“Well, well, looks like ole Garrison-poo has been running quite a little scam for himself,” I said.
Molly looked worried and I quickly added, “But not your fault, of course. How were you to know?”
“I usually check the documentation. I know Garrison from the yacht club and it never occurred to me he didn’t own the boat. Speaking of, do you have a copy?”
“Of what?”
“Your documentation. You are documented, aren’t you?”
“Uh, sure I am. I think. Okay, to tell you the truth, I don’t have a clue. I’ve been relying on Garrison for everything, obviously a grandiose mistake on my part. I haven’t even gotten around to changing the name of my boat.”
“Oh, please let me help you get that done. Let me tell you, I get some raised eyebrows from potential clients. A few, all of them men, liked it, but I think a name change is definitely in order. What are you going to name her?”
“Damned if I know. Any ideas?”
“No wine.”
“Wine?”
“You know, Chardonnay, Chablis, Champagne, stuff like that. I got a guy who’ll paint the new name for you for a couple of hundred bucks. You do want to keep chartering, don’t you?”
“Oh, why not? Day charters only, though. The only problem is I live and work aboard. If I’m in town, I’m on the boat. Might be a scheduling conflict, ‘cause my planned trips don’t always pan out.”
“What do you need? For work, I mean?”
“Just a phone and my computer. I could actually do what I do anywhere. Come to think of it, I could probably work from the yacht club.”
She shook her head. “Too distracting. I have an extra cubicle in back, maybe we can work something out when we need to.”
“Chic, alors!”
Ain’t it something the difference a day or two makes? Last week I was getting fleeced by Garrison, and now I had a sudden new source of income. Anyone contemplating suicide should think about those things. Not that I ever did. My job is to cause suicidal thoughts, not get ‘em.
“ So, bring it in and I’ll help,” Molly was saying when I dragged my reverie back to real time.
“Sorry Molly, I was daydreaming. What did you say?”
“I said I’d help you make sure your ducks are in a row. Bring in all your paperwork on Sea Cock—bill of sale, survey, whatever—and I’ll look it over and tell you what you need to stay legal.”
“Would you? That’s great, thanks.” A wash of relief ran through me and it must have showed, for Molly put her hand on my shoulder.
“You know,” she said, “I admire you for taking on such a large boat without any prior experience. Men do it all the time, but few women.”
I rolled my eyes. “Most women have better sense. I must have been having a hot flash.”
“Real women don’t have hot flashes, they have power surges.” Molly, I could tell, was going be my new, next to best friend. And in the nick of time too, because Lars was stealing my old very best friend.
When I got back to Sea Cock, the friend stealer had joined his brother in the nether reaches of my boat. I peeked in the engine room. Both of the Jenkins men were splattered with unidentifiable stinky substances and seemed to be in hog heaven. Boys will be boys.
“Ah, the bilge brothers, I presume. What’s the verdict, men? Will she sink or float?”
“Nothing wrong with this tub that money won’t fix,” Lars said.
“So I’m learning. Jenks, will Sea Cock be ready for a charter Wednesday morning? Molly Haynes needs her by ten.”
“No problem. Are you still going to Los Angeles?”
“Yep, first thing tomorrow,” I told him. “In fact, I have some work to do, so you two have fun down here, okay?” They waved, returned to whatever they were dissecting and I butted out. Never stop a working man.
I pulled out my laptop, but I couldn’t get into work. Niggling at the back of my mind was Detective Martinez’s warning about the vulnerability of my situation. Was Hudson’s murderer skulking around the Bay Area, still looking for the key? I fingered the key, twirling the chain. Damn that Hudson. Even dead he could piss me off.
When Lars left an hour later, I joined Jenks in the engine room.
“Almost done here, Hetta. Let me show you a couple of things.” Jenks moved expertly around the relatively cramped space. I couldn’t help notice, for all his height, how limber he was. He could squat like the Marlboro man.
“It’s a good thing you don’t wear spurs,” I quipped, striving to be glib while oofing and grunting as I crawled around the huge engines. Jenks didn’t get my joke. Yankees. “What’re you doing?”
“Tightening hose clamps. Now look here, see how this one is loose? You need to check these at least once a week. Certainly before you leave the dock.” And so it went, my introduction to Diesel 101. After an hour I was cramping up, so we quit. Jenks washed up and joined me on deck for sun tea and tuna sandwiches.
“I got everything on the list done,” he said. “Want to take her out for a quick sea trial? Never hurts to double check everything while under way.”
“Out? You mean leave the dock? What a concept.”
“Are you telling me you’ve had this boat almost two months and haven’t taken her out?”
“I’ve been very busy,” I said, a bit defensively.
“Okay, then, start her up and let’s go. You do know how to start the engines, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” I said, and tromped to the steering console in the main saloon.
