A DANGEROUS HARBOR

by RP Dahlke

  Katy grinned into the phone. "Our Leila? How'd you drag her away from LA? Didn't she get her contract renewed for that soap opera… what's it called?"

  "All My Tomorrows. Now, if you will remember, I invited both of you since it might be the last time we had some girl time before the nuptials. Unlike you, your sister sees the merit keeping in touch with her mother."

  Her beautiful sister had been throwing herself at Hollywood for ten long bitter years. Even with the security of a full-time job on the soaps, she still auditioned for secondary characters in whatever indie or TV pilot appeared likely to give her faltering career a jolt. Katy cautioned her sister against random networking, vigorously arguing for some reasonable vetting of invitations, warning Leila that that's how beautiful women sometimes ended up dead. That stalker found it incredibly easy to find Leila's home address, and if Katy hadn't answered the door, well, she didn't want to think of it now.

  "Katrina, I asked you a question. Are you, or are you not, going to talk to David? Oh, wait—I just got back today and there were no messages on my answering machine, maybe he hasn't yet told his family. Oh, that's it, don't you see? He must be having second thoughts. Katrina, there's still hope."

  "Uh-huh. Look, I'm making arrangements to have the boat trucked home and I'll be back in San Francisco in a week or so, and then, well, we'll see."

  "Another week? Good God. I don't suppose you've thought to call Roberto either, have you? One simply does not blow off wedding planners like Roberto Marquez, not if you expect him to ever do another one, you don't. And I'm not doing it for you either, young lady! Your father would be spinning in his grave if he knew you'd broken David's heart and sailed off for Mexico."

  Her father would be cheering her on if he knew the details of why she'd sailed for Mexico.

  Katy ground her teeth, took a deep breath and let it out. "Daddy left me that money to use as I wished, Mom. If I choose to blow it sailing around the world instead of marrying David Bennett, that's my choice."

  She wished she hadn't brought up her father in this way, not now in a phone call when she was too far away to find the words that could placate her mother's steely silence.

  Finally her mother said, "I think you're making a terrible mistake, Katrina, but since it's your money to do with it as you wish, blow it all on that stupid sailboat of your father's if you must, but make the appropriate calls to cancel the wedding plans or forfeit the deposits. And don't ask me to do it. I'm too disgusted with you."

  Katy murmured something that might have been an acknowledgment of her sins but it was all said to dead air.

  Her mother had every right to be angry at her. Katy had run away from home, leaving behind the responsibility of tangling with David's family, wedding planners, caterers, hotel accommodations, and it was reprehensible and irresponsible. She looked at her watch. She'd deal with the wedding planner tomorrow, but a call to Leila was overdue.

  In a cheesy Spanish accent, Katy gushed, "Is theese the famosa Señorita Leila Standiford?"

  "Katy!" the laughing voice of her sister responded. "You rascal! Where are you?"

  "Ensenada, Mexico, darling girl."

  "You talked to our darling mother before you called me? And why are you in Mexico? You and wha's his name were going to use some of that paid leave of absence for a trip up the Delta, weren't you?"

  Katy said, "Remember when I said that David would be a welcome change from the bad boys I've been dating?"

  "Right. So what's Mr. Stuffy-Butt done to ruin his chance at marrying Judge Roy Hunter's daughter?"

  "He said a whole week cooped up in a small sailboat trolling the Delta wasn't interesting. Never mind that he'd gone along with the idea until we were packed and ready to leave. That started a fight that led to him saying he thought we should give each other some space because he was no longer sure we were right for each other."

  Leila hooted. "Oh God. That's priceless! Who on earth is she?"

  "My question, exactly. Remember Karen Wilke?"

  "Eeuww. That old thing? She's ten years older than David, thinks of herself as prime Cougar, which she isn't. So, what's she want him for, anyway?"

  "Probably because she can."

  "She'll eat him for lunch. Two months with that bitch and he'll come running back… that is, if you still want him?"

  "Mom thinks he may be having second thoughts 'cause she hasn't heard anything from his side of the family. I'm good with it but I'm seriously considering including a no-man clause to this trip south."

