Baja Florida (9 page)

“We got a problem.”

“What, the bank wouldn't give you the money?”

“No, they gave me the money. That's not…”

“How much did you get?”

“Two thousand, just like you said.”

“And the IDs worked?”

“They worked just fine. The teller even called me Miss Ryser and asked if I was enjoying my stay. It couldn't have gone smoother.”

“So what's the problem?”

“Here. Take a look at this. I found it posted on a bulletin board outside a grocery store.”

“That's the sailboat.”

“Yeah, no shit it's the sailboat. Or one just exactly like it. Even says the name right there.
Chasin' Molly.
And there's a number to call if anyone has information…”

“Fuck.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“I say we get rid of her and haul ass. Right now. While there's still time. Because if someone's snooping around already and looking for her then…”

“Just shut the fuck up and let me think. We kept all their cell phones, right?”

“Yes, all the cell phones. They're in that big duffel bag along with some of their clothes and other crap. I thought we should have gotten rid of it, but you said keep it…”

“Just shut the fuck up and bring me the duffel bag.”

“You don't have to talk to me like that.”

“Just bring it, dammit. I need to make a phone call.”

“You calling the number on the poster?”

“Just bring me the goddam duffel bag, alright?”

I was feeling slightly better about finding Jen Ryser after we left Cutie's Place. But only slightly.

I knew for certain she had reached the Bahamas. But more than a week had passed since her arrival. Plenty of time to cruise down to the Exumas and visit her father. I didn't want to call Mickey until I had more information to report than “Your daughter is in the Bahamas but I don't know where exactly.” Knowing that wouldn't do Mickey a bit of good. He needed something solid to grab.

As for Abel Delgado, it was heartening to know that a thoroughly amateur sleuth like myself was on the same trail as a highly trained professional. Maybe our paths would cross. Maybe we could swap some secrets of the trade. And maybe I could ask him face-to-face why he'd been dodging Mickey Ryser.

And then there was the whole thing about the fight at Cutie's Place. I wasn't all that concerned about the three young women getting into a scrape. Like Cutie said, put people on a boat under stressful conditions and the worst will come out. Especially when booze and who knows what else is added to the equation.

But most folks would sleep it off and make amends. Or at least try to. Especially if they were aboard a gorgeous new boat and on the first leg of a vacation that had probably been planned for months. They wouldn't shitcan the whole shebang, abandon their friends, and jump ship on a tiny island knowing they would get stranded there for days.

Karen Breakell.

The list of people I needed to find kept getting longer.

 

We piled into the seaplane, Charlie pointed us for Marsh Harbour, and thirty minutes later we were touching down at the airport just outside of town.

The plane needed some minor maintenance, loose bolts on the struts or something, something I'm relieved Charlie didn't tell us about when we were up in the air. He said he'd take care of it and catch up with us later.

Boggy and I rented a car at the airport, drove into town. Compared to Grand Cay, Marsh Harbour was Manhattan. Strip malls, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and traffic backed up at the town's two stoplights.

I got us rooms at the Mariner's Inn, near the center of things. Then we set out, going from marina to marina, asking if anyone had seen the
Chasin' Molly
or the
Trifecta
.

The first place we stopped, the dockmaster said, “You working with that other guy?”

“What other guy?”

“Guy who stuck that up.”

The dockmaster pointed to a flyer on a bulletin board. It showed a Beneteau 54, a stock shot, taken off the Internet probably. Written below it—“REWARD: For information leading to the location of
Chasin' Molly
. Urgent! Call…”

The number on the flyer was the same one Gloria Delgado had given me. I called it and this time I got the same recorded voice that I'd heard on the machine at Delgado's office. I left my name and number and told Delgado he needed to call me right away.

We visited two more marinas. Both sported flyers on their bulletin boards about
Chasin' Molly
. At least Delgado appeared to be doing a little something to earn his pay.

We got lucky at the fourth place we stopped—Blue Sky Marina. It turned out to be where the
Trifecta
was based.

