by Karen Harper
“We still will,” Nick promised.
“The little Lexi—she is all right?” Heck asked Claire. “My cousin Juanita, she’s very happy and hopes to work for you, kind of like a duenna to your daughter.”
“More like a nanny,” Nick said. “Claire will be glad to meet her tomorrow. Just so she doesn’t get seasick, because we’re going to stay on Dylan Carnahan’s yacht until we get our own place. Remember it?”
“Oh, sure. Big and beautiful. Hope it’s not haunted like the Shadowlawn mansion, yes? I mean—somebody did get murdered there...”
“Shake off that last case,” Nick interrupted him, “because we’ve got a big one here. So give us what you’ve come up with on the so-called Mangrove Murder. I’ll decide who to use here on the staff and get you going on things too, besides trying to track King Kong Clayton Ames-Paul Kilcorse. And of course, Claire’s going to help as she did in the St. Augustine case.”
“That other Kilcorse name may help but it may be another dead end too,” Heck said.
Nick clicked on the conference room lights and sat near the two of them at the corner of the big, dark wood table. This was obviously a conference room for twelve, with extra chairs along the wall under the oil paintings of the Everglades and Ten Thousand Islands. Claire could see in the room beyond a huge desk and bound leather sets of law books lining tall shelves on a stunning Persian-style carpet in rich blues and golds.
She should have known Nick’s offices would be expensive and impressive, and she hadn’t even seen his house yet. He said he usually ran his South Shores covert operations out of his home and could easily move his office there onto the yacht. Through that private enterprise, he dealt with cases in which he could help someone who had lost a loved one, cases in which it was uncertain whether the death was a murder, suicide or an accident.
She realized that was the same trauma he and his now deceased mother had gone through. How Claire wished she’d known his father, since his loss had inspired Nick to found South Shores and perhaps to become an attorney. She felt honored to be entrusted with helping on this murder investigation, which fit both Nick’s public and private endeavors. Thank God Nick recognized her strengths. He was not treating her like the little woman who should be locked up and kept home for protection.
Heck pulled a sheaf of papers—some newspaper articles, some computer printouts—from his well-worn leather satchel. Despite the fact he had helped her and Nick with their last case, she felt she didn’t really know him very well, but she was going to be sure she checked out and trusted his cousin Juanita when she interviewed her.
“Boss,” Heck said, his stack of papers slid only halfway across the big table, “got to level with you ’bout something first.”
Claire held her breath, but Nick seemed calm. “Shoot, amigo.”
“It’s okay to talk free here?”
“I have it swept for bugs twice a week, and I’ve had it locked.”
Claire put in, “He means without me here, don’t you, Heck?”
“She’s totally on the team,” Nick said. “Tell us.”
“An FBI agent come snooping ’round me—made me an offer for a job.”
Nick’s hand also froze partway to the documents. “Was he asking about Ames?”
“Not ’xactly. Even though my not having none of those fancy university credentials like computational math, computer info systems—all that—he offered me a job, cyber agent, starting at about $60,000. They want skilled hackers to work for them in Quantico, Virginia. You believe that?”
“I believe that. You mind telling me the agent’s name?”
“It was kind of quiet—hush, I mean. He made me promise not to say, even to my family. That is, till I think it over.”
“Tell me this then. Was he tall, really blond? A space between his front teeth?” Nick asked, recalling the look of the FBI agent who grilled him about Ames a couple of years ago.
Heck nodded and hit his fist on the table. “You think it’s a setup? Like from Ames to buy me off?”
“I don’t think so, but I put nothing past him. Did the agent have an official badge? I’m sure you checked what one looks like. And what did you say?”
“He had a legit badge. I said I’d get back to him.”
“I need you, Heck, especially on this case—and tracking Ames to find his home base. I know you’re trying to save up to get your grandfather’s hacienda back in Havana someday. I repeat, I need you, and I’ll top that government salary.