  There was a pause on the line. Leila's voice came back tense with worry. "Oh, honey. Don't say that. You aren't really sorry about David, are you? You know I never liked him. He's an ambitious suck-up and I suppose you know he just dumped you 'cause your job's now on the line… the bastard! You just need your juices primed. Want me to come down there? I've got friends with a beautiful home in Acapulco. It has this amazing infinity pool. I can do a few days… oh, what the hell, let's make it a whole week. We can swim, get drunk, chase boys, what do you say?"

  What a wonderful thought, but not with the chief inspector and the investigation she'd been roped into doing for him. "I would, but I've got a date with a truck driver."

  She laughed. "Well then, why didn't you say so? Does he have a friend?"

  "Pilgrim's going to get all his attention and I still have things to do to get her ready."

  "Okay, fine, but promise me you'll fly into LA on your way back. I owe you, little sister," she said, her voice going soft with tears. "You know I do, so why fight it? Let me fix you up with some of those bad boys you used to love so much. We'll tear up the town… or better yet, take the show to Vegas."

  Katy chuckled. "Bring it on then. But I'll pass on the bad boys."

  "Why? Don't tell me you're going all squishy 'cause that dweeb dumped you? Come on, where's your grit? You got your cherry popped and your heart broke at high school graduation with Gabe Alexander and that never slowed you down, so don't tell me you're losing sleep over David Bennett."

  Katy felt the guilty blush rise to her face. Good thing Leila couldn't see her right now, but then Leila always was able to zero in on the source of her troubles.

  Interesting that Leila would bring up Gabe now. For all Leila knew, Katy had shed him with shoulder pads and high school graduation. But Gabe was Katy's very own unhappy secret. And if all went well, she should be able to keep it that way.

  "Kat… you still there?"

  "Yeah, honey. Someone wants to use the pay phone, so I'll talk to you later, okay?"

  "But, Katy, don't you ever wonder what happened to that gorgeous ever-lovin' heart-breakin' lyin' bad-boy?"

  "Nope."

  Chapter Seven:

  At six o'clock, she sprayed herself with the light floral scent she kept on the boat, something feminine she'd bought for the vacation she'd planned with her now obsolete fiancé. After David's hasty retreat she'd FedExed his ring in its box to his office. Her boat would go home on a truck and she could use up the last of her sabbatical doing—what? Lolling around LA? She hated to think of the tap dance she'd have to do to get her career back on track if she was demoted to street cop status. The union had specified that her paid leave of absence was mandatory but she was assured of a position with SFPD. And what might that be—crowd control at the ball park? Pulling nickels out of downtown parking meters? Not what she signed up for with a degree in Criminal Justice, that's for sure. And, if she was demoted she'd be stuck in vice for another hundred years. Maybe she should start over somewhere else, like up Mendocino way. Wasn't there a posting for an officer in Ft. Bragg? A new start, a new home, away from San Francisco, could she, should she do that?

  She pushed at the fabric clinging to her hips and wished the wrinkles out of her only sundress. She was proud of her sturdy little vessel but at thirty-two feet, Pilgrim had less than twenty-four feet of usable living space and her cabin allowed only a couple of cubbyholes and a few drawers.

  She was grateful, however, that
Chief Inspector Vignaroli was sensible enough to leave her to do her job with the list. He did not, thank God, try to tell her how to conduct an interview. If the information she found tonight was enough to report on, then he could finish what she'd started.

  Katy yanked a brush through sun-streaked curls then added delicate earrings with dangling silver leaves. Twisting her head from side to side, she checked her appearance in the narrow mirror. The mirror on her tiny bedroom door said sparkling earrings would do nothing for the worry she was carrying around. Besides, the earrings tangled in her hair. She tried sweeping her hair back but the earrings only burrowed deeper into the thick locks. She glared at her image. Shit! Tangled hair, tangled up in this stupid scheme to get a bunch of wily American boaters to talk about a murder by one of their own. She pulled off the earrings, grabbed the bottle of her favorite Napa Valley chardonnay, squared her shoulders and set off for the stern of All Myne.

  A tanned young man in sailor whites tipped her a two-fingered salute and pointed towards the stairs. "Everyone is topside, miss. Watch your step, please." If there was an American in Northern Baja not on this yacht, it would be a surprise to Katy. They spilled out of the salon, clogged the stairs and were so tightly packed together that some of them were actually perched on the rails.

