Death of a Hot Chick

by Norma Huss

  “Could be. Or maybe Teddy and Doug had an argument?”

  “You mean they have a relationship above and beyond the usual police to citizen one?”

  “Definitely a possibility,” I said.

  “One would think I’m amongst pre-teens, at the very least. There is no relationship.” A moment later, Teddy added, “He did have an explanation. Police do not talk to the media during stake-outs. Since he already did, outside in person, I assume telephone conversations could be monitored.”

  “Don’t they have to say that, at the beginning of every conversation?” I asked. “I mean, when I’ve called some company with questions, I usually hear a recorded voice saying, ‘This call may be....”

  Finley thumped a card on the reject pile. “Your turn, Cyd.”

  Teddy stopped typing momentarily. “Do either of you know any gossip? This spending the night inside a dark boat is cutting down on the length of my article.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Anything. Who’s in town. Who’s out of town. Who’s running from the cops. I’m out of the high school loop where things happen fast. I used to know stuff like that. Who’s cheating on whom.... Maybe I used to know all that, but now.... Ah, excuse me, Cyd. Didn’t mean to say that.”

  So, I’m slow to catch on, but, with Teddy.... Still, if she hadn’t apologized, I would have remained clueless. “You blew it. Or is there some other reason you need to apologize?” Her face flushed and she started hitting keys madly, so I knew I was right. “Obviously you knew Al was cheating on me and you never told. Right?”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Right?”

  Teddy shook her head and let a humongous sigh rip. “Who could believe such a thing? I didn’t. It was a rumor, that’s all. And I think he was more into a means of embezzlement than seeing that girl. She was as snookered as...well, definitely not as much as you.”

  “Thanks.” I threw the card down, stood, and realized I had nowhere to go.

  Teddy said, “Would you really have wanted to know? Would you really have believed me, or even Kaye?”

  “Kaye knew, too? Anyone else? Like the whole town of Smith Harbor?”

  “How about you get back to our game,” Finley said.

  I sat. “You knew, too?”

  “No. I’m just saying, pick up your cards and play.”

  So there I was, trapped in a boat with my best friend since grade school, the liar. And my sister, the liar sat outside in her car. I turned on Finley. “So how come you’re so calm? You’re the one with the hot temper, the mad that won’t end for all of two minutes. And all you can say is, ‘Play cards?’ ”

  “Doug probably left already,” Teddy said. “I’m returning to silence. I suggest we continue this discussion after his next call.”

  A discussion, she called it? My whole life up-side down, and it’s a discussion? I sat, my fists in front of my face, nibbling a thumbnail. For five minutes I planned, in great detail, how I would ream Teddy, and even Finley. Definitely my sister. For the following five minutes I reviewed my plan, improved it. Then I tried to focus my anger, even to pump it up. Didn’t work. I noticed Finley had gathered the cards and was playing solitaire. Teddy stared at her computer, occasionally keying in a few words.

  Let them all go. I closed my eyes and rested my chin in my hands. I’d think of revenge. No, that was ridiculous. I’d clear my mind, think about something else. Nicole. Why didn’t she know who killed her? Then I felt a jerk against my throat. Nothing. Then a voice....

  He took it. He broke it and pushed me. Not his. Mine!

  Slowly, I opened my eyes. Finley gathered cards after a failed game of solitaire. Teddy whacked her computer keys. I whispered, “Did either of you say something? Just now?”

  Finley shook her head, shuffled the cards, and dealt out another round of solitaire. Teddy didn’t answer. I knew I’d heard Nicole. What did she mean?

  Twenty minutes later, after not making any decisions about either anger or Nicole, after Yarnell called Finley and reported no activity at the marina, I decided. “I could have a lot to say, but I won’t.”

  Did I mean our disagreement was over? Not really, but Teddy looked up from her computer and asked, “So is Lizzie all alone? Because Kaye is out there in her car, waiting for action to turn the headlights on.”

  “Nobody knows where she is but us. She’s probably asleep. Maybe Kaye is, too.”

  “Sound like a good idea,” Teddy said. “That radio station has played one song four times since we got here. Did you know that?”

