Killers and Keepers

by Charles Dougherty

  At least we were in range. I motioned for Mary to stop, and I reloaded the gun. This time, I lowered my elevation and was rewarded by seeing the flare hit the back of Seaduction's flying bridge and fall into the cockpit. I waved frantically.

  "Run like hell!" I yelled.

  Mary spun the helm and opened the throttle. I was watching Seaduction when the flames belched skyward from the cockpit. There was a loud, whooshing sound, and the flames settled over the aft part of the boat.

  Mary eased the throttle down to idle and we watched for a few minutes as the flames spread into the main cabin. Seaduction was settling by the stern, and waves were lapping through the transom gate and into the cockpit.

  I joined Mary in the cockpit, shutting off our engine as Mary got the sails trimmed again. We laid a course directly to the Saintes.

  11

  As we settled into the routine of sailing again, Mary went back to giving me the cold shoulder. I still didn't know what was bothering her, but she was far from pleasant company.

  "Do you want to go below and sack out for a while?" I asked. "We're five or six hours from Les Saintes."

  She shook her head, staring off into the distance, but she didn't say anything. I tried again.

  "I'm surprised the girls slept through all of that," I said.

  She turned to look at me, her brow furrowed and her jaw clenched. After locking eyes with me for several seconds, she said, "I drugged them."

  "Drugged them? Why?"

  She shook her head. "I knew those assholes would catch us."

  "But why drug the girls?"

  "Because, Finn, I don't like witnesses when I do something illegal."

  "But we were defending ourselves."

  "Uh-huh. Forget it. No point in arguing that."

  "What did you give them?" I asked.

  "GHB — Liquid Ecstasy — whatever you want to call it. I mixed it in their scrambled eggs."

  "Where'd you get that?"

  "From a 'street pharmacist' in St. Thomas, when I went to the airport. I thought it might come in handy for interrogating those jerks in the BVI. You never know."

  "How long will they be out?"

  "Good question," she said. "It depends on how strong it was. That's hard to know with street drugs. They'll sleep at least until morning, and then they'll be hung over for a while. We can anchor in Les Saintes until they come around enough for us to put them ashore and leave them."

  "Leave them?"

  "Yes. That's what I said."

  "You want to leave them in Les Saintes?" I asked.

  "I'll give them clothes and a little money. I've got a spare burner phone I can give them. Margie can call her father to come get them."

  "Shouldn't we at least stay with them until he shows up?"

  "What's the matter with you, Finn? We know nothing about him, except that he's probably in the drug trade. And that assumes she was telling the truth about him. If you want to explain how we came to save his daughter, fine. You stay there and hold her hand until Daddy comes to get her, but I'm outta there as soon as those two wake up."

  "I'm confused, Mary."

  "No shit. What, have you had a stroke or something?"

  "I'm sorry for whatever I've done to upset you, but how about starting at the beginning? I'm still on your side; that hasn't changed. Help me out, here."

  "Have you forgotten that there are people trying to track us down and kill us?" she asked.

  "No. Nothing new about that. It's a fact of life for us, isn't it?"

  "Yes," Mary said. "But we don't have to make it easy for them. You've got the government on your trail. Somebody's hacked into my broker's secure email account and is trying to scam me into who knows what kind of trap. So what do you do? Take in two strays because they remind you of your daughter. Give me a break. You've never even met your daughter. You've put our lives at risk to save two girls who may or may not be in trouble."

  "May or may not be in trouble? Margie told you — "

  "She's probably lying, Finn, trying to play us. I can't believe you fell for such a transparent story."

  "Those girls have been through the wringer, Mary. You saw the cuts and bruises. They're not faking it."

  She laughed. "You're naïve. Girls like that get beaten up all the time; I've been there. Don't tell me about it; I know first-hand what it's like. All they have is superficial damage. It could all be part of a setup."

  "I would think you would be more sympathetic, after what you went through when you were growing up."

