Storm Sail_A Connie Barrera Thriller_The 4th Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series

by Charles Dougherty

  "Hey, Paul."

  "Dalton," Paul said. "How are you feeling?"

  "Hungry. Okay if I rustle up a sandwich?"

  "Sure. Help yourself. Bread's in the left-hand locker. Utensils are in the top drawer. Condiments are in the middle locker, and there's plenty of deli meat and sliced cheese in the top of the fridge."

  "Reckon you got any peanut butter?"

  "Sure. That'll be in the locker with the condiments, and there should be some jelly there, too."

  "Great," Dalton said. "Thanks."

  "No problem. Connie's favorite food's peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

  "Mine and Gina's, too. Can I fix one for you?"

  "No, thanks."

  Sandwich in hand, Dalton climbed into the cockpit and sat down on the starboard side.

  "Sorry I been so groggy," Dalton said. "Can't remember if I thanked you for saving our asses. We'd a-been up shit creek for sure, if you all hadn't come along."

  Paul smiled. "Glad we found you. There's not much shipping traffic out here."

  Dalton took a bite of his sandwich, chewing while he thought. "I ain't usually such a sleepy-head," he said, finally. "Can't seem to catch up."

  "Withdrawal can be tough under the best of circumstances," Paul said.

  Dalton willed himself not to react for a few seconds. "Withdrawal?"

  "Gina told us your medication was washed over the side when you were getting in the raft."

  "Oh. Um ... she tell you 'bout my, uh ... problem?"

  "She said you were bipolar."

  Dalton almost choked on the bite of sandwich he was swallowing. "I ain't! I ain't never done nothin' 'cept with women. Even when I was in the joint, I ... "

  Paul didn't say anything, and after he swallowed his food, Dalton said, "Look here, Paul. I reckon we might ought to get this out in the open. We gonna be stuck on your boat for a while."

  Paul nodded.

  Encouraged, Dalton said, "I know you can tell I done time, just the same way I can tell you're a cop. I seen the way you looked at me."

  Paul nodded again.

  "I ain't proud of the things I done, but there ain't nothin' I can do 'bout it now, 'cept to stay straight. I done learned my lesson, paid my debt."

  "Good," Paul said. "Glad to hear it."

  "Even got me some schoolin' while I was inside. Got me a GED. But findin' work ain't so easy when you been locked up. Gina been savin' up while I was away. We's gonna start over in the islands; figgered people mightn't be so picky down there. That so?"

  "There's seasonal work in the USVI, tourism-related stuff, mostly."

  "I ain't scared of hard work; Gina neither. We both willin' to do anything, long as it's honest."

  "I'm sure you'll find something. You're right. People in the islands are less judgmental."

  "I know you and me ain't never gonna be best friends or nothin', but I want to get along. I don't want to do nothin' that irritates you or Connie, but 'member, I been away, so my manners maybe ain't what they should be. Just let me know if I need to do somethin' different, please sir."

  "Don't worry, Dalton. We'll be okay."

  "I know lots of folks are put off by ex-cons," Dalton said. "I 'preciate your understandin'."

  "Anybody can make a mistake; that's one thing I learned early on when I wore a badge. What's important is what you do from now on."

  "Yes, sir. I got that. I'm stayin' right straight down the middle."

  "Then we'll get along fine."

  "Where was you on the job? That's what y'all call it, right?"

  "Right. Miami, for 22 years."

  "I bet you was a detective, right?"

  Paul smiled. "Yeah. Homicide, for 15 years. Until I retired."

  "Reckon you seen some pretty bad stuff, then."

  "Enough for several lifetimes. What were you in for?"

  "Possession," Dalton said, looking down, "with intent to distribute."

  "Did you do it?"

  "Yes, sir. Like I said, I ain't proud of it, but I did it. Earned my three to five. It's mine. I own it. Ain't got no interest in doin' none of that again."

  "Good for you. Gina said you both grew up in Mingo County."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Bloody Mingo," Paul said.

  "Yes, sir. You know 'bout Mingo County?"

  "A little. I was in the Army with a guy from Williamson."

