AHMM, December 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "I know Nicole's purpose,” he said. He sounded fairly young and eager to sound shrewd. “Going to be tough to nail down a time of death, assuming Hy is deceased."

  "If the divorce becomes final,” I said, “who would be Mr. Coberly's heirs?"

  "He has a couple of cousins in Pennsylvania. They're a good bit older than Hy is."

  "Children?"

  "One cousin has a son who's a policeman."

  "Is there much money in Mr. Coberly's estate?"

  "Not really. Round numbers, four million, all in Treasury bonds. That doesn't count whatever the boat is worth."

  "Four million isn't much?"

  "Depends on your perspective. Some of my clients, it would be a rounding error. For Hy it was enough to do pretty much what he wanted but not go wild."

  That afternoon I tried to figure out what I would do with four million. Even better, what I'd do with an amount that made four million a rounding error. After getting my father's boat repaired, there would be a lot left, so maybe dinner at Louie's. New jeans. Fancier phone with umpteen million minutes. Hair salon? Not really, I liked my hair the way it was, low maintenance like the rest of my life—which wouldn't be low maintenance once I had all that money. I would need a lawyer. Woody wasn't cheap. A tax accountant. A financial adviser. Right there was what my old econ professor called an epistemic problem: Anyone who really knew money didn't need to sell advice. So my adviser would be a dud who would blow my fortune faster than the tax guy could keep up with him. Next time the boat needed hauling I would be broke again, probably in debt to the IRS. A couple of beers helped me think the problem through. I sat in the cockpit, ignoring the grubby cabin. That was one thing: If I had money even for a little while, I could hire a cleaning service. Maybe pay ten years in advance. Otherwise having money sounded like a headache.

  Good thing there was no prospect of my having any.

  * * * *

  The police investigator for the eastern district of the Mexican State of Quintana Roo was a suave guy of about thirty-five who knew he was nature's gift to visiting gringas. He may have been. I wasn't there to prove him wrong. First Sergeant Javier Torres had bristling thick eyebrows shading warm brown eyes. Siesta, senorita? The eyebrows were the same dark red color as his hair. He wore a blue seersucker suit and black loafers. He appeared to be in pretty good shape, all six two or three of him, as he walked along the Camino Real Marina on the west side of Cozumel, from which Hy Coberly's motorsailer had departed on the eighteenth day of April.

  "Señor Coberly had spent most of his three days in port at discotheques,” Torres said. “He drank modestly. The manager of one establishment is Australian and he remembers Mr. Coberly. If he attempted to pick up women, according to this man, he did not have his heart in it. I asked about men. The manager said no. Imagine my surprise when we found an American couple on a neighboring yacht who said Mr. Coberly had a woman aboard when his boat departed."

  "Was there a woman aboard when the boat went aground?"

  "Not when a small boat rendered assistance. Only blood."

  "Do you have a description of the woman?” Though he didn't know it, I meant: Did she look like Nicole Coberly?

  "She was slim, possibly blonde, possibly tall, and wore a large hat.” He smiled. “Like a movie star."

  "That specific."

  "If the gentleman who noticed her paid closer attention, he does not want his wife to be aware of it.” His gesture took in an array of pretty boats. “The small cruiser is theirs. Would you like to interview them?"

  * * * *

  I talked to a couple in their fifties from Davenport, Iowa, who had the deep tans of long-range cruisers. It was after five p.m., the cocktail hour in any port. Both Sergeant Torres and I accepted martinis, which the woman made with pride and precision.

  No, they hadn't gotten a good look at the woman on Coberly's boat. She was forward, casting off on the port side, which faced away from them. She was pretty tall, strawberry blonde, the husband admitted. The tall part let Nicole Coberly out.

  "Are you certain she was still aboard when the boat left the marina?” I said. “She didn't jump to the pier?"

  "Uh-uh. She sat on the bow like a hood ornament,” said the wife.

  "Bowsprit,” her husband corrected her. “She was on a boat."

  The woman, who had seemed mild until that moment, squinted ferociously across the lip of her glass and said, “That's right, sweetheart, correct the woman who mixes your drinks."

