Bluewater Enigma_Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series

by Charles Dougherty

  Phillip laughed. "He tried, but he didn't get far. They worked out a compromise. She offered to prove herself by tackling what Clarence thought was a suicide mission. She accomplished it and showed up in his kitchen one morning after she'd been reported missing and given up for dead. He quit asking questions and hired her on the spot."

  "Fascinating woman," Dani said.

  "Yes. On a different subject, what do you know about these people who are chartering with you next week?"

  "Not much," Dani said. "Beverly Lennox and her boyfriend. She's surprising him with the charter, from what Elaine told us. His name is Jeffrey Starnes. You're thinking we should check them out, huh?"

  "If there's a way you can find out more about them, I would," Phillip said. "They have to be tangled up in the theft, somehow. The coincidences are too strong to overlook."

  "We can call Luke and ask him for a favor," Liz said. Luke Pantene was a friend of theirs in the Miami Police Department.

  "Where would he start, though?" Phillip asked.

  "Elaine always gets a scan of the first page of their passports," Dani said. "It's a quick way to make sure they're serious. She won't book without that and a deposit. She's probably got a credit card, or maybe a wire transfer from a bank. It's worth a try. Excuse me while I go call her and Luke; I'll get that started."

  "Clarence told me about the drug stash that Sandrine's people found," Marie LaCroix said, stirring sugar into her espresso. She was sitting with Dani and Liz in the restaurant overlooking the marina. "So we didn't waste any time looking for drugs. Because of the theft, we did check for fingerprints, though. Whoever those people were, they were professionals. They left not one single smudge of a print. Not that we could find." She shook her head.

  "Are we clean, then?" Liz asked the diminutive blonde woman. She knew Marie must be in her late thirties, at least, but she had the look of a clean-cut teenager.

  Marie took a sip of espresso before she answered. "There are no explosives and no tracking devices aboard Vengeance," she said, putting the cup down in its saucer with exaggerated care. "No weapons of any kind, for that matter." She gazed off into the distance, avoiding eye contact.

  "What's the matter, Marie?" Dani asked.

  Marie shifted in her seat and looked first at Dani, then at Liz. She shook her head and glanced down at her espresso. Picking it up, she looked back out at the boats.

  "Marie?" Dani asked. "What are you not saying?"

  "It is not my affair," she said, still avoiding eye contact with either Dani or Liz.

  "What are you talking about?" Liz asked.

  "I am surprised. That is all. What you choose to do on your yacht, that is your business, between you and your guests."

  Dani frowned. "You found something that you didn't expect, I take it."

  Marie looked at her and nodded. "I never thought you would do such a thing. I do not wish to embarrass you. I'm sure you have reasons."

  "Marie, I don't know what you're talking about, damn it," Dani said. "Never mind our fragile feelings. What did you find that you're not telling us about?"

  "Your honey trap."

  "Our ... " Liz frowned and shook her head. "What?"

  "A honey trap?" Dani asked. "You mean ... "

  "For recording the private moments of your guests, I suppose," Marie said. "I make no judgments, and I will tell no one. But I thought I knew you both. I, of all people." She shook her head, a wry smile on her face. She drank the last of her espresso. "I should know better."

  "You found bugs of some kind?" Dani asked.

  "It is a first-class installation," Marie said. "You must have hired the best. No one will ever spot it. We only found it by using metal detectors on the bulkheads."

  "Whoever stole Vengeance installed bugs?" Liz said, frowning. Then, "But you think we put them there?"

  "You are telling me you don't know about them?" Marie asked.

  "That's correct," Dani said. "Why would you ever think we bugged our own boat?"

  "I am relieved, Dani, Liz. I apologize for my mistake, but let me explain."

  "Please do," Dani said. "What did you find?"

  "The guest stateroom," Marie said. "It is wired for sound and video. This is an installation of the highest quality, completely hidden. Placing the equipment would have required someone to dismantle all that beautiful hand-fitted teak cabinetry and trim. It was not done in haste. I think it would take some days, maybe. The wood has been hollowed out to accommodate the lenses and the fiber optic cabling. It was beautifully done. Never have I seen such work."

