A Quarter for a Kiss

by Mindy Starns Clark

  When I was decent, I opened the door and he came back in. When he was settled down at the listening station on the floor, I knelt and kissed him again, and then I climbed into the bunk in the forward cabin.

  “I love you,” I whispered to him across the cabin.

  “I love you too,” he said. “More than you know.”

  I was asleep only moments after my head hit the pillow.

  Thirty-One

  I awoke to the sound of voices, and I quickly swung my legs over the side of the bunk, nearly bumping my head on the low ceiling. Peeking into the main cabin, I didn’t see Tom anywhere, though the listening station was still set up on the floor, the headphones lying next to it.

  Creeping across the cabin, I looked out of the porthole on the closed door to see Tom sitting at the stern with a fishing rod in his hands. He was talking to a man in a small outboard-powered rowboat, who was looking up at Tom suspiciously.

  I pulled on some shorts under my long T-shirt, and then I draped some towels to hide the listening station and slid the whole thing under the table. Smoothing my hair with my hands, I opened the door and stepped out into the bright Caribbean morning.

  “Hey, honey,” I said softly to Tom, yawning and stretching. Both men turned to look at me in surprise.

  “Hi, babe,” Tom said sexily, reaching out a hand toward me. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Mmm…” I purred, walking to him and wrapping my arms about his waist. He kept one arm around me, and I realized he was wearing fishing gloves to hide the bandages. What a clever guy.

  “Who’s your friend?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Tom said to the man in the boat. “I didn’t get your name.”

  “Uh, it’s Earl,” the fellow said, looking quite flustered.

  “Morning, Earl,” I said. “You out doing some fishing too?”

  Casually, I took the rod from Tom so he wouldn’t have to hold it in his injured hands.

  “No, I uh…”

  “Earl lives up on the mountain there,” Tom said. “They had a break-in last night, and he’s just out asking around if anybody saw anything.”

  I feigned shock.

  “A break-in? Where?”

  I let him describe the placement of the home, just around that bend and up on the point.

  “Gosh, I wish we could help you,” I said. “Is crime a big problem on St. John?”

  By now, Earl looked as though he was ready for a quick getaway. We obviously wouldn’t be of any use to him; we were just a couple on vacation, enjoying the early morning sunshine.

  He babbled for a minute about how St. John was usually safe, very safe, and then he excused himself and said he had to go.

  “Would you like to join us for breakfast?” I asked. “I think we’ve got some eggs and bacon in there.”

  Tom poked me sharply on the back, out of sight from Earl.

  “No, no thanks. I need to be getting back home.”

  “Good luck finding your thief,” I called after him.

  When he had puttered away, Tom sat on the bench, exhaling. As soon as I was certain the man was far away, I reeled in the hook and sat next to him.

  “That was a close one,” he said softly. “And you are so smooth it scares me.”

  I draped an arm over his warm shoulder.

  “How are your hands?” I asked. “Those gloves were a stroke of genius.”

  “I had to think fast. I heard him over the transmitter, saying he was going down to take a look around the boats again. Luckily, this rental came with some fishing tackle. I was out here calmly fishing off the stern by the time he showed up. ”

  I put away the rod and reel, asking if the man had noticed that Tom had no bait on his hook.

  “I kept it low in the water so he wouldn’t see! That would be just what I needed—to catch a fish and have to reel it in with these hands.”

  We went into the cabin, which was already being warmed by the sun. I opened all of the windows to get a cross breeze going, and then I helped him take off the gloves.

  His bandages were dark red, and I knew we needed to change the dressing and take another look. He seemed to be in even worse pain this morning. Looking at the deep, gaping wounds, I didn’t blame him.

  This time I put some antibiotic ointment on the pads first and then wrapped things a little bit tighter to help stop the bleeding. He needed to get to a hospital, and I was starting to wonder how we could manage to monitor the listening station and seek treatment for him at the same time. In the end, I realized, we might need Jodi’s help after all.

