Montego Bay

by Fred Galvin

  Roje was very hard-pressed to control himself and managed to ask in a level voice, “Where are we going?” but he was speaking into a dead phone.

  He turned to Gabi. “I have to grab some things and go. Now I know this will be difficult for you but you have to listen to me and promise me you’ll do as I say. Okay?”

  “Of course, Roje. Now tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Chapter 21: Cop mode

  The phone dropped from Delyse’s hand onto the wooden planks of the dock. “They’ve kidnapped Ronika.”

  “What? Who? What’s going on?”

  “That was Roje. Gillian and Vernon Whyte. They have Ronika and are forcing Roje to sail the Sea Nymph somewhere. Gillian is with him and Vernon has Ronika here someplace. They’re holding her to ensure Roje’s cooperation.” She was shaking. “Oh, Dan. They’ve kidnapped my baby!”

  I snapped immediately into cop mode. My back literally stiffened. My shoulders straightened. My mind started racing as well as my pulse. This was way more than being handed a homicide case, even a very high profile case with pressure to solve it yesterday. Such an assignment would have our full and professional attention. But this was Ronnie. This was personal. This was intense. This was immediate.

  “Okay Delyse, take a few breaths and compose yourself. Now tell me exactly what Roje told you, word-for-word.”

  She stood erect and gathered herself. The transition was startling as though her inner voice said, Okay, you’re done panicking. It’s time to act rationally. She spoke slowly and deliberately. “He said that last night he got a call from Gillian Whyte. You may remember him. He’s the one who spoke with Roje in the Lounge and Roje was not too happy with the conversation.”

  I nodded. “Yes, I remember. Do you know what the conversation was about?”

  “No. Roje only said that he wasn’t interested in what Gillian had to offer.”

  “Okay. Please continue with what Roje told you on the phone.”

  “Roje said that Gillian told him that they, he and his brother, have Ronika and they will be holding her to ensure he cooperates with them. He said Gillian showed him a video recording of Ronika saying she was okay and then Vernon came on the video advising him to do as Gillian instructs or Ronika will be at risk. Then he said Gillian told him to meet him at the Sea Nymph immediately and they embarked in the middle of the night.”

  Sometimes in the course of working a case, a detective has to ask questions he already knows the answer to but has to ask anyway. This was one of those times. “Delyse, did Roje give any indication where they may be going?”

  “No. He just said that Gillian is making him sail and that he has a gun.”

  “Anything else? Think hard. It’s important to remember every detail.”

  She closed her eyes, thought for a moment, then held up her index finger. “One thing … he did say that Gillian insisted he had a full load of fuel. Dan, is that important?”

  “It could be. It could mean they are going on a lengthy trip. Do you have any idea of the Sea Nymph’s fuel capacity and range at full speed?”

  “What? Oh. Let me think. I believe Roje once said he can push her up to about thirty knots. Frankly I don’t know how fast that is in miles per hour.”

  I pulled out my phone and brought up my converter app, tapped on SPEED, entered 30 in the knots box under NAUTICAL and tapped CONVERT ME. Technology is a wonderful thing. “It’s bout 34 to 35 miles per hour. Any idea how much fuel it holds?”

  “No idea. Does your app tell you that too?”

  “Not this one. Do you know the make and model of the Sea Nymph?”

  “That I do know or at least I know how to get that information. Come on.”

  She turned on her heel and headed for the office at a brisk pace that I was hard pressed to keep up with and still be walking. Let’s just say it was a good thing I was wearing sneakers and not wingtips. For a fleeting second I wondered if there even was a pair of wingtips in Jamaica. I guessed there had to be. If there are lawyers, there are wingtips, and there always are lawyers.

  Even though I was in total cop mode I couldn’t help but admire how Delyse had switched to a combination of hyper-concerned mother and now also all-business woman. It was evident to me that not only had I been so very fortunate to have found Jen and somehow had convinced her to marry me, but now I have been given a second chance at happiness with this extraordinary woman who, for some strange reason, seemed to think I’m worthy of her affection. Go figure.

