Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1)

by Kait Carson

  “You had them filled? Thanks, Cappy. We dropped some off too, they’re in the car. Can we leave them on the dock in your safe locker until we get back? ”

  “Well, I’m not about to let you drown. Of course I had them filled. It’s thirty-two percent in case you’re interested. Sand dweller. I had the boat out about forty minutes ago. Didn’t think I’d make it back in time for your dive. Got stopped for a Coast Guard check. I hate it when that happens, but at least this time I didn’t have customers.”

  Cappy was right, no one was tied up to the buoys when they arrived. Hayden and Mallory did their usual simultaneous back roll off the port and starboard gunnels. They met up at the line going to the wreck. The water wasn’t as clear as it had been when Hayden did the dive last. She motioned to Mallory to pick up the line and stay on it. She fell into place behind her friend. Hayden’s dive instructor certificate lapsed a few years ago when she dropped her insurance, but her instincts were very much current. She watched as Mallory hand-over-handed the line to the far side of the marker before she followed.

  At about sixty feet the wreck came into view. Hayden stopped, straining to see the opening in the wheelhouse. The visibility was so poor she could hardly see the wheelhouse at all. Briefly, she thought about getting Mallory and aborting the dive. She shook her head and decided she wanted to think about the meeting with Elena and what, if anything, she’d share with Janice. Hayden always thought better underwater. Something about the monotony of the in-and-out sound of her breath and the absolute quiet that surrounded her. She felt totally at peace underwater, and totally in control. Wanting to see how much of the hole in the wheelhouse she could see on the descent and where it first came into view, she let go of the mooring line and struck out for the wheelhouse.

  She saw the outline of the boat and Mallory below on the deck. Mallory looked like she was going to swim up to her level. Hayden put her thumb and index finger together in a circle indicating that she was okay and gestured for Mallory to swim to the wheelhouse. She would meet her there and they could swim together on the wreck and into the wheelhouse so Mallory could see where Hayden found Richard. Mallory responded by signaling okay, and swam off and around the back of the wheelhouse.

  Lost in thought, Hayden tried to imagine Elena murdering her husband. She understood him catching a foot in the anchor line. It happened from time to time. If you weren’t a careful boater, you could easily toss yourself overboard. What she couldn’t see was Elena entangling him. Hayden heard what sounded like a jet plane taking off. She paused in the water column and looked around to see the source of the noise. Seeing nothing except the outline of a fish in the distance, she picked up her gauges to check her depth. She shook her gauge to clear the display. Her air gauge indicated her air pressure was dropping rapidly.

  Hayden looked down to see if Mallory was in sight. She wanted her to check her tank and see what was going on there. Not seeing Mallory, she banged her tank banger and put her hand behind her, cupping it so she diverted any bubbles that might be escaping from her valve into her line of vision.

  Her heart fell to her stomach. A constant trail of bubbles pushed past her mask.

  Acting quickly, Hayden struck their emergency signal, three sharp hits on her tank with her banger. She loosened her cummerbund and slipped the tank around to grasp it under her arm. She’d had a regulator go bad once before. Or it could be loose. Either way, she needed to let Mallory know she was going to the surface. If the regulator failed, she could disconnect it and breathe from the tank. Once she had the tank in a position where she could see it, she realized the newly serviced tank had lost the seal that secured the valve to the bottle.

  There was nothing that would keep the nitrox in the tank. No way Hayden could control the flow long enough to gain the surface.

  She swam for the mooring line, breathing what she could from her regulator. A quick glance at her pressure gauge told her the tank was nearly empty. Not stopping to look back, Hayden trusted Mallory heard her signal and was on her way to assist her. She made her way quickly up the mooring line to the boat.

  She could see the marker just above her when she breathed her last breath from the tank. The black tape, which she knew hung at fifteen feet below the surface. Looking down, she saw Mallory coming quickly up the line beneath her. Breathing out continuously now so her lungs did not over inflate and possibly burst, she continued heading for the marker, silently praying for Mallory to catch up with her. It seemed hours but Hayden knew it was only seconds.

