Daiquiri Dock Murder

by Dorothy Francis

  Sometimes it’s hard to tell when you’re changing position on the water, but we were drifting and Kane had been working close to 2 hours now. We were getting closer to some outlying islets. The water around us had changed from deep blue to a sandy brown and I could make out mangroves surrounding the islets.

  “Kane. Look. To your left. We’ve been drifting.”

  Kane looked, and before he could say anything, our hull scraped against sand. He jumped up, grabbed an emergency paddle from its caddy on the portside gunwale, leaned over the side, and tried to push us free. No luck. The crunching against sand stopped. We were aground—one of a seaman’s greatest embarrassments.

  “Damn!” Kane thrust his whole weight against the paddle and the sound of splintering wood required no interpretation.

  “Hey, no problem, Kane. The water’s really shallow here. We’ll just go overboard and push the boat free.”

  “You ever been grounded before?”

  “No. I’ve only sailed with Gram and Dad. They both knew their way around the flats and how to avoid sandbars. They both understood the changing of the tides. But this water only appears to be about waist deep.”

  “Right. The water’s shallow, but the bottom is deceptive. It looks firm, but once we’re overboard we’ll sink in to our waist—or worse. I’ll give the radio another try.”

  This time the static made it clear to both of us that we were the only ones who heard Kane’s voice.

  “We’d better go overboard and try to push the boat free. Or maybe the tide will come in and float us into deeper water.”

  Kane shook his head. And pointed to a tide chart. “If we’re where I think we are, the tide’s going out.”

  “Maybe someone will pass this way and see us.”

  We scanned the horizon, but saw no boats in sight. I waited no longer. Skinning from my many layers of clothes, I dropped them in the wheelhouse, hoisted myself over the gunwale and jumped into the sea. To my surprise, Kane didn’t follow my lead. Instead he ran to the boat’s stern and lowered a small motor. My hopes surged then dropped. The motor barely reached the water.

  “You didn’t tell me we had an auxiliary motor!” I shouted.

  Kane splashed into the water beside me. “That motor won’t help get us into deeper water.”

  “Then why lower it?”

  “It’ll give you something to hang onto while you try to climb back to the deck. Keep lifting your feet. Try not to sink any deeper into the muck.” Kane offered me his hand and tried to pull me closer to the motor.

  I felt water touching my knees, my crotch, and then my waist. When I tried to lift my feet, I felt myself sinking deeper. I clutched his hand and then got a grip on the motor.

  “Hoist yourself up and onto the boat and then turn and give me a hand.”

  My grip on the motor was so unsure I almost fell back into the water, but I managed to pull myself up while Kane pushed on my bottom.

  “Up. Up. You can do it, Rafa.”

  Right. I managed to get aboard. My lungs burned as if I’d swallowed a man-o-war, and I fought for breath while I turned, leaned over the gunwale, and offered Kane a hand. The boat shifted position, but he managed to tug himself onto the motor and then aboard.

  We both stood clutching the gunwale and feeling the sandy slime drip from our legs onto the clean deck.

  “My fault, Kane. All my fault. I apologize. You were right. We shouldn’t have gone overboard.”

  “Could have been worse. We’re still alive. The sea allows a person a few errors, but no real mistakes.”

  “Thank heaven the sea called this mishap an error.”

  Slipping, sliding, and dripping slime, Kane made his way back to the wheelhouse, grabbed a line and tied it around the bail of a bucket. Then after tossing the bucket over the side, he hoisted it in full of sea water. We washed ourselves and then sluiced the deck before we dropped down to rest.

  “What now?” I asked after almost a half hour passed.

  “Guess we’d better stand up and hope someone sees us, realizes we’re in trouble. I’ll get my emergency kit and hoist a distress flag.”

  We stood for a while and I got a second wind. “Guess there’s no reason why I can’t do some fishing while we’re standing here awaiting rescue.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll try the radio again.”

  Once more, the radio didn’t work. I grabbed my rod and spinning reel. After baiting the lure with a piece of dead shrimp and wiping my fingers right on my DKNY swim suit, I threw a long cast.

