Backwater Bay

by Steven Becker

  I went with my gut and figured the first priority was getting the yacht safely to the dock. Gordy stayed on track and a few minutes later we were tied up. I ordered him down to the cabin and followed. It was time to sort this out.

  24

  We were in the salon staring at each other. Brenda and Holly sat close together. Gordy and Herb were as separate as the space allowed. I left them and stepped outside onto the deck to call Miami-Dade and see how long they’d be. As it turned out, the murder had happened in their jurisdiction. They would be making the arrest. They would also get the credit, and I wondered how that was going to go with Martinez.

  Before I could make the call I heard a scream and with my gun drawn entered the salon. I had an instructor who had warned that desperate people were unpredictable. I had forgotten his advice, but Brenda reminded me when I saw the knife in her hand. I wasn’t sure where she had been headed originally, but her fury turned to me. I stepped in front of her, ready to disarm her. The muscles in her neck tensed and I watched the knife come above her head. The brief pause at the top, just before she stepped forward to strike, was enough time for me to spin and grab her hand. It might have been the adrenaline or her rage, but her strength surprised me. I had to stop her before her arm passed below her head and she could put all her power behind the thrust.

  A shadow passed behind me. I was so focused on Brenda that I didn’t see Gabe until I felt the barrel of a gun in my back. I didn’t know where he’d come from. Slowly, trying to stall, I dropped my gun at his command. The movement gave me a second to glance at Gabe, still standing behind me. His face was covered with blood. I turned back, off balance, and saw Brenda’s arm come down out of the corner of my eye. In slow motion, I saw the arc of the knife and knew Gabe had no chance to escape.

  Even though he held the gun, I knew it was only a threat. He had nothing to gain by a cold blooded killing and I sensed he knew it. A life sentence would seriously interfere with his lifestyle. The tip of the knife was just inches away from his face when I pushed her. It was just enough to change the trajectory of the knife, which buried itself in the settee. Brenda, her hand still clutching the hilt, yanked hard, but the blade was stuck. She was bent forward in an awkward position. Wrapping both arms around her, I lifted her into the air and carried her across the room.

  Before I released her, I felt her chest heave and knew she was broken. The fight had drained out of her and I set her gently on the floor. She curled her knees to her chest and I watched as tears streaked down her face.

  “It was his fault,” she sobbed. “I never meant to hurt her.”

  Brenda may have been disarmed and broken, but I was still looking into the barrel of the gun.

  “All of you. Into the galley. Now,” Gabe barked.

  Herb and Holly moved quickly, picking Brenda up and taking her with them.

  In a flash, I saw what I had missed. It was Gabe who had originally arranged for the explosives to be planted. Gordy had nothing to do with it except for setting up Abbey to clean the bottom and install the new zincs, which Gabe provided. His plan all along had been to pressure Brenda into running with the boat. When she did he would blow it up and take care of two problems at once, leaving Gordy the primary suspect. Gabe would have the insurance money and Brenda out of his hair. The plan had fallen apart when I discovered the case with the fake zincs in the stateroom. In my haste to cover it up, Brenda must have found it and with Gordy’s help figured out Gabe’s plan. They had tried to turn the tables by abducting him, and it might have worked if not for my interference. By blowing the boat up in the Bahamas, they would collect on both the boat and Gabe’s life insurance. Herb must have been checking that both policies were fully paid up when I followed him to the office the other day.

  I took a chance and looked to see if Miami-Dade had arrived. When my head was turned, Gabe took me by surprise and rushed me. I tried to slide from his grasp but only managed to take him to the floor. He landed on top and when I opened my eyes I saw the gun pointed at my head. The muscles in his forearm tensed and I flinched, waiting for the shot, before I realized he was not going to shoot me here. We were too close to the marina to risk a gunshot. Instead, the stock of the gun made contact with my head.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had been out. Slowly I regained consciousness and opened my eyes. My vision was fuzzy, but I looked to be alone in the salon. I felt the vibration of the deck beneath me increase and feared the worst. Gabe was going through with his plan, and along with Brenda and company, I was going down with the ship.

