“Yeah,” Ben said, “it takes a lot of wind to move our kind of tonnage.”
There were also several photos of the fleet anchored out off Sand Key Light, dinghies circling in the water, some pulled up onto the sand beach. My eyes scanned across the photos looking for Nestor. I wondered if he had made it out to the lighthouse as he’d told the kid at the rental shack he’d intended. I’d checked almost all the photos without seeing any sign of him when I stopped and went back to a photo I’d already examined. It wasn’t Nestor or a windsurfer that caught my eye. It was a white boat with a center console that was pulled up on the sand. A yacht tender. Written on the side was t/t Power Play.
I closed my eyes for a moment and replayed the scene in my head. There was no doubt about it. Ted Berger had told me he’d spent all afternoon fishing Bluefish Channel. That was in the opposite direction—nowhere near Sand Key. The question I now wanted answered was this: Why did he lie?
X
When I got to the boatyard the next morning, I was feeling just a little bit wobbly. Wine wasn’t my drink of choice, and I’d had too much of it the night before. Ben kept pouring and I kept drinking. Stupid. I was sort of hoping that we would get back around to talking about personal history again, but he steered the conversation toward the safe topic of boats. Something about the man fascinated me, but I knew we would never be able to move forward until we cleared the air about the stuff that had happened long ago.
When I’d gotten out to my boat around eight o’clock, Abaco was thrilled to see me after nearly twelve hours alone. I had taken her ashore in the dark, and as she romped around in the trees snuffling out night creatures in the underbrush, I walked the shoreline feeling a monster headache coming on, and wondering what had been going on in my friend’s home as he was growing up.
The Power Play was back in the water that morning, tied to the dock at Robbie’s Marina, and my headache hadn’t subsided yet. In the clear dry air after a cold front, anything white bounces that Florida sunlight right back into your eyes like lasers. The big slab sides of the yacht were making my teeth hurt.
“Hi, Seychelle.” The perky voice came from behind me, and my headache threatened to turn to nausea. I turned away from the brilliant yacht to find Debbie crossing the dirt yard waving at me. Her slender arms were tanned a nutmeg brown, and her short, shiny hair bounced as she arrived beside me and took my arm. “You don’t look too good. Are you feeling okay?”
I was only months on the far side of thirty and this little twenty-something was making me feel ancient. I shook my arm free of her grasp. “I’m fine. It’s just that Gorda isn’t really meant as a live-aboard boat. She’s a little river tug. My digs aren’t nearly as luxurious as yours.”
She giggled. “Digs. I never heard anybody say that before. Well, come on. Our new skipper, Jeremy, is up in the yard office with Mr. Berger. They want you to join them up there. That’s why they sent me out here.”
“Okay. I got that. I’m going.”
She fell in step beside me. “This new guy, Jeremy, he’s like really cute. Wait till you see him.”
“Oh, I already have.”
“Really? How? I thought he just got here.”
“Debbie, I’ve met lots of Jeremys. Trust me.”
“That’s weird, ’cause I’ve never met anybody named Jeremy before.”
The yard office was in a makeshift metal building, new quarters after the last hurricane season had driven them out of the old place, Debbie told me. She led me into the lobby and back into a private office, where two upholstered office chairs held Berger and a gentleman I assumed was the yard manager. A metal folding chair scraped back when Jeremy stood and extended his hand to me. His blond hair was perfectly coiffed, the epaulets on his white shirt starched and pressed, and the palm of his hand as baby-smooth as his hairless chin.
Berger pointed to the other metal chair. “Take a seat.” The yard manager introduced himself as Bob, and I took my spot next to the other hired hand. I looked at Berger’s profile as he continued the story he had been telling Bob when I walked in. It was something about the women on his female roller hockey team. He obviously felt no compunction about calling the women broads and bitches in my presence, especially to an appreciative audience like Jeremy who laughed too loudly at his jokes. But just because Berger was an ignorant Neanderthal, did it follow that he could commit murder?
