Bluewater Killer: A Serial Murder Mystery Set In Florida and the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 1)

by Charles Dougherty

  ****

  Kayak Spirit rolled gently with the swell in the anchorage off Ross Point, just south of the entrance channel to Saint George's, Grenada. Phillip had made a quick stop that morning in Union Island, securing his outbound clearance for Grenada. He had checked in with the Chief Super and Cedric, and gotten answers to his questions. Sea Serpent had indeed cleared into Saint Vincent and the Grenadines two years ago, coming from Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia, but Agnes Saint James had not been aboard, or had not shown up on the paperwork, to be more specific. This tracked with what Phillip had learned as a result of his early morning call to Cedric, in Saint Lucia, who had quickly called back to report that Agnes had not been shown on Sea Serpent's outbound paperwork, either. He saw two explanations: either Agnes didn't make the trip, or Reilly didn't list her on his documents. Phillip figured that Reilly didn't list her, given the clarity of her friend's statement, and her comment about Agnes calling from Bequia.

  Phillip had started a list of missing women, women who had some connection with Reilly. So far, they included Reilly's wife, Andrea, and Dani, in order of their disappearance. He inserted Agnes Saint James' name in between Andrea and Dani. The Chief Super had found that Sylvia Defoe did leave Port Elizabeth, Bequia, on Sea Serpent that winter, bound for Saint George's. He also reported that Sylvia had a police record in Saint Vincent, with arrests or cautions for possession of controlled substances, prostitution, and public drunkenness. Phillip made a note to check with George Castle, his contact in the Criminal Investigation Department of Grenada's national police force, to see if either woman had entered the country during the period of Sea Serpent's visit two years ago. Three women missing was an unlikely coincidence; a fourth would add some certainty to the notion of Reilly's involvement in their disappearances.

  It was too late in the day to pursue any inquiries, and Phillip was tired from his sail down and the rush to clear customs when he arrived. He had wanted to get that done, and he only had about 30 minutes after his arrival before the office closed, so he had taken Kayak Spirit in to the fuel dock at the yacht club. There were customs and immigration officers on duty at the club, and going to the dock saved him the time of assembling and launching his dinghy. He had taken advantage of being at the dock to top off his fuel and water tanks before moving out to his present spot in the outer anchorage.

  He liked it better out here than inside the harbor. It wasn't as protected, but it offered much more privacy, plus a breeze, and the water was crystal clear. He had seen a dinner plate sized starfish on the bottom in 30 feet of water when he had watched his anchor settle into the sand. He was also entertained out here by sitting in the cockpit and watching the commercial ships come and go. Tomorrow, he was planning to call George, his friend in the police department, to see what he could learn from their records about Sea Serpent's comings and goings.

  Then maybe he would move Kayak Spirit around to the south coast, where most of the yachting community was scattered over three or four well-protected bays. He knew there would be a few hundred boats in that area, and he was planning to make the rounds with his pictures. There were innumerable social activities down there: happy hours, organized excursions, potlucks, and other less structured gatherings. Maybe he would unearth some new information. The sun had set, and he had eaten a sandwich. He was starting to feel sleepy when his cell phone chirped.

  "Hello, J.-P."

  "Good evening, Phillip. Are you still in Mayreau?"

  "No. Mayreau is still a one-day town, unless you just want to sit on the beach. There may not even be as many people there now as there used to be when you were in the islands."

  "It's nice to know that not all of the islands have been overrun with development. Where are you?"

  "I'm in Grenada," Phillip said, giving J.-P. his news about Agnes and Sylvia. "I'll do some follow up on both of them tomorrow morning with George, once he's in the office."

  "Okay, Phillip. Please call anytime you have something new," J.-P. said, his desperation beginning to show.

  "I will, J.-P. Good night," Phillip said, disconnecting the call.

