The Scuba Club

by Rene Fomby

  “Yeah, in theory that’s true, but I’m kind of bandwidth-limited out here in the middle of the gulf, plus I don’t have any real pull anymore inside the agency, ever since I quit to run Bob Sander’s little public-eye operation. But hey, I’ll make sure you get paid for your time—”

  “That’ll never happen, Gav. Sam and I already owe you way more than we can ever repay, and you know that. Tell you what, just text me what you’ve got, and I’ll get right to work on it. How do you want me to get the results back out to you?”

  “I’ll text you an email address for my satellite phone, plus the guy who owns this phone. He’s a detective with the Mexican Federal Police, and technically he’s got the lead on this. You can send anything non-controversial that you dig up straight to him, and he’ll make sure I get it right away. But send the rest over to me on my sat phone.”

  “Will do. And Gav—I don’t need to tell you, if you’re holed up on a tiny little boat with a known psychopath on board—”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll be careful, don’t worry. But can I ask one other small favor?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Could you buzz Andy and let her know what’s going on? But leave out all the sordid details. I don’t want her to worry.”

  “Says the man who once took two fifty mils to the chest and lived to tell the tale. But yeah, I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thanks, bud. And give Sammy my love when she gets back. The four of us need to get together real soon. Maybe after Andy’s bird gets launched.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. And I’ll try to have something fairly superficial out to you within the hour. Okay, given the lack of last names, maybe two. The deep dive will take another day or so.”

  “Perfect. Thanks, good buddy.”

  Gavin hung up and painstakingly tapped all of the names and other distinguishing information he had collected into the phone. When he was finished, he pressed send, then switched to email and sent a quick note to Harry so he’d have a return address for the report. Harry already had Gavin’s own private email address, an account he could pick up using the satellite phone he had left charging in the galley upstairs.

  From the sounds outside in the hall, it was clear Espinosa had returned, so Gavin stood up and began composing his thoughts as he stepped out of the owner’s suite. Next up was Jillian, Casey’s fiancée. Not much to be gained there, just another small box to be checked off the list. But every little checkmark meant they were that much closer to getting off this godforsaken boat and heading home. He thought immediately of Andy and wondered if she had made it home yet herself. To an empty house, at that. Although, given how he’d left her, given the harsh words they’d tossed back and forth last night, maybe she was actually happier with things that way. And he hoped to God he was wrong about that.

  16

  Jillian

  Jillian was already waiting for them when Gavin stepped into the hallway outside the owner’s cabin. She was tall, only an inch or so shorter than Casey, with a coffee-and-cream complexion and a smile that could set off a car alarm. Once again, Gavin and Espinosa mostly expected Jillian to be a non-witness witness, someone whose clear lack of involvement in the case would quickly cross her off their list of targets. But after all they had just learned from Sally, now they knew they needed to readjust those expectations going forward. Or at least be prepared to expect the unexpected.

  Unlike Sally, Jillian arrived clear-eyed and completely sober. Gavin pulled out her chair, the perfect gentleman. Although, of course, his real role in the interview was to be anything but a gentleman. By prior agreement, Espinosa led off. Good cop.

  “Jillian, for the record, can you please give us your full name?”

  “Sure. That would be Jillian Taylor Anders,” she said in a soft, lilting voice, the words sliding easily from her lips, almost like a song.

  “Okay, and Ms. Anders, what were you doing on the night Katy Mulcahey disappeared?”

  “My boyfriend and his high school buddies went for a night dive with two of the other women on the trip. At Trevor’s suggestion, I skipped the dive and stayed behind to take advantage of the hot tub on the boat. With a storm coming in, I thought it might be my last chance to try it. The hot tub, that is.”

  “I see. And was there anyone else in the hot tub with you?”

  “Yes. Billie’s girlfriend, Sally. She stayed behind, too.”

  Something in the way she said that caused Espinosa to pause for a long second. “Right. We just interviewed her. She seems to have a great many opinions—”

  Jillian pursed her lips, leaning forward. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Sally’s a real nut job. And a drug addict. But other than that she’s pretty harmless. And she seems to take good care of Billie, who really needs someone steady in his life. Although, I’m not all that sure if steady is exactly the best word to describe Sally…”

  Espinosa nodded. “Right. Good to know. But, of course, the real reason for this interview is to find out more about what happened to Katy. I know you were here on the boat when everything happened, so clearly you’re not a suspect in any of this. But is there anything you can share about why someone might want Katy dead? Anything at all?”

  “Wait. Are you saying this wasn’t an accident? That someone actually might have killed her during the dive?”

  “Uh, no, we’re—we’re just trying to cover all the angles here. Do a rule out hypothesis, if you will. So, once again, any ideas about who might want her dead?”

  Jillian pushed back in her chair, thinking. “Off hand, I can’t think of a soul. She was a real Mother Theresa kind of person. Everyone loved her.”

  “How about someone who might want to kill her to get to her husband?” Gavin asked.

  “Well, maybe, but that’s kind of far-fetched. I mean, as couples go, they weren’t all that close—”

  “Sally said they had some kind of—agreement,” Gavin offered up.

