Bluewater Killer: A Serial Murder Mystery Set In Florida and the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 1)

by Charles Dougherty

  ****

  Mike scrambled back aboard Sea Serpent, stepping carefully along the unlighted side deck to avoid tripping. Gaining the cockpit without stubbing his toes, he unlocked the companionway and went below, his mind still processing all of the information he had gleaned. Joann was a real talker. That was good. It helped him fill in some blanks, but he worried that she would be a willing gossipmonger if the opportunity arose. Right now, nobody knew that Danielle Berger was missing, but he knew that wouldn't last. From what Joann and Jim had said, Dani had parents who would probably expect to hear from her every so often.

  Drinking a cup of coffee to counteract the effects of the rum punch he had consumed, he considered what he should do. The right thing would be to report Dani's disappearance, but to whom, and what would he say? His options were many, but he could see problems with reporting her as missing. Stickler for detail that he was, he still couldn't believe that he had picked her up in the waters of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines without having properly entered the country. If he reported her missing, no matter to whom, the authorities would ask questions to which he had no answers. Envisioning the endless snarl of red tape, he gave up the notion of doing the right thing.

  The fact that he had Dani's passport meant that Rambling Gal would be facing some difficulties when she tried to depart from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Dani had no doubt been listed as crew on their clearance documents, and to clear for departure from the country, the captain would have to produce her passport. That meant that some official alarms would sound when Rambling Gal tried to leave, and the sooner that happened, the more likely it became that someone would connect Dani to Sea Serpent. That was bad. On the positive side, the burden of explaining her disappearance would fall first upon the skipper of Rambling Gal. When he was unable to produce her passport, the officials in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines would begin looking for her, even if her parents didn't start asking about her.

  Chapter 5

  Jean-Pierre Berger's face was red with frustration as he listened to the shrill complaints of his ex-wife. He considered making static noises and disconnecting, one of the few advantages that cellular telephones offered, in his view. But that would only postpone the inevitable. He would eventually have to deal with the Dragon Lady, as his reigning wife referred to Marie. He, more diplomatically, called her his starter wife, a term he had picked up from one of his American acquaintances. "I know, Marie, she always calls on your birthday, and it is two days past," he restated her complaint, a trick he had learned long ago from a marriage counselor. That at least kept her from screaming that he didn't listen to her. "She may be at sea, or somewhere without telephones." That unleashed another tirade about their daughter's wandering life, for which, in Marie's opinion, he was wholly to blame. Pointing out that Dani was 25 years old and had chosen the vagabond life of crewing on yachts would gain him nothing. Marie had expected Dani to work in her family's investment banking business. Dani had been successful there for a couple of years, but she found the call of the sea too strong. He was guilty of yachting. Who else was to blame for Dani's love of bluewater sailing?

  "Yes, Marie, if I hear from her, I will certainly ask her to call you immediately," he agreed, as he heard the sound of the telephone on the other end slamming into its cradle, reminding him of yet another reason he didn't like cell phones. You couldn't terminate a call so dramatically, just by pushing a little button. He thought Marie's worry was premature. Dani could take care of herself. She had inherited his innate toughness along with his love of the sea, and although she was physically slight, she was strong and of a fierce disposition, as he had come to learn after bailing her out of innumerable scrapes involving wrecked waterfront bars in some of the less reserved parts of the world.

  ****

  Nigel Smythe was doing his best to stay cool. "As I explained to the Customs officer at the next window over, I don't know where she is, and no, I don't have her passport." This was his third time through, explaining a simple proposition to these post-colonial bureaucrats. Give them autonomy and this is what you get, he fumed to himself. We were all better off before we gave them independence.

  "So, Captain Smythe, this Danielle Marie Berger is on your crew list, which you provided when you cleared into our country, right here in this office on 10 October. We have a record of her passport being presented, right here in this ledger. My colleague, who was on duty at that time, he initialed the passport number for her on the crew list. That means that he examined her passport. You agree that she came into the country on your vessel, do you not?" the man behind the immigration window asked, patiently.

