by Rene Fomby
Brett stepped forward, clearing his throat. “Well, at this point, I suppose that’s good news, sad to say. Obviously, there was next to no chance we would ever find her alive, not this late in the game. But now we know for sure, and we have a body to bury. So at the very least we can all maybe find some kind of closure to all this.”
He glanced over at his friend Trevor, who had sunk down on a couch, his head buried deep within his hands. Everyone else in the salon looked suddenly uncomfortable, not knowing what to do or say to help their friend through this moment. Casey walked into the galley and brought back a beer, which he opened and set on the table in front of Trevor.
One of the girls spoke up. Gavin hadn’t yet gotten her name, but from her body language he guessed it must be Casey’s girlfriend. Her skin was the color of a Starbucks cappuccino, and her dark straight hair rested easily on her shoulders. Unlike the other two women, who were showing off quite a bit of skin and cleavage, this one was dressed rather modestly in loose linen slacks and a white cotton blouse.
“Now that the mystery is solved and all that, does that mean we can leave?” she asked, waving one hand around for emphasis. “I mean, with this nasty storm and everything, there’s really not a whole lot for us to do out here on the boat. Or even onshore, for that matter. So I for one would like to see if I can change my ticket and fly home early.”
One of the other girls nodded. Brett’s wife, Tara? Gavin guessed. “Me, too. Personally, I’m starting to get a little seasick out here, what with all the waves and stuff. And after what happened to Katy, being stuck out here has become kind of creepy, you know?” Her eyes were wide as they jumped around the corners of the small salon, as if ghosts might fly out at them at any moment.
Espinosa apparently decided he needed to take command of the situation. “I understand completely,” he said in a low, gravelly voice. “But I’m afraid we can’t let you go just yet. There are still some formalities we need to observe before we can officially put this case to rest.”
“Formalities?” Brett asked, draping a protective arm over his wife’s shoulders. “What kind of formalities could possibly be important enough to keep us here, after everything that’s happened?”
“Oh, nothing special,” Espinosa answered with a slight wave of his hand. “We just need to finish taking statements from the rest of you. That sort of thing. I’m sure you can understand my position. If it was up to me, I’d cut you loose right away, but my boss—”
“Can we at least move this whole circus to a hotel, or some other place onshore?” Casey asked, walking over to stand beside his girlfriend, his left arm wrapped lightly around her waist. “Some place where we can at least get a decent hot meal for a change?”
Gavin caught Espinosa’s eye. “Uh, I think that might be a little too dangerous at the moment. Our trip over here was pretty darn scary, so I’d hate to sign off on anything that might get someone else killed. I think we can all agree that one dead body is more than enough.”
That comment triggered a soft sobbing noise coming from Trevor’s direction, and Gavin moved quickly to cover his unthinking gaffe. “Okay, I know it’s late, but why don’t we see if we can put all this behind us as quickly as we can, all right? I’m sure Espinosa and I can get your statements before bedtime, then we’ll see what tomorrow morning brings.” He glanced around him. “Um, is there any place on the boat where Espinosa and I can bunk down for the evening?”
Trevor looked up, his eyes red and watery. “There are two berths up front, in the very tips of the pontoons,” he said in a quiet voice. “The access is from up top, I’m afraid. No way to reach them from inside the boat.”
Gavin turned toward the forward windows, which were once again being lashed with solid sheets of rain, torrents so thick it was nearly impossible to make out the shadowy shoreline just a few hundred feet away. He thought he could also detect the low rumble of thunder off in the distance, but he couldn’t be sure. “Is the top secure? I mean, what with all this weather out there, is there something to hold onto to keep from being swept overboard as we make our way to the front?”
Trevor thought about that for a second before answering. “There’s a glass door that opens up from the main salon onto the trapeze area, and then it’s only a matter of a few feet before you reach the hatches to the forward cabins. There’s also safety netting all along the edge of the boat, up to about hip level.”
