Death Rides the Surf (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 5)

by Noreen Wald

  “Well, I thought the wake could be potluck,” Florita said. “You know, all the mourners could bring a covered dish or a cake. Do you bake, Kate?”

  “No, I buy,” a stunned Kate said. “But Dinah’s has delicious cakes and pies. I’ll take care of dessert.”

  “I guess I could bring a couple of six-packs,” Sam offered. Florita clapped her hands. “There we go. And so many of Mandrake’s clients have volunteered to bring food, I think we’ll be just fine. Jon Michael will have a proper send-off.” She turned to Herb, who smiled at Florita with respect and concern. “I know my grandson and his friends spent a lot of time here, Herb. Do you think the Neptune Inn could donate a couple of cases of wine?”

  Herb, a gentle giant of a man, never blinked. “How about two cases of red and two white?”

  Kate, who’d gone from sympathy to outrage, had heard enough. “That’s really much too generous, Herb.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Florita said. “One case of red and one of white would be just fine. Maybe a robust merlot, and make the white champagne. Cristal would be wonderful.”

  Herb shook his head, jowls swinging. “The Neptune Inn doesn’t stock fine champagnes, Florita. I’ll send the best we have.”

  “Good, then we’re all set except for the video.”

  Dear God, what now? Kate’s jaw hadn’t been this tight in over thirty years.

  “What video?” Sam asked.

  “Mandrake suggested that I immortalize Jon Michael. So I found a way to make sure his voice will be heard from the grave.” Florita’s smile moved from Kate to Katharine to Sam. “I’m putting his eulogy, our family albums, his videos with those glorious surfing shots, and the newspaper clippings and photos of Jon Michael singing country western on a quarter-sized computer memory device that will be embedded in his tombstone. My grandson’s mourners will be able activate a medallion on the front of his tombstone with some sort of magic wand and retrieve Jon Michael’s life story, and then display it on a laptop computer. And the Palmetto Beach Cemetery has agreed to provide handheld computers and those wands to all of Jon Michael’s visitors in perpetuity.”

  “Cool,” Sam said. “Righteous. Can Annette and I videotape a good-bye message?”

  “Certainly,” Florita said. “Everyone will be taping their farewells at the wake.”

  Katharine stared down at the floor and said nothing. Kate figured Florita would take up a collection at the funeral to pay for Jon Michael’s immortality.

  “I’m here,” Annette Meyers called out as she made her way through the crowd at the bar.

  Kate’s glance moved from the diamond brooch on Annette’s lapel up to her diamond earrings and over to her glowing eyes. Whatever vagary Kate had been searching for, she didn’t find.

  Thirty-Six

  Thursday morning, November 2

  Where was Katharine? She’d said she’d meet Kate at St. John’s, insisting that she had to light a candle and say a prayer for her grandfather on All Souls’ Day, and now she hadn’t shown up.

  Mass had ended five minutes ago and the church was eerily empty. Kate could hear the laughter of children drifting across the trellised walkway that separated the school from the church.

  She knelt in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin, staring at an array of blazing candles that would delight a pyromaniac.

  Should she leave? Go back to Ocean Vista? She’d tried Katharine’s cell phone, but hadn’t even reached her voicemail. Odd, but maybe the batteries were dead, if cell phones had batteries. What Kate didn’t know about technology would fill the Manhattan phone book.

  She lit two candles to honor her granddaughter’s intentions and then stood up. Her left knee creaked. Growing old was a pain.

  Lauren and Kevin would be landing in Fort Lauderdale at five. She couldn’t waste any more time. Kate needed this case wrapped up before she met that plane.

  Sunshine bathed the courtyard adjacent to the walkway and the parking lot. Kate could hear sweet young voices, maybe first graders, singing “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” A nun on the walkway to the school waved. Kate waved back and then slid into her car, deciding she had no choice but to go back home.

  She smelled his cologne before he spoke.

  “I hope you remembered me in your prayers, señora.” Roberto hid on the floor of the backseat behind her.

  “How…?”

  “I have been busy while you were at mass. As a result of my labor, your granddaughter is tied up at the moment, but looking forward to seeing you.”

  Kate twisted her head, her pulse rate up so high, her heart felt as if it might explode.

  “Don’t turn around. I have a gun aimed up at your straw hat. Now, por favor, Señora Kennedy, drive down A1A toward Miami.”

  Kate pulled out of the church driveway and headed south.

  She’d contacted an immigration official just before she’d left for church. He’d promised they’d talk to Roberto and find out if he had papers. One of her mother’s favorite axioms popped into Kate’s head: a day late and a dollar short.

  But she had to do something. Say something. “You’re here illegally, Roberto. You came in a boat, didn’t you, to find freedom? If you let Katharine and me go. I’ll help you get a green card.”

  “Nice try, señora. The US government doesn’t give green cards to smugglers. Even to brave ones who surfed from a fishing boat anchored many miles offshore to reach America.”

  “What did you smuggle?” Kate felt doomed, but wouldn’t stop trying. She had to find a way to save Katharine.

