Hurricane (3 page)

She strained her ears, searching for another sound, proof that it wasn’t her imagination. She heard another drawer being opened with a quiet burglar’s touch. He was in the galley. Looking, robbing, stealing.

She removed her hand from her daughter’s side. Meiko’s heart was beating along with the ship’s clock in the salon, while Julie’s was racing, at least two beats for every tick of the clock.

She heard the faint tingle of silverware. A fork or spoon must have been jarred out of place as the drawer moved. She listened for another noise.

Silence.

She didn’t move. Didn’t dare breathe.

How could he have gotten on the boat without her hearing him? True the back hatch was left open at night, as was the one above her head, so the breeze could pass through and cool the boat, but he’d still have to come down the ladder and across the salon to the galley. It was a boat. The floors creaked. And the hatches in the floor groaned. A cat would be hard pressed to move through the salon silently, and that was no cat out there opening and closing and looking in her drawers.

Looking for what?

She tried to think. She wanted him off the boat. Maybe it was one of the local kids looking for a few bucks, but what if it wasn’t? She didn’t have much of value on the boat. They had been in the yacht club for over a year and there were no secrets in the small community, not from the yachties and not from the locals. Everyone knew they weren’t rich. No expensive cameras, no jewelry, not even a television.

So what was he looking for? It must be a kid. Had to be. For a second she thought about charging out there and grabbing him, but something held her back. What if it wasn’t a kid? He was awfully quiet. Could a kid be that quiet? She wanted to slip out of bed and peek out of the cabin and see if she could see who it was, but she knew she couldn’t be that quiet.

She closed her eyes and attempted to control her breathing. She mentally counted backwards from ten to one, forcing her mind to clear and it came to her, like lightning from a dark sky. All she had to do was to make a normal, getting up kind of sound and whoever was out there would quietly slip away, just like they quietly slipped in.

She had to pee. She stretched and yawned aloud, hoping it sounded more normal to whoever was out in the galley than it did to her. She didn’t hear any movement from the back of the boat as she stepped out of the double berth and went into the head. She turned on the light, dropped her shorts and panties and sat on the toilet.

She took steady, even breaths with closed eyes, but she heard nothing. When she was finished she got off the toilet and pumped some sea water into the bowl, then pumped it dry.

“
Want coffee, Meiko?” she said for the benefit of the man in the galley, because she knew Meiko wasn’t going to hear her, not the way she slept. Then she ran the water in the sink and washed her hands. She was stalling. She dried them. Still stalling. Time to take the plunge. She bit her lower lip and opened the head door, stepped out and started toward the galley, turning on an overhead light on the way.

There was no one there. Not a sign that anyone had been. Probably just a kid looking for money or something to sell. Or maybe no one at all. She’d been jumpy, she had a shock yesterday, maybe she imagined the whole thing.

Calm, she told herself, and again she counted from ten to one backwards, putting the incident out of her mind. She had much more important things to think about. Like what was she going to do now that Hideo was gone? She didn’t have much money, and no way to earn any more. She’d never had a job. Never earned a cent in her life. Hideo had been her life, Hideo and Meiko. She’d have to sell the boat.

The boat had been their dream. To sail the world. She couldn’t do it without him, but she didn’t want to give it up. The boat had become their home. They had designed the interior from the bottom up. It had taken all of their savings and she knew she could never get out of it what they’d put into it. She’d have to take a huge loss. The dream was going up in smoke, she thought, but then she corrected herself. The dream was dead. It died with Hideo.

She ran her hands along the top of the teak table in the breakfast nook opposite the galley. Hideo had build it with loving hands. She moved her eyes to the teak cabinets in the galley, also built with Hideo’s love, like the whole boat, everything in it, built with love. Their love. Hideo’s and hers. No, the dream may be dead, and she might not have much money, but she wouldn’t sell the boat.

No matter what, she wouldn’t sell the boat.

No matter what, she’d keep the boat.

She put on the coffee. She was still wearing the same clothes she’d had on yesterday. She slipped out of them and took a shower while the coffee was brewing, but the enjoyment she usually felt when the hot water cascaded along her body was absent.

She didn’t think she’d ever enjoy anything again.

Out of the shower, she slipped on clean shorts and a halter top and went back to the galley for the coffee. She usually drank it with cream, but Hideo drank it black. She decided to have it black today. She sipped the hot liquid and tried to imagine what Hideo would be thinking now, with the strong black coffee in his mouth, while the distinctive aroma assaulted his nostrils. She would never use cream again.

“
Are you okay, Mom?” Meiko’s dreamy voice drifted out from the forward cabin.

“
Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, and she sat in the salon and cried. Images attacked her, the sparkle in Hideo’s eyes on Christmas morning, his grin as she unwrapped a huge teddy bear on her twentieth birthday so many years ago, his true belly laugh, his hair, too long for his age. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. He was so many things to her—husband, father, friend, teacher, lover and protector.

She dozed.

“
Mom, are you all right?” Meiko’s voice pried her awake.

“
What time is it?” she said, rubbing her eyes.

“
You’ve been crying?”

“
I guess.”

“
It’s a little after six,” Meiko said.

“
Why don’t you go back to sleep? I’d just like to be alone for a little while.”

“
No. I won’t leave you out here crying in the dark like nobody loves you. I love you and besides, I need you. A bad thing has happened to us and I need you near me.”

“
Oh, baby come here.” She was so overwhelmed by her own grief that she forgot about Meiko. He was her father and they were close. She started adoring him the instant her eyes first opened, and she’d never stopped.