  "A city boy," Dalton grinned. "Williamson's the big time. Me and Gina didn't neither one of us live in no town. We growed up in a holler down near Tug Fork."

  "I don't know about Tug Fork," Paul said.

  "No, sir?" Dalton said. "Well, ain't much to know. Tug Fork's a creek what runs into the Big Sandy. You know the Big Sandy?"

  "No. My notion of the geography in that part of the country is vague."

  "Well, the Big Sandy River is the state line between Kentucky and West Virginia."

  "Okay. So Mingo County's in the western part of the state, then."

  "Yes, sir. Southwest, kinda, way up in the hills. Coal-mining country."

  "Connie told me Gina's father worked in the mines."

  "Uh-uh. Most men did, if 'n they worked at all."

  "How about your father? He work in the mines?"

  "Don't rightly know. Never knowed the man. My mother, neither."

  "I'm sorry."

  "T'ain't no need in you bein' sorry. Man don't miss somethin' he ain't never had. Reckon the county raised me, sorta. I was fostered out to so many different families I lost count, but I growed up in spite of it."

  Paul didn't say anything to that, and Dalton let the silence hang for as long as he could stand it. "Reckon I'm fadin' a bit. Still ain't back to normal. I'd better go on, see if I can get me some more rest."

  "All right, Dalton. Take care of yourself."

  "Yes, sir. Thanks again."

  Gina was half-awake when Dalton cracked the door of their cabin open. She heard the click of the latch as he pushed it closed again. She groaned as if asleep and rolled to face away from him, hoping he'd just go back to bed.

  She was startled when he put one hand over her mouth and the other behind her neck. She stiffened, struggling to get a breath as his thumb and forefinger pinched her nostrils.

  "Be still, you little bitch! " he hissed. "You and me gotta have a little talk."

  She forced herself to relax, resisting the impulse to bite his hand. She nodded her head slightly.

  "Don't you make a fuckin' sound, you hear me?"

  She nodded against his hand again, feeling desperate for air, gasping when he released his grip.

  "Look at me," he said, his voice just above a whisper.

  She rolled to face him, eyes wide. He was grinning at her, the grin that she dreaded. He was going to hurt her, but she had no idea why. "What's — " she hushed as he shook his head.

  "You don't say nothin' 'til I tell you to," he said, "or you know what'll happen."

  She waited, terrified now. At least, she thought, he doesn't have those damned pliers.

  "You told that spic whore I was bipolar, when you know damn well I ain't ever been with no man since your Pappy held me down that time. Even inside, didn't nobody ever get me, and ennyhow, that don't count, bein' held down like that. Some of 'em tried. Tried to make me their bitch, yeah. But that don't count, not unless you like it."

  She swallowed hard and kept quiet.

  "Well? You got anything to say for yourself?"

  "I didn't tell her no such of a thing. I had to come up with a reason why you was goin' through drug withdrawal, so I told her you was takin' some medicine for maniac depression. Maybe I — "

  "Maniac? You told her I was fuckin' crazy?" his eyes flashed. "That's supposed to be better 'n bein’ somebody's bitch?"

  She knew then that he was going to find a reason to cause her pain before this was over.

  "Not crazy. I done read about it. Bipolar means the same thing as maniac depression. It's a — "

  "You stupid shit. Don't expect me to buy no b
ullshit story like that. Bipolar means you do it with men and women both. Now what did you tell her? That I was crazy, or that I's a pervert?"

  "I ... I ... " she knew she'd never convince him about bipolar. She needed an explanation that he'd believe, and in a hurry. "I bet that cop was pullin' your chain."

  "Nice try, Gina, but that ain't gonna cut it. Me and that cop, we had us a heart-to-heart. Ex-con to ex-cop. We done bonded, me and him, see." He grinned at her for a moment, his eyes bright, fevered-looking. "We don't like one another much, me and him, but we both know the way the bear goes through the buckwheat. He weren't pullin' my chain. You done told that pepper-belly bitch of his that I's some kinda faggot, and now you got to pay."