Bob was a heavyset older man, and judging from the pictures on the shelf behind his desk, he was also the father of daughters. Berger’s language was making him squirm. As soon as he could interject, he changed the subject to what had brought us there. He explained what work had been done to the boat, and what still needed to be finished up before we could depart. The three of them began to discuss the trip north as though I weren’t even there. In a pinch, the yacht could probably run on one engine with her makeshift rudders, but they anticipated a very slow speed for her—and they talked as if they were expecting us to run straight up the coast without stopping.
“Can I interrupt a minute here? Gentlemen, I just came down the coast and there are about a million lobster pots in Hawk’s Channel between here and Miami this time of year. There’s no way we’re running at night.”
Berger started to complain that he needed to get the boat up to Fort Lauderdale as soon as possible.
“You either do this my way, or you do it without me. If I’m the one running your towboat, we’ll stop the first night off Marathon, the second night off Rodriguez Key, and then we’ll run straight back, getting into Lauderdale late on the third night. While south of John Lloyd and the park waters, we only run during daylight hours. Once we’re clear of the pots, we head straight home. If it kicks up and gets nasty, weather-wise, we may have to dodge into Government Cut and go up the intracoastal between Miami and Lauderdale. You know how it is this time of year with these fronts. They come sliding down from the north as regular as fleas on a dog. If we’re lucky, the weather will hold, and if we get away Thursday morning, we’ll get in—” I paused and tried to see the calendar in my head. “—late Saturday night.”
Berger tried to argue with me, and Jeremy—as a good company man—stuck right behind the boss, but in the end I told them that it was a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal. Especially now that I’d met Pinder, I knew more or less what Berger’s choices were, and I was confident he would give in. He did.
Once we had established that we would be leaving on Thursday morning, I stood to excuse myself from the group.
“Wait a minute,” Berger said. “Have you read the paper this morning?”
“No.”
“Your girlfriend has been talking to the press.” He held up the front page of the Key West Citizen. The headline read SUSPICIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUND WINDSURFER DEATH.
“How do you know it was Catalina?”
“She’s quoted three times in the story, that’s how. She’s insinuating that Nestor’s death was no accident.”
“You’ve got to understand, she’s just lost her husband.”
“Bullshit. I don’t mind giving her a ride up to Lauderdale, but not if she’s making defamatory remarks about me to the press. Shut her up or she’s gone. You understand?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I hear you.”
I was tempted to slam the door on my way out of the office. What was Cat thinking? She must have called that reporter yesterday after I’d sent her home in the cab. My first impulse was to be angry with her, but then I had to back off and realize that if it had been B.J., and I believed someone had killed him, I would be doing exactly the same thing. Maybe the question I should have been asking myself is why I didn’t feel the need to do this for Nestor.
I took off to find Catalina. She now had only a short time in which to take care of business in Key West, and she’d want to know we were leaving day after tomorrow. I’d do my best to avoid the topic of the newspaper. As I approached the dock, I saw her sitting at a table on the Power Play’s afterdeck, her head bowed over a book, a p
en in her hand. It looked as if she was writing in some kind of journal.
I walked up to the edge of the sea wall and called out, “Permission to come aboard?”
She glanced up, appearing momentarily dazed, like she was trying to remember where she was. “Seychelle?”
“I’m over here,” I called out as I stepped through the gate in the bulwark and made my way aft. When I reached the deck, she closed the book and rested her pen on the table. “How are you feeling today?”
She placed a hand on her belly and slid it around in smooth circles. “She is resting now, but she was awake all night. It felt like she was dancing in there. I could not sleep, either, but it was not all her fault. Part of me is afraid to sleep. I am afraid I will have dreams and in my dreams Nestor will be alive. Then, when I awake, I will have to lose him all over again.”