  “I think I’ll lie down for a while,” he said, brushing his lips against my cheek. “Thanks for the nursing care.”

  “What about getting you to an emergency room?”

  “Later,” he said tiredly. “We’ll figure that out later.”

  He crawled into the same bunk I had occupied, pausing only to flip on the small fan that was mounted up under the bow. I was afraid it might be getting pretty hot up under there, but after staying awake all night, perhaps he was tired enough to sleep despite the heat.

  Now that it was fully daylight and the interior of the cabin couldn’t be seen by someone outside looking in, I was able to bring the listening station up onto the table. Next to that, I opened my laptop and booted it up.

  After taking a moment to freshen up, I made myself a quick breakfast of dry toast and a banana. There wasn’t much more than that to choose from.

  Finally, I settled down at the table with my meal and a big glass of ice water. I put on the headphones, played with the volume, and then brought up the database for the case on my computer. Typing quickly, I updated all of my facts.

  I saw that Tom had made some notes during the time I had been sleeping—roughly scrawled notations of activity and times: 5:25 A.M.—snoring; 6:10—bathroom; 6:30—wake-up conversation; 6:47—Earl leaves. Though his notes were barely legible, I appreciated the fact he had made the effort despite his injured hands.

  I loaded in that info and then went back and plugged in other facts I hadn’t taken the time to input in the last few days. I was just finishing when I heard some activity through the headphones. From what I could tell, Earl was back from his early morning snooping, and Dianne was making him some breakfast.

  Quickly, I opened a Word file. I would have to transcribe the tape anyway, so I decided to type as they were talking.

  To the sounds of something sizzling on their stove, I listened as Earl explained to her the fruitlessness of his efforts.

  “Whoever came here is long gone,” Earl said. I typed:

  E—Whoever came here is long gone.

  The sizzle died down, and then the clink of plates and scrape of chairs told me they were at the table. As they spoke, I typed some more:

  D—I’ll start packing today. I suppose we take with us only what we can fit on an igma.

  I strained to understand what she had said. An igma? What was that? Before I could think about it further, I heard the sound of a distant car door slam. The dogs started barking. Dianne yelled at the dogs, who sounded as though they were leaping at the door.

  D—Alice! Eve! Shut up!

  I heard some rustling then the sound of a door opening.

  D—It’s about time you got here! Where have you been? Don’t you even care that we had a breach?

  “You sweep?” a man asked, his voice barely above a whisper. My heart froze in my throat as I typed:

  MAN—You sweep?

  D—No, the system didn’t show anything.

  E—He’s right, Dianne. We shoulda done a manual anyway, first thing.

  There were no words spoken after that. I could hear plenty of sounds but no voices. I knew they were keeping quiet as they got out the tools that would detect if there were any bugs in their home. We were truly busted this time. Our tiny transmitters were weak, but they weren’t that weak.

  I had done bug sweeps before, and I knew that it could take them hours to clear the whole house. But I cou
ld imagine the scene taking place inside. Once they found the first bug, they would figure out that the rest of the ant traps also contained bugs. It wouldn’t take long before we were out of business.

  After a little while I heard beeping and then rustling and then a sharp intake of breath. One bug had been discovered, I felt sure. So much for having an ear inside the house. Within 30 minutes it sounded as if all eight had been located. I wasn’t sure how they were going to dispose of them, but from a sudden glump followed by white noise, my guess was that they had submersed them all in water.

  And that was that.

  I switched the sound to the speaker and turned it down low, just in case. For now, I would play back the recording and transcribe everything we had been able to get the night before. At some point I also needed to make a copy of the sound files to give to the cops.

  Typing out all of the conversation from the night before didn’t make things any clearer for me. Even when I was finished and was able to reread it word-for-word, there were certain phrases and sentences I didn’t understand.