“Out on a charter,” said the man behind the counter at the marina office. “Not due back until tomorrow.”

“You know the crew?”

“Just got here the other day, but yeah, I met them.”

“You know a Karen Breakell? She'd be in her twenties.”

“Only one woman crew on
Trifecta.
Guess that would be her.”

“You know where
Trifecta
is?” I said. “Sure would like to find it.”

“You mind me asking why?”

“Old friend of the family,” I said. “Just thought I'd surprise Karen, maybe buy her a drink or something.”

“Works for me,” the man said. “Hold on.”

A VHF radio sat on the counter, tuned to Channel 16. The man picked up the handset.

“Blue Sky Marina calling the
Trifecta,
” he said. “
Trifecta,
come in.”

He gave it a few seconds and called again. Static and then a man's voice: “Read you, Blue Sky. This is the
Trifecta.
”

“Yeah, Captain. What's your location?”

“Just leaving Guana for Green Turtle. Look to be there in two-three hours.”

“Copy that,” said the man behind the counter. He held out the handset to me. “You want to tell that friend of yours anything?”

“No,” I said. “I think I'll surprise her.”

Green Turtle Cay sits three miles offshore of Great Abaco. The only way to get there if you don't have a boat, or a seaplane, is to take the ferry, which runs on the hour or thereabouts.

I covered the twenty-five miles on the S.C. Bootle Highway to the ferry dock in less than forty minutes. A minor miracle since we had to stop twice for goats, once for chickens, and once for a truck that had dropped its exhaust system in the middle of the road after hitting a monster pothole.

We pulled into the ferry dock parking lot just as the deckhands on the
Sarah Mitchell
were casting off lines. The captain kept it at idle until we'd hopped aboard.

Two long bench seats ran down each side of the ferry's cabin. They were filled with passengers, a mix of vacationers and locals. The space between the benches was taken up by various goods bought in Marsh Harbour—crates of groceries, cases of beer and soda, boxes containing everything from dishwashers to TV sets—along with assorted suitcases and duffel bags.

The only place left to stand was near the stern. Aside from the occasional whiff of diesel fumes, the wind felt fresh on my skin. The sun was at our backs. The day was progressing nicely enough, although I had not a clue where it was heading. Still, there was motion and it seemed to be forward motion and I was just a big shrimp, going with the tide, crunching my way along, ass-first and mindless of any hungry beasties that might come along and make a meal of me.

A pod of dolphins broke surface in our wake and drafted the boat for several minutes before jetting away. I took it as a good luck sign. Not that I put much stock in signs. Or luck. The good kind or the bad kind. But when dolphins present themselves—those quirky almost-human smiles, their happy leaping, that sense of a creature so attuned to its place and so utterly pleased to be there—it is hard not to feel just a little bit hopeful.

The ferry hit a wave and jostled us around. Boggy and I held fast to the transom to keep our footing. Despite the washing he'd given his clothes, Boggy still looked a mess.

“Mind me asking you something?”

“You just did,” he said.

“Mind me asking what you were doing in that ditch at the Walker's airport?”

“I found some things there.”

“What things?”

“Taino things.”

“The Taino used to live on Walker's Cay?”

“The Taino, they were everywhere, Zachary. On all these islands. Some called themselves Lucaya. Some Arawak. But they were all the same people—Taino.”

He opened one of the leather pouches that hung from the drawstring of his pants. He pulled out a smooth black object, a stone of some kind it looked like, just a couple of inches long, maybe three inches wide.

He handed it to me.

“A zemi,” Boggy said.

“Zemi. That's one of your Taino gods or something, right?”

“Yes, my people, they carve the likenesses of zemis in sacred wood.”

I weighed the object in the palm of my hand, rubbed it between my fingers. The shape was irregular, but there seemed to be five distinct, rounded corners.

“Hard wood,” I said. “Hard as rock.”