  “Not a fish in sight, Kane. No helpers. No fish. What kind of an ocean is this, anyway?”

  “What about that dot off in the distance to your right? Fish?”

  I looked where he pointed. “Right. A fish. And it’s coming my way. Looks like a black-tip.”

  “Have at it.”

  I moved in a way that kept my shadow from falling on the water. I waited. Yes, a black-tip. I waited. When I made my cast, the lure landed right at the shark’s mouth. He snarfed it, I fought to keep the rod tip up, and the battle began.

  “Good cast, Rafa.”

  I hardly had breath to answer. “Gram was a great teacher.”

  “You’ve told me before. For two years she thought fishing was more important than school.”

  I let the shark run, then I reeled it in a bit. Let it run again. We played that game for over a half hour, before the black-tip gave up and came to the boat. I’m always overwhelmed by the beauty of any fish. The black tip on this shark’s dorsal fin set off its silvery scales, the creamy white of its underbelly. I stood admiring it so long, Kent took the rod from my hand.

  “Want me to bring it aboard?” he asked.

  “No way. I’m a catch and release person. Gram taught me that, too. Since I caught it, you can release it.”

  “I’m going to boat it first.” Kane ran to the wheelhouse and returned with camera, tape measure, and gaff. “There’s a black-tip tournament going on and this fish may win you a prize.”

  He pulled the shark onto deck and thrust the leader into my hand. “Now hold it high, and hold the tape at its nose with the numbers toward the camera. This will be proof of your catch.”

  I followed instructions and in moments the fish was back into the sea, lying stunned and quiet. I wished I could lean over the gunwale far enough to grab its tail and swish it through the water to help it survive. In moments, I knew the shark needed no help. It turned and streaked toward the horizon, its silvery body glinting in the sunlight and then disappearing first into the shallows and then into deep blue waters.

  We’d been so engrossed in the shark scene that we hadn’t noticed the bright orange boat approaching.

  “Sol Salvage!” Kane shouted. “They did hear us.” He stood waving as if they hadn’t already spotted us. In moments the captain tossed a line to Kane who secured it around a prow cleat. In moments we were afloat again and headed back toward Key West. Slowly. Very slowly.

  “It’ll be a long ride.” Kane opened the cooler. “Might as well enjoy Mama G’s lunch.”

  And that’s what we did until Kane broke the silence growing between us. He took my hand, squeezing it while he looked into my eyes.

  “I love you, Rafa. You know that and believe it, don’t you?”

  “Yes. I do know and believe. And I love you, too.” I’d have sealed my words with a kiss had the salvage captain not been peering over his shoulder now and then and grinning at us.

  “Our love can’t grow while there’re secrets between us. Level with me, Rafa. What happened in your family to cause your parents to allow you to drop school and live for two years with your grandmother on Big Pine?”

  I intended to share the story with Kane—at a time of my choosing rather than his. I’d like to avoid thinking about that time in my life, but Kane deserved better from me than secrecy. Maybe this was as good a time as any to talk about my past. I had the slight advantage of catching Kane at a time when his confidence in himself and The Buccaneer hung at l
ow ebb. If he hadn’t already heard about my past and preferred to pretend innocence, I’d rather have him hear the whole story from me than from the local gossips.

  Chapter 32

  The odor wafting from the salvage boat motor, the slap of the sea against The Buccaneer, and the whirl of my own thoughts tended to throw me off balance, but I grabbed a deep breath and began my tale.

  “Okay, Kane. I regret this part of my past. The foolish things I did still embarrass me and I hate talking about them—hate the memory of them. If you can’t forgive and forget, I’ll understand. Please remember that all this happened long before I met you and that it has nothing to do with our present relationship.”

  Kane squeezed my hand. “I’m ready to forgive and forget. Been ready for months.”

  I grabbed a deep breath, almost tasting the salt in the sea air as I stared at the horizon. Sometimes focusing on the place where sky meets water helps settle my mind as well as my stomach.

  “I ran away from home when I was thirteen.” My throat ached, and for a few moments I couldn’t continue my story.

