A DANGEROUS HARBOR

by RP Dahlke

  Surely she had a sense of his inner struggle but was making light of it.

  Resolving to bring his blood pressure back to normal would be no easy task, but he was sure that any discussion about this case would do the trick. "This will be a delicate case and one we are told to handle with kid gloves."

  "A politician?"

  "Worse," he said, watching her mouth.

  "What do you mean, worse? You don't strike me as a man who is easily intimidated."

  He almost laughed at her use of flattery to get answers. "You know it is illegal in Mexico for any foreigner to be found with drugs or weapons."

  "Yes, it's no secret that your police force is out-gunned by the cartels who can force them to take twice their salary or be shot."

  "Yes. There is that. There are some of us who can't be bought, as in my case."

  "Politically ambitious, are you?"

  He lifted a hand as if to brush away the lock of hair that touched her cheek, then thought better of it. "Not in the way you would think. He's an American who has political influence and to arrest him would mean that the police officers involved would soon be sweeping streets for a living instead of attempting to clean our streets of crime."

  The relief on her face was almost comical. "I'd say that leaves Gabe out of the equation, then?"

  He chuckled. "Yes, yes, definitely not your Gabe. When I got word of a young woman's body found in the ocean, I left everything to Sergeant Moreno and did a background check on you. After your credentials were verified, I saw no reason to hold you."

  "But you thought you might have had reason to hold me?"

  Hold her? If only…. He bit back these unusual and bothersome emotions and continued. "Ah, but then your Gabe walked in and everything changed, didn't it?"

  "What makes you think I care?"

  He ignored her outburst. He had her. There was a history with Gabriel Alexander that she didn't want known and because of it, she would do what he asked. What was it, a rift between them that sawed against the grain of her powerful family back in San Francisco? Or was it something that could affect her standing as a police officer? He would eventually wrinkle out all the sordid little details, but for now he had all that he needed, at least enough for him to get the help he needed to solve a crime. Carefully—he would have to handle her very, very carefully.

  He said, "In spite of this man's influence, we can get a conviction, I'm sure of it… that is, if you're willing to take just a little time from your vacation—to question a few of the witnesses. As a sailor and an American, they will gladly talk to you."

  "Where?"

  "In another marina close by."

  "What're the chances they already know who I am and why I'm there?"

  "I am guessing it is your natural tendency not to reveal secrets to strangers. That is why no one but my sergeant and I know what you do for a living. I apologize for keeping you in the station for so long, but I'm sure that if you were in my position you would do the same thing."

  She squinted up at him, a dimple appearing at the side of her mouth where it tweaked up in a slight smile. "Yeah, I guess."

  "We have a very limited amount of time before your position is compromised."

  "And the suspect gets wind of why I'm there and kills me too, right?"

  He gave her a pained look. "I have a man on the dock. You do not need to know his name, but he will be there to look out for you."

  "Details?"

  "The suspect is Spencer Bobbitt. We had an anonymous phone call saying that gunshots were heard coming from a certain yacht in the marina. We found him passed out in the bedroom of his yacht, blood on his bed, blood on his hands, on the walls and a trail of it across the floor from his bed to the door. Our government has some interest in Mr. Bobbitt, but our main concern is to discover his guilt or innocence."

  "I'm going to ask a stupid question…"

  "He remembers nothing. Nada, zip, zilch, zero. Only that she was picked up and brought to him on the yacht. They shared a drink and after that he can't tell us what happened until we woke him."

  "Did you test the drink glasses for roofies?"

  "The date rape drug? That would be an irony for someone like Spencer Bobbitt. He prides himself on his ability to seduce, and as you know the drug quickly leaves the body and we didn't test him for any kind of narcotics—we were too busy looking for a body."

  "Ah. And then I reported finding a floater, the body of a young woman. Was he unconscious when you boarded the yacht?"

  "Quite. The suspect's captain had the engines running, ready to leave while he tried to clean up the blood."

  "Do you think the captain was your anonymous caller?"