  I didn’t.

  Finley said, “Really?”

  “After his next check-in we’d better put the lights out and turn the radio off,” Teddy said. “It will be ten, and that’s Lizzie’s bedtime.”

  “So she says,” I muttered. I wasn’t completely ready to forgive and forget. Except, how could I rave for two minutes then shut it down? How could I not rave at all? Maybe that’s why I heard Nicole’s voice again. I was mad, so was she. No, that’s not any reason. I needed sleep, too. Would I still be bummed out in the morning, knowing I was the wife who was the last to know, and the tattle headline of Smith Harbor? Yeah, I would.

  “Rummy again?” I asked Finley.

  “Why not?” She shuffled, dealt, and we started playing.

  After another half hour with a minimum of spoken words, after Doug’s call, we each chose our spot, unwound sleeping bags, and turned off the lights. When there’s nothing going on, and the lights are out, I just naturally go to sleep. Unless I can’t. But, it turned out, this was one of those “go-to-sleep” nights, even curled up on all the pillows on the floor, the only area left with Finley taking the longest space on the settee and Teddy claiming the only bed in the V-berth. She was welcome to it. I much preferred a spot closer to the door in case of emergency.

  At least I’d be rested and ready when the killer came. After we turned the lights out at ten I woke only every half hour, first with Doug’s calls to either me or Finley, and later, after, I supposed, two in the morning, when the calls came from someone else in the police department. Might have been the captain.

  ~ ~

  Monday, July 31

  I woke to Finley yelling. “Nobody came. No killer.” She bopped me on the arm. “Your trap didn’t work!”

  Cautiously, I opened one eye. Sunshine. “Oh, no,” I muttered. “Maybe.... Would he come during the day? What time is it?”

  “I wondered when you sleeping beauties would wake up,” Teddy said. She hobbled out of the forward berth with one shoe on and holding the second. “Well, that’s that. I wonder if Zander will fork over the pay I earned working all night without results.”

  “Oh.” Sleep lingered in my eyes and in my brain, but I reared up. “Now what? What’s the next plan?”

  “Leave it to the cops,” Finley said. “We tried. Not our fault it didn’t work.”

  “What about Lizzie?” I asked. “Just because the killer didn’t come, she’s not out of danger.” I uncoiled my body. “Yuck,” I said. “I need my toothbrush.”

  That’s when my cell phone vibrated. It was Kaye. “Guess your plan didn’t work,” she said.

  “Strange how everybody wants to tell me how my plan didn’t work,” I said and disconnected. I didn’t need a gloating sister bawling me out. As I put my shoes on, I remembered.

  Liars. Kaye and Teddy were liars. Had been liars. Knew at least something was wrong with Al and never told me. I glared at Teddy when she approached.

  “Cyd, it was a rumor I couldn’t believe. No one could. Really, not until afterward. I mean, he was a superior actor when you come down to it. Especially around anyone you knew. I just heard from someone else who knew someone who knew someone. You get the idea. One of those rumors like, ‘Alien baby born to mother of five.’ Nothing I could prove.”

  “And Kaye?”

  “That’s the part I shouldn’t have mentioned, because I don’t know. It’s something we never talked about
. I seldom saw Kaye anyway, but when I did, I certainly didn’t say anything about alien babies. Or, in this case, possible infidelity.”

  Sounded all too reasonable. Unfortunately. We all headed out of Podunk.

  Kaye caught up to us. “It was a good plan,” she said. “Maybe Mr. Joline didn’t read the paper.”

  Did she know about Al’s cheating ways before he left? Maybe, maybe not. But now was not the time to go into it. I said, “Not reading the paper would be more Chester’s style, if you ask me.”

  Teddy raced by and hopped in her car. Finley followed, but she turned with us toward my dock. As we approached, Finley said, “Is this the right dock? I don’t see your boat.”

  I turned. “It’s right...right....”

  “Oh, my god,” Kaye said.

  Only the top of Snapdragon showed above the water. I ran to the finger pier where I should have been able to step on my deck. Instead, I could have stepped on the roof. The tops of the salon windows were above the water. Everything else, the rest of Snapdragon, was below water. Inside as wet as the outside.

