Wayward Sons

by Wayne Stinnett

  “What did he say, Mama?” she asked. “Do I have another one?”

  Her chin trembled, and Gabriela’s heart hitched. Another tumor, she meant. The entire time Gabriela was back with Dr. Soto, this poor little girl had been sitting by herself, worried that she had another tumor.

  Gabriela took her daughter’s hand.

  “No, mi hija. No.” And Gabriela’s tears trailed out, thick enough for the both of them. She leaned over, laying her head on Flor’s shoulder, gingerly at first. Putting weight on Flor had to be done carefully, with a steady, slow pressure, until, finally, Gabriela was sure she wouldn’t break her.

  Her thin shoulder was the most comforting headrest Gabriela had.

  “Then what’s wrong, Mama?” Flor asked. Her smallest finger stroked Gabriela’s.

  How could she answer? How could she tell Flor that a cure existed for her disease, but she would not get it?

  Flor shuddered. She was crying without tears.

  Gabriela sat up and turned to her, the sweet, sad girl.

  “Is it the money? All my bills? I’m sorry,” Flor said. She motioned towards the tube running down to her arm. “I messed things up. This is all my fault. If I wasn’t here, your life would’ve been so much better.”

  The air was swept out of Gabriela’s lungs.

  God help this girl. She was too much like her mother for her own good. Gabriela wiped her eyes clear.

  She cupped Flor’s cheek, bringing her sunken eyes up.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about. Understand me? Nothing at all.” She forced a smile. “None of this is your fault. None of it. You work on feeling better, and I’ll do the worrying.”

  “What’d Stockwell say?” DJ asked.

  “We won a trip to San Juan,” I replied.

  DJ stood and drained his beer. “Puerto Rico? The hell for? We’re flying from there to Bonaire?”

  “New assignment,” I replied, heading to the rail. “Somebody else will take care of Bonaire. Stockwell wants us in San Juan like right now.”

  “I’ll fire up the engines,” DJ said, heading for the ladder to the bridge deck. “P.R. is about ninety miles—we can be there in three hours. Get the dock lines.”

  I did as he ordered. It was his boat, and he was the captain. I at least knew what the chain of command was on a boat.

  Once out of the bay, DJ brought Reel Fun up to thirty knots and headed northwest, following the natural channel, to get clear of St. Thomas and Hans Lollik Island. I filled him in on everything Stockwell had said as we slipped out. After half an hour, he turned due west for Puerto Rico.

  Ninety minutes later, we passed under the old Spanish ramparts at the western end of Old San Juan. DJ slowed and turned into San Juan Bay, then headed back to the east toward the marina.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to what looked like a small platform just a few feet out of the water.

  “A good chunk of some poor bastard’s retirement fund, I’m guessing,” DJ replied.

  As we passed, I could see through the clear water to the boat’s hull resting at the bottom, just before the entrance to San Antonio Canal. The only thing above water was the small roof over the boat’s tuna tower, which looked a lot like the one capping Reel Fun.

  “Maria probably sank it,” he said, as we peered over the side of Reel Fun’s flybridge into the dark blue waters. We idled slowly past, within fifteen yards, and I could see the top half of the tower’s seat protruding from the water just below the roof. The roof itself had been stripped of any lights, radar, antennas, or whatever else had been attached there.

  DJ radioed into San Juan Bay Marina, on the mainland side of the short bridge to Old San Juan. After the dockmaster had him change channels, DJ identified his boat, requested a slip and was given directions to it. He was also told a dockhand and U.S. Customs official would be there to help tie off.

  “Why customs?” I asked. “Both St. Thomas and Puerto Rico are U.S. territories.”

  “I know,” DJ replied. “It’s weird. Americans traveling from P.R. to the U.S. Virgin Islands don’t have to clear in, but coming into Puerto Rico from there, they do.”

  DJ steered Reel Fun to a double slip beside a sailboat with a jet-black hull. The name on the stern was Dark Horse.