  "The guest stateroom," Liz said. "They didn't do it to record us, then?"

  "Only the guest stateroom has cameras. The rest of the boat is wired for audio recording only. You see, because of the way it was done, I didn't think it was the thieves. I assumed that you had done this to blackmail ... never mind. I'm sorry I thought this of you, my friends. Probably it is because I am exhausted; I do not think clearly."

  "How does it work, Marie?" Dani asked. "It's not recording all the time, or broadcasting, is it?"

  "No. The technician said that someone would use a remote activator to wake up the system. Then it senses sound or motion. It stores the data on a large capacity solid-state drive which is concealed behind the wood staving that is behind the main electrical panel. There is also an arrangement for Wi-Fi, but he said that would not be of much use unless someone was close by to monitor in real time. It would be too slow to download the contents of the storage device over Wi-Fi. That is another reason I thought that you had installed this."

  "I see," Dani said, exchanging glances with Liz. "Whoever did this is interested in our guests, then, and not in us."

  "It seems so," Marie said. "They went to a great deal of trouble. You have some important people coming, maybe?"

  "We don't know yet, but we're checking. Our next charter guests have raised our suspicions. If you have a minute, we'll tell you about it."

  "Yes, please. Now I am curious."

  Dani and Liz outlined what they knew. When they were finished, Marie said, "This is most strange, yes."

  They were silent for a few beats, and then Marie asked, "Do you wish for me to remove this equipment? Or disable it, maybe?"

  "I don't think so," Dani said.

  "Why not?" Liz asked.

  "Marie, if you remove it or disable it, would whoever installed it be able to tell? I mean, remotely?"

  "That is possible, yes. The technician, he thinks this is the main purpose of the Wi-Fi, for remote testing. Someone needs to be only nearby to do this, you see."

  "Would the technician be able to install a master cutoff switch?" Liz asked. "So that we could disable it ourselves if we needed to?"

  "Yes. He said this. Also, he can install a small indicator light so that you can tell if the system is active. This, he can do very quickly. You wish for me to have him do so?"

  "Yes, please," Dani said.

  Liz nodded. "Thanks so much, Marie. Can we buy you a late lunch?"

  "I am glad to help. I will have the technician do the work this afternoon, if that is all right. And thank you for the offer of lunch, but I hope you will understand that what I most wish to do now is sleep, maybe for some days." Marie smiled, her eyelids drooping. "But you must promise to tell me what happens, and maybe you take me sailing when this is over, yes? Clarence owes me some time off."

  "You can count on it, Marie. Just let us know when. We'd love to take you on a sailing holiday, any time," Liz said.

  "Any time at all," Dani agreed.

  "You decided to leave it all in place?" Phillip asked, as he poured wine for everyone. Dani and Liz were joining him and Sandrine for dinner at their villa. "I would have thought your instinct would have been to have them rip it out."

  "Me, too," Sandrine said.

  "It's not active right now, and Marie's guy put a hidden switch in for us, so we can turn it off if we want to," Liz said. "We both had the same reaction when she told us."

&nbs
p; "You mean to rip it out?" Phillip asked.

  "No, to leave it," Dani said.

  "Why?" Sandrine asked. "I do not understand this."

  "Okay," Dani said. "First, it's a connection to whoever stole Vengeance. I'm pissed off; I want to catch them and teach them a lesson."

  Phillip chuckled and Sandrine shook her head.

  "Besides," Liz said, "they'd be able to tell if we removed it. As much trouble as they went to installing it, who knows what they might do if they knew we'd found it? And their target has to be the couple that's chartering next week."

  "Anything new on that front?" Phillip asked.

  "Yes, but not much. Luke called back while we were moving Vengeance late this afternoon." Dani gazed out at the anchorage, admiring Vengeance. She was silhouetted against the developing sunset, bobbing to her anchor in the small waves that rolled around Pointe Dunkerque.

  "He got all the information that Elaine had on them and ran a records search. Beverly Lennox's address is a long-term-stay, business-suite place; it rents by the week or month," Liz said.