  “She’s sunk!”

  Finley squatted beside me. “You didn’t leave your door open and broken, did you?”

  “No. Why would I do that?” But Finley didn’t have to add another word. I could see that somebody had broken my door, got inside, and somehow, sank Snapdragon.

  “Probably opened the seacocks,” Finley said.

  But why?

  Kaye pulled her cell phone out of her purse, punched the number, then in a moment said, “Teddy, you better come right back. There is another crime scene, right here, committed while we slept. Cyd’s boat was sunk.”

  I slid down to sit on the finger pier. My boat. Snapdragon wasn’t a sailboat, but....

  My first boat burned to the waterline. My second boat sunk in six feet of water.

  Chapter 23

  Teddy rushed up with her cell phone in hand. “Reba can’t make it.” She held up the phone and flashed off a few shots. “Were there any witnesses to your boat sinking?”

  Then the whole thing got a lot more weird. No witnesses popped up, but within minutes the dock around Snapdragon was a mob scene. First, five biking teenagers appeared. A few walkers from the neighborhood, then a couple of over-nighters from the marina strolled onto the scene. By the time Teddy was gone, nearly everybody else in Smith Harbor had arrived one way or another. They cluttered the dock, yakked about possibilities, then, when nothing else happened, they drifted off. Kaye and Finley stayed, but we didn’t have a quiet moment. Wes had arrived, with Slim showing up two minutes later.

  Wes yanked the electric line leading to the boat, then stuck something in the water. “No electricity,” he said. “Gotta get a dive team in here.” He headed for the marina office.

  Slim took his shoes off and lowered himself into the water and, using a combination of a frog swim and hand-over-hand walking, went inside the boat. He came back out and said, “How many seacocks you got, Cyd?”

  “Three? Five? Give me a minute to think.”

  That’s when the local police showed up with Officer Ramiriz in the lead. “You, on the boat,” another one said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “He’s trying to close the seacocks,” I said. I noticed that Officer Doug wasn’t one of the police. He’d had a late night.

  Wes returned. “It’s gotta be holed,” he said. “Dive team’s coming.” He turned to me. “Cyd, you gotta get that boat out of here.”

  Slim said, “Ain’t no way this here boat’s going anywhere with that load of water.”

  “It’s a crime scene,” I muttered. Nobody messes with crime scenes.

  “Time for all sightseers to leave,” Ramirez said. “You stay,” she said, pointing to me.

  “I’m staying too,” Kaye said. “I’m Cyd’s sister.”

  Finley said, “That Brandon Bates is a sneaky one. He got in here past Kaye in her car and Officer Yarnell driving back and forth all night.”

  “It is hard to find a logical reason for Mr. Joline to do this,” Kaye said. “Perhaps he realized Cyd had all the law on her side.”

  I didn’t offer up Chester. I shook my shoulders, rubbed my wrists. I had to engage the brain, try to think what happened, who did it. Was it the killer?

  “So what happened here?” Officer Ramiriz asked.

  Kaye answered for me. “I’m sure you know we were waiting for the killer in Lizzie’s boat last night. He didn’t appear. This is what we found when we returned to Cyd’s boat.” She waved her hand toward Snapdragon.

  “Cyd?” the officer asked.

  “That’s the story. The whole thing.”

  Which is when she turned to Slim, asking him what he saw inside.

  Slim started talking, embroidering the danger he braved, which was okay by me. We stepped back to give them room.

  Finley fidgeted. I recognized the signs: hands in pockets, hands out, pace, squat and stare, pop up. She was so ready to leave, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “So where do you stay tonight, Cyd?”

  “At Lizzie’s.” Okay, I’d started thinking. A bit belatedly, but that happens. “Chester sank the boat, and killed Nicole. Maybe he didn’t read the paper. Maybe he did read the paper and he thought he was getting rid of me first and he’d head for Lizzie next. Lizzie is still in danger.”

  “That is certainly true,” Kaye said.