  I dropped fenders over the side and tied them off to the rail. When we were close enough, I tossed a stern line to a dockhand waiting on the finger pier, who looped it around a cleat as DJ reversed the engine on the opposite side. With the line holding the stern in place on the dock side, the boat could do nothing but pivot around the end of the finger pier. Once lined up, the dockhand released the line from the cleat and DJ backed into the slip. I tossed the bow line to the guy and he tied it off as well. I could see the customs officer standing to the side.

  DJ made it look so easy. My new boat was no longer than his, but it was wider. Still, I was apprehensive about our first sea trial.

  The customs agent asked a few questions and checked our passports but didn’t bother boarding. Once cleared, I hopped down with the bow line in hand and quickly cleated it to the dock. My knots weren’t as sure as the dockhand’s, but once DJ hopped off the stern and checked my work, he nodded approval.

  Good to know I was making progress. My own boat, Wayward, waited for me in a private marina down the street from my house on St. Thomas. Alicia and I didn’t have the confidence to take it out yet, but I’d promised we’d hire a skipper to show us which way to point it, and how, just as soon as we put Robert Beck away.

  He was away now, I reminded myself.

  When I’d made my promise to Alicia, I’d been under the impression we’d have a week or so between assignments.

  Guess not.

  DJ’s eyes scanned the dock behind me. “Stockwell tell you where we’re going to meet this detective?”

  His attention settled to my left, farther from shore than where we stood, toward the sound of trop rock music and women laughing.

  Always on the hunt.

  “You can get their numbers later,” I said. “Let’s head the other way and see if someone jumps out at us.”

  I turned around and walked. DJ followed, his titanium leg thudding against the deck boards. Though he wore the same shoe on each foot, there was a distinct difference in the sound of each one’s footfall.

  We marched past every kind of pleasure craft I knew; sloop-rigged sailboats, ketches and schooners, fishing charters and fifty-foot yachts with dinghies strapped to the stern.

  A figure drew my eye from the boats. A diminutive, wiry, black man in a light blue button-down shirt and gray slacks. He walked like a man with something big on his mind, his pistol bouncing in a hip holster with every step he took. Near the opposite hip, the badge clipped to his belt glinted in the crystalline sun.

  “There’s our detective,” I said.

  My legs picked up the pace, leaving DJ behind. I wanted to make a good impression on Detective Collat, at least for a few seconds, before DJ came and inevitably turned the meeting chilly by grumbling about the police.

  “Mr. Snyder?” A half dozen paces from me, he extended his hand. “Detective Antoine Collat, Puerto Rican Police Force.”

  I met his hand with my own. He had a firm, confident grip, paired with the steely, troubled expression of a career detective who had seen too much.

  “Good to meet you, Detective,” I said. “This is my partner, DJ Martin.”

  Behind me, DJ brought up the rear as I motioned toward him, but I kept a firm hold on Collat’s hand. I didn’t want DJ screwing everything up by refusing to shake his hand.

  “Hey, man.” DJ kept his hands in his pockets.

  “Is there a private place where we can have a conversation?”

  Collat spoke with the slightest hint of an accent, but not Puerto Rican; Haitian maybe.

  “I’m disinclined to talk out in the open.” As his mouth moved, so did the rest of his face—his cheeks bobbing, his nose flattening, and his eyes coming together such that they
revealed a scar running crossways from his forehead to his cheekbone.

  “Of course, Detective,” I said, guiding him past DJ toward Reel Fun.

  We sat in the salon—DJ on the couch that bent around the port wall, me on a stool at the bar, and Collat sitting rigidly on the edge of the aft-most couch.

  Nobody had said a word since meeting on the dock. And Armstrong’s training didn’t include a primer on what to do when approached by a detective for help, so I broke the silence.

  “Detective,” I began, “I understand that you contacted Armstrong looking for help with something.”

  He adjusted in his seat, trying to get comfortable. When he couldn’t, he took his service weapon off his hip, still in its holster, and placed it on the white vinyl cushion to his right. He then did the same with his badge.

  “Do you mind if I leave that there?” he asked me, motioning to his handgun.

  “DJ?” I looked at him.