  "His reaction to our inquiries was a bit odd. He actually appeared relieved to have the responsibility taken off his hands. But he was also, how do you say, cagey about his earlier whereabouts. Ironic, don't you think? If someone hadn't called the police we might not have any case at all. Even so, there is still the riddle: How does a girl who is shot in the stomach walk across the floor, jump into the ocean and die of drowning without leaving behind any hand or foot prints?"

  "The captain?"

  Raul Vignaroli was warming to this young woman in more ways than one. She was a good police officer. She was perfect. Perfect for the job he had in mind; that is, if he could manage to keep his eyes from straying to her tender mouth. He smiled down at her then stepped on the first rung of the ladder that would lead him out of her boat. "I'll have my sergeant come tomorrow and remove the chain."

  She grabbed his arm, his hard muscles bunching under her fingers. He looked down at her open mouth. So close he could reach out and take her lower lip between his teeth and… he swallowed hard, his immediate and unintentional response coming out as a growl. "What?"

  She instantly removed her hand. "How… how do you want me to contact you?"

  His plan was working, so why should he feel this worm of disappointment? "I'll be in touch."

  Katy thought about it, about how much time it might take to question some witnesses and about what she was guessing the inspector knew about Gabe, his past, her involvement with him, and how Mexico and the States had a very clear extradition law between the two countries. "'Kay."

  "Okay? You don't want to sleep on it? I could come back tomorrow and we could discuss this again."

  She swallowed and shook her head. "I'm good." Her cabin was simply not big enough to handle all this testosterone… not to mention her own heated hormones.

  He nodded, then silently completed the climb out of her cabin. She followed him out of the boat and onto the dock. She held out her hand as a way to seal the agreement and maybe her fate. He took the proffered hand, and in one swift gesture, lifted her knuckles to his lips and lightly kissed them, sending shockwaves up her spine.

  He took a step back, breaking the connection, and taking a piece of paper from his pocket, handed it to her. "This is the complete list of witnesses at the marina. Your reservations at Marina Mar are confirmed with a slip on the same dock as the suspect's yacht."

  "You're very sure of yourself!"

  "Not at all," he said, his voice now confident that she would do what he asked.

  Then he turned on his heel and strode off into the dark, whistling.

  Chapter Six:

  As promised, the chain and its lock were removed at dawn, doing a lot to improve her disposition. But then so did the bright sunshine and promise of an early morning sail. Accepting the stern line from one of the dock boys and the bow line from an American sailor, she returned their salute, gunned the engine and motored away from the dock.

  Gliding towards the breakwater, Katy tightened her wheel lock, went forward to pull up the main, cleated it off and let it flutter in the slack. Back in the cockpit she bore off a few points and the main filled. With one hand on the wheel she reached out and yanked on the jib line, freeing the triangular-shaped foresail from its roller furling, and slipped between the red and green harbor markers for the o
pen ocean beyond.

  Katy put the boat on a close reach and Pilgrim lifted her skirts like the very good girl that she was and scooted across the bay. It was pure joy, taking the wind and the waves on her bow, and it did everything it was meant to do to soothe her jittery nerves for the half hour that it took to reach her destination.

  All too soon she was closing in on the new marina, where she got a lesson on entering a windward-facing estuary. A sport fishing trawler juked its big engines as it caught the crest of a powerful wave and barreled through the narrow chute to settle into the calm waters of the marina.

  The Potato Patch, a gnarly snag of white water formed by incoming tidal action outside the Golden Gate Bridge, had taught her a lot about riding waves, so in preparation she waited, counting until she saw a break in the rollers, then grabbing the smallest, rode it through the entrance and landed safely without scraping her sides.

  At the dock a couple of Americans motioned for her to throw them her docking lines. One line went to a beat-up rooster in a pair of disreputable shorts, the other to his goosey-looking friend. The men neatly cleated off her lines and stood back to allow her to step onto the dock.

  She pulled off her damp sailing gloves and offered her hand to the rooster.

