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

by Charles Dougherty

  He was waiting at the door when Customs opened at 8 o'clock, and he was cleared quickly. He didn't bother asking about his quarry, figuring that Cedric had already found out what could be learned from the officials. He sat down at a table in the restaurant downstairs and spread his pictures out to study them. The waitress soon came to take his order.

  "Pretty boat." She turned the picture a bit to get a better look at it. "Yours?"

  "No," Phillip looked up, smiling at her. "No, it belongs to this man, I think," he said, pointing at the picture of Mike.

  The waitress picked up the picture of Mike and Dani and studied it, shaking her head. "Pretty lady, too." She put the picture back on the table. "Coffee?" she asked.

  "Please," Phillip said.

  "What would you like for breakfast? Eggs?"

  "Yes, fried over well, please. Do you have any salt fish patties to go with them?"

  "We do have." The woman smiled. "Salt fish patty, and maybe some fungi?"

  "Great, that would be fine." Phillip returned the smile, wondering if she was testing him with the offer of fungi, and if so, whether he passed or failed by ordering the dish of grits cooked with chopped okra.

  "You live in the islands," the waitress said. It was not a question.

  "Yes, Martinique." He figured the fungi gave it away.

  "But you are not French. Why does an American live on a French island?"

  He thought for a minute about his reply. He shrugged, mostly moving his shoulders, as he asked, "Why not?" He gave her a wry grin.

  "Maybe you are some French, after all," she laughed as she left to place his breakfast order.

  Phillip finished his breakfast and dawdled over another cup of coffee, making idle conversation with the waitress. By 10 o'clock, he was still the only customer in the restaurant, so he settled his tab, leaving a generous tip. He went back to Kayak Spirit, hoping he would have better luck at lunch.

  Chapter 19

  While Mike had a second cup of coffee after breakfast in the cockpit and wrestled with his memories, Michelle was in the galley, doing the breakfast dishes. The more time she spent with Mike, the less comfortable she became with him. This morning, he had behaved as though he had put their quarrel behind him. She thought he wanted to smooth things over, to encourage her to stay with him past their arrival in Saint Martin. She was thankful that he was not nagging her about that any longer. No man had ever treated her as well as Mike was treating her, she reflected. What was it about him that put her off? His behavior toward her wasn't what was making her anxious. Maybe it was his behavior when he was by himself that was troubling her.

  Sea Serpent was 40 feet long, and to most non-boaters, that seemed big. Even so, Sea Serpent was a classic yawl design from the 30s, and she was much smaller in terms of interior space than a modern 40-footer. The interior design was functional at sea, and comfortable in port, but what privacy it offered was largely illusory. While two people could spend hours aboard out of sight of one another, the smallest sounds were audible throughout the boat.

  As she did the dishes, Michelle realized that Mike talked to himself when he forgot she was around. His vocalizing wasn’t just restricted to exclamations or outbursts of surprise, pain, or fear. She wouldn't have found that remarkable. No, she could hear him now, conversing freely with unseen people. She couldn't make out what he was saying, and at first, she thought that he must have been talking to someone in a dinghy alongside. The local vendors in Dominica would drop by an occupied boat frequently during the daylight hours, offering fruits and vegetables, local crafts, and fresh baked bread. Some were soliciting odd jobs or selling tours. At first, she thought that he was visiting with one of them. She didn’t think much of it. By the time she had finished the dishes, she realized that she was still hearing the steady, soft droning of conversation, and she was curious. She looked out the portholes on both sides of the boat, but she saw no one alongside. Then she realized that she hadn't heard more than a single voice. She climbed the companionway ladder and joined Mike in the cockpit.

  He looked momentarily confused by her sudden appearance, but he recovered quickly. "Breakfast did wonders for my head, Michie. I'm feeling much better now," he said.

  "I am glad, Mike." Michelle remembered thinking earlier this morning, when she took Mike's breakfast into the cockpit, that he didn't know who she was. He had looked at her strangely, and he only called her by name after he heard the water taxi man, Robert, speak to her. His blank look passed more quickly this time. "Are you want some juice? Anything?"