  I scrolled back to the beginning of the transcript and reviewed it one last time, focusing on the main conversation between Dianne and Earl:

  D—Earl, sit down. Do you think it could’ve been Merveaux?

  E—Merveaux? Why would he come here like that? Sneaking around?

  D—Perhaps he doesn’t want to pay this time. Perhaps he wants simply to steal instead.

  E—Nonsense. He has always been easy enough to deal with before.

  D—I told him to watch for midnight, but maybe he’s in a hurry.

  E—It wasn’t him. Making it up that cliff? No, he is too old. Too fat.

  D—What about Interpol? I know they’ve been sniffing around.

  E—They’re listening in on the phones, Dianne, not climbing around the mountain.

  [S—woman crying]

  D—Then it must be Rushkin. Who else could it be?

  E—Shhh. Don’t jump to conclusions.

  D—I knew he was coming. It’s like dominoes—Eli knocked the first one over and now they are tumbling down the line, whether he meant for it to happen or not. We have to finish this, Earl. There’s no longer any option. We’ve got the passports, we’ve got the code. It’s time to make our move.

  E—Not without the money from Merveaux. How quickly can you gather everyone?

  D—I put it in on Sunday, for Friday.

  E—Good. We will wait and meet, and then it’ll be done. We’ll be gone from here by Sunday.

  In a way, I decided as I sat back in my seat and gazed out of the window at the gorgeous Caribbean blue water, it might have been a blessing that Tom had been spotted last night. At least it stirred things up a bit, leading them into conversations they might not otherwise have had.

  Now the police would have a lead on a name, Merveaux, and the fact that Dianne shared some connection with Eli had been confirmed. But who was Rushkin? Was that the person Dianne had warned Eli about? Most importantly, what did she mean now when she said “we have to finish this?”

  Finish what? Finish taking Eli’s life?

  I reread the lines one more time, trying to open my mind beyond immediate assumptions. I kept going back to her statement: “It’s like dominoes—Eli knocked the first one over and now they are tumbling down the line, whether he meant for it to happen or not.”

  I tried to think of what Eli had done here that could have started things tumbling down like dominoes. He had recognized a woman who was supposed to be dead. He had asked questions. He had taken photographs.

  I stood up, my heart pounding.

  Nadine Peters had been “killed” back in the ’60s. The NSA must have faked her death and then set her up elsewhere, almost like witness protection. Nadine Peters had been secretly resurrected as Dianne Streep. New name, slightly new face, new identity.

  But Nadine was a traitor to the country, selling secrets to the Russians! What had she done to deserve protection from the NSA?

  I stood and began pacing, feeling pieces of the puzzle popping into place.

  Protection. For being a witness.

  When Nadine was caught, she must have turned against the very people who were buying her secrets. She must have given up the names of those who had infiltrated the NSA and were paying good money in exchange for cold, hard facts. She must have been a traitor to all of the other traitors—a triple agent! In exchange, the NSA gave her a new start and no prosecution for her own crimes.

  I realized suddenly that the security in place in Nadine’s current home probably had as much to do with her art business as it had to do with the threat on her life as an informant against the Russians for the NSA.

  Breathless, I exited the stuffy cabin and walked out onto the deck, the bright sun beaming in my face.

  That was it! I just knew it. Nadine had been hiding away all of these years in a new place under an assumed name, working as an art dealer. When Eli spotted her and started asking questions, he put her very life in danger, for no doubt the people she had ratted out all those years ago were surely not the forgiving kind—especially if her testimony had landed them in prison or, worse, had some of their compatriots killed. Now she was afraid for her life, afraid this Rushkin person or one of his agents was on his way here to kill her. For all we knew, he already was here.

  I sat on the diving platform and dangled my feet into the clear water.

  Certainly, the woman was involved in things she shouldn’t have been. Old habits died hard, and it looked as though Nadine had found a way to work both sides of the system again, this time selling legitimate art for decent money—and illegal art for even better pay. It probably wasn’t even hard for her to act like a part of the legal establishment, all the while conducting her other, secret business. After all, she’d had plenty of practice.