  Make that bantam rooster, she thought, since his head barely came up to her chin. He also had a recent surgery scar running from sternum to belly button showing through his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.

  "Appreciate the help, fellas. I'm Katrina Hunter, but my friends call me Katy."

  "Well, Katy, I'm Tennessee Booth but you can call me Booth."

  Goosey, on the other hand, stood with his hands in his pockets, his shirt buttoned almost to his Adam's apple and his mouth zipped shut.

  Booth ignored his silent companion and instead nodded at a Mexican in khaki. "Julio is one of our many fine employees here at Marina Mar. He'll tend to your lines if you need to leave your boat for the season or any time at all. We got some powerful tidal currents in here and you'll want to stock up on more o' them rubber-baby-bumpers, 'cause the damn things bust out twice as fast as anywhere else. You stayin' long?"

  "A few days, then I'll have her trucked back to the States."

  Booth gave her and the sailboat a quick once-over, and nodded his approval. "You sail by yourself?"

  "Yup," she answered, matching his folksy patter with her own.

  He shrugged and scratched at the scar. "California?"

  "Uh-huh," she said, turning away to adjust the dock fenders. It wasn't exactly a snub but close enough for the little man to get her point.

  "Well," he said, "garbage goes in the covered box at the end of your slip but Julio likes the empty soda cans in a plastic bag on your bow. Recycling here is very big."

  She grinned at him. The Mexicans invented recycling, mainly for the extra income. She tipped an eyebrow at the other man and Booth tsked. "This here's Wally. Ah, come on, say howdy, will ya, Wally? He don't say much. Wally prefers to watch, don'cha, ol' buddy?"

  Wally gave her a shy grin, but his hands remained in his pockets.

  She tensed, waiting for the next question. Surely, the cruiser's net would have relayed their theories on why her boat was chained to the dock at Baja Naval. The inspector's list had a Wallace Howard on it, but not Tennessee Booth, and she had to wonder, why not?

  Booth caught her wary look and gave her a friendly smile. "As your official welcoming committee, I hereby invite you to a cocktail party tonight at Spencer and Myne's boat. That's spelled M-Y-N-E and you'll see why when you meet her." He winked at her, a gesture that made her smile. "See, Wally? She likes it here already."

  Wally, and now Spencer and Myne. She should just take out her list and ask if the rest of them would be there, too.

  Booth stuck a thumb over his shoulder. "Can't miss it. It's that big motor yacht on the end."

  "I dunno, Booth," she said, not willing to sound too eager. "I'm really beat and I need a hot shower. Maybe some other time?"

  "Showers are inside the hotel, but you make friends with Spencer and Myne and they'll let you have the run of the place. Hot showers, cold drinks, good food. Besides, you gotta eat, don'cha? Get'cher shower, come for the food, meet a few nice folks and then go home. You'll see we're a pretty tame bunch here."

  "Alright," she said, smiling again. "What time?"

  "Six-ish? When you've had your fill of food or us silly old farts, go home. Ain't that right, Wally?"

  Wally nodded.

  Tame crowd, good food, huh? We'll see about that. By the end of the night she intended to meet most of that list and have at least some of the answers to the chief inspector's questions.

  It was late afternoon by the time she stepped through the airy, open lobby of the resort hotel. Intent on finding the showers, Katy slowed to admire the modern architecture and local art. The place was all high beamed ceilings, glass and chrome blended with sculptures of Aztec warriors that looked to have been quarried out of local stone. The club-wielding Aztecs, she noted, were strategically placed next to exits. Nice touch, she thought. Too bad they can't follow me back to the boat and become my bodyguards.

  She passed a rock wall hugging a seascape the size of a picture window. The artist had perfectly captured that moment when a rapidly changing sky releases its light on an unsettled sea. Thunderous clouds chased the hopeful blue of better weather off the canvas while water appeared to be in danger of sloshing off the canvas and onto the stone hearth.