  "No, no thanks. Not just yet." Mike was gazing out over the boats bobbing at anchor. "Will it be all right with you if we just stay aboard today, Michie, to let my cut heal some?"

  "But of course, Mike."

  "What's wrong, Michie?"

  She thought she must have a worried look on her face. She forced a smile. "Mike, when I am washing the dishes, I am hear someone, talking, talking, long time, same voice. Do you hear?"

  "No, Michie. I didn't hear anyone. Probably just the breeze in the rigging. Sometimes it hums. Sounds just like someone speaking softly. Maybe that's what you heard," Mike said, frowning.

  "Perhaps," she said, shaking her head. "I am go below and read some, while it is not being hot yet. You are call me if you are need something, yes?"

  "Sure, Michie," Mike said, absently. "I'll do that."

  Michelle went below and found a murder mystery on the bookshelf. She thought that if she worked her way diligently through the book, she might improve her grasp of American English. She stretched out comfortably on the port settee in the saloon and began wrestling with the unfamiliar text. She had forgotten about the conversation with Mike, until she heard him start talking to himself again. She couldn't make out his words, but she could tell it wasn't the breeze in the rigging. After a few brief comments, he fell silent. She turned back to the novel, and after a few more minutes of struggling with the colloquial English, she dropped off to sleep.

  ****

  She realized that she had been asleep when she found herself trying to follow a conversation that she could no longer hear. She must have been dreaming, and the fragmentary conversation faded quickly from her memory as the fog of sleep lifted. Or had Mike been talking to himself again? She wondered. She felt a sharp pain in her right hip and ran her hand along the upholstered cushions beneath her. She felt something in the crevice between the two cushions and rolled herself to a sitting position. She used both hands to pull the cushions apart, and she extracted a woman's watch from between them. She instinctively hid the watch in a fold of her skirt, checking to make sure she was alone. She listened to the ambient noise aboard the yacht until she recognized Mike's snoring, coming from the cockpit.

  She took the watch into the head compartment and put the privacy latch on the door. She took a good look at her find. She saw that it was a woman's Rolex, in a gold case, with a gold bracelet. She had seen a few of these on the wrists of some of the pampered women in the marina restaurant, and she knew that it was an item of extraordinary value. She admired it, holding it on her wrist, turning it this way and that, wondering what it would be like to be wealthy enough to wear a watch that cost more than most people made in a year. Unable to picture herself ever being in that situation, she shook her head and turned the watch over, looking at the back. There was fine engraving on the back of the case. She held it up, so that it caught the sunlight coming through the porthole. "Danielle Marie Berger - 30/10/2008," she read. Her blood ran cold. More worried now, she hid the watch in her makeup kit, itself stashed far back in one of the many small lockers in the head compartment. She had a stash of jewelry hidden in the bag, in case she needed funds and didn't have access to a bank, but she doubted that her whole collection was worth as much as the watch.

  She returned to the settee and picked up her novel, hoping that the effort of reading the English text would calm her, but it didn't work. She now knew that the Dani woman had been on Sea Serpent, no matter what Mike sa
id. She had not only been here, she had lost an expensive watch, a piece of jewelry with her name on it. Certainly, she would want the watch back. People who had things like that kept up with them, in Michelle's experience. That man, Phillip Davis, she remembered he called himself, he had said that the Dani woman was missing, and that she was last seen on Sea Serpent, but Mike claimed to remember nothing about her.

  Last night after their argument, she had carefully thought her way through the whole issue of Mike and Dani and the inconsistencies in his story. After her moment of doubting her own judgment of Mike, she had decided that she had not misread him. She was sure he was telling the truth, at least about not remembering Dani. She had endless experience with practiced liars, and she had picked up nothing in Mike's manner or words that caused her to doubt him. Yet, the Phillip man seemed quite sure this Dani had been on Sea Serpent, at least for a few hours. Mike obviously had no memory of Dani, or of her being on the boat with him. And, he was talking to himself again, right now. She realized with a shock that he was calling out loudly, perhaps in his sleep, perhaps not. Once again, she couldn't make out his words.

