Running Under Sail - a Connie Barrera Thriller (Connie Barrera Thrillers Book 5)

by Charles Dougherty

  "You talked to him? Personally?"

  "Yeah, boss. He didn't know much."

  "Or he didn't say much. You push him?"

  "Yeah. He woulda told me anything I wanted to hear by the time I was through with him."

  "What did you do with him after? He ain't gonna be able to i.d. you, is he?"

  "Left him at the dinghy dock; doubt he lived until daylight. I fucked him up good."

  "All right. He heard her singin' one night, you said. Where was that?"

  "Out in the anchorage outside Jolly Harbour, where his boat is."

  "So they musta been anchored out there? This Diamantista boat?"

  "Yeah. He went over and talked to her; got her to go sing with him in the bar that night."

  "Then what? She shack up with him?"

  "Naw, boss. He said he took her back to her boat after they left the bar."

  "You believe him?"

  "Yeah. Like I said, he'd a told me anything; I put a pretty good hurtin' on the little sumbitch before I even started askin' him questions. He didn't want no more of that, so he didn't hold nothin' back."

  "You sure didn't nobody see you with him? You clean, Freddy?"

  "Yeah, boss. No problem."

  "That Diamantista boat still out there in the anchorage?"

  "No. He said they done left about the time he woke up that next mornin'. That was yesterday morning'. I got me a rental first thing this mornin' and went out and had me a look; ain't no sign of 'em 'round Jolly Harbour. He said she asked him 'bout places 'round Antigua worth seein'. He told her North Sound and Nonesuch Bay. Said she was lookin' for places that wasn't too crowded. Told her she oughta see English Harbour, too."

  "So he thought they was gonna hang around Antigua, sounds like," Pratt said.

  "Yeah, pretty much. You comin' boss? Or should I rent me a bigger boat and go lookin'?"

  "I'll be there this evenin'. We got a reservation in Falmouth Harbour for tonight. You might as well hold on and get some rest. We'll use the chopper, fly around the island early in the mornin', see can we spot 'em."

  "Okay, boss. Anything else you want me to do 'fore you get here?"

  "Naw, sounds like you're good to go. Keep your phone on, though, in case somethin' comes to me."

  "It'll be on twenty-four-seven, boss, like always."

  ****

  "What did you think of her reaction to the announcement about Tom a little while ago?" Paul asked, keeping an eye on Sadie, who was sitting on the foredeck, her back to them. He and Connie were in the cockpit. She had the helm and he was alternately trimming and easing the Yankee sheet as the wind oscillated.

  "I don't know; it was a little odd," Connie said,

  "Especially when you asked her if she still wanted to stick to her plans," Paul said. "For a moment, I saw panic in her eyes."

  "Panic?" Connie asked. "What do you mean?"

  "A regular deer-in-the-headlights look, like she was on the verge of flight."

  "You think she knows something about what happened to him?" Connie frowned. "But they didn't even know one another before he came by day before yesterday."

  "As far as we know," Paul agreed.

  "Have you heard from Luke?"

  "Yes, but nothing much. He recognized her name right off, but other than that, nothing. She's indeed the latest craze on the music scene. He's going to do a little checking on her and this Leana Muñoz and get back to me."

  "Okay. Want to ease that sheet just a bit?"

  "How's this?" Paul asked.

  "Better. Did Luke say anything else?"

  "Not about her," Paul said.

  "You're not telling me something ... what's up?"

  "Internal Affairs is nosing around, asking questions."

  "Uh-oh. Has Luke gotten in trouble?"

  "Not about him. About me."

  "What about you?" Connie's brow wrinkled.

  "The questions were pretty guarded, but he thinks they're sniffing around about some allegations of corruption."

  "Well, at least you don't have anything to worry about."

  "I'm not sure. He said my name came up; they're digging through stuff from several years back."

  "But you're as pure as pure can be, Paul."

  "Yes, but some unidentified informant hinted that I might not be; that I might have framed a certain guy to protect somebody that was paying me off."

  "That's absurd," Connie said. "If it didn't happen, they're not going to find anything."

  "You're assuming that they're on the up and up, Connie. Those guys have a different rule book."