  This is the dumbest thing I've ever done…well, except for Gabe, that is. I'll be lucky if the witnesses here don't put roofies in my drink and toss me overboard.

  She pushed through the crowd and into the salon where the AC was barely keeping pace with the crush of perfume, cigar smoke and sweat, then wiggled through a hole in the crowd, and in a victory slam dunk of a quarterback at the end zone, plunked her bottle of wine on the bar.

  Booth grinned at her. "Congratulations. Not many folks have the wherewithal to navigate this crowd."

  "What's the occasion?" she shouted over the megawatt music and raucous laughter.

  Booth cupped a hand around his ear and cocked his head to indicate she should try again. When she shook her head in the negative, he reached into a tight circle of men and extracted a tiny blond. Draping an arm over the girl's bare shoulder he moved her over to where Katy stood.

  "Here's Myne," he yelled over the noise. "She's Spencer's significant other."

  Katy tried not to stare at the oversized breasts spilling out of the expensive red cocktail dress. Myne was a fifteen-year-old's wet dream and an older man's prized possession and Katy wasn't sure if the girl was even of legal age. The five-foot kewpie doll held out her long red-tipped nails and in the dirt poor accent of East Texas, drawled, "Hi, I'm Myne."

  Myne. On the list. Get her out of the room. Talk to her. See what she knows. Yelling was hopeless, so Katy used hand gestures to indicate a move for the door. Myne dimpled a smile and winked, then grabbed two beers out of the ice-filled bucket, offering one to Katy as they slid out of the door to lean against a recently deserted rail.

  Looking for an opener, Katy held up the beer. "My favorite. People are always trying to hand me a glass of wine when all I want is a nice cold beer."

  Myne giggled. "Me, too! All that 'doesn't this wine have a hint of apple to it?' don't get it for me. Gimme a nice Michelob or Coors. Though this Tecate ain't too shabby. So, Katy, they do call you Katy, right? I been dyin' to ask, you sail that li’l ol' boat all the way from California to here?"

  "All the way from San Francisco."

  "On purpose?" Myne asked, squinting up at Katy. "You ain't one of them lesbians from Castro Street, are you?"

  Katy took a pull of the beer to hide her laughter, then looked down at the pint-sized Mae West and smiled. "No, no, I'm definitely not one of those. Nice dress."

  "You think so? It's a Wanger."

  This time Katy let the smile out. It was Vera Wang and probably cost Spencer a cool two grand.

  To grease the skids, Katy said, "I don't know a Wanger from a Wallabie, but my sister gets to wear some nice designer dresses to the Emmys every year."

  The little blonde squealed. "Get out! Who's your sister? TV or movies?"

  "She's got a long-standing gig on All My Tomorrows."

  "Oh…" Myne put her hands over her heart in a near swoon. "I love that show. Which one is she, Tamar or Rachel? Don't tell me she's that scheming bitch, Suzanne."

  "Bingo. But she's an actress, so to take the sting out of her bad girl image she's always looking to do different parts in movies. Did you see Knives with Bruce Willis? She was Bruce Willis' sympathetic psychiatrist."

  Myne's red lips widened into a big grin and she nodded. "Then she's a real actress, not some naïve walk-on whose work ends up on the cutting floor along with her clothes 'cause that's all the producer thinks she's good for."

  Well, thought Katy, that explains where Myne was headed when Spencer Bobbitt found her. But before she could move on to more interesting subjects, a gray-haired, grim-faced woman angrily brushed past with Wally in tow. Still tight-lipped, he managed a brief nod, as resigned to his fate as a hooked sea bass.

  That is, until Myne bellowed in a voice that could project the length of a football field. "Hey, y'all ain't leavin' the party! Come on back here, I got somebody y'all oughta meet."

  Ignoring his wife's desperate attempt to drag him away from the party, Wally did a U-turn, towing the angry wife back to where Myne waited.

  Myne ignored the older woman and chirped her introductions. "This here's Wally and Ida Howard. They've got a sailboat too, Consolation Prize. Ain't that cute?"

