Hurricane (2 page)

“
Come on down then,” Julie said. She went down the ladder followed by her daughter, Tammy, and the two policemen.

“
Hot down here,” the uniform said.

“
No air-conditioning, sorry,” Julie said. She reached overhead and opened a hatch, but the slight breeze above did little to cool the people below.

“
I’ll get the other two, Mom,” Meiko said. She opened two more hatches.

“
I’ve never been on a boat before,” the suit said. “Everything is so small.”

“
Rather large actually,” Tammy said, “for a boat.”

“
Everything’s relative,” the suit said. Julie decided she didn’t like the man.

“
Almost time for lunch,” the uniform said. The suit shot him a look that could melt steel and Julie knew that something was wrong.

“
Fallen Angel, Fallen Angel, are you down there, Julie?” The voice carried the ring of a true southern belle.

“
Yes, Alice, I’m here,” Julie said, and sighed.

“
I’m coming right down. It’s so sad.” Julie and Meiko exchanged glances.

“
Mom?” Meiko whispered.

“
It’s okay, she means well,” Julie whispered back.

“
How are you bearing up, dear?” Alice Fuller said, coming down the ladder. She had a sixteen-year-old voice inside of a sixty-year-old body. She reached out for Julie with arthritic hands, and when she didn’t respond to the hug Alice dropped her arms, turning toward the two policemen. Her misty eyes turned to slits and Julie saw the fury boiling as Alice tightened up her wrinkled face and stuck out her jaw.

“
You men get off,” she said. She didn’t sound sixteen anymore.

“
No ma’am not yet. We can’t. We have a job to do,” the senior officer said. He was sweating through his suit, big wet rings under his arms.

“
And when did you plan on doing it? After tea?” The old woman advanced toward the shrinking policeman and fixed him with a stare that caused him to sweat even more.

“
Just now, we’re doing it just now.”

“
What is it? Why are you here?” Julie balled her fists and braced herself for the worst.

“
I’m sorry to tell you this,” the suit said. “There is no easy way.” He turned toward his uniformed companion for help, but the other policeman looked away.

“
Just tell me,” she said. Ice circled and stabbed at her heart.

“
The sailing yacht Stardust exploded and sank off the California coast five days ago. All hands were lost. I’m sorry.”

“
Mom!” Meiko clutched Julie’s hand.

“
Are they sure?” Julie said. Tammy took her other hand.

“
I believe so,” the suit said.

“
Do I have to do anything?” Julie stammered.

“
No, ma’am, not for us. Immigration might want you to remove your husband from the crew list, but, as far as we’re concerned, our job’s finished here. Again, I’m sorry.”

“
There is something wrong with you two,” Alice said. “And if I was a man I’d thrash you.” She turned toward Tammy. “They were up in the bar, drinking cold beer and telling anybody and everybody about how Hideo was on that boat that blew up. But somehow when they have to tell his wife they lose not only their courage, but their decency as well.”

“
Just making a little talk is all,” the suit said. “Everybody likes a little talk.”

“
I think you men can go now,” Tammy said.

“
Yes, Miss Drake,” the suit said. The three younger women stood holding hands as he went up the ladder, followed by the hungry policeman who didn’t want to work into his lunch hour. Usually Julie loved the Trinidadians, but sometimes she hated them. This was one of those times.

“
We never did get our soda,” the uniform said, his voice drifting from down the dock.

“
Shut up, they can hear you,” the suit answered, and Julie realized that she’d forgotten to tell them about the body.

“
Mom,” Meiko said, tears streaming down her cheeks. Julie hugged her daughter and bit into her lower lip, but she was unable to hold it back and she wept too. Hideo was older and she’d always known that someday she’d have to go on without him, but she’d expected more time.

“
Honey, we’re all so sorry,” Alice said. “If there’s anything you need, you come to us. We’re family, all of us. We stick together. Remember that. And remember that we love you.”

“
Thank you, Alice,” Julie said.

“
I better go check on Chad. Remember what I said.”

“
How is he?” Julie said, numb.

“
Better today. It was a nasty flu.” This time when Alice opened her arms Julie fell into the hug. Then she was up the ladder and gone.

Julie and Meiko sat on the starboard settee, holding hands and sobbing. Tammy sat on the settee opposite and silently waited for the two women to work through their grief, and after awhile the crying eased up.

“
What are you going to do now?” Tammy asked. She was shredding a napkin, turning it into paper snowflakes on the floor.

“
I don’t know,” Julie turned to look at her. Julie had thought it was a good thing that Meiko had found a friend in Trinidad when she started hanging around with Tammy, but she was falling under the singer’s spell and it worried Julie.

“
Are you going to keep the boat?” Tammy asked. Her concern sincere.

Julie shivered. Quiet ruled the salon. The sound of the ocean lapping against the sides of Fallen Angel and the creak of the dock lines as the boat swayed dominated the room for a few seconds before she answered.

“
I don’t know that either,” she said. “The boat is really all we have. I think we’re about out of money. We were counting on what Hideo was going to make on this delivery just to get through the next couple of months. We were in the boatyards so much and for so long, and it seems like everything they did had to be done over, some things three times. It wound up costing so much more than they said it would.”

“
But don’t they have to stick to what they say?” Meiko said.

“
In America they do, but not here.” Julie paused, the bitterness evident in her voice. Then she said, “I’m sorry, Tammy, I know Victor’s your brother, but Drake’s was just as bad as Corbeau’s.”

“
I know you got screwed in the yards, but at least you can understand Victor’s phony British accent. I can’t tell you how many times Dieter has gone on speaking German in front of me like I’m not even there,” Tammy said.

“
Maybe it’s a mistake,” Meiko said. “Maybe he’s in a life raft.”