  "Yes, I agree. I've told you that already. Why are we going over this repeatedly?" Smythe asked.

  "Captain, you must understand that this is no small matter, this problem of your missing crew member. We must know where she is, and how she will support herself while she is here, and whether she can pay for her passage to leave our country when her time is up. You are responsible for her, when you bring her into our country as your crew. It is not the same as if she is a guest aboard your yacht."

  "As I've already explained to your henchman over there, the last time I saw her was in Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau. My wife and I left her on board with the children and went ashore to have lunch at the resort. We weren't gone over two hours. When we got back to the boat, she had cleared off. All of her stuff was gone. The kids said she had taken the extra dinghy and gone ashore to look for some T-shirts at the market on the beach. She came back after a few minutes and fed them lunch. They settled down to watch a video while they ate, and she told them she was going for a swim. That's the last they saw of her, and all I know about her."

  "Yes, Captain, we have all that now. My colleague put it in his notes in the file, here, and he has faxed it to the office in Union Island. We are passing it along to the police down that way. They will be looking for her. Maybe she is in Mayreau, or Union Island, or Canouan. When they find her, perhaps we can clear this up, okay?"

  "Yes, yes," Smythe hissed, "We've been over that. I need to clear out. I have to take my boat to Antigua for storage, as I've already explained, because my family and I have a flight back from there to England next week, so just stamp the paperwork and look for this irresponsible French woman later." Smythe's diatribe was interrupted as another officer, this one in a Customs uniform, stepped into the office with the Immigration officer who held Smythe's paperwork and passports. The customs officer was holding a sheet of paper, which they discussed at length. The glass partition in front of Smythe kept him from hearing the soft conversation in patois that was taking place between the two officials, who were now turned pointedly away from him, avoiding eye contact with him. After several nods between them, the newcomer handed over the document to the Immigration officer and left by the door from which he had entered, and the Immigration officer, a somber look on his face, turned back to Smythe.

  "Captain Smythe, my colleague has been talking with our superiors in Kingstown, and we are instructed to retain all of your paperwork. This includes your ship's document of registry, and your passports, as well as your copies of the clearance documents. I will give you a receipt for these items. Your wife and children are free to visit ashore here, but they may not leave the country, as they are witnesses in this matter. You, yourself, must not leave your vessel, and the vessel may not be moved until this matter is resolved."

  "What?! That's absurd. I know my rights. I'll want a lawyer. We'll just see about this. Rambling Gal is British flagged. You have no right to do this. I'll see you all out of your fancy uniforms and back chopping sugar cane before I'm through with you!" Smythe's face turned bright red.

  "I am sorry that this has upset you, Captain," the officer said, in his soft, modulated voice, 400 years of well-honed passive-aggressive behavior guiding him. "You may indeed wish to take some legal advice. In the meanwhile, here is the receipt that I discussed. We will be in touch. Good day to you, sir," the officer said as he slip
ped the document under the glass screen and turned away, walking through the door and leaving Smythe standing alone at the counter, shaking with anger.

  ****

  After a restless night spent reviewing the subject of Danielle, Mike decided that he should eliminate all traces of her presence aboard Sea Serpent before someone began looking for her. If a search led any officials to Sea Serpent, he certainly didn't want her personal effects found aboard. That would be much more difficult to explain than her presence aboard for a few hours in the Tobago Cays. Disposal of her belongings would be a simple task, easily accomplished by weighting her sea bag with rocks and dropping it in a few thousand feet of water in the Saint Lucia Channel on the way to Martinique. A simple task, but it was one that he sensed he should handle soon. The longer he held onto her things, the more likely he was to become embroiled in some endless red tape related to her disappearance.

  He decided to go grocery shopping and pick up some needed marine supplies at the chandlery in Rodney Bay before moving on. He would visit Customs and Immigration on his way back to the boat and clear out for Martinique. He could depart tomorrow morning, drop his parcel out in the channel, and make it into Cul-de-Sac Marin in time to clear in with French Customs and have a late lunch ashore at the marina tomorrow afternoon. Although the Morrises had not planned to stay in Saint Pierre, at the north end of Martinique, for more than one night, their plans might change. Spending a few days at Marin would reduce the chance of his encountering them again in the immediate future. Feeling better since he had a plan, he lowered the dinghy into the water and set off on his errands.