Meiko sat and Julie draped an arm around her shoulder as her daughter snuggled close and together they shivered in the heat. It was going to be another hot and humid equatorial day and both women fell back into the dreamless sleep of the grief stricken.

Julie woke again to the sound of running water. Meiko was taking a shower. She refreshed her coffee and climbed up into the cockpit. She leaned back in the seat and inhaled the sea air. She watched two frigate birds riding the thermals above the swiftly moving clouds.

“
It’s really something, isn’t it? The way the clouds move like that?” Meiko said, coming into the cockpit with her own cup of coffee. Her blue-black hair was glistening, wet from the shower.

“
Yes,” Julie said.

“
It’s like film speeded up.”

“
I guess you’re right.” Julie took a another sip of her coffee and she noticed that Meiko was drinking it black also. The air was moving overhead, but it was quiet and still below, waiting on the sun to heat the land and start the early morning breeze. The beginning of the day. Julie’s favorite time.

“
I don’t have to leave,” Meiko said. “I could stay longer. It wouldn’t hurt if I missed a semester.”

“
Much as I’d like having you, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’d never forgive myself if you didn’t finish.”

“
But you need me. You can’t sail this big old boat by yourself.”

In spite of how she felt, Julie laughed. Ever since she could talk Meiko had been helping out. They were a team, the three of them, broken up only when Meiko had started going to college. As tempting as it was, and it was tempting, Julie knew she had to turn down her daughter’s offer.

“
I’d really love to have you, but we don’t have to think about it for a couple of months,” Julie said. She hated the fact that she could never make up her mind. Hideo could make snap decisions. She couldn’t. She’d weigh a problem from every angle, then weigh it again, hoping the solution would either present itself or the problem would go away.

The sun started to rise and brought a slight breeze with it.

Something thudded into the side of the boat.

“
What was that?” Meiko asked, with a slight shudder.

“
Don’t know,” Julie said. The image of the dead man from yesterday flashed across her mind.

Meiko stepped out of the cockpit and looked over the side. “It’s a waterlogged coconut.”

“
You know what I was thinking?” Julie said as Meiko sat back down beside her.

“
Yeah,” Meiko said. They had always been close. Like sisters, like twins.

“
We should have told the police about the body.”

“
It didn’t seem important after the news about Dad,” Meiko said.

“
I don’t think they’d see it that way,” Julie said, and as if on cue they looked up to see two uniformed police officers coming down the dock.

“
I didn’t think anybody in this country worked before breakfast,” Meiko said.

“
Especially not anyone who works for the government, and certainly not the police,” Julie finished.

“
Tammy must have told.”

“
Yeah.”

They watched as the two black officers walked up the main dock and turned left toward Fallen Angel. They were walking out of step, taking their time.

“
Looks like they’re coming here.” Meiko took a sip of her coffee.

“
Yeah.” Julie did the same.

The policemen squinted into the morning sun. Their uniforms pressed and neat, grey shirts with epaulets, black trousers, black belts, black shoes, black hat brims. One wore sergeant’s strips, the other had no stripes at all. They were tall, thin, angular men, ambling up the dock, enjoying the day, both smiling.

Their smiles disappeared when they approached the boat and noticed the women watching them. Wiped from their faces and replaced by twin scowls, like children in school, caught sending notes when they were supposed to be studying.

“
Mrs. Tanaka?” the one with the stripes said.

“
Yes,” Julie answered.

“
We have some questions.”

“
Before coffee?”

“
We’re on important business.”

“
I have some sweet rolls,” Julie added and the younger officer looked at his superior expectantly.

“
Another day,” the sergeant said, and a frown covered the junior man’s face.

“
Hello, Fallen Angel,” a high, squeaky voice interrupted the policeman.

Julie turned toward it and saw a comical looking little white man, sweating already, in a short sleeved, white shirt with a dark blue tie. He wiped some moisture from his bald head and looked up at the two women, like a mongrel dog looking for scraps.

“
Excuse me,” the sergeant said, “we have business here.”

“
Julie Tanaka?” The little man ignored the policeman.

Julie nodded.

“
There’s no nice way to say this. Your boat’s been arrested. You have to leave. I’m to see that you take nothing off but personal possessions.”

Julie’s eyes narrowed as she took in what the man said.

“
It’s legal,” the man said, reaching into a briefcase she hadn’t noticed and coming out with a fistful of documents. “You have to surrender the ship’s papers to me and leave the boat. You can have a few minutes to gather your things.”

“
I just found out that my husband is dead and now you come around here sniffing like a weasel trying to steal what he might have left behind.”

“
Your husband owed money to Corbeau Yacht Services and he’s not able to repay it.”

“
They’re vultures, just like their name,” Julie said, “and we don’t owe them any money.”

“
It’s not our fault if your husband chose to keep you in the dark.”

“
He didn’t keep me in the dark. Our bills are paid.”

“
It says here they’re not.”

“
How long have you known? How long did it take you to go to court and get your judgment?”

“
I wouldn’t know.”

“
Longer than twenty-four hours?”

“
I wouldn’t know,” the little man repeated.

“
Get out of here.”

“
I’m here to see that you leave the boat.”

“
Get out of here before I scratch your eyes out.”

“
I’m not leaving.”

“
Little man, if you don’t stop bothering my mother I’ll jump down there and kick the shit out of you.” Meiko stood up and looked down at him.

“
Officer,” he said, grabbing the sergeant’s arm. The sergeant shrugged him off and the little man stepped in front of the taller man and added, “I demand you put these women off this boat. I’ve got a court order and it’s your duty to uphold it.” He punctuated his words with pointed fingers, shaking them in the sergeant’s face.