by Rene Fomby
Gain knew from his earlier interviews that alcohol consumption could only help to loosen this group’s tongues, so he nodded. “Whatever you need, Mrs. Cutler. But look, is Billie going to be down there long?
Just as he said it they all heard the sound of clomping boots coming up from the starboard side, and Billie’s head emerged from the stairs leading down to the pontoon. “Boy, that was a real bitch. And on a brand new boat, too. If I hadn’t been here that could have sunk us for sure.” He finally seemed to notice Gavin and Espinosa. “Oh, hi! What’s up?
Gavin answered, waving the final remains of his sandwich. “I’m afraid we have a few more questions for you, Billie. But feel free to grab lunch first. After all, it doesn’t make much sense to mistreat the one guy who’s keeping us all afloat.”
“Oh, no problem. Sally brought a sandwich down to me earlier, right after I’d finished resetting the anchors.” He glanced around the salon. “By the way, anyone seen her lately?”
Tara shrugged. “She went down to your cabin a while ago, said she wanted to ‘read her book,’ whatever that means. Frankly, she doesn’t really seem like the book reading type, but then, what do I know?”
“Yeah. Okay.” Billie wiped his face roughly with his right hand. “Well, I guess that means I’m free for the time being. You guys want to get started?”
Gavin could tell by the look on Espinosa’s face that he was every bit as confused by the book reference as he and Tara were, but decided to let it slide for now. He inclined his head toward the interview area, then tossed the paper towel holding the last crumbs of his lunch in the trash and followed Espinosa and Billie down below.
Before they could get settled in, Billie opened up. “Look, you guys being cops and all, you probably ran a background check on my priors, right? And found out about my little run-in with the law a few years back?”
Gavin flipped his notepad to a blank page, writing “Billie” at the very top. “Well, that wasn’t where I planned to start, but now that you’ve brought it up—”
“The thing is,” Billie interrupted, “it wasn’t even my stuff. It was Sally’s. She asked me to stick her pills in my pocket because she didn’t want to bring a purse and her dress didn’t have any pockets. We were going to an outdoor concert in the park, and I guess she wanted to get high just as soon as the music started. They found the stash when we went through security. In hindsight, it was really pretty stupid of me, could have cost me several years in the pen, plus having a felony hanging over my head the rest of my life. So I suppose I got lucky in the end getting all that dismissed.”
“Yeah, about that,” Gavin said, his eyes boring into Billie’s. “How exactly did you pull that off? Getting a felony drug possession charge dropped to a misdemeanor deferred?”
Billie spread his hands wide. “I didn’t do a thing. It was all Katy’s doing. When it all went down, I turned to Trevor first, asked for some money up front to hire a good lawyer, instead of the worthless court appointed the judge assigned me. But Trevor just laughed in my face, said I had it coming to me for hanging around with trash like Sally.”
“That must have really stung,” Gavin suggested.
“Yeah, it did, in a lot of ways. But anyway, after he walked off, Katy waved me aside and told me she’d take care of it. And she did, hiring the former DA out of Dallas to make the case go away. I’m not even sure how he managed to pull that off, but within a week he trotted me in front of that same no-good judge I saw the first time through, and I pled guilty to the deferred and got six months on good behavior. Katy even paid all the fees and fines.”
“So are you still paying on the loan she gave you?” Espinosa asked, breaking into the conversation for the first time.
“No, there never was any kind of loan. Katy did it as a gift, out of the kindness of her heart. I’ll never forget that as long as I live. She just told me to pay it forward, to help somebody else out some day who’s in a similar tough spot. And that’s why all this has probably hit me harder than anyone else. I’ve never met anyone kinder or more generous that Katy Mulcahey, and I’m pretty sure I never will. The world will never be the same with her gone.”
Billie’s revelation seemed to take all the air out of Gavin’s theory that he and Casey had circled back to ambush Katy in the dark, but there was still one angle Gavin needed to pursue. “Okay, that pretty much matches what we have on you so far, but one thing still bothers me. Earlier on you said you were catching the current more than the rest of the group, and had to hide behind the shelter of several coral heads to let them catch up. I know you’ve been diving the reefs in Cozumel for at least ten years now. Did that ever happen to you before?”
