by Rene Fomby
“Yeah,” Gavin agreed, trying to hide the embarrassed look on his face as he remembered Bob Sanders guessing his own security code on the first try. “Anyway, whether Tara knew about the money or not, I’m not sure it would have made all that much difference to her in the end. That girl was a woman scorned, pure and simple, and if she hadn’t got caught with the first murder, you can be sure she’d have found some way to get rid of her husband as well, sooner or later. Then she would have had her revenge, plus the three mil, all to herself. I’m sure that would have tasted pretty sweet, living the rest of her life off on some remote island hideaway, spending Brett and Katy’s blood money. Very sweet, indeed.”
“I think you may be right about that, my friend. She struck me from day one as the cold blooded type, a closet psychopath, for sure.” Espinosa pushed his plate and bowl away and decided to join Gavin in drinking their lunch instead. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day? The rain’s starting to ease off, and there’s a nice bar down the road about a mile or so, called the Chica Bonita. The coldest cervezas and the hottest chiquitas on the island. And after everything shut down around here for a few days due to the storm, they’ll probably be extra friendly, you know? I mean, the storm didn’t stop the rent payments from coming due.”
“Thanks but no thanks, Tony. I’ve got a great woman waiting for me at home, and after winning the lottery with that one, I don’t think I’m likely to get lucky twice. Especially in some local topless bar. Besides, I think we’ve both learned over the last few days where that path ultimately leads. And it isn’t a pretty road, that’s for sure.”
“You’ve got a good point there,” Espinosa agreed reluctantly. “But as for me, I’m still in the rental market, haven’t settled down for the long game yet, so I think Papa Espinosa is ready to stretch his legs a bit after being cooped up on that boat for most of two days.”
“Suit yourself. As for me, I think I’ll take advantage of the Wi-Fi in the lobby here to fire off a report to my boss, and then try to hunt down my other boss at home. If you’re still here around dinner time, though, I’d be happy to spring for another victory round or three of tequila.”
“Never turn that down, my friend, not if I’m a hundred and three and can barely manage to stand up straight. Although now that I think about it, I was only forty-three last night, and I still had problems standing up straight.”
“That may have had to do with something other than your age,” Gavin suggested with a wink.
“I think you may be right. I stopped drinking way too early last night. Does it to me every time.” Espinosa stood up to leave, then stopped and grinned “You know, turns out I was right after all.”
“What do you mean?” Gavin asked, slowly tapping his beer against his lower lip.
Espinosa grabbed the back of a chair, still grinning. “Well, if our pal Johnson had acted like a decent man toward his wife, and hadn’t started cheating on her the first chance he got, plus if he hadn’t been such a jerk to all his friends, including stealing Cutler’s girl away from him in high school, then none of this would have ever happened. And like you said, Cutler kicked the whole situation into high gear when he started screwing around with the wife of his dear old friend and former client. So I was not only right, I was right two times over.”
“How’s that?” Gavin asked, wondering where the detective was taking this.
“Like I keep telling you, in cases like this, 99 percent of the time it’s the husband. Except this time, it was both of the husbands who wound up at the center of all the mischief, wound up being the impetus for everything bad that transpired in this case. For Katy Mulcahey’s death. And for three people who’ll be spending the bulk of what still remains of their miserable lives in a Mexican prison. So I guess you could say, this time it wasn’t just 99 percent, it was 198 percent the husbands’ fault. And that’s a new personal record, my friend.”
With that, Espinosa gave Gavin a final wink, then turned and strode purposefully out of the bar.
62
Island Ferry – Thursday Morning
Gavin sat off all by himself in the sparsely populated cabin of the island ferry, nursing a Tipo Chico and a hangover from hell, courtesy of a seemingly endless bottle of tequila he had emptied along with Billie and Detective Espinosa the night before. Or maybe several bottles—he had lost count after the first one.
Because of the storm that had likewise emptied the island, only two ferries were running today between Cozumel and Playa del Carmen, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. With the airport on the island closed due to debris and the morning ferry being the only option for making the first flights out of the airport in Cancun, Gavin, Espinosa and the seven surviving members of the ill-fated scuba club were crossing the bay together in relative silence, with three members of that group now sitting noticeably apart from the others, well shackled and surrounded by a grim detachment from the local police.
Gavin had shared a taxi to the ferry port with Billie, Sally and Jillian, all three of them subdued and introspective as they pondered the ruinous path the friendly little dive adventure had taken over the past few days. And the unknown and unexpected new paths their lives would be taking when they returned home.
Last night, in between numerous overflowing shots of tequila, Billie had unburdened himself that he had finally decided to throw in the towel with Sally. As much fun as she could be from time to time, in the end she was just a heavy leaden anchor dragging his life down into a yawning black abyss of ruin, right along with hers. He needed to build a new life for himself while he still could, while he was still young and hadn’t thrown his future away on a drug charge or a binge of wild partying that might someday cost him a respectable job. Or worse. The tequila was a farewell party of sorts for his old lifestyle, a way of flushing out the old Billie and ushering in the new.
