“If you force us to take this to the authorities, you will regret it,” he said, apparently not intimidated. “I can get a search warrant, and I will.” He turned and walked away slowly, assuming an air of casual disinterest.
Dar shook her head. “What a moron.” She turned and wrapped the chain around the gate. “How much was he offering you to let
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him in?” she asked suddenly, turning to the guard who was still standing there watching her.
The guard had the grace to look embarrassed.
“C’mon.” Dar leaned on the gate. “Pencil neck like him wouldn’t scare someone like you.”
The guard shifted his brawny shoulders, responding to the compliment with a sheepish grin. “Twenty dollars,” he admitted.
“He was about to go to fifty when you walked up.”
“Cheapskate.” Dar finished putting the lock on the gate, closing it with a distinct click. She opened the pouch she was carrying and removed two bills, reached over, and slid them into the guard’s khaki shirt pocket. His eyes widened at the amount. “I can buy his boss for petty cash,” Dar said. “So you tell everyone if they get an offer from them, look me up first. I’ll do better.”
“Yes, ma’am!” the guard responded enthusiastically. “I’ll make sure everyone knows!” He gave her a little wave, then trotted off down the dock, taking a moment to examine the contents of his pocket as he ran.
Dar dusted off her hands, then followed him. “When you care enough to buy the very best,” she muttered, shaking her head. Now things were getting to the point where she knew she had to do something about them. The question was, what?
Well
. Dar considered as she walked. Usually she solved problems by cutting to the chase and going to the very top. She didn’t know where John DeSalliers was, but she bet if she went high enough at this resort, someone did. And she bet she could make them tell her.
KERRY RAN A brush through her damp hair, peering at her reflection in the room’s mirror. She’d showered and slipped into a pair of neatly pressed khaki shorts with a pristine, white T-shirt tucked into them. The fabric made a nice contrast with her tan, and she smiled back at the face in the mirror as she pulled out her chain and let the ring threaded on it rest against the hollow of her throat.
The sparkle caught her eye, and she studied the ring, running her fingertip lightly over its brilliant stone, pondering again whether she should remove it from the chain and wear it. The idea appealed to her but she hesitated, frowning a little at her reflection and leaving the chain where it was. She didn’t want Dar to feel pressured into doing the same thing, and she knew how much her partner disliked wearing anything on her hands.
“Ah well.” Kerry met her eyes in the mirror. “Probably better to leave it off since we’re out here. I don’t want to lose it, either.”
The sound of a key in the lock made her look around, and she stepped back from the mirror as it swung inward, admitting Dar’s tall figure. “Hey.”
Dar turned a pair of stormy blue eyes on her, then put a finger to her lips.
“Already found it,” Kerry replied in a normal tone of voice.
“It’s outside.” She stepped forward and gladly accepted the heartfelt kiss on the lips. “Hey, I had a great teacher.”
Dar gave her a hug as well. “Good work. I just prevented her slimy partner from searching the boat.”
“You look cute,” Kerry observed, flicking the hanging strap on Dar’s overalls.
“Cute wasn’t what I was going for.” Dar sighed. “They think we’ve got something of theirs.”
“Really?” Kerry took her hand and led Dar into the room, sitting on the couch and pulling Dar down with her. “What?”
“I have no idea.” Dar propped one bare foot up on the table and studied it. “I was going to just go right up to the manager’s office and start yelling at people, but I realized I don’t have enough
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data to yell intelligently.”
“I hate when that happens.”
“Me too,” Dar agreed. “So I decided to come back here, and maybe between the two of us, we can start figuring this thing out.”
“All right.” Kerry felt a surge of pride at the statement. It felt good to hear the confidence in her in Dar’s voice. “I could use some coffee. You?”
“Yeah.”
Kerry got up and went to the well-stocked coffee maker on the dais near the window. She busied herself starting a pot while she assembled her thoughts. “Okay. First off, here’s what we know.”
Dar squirmed around and got comfortable, stretching one arm out along the back of the couch as she listened to Kerry.
“First, we encountered a large vessel, acting in a very rude manner, crossing the Florida Straits,” Kerry began, as she set up two cups. “Despite your giving them a friendly warning, they rejected the warning without consideration.”
“Right.”