“No, now that you mention it, it was a completely new phenomenon. And I can’t really explain it. I was using the exact same equipment as the last time, and I haven’t gained any weight or anything. It was truly bizarre. Thank goodness Casey was able to keep up with me.”
“And how did that work?” Espinosa asked. “Did he have to kick hard with his fins or something to stay close to you?”
“Actually, I don’t know. All I know is, after we got back to the boat, he kept talking about how it seemed I was on some kind of underwater escalator or something. I don’t think I ever asked him what he had to do to keep up.”
“Interesting.” Gavin chewed on the end of his pen, chewing on that thought as well for a few seconds before continuing. “Okay, one final question for now. I know you said Casey never left your side the entire dive, but it was pretty dark down there, and there were a lot of other divers milling around. Is it possible that Casey managed to slip away unnoticed for just a minute or two? Maybe circled back toward Katy in the dark?”
Billie shook his head firmly. “No way. I mean, I was pretty disturbed about not being able to stay with the group, and I was worried out of my mind that I might wind up all alone down there, like Trevor did. So I made sure I kept one eye on Casey the entire time. He was like my lifeline, my buddy diver, and if ever I needed a buddy during a dive, it was then, believe you me. So no, I’d say he was never out of my sight for more than like thirty seconds or so. A minute at most. And fighting against the current to get back to Katy, then swimming all the way back, even the best swimmer couldn’t have managed that in less than several minutes at a minimum. No, I can definitely vouch for Casey. He’s not your guy, he was with me the whole time.”
Gavin and Espinosa exchanged a long look before Espinosa finally stood up, signaling that the interview was over. “Billie, thanks again for your help. Uh—you wouldn’t happen to recall the name of the lawyer that got your case dismissed, would you? Just so we can follow up and confirm your story.”
“I’ve got it,” said Gavin, flipping back several pages in his notepad, pretending that the information on the lawyer was in his notes, rather than on his secret satellite phone. “I’ll ask my guy in Houston to follow up on it, but knowing the way criminal law works in Texas, Billie’s story squares up. He couldn’t have dodged a charge like that so easily if he didn’t have a high-dollar mouthpiece to make it happen. And I’m talking a mouthpiece he couldn’t possibly afford on his own.”
Billie managed to look both relieved and embarrassed at the same time. “Yeah, Katy didn’t tell me what it cost, but I imagine it was a lot. I couldn’t have even come up with the money for the fines and fees without getting a title loan on my car. So she really saved my bacon back then.”
“And yet you still hang out with the girl who caused you all of that trouble,” Espinosa pointed out. “What is the expression you Texans have for that? You lie down with dogs, you get ticks?”
Billie smiled ruefully, shaking his head. “Fleas. You get fleas. But yeah, I hear you. The thing is, guys like me don’t exactly have a lot of options, if you know what I mean. And, drugs or not, she can be a lot of fun most days.”
Gavin snorted. “Fun? My God, man, that girl almost landed you in a heap of trouble a second time around for dumpin
g her latest load of dope off the back of this boat,” he pointed out. “And now you don’t have Katy around to buy you some flea powder.”
“Good point.” Billie’s eyes shifted toward the back of the opposite pontoon, in the direction of his and Sally’s cabin. Gavin noticed they seemed to droop a bit as he did so, and for the second time he wondered just what Tara meant when she said Sally was “reading a book.”
33
Sea Trial
Trevor was in his cabin with the door closed, so after Billie left them, Gavin excused himself to go to the bathroom across the way in the port pontoon, saying something about the rocking of the boat giving him an upset stomach. In reality, during the interview he had felt a familiar buzz from the satellite phone stashed in the vest pocket of his jacket, and as soon as he clicked the lock on the bathroom he fished it out. Harry had left a new email.