“I can understand that,” I said, but I was thinking that every time I asked her how she was, she answered me in part with how the baby was. I wondered if my mother had felt so connected to me when I shared her womb. If so, was it just her illness that had changed her so, that had led her to leave me all alone on the beach that day?
“What were you writing?” I asked.
“Just my thoughts about what might have happened. Who might have done this to my husband. That woman at the newspaper asked me to.”
“Jesus, Catalina. Berger’s seen the article. He’s threatening to throw you off this boat.”
“I don’t need him. I’ll get my things and go.” She put her hands on the arms of her chair, ready to push her body to a stand.
“No. I don’t want you to do that. I understand that you want to find whoever you think did this, but I’m still not sure—I just want to get you home safe to Fort Lauderdale.”
I considered telling her then about the photo I had seen of Berger out at Sand Key Light and how he had lied to me about being there. I was afraid for her health and safety, though. I didn’t know what she was likely to try. At the moment, I just wanted to get her back to Fort Lauderdale and through this pregnancy.
“Speaking of that, Cat, I was up in the office talking to Mr. Berger and the new captain he hired.”
“A new captain already?”
“Yeah, he’s really anxious to get the boat back up to Fort Lauderdale so he can get it repaired. They want to leave Thursday morning.”
“So soon? But I have to take care of my husband.”
“I know. That’s why I came to tell you. But really, there’s nothing that you need to be here for. You can talk to the Key West authorities by phone.”
“I cannot just go off and leave him here.”
“What do you say we go into town and find out just what it would cost to have his body shipped up to Fort Lauderdale? I’m assuming that’s what you want to do? You don’t want to try to send him back to the DR, do you?”
“No, his family there is all dead. I would like to make a life for my baby in Florida.”
Before I could respond, the doors to the salon opened and Jeremy stepped out, followed by Drew, who seemed to be giving him the tour. As they approached the table where Catalina sat with her back to them, I could see Drew’s lips move as he whispered something to his new boss.
“Catalina,” Drew said aloud, “I’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Andersen. He’s the new captain of the Power Play. ”
Jeremy held out his hand to her. “I’m sorry about your husband.”
Cat stood. “You will want your cabin. I will get my things.”
“Okay, that would be very nice of you,” he said.
“Hang on,” I said as I stepped forward and slipped my hand inside Jeremy’s arm. I led him, practically dragging him, into the salon. “We’ll be right back,” I said over my shoulder.
Once inside, I slid the door closed. “Look, here’s the situation. That woman out there is a friend of mine, and she has suffered a terrible loss. You’d have to be a total asshole to kick her out of her quarters, and I’m counting on the fact that you aren’t. There are plenty of cabins on this boat, and you can bunk somewhere else until we get to Lauderdale. Once we’re there, she’ll be off the boat and out of your hair.”
“But—”
“No. Stop. There are no buts here. I’d take her with me aboard my boat but there isn’t room. Do you understand what it’s doing to her to see her husband replaced after one day?”
Without another word to me, he slid open the door and asked Drew to head up to the bridge deck with him. I had a feeling that Jeremy and I were not going to be the best of friends.
“You should not have done that,” Cat said.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go take care of your business. I’m ready to get out of this town and head home.”
I’d used a pay phone at the yard to call Lassiter on his cell, and he agreed to meet us at eleven. The receptionist ushered us back to the detective’s desk. He stood up, all smiles and happy to see us.
“Ms. Frias, I’ve got good news for you. You don’t have to worry about the funeral costs. It’s all been taken care of,” he said as Cat and I settled into chairs opposite his desk.
“What?” she said. “I do not understand.”
“Your husband’s employer, Mr. Berger, he called me yesterday to ask about the case, and when I mentioned to him that you were having difficulty finding the money to pay for funeral expenses, he said he’d take care of it. In fact, the funeral home went by the hospital and took the body this morning.”
“This morning?” Catalina repeated. She swiveled her head from me to the detective, as though one of us would be sure to explain.