“Second, we encountered a smaller vessel circling us after we dove that little wreck not far off Charlie and Bud’s island. The boat did not approach or contact us, but appeared to be watching what we were doing.”
“Right,” Dar agreed again.
“Third, after we get to Bud and Charlie’s island, the small boat follows us there, and two people get off and question us about where we were diving.” Kerry turned and leaned against the credenza as the coffee brewed. “But they don’t ask us specifics, they just make a claim to that area.”
“Exactly.”
“Fourth, when we are out in that same area having dinner, we get accosted by what appears to be the same large rude vessel, and the crew attempts to board us. We also get chased by them, without explanation.”
“But they don’t shoot at us,” Dar added.
“Even though they must have seen me on the stern with a loaded shotgun.” Kerry nodded. “Okay, fifth—we pick up a man from a capsized boat who just coincidentally is here apparently trying to recover something from the exact same small wreck you and I happened to dive on the day before.”
Dar’s eyebrow lifted.
“And, who just coincidentally happens to have tangled with the two people from the small boat, and probably whoever is in charge of the large boat over that spot of the ocean.”
“Yeah,” Dar murmured.
“Are these coincidences all piling up for you like they are for me?”
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“Oh yeah.”
“Sixth, now we get here, and coincidentally find the people from the small boat staying at the same resort we are, and snooping in our hotel room and trying to search our boat for some undisclosed reason.” Kerry turned and poured out two cups of coffee, stirring them and bringing them both back over to the couch.
She handed one to Dar and sat down cross-legged next to her. “So, what the hell is going on?”
Dar sipped her coffee thoughtfully. “Well, I think it’s safe to assume they think we pulled something up from that wreck,” she said. “Question is, what could we find in an old fishing trawler that would interest anyone?”
“There wasn’t much to see, Dar,” Kerry said. “Just some old crates.”
“No, there wasn’t,” Dar recalled. “It’s not a bad wreck. There’s a lot of good coral there, but why it’s of interest to a bunch of…”
She stopped speaking, her brow creasing thoughtfully. “We did bring up something.”
Kerry stared, then exhaled. “The box.” She would have slapped herself if she hadn’t been holding a cup of coffee. “But, Dar… it’s just an old wooden box, half covered in coral,” she protested. “We couldn’t even open it it’s so encrusted.”
“I know,” Dar agreed. “You and I know that, but if someone saw us bringing up the catch bag and looking at something, how would they know what it was?” She got up and paced. “So the question is—what is it they’re really after, that they think we might have found?”
What indeed? Kerry cupped her hands around her coffee and slowly drank from the cup. “First off, we need to find out more about that fishing trawler, right?”
Dar smiled at her. “Right. More about that, and more about your friend Bob’s grandfather, who ran it.” She picked up the laptop and sat down next to Kerry again. “I think we need to start collecting ducks, so we can pin them down in a nice, neat row.”
Kerry snuggled closer, putting an arm around Dar and leaning against her shoulder as the laptop booted up. Dar’s log in came up and her partner put in her information, then they both watched as the autonomic systems kicked in and started establishing a satellite cellular connection to their world-wide network.
It took less time than most people would expect. After about sixty seconds, Dar was presented with the same desktop she usually saw on her machine in the office, right down to the collection of broadcast messages sent to their local Miami group ranging from parking violations to a test of the fire alarm system. Dar started up her database parsing program and cracked her knuckles as she waited for the screen to come up. When it did, she typed in her
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request.
“Is that the boat’s name?” Kerry asked.
“
Lucky Lady
? That’s what the dive maps have it as,” Dar answered, adding a few other details. “Did Bob say what his grandfather’s first name was?”
“No,” Kerry said. “You’re not going to ask me to go talk to him to find out, are you?” She gave her partner a mournful look.
Dar chuckled dryly. “No. Let’s see what this comes up with first.”
“Good.” Kerry rested her cheek against Dar’s shoulder. The long day on the water in the sun was starting to take its toll, and she found herself getting a little sleepy as the rattle of Dar’s keystrokes lulled her. “They were really trying to get on the boat?”
“Uh huh,” Dar murmured.
“Slimy.”
“Yeah.”
“What if they try again?” Kerry asked.
“I fixed that,” Dar said, watching the response on the screen.