Gavin scrolled through the contents quickly. As usual, Harry left the juiciest bits of his investigation for last. Evidently, Katy had been moving a large sum of money from her personal accounts to a secret numbered account in the Caymans. Harry couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the transfers totaled several million dollars at least.
That didn’t make much sense. That kind of money was peanuts compared to the fortune Katy had at her fingertips every day. And Trevor apparently had no access to her personal accounts, so there was no obvious reason why she’d be motivated to hide any money from him. Income tax evasion was always suspect in these kinds of transfers, but again, the petty amount of money involved compared to the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars she earned every year raised the obvious question, why bother?
Gavin pulled up Harry’s number and punched dial. Harry answered on the first ring.
“I thought that might perk up your ears, Agent Larson,” Harry chuckled. “But I never thought I’d be confused about why someone would go to the trouble of stashing away just a few million dollars. Not exactly chicken feed from where I sit, but for Katy?”
“Yeah. I’m with you on that. Any chance we might find out why?”
“I only have visibility to the outflows from her stateside accounts, after that it all goes into a banking black hole. But my guess is, since Brett Cutler has handled all her legal problems on other issues, he might have a good angle on what she was doing with this money, as well. Problem is, can you get him to talk? If there was anything fishy going on, I would imagine he’ll clam up, claim he doesn’t know anything at all about the money. And I’m not seeing enough here to convince a judge to sign a search warrant to poke around in Cutler’s office for answers.”
“No, you’re right about that,” Gavin agreed, scratching his chin. “If only—”
“If only what?” Harry asked, suddenly intrigued. From long experience he knew that Gavin’s devious, twisted mind often seemed to open up interesting if long-buried pathways to investigations that no one else could see, and he had a hunch this was one of those times.
“It’s just—” Gavin started. “Look, what if we could hack into Katy’s emails? Wouldn’t it be likely she’s sent messages back and forth to Cutler about some of this?”
“Yeah, but hacking into Gmail is a bit above my pay grade. I’d have to have access to her laptop, or maybe her phone, and even then—”
“But I’ve got her phone!” Gavin exclaimed. “If you can hack that—”
“The only way would be to guess her password, or her unlocking code. Unless she’s got face recognition, or set it up for a fingerprint swipe. But even then you’d have to send the phone to the forensic lab in Houston that’s holding her body in the deep freeze.”
“Well, face recognition won’t help. The fish and the saltwater have pretty much rendered that a moot point. I suppose I could send the phone to Houston, but with the way the storm’s going right now, I seriously doubt any airplanes are taking off from either the island or Cancun any time soon. So I guess we’re screwed.”
Harry was silent for a moment, thinking through all the possible ways to unlock an email account. Then it struck him. “Wait, what kind of phone did you say she had?”
“It’s a late model Samsung. I was surprised when I saw it, girls like Katy usually go in for iPhones. But she actually had the newest, most expensive iteration of my own personal phone. A Samsung.”
“Okay, then. Did you by any chance get an opportunity to check out the lock screen? Almost all Samsungs default to a limited message preview before you unlock them.”
A light finally went on in Gavin’s head, as well. “Yeah! Of course! I mean, hold on.” He patted his left coat pocket. It was still there! He pulled it out and hit the activation button on the left side of the phone. Instantly the lock screen lit up, but dimly. He checked the power level. Just five percent left. “We’re in luck, it’s set up just like mine. But Harry, we’re almost out of power. I may need to find a charger for it.”
Gavin could hear the unmistakable sound of a keyboard clacking away on the other end, and after almost a minute, Harry’s voice came back, even more excited this time. “Okay, Gav, check the screen, will you? You should have a text from Google giving you a confirmation code.”
“Right.” With the limited bandwidth available due to the downed tower, there was a good chance the text wouldn’t get to Katy’s phone, but a few seconds later the phone pinged and a new message showed up on the lock screen. Because of the low power levels, Gavin had to squint somewhat to read the tiny numbers on the grayed-out display. “It says seven one four nine three zero.”