“I guess we’ll just have to manage, then.” Gavin moved over to where a small desk was set up near the galley, with radios and several computer screens arrayed along the wall at eye level. “Say, is there any way to check on the status of that storm out there? Do you guys have weather radar, or access to the Internet from in here?”
Trevor shook his head. “There’s radar, but it’s not going to tell us much about the storm from this far away. And the Internet is supposed to work out here, but it went down this morning. Same with cell service. We’ve got enough signal to maybe get a text or two, or even a short email, but the phone service looks to be pretty much kaput right about now. And the Internet along with it.”
Espinosa patted the phone in his pocket. “Yes, the wind wiped out a major communications tower in San Miguel a little earlier today, knocking out most of the cell phone bands you Americans use. I still have spotty service at best, but I left word with my staff to call me if there are any updates on the storm’s track. And we still have the boat’s ship-to-shore radio as a backup.”
Gavin pulled a chair out from underneath the desk and sat down. “Okay, I guess that’ll have to do for now. So, since we’re all stuck out here together, why don’t we get started with the statements? We already spoke with Casey, and I still have some follow up questions to chase down with him later, but for now, why don’t we move on. Who’s next? Brett?” Gavin’s eyes shifted from Brett to the fourth guy in the salon, a man he had yet to meet. A little shorter than the other two men, but much stockier. And even given the fact that he was on vacation, his clothes had him pegged as being quite a bit poorer than the rest of the crowd. Worn out T-shirt, blue jean shorts and flip-flops made up the ensemble, although that could have just been a look he was going for. Casual beach bum, or whatever. “It’s Billie, I take it?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered, sticking out a hand that Gavin met with a quick, firm shake. “Billie Peterson. And this is my girlfriend Sally.” Sally waved back shyly. She had tight blond curls hanging well past her shoulders, and was sporting a cropped orange tank top and a skin-tight white mini skirt that was trying but largely failing to disguise the red panties she had on underneath. Gavin made a quick judgment call about her, checked it, then finally decided he was right the first time.
He gave her a small shake of his head. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Agent Gavin Larson, with the U.S. government. And this is Detective Tony Espinosa with the Mexican Federal Police. You probably know them as the Federales.”
Espinosa caught a brief flash of what he took to be genuine panic in Billie’s eyes at the mention of the word police. He made a mental note to follow up on that later. “Okay, then, if it’s all right with everyone, why don’t we start with you, Billie? We can either do this down below, or set up shop right here. But we do need to handle this one-on-one, or—” tossing his head in Gavin’s direction “—two-on-one, to be precise.”
Trevor stood up. “We have a small desk area set up in the middle of the owner’s suite that might work for you. That way the rest of us can hang out up here and watch TV, maybe throw together some kind of dinner. Although, personally, I’m not feeling all that hungry…”
Gavin gave him a thumbs up to cover the awkwardness of the moment. “That’ll be perfect. You guys just go about your business, don’t give us a thought. We’ll try to stay out of your hair as much as possible.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I’m going to need a stiff drink right about now,” Sally said, holding up an empty glass. “We still have any of that
Captain Morgan’s left?”
Billie walked over to the galley and started rummaging around the sizeable collection of random bottles littering the counter. “A little bit. But we do have a full bottle of Jamaican rum, and a giant bottle of vodka. I think that should get us through the night.”
Gavin smiled quietly to himself. Getting them all liquored up before questioning them, he couldn’t have come up with a better plan himself. And he saw from Espinosa’s face that his new partner felt the exact same way.
13
Billie
Brett helped Gavin and Espinosa drag two additional chairs down the stairway into the cozy little seating area, arranging them so the two policemen could flank Billie on either side. In Gavin’s experience that was the best way to keep their witness as uncomfortable and off-balance as possible.
Espinosa took the lead in questioning, opening up his small notebook and laying it flat across his lap. “So, Billie Peterson, is it? Is that your Christian name, or just a nickname?”