  She calmed herself, figuring that so far, at least, Mike had been a perfect gentleman to her. If she continued to behave normally, perhaps he would, as well. She must control herself, and maintain her focus. She would get to Saint Martin and leave Mike and Sea Serpent. Surely, she would be able to sell that expensive watch for enough money to keep herself hidden until Mike moved on.

  She tried to persuade herself that she was better off now than she had been with Frankie in Martinique, but deep down, she wasn't sure. She sensed violence in Mike, although she hadn't seen any evidence of it in his behavior so far. Frankie had been a cokehead. She understood cokeheads well. He had been violent, but the important thing was that she could predict his behavior. When the violence had become a threat to her, she had dealt with it. Druggies were easy. Mike was something else. What, she wasn't sure, yet. If she expected to manipulate him, she must understand what drove him. She had dealt with violent men all of her life, and she knew that she couldn't allow herself to be cornered, taken by surprise -- she didn't have the physical strength to overpower most men. She had to anticipate their behavior, so that she could strike preemptively, if necessary, as she had with Frankie.

  She heard Mike stirring on deck. She climbed the companionway ladder to see him stretched out in the cockpit, thrashing violently in his sleep. She approached him quietly, and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  Leaning over, her face close to his, she spoke softly, comfortingly. "Mike? Mike, my love, is all right, is all right."

  His body went stiff under her hand, his muscles tensing as his eyes snapped open. He looked at her blankly, trying to sit up against the resistance of her hand on his shoulder. "M-m-m-missy, uh, Michie?" he mumbled, recognition slowly dawning in his eyes.

  "Is okay, Mike. Michie is here, baby," she soothed him, pulling him to her breast as a mother would a troubled child.

  He relaxed into her arms, seeming to drop off again for a few minutes, as she sat in the cockpit, rocking him and humming softly to him as she held him. He opened his eyes after a moment, and pulled free, sitting up and looking around, puzzled.

  "I think you are having the bad dream, Mike," Michie said. He looked at her, his gaze steady, for an uncomfortably long period. She let the silence linger, waiting for him to fill it.

  "Did I say anything? Cry out, or something?" he asked, finally.

  "Only cries like the bad dream. Nothing I am understand," she said, hoping to keep him calm. "I am sleeping in the cabin when I am hearing you, struggle, cry out."

  "Sorry," he said, looking down, avoiding eye contact. "Sorry to wake you. I can't remember … just feeling anxious, scared … no idea what I was dreaming about."

  "Is okay, my love. Is happen to us all, I think, sometime."

  Chapter 20

  Phillip had kept busy for the rest of the morning by tackling some of the endless small maintenance tasks aboard Kayak Spirit. Boats required a great deal of attention, he thought, realizing that he had neglected her for the last few months while he had been living on dirt. It felt good to get his hands dirty, literally, and to see concrete results for his efforts, too. He found satisfaction in taking care of the beautiful old boat, knowing that she would repay him in kind. He glanced at his watch and saw that he had succeeded in killing the rest of the morning. He went below and put the metal polish and his bag of rags away in one of the galley lockers.

  After being the only early bird in the restaurant for breakfast, he wanted to be sure that he didn't miss the lunch crowd at the yacht club. He went into the head to wash the grime from his hands and face; he didn't need to dress up for lunch, but he didn't want to put anyone off, either. He put on a clean T-shirt with his cargo shorts and put his wallet and a Ziploc bag containing the pictures into one of the big pockets, zipping it shut. He went back up into the cockpit and put the drop boards into the companionway, locking the combination padlock.

