Bluewater Enigma

by Charles Dougherty

  "I'm sure they put it on in Bequia, or maybe even the Tobago Cays," Liz said. "Dani's right. I wondered how that guy, Billy, found us after he took McGuire and Velasquez back to Mustique. That explains it."

  "The problem is, they may still be tracking us, and since we let those assholes live, they'll eventually find out we're still alive," Dani said. "I should've killed them instead of listening to Beverly."

  "I've got an idea," Liz said. "Let's send them on a wild goose chase."

  "With the tracker?" Dani asked.

  "Yes," Liz said. "We'll put it on another boat. That'll keep them busy for a while."

  "But it might get innocent people hurt," Dani said.

  "This Beverly, she has changed the way you think, Dani," Marie said. "Since when do you worry about people getting hurt?"

  "She talked me into a mistake, is what she did. But those guys were asking for it. If we're going to do what Liz suggested, we need to put it on a boat that will match our speed, or whoever's watching will figure it out."

  "A small steamer," Marie said. "That would work."

  "But that could still get somebody hurt. We don't know how they might decide to deal with it. They were going to kill us and sink Vengeance," Liz said.

  "I have a steamer in mind, an interisland freighter headed for Venezuela. They are smuggling drugs and people north and food south. Cut the cable tie. I will have someone meet us at the marina and take this device around to Fort-de-France. We will make sure it moves at no more than 9 knots and follows the coast around to where the freighter is anchored. Okay?"

  "Okay." Dani took out her multi-tool and clipped the cable tie, handing the tracker to Marie. "Call your person and let's go get some espresso and pain au chocolat."

  Sandrine and Beverly were sitting at a table, heads together, reading a newspaper as Dani and Liz entered the restaurant. Sandrine waved them over and asked where Marie was.

  "She stopped to give one of her people instructions," Dani said.

  "Instructions?" Sandrine asked.

  Dani and Liz told them about finding the satellite tracker on Vengeance.

  "They know where we are?" Beverly asked, frowning. She marked her place in the article she was reading with her finger and turned her attention to Dani and Liz.

  "They know Vengeance stopped here for the night, but that's about it. And they probably think those three jerks are still running loose," Dani said. "Liz had the idea of putting the tracker on another boat to lead them away from us, in case somebody's still following the tracker. That's what Marie's doing."

  Beverly said, "But they might — "

  "It's okay," Liz said. "Marie's arranging for someone to put it on a freighter that's smuggling drugs. They deserve whatever happens to them."

  "What are you reading, anyway?" Dani asked, pointing at the newspaper.

  "Look," Sandrine said, flipping a page back to reveal a copy of the police artist's sketch of Berto.

  "I see," Dani said, "But — "

  "Now look at this." Beverly shifted the sketch to the left and aligned it with a portrait of a pretty, dark haired woman in the newspaper. "Imagine her with her hair pulled back."

  "There is a strong resemblance, isn't there," Dani said.

  "They could almost be twins," Liz said. "Do you know her?"

  "No," Beverly said. "I've never seen her before."

  "Are you sure?" Liz asked. "Because if you know her it could have influenced — "

  "No. I see what you're getting at, but that's not what happened. I never saw her or her picture until after the sketch was done. Somebody left yesterday's Miami Herald on the table. It was open to the society page. When Sandrine and I sat down I saw this article about her engagement to Senator William O'Toole."

  "Is he somebody we should know?" Liz asked.

  "He's the one Horry Velasquez was trying to beat out for the presidential nomination," Beverly said.

  "Hmm," Dani said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. "Who is she?"

  "Graciella Montalba is her name," Beverly said. "The article says she's an Argentine socialite who's lived in Miami for quite a while. She's a jet setter — lots of money."

  "Does the article mention a brother?" Liz asked.

  "No. The article says she's the only child of wealthy parents who died when she was in her late teens. She has no close relatives, according to this, and no remaining connection to Argentina. She's a naturalized U.S. citizen."

  "Did you already send this to Luke?" Dani asked, looking at Sandrine.