As for Jillian, over breakfast this morning she had tearfully explained to Gavin how she had absolutely no idea what tomorrow would be bringing her, only that Casey would no longer be a part of it. Of course, she still had her church, and because of her faith and certain specific threats from her father she had successfully resisted Casey’s entreaties to move in with him, so she still had her own apartment, and a job. But she had truly believed in Casey, had believed she had finally found the kind of man she could spend her entire life with, raise a flock of children with. And now he was gone. And an important part of her soul had disappeared along with him.
Gavin reached into his bag and pulled out his yellow notepad, the pages littered with a smattering of illegible scrawls along with his case notes, the bottom edges curled up and shredded in a number of places from being carried under his jacket in the driving rain and then tossed carelessly into his small carry-on suitcase this morning as he packed to leave. At the very top of the pad were his first notes from the case, raw impressions jotted down while he was still digging headfirst into the small dossier Sanders sent along for him to read on the flight down to Cozumel.
Six friends went into the water. But only five came out.
But that wasn’t exactly true, at least not now. Of the six people that went on the dive trip that night, three of them went with the full expectation of brutally murdering one of the others, and in the process wound up wrecking the lives of their other two friends, as well. Not to mention the lives of the two women who had stayed behind on the boat. So, given what he knew now, that inscription should probably have said, ‘Six people went into the water. And none of them came back quite the same.’
The truly tragic thing about it was, it was all supposedly done in the name of love. Or, more accurately, in the bitter, gut-wrenching aftermath of love gone bad. And at the very center of the tragedy stood Catherine Littlefield Mulcahey, a girl who had spent her entire life accumulating just about anything and everything her little heart desired, with no bill or invoice ever coming due. Until, ultimately, it did.
And that bill was quite steep, indee
d. Three of her friends would probably spend the rest of their lives in a Mexican federal prison as payment for their crimes. A little boy would grow up without his mother, raised by a man whose own hands were permanently stained with the sin of the mother’s blood. It would be a very long time before Jillian ever trusted anyone again, for any reason, and Sally would almost certainly be dead from her addictions long before the first anniversary of Katy’s death had come and gone.
Out of all of them, out of all of the eight vibrant, promising lives that had landed at Cozumel airport just five short days ago, only Billie had emerged from the tragedy a better man than when he went in. Gavin had no doubt that when Billie Peterson finally decided to apply himself, finally allowed himself to rise to the level of his true abilities— rather than let himself be defined by the pretentions of his so-called friends and dragged down by hangers-on like Sally Ann Clarke— he would quickly become a force to be reckoned with in this world. Unlike Katy, whose success was always predicated on Daddy’s money. Or Trevor, who relied upon Daddy Mulcahey to underwrite his career like a real-life Wizard of Oz, pulling all the strings behind the curtain to turn a mediocre small-town quarterback into a modern-day business tycoon, as ephemeral as that success turned out to be. Or even Brett Cutler, who had made a living sucking off the Mulcahey teat third hand through Trevor’s business deals, then second hand through Katy’s inheritance, before finally deciding to seize control of the very source of all the milk and money by stealing Katy back for himself. No, out of all of them, Billie alone was likely to get through this tragedy in one piece, and he was going to build his future success on the only true foundation he could ever really count on in the end. Himself.
Gavin stared out across the water toward the approaching shoreline, and it suddenly struck him that life was very much like the ocean that stretched out before him, an angry gray beast still tormented by the lingering wind and rain. If there was any one lesson he could take away from all of this, any meaning at all he could assign to Katy Mulcahey’s tragic, senseless death, it was that life can’t possibly flourish surrounded by a sea of hate. And like a flower, love can’t survive if it is constantly watered by a poisoned mix of anger, jealousy and greed. He thought again of his two kids back in California, swimming in the toxic flood of his ex-wife’s venom and bile, barely keeping their heads above it all. He could only hope that situation would somehow change someday soon when she had less control over them, when they finally grew up and realized what they had been missing in their lives all those long, lonely years. A dad. A loving, always patient and forgiving dad.
He pulled out his cell phone and called.
“Hey,” Andy said, and instantly the gray skies above him faded into the distance. “Are you getting close to boarding?”
“No, I still have a couple of hours or so on the ground in Cancun, and then I have to go through customs in Houston before sitting around for another hour for the flight to D.C.”
“I thought for sure you’d get whisked straight through customs, given your status with Sanders.”
“Actually, it’s not all that bad. I do get to take the short line, at least. Because, as you might imagine, the long line tends to get about as jumpy as a frog in a frying pan when I pull out my gun.”
“I can see where that might happen. So, what, are you just checking in with me because you’re bored? Not that I’m complaining. I always like to hear your voice.”
“No, I just wanted to ask about your plans for the evening. I thought it might be fun to take my best girl out on the town for a change. You know, wine her and dine her.”
“Aw, your best girl, you say? That’s too bad. I was so looking forward to some you and me time tonight, without having to deal with fending off all the side competition from your other lady friends.”
Gavin chuckled. “Whatever. I—I just thought we might try out that little Italian restaurant you like out in Georgetown. We can grab a table in the way back, where the politicians always sit. Someplace we can talk.”
