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

by Charles Dougherty

  "And do you go directly there, or do you stop some along the way, perhaps?"

  "Oh, I'll be stopping every night, somewhere. I'll probably spend a few weeks getting there."

  "Will you stop, perhaps, in French Saint Martin?"

  "I always spend some time there, in Marigot. It's a favorite place of mine," he said, wondering where she was taking this conversation.

  "Perhaps our meeting was meant to happen," she said, looking pensive. "I am planning to move there, myself, to Marigot. It is a beautiful little town, no?"

  "It certainly is that," he said, gazing into those eyes that held his so steadily. "When are you moving there?"

  "As soon as I find a yacht to take me. I can sail, and cook, and do many other things to be useful on a yacht," she said, her eyes flashing with a hint of what those other things might be.

  ****

  The Morrises were tied up at the Customs dock at Jolly Harbour, Antigua, beginning the paper chase involved in clearing in. Each island was different in its paperwork requirements, and people who enjoyed traveling by yacht learned to enjoy dealing with local officials. They were usually pleasant and professional, and the officers in Antigua were no exception. Jim was sure that the local bureaucracy was focused more on full employment than on efficiency, though; there were three separate officers to be dealt with in sequence, in three separate offices. The offices were next door to one another, and the first one was at the left end of the small, one-storey building facing the Customs dock. The last one was at the right end, but after finishing there, it was necessary to go back to the first office to complete the process. He and Joann were veterans at this. They each took a couple of forms and sat on the porch in the shade to fill in all of the blanks. Jim had completed his stack of forms first and was killing time while Joann finished. He was reading the postings on the notice board outside the first office when a photograph of Dani caught his eye.

  "Joann," he said. "Look at this. The police in Saint Vincent are looking for Dani!"

  "Who?" she asked, distracted. "What are you talking about, Jim?"

  "This poster," he said, reading as he spoke. "They say she was last seen on the Rambling Gal in Mayreau, on October 20."

  "Who, Jim?" Joann asked, paying more attention now that she had finished her share of the paperwork.

  "Dani. You know, Dani and Mike, from Sea Serpent," he explained.

  "The police want her?" Joann asked, puzzled. "Why? Do we know Rambling Gal?"

  "It says she left her crew position on Rambling Gal with no notice on October 20 in Mayreau, and hasn't been seen or heard from since. Anyone with information is asked to contact the local police." Jim paraphrased the notice. "When did we meet them in the Tobago Cays? Can you remember?"

  "No," Joann said. "It'll be in our log book, though. We were only in the Cays for one night, remember."

  "Well, let's finish up here. Once we're anchored outside for the evening, we'll check. I'm beat, and it'll be getting dark soon. We can tell the police tomorrow, when we come in for groceries," Jim said, fatigue in his voice.

  ****

  Phillip Davis was perspiring by the time he got through with customs and immigration at the airport in Union Island. The LIAT flight from Saint Vincent had been late, and the few passengers had to stand around in the hot, airless arrivals area while the pilot went in search of the officers, who were on their lunch break. The pilot eventually found them outside, under the shade of a jacaranda tree, finishing their picnic lunch. The gate agent who kept the passengers corralled was good-natured about the jibes offered by one of the frequent travelers, obviously a local businessman.

  "You know, LIAT stands for 'Leaves Island Any Time,'" the businessman said to Phillip in a stage whisper. Phillip smiled, but said nothing, rolling his eyes at the somewhat frazzled looking gate agent.

  Once the officials appeared, things moved quickly, and Phillip was soon walking out of the front door. He politely declined the offer of a taxi, preferring to stretch his legs on the five-minute walk to downtown Clifton. He entered the police station at a little after 2 p.m., to find a woman mopping the floor in slow motion. She was careful not to disturb the constable who was sleeping with his head on the desk behind the counter. Clifton was not a busy place, and Phillip could certainly understand what a big lunch and a sedentary job in a warm, quiet office would do to a man. He stood silently in front of the counter, not wanting to start off on the wrong foot. The woman set her mop aside carefully and raised her eyebrows at him. He nodded at her, and she nodded back, gently touching the sleeping constable on the shoulder as she whispered something that Phillip couldn't hear. The man awoke gradually, first opening his eyes and looking around, his head still on the desk. Spying Phillip at the counter, he sat up quickly, pushed his chair back and stood up. Tucking in his uniform shirt as he walked to the counter, he looked sheepishly at Phillip.