Harry’s keyboard clicked six times as he entered the numbers into the screen resetting Katy’s Gmail password, then he clicked his mouse in triumph. “Whoo hoo!” he shouted over the phone. “We’re in! Thanks to Google’s highly sophisticated multi-level security scheme, we sliced through their security protocols like a hot knife through butter. Now I need just one more thing before I start digging through all the sordid little details of her personal life.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“I need you to say six tiny little words, six words that will free a licensed officer of the court like me to legally read through all of her emails, so we don’t run into a problem later on. Or get my law license revoked, which would be a bad thing all around, trust me.”
“What six little words do you need to hear?” Gavin asked, trying but failing to guess what Harry had in mind.
“Something on the order of, it’s a matter of national security,” Harry answered.
Gavin grinned. Well, Katy could very well have been an international terrorist, you could never completely rule out that possibility. Therefore, and especially given the mysterious nature of the multi-million-dollar funds transfers, it only made sense to look. “Harry Crawford, speaking on behalf of the Special Investigations Office of United States Naval Intelligence, I hereby officially inform you that you are authorized to examine Katy Mulcahey’s emails in the interest of our country’s national security.”
“All I needed to hear, boss man. I’ll get back to you just as soon as I learn something.”
“Thanks, good buddy,” Gavin said, ending the call and immediately sending an update to Bob Sanders. This simple in-and-out case was quickly becoming anything but simple. And a lot more in than out. Gavin was all too well aware of the howling winds just outside the thin pontoon walls and the increasingly violent back and forth rocking of the tiny boat. He needed to get some answers, and he needed them pronto, before this mystery sent them all straight to the bottom of the same ocean near where they’d found Katy’s body. Or even deeper.
34
Sea Trial
Stepping out of the cramped little bathroom, Gavin walked straight into a maelstrom of activity, all of it centered around Billie and Sally’s cabin. He saw Espinosa standing at the door of the cabin looking in and covered the distance between them in seconds.
“What’s going on?” Gavin asked, trying to peer around Espinosa to see what was happenin
g, but seeing only the backs of several people standing around the bed, staring.
Espinosa turned. “After we finished talking to Billie, he stopped in to check on Sally and found her comatose. Alive, but almost completely unresponsive. Apparently, unbeknownst to him, the little stash of drugs Billie dropped over the side of the boat yesterday wasn’t the sum total of what she had originally brought on board with her.”
Espinosa pushed him back out of the doorway as Billie and Casey carried Sally’s seemingly lifeless body out of the cabin and up the stairs toward the salon, the rest of the group trailing along right behind them. As soon as they passed, Espinosa pointed toward the empty cabin and the two men proceeded inside, Gavin grabbing a chair and Espinosa plopping down on the edge of the bed. A baggie containing several pills was lying on the nightstand beside the bed.
“So what do we do now?” Gavin asked, staring at the pills. “We can’t just leave her here and hope she recovers.”
“No, Gavin, you’re right. I just put in a call for a Navy boat to swing out here and pick her up. We’ve got to get her to the hospital on the island as fast as humanly possible, and see if they can get what’s left of the drugs pumped out of her system. Then figure out a way to reverse what’s already in her bloodstream.”
“Why the navy? Wouldn’t the Coast Guard be a better choice in this situation?” Gavin asked.
“Mexico doesn’t really have a Coast Guard like you Americans do, those responsibilities are simply a function of our Navy. And this storm is way too powerful right now for any civilian boats to venture out of the harbor. Plus the harbor master has a lock down in place for the duration, so it appears the Navy is our only hope.”
“Can’t we weigh anchor and motor this boat to shore instead? Seems like that might be a whole lot easier. And safer.”
“No, that would take way too much time, time Senora Clarke may not have to spare. But you’re not too far off the mark, by the way. Like I said earlier, with this storm building the way it is, quickly morphing from a simple tropical storm into a major hurricane, we’re like sitting ducks out here. In retrospect, you were probably right all along. We need to move this whole enchilada on shore. And do it fast.”