  “Lots of kids run away from home, Rafa, or at least they think about running away. It’s no big deal as long as they return to their parents with nobody getting hurt. You appear unscathed to me.”

  “Physically, perhaps. But not mentally. I’ll never be the same, never forget my foolishness.”

  “Maybe you need to forgive yourself before you can accept forgiveness from others.”

  I stared at the horizon for so long, Kane spoke up again. “If the subject pains you so, I’m sorry I asked you about it. Maybe I should ask your forgiveness for prying.”

  I began the story again. “I ran away from home at age thirteen. I’d bottled lots of hurts inside me—some real, some imaginary, I’m sure. I felt convinced my parents loved Cherie much more than they loved me.”

  “They tell you that?”

  “Only by their actions, never their words. I once overheard Mother tell Gram that kids were like waffles—the first one seldom met expectations. I never forgot those words. I arrived two years before Cherie. Even at that young age, I resented all the attention she received as the new baby. Gifts arrived—for Cherie, none for me. People came to see the new baby. Nobody came to see me.”

  “Sometimes adults are thoughtless.” Kane nodded and waited for me to continue my poor-little-me story.

  “As we grew older, I began to understand why Mother and Dad preferred Cherie to me. Cherie was petite and beautiful. I stood tall, awkward, and homely, towering over Cherie by several inches although we were only two years apart in age.

  ‘Be proud of your height,’ Dad would say. ‘Shoulders back. Head up. You’ll never see stars looking down.’

  ‘Stop slumping and slouching,’ Mother would say. ‘You’ll never be beautiful if you act ugly. Stand up straight.’

  How I hated standing up straight. I towered over everyone in my class—even my teacher, even Roger Wiltis, the junior high school basketball star. Kids teased me by secretly adding my name to the first-of-the-year basketball sign-up sheet for boys. Everyone laughed at that, but I never saw the joke.”

  “School years can be tough,” Kane said. “Nobody could understand why a boy like me, born and raised in the corn country of Iowa, wanted to be a commercial fisherman and live on a houseboat.”

  “You always wanted that?”

  “Yes. I did. As a special treat, my grandfather enrolled me at age ten in a six-week session at Sea Camp—right on Big Pine Key. I fell in love with the ocean and its creatures. And today I’m living my dream. I graduated from Iowa State, but some day I may go back to college here in Florida and study to be a marine biologist.” He nodded toward the tow boat and gave a pretend laugh. “But forget my dream for now. This’s your story.”

  I grabbed another breath and continued. “I couldn’t take the put-downs, both from my parents as well as from Cherie. Mother always compared my grades to Cherie’s higher ones. Cherie always laughed at my jeans and tees and tried to get me to dress like she did—stuff straight from the pages of Glamour. And the kids at school tormented me, too. I won’t say my friends at school, because I felt I had no friends. Everyone called me a loner. I never wanted to be a loner. I wanted everyone to like me. But few of my peer group did. Peer group. That’s who my counselor said I didn’t fit in with—my peer group.

  So one day I’d had enough of home, school, and Key West. I packed a small bag of jeans and tees, swiped one of Cherie’s sleek dresses in case I had to dress up. Taking two hundred bucks that I’d been hiding in my underwear drawer, I boarded a bus for Miami. I knew nobody would notice that. Our family traveled in Lincoln Town cars and Dad’s private plane. Don’t think Cherie even knew the location of the bus station. I didn’t leave a note. In my mind, I dreamed my family might think I’d been kidnapped. I dreamed they might care that I was gone.”

  “Miami!” Kane exclaimed. “A big city for a thirteen-year-old. Where did you go? What did you do? You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “I walked the streets for a while. The bus station area looked dirty and seedy. I walked a long ways and stopped at a nice-looking hotel. The room rate was $75 a night for a single. I knew then my two hundred wouldn’t last long. I found a less expensive hotel, The Pla-Mor, not nearly as good looking as the first one, and I booked two nights. I could pay and have a little eating money left over.

  “The hotel had a bar and lounge, and after I unpacked, I took the elevator to the lounge to eat dinner. The only item on the menu I thought I could afford was the deep- fried shrimp appetizer. I didn’t want to run out of money, so sitting at the bar, I ordered a margarita, price two dollars, because I thought that a sophisticated thing to do and a thing I could afford.”