  "The sketch?" Sandrine asked. "Yes, we emailed it from my computer a few minutes ago. I called him to let him know, but he's out of the office for a couple of hours."

  "Let's have our coffee, then," Dani said. "Then we can go back to Vengeance."

  "It is done," Marie said, interrupting. She pulled out a chair and joined them. "Am I too late for coffee?"

  "No," Liz said. "We were about to order. Sit down and say hello to Beverly Lennox."

  "I am called Marie LaCroix." Marie extended her hand across the table.

  "I'm pleased to meet you," Beverly said, shaking her hand. "Dani and Liz have told me about you. Thank you for helping; I'm indebted to all of you."

  "It is only a small matter among friends," Marie said. "I am happy to do what I can."

  "Tell us about this freighter," Sandrine said. "Should I be looking into their cargo?"

  "I think you already know this one," Marie said. "We have been in touch with some of your colleagues. We wish to let this ship go to Venezuela; the plan is to discover with whom they trade there. Then, we will stop their supply at its source, and you will arrest them when they return here. Now we have a tracker aboard, for what that is worth. My people have cracked the login for it. I will give it to you later, if you wish."

  "Yes, please," Sandrine said.

  "Bonjour, mesdames," the waitress said. "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez?"

  "What do you think of the video?" Liz asked. She and Beverly sat in front of a laptop computer at Vengeance's chart table.

  "It's okay with me," Beverly said. "There's nothing there to worry any of us. Just Mike McGuire and Horry arguing. Can we get away with sending that little to Luke?"

  "We won't offer anything more," Dani said. "Since he's not expecting any recordings, it'll most likely be okay. If he asks about more, we'll play it by ear. Let me do the talking, though, okay?"

  "Sure. Speaking of talking, I should turn on my phone. The battery was stone dead when we got in last night. We should see if I have any texts from Berto before you call Luke, right?"

  "Yes," Dani said.

  Beverly went into the forward stateroom and returned with her iPhone. Once it booted up, she entered the unlock code.

  "I have two texts from him. Let's see," she said, tapping the screen. "Okay, the first one is from yesterday. It's a long set of instructions with a couple of pictures. He's telling me how to remove the disk drive from the recording system and replace it with a new one."

  "Do you have a new one?" Liz asked. "Marie already put another one in, and she set it to be active all the time, without the proximity thing you have. She showed us how to do that."

  "No. He says I should let him know where we'll be when I make the switch, and he'll arrange for me to pick one up. But he wanted me to set it like you just described, to eliminate the need for the key. That seems odd, since he thinks I'm leaving you today."

  "Yes," Dani said. "There's more to this than blackmailing Velasquez. He wants to spy on Liz and me for some reason."

  "But why?" Beverly asked.

  "I wish I knew," Dani said, "but I have no idea. That's worrisome."

  "I can see that," Beverly said.

  "You said there was a second text," Liz said.

  "Yes. From earlier this morning. He's asking if I got the first one, and whether I can switch the disk drives. What should I tell him?"

  "Don't answer him," Dani said. "It could be a trick."

  "A trick?" Beverly asked. "
How?"

  "If he knows about McGuire, he could be checking to make sure you're not still alive."

  Beverly's face went pale. "But how would he know about McGuire?"

  "We have no way of knowing what Berto's motive is in this whole thing," Liz said.

  "But if that really is his sister who's engaged to Senator O'Toole, wouldn't he want Horry Velasquez out of the race?" Beverly asked. "That would seem to put him on the opposite side from McGuire, wouldn't it?"

  "There are a lot of ifs strung together," Dani said. "There are too many things we don't know. I think not answering him is the safe course."

  "Okay, I'm fine with that," Beverly said, "but could you explain your reasoning?"

  "I'll try. He probably knows cellphone service doesn't extend very far offshore, for a start."

  "Yes, he does. He told me that once."

  "Then if you don't answer, he could assume that we're at sea, on our way to St. Lucia."

  "But my flight was supposed to be today."

  "Yes. He would guess that something's wrong. He may have even heard the news that McGuire was arrested and that Velasquez is back in Miami. That may be on local television in Miami."