  She was at the marker when Mallory caught up with her. Mallory had her regulator out of her mouth, pointing toward Hayden before she came abreast of her. Breathing deeply from the regulator for two breaths, Hayden pointed to Mallory’s second regulator, which was still attached to the keeper on her BC. Mallory shook her head so Hayden handed the regulator back to her friend. Mallory took two breaths and returned the regulator to Hayden. In this manner, they ascended slowly to the surface.

  Cappy stood on the swim platform as the two heads broke the surface. “What the heck are you two doing? Having skills practice at one hundred and twenty feet? I should shoot you both. I would if I had a gun on board. Maybe I should flare gun you two.”

  “Cappy, toss me a line. I want to tie my BC on to it.” Hayden blew into the hose that would fill her buoyancy vest and allow it to float even with the weight of the tank. She removed her weight belt and handed it to the Captain before she let go of her vest.

  They were tossing in six foot rollers, as Cappy had predicted. The women looked at each other. “Get on board,” Hayden ordered Mallory. “You don’t look so good and it isn’t easy being green.” Hayden removed her fins and handed them to Mallory where she stood on the swim platform. She then swam the BC over to the ladder and helped Cappy wrangle it up the ladder. Exhausted, she let him wrangle her up the ladder too.

  “The valve blew. I don’t know what else I could have done. I banged emergency, swam for the line and nearly made it to the safety stop before the air gave out. When my regulator went defective a couple of years ago, I’ve breathed from the tank. Not the most comfortable trip back to the boat, but at least I had air. What do you do when your valve goes defective? You can’t control the airflow. I kept breathing from my regulator. I figured it was as good a solution as any. But the free flow from the tank made breathing feel like air and water were being forced down my throat.”

  “You feel all right?” Cappy watched at her closely, waiting to see if she exhibited any signs of embolism or the bends.

  “Yes, we weren’t down long enough to have to worry about getting bent and even though I came up fast, I was breathing the whole way. Mallory too from what I could see. Thank God you were there, Mallory. This would not have been a time to be diving alone.”

  “I think you are through diving the Humboldt. Last time cracks in your hoses, this time a defective valve. That’s not bad luck, that’s a warning from Neptune. Wait until I get my hands on Seahorse. Don’t touch your other tank. I want them to take it apart while I’m there. I want to see what they did. They have no business dealing with tanks if they don’t know how to put them together.”

  “Cappy,” Hayden tried to interrupt him.

  “They better not have given them to that new…”

  “Cappy, stop ranting. Look at this. The valve is fine. It’s the o-ring. It looks like it’s defective. Luck of the draw, Cappy. No problem, just one of those things.”

  Cappy came over and looked at the tank and the valve. “That’s no accident. Someone wedged a knife in there between the tank and the valve and slashed the o-ring. Look, you can see a scratch on the side of the tank right near the cut in the o-ring. It would hold up for a while. There’s no way to cut through once the valve is on the tank. This might have lasted for a dive or two but it would have gone eventually from fatigue.”

  “Your tank, my friend,” Cappy said,
his eyes wild with anger and fear, “was sabotaged.”

  Thirty

  Mallory draped a towel over Hayden’s shoulders. The hiss of nitrox escaping from her second tank, accompanied by Cappy’s cursing, formed the backdrop to her thoughts. She huddled on the deck of the little boat, her bottom resting in the salt spray wash. Her arms tightly wound around her knees, hugging them to her chest. She grabbed the ends of the towel with her fingertips and tried to pull it around her entire body.

  Hayden couldn’t stop trembling. The words motive, means, and opportunity circled her thoughts like a runaway mantra. Means and opportunity were easy. A new tech trying to straighten a fold in the o-ring or tuck some excess rubber back in. That explanation made more sense than attempted murder. Who else had access to her tanks? It had to be an accident. Motive stumped her.