  The water, just fifteen minutes away outside of Government Cut was open ocean. A mile offshore, he’d be in four hundred feet of water. At two miles it would be almost a thousand. Ditching the boat in water that deep would eliminate the possibility of a search.

  My head ached where he had hit me and I tried to bring a hand to the wound to see if there was blood. I couldn’t move and felt the hard plastic of a zip tie. My vision had cleared and I checked the cabin again. Alone, I worked my way to a sitting position. Shaking my head to clear the remaining cobwebs, I pulled my arms slowly apart, trying to work my wrists out of the bond. Twisting my arms until my hands were opposite each other in the restraints, I jerked as hard as I could. The plastic locking mechanism slipped but did not release.

  Before I could try again, the boat lurched and stopped. I started to rise, but before I could gain my feet, I felt the bow slam a wave and was thrown off balance. I had a pretty good idea my theory was correct and we had headed out to sea. Thinking this would be the end, I tried the ties again. With my wrists together and scapulae retracted, I yanked my hands apart. I felt the tie split and I was free.

  I was just about to rise when Gabe came back into the salon with the gun extended in front of him. I relaxed back into the position I had been in, feigning unconsciousness, and watched him through squinted eyes. He looked back at me as if suspecting something but stopped short when a voice hailed the boat.

  “Special Agent Hunter, if you would take control of the vessel please.”

  For once, Susan McLeash’s voice was welcome. It surprised Gabe, distracting him and giving me the seconds I needed to coil up and launch myself at him.

  Our bodies met and we rolled around on the deck until the settee stopped our progress. Grunting like two high school wrestlers, we fought for the gun. We both froze for a second when a siren wailed and Susan hailed the boat again.

  The distraction worked in my favor and I pulled the gun from his grasp. He still had some fight left, which I quickly dispatched in the same manner he had used to knock me out. A minute later, he was cuffed to one of the table legs that was bolted to the floor. I wanted some answers from him, but the voice hailing the boat made me cringe.

  After checking Gabe to make sure he was secure, I opened the door. Squinting for real in the bright sun, I looked forward and saw Susan McLeash in her Park Service boat sitting perpendicular to the path of the yacht. With her back to the helm, she leaned against the leaning post.

  I nodded and, keeping my head down, went back inside. About to go up the short flight of stairs to the bridge, I paused and backtracked to the galley. Herb, Holly, and Brenda were still there, their hands zip-tied behind their backs and sitting on the floor. Brenda growled at me. The others sat silently, resigned to their fate.

  Gordy was still at the helm. I restrained him with a real zip tie from my belt, leaned out the side door, and held up my phone. Susan acknowledged that calling would be more discreet than yelling across the decks or using the open line of the VHF.

  “Appreciate the help,” I said, trying to initiate a truce when she answered.

  “Let’s get this vessel back to the dock,” was all she said.

  I looked around and saw that this had all taken place within sight of the dock. The wave I had felt must have been Susan’s boat wake.

  I nodded and disconnected, knowing I would need all my newly learned skills to dock the boat. Three times longer and twice as wide as m
y center-console, she was intimidating. Fortunately, she was a single engine, or I would have really embarrassed myself. Using the throttle, I backed and cut the wheel hard to port until the momentum of the boat had it parallel with Susan’s. Then, slowly, I nudged the throttle forward. The boat reacted nicely and I steered toward the marina. Glancing back, I saw Susan following at a safe distance.

  Unsure of her part in all this, I warily decided to take her help at face value. It was totally consistent with her MO to arrive like the cavalry to bail me out and push any guilt away from her. Putting that aside, I focused on getting the boat back into the slip. We had just entered the marina and I dropped a few hundred RPMs, trying to go as slow as I could without losing steerage. The water was calm and the boat moving slow enough that I felt motion below me. Over the low rumble of the engine, I heard a shot, then another.

