a large map of Baja marked with ports-of-call, a calendar featuring semi-naked Tecati girls romping on a beach, and what appeared to be a printout of a satellite shot of the eastern Pacific. I took a closer look at the two cloud swirls showing prominently far to the south of us. The sat shot was dated the day before and the swirls had names: Monika and Russell.

  I tapped the printout. “Capitán, are these what I think they are?”

  He glanced up. “Hurricanes,” he said matter-of-factly, and went back to his stamping.

  Jan’s eyes grew large. “Hurricanes? Two?”

  He put down the stamp. “Do not worry, señoritas, they are far to the south. In fact this one,” he got up and pointed to Monika, “has been out there for ten days. We thought she was going on to the west, as they always do, but then she stopped. Now,” he grinned a sly grin, “Monika seems to be waiting for Russell.”

  Playing along, I asked, “What happens if they, uh, marry.” His leer widened. “Most likely, they will continue on out into the Pacific, until they encounter cold water and disappear.”

  “Happens in the best of marriages.”

  This got me a hearty haw-haw. “You are most amusing, Miss Cow-fee. I think you will enjoy Mexico very much, as we Mexicans love to laugh.”

  Glad to be of service. “So, these storms are no danger to us?” Somewhere in the back of my head several gringo boat captains singsonged: “Told ya so, told ya so.”

  We got the Mexican shrug. “Not as yet.”

  I didn’t like the “as yet” part. I intended to check Monika and Russell out on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather site as soon as we got back to the boat.

  After thoroughly pummeling our paperwork with myriad stamps in two colors of ink, he finally placed them in front of me and asked for my signature on seven copies. “I am sorry, but you will have to return for your copies, as the port captain is out of town today and he must sign.”

  Knew it. “No problem. By the way, my boyfriend sent me some mail here to San Carlos. He has a friend who has a friend who has an office in San Carlos. Where can I find…” I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket, “…110 Calle del Mar?”

  He smiled broadly. “That is my brother’s address. Just up this street. I shall escort you. How interesting that your boyfriend knows someone who is a friend of my brother, Ricardo. Come, I will take you to his office.”

  Ricardo Lujàn? There’s that name again. But from where? It’s not like I knew a whole lot of people in Baja. I racked my brain while we trekked out the f
ront door and one block up the street to a two-story building. To my amusement, the sign in front read: Century 22 Real Estate, Ricardo Octavio Lujàn. Well, the Century 22 was amusing. I wasn’t wild about the Ricardo Octavio Lujàn part because I remembered who he was: the very man who bought Martinez’s land out from under him. The plot sickens. The shady character who is buying up all the beachfront property because of insider info is not only the assistant port captain’s brother, he turns out to be the mail drop for Tanuki. Coincidence? You be the judge.

  Ricardo Lujàn was older, shorter, and pudgier than his brother and had these tiny little hands. What’s that old adage? Small hands, warm heart? Small hands, tiny…oh never mind.

  We were barely in the door when he was sizing up Jan’s butt and my boobs. Maybe if he’d been enamored with my rear he wouldn’t have snapped my judgment, but I doubt it. My bad guy antennal detectors vibrated wildly, registering a ten pointer on the Richter scale.

  Struggling to put up a cool façade, I sucked it up, made friendly noises during introductions. He strutted around showing us his office, which was on the second floor of the building, and then led us upstairs to the roof. From this rooftop perch, you could see for miles around the bay and village, but I was more interested in his impressive antenna array and huge telescope. I’d damned well pull my cabin curtains shut from now on. Unless, of course, it suited me otherwise. “Wow, what a huge thingy you have.”

  He looked startled, then saw me admiring his telescope. “For the whales,” he explained, then added with a leer, “I like to watch.” Yeah, I’ll bet he does. I wondered what species of whale hung out inside the window the scope was trained on. Lujàn followed my gaze and had the good grace to blush. After some more small talk, I asked for my mail, which Lujàn made a great show of asking his secretary to find. Like he hadn’t even known it was there and had most certainly not opened it. I could practically hear the flap of pig wings.

  “Well, thanks for the tour and my mail, Señor Lujàn,” I said, with a valiant attempt at civility. I must have succeeded somewhat, because Jan, who had been eyeing me warily, let out the breath she’d been holding. She was premature.

  Unaware of my viperous nature, Lujàn took my hand. “Please, you must call me Octavio or Richardo. But,” he slimed, “do not call me Dick.”

  “As you wish, Ricardo,” I purred. “You shall remain Dickless.” He dropped my hand like it had fangs. Fast learner, this guy.

  Jan, strangulated a guffaw and choked out, “Well, nice to meet you, Ricardo. We must return to Raymond Johnson now.” She didn’t add, “Before Hetta and I pee our pants laughing.”

  “An unusual name for a yacht,” Lujàn muttered, striving to regain his composure with a little inane chatter as he steered us for the door.

  “I named it for my dog, Raymond Johnson Coffey. He died in battle, but not before he fatally wounded a man who attempted to molest me.”

  “What a shame,” he sneered.

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “For the dog, of course. Have a nice stay in San Carlos. What was it you said brings you here to our area?”

  As if he didn’t know.

  “Our boyfriends. They want us to wait here for them, then we can fish our way to Cabo.”

  “Ah. Please feel free to call upon me if you need anything at all.”

  “We will,” Jan and I chimed.

  As soon as we got to the street Jan said, “Dickless Richard? I love it. What a creep. Isn’t he the one Martinez said was buying up all the land Tanuki is going to supply with water?”

  “That’s him. One thing for sure, Dickless or not, he bears watching. And speaking of, do you have your camera?”

  “Yep.”

  “See if you can get a picture of those antennas on his roof. I’ll send them to the Trob and find out what they’re for.”