  He grinned that grin again, and licked his lips. "You know the rules. You gotta take your punishment. I'm gonna hurt you, and you're gonna take it and keep your fuckin' mouth shut, 'cause if you cry out, you know what I'll have to do."

  She began to tremble, crying softly.

  "You ready?"

  She sniffled and nodded her head.

  "No, you ain't. Git them clothes off, right now."

  She began to remove her blouse, her fingers fumbling with the buttons. She folded it and laid it aside, her hands shaking as they moved to the waistband of her jeans.

  "Come on, quit stallin'. I'd rip 'em off, 'cept you gonna need 'em to cover up the marks, and you ain't got no more clothes. Hurry!"

  She heard him getting undressed, heard his jeans hit the floor. She watched, still trembling, as he pulled his grimy shirt over his head. He reached down toward his bunk, bending over. He was feeling around for something; she could hear him patting the bedding. In a moment, he stood up.

  "Look what I done found in the galley drawer," he said, brandishing a shiny, chrome-plated pair of pliers. "You got to take yer punishment, now."

  She felt her eyes go wide as the fear gripped her. He laughed as he climbed up into the berth with her, shoving her against the side of the hull as he made room for himself. The pliers were ice-cold against the tender flesh on the side of her breast. She steeled herself for what she knew was coming, praying that she'd pass out soon.

  He chuckled. "Remember," he said, "not a fuckin' sound, or ... "

  Dalton lay in his berth, listening to Gina whimpering above him. Bitch, telling that spic whore he was a faggot. She knew better, now, by God. He took another bite of the peanut butter sandwich he'd fixed after he finished with her.

  He'd gone to put the pliers back in the galley drawer and decided on a sandwich when he was wiping the blood off the pliers. He'd forgotten to clean the knife he'd used to make the last sandwich; he saw it in the sink, and that put a sandwich in mind.

  He wasn't particularly hungry, but he knew better than to pass up food. A man had to eat when he got the chance, and the knife was there, already dirty. He was pleased that he'd managed to get all that done without the cop noticing. He didn't want to have to talk to him, not right then. His blood was still up from the excitement with Gina.

  Gina might have the body of a full-growed woman, but to him, she'd always be a child. That was part of her attraction. That, and the fact that she worshipped him. Nobody else did. To Dalton, she was still that scared, eight-year old girl who'd sought comfort in his arms whenever her Pappy had hurt her.

  He shook his head. Sick old bastard, doin' that to a little girl. His own little girl, at that. His own flesh and blood. That was nothing like what she and Dalton had been doing.

  That had been love, true love. It had to be. They were still together after all they'd been through. He was only a kid himself back then. A 13-year-old boy, his sap just starting to rise, with this warm, soft, little girl in his arms. It had been natural, gentle. Not brutal, like with her old man.

  Until her Pappy had caught them at it. That was when he'd started using Dalton, too. For a while. Until Dalton got the drop on him. Then Dalton fixed his ass. Her Pappy wouldn't hurt nobody, ever again.

  Right after that was the first time they'd locked Dalton up. The social workers had saved his ass from being tried as an adult. He might have been better off if they'd sent him away right then, he reflected. Instead, they'd kept putting him in foster homes, and he'd been abused off and on, but he didn't kill anybody else. Not for a while. But he kept a list. And he went back later, to every damn one of them.

  13

  The dull, gray light crept across the water, turning it from black to the color of molten iron. Soon, the sun would pop over the horizon, bathing the new day in glorious color. Sunrise was Paul's favorite time at sea. Night watches were always lonely and cold, even in the tropics, but sunrise brought a feeling of freshness, of possibility.

  He knew Connie would be up soon, bringing him a glass of cold juice and sitting with him to visit and share the beginning of a new day. They'd evolved a watch system that let them both get enough sleep without depriving them of each other's company. Those few minutes at watch changes kept them in touch, kept them warm through the loneliness of the solitary watches, and then, each afternoon, they stood a watch together.