  "He got that by matching her passport up with drivers' license records," Dani said, "but even though she has a license, she doesn't own a car, and never had any auto insurance. The credit card she used for the charter guarantee is in her name, but it's brand new and has no credit limit."

  "That's an odd collection of information," Phillip said. "A false identity, maybe?"

  "That's Luke's suspicion, yes," Liz said. "He's doing some more digging, but it will take him a while."

  "And the guy," Dani said, "Jeffrey Harold Starnes, is even more sketchy. There's nothing on him at all besides the passport. He's sure to be somebody else. He's 42 years old, with no history? Give me a break. Whoever set that up is a rank amateur. At least with the woman, they made some effort to give her depth."

  "What about the passports?" Sandrine asked. "Are they real?"

  "Yes," Liz said. "Issued by the U.S. State Department. They're the real thing, but Luke said there are several ways that can be made to happen."

  "Still," Phillip said, "rank amateurs wouldn't have genuine passports. My bet is they never intended to use them for anything but covering their tracks on this trip. They didn't plan to do anything that would cause anybody to check up on them."

  "I don't quite see your point," Dani said.

  "Well, the woman's information is better put together than the man's. She looks more suspect to me. The guy's having a passport in a false name is suspicious, but it sounds like maybe he just doesn't want anybody to know he's spending a week in the islands with the woman."

  "Hmm," Dani said. "Marie used the phrase 'honey trap' when she told us about the recording system. She thought Liz and I were in the blackmail game. That was sort of funny, until we figured out what was bothering her. She could be right about the honey trap, though."

  "This honey trap, it is meaning blackmail?" Sandrine asked.

  "Yes," Dani said. "This could be a setup to trap the man, whoever he really is."

  "That's far-fetched," Liz said.

  "It is," Dani said, nodding, "but this whole mess is surreal. It only makes sense if this guy is somebody important. If that's what's happening, they've gone to a huge amount of trouble to set him up."

  "And even if that's so," Liz said, "why us? Why Vengeance? It doesn't make sense."

  "It doesn't make sense to us, given what we know," Dani said. "But it might make sense to somebody with a broader collection of facts. You're right, though, Liz. There has to be a tie-in to us somehow."

  "Speaking about Vengeance," Sandrine said, "I received the crew lists from customs and immigration in St. Lucia. The passports the three men used were forged. Not like the ones you described, that were officially issued to a person with a false identity. These were stolen U.S. passports that had been modified, we think. These can be purchased in many places. They will not stand up to close scrutiny, but to check in with customs in a tourist port like they did, the risk is small."

  "Yet another wrinkle in the story," Phillip said. "So those passports were probably used once and tossed. There's no telling who the crewmen were. They could still be in St. Lucia."

  "Or anywhere else," Sandrine said. "Come, Liz. Shall we go prepare the food?"

  6

  "When do you think we should go back to Rodney Bay?" Liz asked, pouring coffee for herself and Dani. They had just finished breakfast of fresh fruit and croissants in the cockpit.

  Dani shrugged. "We don't have to be there until mid-day the day after tomorrow, right?"

  "That's right," Liz said. "Unless you're in a hurry, I'd like to stay here at least for today. I need to do some heavy provisioning; the larder's bare, still, after our three-week layup."

  "Speaking of that, I wonder what the bastards ate? They must have been living aboard for a week, at least, on the passage down here. Did you check the groceries?"

  "Yes," Liz said. "I wondered the same thing, and after what Marie said about fingerprints, I went through everything in the galley looking for stuff that I didn't leave aboard. I thought maybe they left some food of some kind, but there was nothing."

  "Oh," Dani said. "Well, it was worth a shot. Back to your question, I'm fine staying here for another day. You can go shopping, and I want to freshen up the varnish around the cockpit."

  "I didn't — " Liz was interrupted by Dani's cellphone.

  "It's Luke," Dani said.

  "Good morning, Luke," Dani said. "Liz is here with me."

  "Morning, you two. I've about run the course on your charterers; I don't have anything to add to what I told you yesterday. I checked with the surrounding counties to see if anybody might recognize them, but that was a long shot at best. They'd have been in the system if they'd had any encounters with the law. I'm not sure what else I can do."