  * * * *

  Nicole had fronted me enough money that I could pay for a hotel room a half mile from the beach. I wasn't carrying much, just a toothbrush and a couple of changes of clothes in my pink knapsack. No gun, which made me feel a little exposed.

  Sergeant Torres called me before nine in the morning. “We received the DNA profile from the American lawyer,” he said. “He has been very helpful. But now I am truly puzzled. We ran samples of the blood on the boat's deck. That blood does not match Señor Coberly's type. So I wonder whose blood it is? If it could be the young woman's, then I might believe Señor Coberly has done something he regrets and has chosen to disappear. But this blood from the boat is from a man. But not from Mr. Coberly. That is good news for Mrs. Coberly, hey? Her husband may still be alive."

  "I can't wait to tell her,” I said. “Still no idea who the blonde is?"

  "Our transient population is impossible to track, Miss Trevor. They arrive by boat, leave by boat. Arrive by scheduled flight or charter, leave by ferry. If there is no report of such a person missing...” Without seeing him, I was pretty sure he shrugged. “My men checked, of course. Young women are always missing in Mexico. But at the moment, there is no tall blonde woman missing."

  * * * *

  Sergeant Torres didn't mind my repeating the legwork his investigators had done. I hung around the marina, trying to jog memories about Hy Coberly, his boat, or the woman he'd left with. More than three weeks had passed since Coberly's Mojito had cast off. I found there were at least a dozen boats at the marina that had been there when Coberly was visiting. A surprising number of people remembered him. He'd been a likeable guy. But they remembered him being alone.

  "What about tall blondes?"

  "Nada.” Or “Can you bring me one?” Or “You're not tall or blonde, but wanna go snorkeling?"

  After a while, I twigged to a flaw in my sampling. I was starting with people who remembered Coberly, then asking about a companion. The tall blonde with the movie star hat might have been on the island alone for a while. I should be looking for people who remembered her independent of Coberly.

  The second part of that Saturday I spent making the rounds of discos and bars. Tall blonde women were a numerous subspecies. They were so common there was no point in my envying them, as I had done all my life. After four hours of sipping ginger ale, I admitted I didn't know enough about this particular blonde woman to ask the right questions. I also admitted I was wasting Nicole Coberly's money. I e-mailed Woody the bad news from an Internet cafe and booked a flight back to Key West.

  I was in a cab to the airport when I realized I'd done an amateur's job. Coberly's voyage had had a beginning and an end. I'd focused only on the beginning.

  Cozumel is only thirty nautical miles south of Isla Mujeres, a much smaller island. It took me more than an hour to find transportation. You would think there would be a regular puddle-jumper flight between islands. Or a ferry. I asked around at the airport. No, señora. Why would you want to fly from one very nice island to one not so nice? I found a tourist kiosk and asked about an inter-island ferry. No, señora. But I could take a ferry from this island to the mainland, then a bus north, then another ferry across to the smaller island. I gave up on ferries. The pilot of a single-engine pontoon plane agreed to take me across, and we were there in twenty minutes. He landed a hundred yards off the main dock, taxied in, and someone came out in a tiny boat and fetched me. I reached land almost broke. Isla Mujeres. Island of women. Last stop for Hy Coberly's
yacht.

  * * * *

  The Mojito wasn't in bad shape for having run aground. Both masts were intact. The hull was scraped but not holed. The police had towed her to a small marina on the bay side. Everyone on the island knew the story. The old man who brought me ashore knew the story—"sangre, señora!"—and pointed me to the marina. Nobody was guarding the marina or Mojito. I walked down the concrete pier and climbed aboard. Sergeant Torres came out of the salon and smiled.

  "I thought you were going home,” Torres said. “How did you get here?"

  "By plane. How did you get here?"

  "A police boat, of course. I would have given you a ride had you asked.” He came toward me. “My other question is why have you come?"

  I told him my idea. If Hy Coberly or his passenger or both of them reached shore, there might be witnesses on a small island.