  His few minutes with Dalton had broken the monotony of the morning watch, but the encounter had left him feeling uneasy. The man hadn't been threatening; he'd said all the right things. But Paul was hard to fool. He'd been suckered too many times by sincere words from people like Dalton. The fact that Dalton had felt the need to say them was a bad sign.

  He thought about Connie's description of her conversation with Gina. In her own way, Connie was a shrewd judge of people. She'd been part of some pretty shady cons, herself, although her victims had brought it on themselves. She'd used the larceny in their hearts against them, and she'd never taken advantage of anyone who wasn't trying to do the same or worse to her. Paul chuckled at the memory of her schemes.

  She'd been scamming wealthy, self-confident liars, white-collar crooks. She'd had few encounters with the kind of lowlife characters that Paul had dealt with. As a result, he found her charmingly naïve when it came to people like Dalton and Gina. He wasn't ready to condemn Gina just yet; he hadn't spent enough time with her to make any judgments. Still, though, she was keeping company with Dalton, and apparently had been for a long time. That didn't exactly bias him in her favor.

  He glanced down at the compass. He'd been watching the cyclical wind shifts for the last hour, sensing that the wind was backing. He'd been steering to keep the sails full and make the best boat speed, rather than trying to hold a particular course.

  The wind’s direction oscillated through cycles of several minutes' duration. When sailors spoke of wind direction, they were referring to an average over time. The cyclical changes could mask a shift in the fundamental direction of the wind, causing a lax helmsman to drift off course significantly during the span of a four-hour watch.

  On a long voyage over open water, it was customary to plot the vessel's position on a chart at regular intervals. The course line between position fixes would reveal what was called the "course made good," and the distance between the points, divided by the elapsed time yielded "speed made good." These were net measurements that included the effect of the vessel's incremental course changes as the helmsman followed the wind shifts, as well as the effects of any ocean currents on the vessel's instantaneous speed and direction of travel.

  In this day of navigation by GPS and electronic chart plotters, it was tempting to neglect these old-fashioned techniques of navigating. Paul had been sailing since before electronic navigation became common on small boats, and Connie had learned the traditional skills from her friends Dani and Liz.

  Since the lightning strike, their familiarity with the old ways had served them well. They still felt like they were cheating a bit using their handheld GPS. Except for the distraction of the two strangers in their amidships stateroom, they would probably have broken out the sextant and the tables, just for the pleasure of it. At least, that was their excuse, Paul thought, smiling as he remembered teaching Connie to make star sights.

 
The smile came from the recollection of her nestling her back against his chest as they braced themselves against the boat's motion. Both sets of hands cradling the instrument, he would lean in close, their cheeks touching, as they shifted the sextant from his eye to hers. He chuckled.

  "What's funny?" Connie asked, standing on the steps and reaching out to pick up her tether.

  "Just remembering that time you asked me if that was why it was called a sex-tant."

  "How was your watch?" Connie asked.

  "Quiet. I think we've had a wind shift, though. Did you plot us?"

  "No," she said. "Want me to go mark our position? I'd rather sit with you and think about sextants.” She smiled at their private joke.

  "That's okay. I'll plot a fix in a minute," Paul said. "Did you rest well?"

  "I did. I woke up at one point, though. One of our guests must have been having a bad dream."

  "Why? Somebody cry out?"

  "Not a cry. Just a sort of mewling, whimpering sound. Did you ever dream that you wanted to yell, but the sound just wouldn't come?" Connie asked.

  "And you end up making a muffled, whining sound, but it still wakes you up?"

  "Yes. Like that. That's what I heard, what woke me up."

  "Sure you weren't dreaming?"

  "Could have been, but I’m pretty sure it was one of them I heard, not myself. I dropped back off, but it didn't feel quite as restful. You know how that is?"

  "Mm-hmm," Paul said. "I do."

  Connie took a sip of the coffee she'd brought up. "What made you think about the sextant?" She was glad to see the smile spread across Paul's face again.

  "It's never far from my mind when you're around."

  "Tease. Too bad we've got company," Connie said.

  "Only for a few more days. Then we can brush up on our celestial navigation."

  "We won't need it to get from the Virgins to St. Martin."