Billie looked uncomfortable with the question, fidgeting in his seat a bit before answering. “Actually, my real name is William Ainsworth Peterson. Junior. But nobody ever calls me that. I’ve been just Billie ever since I can remember.”
“Fair enough,” Espinosa said, noting the name in his book. “So, what do you do for a living, Billie?”
Billie inclined his chin in the direction of the small group upstairs. “For the past five or six years I’ve been working for Trevor. He owns a number of commercial properties, and I take care of them for him.”
“Take care of them? What do you mean by that?”
“You know, maintenance, mostly. Something breaks, I fix it. Someone moves out, I go in and clean the place up so it can be leased again. That sort of thing.”
Espinosa saw Gavin arch an eyebrow over Billie’s left shoulder. “I see. That seems like an unusual occupation for someone coming from a wealthy family. I take it your family is wealthy?”
Billie looked uncomfortable again. “My folks do okay, I suppose. But as for what I do, it’s honest work, you know? I put in a day’s work, I get paid for it. Nice and simple, that’s the way I like it. And I didn’t have to go to college to figure it all out.”
Gavin took that as a golden opportunity to butt in. “You mean you didn’t get a fancy football scholarship coming out of high school like all your other buddies?”
“Naw. I mean, sure, they looked at me, especially after our senior season, when I set the state record for yards from scrimmage for a running back. But my academics weren’t right. I’ve never been all that good at taking tests. I freeze up, and my head just won’t work for me. Dyslexia, you know? Not that anyone ever recognized that as a problem, especially after I started becoming a force to be reckoned with out on the football field. I pretty much got a free pass in every one of my classes, pardon the pun. And back in the old days, that wouldn’t have been a problem, the big schools had everything rigged to slide you past anyone and everyone who might be watching. Even had special classes set up for the football players who needed extra help. But nowadays that’s all a thing of the past, I suppose. Too many eyes watching what everyone’s doing, and the schools are getting jumpy about being caught with their pants down. I guess, in the end, they just had plenty of other tailbacks available who didn’t come loaded up with a sack full of problems.”
“So, no college at all, then?” Gavin asked.
“Nopers. I went from high school straight into construction. And with the economy up in North Texas as hot as a whore on Saturday night, I did alright for myself. Not that my father agreed.”
Gavin wrote down “conflicts at home with papa.” “So how did you come around to working for Trevor?”
“Well, after I picked up some skills in the construction bidness, even doing a little plumbing and electrical work, Trevor started collecting a bunch of small commercial properties on the side. I guess he got tired of always having to chase down somebody to fix all the little bullshit problems that pop up every now and then, so he came to me with a proposition. I devote all of my time to taking care of his properties, and in return I get a salary and a cut of the action. Seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, especially since construction work can sometimes be hit or miss, you know? And you can’t make money if you’re sitting on your butt, so this way I had a steady income. Better yet, I could set my own hours, didn’t have a bossman breathing down my neck every minute of the day.”
“It must pay pretty well, if you can afford trips like this every year,” Espinosa suggested.
“Naw, this is just a perk. Trevor picks up the cost of the trip for me every year. Again, you don’t get that kind of side benefit working some job site.”
Espinosa tapped his pencil on his notebook. That look in Billie’s eyes a little while earlier. And that report he got from one of the agents he had watching the boat. No way they weren’t connected. “Okay, let’s move on, shall we? You are aware, aren’t you, that we’ve had this boat under surveillance ever since your friend Katy turned up missing, right?” There, that panicked look again. “Is there something you need to tell me right about now? Something you need to confess, before I decide to take you into police custody right here and now?”
Billie’s eyes were darting from Espinosa over to Gavin, and their positions flanking him forced Billie to turn his head slightly back and forth as he did so. “Wha—what do you mean? Arrested? For what?”