  Ida Howard, her mouth set in a thin line of disapproval, nodded curtly at Katy and went back to eyeing a path for the door. Wally, however, appeared to be under some kind of spell. Why else would he stand open-mouthed and glassy-eyed in front of this gaudy little canary?

  Katy, hoping to break that spell, said, "Wally was kind enough to help me tie up this afternoon."

  Through gritted teeth, Ida muttered, "Of course he did."

  Wally blushed, closed his mouth and stuttered, "G—g—glad to be of h—help." Five words appeared to be it for Wally, so he shut up and went back to gazing at Myne.

  No wonder his wife was desperate to get him off the boat. A few more minutes of this and Wally would be consumed into a pulsing vortex of lust for the little blond.

  Katy excused herself for the buffet table, where she picked up a sausage with a miniature Mexican flag skewered through it, added some carrots and celery and a dollop of ranch dip.

  As if on cue, Booth appeared. "So, how's it going, Katy?"

  Katy was impressed at the engineering of his introduction to Myne and wondered what he had in mind.

  "Did you try the bean and sour cream dip? It's my specialty."

  Booth's dish of bean dip looked to have grown a few hairs.

  "Um, no thanks on the bean dip, but I am having a good time."

  He nodded, waiting.

  "Myne seems nice."

  "You liked her, huh? Then you should meet Spencer Bobbitt. There he is," he said, pointing at a tall man in a pale yellow silk shirt and matching linen slacks. In his fifties, she guessed. Big head of graying blond hair styled into a poufy comb-over, a predatory brow and a long stubborn jaw radiated a cool self-confidence that said he wasn't worried about any murder investigation with his name on it. He also had a cigarette holder jammed between a row of perfectly capped teeth and a pair of round tortoise-framed glasses perched on his nose. The FDR image could not have been accidental. The big head turned in their direction, and she felt some kind of signal pass between the two men.

  The tension eased in Spencer's face and he raised his hand. Someone whistled loudly while another couple of people bellowed for quiet. In a warm and perfectly pitched baritone meant to be heard without benefit of a mic, he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to introduce tonight's entertainment."

  As whoops and jeers broke out he held up a cautionary finger. "Not that kind of entertainment. Not tonight, anyway. I give you Frederic the Magician and his beautiful assistant, Astrid Del Mar!"

  The magician, i
n a flowing white silk peasant shirt and tight leather pants, bowed deeply enough to show a speckled, egg-shaped bald spot nesting in the frizz of his dyed black hair. She remembered seeing this man. He had been leaning on the stern of his fifty-foot motor yacht smoking and watching as she struggled to bring her little boat through the churning waters of the estuary. Floating past his boat, she'd momentarily locked eyes with him. But instead of acknowledging her with a welcoming nod, he flicked his cigarette into the water and looked away.

  He also wasn't one of the men who'd bounded up to help her tie up her boat. There was plenty of dock help with Wally and Booth, so why did his boorish behavior chafe? Add boor to bad magician and she had enough reason to want him for the culprit. He was obviously guilty of something.

  Now the magician was all jokes and smiles while he flipped cards and delighted the boozy crowd with his sleight of hand. His colorful assistant, a slim whirl of red shimmering sequins on four-inch heels, was fun to watch. She reminded Katy of a wood sprite with her magenta hair cut pixie style, mostly absent light brows and heavily lined big brown eyes. She did her job well, dazzling the drunks and deflecting attention away from the sloppy work of the magician. Most of the crowd was too drunk to notice when he palmed and layered a card so that it appeared on the top of the deck.

  Her dad used to do card tricks in chambers to diffuse angry confrontations. "Material witnesses popping up in the middle of a trial?" he'd ask, clucking his tongue and leaning over the desk to draw a card from behind a lawyerly ear. "Disclosure is the law. That way we can all see the tricks each of you has hiding behind your ears, right?"

  With a lurch of her heart, she could only wish her dad were here to critique the magician's work. Anyone who wasn't falling down drunk could tell this guy had just slipped that birdcage out from under the stand.

  On his worst day, and towards the end of the cancer, her dad was way better than this guy. Despite a howling air conditioner, Katy yawned at the close warmth of too many bodies and too little sleep. Booth, Myne and the Howards, she noticed, had already disappeared so she might as well call it a night.