  Tossing his flip-flops into the dinghy, he cast off the painter as he climbed down. He started the outboard, striking out across the anchorage to the beach in front of the club. As he wove through the anchored boats, he smiled at the thought of how different the club was from the image that most non-sailors had of yacht clubs. It was a place for sailors, not social climbers. He ran the dinghy up onto the beach and hopped over the side, sinking into the water up to his knees, wetting the lower part of the legs of his shorts. No one would mistake him for one of the tourists who wandered in from the adjacent beachfront hotels. He pulled the dinghy up onto the dry sand and tied it off to a large chunk of broken concrete. He sat on the side of the dinghy and brushed the sand off his feet, slipping on his flip-flops. Now that he was adequately dressed, he ambled up the beach onto the veranda of the club bar, noting that he was still early enough to get a seat, but late enough so that he would have to share a table. Perfect, he thought.

  He walked over to a round table with three couples, a single man, and an empty chair. From the arrangement of the silverware and the absence of drinks, he guessed that the people had just taken their seats. Pulling the extra chair out, he asked, "May I join you folks, or were you expecting someone else?"

  "Sure, have a seat," one of the women welcomed him, "looks like you're the one we were expecting."

  "Thanks. I'm Phillip," he said, looking around the table as he sat down and slid the chair forward. "From Kayak Spirit."

  The folks at the table introduced themselves, giving only first names and the names of their boats. “Who needs more identity?” Phillip thought. After Phillip had nodded his acknowledgement of the introductions, one of the men said, "We were admiring your boat, out in the anchorage. She's beautiful. Built down here, somewhere?"

  "Carriacou," Phillip said, smiling. "Thanks. She's a good boat."

  "Ah," said the man's wife. "We were betting Carriacou, because of the name."

  "You won your bet, then," Phillip said. "The name's original. She was built in the 50's. Launched at Windward in 1956, according to one of the old timers down there. He remembered helping roll her down the beach to the water on logs, when he was a young man."

  "How fascinating," the woman said, "to own a boat that's part of the islands' history. Do you run into many folks who remember her like that man did?"

  "Not really, but I run into a lot of folks who recognize what she is and where she came from," Phillip said. "I just got in last night, from up in Marin. I've been ashore for a while, so I'm just getting back into this life. I'm on the lookout for some folks on a boat called Sea Serpent. Anybody seen her recently?" He took out his pictures and passed them around, as the waitress finally appeared with an armful of menus. She reached out with her free hand and took the picture of Sea Serpent from the woman who was examining it.

  "Who's on Sea Serpent," she asked the crowd, looking around.

  "None of us," Phillip said. "I was just asking these folks if they'd seen h
er lately. How about you?"

  "Not lately," she said, "but she was here a couple of years ago. Stayed out in the bay for a couple of months. My frien', she lef' on that boat."

  "Ah, so you know this man?" He passed her the picture of Mike and Dani.

  "The man, yes, but not the girl," she said, handing both pictures back to the woman and passing out the menus. "I be right back wit' some ice water, an' take the drink order," she said, as she walked away.

  Phillip put away the pictures and joined in the conversation around the table. He made sure to chat with the waitress every time that she came by, in hopes that she would remember him later, after the crowd had cleared. When everyone had finished lunch, Phillip moved to the bar. He ordered an iced tea, and waited patiently until he saw the waitress come out of the kitchen carrying a single plate and a cold drink. She sat down at a table near the kitchen door, wearily slipped off her shoes, and started to eat her lunch. Phillip picked up his tea and walked over to the table.

  "Excuse me," he sad. "My name is Phillip, and I'm looking for the girl that was in that picture with the man from Sea Serpent. I hate to interrupt your lunch. I'd be glad to buy you dinner when you're not working, if that's better. Would you be willing to talk to me?"

  "It's irie," she said. "Sit down. Today finished. I only work the lunch, while my children in school. That girl in the picture, she your girl?"

  "No," Phillip said, putting his glass down as he slid into the chair. "I used to work with her father. He's my best friend, and she's like a little sister to me."

  "I hope she don' spend too much time wit' that mon, Mike," the woman said, as she loaded her fork with salad. "I don' like that mon one bit. He funny-headed, I t'ink."