  Chapter 26

  Mike sat under the awning of the patisserie on the main street in Bourg des Saintes, sipping his café au lait and watching the girl at the table with him. She was picking pieces of the pastry from her pain au chocolat, nibbling at the crumbs, making it last. When he had first noticed her, on the beach at Marie Galante, he had thought that she was a child. She was a small girl, but, on closer examination, no child. She had been sunbathing alone when he had walked by, going to his dinghy after a follow-up visit to the clinic. She had appeared to be sleeping, face down on a beach towel, the top of her bikini untied, the strings out to the sides, so as not to mark her back with tan lines. She had rolled over and come to a sitting position as he passed, casually leaving her bathing suit top on the towel. That was when he saw that she wasn't a child.

  She had smiled up at him invitingly, and he had stopped in his tracks.

  "Bonjour. Je m' appelle Liesbet," she said, looking him squarely in the eye, smiling anew as she watched him struggling to keep his gaze on her face.

  "Sorry, I don't speak French," he had said, flustered.

  "It's all right," she said. She had a touch of a British accent. "I'm happy to speak English. My name is Liesbet, but most people just call me Liz. Where are you staying?"

  "Oh, I'm here on my boat." He pointed at Sea Serpent, dancing at her anchor a hundred yards off the beach.

  "She's beautiful," Liz said, staring at the vessel critically, her eyes moving along the lines and taking in detail. She looked at the boat as only a sailor would look at a boat. "A Concordia yawl?"

  "Yes," he said, impressed, knowing the boat was at least twice as old as the girl.

  "Was she built in the States? Or by Abeking and Rasmussen?"

  "She's German," he said. "One of the last before they started building the 41-foot version. Would you like to come aboard?"

  "Oh, yes, very much. Could I?" she asked.

  And so, it had begun. She was in love with Sea Serpent, and Mike thought that he was in love with her. They had spent that afternoon sailing back and forth off the beach at Marie Galante, carrying a beam reach on the port tack to the southwest a few miles, coming about and reaching on a starboard tack until they were in the shallow water off the beach again. Liz had quickly taken over sailing Sea Serpent, as the nurse practitioner who had stitched up his arms had cautioned Mike not to use his muscles any more than necessary. He was happy to ride, enjoying the obvious pleasure that Liz took in feeling Sea Serpent come to life under her tiny, calloused sailor's hands.

  "Where is your home?" he had asked her, that first afternoon. "Do you live here, on the island?"

  "Oh, no. I grew up in Belgium. I'm just visiting Guadeloupe. I've been here for nine days, now."

  "And how long will you stay? Are you on holiday?"

  "Well, yes, a sort of holiday. More of what you Americans call a sabbatical, I think." She smiled at him as she trimmed the mainsheet. "I was working for the E.U. in Brussels on a contract, doing some financial analysis. When my contract was finished, they wanted to hire me, but I was cold, so I came here. When I want to be cold again, I will go back to Europe. Or maybe the States. I think maybe I could find work in a warm part of the States."

  "What about your family?" he had asked.

  "Hmm. I have no one, really. When I was very small, my mother died of cancer. My father soon remarried, and my stepmother was kind, but we were never really close. I suppose I was a bit too old to bond with her as a parent. Now, just last year, my father died. I keep in touch with my stepmother occasionally, but just as a friend. How about you, Mike? Do you have family in the states?"

  "No. No one. I was an orphan," he said. "Should we get you back ashore for dinner?"

  "Okay. Yes," she said. "Would it be all right if I invited you to join me? I would buy you dinner, to thank you for the wonderful sail, if that's agreeable."

 
His days passed quickly in her company. He had never spent time with a woman like her. Besides sharing his love of boats, she was intelligent and independent. He had not felt attached to anyone in this way since his wife had left him. Not that he spent any time with women. He had little interest after Andrea, but Liz made him feel young and excited to be alive. They rented scooters one day and toured the island. In the evenings, they ate in the little Creole restaurants in Grand Bourg, and most days, they sailed for a few hours. Mike had never known a woman who so fully shared his love of sailing. He was still surprised that she knew the Concordias, but she had explained that her father had loved sailing. Although he had never owned a yacht, he had often sailed with other people, and he had taken her with him whenever he could. He had always pointed out a particular Concordia yawl that someone kept in the harbor where his friends kept their boat. She had grown up thinking that they were the ultimate evolution of the wooden yacht.