  "I don't understand."

  "Luke says the rumor is they're about to break a huge payoff scandal that involves a lot of people."

  "But what does that have to do with you?"

  "I don't know. They also mentioned Maddy, and asked Luke if he knew anything about me giving her a bunch of expensive jewelry when we were dating."

  "Did you?"

  "No, but apparently she says I did."

  "Why would she do that?"

  "Good question. I don't know the answer, but Luke's smelling a setup."

  "A setup?"

  "There are a lot of dirty cops, Connie. We're talking Miami, remember? You can't imagine the opportunities for picking up a lot of cash on the side for looking the other way every so often."

  "I'm missing something."

  "Somebody no doubt did whatever it is I.A. is trying to hang on me. If I take the fall, whoever really did it goes free."

  "But if you didn't do it, how can they prove you did?"

  Paul shrugged. "It might be that shifting the suspicion to me would be all they need. They could decide it was in the best interest of the department not to prosecute me; just blame me and bury the whole thing."

  "That's sick," Connie said.

  "That's the MPD."

  "Is there anything you can do?"

  "Maybe. Right now, Luke's going to keep an ear to the ground, and I'm going to get Larry to hire an investigator to check up on Maddy."

  "Larry? Oh, the lawyer. Check up on Maddy? You think she's got something to do with this?"

  "You know how I am about coincidences. She comes looking for money at the same time I.A. decides I might have been on the take? There's a connection. I'm not sure what it is, but it's there."

  "Here comes Sadie," Connie said.

  "Don't worry about me; I'll sort this out." Paul said, before Sadie was in earshot.

  ****

  "Why is the boat rolling from side to side all of a sudden?" Sadie asked, as she settled herself in the cockpit.

  "When we first came out of Nonesuch Bay, we were on what's called a beam reach," Connie said. "That means the wind was blowing at a right angle to our course. That's the most comfortable point of sail; the boat stands up relatively straight, and the sails stabilize her. The waves usually come from the same direction as the wind, so they're not doing anything but lifting us up and lowering us gently every few seconds. We don't get spray over the bow on a beam reach either."

  "And now we've turned so the wind's behind us," Sadie said. "I would have thought we'd go faster and have a better ride."

  "You're right about the wind being behind us; this is called running. When we turned, we went from a reach to a run, and we slowed down a little," Connie said.

  "More than you wanted to know?" Paul asked, smiling at her as he held the Yankee sheet, adjusting it every few seconds as the wind shifted.

  "No, it's fascinating. But why would we slow down?"

  "The aerodynamics of the sails are such that they're more efficient when the wind passes over both the front and the back," Connie said. "If you think of looking down from the top, the sail is kind of like the wing of an airplane, and the wind is split by its leading edge — the luff, that's called. The curve of the sail makes the air passing across the front spread out and the air across the back gets compressed. The difference in pressure pulls the sail and the boat forward."

  "That's cool! And i
t makes sense, but it still seems like those same things would mean there'd be more pressure with the wind behind us."

  "Except that the sail stalls, like the wing of a plane when the angle of attack is too great. There's not a smooth flow of air across the surface, and it whips around both edges at once, so the pressure difference isn't as great," Paul said.

  "I'll take your word for it. I had no idea that you had to know all that stuff to sail."

  "Oh, you don't. Sailing's the ultimate empirical process. There are all these theories, but none of them quite work right," Connie said. "It's magic; forget all the technical stuff. I just go with what works."

  Sadie laughed at that and leaned back against the rail, gazing up at the sails. "It is magic. But the ride's still better when we're on a reach. That's because of the pressure holding the boat against the motion of the waves trying to rock it?"

  "Yes, exactly," Connie said.

  "And you said this is called running?"

  "Yes. We're 'running,' or 'on a run,' or 'sailing large.'" Connie said.

  "Sailing large?"

  "Right," Paul said. "When we try to sail in the direction the wind's blowing from, we say we're sailing 'close-hauled,' because the sails are hauled in close to the boat. Or we might say we're sailing 'close to the wind,' or 'hard on the wind.'"

  "Did you know the expression 'by and large,' originated with sailing?" Connie asked.