“
It’s no mistake, Honey,” Tammy said. “If the boat was lost at sea, maybe, but not off California. They have a real coast guard there. If there was any chance that he’d survived, we’d know it. I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.”

“
Hello the boat,” a crisp voice called out, followed by a rapping on the hull.

“
I’ll see who it is,” Tammy said. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes, and went up the up the ladder.

“
Mrs. Tanaka,” the voice hailed. It sounded like it belonged to a friendly man, Julie thought, and it sounded American.

“
I’m here,” Julie said, and she followed Tammy up.

“
Mrs. Tanaka?” the man said. Julie poked her head through the hatch. The first thing she noticed about him was his shaved head. The second, his window-clear blue eyes.

“
Yes,” Julie squinted against the bright sun.

“
Mrs. Hideo Tanaka?”

“
Were you expecting someone older, or more Japanese?” She met his cold stare with one of her own.

“
I’m sorry,” he said, but she knew he wasn’t. “I’m Bill Broxton, but you can call me Broxton, everybody does.” He handed her a leather wallet, open so that she could see his identification. His smile seemed pasted on, and his good old boy attitude wasn’t welcome.

“
Drug Enforcement Agency,” she said, handing back his wallet.

“
Yes, ma’am.” He snapped it closed and stuffed it in his hip pocket. There wasn’t a drop of sweat on him. He was as cool as his ice-blue eyes.

“
Why does the DEA want to talk to me?” She reached out to one of the shrouds and held onto it.

“
Could we talk alone?” He nodded toward Tammy.

“
Not without me you can’t,” Meiko said, coming through the hatch. She took her mother’s hand.

“
And I’d like to hear as well,” Tammy said.

“
It’s about your husband, ma’am.”

“
I’m sorry, I can’t help you. I was just informed that my husband is dead.”

“
We know that, ma’am. It’s something I’d like to talk about, but alone.” His good old boy voice turned hard.

“
Do you shave your head so you’ll look dangerous? Like a tough guy?” Julie said, and for a flash of a second she thought she saw the corners of his lips start to curve upward and his cold stare melt a little, but he checked himself, flattened out what might have been a pleasant smile, and forced the twinkle from his eyes.

“
No ma’am.” He ran a hand across his head, lingering for a second on a scar above his right ear.

“
Then why?”

The DEA man shuffled his feet and didn’t answer. Tammy and Meiko stood on deck, watching and listening. Meiko’s eyes were tearing up and she was digging the nails of her left hand into the palm to keep from crying. Tammy took the girl’s hand in hers and Meiko relaxed the pressure.

“
Come on, Honey, let’s take a short walk.” Tammy led Meiko across the deck. They were standing next to the DEA man and Tammy looked into his hard eyes.

“
I’ll give you five minutes with my friend,” Tammy said, the cold in her eyes every bit a match for his. “You won’t come on the boat and I won’t let you out of my sight.” She led Meiko to a bench on the dock, just out of earshot. The two woman sat facing the sea. Meiko buried her head in Tammy’s breasts and softly cried, while Tammy had her head turned, eyes on the DEA man.

“
Your friend gives orders like she expects them to be obeyed.” Broxton dropped his hands to his sides.

“
Tammy would never give an order she couldn’t enforce,” Julie said.

“
And if I come on the boat?”

“
How long can you tread water?”

“
I don’t follow.”

“
All she has to do is raise her hand and every Trini on the dock will come running and you’ll go swimming.”

“
Then I better stay where I am and not give her a reason to raise that hand.” For a second Julie thought Broxton was making fun of her, but there was no twinkle in his hard eyes and she realized that he must know who Tammy was.

“
Three bodies washed up on the beach the day the sailing yacht Stardust went down. A German national, A Cuban from Miami, known to be working for the Salizar family, a Colombian drug cartel, and your husband.”

“
And you think my husband had something to do with drug trafficking?”

“
No, we think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there are some questions that have to be asked.”

“
Mr. Broxton, I was informed less than five minutes ago that my husband is dead and now you come here with this. I think you should leave.”

“
This is very important, Mrs. Tanaka, or I wouldn’t have intruded.”

“
You’ll have to come back later.”

“
I’m sorry about your husband, but really these questions shouldn’t wait.”

“
Tammy,” Julie said, loud enough for her friend to hear, “Mr. Broxton is leaving now.”

Tammy started to rise.

“
Okay, you win, but I’ll be back,” Broxton said.

“
And I’ll be expecting you,” Julie said.

Chapter Two

The alarm on Julie’s watch went off at five in the morning and she opened her eyes from a sad sleep. She reached over and nudged her husband in the back. She’d had a horrible dream. Then she realized it was no dream. It wasn’t her husband sleeping next to her, but her daughter. Meiko hadn’t slept with her since she was ten years old.

She stared through the overhead hatch and studied the heavens. He’d never hold her again, never comfort her. They’d never sail the world together, never explore the South Pacific, never walk together again, never talk again, never make love again.

“
Oh, Hideo,” she quietly sobbed, “I love you so much.” Her alarm had been set to pick him up at the airport, something she wouldn’t have to do.

She closed her eyes over the mist and willed herself back to sleep, listening to her own heartbeat. Then she heard a quiet noise. Wood sliding against wood. Her eyes popped open, but she lay still, staring at the heavens. A satellite moved overhead, going from west to east, as bright as any star. She took shallow breaths, and she heard the sound again.

A drawer being eased open. Someone was on the boat. Not on the boat. In the boat.

She stifled an urge to scream out. Guns were illegal in Trinidad, but plenty of people had them. She lay her hand on Meiko’s side. She was breathing the steady rhythm of someone deep asleep, but Meiko had always been like that. Any unfamiliar sound, no matter how muffled, could wake Julie. She was a light sleeper, while nothing disturbed Meiko.