“Detective,” I said, “this is the first we’ve heard of this. I just met with Mr. Berger this morning and he didn’t mention it. Can you tell me the name of the funeral home they took the body to?”
“I’ll find out,” he said, pushing back his chair.
“Seychelle, what does this mean?” Cat asked me when he had left the room.
“I don’t know. Maybe Berger was just trying to be a Good Samaritan. Maybe he decided to do you a favor.”
“But I am Nestor’s wife. They should not release the body to another.”
“Yeah, well, this is Key West. They’re pretty laid-back here sometimes about the rules and regs. They are also perpetually out of money. My guess is that they were worried that they were going to get stuck with the funeral costs, so they figured that if anybody stepped forward to pay, they’d be happy to oblige with the paperwork.”
Detective Lassiter came back into the room with a slip of paper that he handed to me. “They took him to the Dean Lopez Funeral Home over on Simonton. I wrote the address down for you there.”
“Thanks.” I looked at Catalina and raised my eyebrows as though asking if we were done here.
Cat leaned forward as if she was about to stand, then sank back in the seat again. “Detective Lassiter, I know you do not believe that Nestor was murdered because you say there is no evidence. Yet, did you look at the body?”
“Ma’am, that’s not my job. That’s the medical examiner’s job. But yes, he did an autopsy, and his conclusion was your husband died after being thrown into the mast, which knocked him unconscious and caused him to drown.”
“Did you speak to a windsurfing expert? Show him those photos?”
“I can’t continue to investigate the case if it has been ruled an accidental death. It doesn’t matter what you say to the papers or what you think. I have to go by the law.”
I reached out and laid my hand on Cat’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go over to the funeral home. Maybe we’ll be able to get Berger to pay to send the body up to Fort Lauderdale.”
Catalina stood slowly as though she were moving through a very thick liquid. When she got to the door, she turned back to Lassiter. “I can see you are a good man, Detective. You want to do what is right. Ask someone who knows this sport of windsurfing, please. Just ask.”
As soon as Catalina identified herself as the wife of Nestor Frias an
d asked to see her husband’s body, the young man in the dark suit who met us in the entry at the funeral home excused himself. He motioned for us to sit down in the reception area and disappeared down a long dark hall.
I really don’t get why so many people feel that everything associated with death always has to be so dark and somber. The funeral home lobby was decorated in dark woods and heavy velvet fabrics. The thick carpet hushed our footfalls, and fresh flowers filled the air with their sickly sweet smell. When Red, my father, had died a few years ago, my brothers and I had gone to the Neptune Society in Fort Lauderdale, and we were thankful for their bright, airy rooms and many paintings of ships and the sea. The man who helped us had not worn a dark suit or talked in whispered tones. We’d had a rather raucous memorial party for Red’s old buddies and family friends, and then my brothers and I had taken his ashes out to sea. I liked it that way better.
It was an older man who stepped out, introduced himself as Mr. Gomez, and invited us to join him in his office. He started in with all the usual about how sorry he was for her loss, and he really did sound like a close friend of the family. The man was good. He’d probably sat behind that desk and said those same words hundreds of times, but he managed to make you feel as if he meant them.
“When Mr. Berger contacted us this morning, I’m afraid he failed to mention that Mr. Frias had a wife here in town.”
“I don’t live here,” Cat said.
“I see. Well, Mr. Berger told us that the young man in his employ had died and that he was taking care of his affairs on behalf of the family. Had we known the family was here in town, we would have contacted you to find out how many copies of the death certificate you require. As it is, we only ordered what we needed to proceed. We were very lucky that the paperwork was processed at such a speed. Oftentimes here in Key West, well, you know things tend to run on ‘island time.’ The county government rarely works this fast, but I guess it has been a slow week and they needed something to do over there. At any rate, now that I have you here, perhaps you would be interested in looking at a decorative urn?” Catalina turned and looked at me as though she expected me to translate.
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