  Jillian turned in her seat and stared at him hard, trying to decide how far she should go with that. “Uh, well, Sally needs to learn to mind her own business, stop trying to spread vicious rumors.”

  “Rumors?” Espinosa prodded.

  “Okay, more than rumors.” Jillian crossed her hands in her lap. “Trevor, he had a reputation for being quite a player. If it was female and fogged a mirror, he had his eye on it. But then, who am I to judge? If that worked for them, then so be it.”

  Gavin leaned in closer. “So. Did he ever make a play for you?”

  “God no! He knew better than to ever knock on that door!”

  “Sounds like there may be some kind of history between you two.”

  Jillian reached down and pulled a tube of lip moisturizer out of her purse, opening it and smearing it across her lips before putting it away. “I’ve known him since grade school,” she finally responded. “There’s always history in a relationship that goes back that far.”

  “I see,” Gavin said, not actually seeing all that far at all. “Okay, you suggested Katy and Trevor had drifted apart. When exactly did that start? And do you have any idea what caused it?”

  Jillian stared at her fingertips long and hard before answering. “I’m probably not the best person to answer that question. Up until I reconnected with Casey last year, I haven’t had any contact with the group since my junior year at Southlake.”

  Gavin leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Okay, let’s go with that. You say you reconnected with Casey. What did you mean by that? What was the original connection?”

  Jillian waved her left hand absently in the air. “Nothing really. Casey and I went out a couple of times our junior year, but nothing really came of that. He was way too into himself back then, all self-absorbed jock, pipe dreams of making it big in the NFL. I was attracted to him at first because he was so damned cute, and I could have cared less about what he did on a football field, but that was pretty much all he really cared about back then. S
o after two or three dates I simply stopped returning his calls. Then suddenly last year he showed up out of the blue at my church, finally found Jesus in his life he said, and after a few weeks or so he asked me out on a date.”

  “And you said yes,” Espinosa suggested.

  “I said no. Well, at least at first. I wasn’t convinced he was being real about his faith, that he wasn’t just using the church as a way to troll for women. That’s not all that uncommon, you see. In our community, at least. Happens more often than you’d think.”

  Gavin nodded. “But you’re together now. And betrothed. So something must have changed between the two of you.”

  “It did. I got to know him better. Got to know his faith, his character. His dreams. Got to know he’s the one person in this world other than my mother and father who will always be there for me, always put me first.” Jillian glanced down at her hands again, then looked up warily and latched eyes with Gavin. “But, just to be clear, what does any of this have to do with Katy? I was up on the boat when she disappeared, sitting in the hot tub with Sally, and Casey was with Billie. Surely you don’t think we’re suspects in any of this?”

  Gavin shifted slightly in his seat. “No, but I guess we’re trying to understand the whole group dynamic here. How the eight of you fit together, whether there’s something else going on underneath the surface.” He glanced over at Espinosa, then back at her. “I’ll be honest with you. Something here just doesn’t add up. Without going into specifics, it’s clear Katy was murdered during the dive, no question about that. And so far it looks like we have three solid suspects.”

  “Brett, Tara and Trevor,” Jillian said.

  “Exactly. It isn’t hard to work out the arithmetic on that one.” He glanced over again in Espinosa’s direction. “The obvious suspect is, of course, Trevor, her husband. He clearly had the opportunity, seeing that he wound up that evening so far away from the group while on a buddy dive with his wife, who we can presume was swimming along beside him. And he had ample motivation, probably several million dollars of—”

  “More like billions,” Jillian murmured under her breath.

  “What?” Espinosa was now fully engaged in the interview, after mostly sitting back and letting Gavin run the show.

  “Yeah, Casey tells me she inherited well over a billion dollars from her father when he died. And stands to inherit almost ten billion more when her mother passes. Which apparently isn’t all that far off in the future, given her mother’s feeble health ever since daddy kicked the bucket.”

  Gavin and Espinosa locked eyes. Motive, indeed.

  Jillian stood up, waving her hands at them in exasperation. “What, you didn’t know that? It’s all been spelled out in plain black and white in the pages of People magazine, for God’s sake! What sort of cops are you?”

  A moment passed before Gavin spoke up. “Two cops who are clearly behind the curve on this thing. And, in all fairness, I guess that’s the answer to your earlier question. Why we’re interviewing you. Because you clearly have the inside skinny on what’s really going on here. What’s really going on behind all the closed doors.”

  “Well, I would strongly suggest you two focus on catching up on what every housewife and busybody in America already knows, and let me get the hell off this boat and back home before that damned hurricane makes this whole investigation yesterday’s news!” With that she turned sharply and stomped up the stairs toward the salon. Gavin and Espinosa, who under any other circumstances would have stopped her from leaving, simply sat and stared. Knowing she had made a very good point. They were way behind with their homework on this case. And there was a hurricane headed their way that really didn’t care.