  Torres gave a patronizing smile. “If you were Mexican, Miss Trevor, I would ask the comandante to hire you. We have pursued the possibility of witnesses here to no avail. Nobody noticed a waterlogged stranger. As the island gets its share of tourists, that is not surprising. But I will tell you something interesting about this boat. The valve controlling the water flow to both toilets has been removed. The Mojito was meant to sink. The most likely person who wished it to sink is Señor Coberly. Don't you think?"

  "Do you mind if I look around?"

  "Not at all. It is a very nice boat."

  I went below and saw he was right about that. But the salon and the cabins were a mess.

  "Did your people tear it apart?"

  "We searched, but this was done before."

  "Did you find any money on board?"

  "A few pesos."

  "Coberly wouldn't need to search his own boat."

  "No."

  "So who did it—the blonde?"

  "Or the man whose blood we found."

  "Did you collect multiple samples for DNA?” I said.

  "Of course. We couldn't be certain the mess topside was a single person's blood."

  "What about down here? From hairbrushes and towels, that sort of thing?"

  He was silent. There went my invitation to join the Quintana Roo cops. Torres excused himself, went on deck, and came back with several plastic bags. He bagged a man's hairbrush, two toothbrushes, and a safety razor from a shelf in the main head. He managed a painful smile. “We shall see, Miss Trevor."

  I used an almost depleted credit card to rent a room. From a tiny bar near the reception desk I put in a collect call to Woody Erskine in Key West. It was dusk here. There was a little noise from a restaurant around the corner. A little salsa from a dive shop across the road. I told Woody what I'd learned since the e-mail. Not much.

  "If Coberly is alive, he could be anywhere,” Woody said. “If he's dead, you've got no proof."

  "Coberly may have committed a crime. What I'm finding out works against Mrs. Coberly's interests.” Which, to be blunt, were that she was a widow.

  "So perhaps you should come home,” he said.

  * * * *

  I was having breakfast on the patio at the rear of the hotel when Sergeant Torres appeared. He was carrying a briefcase.

  "May I join you? Sometimes I, too, have inspirations. Don't ask me why.” The waiter brought him a plate of melon. “We have cordial relations with the American police. I was inspired to ask a favor. Could they run the DNA we collected from the boat against your national crime data base? They did. There was no match.” He was still smiling. “That was not my true inspiration. My true inspiration was to ask the same American friend to run the DNA profile we received from the attorney for Mr. Coberly."

  "Why do that?"

  "As I said, inspiration."

  He was going to make me ask. “Was there a match?"

  "Yes."

  "So Coberly has a criminal record."

  "No."

  "I don't understand."

  "The DNA profile we received from Señor Coberly's attorney—supposedly Mr. Coberly's DNA—matched up with a man named Michael Marks, who has a criminal record for income tax evasion."

  "The lawyer sent you the wrong DNA profile?"

  "So it appears."

  I thought of the young-sounding lawyer in Boca—Charles Pottle. We had spoken only once, and briefly. He hadn't seemed too impressed by a four-million-dollar estate. But, I thought now, impressed or not, he would be administering the estate, unless Nicole Coberly inherited. So Pottle's interests diverged from Nicole's at the get-go. Nicole benefited from a dead husband. Pottle benefited if the husband stayed alive until the divorce was final.

  I thought, darn. He'd seemed like a nice young guy.

  I said, “Have you asked Pottle about it?"

  "I phoned, but got voice mail."

  "There might be another way to get Coberly's DNA for comparison,” I said. “He was involved in a paternity suit. Those tests results might be around."

  "Then we could at least know if it is Señor Coberly's blood on the deck."

  "I'll check labs when I get back to Florida,” I said.

  Torres brightened. “Are you going home now? I have something for you.” He pulled a cardboard box from his briefcase and set it on the table. I opened the box and found a nasty looking little clay sculpture. Torres said, “Chac, the Mayan god of fertility. Personally, I prefer the Aztec deities, but that is because my family is from Mexico City. This little devil is muy typico of Mayan, as they tell the tourists."

  I turned it in the bright morning light, a heavy, malevolent thing more black than brown that was so ugly it was almost beautiful.