  "I could be, in theory," she said. "But one of the survival skills I picked up was to never take anything at face value. You lost sight of the risks you were taking, and you dragged me along with you. I didn't even get a vote."

  "What risks? Those girls were in serious danger."

  "Huh. Serious danger, my ass. Worst case, they would have been forced into prostitution. That's not good, but it's not fatal right off the bat. People escape from that. And we've bought them some time and the chance to go home, if they're telling the truth. That's enough."

  She glared at me for several seconds, then said, "I'm not willing to have them, or even worse, Margie's father, learn any more about us. That's why I drugged them. They don't know those shitheads came after us, and they can't tell anybody we killed them and blew up their boat. All they know is that two people on a sailboat cut them loose and gave them a ride. They might know the name of our boat, but we can change it. Better that we leave them while they're still groggy. If you don't agree, no sweat. I'll just catch the ferry from Les Saintes to Pointe-à-Pitre and disappear. I'll miss you, but I have to look out for myself."

  "Thanks for explaining. I see what you mean. My gut tells me the girls are telling the truth, but you're right about the risk. You see more risk there than I do, but I still shouldn't have pulled you into it without giving you a chance to decline. I'll grant you that. And you've done a good job of minimizing the risk to both of us by drugging them. Thanks for that, too."

  Mary locked eyes with me, studying me in the dim light from the compass in front of the helm. After what seemed like an eternity, she nodded. "What's it going to be? Should I pack my bag?"

  "That's always going to be your call to make, but I'd rather you stayed."

  She nodded again, her facial muscles relaxing. "Good. You finally said the things I needed to hear. Thanks. Should I make a pot of coffee? I'm way too wound up to sleep."

  "Me, too. Coffee sounds good."

  We arrived in Les Saintes a little after ten in the morning and got Island Dream anchored. Mary rushed to put on a short blonde wig and heavy eye makeup before our passengers awakened.

  Instead of her normal T-shirt and cutoffs, she donned a pale blue polo shirt with a line drawing of a big sailing yacht over her left breast. The name S/Y Aeolus was emblazoned under the picture. I remembered that name; Aeolus was Rory O'Hanlon's 130-foot-long Perini Navi, the one Mary once claimed to have sailed aboard as deck crew. Later she told me she made that story up.

  Seeing that shirt now, I wondered. Not that it mattered — that was ancient history — or maybe a fable. I would probably never know. After she swapped the cutoffs for a dark blue tennis skirt, she looked like a stewardess from a crewed yacht.

  I watched her transformation, but I still had trouble recognizing her when she was done. While the girls were still asleep, we launched the dinghy, and Mary took me into Bourg des Saintes.

  "Go find a spot in that second-floor tourist-trap bar on the south side of the town dock. I'll come get you after I ditch the girls," she said, as I climbed out of the dinghy. "Don't go wandering around town, and don't talk to anybody."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  I watched as she headed back out to Island Dream, but the boat was anchored at the back of the crowded harbor, and I soon lost sight of her. I sighed and turned around, walking up the dock through the crowds of tourists. I threaded my way through the sightseers to the outside stairs leading up to the bar.

  Ther
e were no vacant chairs on the outside balcony, but I found a single table in a dark corner inside. A few minutes after I sat down, a harried waitress came to take my order. Expecting to be there for a while, I ordered a carafe of coffee and a one-liter bottle of spring water.

  When the waitress returned with my order, I settled my tab and added a generous tip. I poured myself a glass of water and took a sip as I began to reflect on all that happened since that thunderstorm in Deshaies.

  Things weren't quite back to normal between Mary and me, but they were improving. At least she wasn't outright hostile now. After spending my solo morning watch mulling over Mary's tirade, I realized that she made some valid points.

  From her perspective, I took a big risk in freeing the girls and taking them away with us. As cold-hearted as it seemed, the smart, safe thing would have been to leave them to their fate. Maybe I was going soft.