  "I never thought of that," Beverly said.

  "If he's picked that up, then he would guess that we've had some kind of problem, but until McGuire or one of his three thugs talks, he can't know what our status is."

  "I see that. But if I answer his text, he'll know more, and maybe ask me what's going on."

  "Yes. Unless he knew about McGuire when he sent the text. If that's the case, he may also have access to the tracker, which will give him a whole different picture in the next few hours."

  "Wow. You have a devious mind, Dani."

  "I work at it. But in any case, I don't see a benefit to sending him an answer, at least not until we talk to Luke."

  "We should be able to reach him by now," Liz said. "Should I email the video clip to him before we call?"

  "That's my vote," Dani said. "How about it, Beverly?"

  "I agree. Send it, and let's talk with him."

  26

  Luke Pantene was pondering his recent telephone conversation with the women aboard Vengeance. He'd spent a few minutes reviewing the video clip they had sent him. There was no new information there, but it confirmed what he already knew. The video would make things more difficult for Mike McGuire and his lawyer if it survived the inevitable challenges to its admissibility in court. That was assuming McGuire chose to go to trial. Luke was betting the lawyers would strike a deal of some sort.

  He was more interested in the sketch of the man that they were calling Berto. He had to agree that it seemed likely that Berto was behind the theft of Vengeance from Miami a few weeks ago. The question was what motive he could have had for taking her. As Dani said, any yacht would have served his purpose of providing a backdrop for the blackmail of Horatio Velasquez.

  That led Luke to the next question, which was why Berto wanted to compromise the congressman. Taking Velasquez out of the running for the presidential nomination was an obvious motive, but Berto's motive might not be related to the presidential campaign. There were any number of reasons why someone would want leverage over a congressman.

  If Luke had a link between Berto and Vengeance, it could narrow the scope of the search for Berto. Luke agreed with Dani and Liz and Beverly. The sketch of Berto did bear a strong resemblance to Graciella Montalba, but Luke was wary of that, based on years of experience with eyewitnesses.

  Beverly Lennox could be mistaken, or she could have seen pictures of Graciella before and forgotten it, or she could have her own less innocent reasons for making the sketch point to the Montalba woman. Dani and Liz seemed to trust her, but Luke was skeptical.

  He had people updating the background information on Lennox, and he'd sent two detectives to Manny LaRosa's club with sketches of Berto. If LaRosa or anyone else at the Pink Pussycat recognized him from the sketch, Luke would be less doubtful about Lennox's description.

  He also had people following up with the two restaurants where Lennox claimed to have met Berto. That was a long shot, in Luke's opinion. Unless the man was a regular customer or had somehow called attention to himself, the restaurant employees wouldn't remember a customer from a couple of weeks ago.

  So far, they only had Lennox's word that Berto existed. Dani and Liz had a good track record with Luke; he usually trusted their judgment of people, but Lennox was still a suspicious character in his view.

  Dani, in her typical way, had wanted Luke to confront Graciella Montalba. Luke chuckled to himself. Dani was the proverbial bull in the china shop. There would be adverse political ramifications to approaching the Montalba woman. She was the fiancée of one of the most powerful men in the country as well as being prominent in her own right. Luke didn't let politics interfere with his pursuit of his duties, but in this case, the risks far exceeded the rewards.

  Politics aside, confronting Graciella Montalba might alert Berto, if he was indeed linked to her. Luke had not told Dani and her friends that Graciella Montalba's Miami residence was in the same cluster of buildings as Berto's cellphone. He knew what Dani's reaction to that would be.

  If he could establish that there was such a person as Berto, and if he could put that person in the building that housed Graciella Montalba's condo, then he'd have a basis to canvass the building's staff and the neighbors, Graciella among them. Absent that, he would stick to basic, boring police work.

  Jorge Salinas sat in a dark corner of the Pink Pussycat nursing a beer. When the two detectives came in and showed the bartender and the bouncer a sketch and started asking them questions, Jorge made a discreet departure. Walking down the street, he found a spot where he could watch the door to the club. He leaned against a lamp post and settled in to wait.