  17

  Brett

  It was getting late, but Gavin hoped they could get at least one or two more interviews in before everyone tucked into their rooms for the night. When he poked his head up out of the stairway, he saw Brett Cutler sitting beside Tara on a small couch in front of the television, playing with a mostly-full bottle of beer while his wife looked busy tossing back her third, judging from the wreckage on the table in front of her. Sally was at the bar pouring a healthy splash of some kind of dark alcohol into a glass of Coke, not bothering to water it down with any ice cubes, while Billie looked on with a mostly sour expression written across his face. Trevor had disappeared again, and Casey and Jillian were sitting well apart from Brett and Tara on the other side of the salon, talking quietly to themselves.

  Gavin flipped a coin in his head. So far the combination of female hormones and alcohol was having a useful effect on their questioning, so taking a small gamble he motioned for Brett to join them downstairs. Giving Tara time for maybe one or two more beers. Brett threw a quick and disapproving look in the direction of Sally’s glass, and then at the third empty beer bottle Tara had just deposited on the table before he rose somewhat reluctantly and strode toward the stairs.

  Once everyone was back in position downstairs, Espinosa took the lead. “First off, is Brett Cutler your real name, or is it a nickname?”

  “The former, I suppose,” Brett answered with what Gavin took as a slight country twang, courtesy of a great many years growing up around the Metroplex. His clothes, on the other hand, looked more like East coast preppy, white shorts and a red Polo golf shirt worn outside of his pants, his feet tucked into a pair of dark brown boat shoes with spotless white soles. “The name on my passport says Hendrick Brett Cutler IV. My dad goes by the name Henry. As does his.”

  Espinosa let that sit for a second. “You don’t sound all that proud to have your old man’s name.”

  Brett snorted. “It’s not the name so much as the baggage that comes with it.”

  “Are you saying your father isn’t completely happy with the life choices you’ve made so far?” Gavin asked while jotting down small notes on his yellow pad.

  “Oh, he was happy enough when I was everyone’s all-American quarterback. And he didn’t complain at all back then about the caliber of women I was dating.”

  “You mean Katy?’ Espinosa asked, his eyes studying Brett’s face very carefully.

  “Yeah. Katy. I guess Sally must’ve told you.”

  Gavin wrote that down as well. Why did Brett think it was Sally who had spilled the beans?

  “Actually, I believe it was Casey who first brought that subject up,” Espinosa explained. “But while we’re on that topic, let’s talk about that. How did you and Katy first meet?”

  “It was the summer after my sophomore year. We were both counselors at a Christian youth camp up in North Dallas. It was all pretty innocent, at least at first. We were both into Christian rock bands, loved waterskiing every chance we got. And, of course, she claimed to be a big football fan, although outside of being a cheerleader at her high school, I don’t think she had the slightest clue about what was really happening out on the field.”

  “But she figured out you were the quarterback for Southlake Carroll who had a lock on a Power Five scholarship, and maybe in the end a sure-fire ticket to the NFL,” Gavin suggested.

  “That’s what everyone was saying back then, yeah. Before I got blasted accidentally in practice on a blindside hit and threw out my shoulder. Nothing was ever quite the same after that.”

  “That’s when Trevor stole your job on the team. And then your girl,” Espinosa said, watching Brett’s reaction even closer now.

  Brett sat back and blew out a long breath. “He didn’t exactly steal my job as QB1. He earned it, fair and square. By the time I was healed up enough to go back in, he was already driving the team toward the playoffs. Coach would have been stupid to pull him out.”

  Espinosa leaned in closer. “But that doesn’t answer the bit about him stealing your girl. Stealing Katy right out from under you.”

  Gavin thought that sounded a little too graphic, all in all, but Brett didn’t seem to notice.

  Brett stared off out a small window cut into the side of the ponto
on that was now flickering almost constantly with flashes of lightning on the far horizon. It took him a while to respond. When he did, his North Texas drawl was even more pronounced, his voice lower, more hesitant.

  “I think that was more my doing, to tell the truth. I was pretty banged up with the shoulder injury, for sure, but I think I was even more banged up inside, watching Trevor week after week making everyone forget I had ever played for Southlake. Wandering around the town in my shoulder brace hearing everyone gush on and on about Trevor this and Trevor that. So, Katy? She was just a victim of my own stupidity, my own inability to get past all that. And by the time I finally came to my senses she was out of my life completely. Trevor really didn’t have anything to do with any of that. He was just there to pick up the pieces of what I had so carelessly tossed aside.”

  Gavin might have believed that story if it hadn’t come off so well-rehearsed. And of course Brett had rehearsed it, told that same story a thousand times at least. By now he might even believe most of it himself, because the alternative was to come off bitter about what had happened his senior year, and bitter was for losers. Not for someone who had taken his team to the brink of a state championship his junior year.

  Sensing they weren’t going to draw much blood with this line of questioning, at least not right now while Brett had his armor fully in place, Gavin decided to try a new tack.

  “Tell us about Tara. How did the two of you meet?”

  Brett’s eyes seemed to drift away slightly. “It was down in San Marcos, when I was playing for Texas State. Late my sophomore season, when I had finally established myself as QB1 again. Tara was a reporter for the school paper and was doing a story about how jocks manage to juggle all the games and practices, and still keep up with their classwork. She came to interview me, because among other things I was on the Dean’s List and was already an Academic All-American.”