  By the time Mike's stitches came out, they had decided that she would move aboard Sea Serpent with him and sail to the Virgin Islands.

  "Why not?" she asked, with a Gallic shrug. "We get along well, you and I and Sea Serpent."

  ****

  "Where am I?" the girl asked Rosa, her eyes searching her surroundings.

  "You are all right. You are in a safe place, for now. You must be calm. You've been unconscious for some days, now. We have worried about you. It is good that you are awake, but you must not worry. It will take some time for you to understand things, maybe."

  "How did I get here?" she asked.

  "Some men on a ship found you, floating in the water near Saint Vincent," Rosa said. Seeing the uncertainty in the girl's eyes, she paused for a moment. "You know Saint Vincent, the island?"

  "No," the girl said, eyelids drooping.

  Rosa adjusted the sheet over the girl's slight frame. At least she's coming out of the coma, Rosa thought. That's good. If she's awake, we can feed her and make her healthy. She doesn't need to remember. Maybe it's better if she doesn't. Better for her, certainly, but maybe better all around. Some men might pay extra for a beautiful girl who didn't know what was happening. She would be easier to manage than most of the street-savvy girls Rosa got in this place. She thought about the Anglo men that she had known in Miami, with their "dumb blond" jokes. This one might be the ultimate dumb blond, she thought, shaking her head as she went down the hall to find Big Jim.

  She knew that Big Jim would be relieved that the girl was regaining consciousness. Not that he cared about her personally, but the girl represented a windfall. Rosa knew that he would get a good price for this one. She was beautiful, clean, drug-free, no tattoos, blond with blue eyes; perfect furniture for some sheik's pied-à-terre. Big Jim told her about his negotiations with that drunken pig, Julio. They laughed at the notion of splitting the price for this one with Julio. They would give him $5,000, maybe even $10,000 -- nothing, compared to what they would get for this one. She was quite different from their normal stock. Rosa wondered how Big Jim would go about finding a customer for this girl. She knew that none of their regulars would be able to afford a fine specimen like this one. Mostly, they only cared that they got girls, or the occasional boy, that were disease-free, lighter-skinned, and young. Fat, skinny, deformed, there was a market for everything. This one, she would be special. Worth maybe 20 of their regular ones. That was four or five shipments -- say, six months of business. Maybe they should focus on finding more like this one. Fewer, more expensive women would reduce their risk quite a bit, although she knew they would be harder to acquire.

  Chapter 27

  Phillip sipped at a cup of coffee in the cockpit. He had just gotten off the phone with George, who expected that he could find what Phillip wanted in the Customs and Immigration records in time to share his results over lunch at the yacht club. That left Phillip with a couple of hours to kill. He was tired of scrubbing and polishing, and it was a beautiful morning. He decided to relax until lunchtime, and he was getting into it, thinking that he might fall asleep. He was contemplating setting an alarm to wake him up for lunch when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the display as he picked it up.

  "Good morning, Sharktooth. How are things in Portsmouth?" Phillip asked.

  "Morning, morning, Phillip. They gone," Sharktooth said.

  "Reilly and Sea Serpent? Today?"

  "No, Phillip, they lef' the day before. Sorry I let they slip out like that, but the customs, they change the rules. You know 'bout the two weeks?"

  "No. What two weeks, Sharktooth?"

  "You stay only two weeks, one time you clear in an' out, same time. I don't know this. I look in the harbor las' night for Sea Serpent, and there they were, gone. I axe my cousin at the Customs this morning, and he look. He say to me that Sea Serpent do the 'two week in and out.' Tha's the firs' I know 'bout the two week t'ing."

  "Okay, so they left yesterday sometime. Do we know where they're bound?"

  "Les Saintes. That's on the paper. They s'pose to come back to Customs, they change they mind before they leave, but they don' do that."

  "Okay, Sharktooth. Thanks."

  "Sorry I miss that, Phillip."

  "No problem, Sharktooth. Don't worry about it. We're good. I'll call Sandrine, and she can find out if they cleared into the Saintes. Thanks again." Phillip disconnected and called Sandrine.