  “Yeah, send out a bulletin. Kaye admits....” Finley hesitated. “Sorry Kaye. Old habits die hard.”

  “Finley, are you agreeing that Chester killed Nicole?”

  “Hey, Brandon did that.”

  I shook my head. I knew it was Chester. Or, was this sinking completely unrelated? But that didn’t make sense either. Okay, so practically everyone I’d met wanted to get inside Snapdragon. Did they all want to find treasure or had they all wanted to sink her?

  ~ ~

  I sat cross-legged on the finger pier, elbows on my knees and chin resting on my fists.

  Everyone was gone but Slim. He sat down beside me. “What you gonna do with your sunk boat?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I was out of options. No way I’d be able to shine Snapdragon up to sell. A diver had declared there were no holes in her hull, but he’d refused to go inside to close any seacocks. Everything I owned was inside and water-logged. Everything but my cell phone, and the two plastic bags with my conduits to Nicole.

  “If you need a job, I’m still working at Bayside.” When I didn’t answer, Slim stood. “You gotta watch out. I gotta get back.”

  Watch out for what, I wondered. As he ambled off, I called, “Thanks. Later maybe.” Everyone had deserted me, even my sister who’d headed home to get Lizzie. She hadn’t returned, but someone else was headed my way. Brandon Bates holding a bunch of flowers.

  And, sure enough, he headed straight for me, bowed and handed me the bouquet of six huge daisies. “Cyd, how unfortunate. Whatever happened to your lovely boat?”

  “I don’t know.” I couldn’t resist adding, “Do you?”

  “Perhaps a maintenance problem? Leaks do occur, I understand. So fortunate that you managed to get out in time. Or were you on the boat when it began sinking?”

  I thought that was obvious, but I firmly said, “No.”

  “The tide must be out. If one must find something fortunate about the whole thing, that would be it. I’m sure the boat will be completely under water when the tide rises. I’m concerned for your investment. I wonder what the law says about a boat that is completely sunk.”

  “Thanks for the flowers,” I muttered, but what was I supposed to do with them?

  “May I contact a salvage company for you? I’m sure they would pay you something for any value they might redeem.”

  Those flowers—maybe four ninety-eight at Safeway. One of them had a broken stem.

  “So, may I call them?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The salvage company. I’d hate to see you lose everything when the
tide rises.”

  “It’s already high tide,” I told Brandon. At low tide, she’d have leaned, but not sunk below water level. For one thing, the slip was barely deep enough to float Snapdragon’s three foot depth. For another, Brandon obviously didn’t know anything about marine law, and especially the tide tables. Why didn’t he just leave? I preferred to be alone with my misery. But someone else was headed my way.

  Gregory lugged something a lot heavier than a few flowers. He stepped on the finger pier. “Guess you can use this,” he said.

  “A pump! I sure can.” I jumped up, the flowers falling off my lap. “What’s the capacity?”

  Instead of answered me, he said, “So, Brandon. You’re fast on your feet.”

  Brandon smirked. “You won’t need that pump. I’m contracting a salvage company for her. Just pumping out the water will give her no value whatsoever.”

  “You’re what? Who says?”

  “How does she expect to get any value from that boat now? She won’t unless she signs it over to a salvage company.”

  The pump was on the dock. Gregory charged, fists ready but not flying. “This boat is not salvage,” he roared. “And you are pushing your luck just standing here.”

  “Hey, guys,” I said. “Cool, okay?” Brandon had a point, but flowers just didn’t do it for me. I wanted to send them both packing, but I didn’t. “I accept the offer of a pump to use. I reject any salvage company.”

  Brandon stepped back. “Cyd, I’m giving you good advice. Think about it. That little pump will never empty the entire boat.”

  “Hit the road,” Gregory said.

  I nearly told Gregory to hit the road along with Brandon, but I wanted to use that pump. True, it would take a long time to empty all the water, but at some point, draining much of the water would allow the boat to float. What was with those two men? Out-piss each other, and over me? There had to be another reason.

  Brandon left, looking like he’d like to take his flowers with him.

  Gregory watched him leave until he was out of sight, then he said, “Except—he’s right.”