“From the ceiba. Some they call it the silk cotton tree. It is the tree where spirits live.”

“So what particular god am I holding here?”

“The years they have worn it smooth, but look and you can see the shape—the head, the four legs, the round shell. This, it is Opiyelguobirán, the turtle zemi, guardian of the gates of death.”

“Mmm, cheery,” I said. “But how do you know it's not just an old piece of wood that if you squint real hard it might look vaguely like Opi-…some damn turtle.”

“Because when I found the zemi, it spoke to me, Zachary. I could feel its power.”

“That
maja acu
stuff, you been nipping at it again, haven't you?”

Boggy ignored me. He took the zemi from me and put it back in the pouch.

“You got more zemis in there?”

“Yes, several.”

“Let's see.”

“Not now,” Boggy said. “It is not the time or place.”

“But you found them in that ditch? Just lucked across them, out in the middle of nowhere, easy as that. Like going to the zemi Super Store?”

“You have to understand, Zachary, there were once thousands and thousands of Taino in these islands. Every Taino—man, woman, child—always carried a pouch like mine with different zemis in it. For power and for protection. When Tainos died, their zemis were buried with them, to look after them in the afterlife.”

“So the runway at Walker's Cay, that was once a Taino burial ground?”

“I think so, yes. At the center of the island, near a high point of land. That is where Taino live, and that is where they bury their dead,” Boggy said. “I am very happy that I found these zemis.”

Boggy lives in a small place he built at the nursery. It's a glorified chickee hut really—a palmetto-thatched roof with a broad overhang above a platform of hard pine, not even screens to keep out the bugs. It sits near the center of the property, on the highest ground.

“I've seen some of those zemis at your place, haven't I? You've got them stuck everywhere.”

“Yes, but those zemis are ones that I made.” He tapped the leather pouch. “These zemis, they are much more powerful.”

“Why's that? Thought you were supposed to be some high-charged shaman, a guy who has a direct line to the gods. The zemis you make, they oughta be jam-up with power.”

“I am only one, Zachary.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“In the long-ago, when there were many Taino on these islands, the belief it was strong, the belief it was everywhere. The old zemis they were filled with that belief, they were filled with power.”

“What were they, like faith magnets or something?”

Boggy's eyes lit up. He smiled. Such a rare occurrence that I had to blink to make sure.

“That is a very good way to describe it, Zachary. Yes, that is exactly what they are. Faith magnets. I like that.”

“Well, glad I could make your day.”

Boggy looked at me. I always try to hold his gaze, but every time it's me who is the first one to look away.

“I know you don't believe, Zachary.”

“I've got my beliefs.”

“In what do you believe?”

“It's not like I can put a name on it or anything.”

“If you cannot put a name on it, then why believe in it?”

“I believe in myself.”

“A small belief.”

“I believe in Barbara and I believe in Shula, OK? I believe in the thing that joins all people together and not the thing that pulls them apart. I believe in wisdom defeating ignorance, love conquering hate, good winning out over evil, some beauty being just skin deep and some ugly going all the way to the bone. I believe in skies of blue, clouds of white, bright blessed days, and dark sacred nights.”

“Mr. Louis Armstrong.”

“Yeah, I believe in him, too.”

Boggy put a hand on my shoulder.

“That's a start,” he said.

The
Sarah Mitchell
pulled up to the ferry dock in New Plymouth, Green Turtle's only town and as charming a place as you could hope to find in the Bahamas. Yet another Loyalist community, with its roots in the 1780s, it still had the narrow streets and tabby walls and pastel buildings that hearkened to that era, although few of the structures dated back much more than a hundred years. Numerous fires and hurricanes had seen to that.

We had at least another hour before the
Trifecta
arrived, so Boggy and I walked around.

We passed half a dozen churches, an elementary school where kids were playing dodgeball on the playground, a couple of cemeteries, five places that rented golf carts to tourists, the Alton Lowe Museum, four restaurants, three grocery stores, two hardware stores, a bank that was open only on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, and the Plymouth Rock liquor store, which was notable for the fact that it also served chicken souse for breakfast and sold real estate, your basic full-service establishment.