  She stormed into the Deveaux Charter Services office and went directly to a file cabinet. A set of keys magically emerged from the huge tote bag she carried. She unlocked a drawer and pulled out a folder without having to rummage through the drawer, like she knew exactly where it was. Well, idiot, she obviously did know exactly where it was because she pulled it out of the drawer immediately, slapped it down on a desk, and opened it.

  “This is the file Brandon kept from when he purchased the Sea Nymph. It should have all the specifications.”

  Together we found the fuel capacity, unladen top speed on open water of moderate seas (yes, her recollection of thirty knots was spot-on), length, draft, beam, and various other specs. Using speed, fuel capacity, and estimated fuel consumption (a gas-guzzling three to five miles per gallon at full speed), we were able to make a fairly accurate determination of the Nymph’s range starting with a full fuel tank. Delyse opened a map of the immediate Caribbean Sea used for finding fishing locations for various types of game fish (and NYU sweatshirts?). We centered the marina with a pin and measured radii of our calculated range in eight compass directions of approximately forty-five degrees each.

  “This should be roughly the area Roje will be able to cover with his fuel capacity.”

  An octagonal shaped area emerged with the marina at its center. Each radius measured approximately 600 miles. A staggering area could be covered on a full tank at full running speed: east to most of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, north to the Bahamas and up to West Palm Beach on Florida’s Atlantic coast, west past the Cayman Islands, all of Cuba, to Cozumel, to Honduras, and south nearly to the Panama Canal.

  At first glance it was impossible to try to predict where Roje, under Gillian’s control, was heading. We needed much more information. And even if, by some miracle, we were able to guess with some high degree of certainty, then what? We still had Ronnie to think of. If we alerted the local authorities at the destination, Ronnie would be at risk where ever she was being held.

  My cop-mode brain was running in high gear. There were many variables to consider.

  What were the Whyte brothers’ motives? Obviously they were commandeering Roje and the Sea Nymph to pick up and transport some illegal cargo. The big questions, of course, were:

  What were they to pick up? The three obvious answers were smuggled people, drugs, or firearms.

  Where was the pickup point? Unfortunately it could be anywhere within the huge area we had just mapped out and that was assuming using only one full tank of fuel. Refueling along the trip would, of course, extend the area in all directions. Some assumptions could be made to reduce the number of possible pickup points. Most likely it would be a more secluded location given the nature of the pickup.

  What was the final destination after the pickup? That was a very difficult one. Returning to Jamaica with the contraband cargo, be it people, drugs, or guns, would be risky. Gillian would have to assume that we would follow his instructions not to involve the police. A trap could be awaiting him. Ronnie was their leverage and Vernon was in control of her. We could not risk spooking them to the point of their being forced to harm her, if they hadn’t done so already.

  Regardless of where the drop-off point was to be, the obvious course of action for them would be to retain control of Ronnie until their entire transaction was complete. My experience in these types of kidnapping-hostage situations was that the kidnappers would abandon the hostage after they had secured their ransom and advise later where the hos
tage could be found. Or, and this caused me to shudder, they would just kill the hostage and vanish. My only hope in this case was that the Whyte brothers were not cold-blooded killers and were just small time criminals now involved in a bigger operation.

  It became obvious to me that the best course of action was to try to determine where Vernon was keeping Ronnie and do our best to find and free her as quickly as possible. It seemed logical to assume that she most likely was being held somewhere locally and that Gillian and Roje would be at sea for several hours, if not days.

  All that was churning in my head at a dizzying rate while Delyse was impatiently waiting. She seemed to understand that I had slipped into “cop mode” and was processing all available data in order to formulate an action plan.

  “I’m sorry. I was …”

  “Being a detective again, it’s okay. So tell me, Detective Deckler, what do we do now?”

  I thought for a moment. “Tell me everything you know about the Whyte brothers, especially Vernon Whyte.”