  Before I could react I felt a barrel in the small of my back for the second time today.

  “Go ahead and dock it. Then we’re walking off together,” Brenda said.

  I wasn’t sure how she had gotten out of the zip tie or where the gun had come from. Then I realized it was mine. I tried to ignore her. An idea started to form. If she wanted the boat docked, I would do just that. It would take all my concentration to get the boat into the tight quarters of the slip without damaging it or one of the other multimillion-dollar boats docked adjacent to it. Susan still hovered just outside the turning basin. She was far enough away that I didn’t think she’d heard the shots or could see Brenda behind me. There was nothing I could do except finish docking the boat.

  For my plan to work, I needed to back in. Running the boat forward as far as I could, I jammed the transmission into reverse to stop just before I would hit the gleaming catamaran across the narrow channel from the slip. The boat stopped and I turned, placing my butt against the wheel. I found myself looking down the gun sight backward at Brenda. I could clearly see her pupils were dilated in her wide-open eyes. She was still in shock, and that made reasoning with her a long shot. My hand remained on the throttle, and I pulled back slightly. When I heard the transmission click, I yanked hard and went for her.

  The boat slammed against the dock, throwing both of us off balance. I was expecting it and she wasn’t, but it didn’t matter when a loud boom shook me. Not knowing whether I was shot or not, I continued pressing forward until I had the warm barrel in my grasp. I pulled hard and it came free—almost too easily. Brenda’s body fell to the deck and tumbled over Gordy who was secured to one of the stainless steel rails. A pool of blood started to spread out from her head.

  I held the gun and stared at her. Something nudged the bow of the boat and I looked up to see Susan’s boat pressed against the yacht. She was standing by the leaning post of the center-console with a rifle in her hand.

  25

  Knowing that Susan had probably saved my life didn’t help anything. I had to regroup and get my wits about me before I had to explain myself or what happened. Fortunately, the gunshots bought me some time. I brought Gordy, now covered in Brenda’s blood, down to the galley, where Herb and Holly were still bound, with confused looks on their faces. I left them there for the time being as this would likely be the extent of their incarceration. I didn’t think either of them had committed an actual crime. Before I left, I saw blood on the range. A desperate Brenda must have used a metal edge to maul her zip tie and escape, cutting herself in the process. I moved through the salon. Gabe was still handcuffed to the table leg, but he was on the floor, with a pool of blood around him. Walking past him, I opened the salon door and was confronted by a handful of Miami-Dade officers with their guns trained on me. Finally, the cavalry had arrived. With my hands in the air, I explained who I was and slowly reached for my credentials.

  They came aboard. In minutes the boat was crawling with officers and soon after that with crime scene investigators. After walking the first group of detectives through the crime scene and giving the short version of what happened, I looked toward the bow, but Susan was gone.

  The adrenaline I had been living on for the past few days was spent and I sat on the transom with a bottle of water watching the crime scene folks do their work. I would have preferred a drink, but with gunshots fired and two people dead, I figured I would have to give a statement. There were the usual yellow cards with numbers scattered across the deck. Herb, Holly, and Gordy had been taken into custody. Gabe and Brenda’s bodies remained where they had fallen, waiting for the medical examiner to arrive. Until then the camera ran nonstop, taking pictures of the bodies and deck from every vantage possible.

  “I can’t believe there are dead bodies here and you didn’t call me.”

  I looked up to see Justine hovering over me. Behind her was Vance, the chief medical examiner, who nodded and went to the salon. “Things got a little out of hand.”

  “I’ll say. That other agent, Susan, shot Brenda?”

  “And Brenda shot Gabe. How convenient.”

  I wondered how she knew about Susan, then followed her look and saw Susan’s boat tied off to the starboard rail. She was aboard talking to several men, the two detectives I had seen in the crime lab. I tried not to smile.

  “Yeah. I’m still not sure what her agenda is.”

  “Maybe you should ask her,” Justine said.