I turned the key on the port engine. Nothing happened. I tried the starboard. Nada.
Jenks walked up behind me—real close behind me, I might add—and looked over my shoulder.
“Here’s the problem,” he said, turning a switch to ON. “Try again.”
Both engines fired. “Your engines are on a special battery bank, and that’s good. Now that they’ve started, turn the switch back to OFF. That way, your engine starting batteries will always be isolated from your house batteries. Now, let’s get going.”
I sighed and shut down the engines. Jenks cocked his head at me and waited for an explanation.
I bit my lip and stalled, until he asked, “What’s the problem? Don’t you want to take her out?”
It was true confessions time. “Jenks, I do, more than anything. But I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing. Can you please teach me? I’ll pay you.”
“You can pay me for the work I do, but I’ll throw in driving lessons for free. Now, let’s start from scratch.” He steered me out onto the bow and grinned. “This, my dear, is the pointy end.”
39
“My, my, but you and Jenks have certainly been spending a lot of time together,” Jan said, taking a slug of her beer. “Seems every time I talk to Jenks he’s been with you.”
“I can’t say the same thing for you,” I griped. Okay, I whined. I popped a cap and took a gulp of diet soda.
“Dieting again, Hetta?”
“Don’t change the subject, Jan. Do I have cooties? Where have you been?”
“Packing. Sorting. And by the way, most of the stuff I’m havin’ to pack is yours. Are you sure you want me to take your antiques to Florida?”
“Oh, why not. I’ve got no place to put anything, and I don’t want my good things in a storage locker. You might as well enjoy them.”
“So, word has it Jenks is a regular figure around here. What have you two been up to, Miz Hetta? Inquiring minds wanna know.”
“You really want to know?” I asked.
“I really, really do.”
“Then stand by to cast off, sailor.” I strode to the console, started the engines and began to secure for sea.
“Er, Hetta, what are you doing?”
“Showing you what Jenks and I have been up to, as you so nosily put it.” I hopped off the boat, disconnected the shore power and all lines but the spring.
Jan, hot on my heels, yawped, “Can’t you, like, just tell me?”
“Nope. It’s show and tell. Now, hold this line. When I tell you, unloose it from the cleat and yell ‘clear.’ Got that?”
“Oh, shit. I’ve got it all right, but are you sure about this?”
I ignored her, climbed to the flying bridge, and checked my instrument panel. “Okay sailor, Cast off all lines.”
She, after a moment’s hesitation to watch her life pass before her eyes, took a deep breath, yelled, “clear,” and then mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like the Lord’s Prayer. I backed slowly out of the slip, rotated Sea Cock on her own length, threaded her down a narrow channel between other docked boats, and entered the estuary.
By the time we cleared the marina, Jan was all smiles and had joined me on the flying bridge. “Oh, this is sooo cool,” she gushed. Then she saluted and added, “Captain Coffey, ma’am, all fenders and lines secured. Hell, I haven’t been taking sailing lessons for nothing. I be good crew.”
“Well done, matey. Where do you want to go?”
“Uh, gee, I dunno. How about Tahiti?”
“I think that’s a bit ambitious for my first solo. Let’s stay on this side of the bay for now.”
“Please tell me you didn’t say first solo.”
“I saved it for you.”
“Jesus. Don’t do me any more favors, okay?”
“Relax. Jenks has had me doing this for weeks. Now, where to, ma’am?”
“Rusty Bucket?”
“Atta girl. Bucket, it is.”
Twenty minutes later, we made a pass at the Rusty Bucket’s guest dock. As Jenks taught me, I lined up parallel to the dock, but a few boat widths off, and put the boat in neutral. Within seconds I could tell the current was with me, so we made a wide circle and lined up in the other direction. The current, plus a mild breeze, made it necessary for me to walk the boat sideways, using engines and rudders. I had practiced diligently for this moment and wasn’t disappointed. Not that I needed them, but by the time I maneuvered alongside, four men waited to take our lines.
Before we stepped triumphantly from Sea Cock, I gave Jan my best, “told you so” look and whispered. “Buy it, and they will come.”
An hour later, we left the Bucket—six men helped us with the lines this time—and motored back to the yacht club to catch the end of Happy Hour.
Jan was ecstatic. “Hetta, I am so proud of you. A little miffed you kept such a huge secret from me, of course, but proud nevertheless. I’m gonna call your mama and daddy the minute I get home and tell what you’ve done. I know they’ve been a little worried.”
“They have?” I think Jan called my parents more than she does her own mother. Maybe more than I do. I would have loved to hear some of those conversations.
“They’re a little concerned. I guess they picked up that I didn’t care too much for Garrison, but they worry about you alone on the boat, even though I’m not sure they believed you two were, like, platonic. It’s that Tokyo thing, you know.”