  Chapter 22: Fifty-fifty

  Ronnie’s experience with kidnapping and hostage cases was rather dark, to say the least, as was mine since we worked cases together. Being a homicide detectives, we saw what happened to the hostage when the kidnapping went awry. To put it bluntly, when we became involved either the kidnapper or the hostage was dead and the percentages in the cases she and I worked were about fifty-fifty. Those are not good odds for the hostage (we didn’t much care about the kidnapper). Flip a coin … heads you live, tails you die.

  As we had dissected each case it became evident that the overwhelming factors in hostage death were the growing desperation and feelings of helplessness of the captors. Initially they felt they held all the cards since they had total control of their prize. They felt just the threat of doing harm to or killing the hostage would enable them to pull the strings of the puppets they wished to extort.

  ~~~

  So in order to enhance her chances of staying alive through this ordeal Ronnie needed to do whatever she could do to keep Vernon feeling confident and unthreatened. It would do no good to say such things as,

  You know you’ll never get away with this.

  or

  You still have time to call this off and give yourself up before it all goes to shit.

  or

  My friend from New York is a detective. He has most likely figured out where we are and is on his way right now with backup.

  ~~~

  At Ronnie’s place Gillian had insisted Vernon blindfold her. They had dropped off Gillian somewhere near the sea and Vernon had driven on to their final destination. At least she hoped it wasn’t her final destination and rather just a stop along the way until all this was done.

  She was horrified at the prospect of being permanently blindfolded for however long this ordeal might take but she knew better than to plead with Vernon while Gillian was still around. It was clear to her that Gillian was the alpha-brother and in command of the operation. She had a good history with Vernon-Malcolm from her visits to the Day-O Roadside Stop. As Malcolm, he had always been especially pleasant to her and she had thought at times he had flirted with her perhaps with something in mind beyond just serving her bammy and jerk chicken. She had not encouraged it, but she had to admit she had not discouraged it either. Frankly, it was flattering. She had always tipped him generously, not lavishly, but more than the usual for a Montego Bay lunch spot.

  So Gillian had been dropped off, presumably to meet up with Roje to embark on their journey to who-knew-where to do who-knew-what, and she and Vernon were on their way to her holding location. The blindfold was tight around her eyes and smelled of, she wasn’t sure exactly what it smelled of, and she dared not guess.

  After five minutes on the road she broke her silence. “Malcolm, sorry I mean Vernon …” the slip-up was intentional to keep the Malcolm-Ronika connection in his mind, “… this blindfold is really tight and it’s hurting my eyes.”

  After a couple of seconds, “It hurts? I’m sorry about that, I didn’t mean to make it so tight. Hang in there a few more minutes, we’re almost there.”

  That was good to hear. Ronnie felt like he was softening a bit and may loosen or even remove the blindfold when they arrived at the destination. She had tried to envision where he was going. For a while she felt like they were traveling along the coast but she soon lost track of the turns and time traveled.

  “Also, I don’t mean to be nasty to you. It’s just that when Gillian is around, well, you know.”

  “Yes, I understand.” That confirmed her belief that Gillian held sway over Vernon. Maybe somehow she would be able to exploit that dynamic.

  After what seemed like about fifteen minutes, but could have been more or less, Vernon made a final turn onto what sounded like gravel crunching under the tires and she was fairly sure she knew where they were. Vernon parked and opened his door. “Wait here until I come back for you.”

  “Vernon, seriously? I’m handcuffed and blindfolded and both hurt. Where can I go?”

  “Right. Just wait quietly. I’ll be right back.”

  She heard him walk away on the gravel followed by the sounds of a door squeaking open and closed. She was pretty sure Vernon-Malcolm had brought her to the Day-O. Thinking back on the ride, she believed the turns and duration were about right and the Day-O had a gravel parking lot. It made sense. He worked there and had full access. Then it didn’t make sense. How could he hide her in a roadside eatery without being discovered, seen or heard by customers or staff?