  ****

  Jean-Pierre Berger would not let Marie know it, but he had a cell phone number for Dani, and, after thinking about it for a while, he decided to give her a call. He would tease her about upsetting her mother. She often did that, just to assert her independence. He understood well why she would do things like miss an expected birthday call, just as he understood why she had been unable to work for her grandfather in the family's bank. She was a free spirit, and Marie's efforts to rein her in infuriated her. That was another trait that she shared with her father, along with a love of the sea. He took note of the four-hour time difference as he scrolled through the directory on his cell phone. It was early evening in Paris, so he might catch her before the cocktail hour in the islands. As the phone rang, he idly wondered if she were still crewing on that British schooner. He hoped she had moved on; he couldn't imagine how she put up with the fool who owned Rambling Gal, although his only knowledge of the man came from Dani's stories about his bumbling seamanship. She had explained that she enjoyed the three children, and she was enamored of the vessel itself. The last time he had spoken with her, though, she had hinted that the owner, Smythe was the name, he thought, had begun to make untoward advances when his wife and the children weren't around. Jean-Pierre could tell she was ready for a change, even if she hadn't recognized it herself. He wasn't surprised when the call went to voicemail. He left a message, chiding her for provoking her mother and giving her his love, asking her to call him when she could.

  ****

  Jeffrey Samuelson was resting peacefully in his guard shack at the beginning of the trail from the beach in Salt Whistle Bay to the resort. It was the off-season, not that it made much difference. There wasn't much need for a security guard here, but it made the guests feel more comfortable, and it was a job, after all. He could sit here in his uniform, drowsing in the shade, and collect his paycheck every week. Or he could join his friends, fishing around the reefs and hustling the tourists on the charter yachts. He had done that for several years. It definitely had its moments. Some of those boats came equipped with good-looking women who could only afford half of a bathing suit. Usually they bought the bottom half, but, every so often, there was one who couldn't even pay for that. The men with them spent all their money buying rum and fish and lobster from guys like him, he reasoned, so they couldn't pay for bathing suits for the women. He was glad for the business, back when he used to be hustling. You could score some good money doing that, besides the views, but it was hard work, and the price of gasoline for a boat ate up more and more of the money. Yep. Guarding the coconuts here on the beach was the better way to make it. Every so often, he still got a look at some prime tourist ladies, too. There was the little French girl who brought her duffel bag by the shack last week and gave him $20 E.C. to watch it for her. He had almost swallowed his tongue when she pulled her T-shirt over her head and slipped out of her cutoff jeans, all in one fluid, casual motion, while she was talking to him. She had on half a bathing suit herself, and a good, all-over tan, he noticed. She folded the clothes and zipped them into her bag before she took her dinghy back to the big green schooner with the British flag. She didn't stay aboard for but a few minutes before she jumped in the water and started swimming around the anchorage, visiting with the other nearby boats. After a while, she was ferried ashore by a man in a dinghy to collect her bag. Jeffrey shook his head, smiling at the memory of the water droplets clinging to her lithe, tanned form. A gal like that could get a ride on any boat she wanted.

  The ringing of a phone startled him out of his reverie. He looked under the counter, following the sound, and spotted the phone just as it quit ringing. He picked it up and examined it. It was one of those new ones that only the tourists had. It didn’t have any buttons on it to make calls -- just a smooth glass front. You couldn't get those in the islands, yet. There was a picture of that little French girl showing, although she had a shirt on. As Jeffrey tried to figure out how to work the phone, it let out a squawk and the picture changed to a flashlight battery with a red band at the bottom. Then the phone died. He stuck it in the drawer in front of him with all the other things that had accumulated over the last few months. It must have fallen out of her bag. Maybe she would come back for it, and he could get a reward from her. That was a fringe benefit of this job. He had made several hundred Eastern Caribbean dollars that way since he had been working here. It had been almost a week since she was here, but you never could tell about those yacht people. "They come, they go. Nobody know why," his mother had always told him.