“Listen, please, both of you,” Nick went on, looking from one of them to the other and leaning forward over the corner of the table. “I’m really in a bind on this case for more than one reason. We need to fly under the radar on our investigation into this murder of the journalist. I have to make it look like I’m getting ready to defend my friend Haze to appease Ames, but Haze hasn’t been formally indicted. So if we’re too obvious questioning witnesses—or other suspects—or preparing a case, it will look to the local authorities like we know he’ll be arrested, and we don’t want that. Ames does, but it would not be fair to a friend or a client and Haze is both.”
Claire put in, “You’re right. But Ames expects and demands a show trial so you can tout his Fountain of Youth products.”
“Exactly. Or else—for all of us.”
“I’ll be careful,” Claire promised, “and we’ll try to avoid any public press or media coverage.”
“Truth is, I’m not going anywhere, not now anyway,” Heck said, extending his hand to Nick, who shook it. “’Cept maybe out in the Ten Thousand Islands with you to a clump of mangroves where Mark Stirling’s body was found wedged in the roots. I got you the police report right here, as well as the newspaper articles. Even got one by the guy who took over Stirling’s little The Burrowing Owl newspaper on Marco Island. He says he’s proud to carry on the paper and its causes.”
“That was fast,” Claire said. “So that man profits from Mark Stirling’s death. I’m going to try to learn if others did too.”
Frowning, Heck said, “Dead guy, I bet, had others didn’t like him. ’Cording to people he worked with at the Naples Daily News, he stepped on a lot of feet. You gonna have your arms full psyching out persons of interest who wanted him hurt or gone, Claire.”
She and Nick exchanged a quick look. With the FBI snooping around Heck, did that mean they were being watched by them as well as by Ames’s people? Surely that was not just because the FBI was interested in Heck. Especially not if it was the same guy who had questioned Nick about Ames years ago.
* * *
On the yacht that night, Nick and Claire tucked Lexi in together. She hadn’t slept at first, chattering away, all wound up to be on this big boat, better’n Captain Hook’s and not so scary with pirates. And Nick felt wound up just to be near Claire alone at night.
They had put Lexi in Claire’s cabin for the first night, until they brought the child’s clothes and toys here when they moved a few of their things in too. When Lexi finally fell asleep, Claire had left the light on low. Lexi had her plush turtle in her arms, though Nick hated the idea of where it had come from. At least he’d checked it three times for listening devices, and he was used to spotting those now.
As they worked together side by side on the sofa in the cabin he’d claimed for an office, Nick told Claire, “I can’t wait any longer to go see Haze. How about you go along tomorrow morning, but while I talk to him, see if you can set up interviews with some of the Goodland locals Heck had in his report, beginning with Haze’s wife, Maggie?”
“If the interview with Juanita goes well first thing tomorrow morning, so I can leave Lexi with her here, that sounds good. I agree, it might be better if you meet with him alone at first, since you know him. I sure want a crack at him later—word patterns, tone of voice, body language—though I’d just tighten him up and be a di
straction right now.”
“I can grasp that,” he said. He put his hand on her knee. She was even getting to him in her jeans and sweatshirt. He’d tried to focus on planning his approach for the case, but he kept shifting to his approach to Claire. He didn’t want to push her, but he wanted her.
“Good idea that I talk to his wife,” Claire said, rustling through the papers they had strewed between them. “This article on her that Heck found online from a Sarasota paper makes her sound—well, opinionated and talented. I quote, ‘A rabid, local environmentalist, Maggie Hazelton is obsessed with protecting the local burrowing owls. She seems to know more about them than anyone else in the area, which seems apropos since owls used to be considered symbols of secret wisdom.’”
Nick said, “I don’t think that breed is on the endangered and protected list yet but Maggie wants them there.”
“I’ve seen pictures of some burrowing owls on Marco, and they are cute. She sounds like a strong, dedicated person. She may have some insights I can pick up on about Haze and his Youth product associates.”