  I looked back at the Park Service boat. The detectives were exchanging cards and shaking hands with her. I got up and crossed to the other side of the boat. “Can we talk?” I asked her.

  “Sure. Come on aboard,” Susan answered.

  Justine had already started to work with Vance and I felt a pang of jealousy watching her laugh at something he said. Shaking that off, I climbed over the rail and stepped onto the twin of my boat—only this one was spotless. I’d have bet I wouldn’t find a fishing rod aboard.

  “I guess I should thank you for taking out Brenda.” I was very careful not to say that she had saved my life. The last thing I needed was to acknowledge a favor like that with Susan McLeash.

  “I saw the gun come up.”

  She said it like there was nothing else she could have done. There wasn’t any remorse in her tone; she was just matter-of-fact. “Well anyway, I appreciate the backup.” I paused before I asked, “How did you come to be here?” I thought I knew the answer already.

  “Somebody has to keep an eye on you. Martinez wanted you on a short leash.”

  “I hope I didn’t disappoint,” I said. She had confirmed what I expected. The GPS log still bothered me, but how far do you push someone who just saved your life?

  She gave me a look that I remember my mother giving me. Kind of a cross between angry and disappointed. “If you would have been a little more open, there might not be blood all over your uniform.”

  I looked down at my shirt and saw the blood splatter. Acknowledging her, I nodded. “Guess I owe you one.”

  The crime scene was pretty much cleaned up. It had taken a while. After the case containing the explosives was found rigged to a detonator, the bomb squad had to be called in. I had just finished giving my statement to the Miami-Dade officers.

  Susan had given her statement before I had and left, taking the answers to some of my questions with her. There were still some loose ends that didn’t make sense, like why she was even there in a position to help me. I wasn’t sure how the dust would settle and if Martinez or the Park Service would get any credit by the time Miami-Dade was done. I’d just have to wait and figure it was going to be business as usual tomorrow.

  “You want to go talk or something?” Justine asked. “I’m wrapped up here.”

  I looked back at the deck and saw Brenda’s body being taken away on a gurney. Gabe’s body was already loaded in the coroner’s van and the crowd aboard the Big Bang was thinning out. “Sure, that’d be good.” I looked down at my bloodstained shirt and shrugged. “I’m kind of a mess and have no transportation.” I hadn’t told her how I had gotten there.

  “The story of your life. Come on, we can go t
o my place. I’ll cook something for us.”

  There was nothing left for me there and I followed her to her car. We drove in silence to her condo and after a long hot shower, I found her in the kitchen working on a stir-fry.

  “Looks really good,” I said, moving behind her and kissing her neck. Thankfully she didn’t flinch, but rather eased her body into mine. We hadn’t really talked since she had taken the boat.

  “There’s a bottle of wine on the counter. How about you open it and pour us a glass.”

  I followed orders and a few minutes later we were sitting at her counter with plates piled high and large glasses of wine. I ate slowly, savoring the ginger and garlic Justine had used to flavor the dish. The wine went down easily and our plates were soon empty.

  “I’ll get the dishes,” I said, standing up and taking both plates to the kitchen.

  “Forget that, but bring the wine back with you.”

  She was on the couch when I returned. Topping off both glasses, I sat next to her. There was a reluctant peace falling over me, as if I were finally relaxing. But there were a few questions still bothering me: how did Susan know to show up at the marina and who actually killed Abbey? Justine must have sensed my turmoil.

  “It’s hard when they don’t wrap up cleanly.”

  I brought the wineglass to my lips and took a long sip. It wasn’t for the drink, but rather to keep my mouth shut. I knew the best thing I could do was to let it go. The three remaining conspirators were all in custody. If they managed to evade prison, they were broke with no prospects. They would each pay in their own way for their part in this. I didn’t know what charges would have been hanging over Gabe and Brenda if they were still alive and guessed it didn’t really matter anymore. I had set out to get justice for Abbey, and in the end, I had succeeded.