  Or maybe since I met Mary and almost lost my own estranged daughter to Senator Lee and his crooked partners a few months ago, my views on what was worth fighting for had evolved. Love and fear of loss could change a man. I resolved not to beat myself up over what I used to be versus what I should be.

  There was nothing to be gained from that. I'm not sure what I would do if I found myself in a similar situation in the future, but for now, I was glad I chose to help the girls last night. I did regret not giving Mary a chance to buy in before I committed us both, though. That was a mistake born of my decades of working by myself.

  My own feelings aside, I was still surprised by Mary's reaction to the girls' plight. As she reminded me, she went through worse things herself, and at a younger age. Somehow, though, she survived all her early traumas and grew up to be a self-assured woman. Not only that, but she had a sense of right versus wrong that usually squared with my own.

  Most people wouldn't see either of us as being particularly virtuous. Killing fellow humans in cold blood was anathema to most members of society, but Mary and I both killed with clear consciences. As the old Texas saying goes, "Some folks just need killin'." We each had boundaries we wouldn't cross. Neither of us would kill someone who didn't have blood on their own hands, at least figuratively.

  We explored that aspect of our individual moral codes early in our relationship. We didn't have conflicting views on the question of when killing was acceptable.

  Clearly, there were other moral questions that we needed to discuss. While I understood Mary's anger at my presumption of her concurrence when it came to rescuing the girls, I did wonder just how cold-hearted she would have been if our roles had been reversed.

  Was her righteousness a vain effort to cover up feelings that made her uncomfortable? The Mary I knew wasn't given to introspection, but I had trouble believing she was as hard-nosed about Margie and Lucinda as she made herself out to be. It didn't square with my image of her, but I could be wrong. Jokes about men trying to understand women aside, I knew how difficult it was to fathom another person's inner conflicts.

  Finishing my glass of water, I poured my first cup of coffee and took a sip. The waitress appeared as I put the cup down.

  She smiled at me and looked at the cup, raising her eyebrows. "C'est bon?"

  "C'est bon. Merci." I returned her smile and nodded, thinking that she must not get many big tips. Or maybe she was just conscientious.

  I took my time finishing the coffee and then glanced at the digital clock over the bar. I was surprised to see an hour and a half had passed. I poured another glass of water, reminding myself that Mary and I would leave soon.

  Our plan was to sail to Pointe-à-Pitre this afternoon and lose ourselves among the anchored boats there. Tomorrow morning, we would clear out from Guadeloupe for Portsmouth, Dominica. En route, we would heave to and change the name on the boat's transom back to Island Girl.

  When we arrived in Dominica, we would clear in with different passports and the ship's papers for Island Girl, giving St. Thomas as our last port of call. If anybody searched for Island Dream in the customs databases, it would look like she disappeared somewhere between Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, and Portsmouth, Dominica. Yachts sometimes get lost at sea, even on short voyages.

  I was finishing my second glass of water when a pretty blonde in the uniform of a yacht stewardess sashayed up to my table.

  "Something to drink?" I asked.

  "Uh-uh, not for me. You ready, sailor?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Pay up and let's go for a sail."

  "Already paid," I said, standing up and taking her hand as she led me out into the dazzling sunlight. "Where are they?"

  "Don't worry. I took them to that beach bar that's all the way around the bend in the shore. They're okay, just a little woozy. But they won't see us. Margie was already talking to her father when I slipped away. They've got no clue what happened after they ate those eggs."

  "I'm not sure I'll ever eat your scrambled eggs again," I said, waiting for her to climb down into our dinghy and then following her.

  12

  Once we got back to Island Dream, Mary and I took the dinghy apart and brought it aboard. It would take us only a few hours to sail to Pointe-à-Pitre, but the trip across the channel could be rough.

  When we were out in open water and under sail again, Mary snuggled against me, her head on my shoulder.

  "Finn?"

  "Yes?"