  "What about that credit card?" Dani asked.

  "I made an informal request, but I didn't expect it to go anywhere. They told me to get a warrant, which is exactly what they should have done. Never hurts to ask, though."

  "Can you?" Liz asked.

  "Can I get a warrant?"

  "Right," Liz said.

  "No. I don't have enough to convince a judge."

  "Even with the drugs we found?"

  "Even with the drugs. There's not enough of a connection to Lennox and Starnes. I agree, the whole thing looks suspicious, but that's not how it works. Their identities are probably false, but again, there's not enough substance there. If they had used the false identities to conceal a crime, or even if we had probable cause to think that's what they were up to ... well, you see my point. We don't even have a good way to figure out who they are."

  "What about facial recognition software?" Dani said. "You've got the passport photos, and her driver's license."

  "Not good enough, Dani. I wish the technology matched the expectations people have from movies, but it doesn't. Without more data to narrow the search, we'd get thousands of hits. Now, if we had fingerprints ... "

  "Fingerprints?" Dani said. "They'll be here in a couple of days, but how could we get their fingerprints?"

  "Where's here, again? You may have told me, but it slipped my mind."

  "St. Lucia."

  "St. Lucia!" Luke said. "I was just involved in a case that had a tie-in there. In fact, it was your pals, Connie and Paul, that got me into it. Paul helped catch a killer using fingerprints from a glass he picked up in a restaurant."

  "Right," Dani said. "Sandrine and Phillip told us about that last night. We had dinner with them."

  "In St. Lucia?"

  "No. We're in Martinique right now. We'll pick up the guests in St. Lucia, but it's only a couple of hours' sailing to get to Rodney Bay from here."

  "There's a guy," Luke said, "a friend of Phillip's. He's the Deputy Commissioner of Police in St. Lucia."

  "Cedric Jones?" Dani and Liz asked, in chorus.

  "You know him?"

  "Yes," Dani said. "He's an old friend of my father's."
/>   "And I've been out to dinner with his nephew a few times." Liz said. "He's a detective there."

  "Great," Luke said. "I'll call Cedric and work it out with him, but if you can get something — a glass works well, but it could be almost anything — that will hold their prints and give it to Cedric Jones, he can have somebody lift the prints and send them to me. Then we might find out who these people really are."

  "We can do that," Dani said.

  "Okay," Luke said. "Leave it with me. I'll be in touch after I talk with Cedric. Sounds like we have a little time. When do your mystery guests arrive, again?"

  "The day after tomorrow, in the afternoon," Dani said. "Thanks, Luke."

  "My pleasure. I can't wait to find out who we're dealing with, here."

  Miranda Velasquez was sitting at her kitchen table when her husband breezed in. She had a glass of orange juice in front of her; a carafe of coffee and two cups were on the table. He poured himself a cup of coffee and pulled out the chair opposite her. Watching a pair of hummingbirds at the feeder outside the bay window, she ignored him.

  "Good morning," he said.

  "You spent the night here for a change?" she asked.

  "I love you too, Miss Piggy."

  "What's the matter? Did your little slut have other plans last night?"

  "None of your business."

  "When are you leaving for this retreat, as you call it?"

  "Day after tomorrow. I've got an early morning flight to St. Lucia."

  "St. Lucia?" she said, her voice shrill. "Is that where you're meeting her?"

  "I'm meeting a few potential contributors. Don't let your fucked-up hormones get you in over your head. You don't want to piss me off. You think just because you're pregnant as a hippo you can get away with bitching at me? I'll take my belt to you without a second thought, put some stripes on that big fat ass. Don't press your luck."

  "Leave me a phone number, in case something goes wrong," she said.

  "There's no phone number; we're meeting on a private yacht."

  "So I can't reach you?"

  "That's right. You're on your own. Have a blast. Maybe you can find some kinky bastard that likes to do pregnant women. Just be discreet; no compromising pictures in the tabloids, okay?" He laughed. "Now cook my breakfast, will you? I'm running late."