We walked out on Government Dock and took in the view. A group of young boys were jumping off the end of the dock, turning flips on the way down. A group of young girls were pretending not to watch, giggling among themselves.

Boats were tied off at mooring buoys just inside the harbor. Nice boats. Cruisers and charters like the
Trifecta
. When it finally arrived this was where it would be.

We walked around some more and wound up where everyone who visits New Plymouth eventually winds up—Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar. The sign outside proudly proclaimed it the “Original Home of the Goombay Smash.”

Emily Cooper passed away years ago and, being a good Christian woman, swore she never tasted the concoction that launched a zillion hangovers. The secret recipe resided with her daughter Violet. She was behind the bar.

“Hello, dahlin',” Violet said. “Haven't seen you here in too long now. Where you been keeping yourself?”

She gave me a hug. She gave Boggy one, too. We did some catching up.

Violet poured us each a plastic cup of the house specialty. Even with all the fruit juice and the froufrou, the rum, which there were three kinds of, went directly to that part of the prefrontal cortex that elevates higher thinking.

We found a table and sat down.

I got out my cell phone. I'd forgotten to charge it the night before. It was running low on juice and I was keeping it turned off unless I really needed it. Plus, roaming fees in the Bahamas are brutal.

I switched on the phone and was rewarded with an assortment of beeps and blips that let me know I was way behind on the human contact front.

A message from Mickey Ryser saying I should give him a call. A message from Barbara saying I should give her a call, too. I was still sorting through all the messages when the screen lit up with an incoming call and I clicked over to that.

A man's voice…

“Zack Chasteen?”

“You got me.”

“Abel Delgado. You called?”

“I did. We need to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Face-to-face, Delgado. Where are you?”

“Listen, Chasteen, I already know about you. I talked to my wife. She said you'd bothered her.”

“I paid your wife a visit, Delgado. I did not bother her. And I don't believe she would tell you otherwise.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Tell you the truth, if she was bothered by anyone it was you.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Just a personal observation,” I said. “I've observed something else, too.”

“What?”

“That you've been negligent in returning the calls of your client, Mickey Ryser.”

“I just got off the phone with Ryser.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That's between me and him.”

“Not anymore it's not. Mickey's an old friend. He paid you good money to find his daughter. What have you done to earn it? Besides stick up a few posters around Marsh Harbour?”

Nothing from the other end of the line.

“You get any response from those posters, Delgado? Because if you have any idea where Jen Ryser is, then you need tell me right now. Anything you know, I want to know it, too.”

More nothing from the other end of the line.

“You still with me, Delgado?”

“Yeah, I'm with you,” he said. “You bother my wife again and I'll have your ass.”

“Why wait?”

“Huh?”

“I said why wait? You can have my ass as soon as you want it. But, fair warning, my ass is part of a package deal that contains all the rest of me. So you'll have your work cut out for you. Also, I might as well tell you that I am not above a head butt. And if it gets down to the short hairs, then I have been known to bite.”

A long pause from Delgado, then…

“You talk big, Chasteen.”

“I am big.”

“Where are you?”

“Wherever two or more are gathered together in my name…”

It got nothing from him. A great line like that, wasted.

“At this moment, I'm sitting at Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar willfully trying to restrain myself from asking Violet for a second goombay smash. You better pray to God I don't have another one because I get even bigger and meaner with rum in me.”

“Huh?”

“Let me make this easy, Delgado. Where are you?”

“Marsh Harbour. You know where that is?”

“Indeed I do. Exactly where in Marsh Harbour?”

“The Mariner's Inn,” he said. “At the bar.”

“Imagine that.”

“Imagine what?”

“Imagine I'll be meeting you there, Delgado. Say, eight o'clock tonight. I'll bring my ass. You bring yours. We'll see who leaves with what.”