  "I need to talk, okay?"

  "Sure. What's up?"

  "About last night…"

  I glanced down at her and sighed. "We already beat that dead horse, didn't we?"

  "Uh-huh. But I want to explain myself."

  "Don't feel the need to apologize," I said. "You were within your rights. What I did was risky."

  "That's not what's bothering me. While you were ashore and I was trying to bring those two around, I had time to think about things."

  "Oh?" I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

  "I resented them, Finn. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was angry with those girls because they reminded me of stuff I've worked hard to forget. Not to mention that finding them inconvenienced us. My reaction had nothing to do with them and everything to do with me. It wasn't fair to them. I'm not good at this; I'm not expressing myself well, am I?"

  "I don't know, Mary. I'm not sure what you're trying to say."

  "I know. It's tough for me. That's why I wanted to talk with you about it. Maybe trying to explain will help me to understand it myself. I dumped on you. I shouldn't have done that. You're the only friend I have, the only friend I've ever had."

  "Sometimes, that's what friends are for. You didn't have a choice about the way your childhood played out, any more than those girls had a choice about being snatched by traffickers."

  "No. I made my peace with my past. That's not what I'm feeling bad about."

  "No? That's good, then."

  "No. I'm disappointed that when I got the chance to help somebody in that kind of mess, I blew it off."

  "You didn't blow it off. They're safe now."

  "Yes, thanks to you. I would have left them, and that makes me sick."

  "Don't be so hard on yourself, Mary. You can't know what you would have done if you had been on your own. I robbed you of the chance to find out. You're second-guessing yourself over something that didn't even happen."

  "You think?"

  "That's how it looks to me. If you had been the one making the call, you might have had a different reaction."

  "I don't know, Finn, but you're kind to say that. Thank you."

  "You're welcome, but I said it because you can't know what you would have done. I jumped in before you got a chance to decide."

  "That's okay. I hope I would have made the same choice you did."

  "If I were a betting man, I would bet that's what you would have done. Now let it go; it's over. We've got other stuff to worry about."

  She nodded and snuggled in tighter. I could feel her sobbing in silence.

  "Don't," I said. "It's all
going to be all right."

  She nodded once, and in a few seconds, I felt her relax. Her breathing slowed, and I looked down to see that her mouth was slightly open and her facial muscles were slack. She slept peacefully until a wind shift forced me to trim the sails.

  "Mary?"

  She woke, startled, sitting bolt upright. "What?"

  "Sorry; take it easy. The wind backed. I need to sheet in the sails to lay Pointe-à-Pitre. Take the helm?"

  She nodded and grasped the rim of the wheel. "How long did I sleep?"

  "About an hour." I cranked in the jib sheet, watching the sail.

  Satisfied with its trim, I moved to the mainsheet winch and gave it a couple of turns. I watched the mainsail for a few seconds before I went back to sit behind the helm next to Mary.

  "I feel better," she said. "Thanks for listening. I was being a real bitch last night."

  "You were just trying to deal with an uncomfortable situation. How alert were the girls when you left them?"

  She shrugged. "I probably rushed it a little. I wanted to get rid of them before they figured out what was going on. You know what people are like when they've been roofied. Same deal. They thought they were wide awake, but they were loopy. They had no recollection of how they came to be on the boat with me. Never said boo about where you were, so that's good. I don't think they remembered the two of us — just took the blonde at face value and didn't ask anything. I told them I found them doped up on a boat that dragged into mine in a thunderstorm, and that they asked for help."

  "You said Margie was calling her dad when you left them."

  "Right; she was. Once she had him on the phone, I walked away before he could ask her any questions. I was afraid he would want to talk to me."

  "You think they'll be all right?"

  "Yes. She told me he's a big-time drug dealer, just as we thought. She asked where we were. When I told her, she said, 'He's got people in Dominica. That's close to here.' Before she called him, she said he would probably have somebody from there come to pick them up in an hour or two."