“Talk? This sounds serious.”
“It is. I’ve decided to take you up on your proposition.”
The line went silent for a second, and when Andy spoke again, her voice was softer, and slightly hesitant. “You mean… you’re willing to give it a try?”
“Yeah. That is, if you still want to…”
“Hmm. Let me chew on that one for a long Southern minute.” She giggled, and her voice brightened. “Okay, thinking’s done. And while we’re on that subject, I also think we might have better things to do with our time tonight than drive all the way out to Georgetown for a lousy spaghetti dinner. I still have that steak you marinated before you left. I can throw together a salad and we can eat at home.”
“You sure you don’t want to discuss all of this any further?” Gavin asked. “Figure out what it might mean to our future together, to our careers? To your career?”
“Talking’s way overrated,” she answered with a twinkle in her voice. “This girl’s all action, you of all people should know that by now. So just get your butt home as fast as you can, and we can get started tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Well, we can at least practice. The real effort is still at least a few weeks off. I’m on the pill, you know. Got to flush all that stuff out of my system before anything is going to stick.”
“Practice sounds perfect. Oh wait, is that how that saying goes?”
“I think the saying is, practice makes perfect. Which probably does apply in this situation.” She paused. “Uh, not to ruin the mood or anything, but what brought all this on, all of a sudden? You’ve been pretty reluctant to even talk about the subject, much less dive in headfirst like this.”
“Let’s just say I didn’t want Billie to have all the fun,” he answered cryptically.
“Billy? Who’s Billy?”
“Just a guy I met out here. Someone who finally woke up one day to realize what all he has to lose in life. And, far more important, what all he has to gain. Which made me realize what an idiot I’ve been these past six months. Focusing on the poison, instead of the flower.”
“You’re losing me there, big fella. Poison? Flower?”
“Uh, it’s a long story, believe me. But the thing is, I—I do have an awful lot to tell you. About the last few days, mostly, and also some things I have never shared with anyone else before now.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
Gavin stared off across the water, watching a pod of dolphins emerge from the dark waters behind the ferry, blue-gray faces in a blue-gray sea, chittering away happily in their chirpy dolphin tongue. Then he glanced back at the remaining seven members of the now-defunct scuba club, the group not wearing shackles looking every bit as hangdog and defeated as the group that were. “You know, Andy,” he finally answered as he turned back again to focus once again on the dolphins dancing joyfully in the ferry’s wake, “I’ve just spent the last three days experiencing up close and personal the total nuclear destruction of four supposedly intimate, permanent relationships. Eight lives collapsing into ruin because they failed to put their love for each other above all else, because they let their sordid past dictate their future. And in the process I realized that I’ve been doing the very same thing to you these last few months. Letting my past mistakes, my fears, dictate our own future together.” He paused, and corrected himself. “I said eight lives were ruined, but that’s not right. One life emerged from the ruins of this past week relatively whole and possibly even triumphant, although he may not see it that way quite yet.”
“Billy?” Andy guessed.
“Right. Billie. And hopefully, someday very soon, one other,” Gavin almost whispered, as the whole world slowly collapsed around him. And a new world, a far more exciting and perhaps even frightening world, opened up in its stead. A world full of playful dolphins, oblivious to their past, embracing only the countless, unfathomable possibilities of life in the endless sea.
“No baby could ever have a better daddy, Agent Larson,” Andy promised him. “And no woman could ever have a better man.” She hesitated. “But I reserve the right to change my mind about all that if you miss your damned flight.”
“Fore warned is fore armed,” he laughed. “Or is that four armed? For the life of me, I can never figure that one out.”
The pun was lost on Andy over the phone, but she laughed anyway, as she always did at Gavin’s lame attempts at humor. It made him happy, and he made her happy, and in the end, that was the only thing that mattered.
Acknowledgments
This book constitutes a major risk on my part. And I’m not talking about art, here, I mean real, locked up for the rest of my life kind of risk. You see, the story of the four couples sharing a diving trip to the island of Cozumel has its roots in a real scuba trip Elizabeth and I took several years ago, along with our cul-de-sac neighbors Gary, Judy, Janice and Eric. All far more experienced divers than Elizabeth and me, particularly Gary, who could always be counted on to rebuild a stuck regulator at 120 feet below the surface of the ocean. Blindfolded. I mean, why terminate a perfectly good dive just because one of the members of our quaint little scuba club couldn’t get any air?
On this particular little trip to Cozumel, Gary’s skills were being pressed to the limit, because every single time my wife dropped down to the ocean bottom, something would go seriously amiss with her equipment. A valve would stick, or a hose connection would leak, bleeding air out behind her in a thick bubbling stream. Her mask would fail. Her weight belt would spontaneously decide to leave her waist. You get the picture. And after several of these episodes, my loving neighbors began to express their erstwhile suspicions. It all started innocently enough, sly little hints over breakfast, questions about just how much insurance I’d taken out on her, leading to extra efforts by Gary to double-check all her gear right before she hit the water. Just in case someone had tampered with her equipment. Just in case I had tampered with her equipment.