“You didn’t tell them Hudson got offed at my house, did you?”
“Oh, no. No way.”
“Good. If I tell you something, Jan, will you promise on a stack of Bibles, hope to die, you won’t say anything to anyone? Especially the parents?”
“Needles in my eyes.”
I told her about the reward for Hudson, Martinez’s warning about Hudson’s bad guy associates, all of it. We were approaching the yacht club by the time I finished.
“Hetta, you shit,” she yelled, “give Martinez the damned key. I mean it. I swear, if you don’t tell him about the key, I will. I don’t care if you never speak to me again and I take back the Bible and needle thing. You are being just plain dumb.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll call Martinez. Soon. I promise. Meanwhile, not a word to anyone. Oh, look, Jan, men all over the dock, waiting to take our lines. What a surprise.”
Knowing I had an audience, I took special pains to put Sea Cock alongside the dock with the flair of someone whose knees were not knocking. After securing the boat, I joined Jan at the bar where she sat with Lars and Jenks. Jenks was grinning from ear to ear.
“Well done, Hetta,” he said, “I couldn’t have docked her any better myself. I guess you won’t be needing me any more.”
“Oh, yes I will,” I said quickly, and blushed.
Jan cut me a knowing look as I managed to stammer, “I mean, there was little wind and not much current, and I still have so much to learn, and—”
Jenks held up his hand. “Hey, I was joking. Don’t worry, I’ll be around as long as you need me.”
Jan’s eyebrows arched and her mouth formed a little kissy. I squared my shoulders and gave her a warning look. “Quick, I need a drink. This captain stuff is dry work.”
“Yeah,” Jan said, “all those men trying to buy us drinks at the Bucket and Hetta goes on the wagon.”
“Booze and boats don’t mix, right Jenks?” I said, quoting a Coast Guard safety slogan. “Besides, I’m on a diet, so I saved my allotted empty calories until we got back to the club.”
Jenks brought me a split of champagne and for all my good intentions, bubbly continued to appear from the bar, obliging me to exceed my calorie limit. Then I decided I’d better eat something to soak up the alcohol. We ordered pizza from a delivery service and I quipped, “So much for will power. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet.”
“No, tomorrow we learn to anchor,” Jenks said, “And you don’t need to diet, you’re fine the way you are.”
He took a bite of pizza.
I fell in love.
40
Chills. Fever. Dizziness, nausea and delirium.
Recognizing the symptoms, I hoped it was simply a reoccurrence of childhood malaria, but I suspected the dreaded love bug.
I was right. Malaria, after several days of pure horror, goes away. Love’s repugnancies burrow in. Why can’t I throw up and get it over with? And if falling in love is painful, falling into unrequited love is downright agony, although I’ve always found it does wonders for the waistline. The wonder is I don’t have a wasp waist.
Tums helps some, as does a heavy workload. Luckily for me I had an abundance of both. I was kept really busy the next week or two, traveling on business and helping Jan finalize her move to Florida. I had little time for anchor drills with Jenks, so saved myself the embarrassment of being all mooney.
When in Jenks’s presence, I became suddenly shy. Well, as shy as I get. I avoided being alone with him, lest I make a total fool of myself by doing something like throwing my naked, throbbing body at him. Or worse, letting him know how I felt. I really, really, really hate rejection.
It wasn’t until Lars and Jan’s going away shindig that I spent any time with the object of my newly formed obsession. Obsession. How’s that for a boat name? Nah, too perfumey.
“Hetta, are you all right?” Jan asked me the night of the party. “You look flushed.”
“Must be the heat.”
Jan looked out at the July fog. “Oh, really? Or could it be something else? Not heat, but hots?” she teased. “Maybe something beginning with ‘J’? I notice you’re avoiding him like the plague.”
“A pox upon you and what you notice. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said loftily. And to prove her wrong, I dragged her over to Jenks’s table and sat down.
“Hi, stranger,” he said, “haven’t seen much of you lately. Am I fired?”
“No. Of course not. I’ve been, uh, I think I have a touch of malaria.”
He looked at me a little strangely, which he did a lot, and shrugged. “Oh, yeah. I hear that’s been going around.”
Jan, unable to hold her tongue, scoffed, “Yeah, in Sri Lanka.”
I gave her a dirty look and turned my attention to Jenks. “Don’t mind her, she’s just getting uppity since she’s leaving for the jungles of Florida and won’t have me around to keep her straight.”
He smiled. “I stopped by Sea Cock a couple of times. You were gone
.”
“You did?" I perked up.
“I wanted to check on that oil leak,” he said in a “just doin’ my job, ma’am” tone.
“Oh.” I hope I didn’t sound as disappointed as I felt. I’m such a ninny. “Maybe I should give you a key to Sea Cock so you can do your job when I’m not around.” Did that sound snippy?
Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Page 21