“Damn. Nothing on that name.” She shook her head, then typed in another command. “Okay, we do this the hard way. Gimme all the maritime incident reports in this sector… damn.” Dar cursed, closing her eyes. “What the hell were the coordinates of that blasted wreck.”
“Oh.” Kerry stirred, then got up and trotted over to her notebook. She opened it to her dive log and studied the page. “Here you go. I logged it.” She recited the longitude and latitude.
“You rock.” Dar typed in the numbers and hit return. “That’ll take a few minutes,” she said, putting her arm around Kerry as she resumed her seat. “You know something?”
“What?” Kerry curled up against her, one hand stroking Dar’s thigh absently.
“We are one damn good team.”
Kerry’s eyes twinkled happily. “We are, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are.” Dar kissed her on the head. “I couldn’t ask for any better.”
“Me either.” Kerry relaxed, putting her head back down on Dar’s shoulder. She watched the scanning markers on the screen, her eyelids drooping shut after a few minutes of it.
Dar heard the faint change in Kerry’s breathing and she glanced over, suppressing a grin at her dozing partner. She carefully shifted a little to a more comfortable position and rested her head against Kerry’s, content to let her well-designed program do its job.
In her sleep, Kerry seemed to sense Dar’s emotion. Her fingers curled around Dar’s arm and clasped it, creating a warm band around her forearm.
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“KER?”
DAR’S VOICE nudged her out of a very pleasant dream, one that involved her, Dar, and a bunch of grapes. Kerry let her eyes drift open slowly, complacently taking in the glistening sunset for a moment before her mind kicked in and fully woke up. “Oh.” She lifted a hand to stifle a yawn. “Sorry.”
“For what?” Dar inquired. “Sleeping’s not a punishable offense, even in our division.”
“I know, but we’re supposed to be solving a mystery here.”
Kerry peered at the laptop. “Anything?" She could see a table of information in Dar’s usual structure on the screen.
“Lots,” Dar said in a dry tone. “I managed to exclude all the non-relevant shipwrecks. That took me forever, because they’re a dime a dozen around here.” She brought the laptop closer. “The wreck has to be this one.”
“
Lucky Johnny
?” Kerry read the screen. “Oh, I can see where they’d confuse that with
Lucky Lady
.” She observed. “Wonder if they have a thing about sexual confusion around here.”
Dar eyed her, both brows lifting.
“Well, if they thought Johnny was a lady, I mean.”
Dar chuckled soundlessly.
Kerry rubbed her eyes. “Okay, so maybe I should go back to sleep,” she admitted. “Anyway, what else is there?”
“Mm.” Dar pulled up a screen. “Problem is, there’s nothing special about the damn thing. It was just a forty foot working trawler, out catching crabs.”
“Ah.” Kerry read the details. “Storm?”
“Uh huh,” Dar confirmed. “Capsized and sank. Two survivors, both mates. Captain went down with the ship.” She brought up another screen. “This is Bob’s grandpa.”
Kerry peered at the whiskered, scraggly looking man in the blue Macintosh. “Holy pooters, it’s Popeye’s Pappy!” she yelped.
“Is there a picture of Grandma? You take a bet it’s Olive Oyl?”
“That explains a lot.” Dar chuckled. “He mostly trawled the North Atlantic. I don’t know what brought him all the way down south, but the boat couldn’t take it. It was his first, and last, Carib run.” She studied the picture. “Nothing on him—just a working sailor.”
Kerry’s head cocked to one side. “Yeah? I thought Bob said his family had money, though. At least that’s the impression he gave me,” she added with a touch of droll humor. “How’d they make that from a rig like this?”
“Well.” Dar tapped a few more keys. “He didn’t lie. According to this tax filing, old Popeye left a ton of cash to Mrs. Popeye, and they’ve got a place that’s worth another small fortune up in Maine.”
She scratched her jaw. “Maybe he already had wealth and just
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decided to fish for a living because he could.”
“Maybe down here, Dar.” Kerry shook her head. “I’ve spent time in Maine. No one does that if they’ve got a choice. It’s a hard, dangerous life—fishing the North Atlantic.” She moused through the results Dar had called up. “Hm. You’re right, though. I know that neighborhood. Outhouses go for a quarter mil.”