  DJ shrugged. “It ain’t the only weapon on board.”

  The scar between Collat’s eyes puckered as he looked from DJ to me, then down at DJ’s leg, extending off the edge of the couch like a gang plank, and then back up to his eyes.

  “Are you the captain of this boat?” Collat asked.

  “And owner,” DJ said.

  “Oh…” he trailed off, and then made an empty gesture with his hands.

  He’d assumed the boat was mine. An easy mistake. DJ didn’t look like he slept in the master stateroom of a forty-eight-foot yacht.

  “Anyhow,” Collat said, “I’ve heard through some of my colleagues that Jack Armstrong is more than the owner of an oceanographic research company. That he’s a problem solver, and not afraid to take on things that others might… shy away from.”

  “You heard a lot. Who from?” DJ asked.

  “Men I’ve worked with.”

  “Cops.”

  “I am a police officer,” Collat said, narrowing his eyes, “so that would follow. Is there a problem?”

  DJ scoffed, then combed his fingers through his long goatee.

  “There’s no problem,” I answered for him. “You’ve got the right impression of Armstrong. What can we do to help, Detective?”

  Collat took a deep, frayed breath. I knew veterans like him weren’t easily bothered—my first night working as a detective with the Newport Beach PD, I shadowed a guy who conducted himself like Collat. We worked a traffic accident involving a motorcycle, where, as a funny prank, some deputy holding a trash bag walked up to me and asked if I wanted to see something cool.

  Sure, I answered. But I knew something was off before I peered down.

  From inside the bag, the motorcyclist’s severed head gawked up at me. The deputy laughed himself into a fit. I wasn’t impressed, and neither was the detective I shadowed. He grabbed the trash bag with one hand and the collar of the deputy’s shirt with another, then stuffed him into the back of our unmarked car.

  As long as I shadowed him, I never saw that detective lose his cool like that again.

  All of which is to say, it probably took a hell of a lot to get a guy like Collat going. Must’ve took even more to get him to come to a group of civilians, asking for help.

  “Before you agree to anything,” he began, “I want to make it perfectly clear that what I’m going to ask of you two gentlemen is strictly off the books. You aren’t working for the Puerto Rican Police Force in any official capacity. You don’t have any special rights or privileges that come with this badge.” He tapped the shield next to him. “If I hear that two white guys are walking around dropping my name, we’re going to have a conversation nobody wants to have. Understand? Both of you keep silent on this—don’t do anything to get noticed.”

  Maybe he was small, but Collat really filled up the room when he wanted to.

  I wasn’t so sure about what we were getting into. I was happy to help an officer with a personal request, but the way Detective Collat talked, I doubted if I was going to like doing this favor.

  “We’ll do it,” DJ said.

  Outstanding.

  Detective Collat breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Good.”

  Before he said anything more, his Adam’s apple slipped up and down his throat. I could tell he struggled to get his words around whatever thought squirmed within his head. This was going to be far more than anyone bargained.

  “A body was found on Zoni Beach over in Culebra.” The words left Collat’s mouth quickly, like they were dodging his teeth. “It had been picked apart by wildlife, but we were able to identify the victim, and there was enough material in the right places that the coroner said he found nylon fibers embedded in flesh near the victim’s ankles. He said the fibers led him to believe this person had been tied up by a rope. There was sea water in his lungs.”

  The muscles in Collat’s jaw rippled.

  “The coroner said it was a suicide,” Collat summarized, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  “You have some doubts about the coroner’s report?” I asked, but all the pieces were being drawn toward each other in my head. This didn’t stop at a flimsy coroner’s report. He wouldn’t go through the trouble of contacting Armstrong and meeting with us just for something as tiny as that.

  Collat nodded, his eyes fixed to a spot on the floor. “He wouldn’t kill himself. I know he wouldn’t.”

  DJ and I quickly looked at each other.

  “Who was he?” I asked Collat, sure to put the question forward gently.

  The way Collat’s gaze shot up to me, I knew. I think DJ picked up on it as well. The dead man was close to Collat. A friend. Maybe family.