  “Cappy, you don’t have any alcohol on this boat do you?” Mallory asked. “I think she’s going into shock. She looks so disoriented.”

  “I don’t. Wrap her up in more towels. I want to see if someone tampered with the second tank before I pull the line and take us back. If it is, I’m going right to Seahorse. I don’t know what kind of prank this is, but you can darn well bet I’ll find out. Somebody’s going to be out of a job before today is over.”

  “What if it wasn’t someone at Seahorse?”

  “Who then? You don’t think I did it. I set her tanks up. If you two had canceled and someone else booked who had nitrox certification, I might have just rented out Hayden’s tanks. I’ve done it before, she doesn’t mind.” The man’s shoulders bunched. He lifted one arm and massaged the back of his neck. “Hayden knows what she’s doing underwater. She’ll handle an emergency. Any other diver but her…” His voice trailed off.

  “I’d have lost them and we’d be doing a recovery now.” He balled a hand into a fist and slammed it against his other palm. “Did that once, I’m not looking to do it again.”

  The hissing stopped while Cappy was talking. He leaned over the tank, inspecting it closely. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “Same marks here.” He gave the valve a twist with the wrench and freed it from the cylinder. Pulling the o-ring from the valve stem, he turned it in his hands.

  “Look at this,” he said and thrust the rubber circle at Hayden. “It’s got cut marks, even worse than the one you came up with. This would have gone before you got on the wreck. Either Seahorse has a bunch of defective equipment or they have a tech doing hydros that shouldn’t be near a scuba tank.”

  Hayden looked blindly at the rubber ring in his palm. She tried to answer but her mouth wouldn’t open. She felt cold, so cold. Both tanks. There was no question. Someone wanted her dead. Raising her hand, she tried to push her wet hair back off her face. She succeeded in poking herself in the eye. Wordlessly, she looked up at her dive captain.

  Something in her eyes must have frightened him. “I’m going in to unhook. Stay with her, Mal. I’m calling Seahorse on the way back. I want them to see her this way.”

  “Call for the paramedics to meet us at the dock instead.” Mallory said. Hayden heard the underlying steel in her voice. “I’ve never seen anyone look this way before. We can deal with Seahorse another time. The tanks aren’t going to change.”

  The motion of the boat riding the waves rammed Hayden into the tanks behind her. She barely felt the impact. The bits and pieces of her thoughts fell into place. Hayden shook her head back and forth.

  Summoning all of her strength she croaked, “Not paramedics, Coast Guard,” and dropped her head to her knees. Pulling convulsively at the ends of the towel she tried to clear her mind and order her thoughts.

  “You want us to call the Coast Guard?” Mallory’s eyebrows shot to her hairline.

  Shaking her head to indicate no, Hayden tried again, “Coast Guard was on the boat. Cappy said the Coast Guard stopped him today. He had my tanks then. Were they set up? Did they inspect them?”

  Cappy heard the last remark as he climbed up the ladder to the deck. Dripping, he coiled and stowed the line he’d tied to the buoy before the dive. “Are you saying the Coast Guard is trying to shut me down? By killing someone on my boat?” Disbelief filled his face. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

  He squatted in front of her and searched her face. “There’s no way the Coast Guard could know your tanks were on board. Even if they did...” He straightened up and went to the console. His hand worked the shift lever with more force than was necessary, and he turned the key in the ignition. The boat fired. He raised his voice over the roar of the engine, “Why would they want to harm you, or anyone for that matter? Some crappy tech did this. Some idiot who didn’t know his job.” He screwed his face into a grimace. Then he eased the throttle forward and the boat gained speed.

  Plucking his cell phone from the cradle on the console, Cappy punched in some numbers. “Liz, who the heck did Hayden’s tanks? She dang near died because of your service technician. Both o-rings had cuts and both tanks had scrape marks like someone tried to jimmy a knife into the valve. Like maybe some idiot technician tried to make sure the valve was seated.” He twisted the wheel to correct his course and avoid a sandbar.