  "No. I thought it just meant, like, 'for the most part,'" Sadie said.

  "Back in the days of sailing ships, people would say, 'she sails well by and large.' That meant she sailed well 'by the wind,' or close to the wind, and she also sailed well 'large on the wind,' or with the wind behind her. Some ships were good on one point of sail, and not on the other. One that sailed well by and large was a good ship under most conditions."

  "That's fascinating," Sadie said. "Thanks for the explanation; I think I'd like to learn to sail myself."

  "Want to take the helm?" Connie asked.

  "I don't know; it looks like you're steering a lot more now than you have been before. Is it hard?"

  "It might be easier if we were on a reach," Connie said. "We'll be broad reaching for most of the trip to Guadeloupe tomorrow."

  "I'll try it then. I don't like being on the run."

  Paul looked at Connie, and she shook her head. "The phrase would be on a run, instead of on the run," Connie said, smiling. "On the run makes us sound like somebody's chasing us."

  "Oh!" Sadie said. "I'll get it right. I wouldn't want anybody to think we're on the run."

  Chapter 11

  Connie steered Diamantista II through the channel between Fort Berkeley Point and Charlotte Point under power while Paul laced the cover over the mainsail. They had dropped the sails on their approach to the English Harbour entrance. Connie was scanning Freeman's Bay, the big cove on the east side of the marked entrance channel, looking for space to anchor. After seeing the photographs in the cruising guide, Sadie had expressed a preference for staying at anchor rather than tying stern-to the seawall at Nelson's Dockyard.

  "It looks like there's not much privacy if you're tied up there," she had said. Connie and Paul agreed.

  Connie saw that Paul was through covering the main and had freed the anchor from its lashings. He gave her a thumbs-up sign, indicating that he was ready to drop the anchor on her signal. She smiled as she watched him explaining his actions to Sadie. The girl was serious about learning to sail; she was asking questions about everything they did, now.

  Connie was glad she was up on the foredeck with Paul; she thought he needed the distraction. He hadn't mentioned the trouble in Miami again, but she could tell it was bothering him. Finding a spot with adequate swinging room, she let the boat coast to a stop. Paul looked back at her, shrugging and spreading his hands in a questioning gesture. She nodded, and he bent to release the chain-brake. She listened to the chain rattle as the anchor dropped, hearing it slow just as Paul waved for her to start backing. When the anchor was set, he and Sadie joined her in the cockpit.

  "I need to go check in with the Park Office," Connie said. "If you still want to go to Guadeloupe early in the morning, I'll stop by customs and immigration and clear us out. That's right next door."

  "Can I come?" Sadie asked. "I read about some shops that sounded interesting. Maybe we could have lunch at one of the restaurants — my treat."

  "Sure," Connie said. "There are more shops over at Falmouth Harbour, too. It's just a few minutes' walk if you want to go. How about it Paul?"

  "I don't want to be a drag on your shopping expedition. How about if I take you in and drop you off? There's stuff I can take care of on the boat. I'll get in a little maintenance work while I stay out of your way."

  "Fine with me," Connie said, knowing that he wanted some time alone to deal with the situation in Miami.

  "Sure I can't buy you lunch?" Sadie asked.

  Paul smiled. "Thanks; I'll take a rain check. It's a little early yet, and you two might want to stop at that Italian place on the way to Falmouth, anyway."

  "Ooh, good idea," Connie said. "It's one of the best pizza places anywhere," she told Sadie. "Wood-fired oven, everything fresh, made right there."

  "Sounds good to me," Sadie said. "Let's do it."

  "I'll put the dinghy together while you ladies get ready," Paul said. "Don't forget your phone, Connie. You can give me a ring when you're ready to come back to the boat."

  ****

  Freddy Thompson leapt from the big rigid inflatable tender when the dock-master brought it up against the stern platform of Morning Mist. The tender had come out to escort the megayacht into the marina, and Freddy had hitched a ride, eager to give Pratt the latest news.

  "He died," Freddy said, when Pratt had asked if the guitar player had regained consciousness.

  "Lucky for you he didn't recover consciousness. You're losin' your touch, boy."