  "Good afternoon, sir. Sorry about you having to wait. How may I help you?" he asked, looking at Phillip with a groggy expression on his face, a crease down one side where it had been pressed against the edge of the blotter on his desk.

  Phillip, with his best poker face, said, "Thank you. Good afternoon to you, too. No problem; I just got here -- no waiting. I was hoping to see Sergeant Wiggers."

  "Is he expecting you, sir?" the man asked, his professional demeanor returning.

  "Yes, but my flight was late," Phillip said.

  The constable picked up the telephone. "Sergeant Wiggers, a man is here to see you."

  Phillip could hear murmurs from the phone.

  "I don't know, Sergeant. He said you were expecting him, but his flight was late." The constable spoke into the phone, turned slightly away from Phillip.

  More murmurs hissed from the handset as the constable nodded in understanding. He hung up and turned his attention to Phillip again.

  "Ah! Then you would be Mr. Davis. Please, sir, come with me," the man said, opening the gate through the counter and leading Phillip down a long corridor past a number of closed doors, out through a marked exit, and into an adjoining building. He entered a combination into the push-button lock and ushered Phillip into a chilly, air-conditioned foyer, where he knocked smartly on the doorframe of the only occupied office and announced Phillip. The man who had been sitting behind the desk stood and greeted Phillip, offering a firm handshake.

  "I'm Sergeant Reynold Wiggers, Mr. Davis. Please sit down." He gestured Phillip to one of the guest chairs in front of the desk. "May I offer you a cup of tea? Or coffee?"

  "No, thank you, Sergeant. I'm fine for now, but you go ahead, if you wish."

  Wiggers shook his head dismissing the sleepy constable with a gesture and a muttered, "Thanks, Constable Johnson."

  He closed the door to his office and said, "The Chief Superintendent spoke highly of you, Mr. Davis. I'll do anything I can to help you. We obviously want to find Ms. Berger, as quickly as possible."

  "Thank you. Sergeant. The Chief Super and I have some mutual friends, as it turns out, from when I was still doing business down this way."

  "I see. What sort of business did you do in the islands?"

  "Well, I did a little of this, and a little of that, you know. I've been retired so long that it's mostly faded from memory, but I'll never forget the Chief Superintendent. Did he explain that I represent Danielle Berger's father?"

  "Yes, sir, he did, and he made it clear that I should share everything we have with you. To make it easy for us both, I've made a complete copy of our file on the matter for you," Wiggers said, as he handed over a thin, buff-colored folder. "Unfortunately, there's probably not much there that you don't already know. I did, however, get a call from a colleague in Antigua this morning with some fresh information; it's too fresh to be in the file. A couple on a yacht which cleared into Antigua late yesterday saw one of the notices we circulated, and they reported to the police there this morning that they met Ms. Berger in the Tobago Cays on the evening of 20 October. She was aboard an American-flagged
yacht called Sea Serpent with a man named Mike. Unfortunately, we have no last name for him, nor do we have any record of a yacht of that name being in our waters during that time."

  "Still, that's real progress. We can find out who owns Sea Serpent, if she's a U.S. documented vessel. Do you have the details on the couple who reported this? If they're still in Antigua, I'll fly up there and talk to them. Maybe they'll remember more about meeting Dani if I'm sitting across from them."

  "Quite possibly, Mr. Davis. I trust you understand that a poor little country like ours can't afford that kind of follow-up, although my heart goes out to Mr. Berger. I told him, I know how I would feel if my lovely daughter were the one missing."

  "Yes, certainly, Sergeant. Mr. Berger told me how sympathetic you were, and we both appreciate that. You see, I'm an old family friend, and Danielle is almost like a baby sister to me. Mr. Berger is reasonably well off, and we will spare no expense to find her, but we certainly understand what is reasonable and unreasonable from Saint Vincent's perspective. We appreciate the efforts that you have made already."

  "Thank you, Mr. Davis, for understanding our limits."

  "Oh, Sergeant, I almost forgot. About Dani's phone…"

  "Yes. I discussed that with the Chief Super. We feel strongly that we should retain such a critical piece of evidence, as you are not officially in law enforcement."