  He told Sandrine what he needed, and she promised to make a few phone calls to her colleagues in the Douane in Guadeloupe and get back to him, explaining that, while they were using identical software, they had two completely separate computer systems, so that she couldn't just look it up herself. Phillip could hear the frustration in her voice.

  "It's all right Sandrine," he said. "A couple of hours won’t make much difference."

  "Is not the point, Phillip! Is that the right words?"

  "Probably. You say, 'that's not the point,' or 'that's beside the point.' I think that's the phrase you want."

  "Yes, thank you, Phillip. Besides the point, these computer people, they are the idiots. Why do we not have one way to do this, in all of the French Customs? Is the same, the laws, the forms, everything, but I can't see. I must call someone else to see. Besides the point, exactly. I call you back soon. You miss me?"

  "I do miss you. Maybe you can come to Grenada, if I'm here long enough. I'll look forward to hearing from you in a little bit, Sandrine."

  He looked at his watch and decided he had just enough time to rinse his coffee cup and clean the coffee pot before his lunch appointment.

  Phillip sat in a rattan chair on the veranda of the yacht club, looking out over the lagoon, sipping a glass of cold beer as he waited for George. He was studying the fancy new marina that had sprung up on the other side of the lagoon. There was little space for anchored boats in the lagoon now. The sprawling docks of the new development had taken up almost the whole thing. There was a face dock for megayachts along the point at the south entrance; the deep-water berths were in the place where a wide, shallow reef had been. Until the marina had been built, there had been a dogleg channel through the wide reef, which protected the lagoon from the west, but that appeared to be gone, now. He wondered what the next hurricane would do to the new docks.

  "Hello, Phillip, my friend." George Castle interrupted his musing.

  "George," Phillip stood, clasping his friend's huge hand, "It's been a few years."

  "Yes. A few years too many. Welcome back to the Isle of Spice. You shouldn't stay away so long. Where are you staying?"

  "My boat. I sailed down from Martinique."

  "Ah, so you are one of the rich men with yachts, now. What sort of fine vessel did you buy?"

  "She's a fine vessel, but I don't think many rich men would want her. You remember Kayak Spirit?"

  "Yeah, mon! The one old man Rochelle used to sail from Carriacou, when he was running the jackiron rum into Martinique under the noses of the Douane. That Kayak Spirit?"

  "The very same one."

  "I'd like to s
ee her. He was special, that old scoundrel. We miss him. I think the French Customs miss him, too."

  "I imagine they do."

  The waitress came by the table and spent a few minutes flirting with George, who was obviously a regular customer. She left without asking what they wanted, and when Phillip commented on that to George, he said, "What she brings us will be the best, Phillip. She knows, mon. Don't worry. Do I look like I go hungry?"

  Phillip smiled and shook his head.

  "Okay. Business before the food comes," George said. "First, Sea Serpent. She has come here for the hurricane season, every year for the last four years. The owner, this Michael Reilly, he brings her in, and she stays in our waters from early June until late October. One year until mid-November. From his visa extensions, I think that he stays with the boat, but maybe he flies somewhere for a few days or a couple of weeks during the summer. I have all of those dates printed out for you, and where he cleared. This woman, Agnes Saint James, we have no record of her ever coming to Grenada. Same with the other one, Sylvia Defoe. Sorry I can't help you with them. It's possible that they came with him, but they both had E.C. passports, so it would have been no problem for him to show them on his paperwork. No reason he would have smuggled them in, that I can see. I traced the passports, by the way. That's something new that we can do. Neither of them has been used to cross any borders in the last three years. That's as far back as I could go. So, if those ladies are not in their home countries, I think that they are missing. I take it you thought that anyway, from what you told me about J.-P.'s daughter. Sorry I can’t tell you more."

  "That's all most helpful, George. We get a little piece of information here, a little piece there. Soon, two pieces will fit together, I hope."

  "I hope so, too, Phillip. I'm sorry for J.-P. How is he bearing up?"

  "Well enough, I think. He wanted me to let Sharktooth have a 'serious talk' with Reilly, though. His patience is wearing thin."