  “Nobody questioned a kid ordering a margarita?”

  “I didn’t look like a kid. I coiled my hair on top of my head, used lots of eyeliner and lip gloss, and wore Cherie’s black slinky shift—sleeveless and barely touching my knees. And even at age thirteen, I towered over lots of men. Cherie would have been proud to know her lessons in grooming and wearing the ‘right’ clothes were paying off. Before long a guy joined me, sat beside me on the next bar stool, smiled.

  ‘You look hungry,’ he said.

  When I didn’t reply or return his smile, he ordered two shrimp dinners. I ignored him. When the shrimp dinners arrived, he motioned for the waiter to set one of them in front of me. I wanted to get up and leave, but my stomach growled reminding me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast—hours ago. And this guy looked nice enough. I began by tasting one shrimp. I didn’t stop until no shrimp or anything else remained on the plate. I still remember that shrimp dinner as the best meal I ever ate. I haven’t eaten shrimp since. After the meal, one thing led to another. We spent an hour or two drinking more margaritas and dancing, until he invited me up to his room.”

  “Were you used to dinking?”

  “Of course not. Nor dancing. That night I stumbled a lot, trying to follow his lead. At home, sometimes Cheri and I would sneak some booze from our parents’ liquor cabinet. Not enough to make us drunk. But that night at the Pla-Mor Hotel, I began to feel sick. I tried to excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room, but Mike—his name was Mike Wilson—Mike took my hand and said, ‘come along with me.’ And I did.

  “All I wanted to do was to lie down and sleep. And I did that, too. I knew I shouldn’t, but how could a guy so nice and generous and caring be bad? No way, I told myself. When I woke up in the morning Mike was gone. Oddly enough, my suitcase was on the luggage rack beside the bed. I dressed quickly and opened the hotel room door. Mike had been thoughtful. He had placed a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the doorknob to the room. I dressed in jeans and tee, hurried to the lobby, bought a Key West Citizen and carried it back to the room. Our room? I wasn’t sure whose room it was. It didn’t matter. I was alone. I read the Citizen carefully, expecting to see headlines about my disappearance. Nothing. Nothing on the front page or any other page. I sat there
crying until someone knocked on the door and called out ‘room service.’

  I peeked through the peephole at a uniformed employee carrying a tray covered with a white napkin. I opened the door and accepted the tray. Even with a still queasy stomach, I downed the omelet, toast, orange juice. I stretched out on the bed again and didn’t wake up until I saw Mike standing over me smiling and offering me a bouquet of daisies.”

  “And one thing led to another,” Kane prompted.

  “Right. You can guess the rest of the story. I fell in love with Mike Wilson. He told me he loved me. He told me this room was his hideaway and he asked me to share it with him. And I did. Since my folks didn’t even care enough about me to put a ‘missing girl’ notice in the local paper, why should I even consider returning to Key West?”

  “You stayed with this guy?” Kane sounded unbelieving. “How long did you live with him in that hotel room?”

  “Too long. But not as long as you might think.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Even one night was too long. Did he rape you?”

  “No. The sex we had was consensual. I fell in love with him. Can you forgive that?”

  Kane didn’t answer. His face grew red. His hands balled into fists. Then he spoke through lips that barely moved.

  “Forgive who? You, in spite of your height and sophistication were still a kid—a juvenile. He led you astray. This guy used your innocence to lure you to him. In olden days people would say you fell in with evil companions. There are laws against men like Mike Wilson, Rafa. They’re called pedophiles.”

  “I know that, now. But the story gets worse and since you insisted on hearing it, I expect you to listen to all of it.”

  Kane didn’t try to stop me.

  “I didn’t leave that hotel room for 3 days. When I looked through the peephole at the next person who knocked on the door, I saw a woman carrying a baby. I thought she was lost and had knocked on the wrong door. I opened the door to help her. She called me a slut, a whore, and several other names before she told me she was Mrs. Mike Wilson—Mike’s wife.