  "Chac is supposed to be benevolent, except for demanding the occasional sacrifice,” Sergeant Torres said. He had nice eyes. They were more amused than soulful, and I liked that.

  I wrapped Chac in a dirty T-shirt and stuffed him in my knapsack.

  "Thank you,” I said.

  * * * *

  The trip home, which zigzagged through Miami, took nine hours. I made a half dozen unsuccessful calls to Charles Pottle's office before reaching my boat at close to midnight. There were two notes pinned to the hatch. One reminded me the slip fee was due. The other said Mr. Erskine had called. I ignored them both, went down into the cabin, and found a visitor. I'd half expected a young lawyer from Boca. This person was as tall as she'd been described, with short tawny hair, pretty eyes, a small gun. No movie star hat.

  "Mike said this would be easy, but it's really been tough,” she said. She sounded like a school kid griping about trig.

  "Michael Marks, you mean."

  "Oh, brother! What a mess!"

  "Is Charles Pottle in on it?"

  She made a yucking sound. “For a lawyer he was really dumb. He never figured out how Hy beat the paternity suit. The lawyer representing that lady wasn't so innocent."

  "He let Hy substitute Mike's DNA."

  "You sure know a lot,” she said.

  "Just a guess. You sort of gave it away."

  "They go way back, Hy and Mike. Mike and I hooked up a few months ago. When he told me how Hy was living big on his boat, I told him what a fool he was. Here's this friend he helped out of a big jam, and the friend cuts him out. Mike didn't get any more than the lady's lawyer, ten K each. If you got expenses, it doesn't go very far.” She looked around the cabin of the boat, deciding I didn't know about expenses.

  "Thing is, there was supposed to be a lot of money,” she said. “And some gold coins. Hy liked to tell how smart he was investing.” She waved the gun forlornly. “But that stuff wasn't on the boat. Did you find where it is?"

  "Yes,” I lied.

  "Really, where?"

  "I'm not going to tell you,” I said.

  She shrugged with the gun. “Hy wouldn't either. I gave him plenty of chances. Mike and me finally decided Mr. Pottle didn't know either. He was a real crybaby.” She gave a shake of the tawny head. “Once the police had Mike's name, I had to start thinking about myself. The money would have been nice, but what's money if you haven't
got the time to enjoy it?"

  "A perennial problem,” I agreed. “So where's Mike?"

  She didn't seem to hear the question. The boat had creaked a moment ago, but it was always creaking.

  I said, “What's your name?"

  "Susie Jean."

  "Nice name. What about your friend Mike? Where's he?"

  "Mike?” She answered vaguely. “Gone bye-bye. He knew me, you see.” Not sorry, not sad. She had the look people get when they've had a thought and can't pin it down, concentrating on empty space, hoping the thought will pop into sight.

  "You forgot somebody you needed to kill?” I said.

  "No. I just this minute was thinking. You don't suppose Hy's wife would know where he keeps the gold?"

  "Doubt it. They were on bad terms.” I thought about telling her love never lasted, but it seemed too abstract. And she probably knew.

  The boat creaked again. This time she looked, and it must have been a sight, the fat pale face pressed against the porthole glass. Arthur couldn't let a tall blonde pass the yard unobserved. Faithful Arthur, hoping for a glimpse, especially a twofer.

  She shrieked and fired the gun at the same time. Before she could swing the aim back, I fed her my knapsack which carried about two pounds of a cheap Mexican god. I had my knee in her back and was trussing her with panty hose when I heard Arthur clatter off the deck onto the pier, running for his life. I half thought I should thank Susie Jean. But since she hadn't shot him, he would be back, sooner or later. I cinched the knots on her wrists tight with both hands.

  * * * *

  The cops had Susie Jean for a few hours without paying undue attention to the possibility she might have been a little concussed and unfit to answer questions of her free and considered will.

  "Name's Susan Jean Meadows,” said my friend Barry Irvington, who was running the town's detective bureau. “She comes up on NCIC's system also as Susan Jean Harlow, Susan Hayward, and a few others. Apparently likes old movies. The gun she had matches the caliber of slugs taken from a lawyer in Boca Raton. What else can I tell you?"