“She’s always been stridently opinionated, just like Mark Stirling. I think she was at loggerheads with him on the owl protection too.”
“In other words,” Claire said, “I think I’m about to become an expert on reading back issues of his The Burrowing Owl rabble-rousing weekly newspaper, as well as the current issues by the guy who so quickly took over from Mark. Oh, here’s his name and the I’m-in-charge-now-and-I-won’t-let-up article Heck mentioned. His name is Wes Ringold. Listen, I can do this background reading and still spend time with Lexi. Performing forensic autopsies often means studying what the dead person wrote in public and in private. It may sound boring but it often points a finger—or flushes someone out of hiding—instead of their burrowing.”
“Keep close contact with me, even when we’re not together, understand?” he said, frowning at her. He kept from saying, And that’s an order.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” she threw back, still sifting through Heck’s reports. Nick could see her sharp mind was working overtime already as she went on, “If I can’t meet with his wife, or even set up an appointment, I’ll go looking for their neighbor, Ada Cypress. As far as I can tell, she’s lived on Goodland near the supposed fountain of youth for years, so maybe she can help. What I suspect is it wasn’t an accident that Mark Stirling went out alone into the jigsaw puzzle of those small mangrove islands and just happened to shoot himself in the head, when this report says he didn’t own a gun. I don’t care if it’s still under discussion by the authorities that he might have committed suicide. More importantly, he certainly didn’t wedge his body between mangrove roots while the gun washed away somehow.”
“And so,” Nick told her, moving his bare foot to rub against hers, “as Perry Mason used to say, ‘The game’s afoot.’”
She laughed and shook her head. “Sherlock Holmes. My mother must have read Darcy and me every book Arthur Conan Doyle wrote.”
“Oh, yeah, him too.”
Nick grasped her hand and tugged her gently around to face him more fully. He intended to pull her onto his lap, but just then Lexi’s shrill scream jolted them both to their feet.
* * *
Claire jumped up and beat Nick to her cabin, shoved the door that was ajar even farther open. Lexi was sitting up in bed with the covers pulled around her, eyes wide open, staring into space in the dim room, still screaming.
Claire tore to the bed, grateful it must just be a nightmare and not someone else in the room with her. After her kidnapping, the child seemed to have adjusted well and yet—
“Lexi, Lexi, sweetheart, it’s Mommy.” She sat on the bed, pulled the child onto her lap, held her hard, rocked her. “It was just a bad dream.”
Claire knew all about bad dreams. Her disease had drowned her with them, at least until her meds were calibrated and she understood the horrors of the night were not her fault. Horrid dreams, dark nightmares, strangers clawing at her, taking her away when she felt paralyzed. The memory of them leaped at her now as she held Lexi. But Lexi had never, thank the Lord, suffered from bad dreams—until now.
“Mommy, Mommy, they took me away. It wasn’t really Daddy. The place had big water all around it. I din’t know the house and got locked in a room, a pretty one like this. I was afraid without you and Daddy!”
Claire turned her own teary face to Nick. Poor man, standing there, wanting to help but helpless. What an awful first night here on this lovely yacht. He held up both hands and nodded, though she’d said nothing, then backed out of the room slowly.
The screams had slid to sniffles. They held tight to each other. Claire stretched out beside her daughter on the bed. Finally, Lexi sighed, and her little body began to relax against Claire’s.
“He was nice to me, Mommy, but I think he was scary too.”
Claire knew she meant Ames. “I think you’re right, but he’s far away now, and you are safe with Nick and me on a pretty boat, not at all scary like that one in the Peter Pan movie.”
“But he wants to hurt Nick later, because he was cross with him, maybe like crossing your heart, hope to die. Captain Hook wanted to hurt Peter Pan, and I think I dreamed Mr. Kilcorse wants to hurt Mr. Nick—I mean, Nick.”
Now Claire went stiff. “Was that one of the things you heard him say when you were listening under the door?”