  Then she remembered when she and Dan had lunch there (geez, was that just three days ago?), Malcolm said something about good timing because the Day-O was closing the next day for two weeks due to the owners’ vacation. So there would be no customers or staff on-site. Vernon would have it all to himself.

  If this was indeed the Day-O Roadside Stop, she had actually formulated the makings of a plan which just might lead Dan to her location. She had already committed the make, model, and plate number of Vernon’s car to memory. Now she had to figure out how to implement the rest of her plan. A few dominoes would have to fall in sequence but it could work and it was relatively low risk. She waited, hoping she was right.

  She heard footsteps approaching on the gravel, one pair of footsteps, thankfully. Vernon was returning alone. When he opened the car door and helped her out she felt he was being gentle with her. “Come on, I’ll get you inside and take off the cuffs and blindfold.”

  “Thank you. I also really have to pee.” She didn’t really have to pee but hopefully she could get a better feel of her surroundings if she could wander a bit to relieve herself.

  “That can be arranged but you have to understand this will not be a luxury suite at the Four Seasons. I’ll make you as comfortable as possible but you will be confined. So don’t even think about trying to escape. Understand? The last thing I want to do is, well, you know.”

  “Yes, I understand. Now can I go pee please?”

  Vernon mercifully removed the cuffs and walked her into a building and down some stairs, guiding her by the arm so she wouldn’t fall. She was still fairly sure she was in the Day-O but now her certainty was beginning to wither. At the bottom of the stairs they entered a room that was suddenly damp and smelled of … she wasn’t sure what it was but it was strong.

  “Come, there’s a chair here. Sit and I’ll remove the blindfold.”

  He guided her and gently pushed down on her shoulders so she was seated. When he removed the blindfold she expected her eyes to be pained by light until they adjusted. Instead the room was dimly lit. She looked around.

  “Thank you. What is this place? What is that smell?”

  “Never mind all that. Come with me so you can pee.”

  He led her to a door in the corner of the room which led to a closet-sized room, which actually could have been a closet, with a disgustingly dirty toilet in it.

  “Oh, Vernon, this is awful.”

  “Ronika, I tol
d you it’s not the Ritz-Carlton. It’ll have to do.”

  “Ritz-Carlton? It’s not even the No-Tell Motel’s spare toilet in the storage room.”

  That actually made Vernon smile. “That’s a good one. You know, it could be just a bucket in the storage room. Now tend to your business and come back to the door when you’re done. I’ll be there.” He left the room.

  She walked to the toilet and shuddered. She took down her jeans and hovered over the toilet, managing to squeeze out a few drops. When she pushed the handle to flush, it made a few groaning noises. The contents of the bowl finally swirled around and out. She thought back on the times Dan teased her about bladder control during stakeouts. She smiled to herself at the memory then had to work to keep from crying, hoping she would see him again.

  Ronnie looked around in the dim light and realized this actually was a storage room. In one corner were several empty wooden crates. The storeroom was clearly a place to hold discarded items like broken chairs and tables and various other junk. Next to them was exactly what she was looking for, something to confirm her suspicions about her location. Strewn on a small three-legged table were what looked like old folded papers. She picked one up and almost laughed.

  DAY-O ROADSIDE STOP

  LUNCHEON MENU

  Her instincts had been correct! She was being held in a storage room of the Day-O. It made sense since Vernon was employed there and it was temporarily closed.

  Vernon was suddenly there, startling her. He grabbed the old menu from her hand and looked at it. “What the … oh, shit!” He crumpled it up and tossed it on the floor.

  “Vernon, it’s okay. I figured we were at the Day-O when we pulled into the gravel driveway.”

  He actually looked embarrassed. “You’re smart, Ronika, and you’re becoming a pain in my ass.” He sighed heavily. “Okay, then. So now you know, not that it really matters. Don’t get any ideas to start making noise. It won’t do you any good and I’d just have to gag you. The owners have shut the place down for two weeks for their annual vacation. I’m supposed to check on it now and then. We have it all to ourselves.”