  Roberto laughed. “First I smuggled me.” Though Kate couldn’t see him, she pictured his flashing eyes and white teeth. “Then with Jon Michael, I smuggled cigars, pot, and sometimes cocaine.” He sounded proud, as if he were describing an achievement listed on his resume.

  “Under the surfboard? In wire baskets, holding waterproof bags?” Kate spoke without thinking.

  “You’re a sharp old lady.” Roberto sounded strained, angry.

  Kate shut up. She’d said too much. Her heart throbbed and her mind whirled. Wire mesh baskets of some sort had been attached to the bottom of Roberto’s and Jon Michael’s surfboards and used to transport cigars and cocaine from Cuban fishing boats to Palmetto Beach’s shore. A falling out among the smugglers must have led Roberto to put pig’s blood into one of the waterproof bags—with a deliberate slow leak—knowing the blood would attract sharks to Jon Michael’s board.

  They drove in silence from Fort Lauderdale to Hollywood, until A1A veered away from the ocean.

  “Turn left on the next corner.” Roberto had broken the silence, barking an order. “Make a quick right and pull into the Casablanca Motel.”

  The faded motel, with a hint of Middle Eastern architecture, had seen better days. In its heyday, the location, across a narrow street from sand, must have been a great draw. Now the windows were boarded and a FOR SALE sign had been stuck in the neglected lawn.

  October was still off-season, but a few tourists, all staring out at the sea, were on the beach. There were no other cars in sight.

  Roberto jabbed the gun into Kate’s right shoulder. “Get out.”

  Kate slipped and her wedges sank down into the sandy ground, making walking difficult. She kicked her shoes off, bent quickly to pick them up, and caught sight of another motel, only yards away. Was it open? Should she make a run for it? Or scream? Not without Katharine. Not with Roberto out of the car and the gun in her ribcage.

  A biker passed by and waved. “Vaya con dios,” Roberto called out.

  Kate was convinced she could kill Romero without a qualm of conscience.

  Thirty-Seven

  Marlene and Mary Frances, like Thelma & Louise—well, maybe Marlene should rethink that comparison since the movie hadn’t had a happy ending—were on a road trip to Miami.


  Last night Marlene had reached out to Mary Frances, who’d agreed to help track down Roberto’s Miami girlfriend, saying, “I’ve always been jealous of you and Kate having all the fun.”

  In a bit of brilliant detective work, Mary Frances had swiped Roberto’s cell phone when he’d gone to the men’s room in Dinah’s. She immediately went to the ladies room and jotted down every number in the 305 area code Roberto had programmed into his speed dial. When she returned to the table, she said, “Isn’t that your cell phone on the floor, Roberto?” As she spoke, she bent down, slipped his phone out of her hand and onto the floor, then made a big show of picking it up and handing it to him.

  Every once in a while it crossed Marlene’s mind that maybe, just maybe, she could be friends with Mary Frances. That feeling was often fleeting. But today, with the convertible top down, the sun at their back, and Roberto’s lady friend’s address tucked in Mary Frances’s handbag—the dancing nun had made four calls before connecting with Roberto’s patroness—Marlene was reconsidering.

  “I never knew you spoke Spanish,” Marlene said.

  Mary Frances sighed. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Marlene. Early in my career as a nun, I taught for four years in a mission school in El Salvador. I speak Spanish as well as I do French and Sudanese.”

  “Sudanese?”

  “Forty years ago, I served as a peace corps volunteer in Africa. I almost left the convent for a doctor, but his people needed him more than he needed me.”

  “That’s too bad.” Marlene meant what she said. She might even grow to like Mary Frances.

  “It’s okay. I think the good doctor loved my red hair more than he loved me. There aren’t a lot of redheads in the Sudan.”

  “Jon Michael didn’t like Katharine’s red hair. He said some cruel things to her.”

  “All of the boardsmen have a mean streak. Jon Michael had one too. Any of them could have murdered that missing girl, Amanda Rowling. Roberto said Jon Michael had told Amanda when they’d all been at the bar in Acapulco that he’d take her surfing and give her the ride of her life. It wouldn’t have been Jon Michael’s first midnight ride, but maybe it was Amanda’s last.” Mary Frances pushed windswept hair off her face. “And the señora in Miami seems to have decided that Roberto isn’t her Prince Charming after all.”

  “But she didn’t tell you anything specific, right?” Marlene asked for at least the tenth time.

  “No. You know what I know.” Mary Frances laughed. “When I told Sylvia I was Roberto’s dancing partner and I had serious questions about his means of support, his lifestyle, and immigration status, she’d replied with the Spanish equivalent of ‘come on down.’”

  “We have to be back by four o’clock. I’m going to the airport with Kate and Katharine to pick up my nephew, Kevin—he was named after my second husband—and my grandniece, Lauren.” Marlene spoke with pride. Childless and husbandless she might be, but she had family, by marriage to be sure, but still family.

  Thirty minutes later they’d reached Miami and Mary Frances hadn’t run out of Costellos. After having heard about every one of Mary Frances’s hundreds of relatives, living and dead, the bloody family tree back to the Civil War, Marlene seriously regretted her bragging.