  Turning left, she found a lineup of land-line phones next to the hotel bar and took out her calling card. Cell phones were great but digital meant nothing if the police used Mexican Telecom to eavesdrop. Plugging one ear against the roar of American football on the TV in the bar next door, she started to call her friend Bruce at the department and see if anyone in a Mexican police department had been asking about her, but at the last minute, changed her mind and punched in the number for her mother's apartment, hoping to leave a message.

  "Hello?" The smoky voice answering the phone didn't match what she knew was her much younger looking mother.

  "Mom. I'm glad I caught you at home."

  "Katrina, darling! Of course I'm home. I saw David a few days ago, and he seems terribly glum—even for David. Darling, I made a joke. Aren't you listening?"

  "I heard. Didn't he tell you?"

  "Tell me what? Did you start another fight you can't win? If you wanted to argue with him, you should've gotten a law degree. Katy? That was another joke."

  "Mom, David called off our vacation for the Delta and announced we should see other people." She didn't add that all this happened after she was put on leave of absence from the shooting.

  "Good God!" The other end of the line hummed with the sound of her mother's mental arithmetic for what it would cost to cancel the big wedding. "Does his family know? God, I'm getting slow—of course they do. Everyone knows but me. Katrina, you know I love you, darling, but honestly, this is incredibly inconsiderate. The invitations are out, the hotel! The caterer!"

  "Sorry, Mom. Really, I am. I thought surely David would've said something to you by now. I mailed him back his ring before I sailed for Mexico."

  "Mexico! Are you sure?"

  "Of course I'm sure. I got my passport all stamped and everything." She didn't add that it was still being held by the Mexican police, but that wasn't going to be a conversation she intended to have with her mother.

  "Katrina Hunter, don't be obtuse! I can't believe you broke up with David, when the wedding is less than a month away!" There was a moment of silence and then her mother's voice softened. "Maybe it was a knee-jerk reaction to all the stress you two have been under; his job, that horrible incident with your sister's stalker. I know you took it hard when the department put you on sabbatical but I'm sure it hit him hard, too. You should never run away from problems with a spouse, Katrina. It only exacerbates the problem."

  Katy snorted "Mom, David isn't my spouse and it doesn't look like he's ever going to be."


  "Alright, alright, but you're coming home soon, aren't you? The department hearing is in two weeks and I'm sure you can resolve your problems with David with a little TLC."

  Her mother's comment, that it should be her job to soothe David's hurt feelings, rankled to the bone. "It was his decision and I'm good with it and now I'm here where I should be," she said, leaving out the body she found in the water, Gabe, and that she was now obligated to help with a murder investigation in Mexico.

  "And where are you in Mexico?" her mother asked. "At least tell me you're on dry land again."

  "I made it to Ensenada day before yesterday," she said. "You'd love this marina. Very modern, lots of art and a high-end hotel and spa."

  "Ensenada. Isn't that close to the border? You know those towns are rife with all those nasty cartels. It seems every night the newscasters have some grim new story about beheadings."

  "Oh, Mom, don't worry. All those nasty cartel guys are out lounging by the pool."

  "Katrina Taylor Hunter! Don't you make jokes about something like that!"

  "Mom, I'm perfectly safe. This is a very well-run operation; they have guards and locked gates and everything." Katy was eyeing the bar, wishing she'd thought to fortify that boast with a big glass of wine or two before calling her mother.

  "Well, I must admit the place sounds nice, not that I wouldn't go within a mile of anything north of Punta Mita. We were in Puerto Vallarta all last week and stayed in that wonderful Westin out on the point."

  Here was the reason why her mother missed the gossip about her daughter's breakup with San Francisco's next district attorney. She had a new boyfriend.

  "Anyone I know?" In the five years since Katy's dad died, her mom had stepped out with any number of gentleman friends, all of whom were only too willing to accompany the wealthy Judge Roy Hunter's widow anywhere she chose, as long as she paid their way.

  But then her mother surprised her and said, "Believe it or not, your sister put her very busy life on hold so that we could have some mother-daughter pampering."