  When the two detectives emerged from the bar, Jorge followed them to their car.

  "Excuse me," he said, as one of them unlocked the driver's door.

  "Yeah," the detective said, giving Jorge a quick once over. He wrinkled his nose and asked, "Whaddaya want?"

  Jorge didn't have to work at staying in character; he was type-cast. He looked and smelled like a street person. Even in a place like the Pink Pussycat, he would have been unwelcome during the busy periods. "I seen you askin' questions in the Pussycat."

  The other detective had moved into a position off Jorge's right side, watching him. Jorge ignored him, focusing on the one in front of him.

  "So?" the first one asked.

  "I saw him sneak out," the man to Jorge's right said.

  "I didn't want no trouble with them people," Jorge said. "They let me come in and get a drink and food sometimes when they ain't busy, see. I hang out around here."

  "Yeah? So what? You got something to tell us?"

  "Maybe. I seen the bartender and the bouncer lookin' at one another when you was showin' them that picture. They looked to me like they was lyin' when they said they didn't recognize whoever it was."

  "How do you know?" the second detective asked.

  "I ain't messin' with you," Jorge said. "You know what I am. I ain't tryin' to blow no smoke or nothin'. You live like I do, you gotta be able to tell when people like them are bullshittin', see."

  "You say you hang around here a lot?" the first one asked.

  "Uh-huh. All the time. Ain't got nowhere else to be."

  "Maybe you've seen this guy, then," the second one said. "Show him the sketch."

  The first one shrugged and opened a manila folder. As he pulled out the sketch, several sheets of paper fell to the sidewalk. Jorge bent and picked them up, handing them to the detective as he took the sketch from him.

  "Thanks," the detective said. He watched as Jorge studied the sketch. "You seen him before?"

  "Maybe," Jorge said. "What's it worth?"

  "Look, asshole, you seen him or not? Don't push it; I'll bust your smelly ass for vagrancy if you screw us around."

  "Okay, okay" Jorge said, co
wering. "I think I mighta seen him around the neighborhood, but I ain't sure. How 'bout I hang onto this, and if I see him again, I call you?"

  "When do you think you saw him?"

  Jorge blinked hard with both eyes, staring at the sketch. He scratched at his belly and shook his head. "A week or two ago, maybe?"

  "Was he going in the club?"

  "Uh-huh, goin' in the club," Jorge said. "I'll call you, okay?"

  "Yeah, sure. Thanks a lot." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled $10 bill, handing it to Jorge. "Get yourself some food, man."

  "Thanks, officer. God bless you." As he watched them leave in the unmarked car, Jorge was wondering how much he should tell them.

  Montalba had just taken the first sip of his midafternoon coffee when one of his prepaid cellphones chimed, signaling the receipt of a text message. Opening the middle drawer of his desk, he saw that it was the phone he used to communicate with Manny LaRosa. He frowned; LaRosa didn't normally send text messages.

  Entering the phone's unlock code, he navigated to the message app and opened the only text there. He stared at the screen in disbelief, taking in the sketch that was unmistakably him in his theatrical makeup.

  Oddly, he realized how much he and Graciella resembled one another. He'd never noticed that, but then he never saw pictures of himself, either. Manny had entered a two-word message below the image. "Call me," it said. Montalba placed the call, willing himself to relax.

  "Yeah?" LaRosa said, when he answered. "You got the picture I sent?"

  "Yes," Montalba said. "Who is it? Where did it come from?"

  "Cops," LaRosa said. "Two detectives are flashing it around asking if anybody has seen that guy. They came in the Pussycat, talked to the guys. The bartender called me, and I came down."

  Montalba was worried by the fact that LaRosa had sent him the sketch. He'd never let LaRosa or the others see him. "Did they say who he was?" Montalba asked, again.

  "Yeah," LaRosa said. "The only name they got for him is Berto. That's why I sent it to you. That's the name you gave me to use with the Lennox broad. I thought maybe she'd ratted you out or something. None of us recognized the picture, but that's all I could figure, that maybe she'd seen you and given 'em a description."