  Chapter 6

  "Are we clear on your mission, Constable?" Sergeant Reynold Wiggers asked, worry in his voice. He was near retirement, and he didn't have a great deal of faith in the younger generation of policemen and women. He was among the last survivors of the colonial era police force in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and he was sure that the quality of the force had been in steady decline ever since independence. Not that independence was a bad thing, he mused. No way he wanted to go back to taking orders from some pommy bastard. The Chief Super in Kingstown gave him enough heartburn. He didn't need these two kids screwing up a high profile investigation. A missing woman from a foreign yacht was serious business.

  "Yes, Sergeant Wiggers, we understand," Constable Winston Roberts replied, interrupting Wiggers's woolgathering. "We are to go to Salt Whistle Bay and interview the people working at the resort to see if any of them know anything about the French lady missing from the Rambling Gal. The captain of the yacht claims she disappeared there about midday on 20 October. We must check the guest register and talk to all of the people working in the guest services who may have seen her. We are then to report directly back here, assuming we do not find her. If we find her, we are to arrest her and bring her here, Sergeant."

  "Good, Roberts," Sergeant Wiggers said. "Constable Jones, what is this woman's name?"

  Constable Samuel Jones rolled his eyes at his partner, careful to be sure that old man Wiggers didn't see his disparaging look. "The name on her passport was Danielle Marie Berger, Sergeant."

  "Describe her to me, Jones," Wiggers ordered.

  "White female, age mid-twenties, with blond hair and blue eyes, darkly tanned, about 5 feet 6 inches tall, slight build, native French speaker; speaks American accented English," Jones said.

  "Okay, good. Off with you two, and remember, you go straight t
here and do your job and come straight back. No joyriding in the patrol boat," Sergeant Wiggers ordered, shaking his head as the two young men saluted smartly and left his office.

  "Who you t'ink keep us in line when old Wiggers retire, Sammy?" Constable Roberts asked, as they made their way to the town dock.

  "Don' know, Win, but I bet they got another old man lined up. Prob'ly nobody we know," Constable Jones said, watching the rigid inflatable patrol boat rising and falling rapidly with the swell that was running in Clifton harbor. He dropped to one knee and untied the painter as Roberts jumped aboard, timing his leap with practiced ease. Once Roberts had the twin 80-horsepower outboards sputtering, Jones made his own graceful leap, and Roberts backed smartly away from the dock. They idled out of the harbor, looking at the pleasure boats at anchor behind the reef. Now that hurricane season was winding down, the yachts were coming back. The town of Clifton would wake up again for another winter of hosting tourists, and that meant there would be more to keep them occupied.

  Once clear of the anchored vessels, Roberts shoved the throttles forward and the patrol boat quickly came up on a plane. He settled into a comfortable 25-knot cruising speed and swung around the end of the reef, heading for Salt Whistle Bay on the neighboring island of Mayreau. As they opened their view into the harbor entrance, both men noticed that the anchorage was jammed with yachts of all nationalities, most of them with the look of private cruising boats. It was a little too early in the season for the charter yachts. To the islanders, charter yachts were easily distinguished from long-term cruising yachts. The cruising boats usually only had a couple aboard, and they were equipped to be self-sufficient for longer periods, sporting solar panels, wind turbines, and more elaborate shade awnings than the bareboat charter yachts. The bareboats weren't as well equipped, but they often carried water toys, like kayaks and windsurfers, and they were typically shared by several couples on holiday. They were an important source of revenue for the local vendors, as the people on the bareboats spent like the proverbial drunken sailors. The larger, crewed, charter boats called here as well, but their purchases were usually services, such as dive excursions, rather than trinkets and meals and drinks ashore. The people aboard the professionally crewed yachts were less likely to interact directly with the islanders than the folks from cruising yachts or bareboat charters.