  "I absolutely agree, but what about the data contained in the phone?"

  "Ah! I should have explained. In the file, you will find two DVDs. One of our computer boffins did what he calls a 'dump' of the data in the phone. Everything is there -- even some music and videos and photographs, apparently. That's all somewhat beyond an old man like me." Wiggers chuckled to himself, thinking that Constable Roberts would want a pay raise if he knew he was a computer boffin.

  "Excellent, Sergeant," Phillip said. "I'll be sure to tell the Chief Super what fine people he has in Clifton. If you hear any more, or think of anything, please call me. My cell phone number is on my card. I'll call you as soon as I've talked with the people in Antigua."

  "Yes, thank you Mr. Davis. Let me call my colleague in Antigua and get the information on that couple. Can you wait a moment while I ring him? He should be in his office this afternoon."

  "Yes, please. I'll just start working my way through this while you call him," Phillip said, opening the folder on his lap as Wiggers picked up the telephone.

  Chapter 9

  Jim and Joann were busy squaring away Morris Dancer, getting ready for the first wave of children and grandchildren. It had become an annual family event for each of their two married children to bring their families to Antigua for a couple of weeks. The Morris's son and his family would be arriving in a couple of days, and Jim had a number of small maintenance jobs to wrap up before they were ready for company aboard. Jim and Joann had rented a storage locker at the marina to offload some of their things to make room for visitors, and they had spent the better part of yesterday ferrying extra sails and such ashore, after making their report on Dani and Mike to the police officer at the Customs and Immigration building.

  Joann had just returned from a provisioning expedition to the gourmet grocery store and was fixing lunch while Jim serviced the primary winches, washing out the old, hardened grease and salt with gasoline and packing the bearings with fresh grease, making them ready for another season of hard use. He was cleaning up after himself when Patrick, the dock master from the marina, brought his big dinghy alongside. He was accompanied by a tall, darkly-tanned, fit-looking man in casual attire. To Jim's eye, the passenger looked more ready for the golf course than for a boat ride.

  "Hello, Morris Dancer," Patrick said, over the rattle of the idling outboard, as he brought the dinghy gently up to the boarding ladder hanging off the port side. "I bring you some comp'ny, if it's okay."

  "Good morning, Patrick," Jim said, eyeing the overdressed visitor in the bow of Patrick's dinghy. "I'm Jim Morris. How can I help you?" he asked, looking at the out-of-place man.

  "Good morning, Mr. Morris," Phillip said. "I'm Phillip Davis, and I represent Jean-Pierre Berger, Dani Berger's father. I understand from the police that you met her aboard another yacht down island some days ago, and I was hoping I could ask you a few questions. We're worried about her, and I'm helping the authorities a bit. May I come aboard?"

  "Certainly, Mr. Davis. Come on up. You, too, Patrick."

  "No, thanks, Captain. I got to get back to the dock. You call me on the VHF when Mr. Davis ready to come back." Patrick touched the bill of his baseball cap in salute as he pulled away.

  "Beautiful boat," Phillip said, as he settled into the cockpit. "70s vintage Halberg-Rassy?"

  "You have a good eye for boats, Mr. Davis. You a sailor?" Jim asked.

  "Well, yes, but not full time. Please call me Phillip. I live in Martinique, and I keep a boat in Marin, at the marina there."

  "Great, and I'm Jim, by the way. This is my wife, Joann," Jim said, as she emerged from the companionway. "We were just getting the boat ready for a visit from our grandchildren. They're flying in tomorrow."

  "Pleased to meet you, Ma'am." Phillip rose to his feet as Joann put three glasses and a pitcher of iced tea on the foldout table.

  "Likewise," Joann said. "Please, sit back down and have some tea. What can we tell you about Dani and Mike?"

  "Well, anything would help," Phillip said. "All the police told me was that you met them on a yacht called Sea Serpent, down in the Tobago Cays, on October 20. That's as much as I know. Anything you can add would help; like, where did they meet, where were they going, how well did they seem to know one another. I'm a friend of the family, and since I live here in the islands, Dani's father asked me to help look for her. Realistically, the local authorities don't have a lot of resources to spend on tracking down missing yachties, especially since there's no sign a crime was committed. Her folks were disturbed when she missed calling her mother on her birthday, and then her dad got a call from the police in Union Island. They were looking for her because she kind of jumped ship from a British yacht called Rambling Gal, in Mayreau, on October 20. Seems they found her cell phone at the resort in Salt Whistle Bay. That's the last place anybody saw her, until you turned up."