Lexi’s tousled head rubbed up and down against Claire’s throat as she nodded. “I like this boat, Mommy, but in the dream I fell in the water and couldn’t breathe—got dead. He said that too, about some man in the water, dead.”
Claire drew in a sudden breath. Could Lexi have overheard something about Mark Stirling’s death? Nick thought Ames might have set up that murder to promote Haze’s so-called fountain of youth, and his own huge investment in the water. Mark Stirling had been attacking not only Haze but the credibility of the water in his small newspaper, and other media outlets had picked up on it.
Yes, she had to interview her own daughter soon and be sure no one else but she and Nick knew what the child had overheard. No way would she ever let Lexi testify in court, even to help Nick. That would make the child an even more obvious target for Ames and his lackeys. So maybe she’d best not tell even Nick everything Lexi had just said, including, Cross my heart and hope to die.
10
By the time Juanita Munez came aboard the Sylph to meet Claire and Lexi, Claire had received two texts from Heck about his cousin. One said that Juanita had lost her husband in an accident when he was working as a roofer. The other said, I know J can help you—and you can help her. J loves kids, has none of her own yet in big family.
Heck arrived with the pretty, twenty-two-year-old woman and, after introductions all around, he disappeared with Nick. Lexi was watching a video in the lounge, so the two women sat around the table on the back deck of the boat still moored at the very end of the Crayton Cove dock.
Juanita defied all the ideas of what Claire thought she might look like—a good lesson for a forensic psychologist. Her dark hair was only collar-length and curled; she was quite thin and a bit taller than Heck. She tried to read the woman’s body language in light of what she knew of Juanita’s tragedy. But she held her head erect, which suggested self-confidence, and she smiled easily. Her eyes were bright, though they darted about at first, perhaps in awe of the luxurious surroundings or in hopes of spotting Lexi. But Juanita’s foot bounced, and she gripped her fingers together tightly in her lap. She was nervous, of course, but then so was Claire. They both wanted this to work.
Claire began, “Though we haven’t moved everything in that we need yet, we plan to live on this boat for at least several months and may move about in it, in this general southwest Florida area. You don’t get seasick, do you?”
“Oh, no. My family has fishing boats from way back to Cuba days, salt water in
the blood. Did Hector tell you our grandfather in Cuba, he have a whole lot of boats? Sad, I never knew him but knew—know—all about him.”
“Yes, the Munez family patriarch means a lot to Hector. I think he’d like to reclaim what was lost to your family when Castro took power.”
Juanita shook her head so hard her hair bounced. “Very bad, dangerous man. People living there still scared.”
Claire thought that summed up how she and Nick were living now—scared because of a bad, dangerous man. Not only had Lexi suffered that nightmare last night, but Claire had also had a narcoleptic dream that had terrified her. As soon as she could, she hoped to get off her powerful doses of meds and try some herbal sleep remedies. But having someone like Juanita—someone Clayton Ames could not have already turned into a spy—would help her cope and sleep better.
She explained to Juanita what her duties would be, her salary and that she hoped she could teach Lexi some Spanish. She showed her Lexi’s room and the small cabin nearby, which would be her own. It was still only early October, so the term of employment would probably be until Lexi started preschool in the New Year, hopefully with her cousin who was just her age, or it might be longer, she explained.
“Cousins, the best, besides brothers and sisters,” Juanita told her as they walked to sit on the deck again. “I got nineteen cousins, also four sisters, two brothers. I’m the oldest, so I did help care for them—I have experience. Right now, myself, I—I viuda...means...means...”
“A widow?”
“Yes, that’s it. Widow with no kids of my own.”
“Hector told me about your husband. What a terrible loss for you. I’m very sorry.”
Her dark eyes grew luminous with unshed tears. “You so blessed to have a husband—second husband, yes, but yours, still living. And your little girl, I promise I take good care of her for you, like she was my own.”