  But I had a hunch that the hand that pulled the trigger on Eli wasn’t hers, nor did it have anything to do with her current, illegal dealings. If I had to make a guess, I would say it was this Rushkin, the very person that Nadine had gone to Florida to warn Eli about. I closed my eyes, thankful that Tom had put round-the-clock security on Eli. I still didn’t understand why he would be a target, but at least he was safe now.

  I felt a whoosh under my feet and looked down to see a huge, gorgeous stingray swimming past. It was the color of the sand, graceful and wide.

  I thought of what I knew about stingrays. They were harmless, mostly, content to camouflage themselves against the sea floor and dart quickly away when disturbed.

  The only time they were a danger and would sting was when they felt trapped. That’s why, for a swimmer, stepping on a stingray was a big mistake. The pressure of the swimmer’s foot would trap the ray against the sand, and then the creature’s only recourse was to flip up its tail and sting the one who had trapped it.

  Dianne was feeling trapped now.

  The question was, who would she sting in order to get free?

  Thirty-Two

  Tom awoke about an hour later, so overheated from being up in the forward cabin that he wanted to go for a quick swim.

  “I won’t put my hands in,” he said. “I just need to cool off.”

  It sounded like a good idea to me, because the people we’d had under surveillance had now likely turned the tables and were watching us. I thought two people kicking around in the water and having fun made us look fairly innocent. To that end I dug around in the storage compartment and found a few floats.

  “Put on your gloves,” I said, helping to pull them on each finger. “You don’t want the bandages to show.”

  It only took me a few minutes to bring him up to date on all that had happened.

  “That’s too bad,” he said, wincing at the pain. “At least we got some good stuff on tape before they figured it out.”

  “I made a transcript,” I said. “Soon as you dry off, you can take a look.”

  With my help, he used one of the floats to lower himself down into the water.


  “Ahhh!” he said, leaning his head back to get as much of his body in the water as possible. “That’s enough to make a person feel almost human again.”

  Unable to resist, I changed into my bathing suit and joined him, the cool water a wonderful relief from the hot sun. While Tom rested his arms on the float and kicked around that way, I put on my face mask and did a little underwater swimming. There were all sorts of fish down there, small but colorful, and it almost felt as though I were splashing around in an aquarium. Someday Tom and I would have to come back here when we weren’t working an investigation and just take in the beauty of the place.

  After a short 15-minute swim, we climbed back aboard the boat—no easy feat for poor Tom, whose hands were hurting pretty badly. We needed to relocate ourselves, but the timing was tricky. On the one hand, we didn’t want to race out of there right away at the risk of looking suspicious. On the other hand, we didn’t need to hang around any longer now that our bugs had been detected and disarmed. In the end we decided to give it another 15 minutes and then pull up anchor and leave.

  In the meantime we sat in the cabin together and Tom read through the transcript. I told him my theory about Nadine being in witness protection, and he said the thought had already crossed his mind.

  “I don’t believe there was an official ‘witness protection program’ back in the early sixties,” he said, “but I’m sure there were ways that they did that sort of thing even then. A new identity, a little money to get started, and then they probably just expunged her record and let her be.”

  “You think the whole shoot-out was staged?”

  “Almost. We know for a fact that Eli shot her in the leg. But if the NSA staged Nadine’s death, then the shot she got from Eli was probably the only real bullet she took that day. Otherwise, I’d bet it was blanks and blood packets. No doubt she wore a bulletproof vest too, just in case.”

  “What about the autopsy photos?”

  “They could’ve been faked easily enough.”

  “I wish we could talk to Eli and hear his version of what really happened.”

  “We’ll have to call Stella and see how he’s doing. You should call your dad too, and find out where the cops in Cocoa Beach stand on things.”