  “My brother-in-law.”

  I nodded, trying to lend as sympathetic an ear as I could.

  “Luc Baptiste,” Collat continued. “He is—or was—an investigative journalist. He was well-known. And despised.”

  My mind’s eye began to open up to the meandering course of the coming investigation. “What was he working on?”

  “I don’t know.” Collat shook his head, then pressed his fingers to his closed eyelids. “I should know, shouldn’t I? Isn’t that something a man in my position should know? But I don’t. I just don’t. Luc and I knew we both had something to gain by working together on occasion, but whatever he had this time, he kept me out of it.”

  He took another deep breath, then lay back, his closely buzzed hair resting on the top edge of the couch.

  “You don’t know nothing at all?” DJ asked.

  “Luc told me someone was following him.” Collat’s voice fell low. “I said, ‘You’re crazy. No one would follow you. Why would anyone want to do something like that? You’ve got a voice people listen to, and anybody who would try to follow you doesn’t want their name said aloud,’ but by God, I was wrong.”

  “You have reason to believe someone was following him,” I said.

  Collat’s eyes bored into mine. “Yeah. He’s dead.”

  Stupid thing for me to ask. DJ rolled his eyes and silently chuckled.

  “Why aren’t you looking into your brother-in-law’s death, then?” DJ asked. “Why you gotta have us come in?”

  “I lack grounds to follow up.” Collat swiped a finger across the scar over his nose, then looked DJ in the eyes. “The case didn’t get assigned to me. It was assigned to another detective—a man who is three weeks from retirement and couldn’t be bothered with a murder case. He’s taking the coroner’s ruling at face value.”

  “He’s not gathering any evidence to prove or disprove it?” I said. I figured the procedure here was much the same as it was back in Newport Beach.

  “None that I’ve seen.”

  “Big surprise,” DJ muttered.

  “What makes you think this other detective isn’t performing due diligence?” I asked.

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on the case file,” Collat said. “Every policeman with something behind his badge knows a murder is a ticking clock; the longer you take to investigate, the lower your chances of solving the ca
se. It’s been nearly forty-eight hours since the discovery of Luc’s body, and he hasn’t logged a single piece of evidence, hasn’t spoken to any witnesses, hasn’t even contacted the family.

  “My wife and her mother wouldn’t have known about Luc’s death if I weren’t a police officer—and I wouldn’t have been informed if someone in the coroner’s office didn’t know Luc and me from a while back.” He balled his fists until his knuckles cracked. “Think about that. What kind of detective can’t even be bothered to notify the next of kin after identifying a body?”

  A negligent one, I thought.

  “Have you tried to go through any official channels?” I asked. “Talked to the other detective’s lieutenant or precinct captain, even?”

  Collat waved that idea off. “No one wants to rock the boat. I’ve tried going to his superiors unofficially, but they’ve made it clear they aren’t going to second-guess the work of an experienced detective and the coroner, just because the detective is nearing retirement. His lieutenant offered to have the case reassigned after this other guy retires, but after three weeks, it’s too cold. It’d be pointless.”

  No question. A three-week-old murder was as good as dead and filed with other cold cases. If no real investigation had started by then, it was more than likely no one would ever be apprehended. Contrary to TV shows, more than a third of all murders in the United States were never cleared and remained unsolved.

  “Luc wouldn’t commit suicide,” Collat said. “He was tough. He was fearless. I’ve heard stories about how he’d stowed away on drug boats and snuck into places I wouldn’t dare go unless I wanted my throat cut. Luc had a way of bonding with people. He earned their trust, their respect. Even guys who would shoot their own mother for a few bucks would invite Luc into their inner circles. And he was never afraid to accept. Does that sound like a man who would drown himself?”

  No, it didn’t.

  But I wasn’t suicidal and never had been. I would never understand the pressures that pushed a man to take his own life, so I wasn’t an authority on whether Luc Baptiste had killed himself or not. But the method; jumping off a boat with ropes tied around your ankles? I wondered how the M.E. could call that suicide. Unless there was a note.