  The brilliant white column of the Bonefish Tower condominium got smaller behind them. Hayden cringed. Cappy’s course meant they’d go under the Seven Mile Bridge. Memories of her father teaching her diving safety hit her in the solar plexus. Cappy’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  “I picked them up myself. There’s no mistake. The valve blew on the Humboldt. At depth. Anyone else would have drowned. Who did her tanks? Who did you hire?” The color drained from the man’s face. “You. You did them? What did you do to them?” He punched the off button on the phone with such force that it flew from his hand and landed on the deck beside Mallory. She picked it up and dried it off.

  “Liz says it’s not her fault. She accused me of abandoning your tanks. I left them on the dock for about ten minutes when I went to the Circle K and picked up some rooty beer.” Cappy spoke over his shoulder to Hayden and Mallory. “I guess someone could have gotten to them then.”

  Mallory sat next to her friend on the deck, holding her in her arms. Hayden still trembled uncontrollably despite all the towels Mallory had wrapped around her. “Liz knew we were diving today. I told her when I dropped off my tanks.”

  She looked at the tanks on the deck. Hayden’s two bore her name in indelible purple marker. Cappy’s two had his name. “Why do you think the Coast Guard was after you? They tampered with Hayden’s tanks.”

  Cappy’s eyes grew round.

  “Take me through this morning,” Mallory said. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  “I picked up the tanks today—”

  “When?” Mallory interrupted.

  “Around eleven. After you guys were there, I guess. I left them on the dock for a few minutes, loaded them, and then took the boat out.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Out to Barbara’s and back.” He named a popular inside reef. “The engine was misfiring, I wanted to throttle it up and see what happened.”

  “Then what?”

  “Came back and waited for you two to be here at one. We went out and you know the rest. I don’t figure it.”

  Hayden struggled to lift her head from her knees. “When did Liz do the service?” She was relieved to hear that her voice sounded stronger. She still couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Two days ago. She said her regular technician didn’t show up and she wanted to get your tanks done because of how often you use ’em. She’d heard you weren’t working. She figured you’d want ’em earlier than promised.” A muscle in Cappy’s jaw twitched. He throttled the boat back to idle. His fist slammed the wheel. “Dang—two days ago. That’s gotta be it.” He spun the wheel around and headed back over his own wake. “They sat in the back of the shop. That whole area is open
during the day. Anybody could’ve seen them. Lots of times no one is back there. Anyone could’ve tampered with them. Who?” He pushed the throttle as far as it would go. The little boat flew over the rollers.

  Hayden turned her face against her knees and shivered.

  Bonefish Towers was in sight when the Monroe County Sheriff’s office boat caught up with the Chris Craft. Cappy hadn’t noticed the patrol boat approaching off his starboard quarter until it activated the blue lights and siren.

  “Pull up. Prepare for boarding.” A voice announced over a loudhailer.

  “Oh, God,” Hayden moaned. She’d just begun to feel a little better. She peeked up over the gunnel from her place on the deck. Detective Landsdown looked out of place. He stood in the prow of the boat, loud hailer in his hand dressed in what looked like a pair of camel colored suit trousers and tan boating shoes. A finger of fear curled in her stomach. The water was definitely not his beat. She looked at Mallory, her eyes begging for reassurance.

  “That’s the man who questioned me. At least it looks a lot like him.” Her teeth worried her lower lip. “Cappy,” she said, turning her head toward the pilot’s cabin, “you should throw me overboard. Or deny me permission to board ever again.”

  Giving her a quick smile he responded, “Don’t tempt me. It’s not the first time I wanted to toss you over. You swim too good. It’d never work.”

  The boat tossed on the rollers as it came to an unanchored halt. The patrol boat pulled up alongside. Detective Landsdown tossed a line to Cappy and handed off Cappy’s return line to the sergeant at the wheel. He stepped from the gunnel of the patrol boat to the smaller Chris Craft with the ease of long practice.