Gavin smiled as Espinosa leaned in for the kill. “About an hour before we returned from the hunt for Katy’s body, my agents saw you dump something off the back of the boat. What was it?”
“I—I didn’t—it wasn’t—”
Espinosa’s eyes bored deeply into his victim’s, pinning him like a gigged frog. “Just so you’re aware, that act, getting rid of what was almost certainly critical evidence in this case, that is a very serious felony, my friend. You could easily do twenty years in a Mexican prison for that. Maybe more. So come clean with us, now, and maybe we can show you some mercy.”
Billie’s focus turned inward as he ran the quick calculus of resistance in his head. Finally he seemed to give up. “It wasn’t evidence. At least I don’t think it was. It’s just that—Sally and I brought some weed with us, is all. She had it shoved up under her mattress down in our cabin, and, well, after the two of you showed up earlier today, she was afraid that the Mexican police would search the boat and find it. That’s the God’s own truth, I swear it! So I just dumped it all off the back of the boat, about a hundred bucks worth of weed, because she was going all crazy on me, thinking you guys would bust in and arrest us for the dope and throw us into some stinking Mexican hell hole.”
Espinosa stared at him long and hard with a face of stone. “And if I drag your girlfriend in here right now, is that the same story she’ll tell us? Or is there something else to this story you’re hiding from us?”
“No, no, it’s the truth, I swear it. Well, there might have been some other drugs in there as well, I didn’t really look. But as far as I know it was all just weed.”
Espinosa checked with Gavin, who nodded. They had both spent most of their professional lives reading faces and voices, and Billie’s story rang true. Of course, they would still need to follow up with his girlfriend Sally, just to be certain. “All right, we’ll let that one slide for right now. Let’s focus in on last night. Did all of you participate in the night dive?”
Billie looked visibly shaken, and it took him a few moments to recover and answer the question. “No. Sally, and Casey’s girlfriend, they’ve never done this before. Never been diving, that is. Oh, we got them lessons before we came, of course, but going on a night dive? That was way outside of their comfort zone. So they stayed back. I think Sally rolled some weed and they took advantage of the hot tub in the front of the boat.”
“Okay, that leaves the six of you. I take it you all buddy dived?”
“Yeah. Brett and his wife teamed up,
of course, as did Trevor and Katy. That left Casey and me together.”
Espinosa jotted that into his notebook. Billie’s story so far matched to a T what Casey had told them earlier. “Good. Now, you and Casey, you were together the entire time? Was there any point where the two of you weren’t together?”
“No, except for a short period of time when we first went down. He jumped in the water first and started to descend, just like the dive master told us. Other than that, he was never more than ten feet or so away from me. And we came up together, did our safety stop together at twenty feet. Why?”
“We’ll ask the questions, thank you,” Espinosa said with a frown. “Okay, now, think back. When was the last time you can recall seeing Katy Mulcahey?”
Billie scratched his head. “Let’s see. I saw her when we first got down to the bottom. She was swimming along just behind Trevor. Well, not really swimming. The current was so strong, it was more like we were all flying over the coral, almost out of control at times. In fact, that was a real problem for me. For some reason, I seemed to catch the current way more than any of the others, so every now and then Casey and I would have to squat down behind a coral head, out of the current, and wait for the others to catch up.”
“Right. So did you see her later on at some point while you were squatting down behind the coral?”
“A couple of times, yeah. Although most times it was really hard to tell one person from another. It helped that she had those yellow fins, but even so, it was pitch black down there, and almost impossible to tell who’s who unless a light was shining on them. The fins, I mean. But, I don’t know, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes before we all came up? I think that’s the last I can remember seeing either her or Trevor. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. I remember checking my down time and my air reserves. All that work ducking down behind the coral, I was concerned it might be eating up my air, and I’d have to come up before everyone else in the group was ready. That’s kind of embarrassing, especially on a night dive, when you’re all supposed to stick together.”