  "Oh, I can understand how her folks must feel," Joann said. "Mike and Dani were anchored near us in the Tobago Cays late that afternoon on October 20. We were the only two boats in the anchorage, I think. We both got in about the same time, and once we got the hook down, Jim and I were riding around in the dinghy, doing a little sightseeing. They waved us over and invited us up for sundowners. We spent maybe an hour with them; that's all, but they seemed to know one another -- not like they just met. That's hard to judge, though, since we didn't know either of them before."

  "But we did run into Mike a few days later, in Rodney Bay." Jim picked up the story. "We invited them over for cocktails that evening, but when Mike showed up, he was by himself. Said Dani wasn't with him any more, that she had some stuff to do. He said the time in the Cays was like a trial run for them, and he was hoping she would decide to join him for a longer cruise. Sounded like he expected to hear from her in a few days, but I don't think he really said."

  "He was on Sea Serpent in Rodney Bay?" Phillip asked.

  "Yes. We saw the boat anchored across the bay from us when we were coming back from the grocery store," Joann said. "Jim zipped over and invited him for drinks, while I put the groceries away."

  "Have you seen him or Sea Serpent since then?"

  "No," Joann answered. "We left early the next morning for Saint Pierre, Martinique. It was around dawn -- just enough light that we could see Sea Serpent was still there. I don't think he said where he was going next -- just working his way north, I guess, like everybody else this time of year."

  "Okay, that's all helpful," Phillip said. "Could you give me a description, and maybe a last name for Mike, and do you know if he owns Sea Serpent, by any chance? I clearly need to talk to him."

&nb
sp; "He sure acted like he owned her, but who knows," Jim said. "I'm pretty sure we never got to last names. You know how it is in this yachting crowd. He's Mike on Sea Serpent. Nobody needs a last name, down here."

  "Right," Phillip said.

  "Wait!" Joann said, jumping to her feet. "I think we made a picture or two of them. Let me get the camera." She disappeared down the companionway, emerging in less than a minute with a digital camera. "Yes, I thought so. Two pictures of them and a good shot of Sea Serpent." She squeezed in beside Phillip, leaning over so that he could see the display on the camera as she scrolled back and forth through the photographs, which showed a nondescript man, probably in his 40's, with an arm casually around Dani's shoulder and a drink in his other hand. Sea Serpent was a graceful old yawl, but Phillip couldn't tell any more about her from the picture.

  "Perfect," Phillip said. "Any chance I can get a copy of those shots?"

  "You bet," Joann said. "Let me just fire up the laptop and I'll burn you a CD."

  "Thanks, Joann. While you're at it, could you please jot down your email address in case I need to reach you guys later?" Phillip asked.

  "No problem," she said, ducking below again, leaving the men to make small talk about sailing in the islands. She copied the pictures to a CD, and taped a calling card with Morris Dancer's picture and their personal contact information to the envelope.

  While she was below, Phillip borrowed Jim's handheld VHF radio and called Patrick for a ride back ashore.

  ****

  Phillip caught a late afternoon flight back to Martinique, and he was home in time for a late dinner of leftovers from his refrigerator. As he worked his way through a bowl of warmed-over pasta, he thought about his next steps. He would go online as soon as he finished eating and look up Sea Serpent in the U.S. Coast Guard's national vessel documentation center database. If she were indeed U.S.-flagged and federally documented, that would disclose the owner's name and address. Even in this age of fanaticism about privacy, the database was still in the public domain. Many vessels, though, were registered to privately held corporations, which meant he might have a little bit more work ahead to find out who this Mike character was. He wolfed down his pasta, a habit from his working days, when food was nothing more than mission-critical fuel. He rinsed, dried, and put away his bowl and utensils and settled himself in front of his computer. He soon discovered that Sea Serpent belonged to Michael Reilly, of Green Cove Springs, Florida. He recognized the street address as a mail forwarding service -- one that he had used himself in his peripatetic days. That likely meant that Mike Reilly either lived on his boat or spent the majority of his time aboard.