  Jan focused her camera and clicked off a few shots. “Hetta, I think Dickless has his telescope trained on us.”

  “Well, heck, let’s give him something to chew on.” We both shot our business fingers skyward.

  “Honeys, we’re home,” I called to Fabio and Chino. They were in the engine room doing whatever men do down there.

  I fired up the sat system and pulled up the NOAA National Hurricane Center Tropical Prediction site. A satellite shot showed where both Monika and Russell had been from the moment they were upgraded from tropical depressions into full-blown hurricanes. Hurricanes Nancy, Ophilia, Pamela—don’t I know her?—and Quincy had already fizzled out, while Monika just refused to pall. She was stalled southwest of Cabo, barely hurricane force, but not going anywhere. Roaring up behind her at a surprising thirty miles an hour, packing one hundred and thirty miles per hour winds, Russell was running right up her skirts, so to speak. Their projected paths showed them, in three days, well on their way to the Hawaiian Islands to screw up someone’s honeymoon.

  “I do not think they will be a problem for us here,” Fabio said, looking over my shoulder. “We may have rain and strong south winds, but if they keep this path, not much more than that.”

  “Glad to hear it, Ernesto.”

  Chino looked confused. “Ernesto?”

  Fabio shrugged. “It is better to be American when dealing with officiales, no? I am Ernesto for this voyage.” I noticed Fabio, along with impersonating his cousin, donned yet another persona around Chino: competent, confident, boat captain. No longer Ricky Ricardo, but Gregory Peck, strong chin to the wind. This guy belonged in Hollyweird. Or perhaps the FBI’s Most Wanted List?

  “I understand the importance of being Ernest, Fabio,” I quipped. He looked perplexed. Not an Oscar Wilde fan, I gather.

  Chino, on the other hand, grinned in appreciation.

  The guys went back to fiddling the machinery while Jan and I retired to our cabin with the Tanuki package. Within thirty minutes I had a better grasp on the situation.

  “Jan, these guys are proposing to build a huge desalination plant, and a monster drying kiln for the reject water, right next to a whale freeway. I can already hear the Sierra Club screaming bloody pigmy owls, but the truth is, that’s not the biggest problem.”

  “What is?”

  “I think they can put together a feasibility study for the desal and salt operation that will shut up the tree huggers, but this,” I tapped a drawing, “this baby will send them into their so-called depleted ozone layer.”

  Spanning the entire entrance to Magdelana Bay, albeit on the bottom, ran a twenty-four inch pipeline meant to carry fresh water to the beaches of western Baja. When it surfaced on the north side of the entrance, it dog-legged up the spit of land separating Mag Bay from Santa Maria Bay, then continued north until it once again dove under an estuary and surfaced on the mainland. The inland pipeline would be trenched and buried, but several large pumping stations were required to move the water north. In the other direction, a proposed future branch ran to Ciudad Constitución and their agricultural industry. Okay, so this wasn’t the Alaska Pipeline, but miles of pipe being laid under major whale-ways, then cutting through bird habitats and pristine desert, wasn’t going to sit well with any environmentalists. It would, however, have land speculators doing hand springs. Certainly one I knew of.

  It was time for me to call Ishikawa and find out what Tanuki really wanted from me. He answered on the second ring. “Good, ah, afternoon, Miss Coffey.”

  “Good whatever to you, Mr. Ishikawa. I have the drawings and proposal you sent. Interesting project. If I were you, though, I wouldn’t go out and buy the pipe just yet.”

  “It is on its way.”

  “What?”

  “We have prefabricated the desalination factory and the salt kiln. Along with the pipe, they are all on the way to Mexico. The freighters should arrive soon, as will the salt barges and the pipe fabrication vessel.”

  “Aren’t you jumping the gun a little? Do you own the land? What about permits?”

  “We have a ninety-nine year lease for the land and the permits are in the final stag
es of approval. Since you have received our package, I assume you have met our contact in San Carlos. I wish you to follow up and ensure that all is in order with the paperwork on his end. Uh, please do not tell him that the pipe and factory are arriving so soon. We can hold at sea as necessary. However, the minute you tell us we have the permits, we will move in. We have been dealing with the Mexicans for a very long time and we know to move fast.”

  “Ricardo Lujàn is getting your permits?”

  “Yes, but he will require your approval as an environmental engineering expert, and representative, of Tanuki. And, of course, the blessing of your marine biologist, Doctor Jan Sims.”

  Well, there’s a stretch if I ever fabricated one. I was so nonplussed I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “So, Miss Cohee, you have met Mister Lujàn?”

  “Oh, yes, indeedy. The question is, have you?”

  “No. We always use, uh, intermediaries.”

  “Like me?”

  “And others. Politically, we Japanese have been discrete in our dealings with Mexico.”

  I wondered what all that meant, but mine is not to question why. Mine is to take the windfall to the bank.

  “I’m going out to look over the site tomorrow, so let’s talk specifics. How do you propose to lay the underwater section of the pipe without disturbing whales and other marine life?”

  “A new process. No welding required at the joints. We simply have a small barge that takes the pipe out from the fabrication vessel. The pipe is literally extruded and we can complete the entire entrance span in less than a week. The pipe is weighted to sink immediately. No divers, no underwater welding. We will be finished long before the first whale arrives.”

  Too late, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “You can do all this before the migration season?”

  “Yes. Certainly the underwater section. Probably the factory as well.”

  Efficient, these Japanese. I wondered if they knew their Mr. Dickless Lujàn was buying up all the beachfront property along their proposed pipeline? Since the Japanese are known to plan at least a hundred years in advance, this project must have been on the boards for some time. So, why do they really need me? Sure, I can sign off on the application for permit, but is that it?