  "I coulda swore the sumbitch was dead when I dumped him. I fuckin' drove an icepick into his brain, boss. He wasn't gonna wake up."

  "Yeah, yeah. You got anything else on the girl?"

  "No, but everybody knows them people."

  "What people?"

  "The ones that own the boat she chartered. They're regulars around here."

  "Ain't nobody seen 'em in the last day or two?" Pratt asked.

  "Nah, but the dock-master at Jolly Harbour figgers they probably went to the North Sound or Nonesuch Bay. Them are the two places they go in Antigua besides here and English Harbour."

  "What about Barbuda?" Pratt asked.

  Freddy shrugged, a blank look on his face. "Barbuda?"

  "The other island," Pratt said, shaking his head.

  "Other island? They wasn't planning to leave the country, from what Tom said."

  "Barbuda's part of the same country, bonehead. It's 25 miles north of Antigua. People go up there all the time. And who the hell's Tom?"

  "Guy who played the guitar when she sang the other night."

  "Oh. Cops got any idea what happened to him?"

  "Rumor is it was a drug deal gone bad."

  Pratt nodded. "He was into drugs?"

  Freddy shrugged. "I planted some shit on him and his boat. Figgered it would keep 'em from lookin' too far."

  "Reckon you done all right then, boy."

  "We got a few hours of daylight, boss. Let's take the chopper and fly up the west coast, 'round to North Sound and have a look. See if we spot 'em. What say?"

  "We gotta get all cleared in first, Freddy. They see that chopper take off before we're legal and they'll be askin' questions we don't need to answer."

  "Shit, boss. It's gonna be dark by the time all that's done."

  "Yeah, well, I'm tired, and anyhow, two hours in the air and we'll find 'em. They can't get far overnight."

  "What if they done left?"

  "Relax, Freddy. The captain's gonna check when he clears us in; he's pals with the customs people. He'll just tell 'em he's lookin' for his friends that run
Diamantista II."

  "Oh," Freddy said. "Shit, I reckon if they left, the customs people might even know where they're goin'."

  "You're smarter than you look, boy. Come on. Let's go up on the bridge an' watch 'em shoehorn us into the marina."

  ****

  Sadie was trying on handmade cotton dresses in the little shop on the second floor of the marina complex in Falmouth Harbour. Connie had left her there in favor of browsing in the bookstore next door. She was enjoying the girl's company, but she was worried about Paul. He had hidden it well, but she could tell he was troubled. She clenched her jaw in frustration; there was nothing she could do to help him right now. Unable to concentrate on the books, she stepped out on the balcony that overlooked Falmouth Harbour.

  "Find anything?" Sadie asked, startling Connie, who was leaning against the railing watching the intricate maneuvering of a motor vessel that she guessed must be close to 300 feet in length. It was at rest several yards off a long face dock on the outer edge of the marina, dwarfing the other boats nearby. "No. How about you?"

  "I picked up a cute little ... " Sadie's voice trailed off as she saw the motor yacht that had Connie's attention.

  "Watch this," Connie said. "This skipper really knows her stuff."

  "You know her?" The tone of Sadie's question betrayed her surprise.

  "No. I don't even know if the skipper's a woman. I just always say that, trying to improve the average. Most of those things are run by macho types. I've only run across one with a woman in charge."

  "Oh," Sadie said, a worried frown on her face as she stared at the yacht.

  "I'd like to watch this, if you don't mind," Connie said. "We might learn something about maneuvering."

  "Okay," Sadie said. "Looks like they're parallel parking. Tell me what's going on."

  "They've stopped parallel to the dock," Connie said, "probably for two reasons. The skipper will be giving all the line handlers some instructions by radio. While they get everything set, he'll be judging how the wind and the current are acting on the vessel. If you look carefully, you'll see that the bow's being blown away from the dock at a slightly faster speed than the stern, and they're drifting backward a little bit, too."

  "Yeah, I can see that. Will he just drive it in?"

  "Probably not," Connie said. "Even at dead slow speed, as much as that thing weighs, the slightest miscalculation could wipe out the dock or do some serious damage to the hull. My guess is he's going to walk it sideways an inch at a time."