  Sylvia Vargas lived on Key Biscayne. Driving across the long, elegant bridge connecting the key to the mainland, Marlene marveled at the beauty of Miami, both the city’s natural beauty, the water and the palm trees, and its manmade beauty, the magnificent skyline.

  “That’s Bayview Drive,” Mary Frances said, looking up from her directions. “We turn left here.” The very organized former teacher, nun, and Peace Corps volunteer had pulled up the directions on MapQuest.

  There were two houses in the cul-de-sac; both were magnificent, old Florida moss-covered mansions. But only one had a police car parked in front of it.

  Mary Frances and Marlene wouldn’t be speaking to Sylvia Vargas. Someone had slit her throat.

  Thirty-Eight

  Roberto had a key. He opened the arched door to the motel and pushed Kate through ahead of him. They entered a dingy and damp reception area smelling of mildew.

  “Down that hallway.” Roberto gestured to the right. They passed several closed doors and then came to an open one. “Go on in,” he said, and followed her into a room with an ocean view and peeling wallpaper featuring faded flamingoes.

  The room was square, with two double beds, an old-fashioned highboy dresser, two end tables, a desk, a straight-back desk chair, a wicker coffee table, and two small club chairs. A black phone, circa 1960, stood on one of the end tables, evoking old New York memories of Pennsylvania 6 and Butterfield 8. Roberto drew the tattered camel-colored drapes and the daylight ebbed.

  Roberto opened another door and motioned Kate over.

  She shook her head, standing pat. He charged at her, knocking her straw hat off, and then dragged her by the collar of her white polo shirt into the closet.

  “Please,” Kate cried, the tears hot against her cheeks. “Where’s Katharine?”

  “I’m moving the car around to the back. Your granddaughter will be joining you soon. Now the señora will shut up if she knows what’s good for her.” He shut the closet door and she heard a key turn in the lock.

  The Casablanca had been built more than fifty years ago. Kate couldn’t budge the solid oak door. The smell of mothballs turned her stomach sour. Her Pepcid AC was in her bag and she’d left her bag in the car. She bit her lip to keep from screaming. Would anyone hear her? Would she die in here? Was Katharine already dead?

  She sank to her knees, saying a prayer.

  It was too dark in the closet to see her watch, but Kate felt certain several hours had passed. She was thirsty and her bladder felt full. Panic ebbed as cold terror took over, settling into her chest, eating at her gut.

  Sitting with her back against a wall, listening to bugs—roaches—scurry in the dark, she’d about given up, sure she would die in this god-awful closet without knowing if her granddaughter was dead or alive. Then she heard the sound of a woman’s laughter.

  She forced herself to stand up and pounded on the door, screaming, “Let me out of here!”

  The light in the room hurt Kate’s eyes as Roberto held the closet door open. “Come out and join us, señora.”

  Katharine lay still on the twin bed nearest the window. Her skin was ashen.

  “What have you done to her?” Kate shouted, and then darted across the room to Katharine’s bedside.

  Her granddaughter’s breathing seemed normal and, other than lack of color, there was no visible harm to her body. Kate’s panic grew. Why wasn’t Katharine moving?

  Kate took Katharine’s hand and said, “Darling, it’s Nana, can you hear me?”

  The girl wore the same clothes she’d been wearing this morning when she’d walked Ballou, a pale green t-shirt and olive green baggy khakis. Her black patent leather flip-flops lay, as if waiting for Katharine to step back into them, on the floor at the bottom of the bed. The sight of those flip-flops had turned Kate’s terror to anger.

  “I want you to tell me what you did to her,” Kate said. Her voice was icy, but not loud. “Answer me!”

  Roberto shrugged. “She’s fine, just sleeping off a tranquilizer. Now sit down and shut up, Señora Kennedy, or I promise you will regret it. We have a plan to make and a script to memorize.”

  Kate needed to buy time, make a plan of her own, but first things first. “Roberto, I need water and I need to use the bathroom. Now.”

  She looked around the room. There was no sign of the laughing woman. Who was she and where had she gone?

  Thirty-Nine

  “Ransom?” Marlene’s hysteria came through loud and clear on Roberto’s cell phone’s speaker. “God Almighty! Are you okay? Is Katharine okay?”

 
Kate sat in one of the dirty chintz club chairs facing Roberto, who sat in the matching chair less than a foot away from her. They had put Roberto’s plan into action.

  Kate, afraid to utter an unscripted word, glanced over at Roberto. He nodded.

  “Yes, we’re okay.” Kate felt weird to be talking without a phone in her hand, and even weirder to be having this conversion.

  “How much?” Marlene asked, not sounding the least bit reassured. “And where do I bring the money?”

  With her eyes on her sleeping granddaughter, Kate, heart pounding, delivered her next line exactly as rehearsed with Roberto. “Clean out your CD, the one with Katharine as your beneficiary at the SunTrust Bank in Palmetto Beach. Get a cashier’s check made out to Katharine Kennedy.”