A DANGEROUS HARBOR

by RP Dahlke

  Jeff Cook's mouth clamped shut, his chin tucked into a defensive posture.

  She said, "The night of the girl's death, the police arrived to find the engines revved and you trying to clean up after a murder."

  He blanched, his earlier bravado now shaken. "That was a mistake. I panicked when I saw all that blood and no body and I couldn't wake Spencer to ask him, so I called his lawyer in Mexico City and the guy told me to get the boat out of the marina to open sea."

  "I've been told that's SOP for Americans involved in accidents, but you could still be charged as accessory to a murder."

  He licked his lips and then ducked his head to stare at his feet. "I'm not proud of what I did, but Spencer's attorney has cleared it with the authorities here."

  Confirmation of her suspicion that Spencer had already paid off the local police and at least one judge. But if there was no official investigation, why was Raul involved? For that matter, why was she?

  "Who called the authorities?"

  "I dunno. Maybe Booth, because he was working both sides. Still, I don't know why he'd do it. He owed everything to Spence. Booth brought the girl, I saw them come aboard. Later, I went to check to see if Spence wanted anything before I hit the rack. His door was open… and that's when I saw… all that… that blood. So, what's Inspector Vignaroli got on you, Katy—not heroin, I'll bet."

  "Not even close," she said, turning away.

  He grunted something that sounded like an expletive and pushed his dock cart for Spencer's yacht.

  She went back to her boat to sit under the shade of her bimini and think about what she'd learned. Spencer Bobbitt. Spencer had built his success by holding up a mirror to the weaknesses of others, justifying his own evil by magnifying the poor decisions of others, all of whom eventually became his victims.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  In the marina shower, Katy pulled out her square plastic container of Ivory soap and natural bristle brush and went to work on hands and fingernails, turning her hands over to admire the whorls, arches, tents and valleys of her fingerprints.

  Fingerprinting everyone who had reason to be on Spencer's boat the night of the murder must've kept this tiny police department sweating under the barking threats of the American's lawyers. How tempting it would be to simply let the rich and politically connected Spencer Bobbitt slide out of the marina for the open sea. After all, according to the part-time movie-extra tourist-guide sergeant, the dead girl was only a puta from Antonio's, where anything one wanted could be had for a price.

  Then there was the tape recording with the chief saying, "It could be possible." She sorely hoped Gabe's suspicions about Raul Vignaroli were wrong, if for no other reason than her growing admiration for his ability to work without the modern technical assistance that her police department took for granted. She shampooed her long, thick hair before returning it all to her second favorite scrunchy—Astrid had pilfered her best. Then, changing from shorts to a longer pair of lightweight pants, she switched the cassette tape to the pocket of the clean pants, stowed her shower kit in one of the rental lockers and went to wait for the taxi.

  At the police station, a harried desk clerk immediately jumped up to escort her to Raul Vignaroli's office. She could hear the familiar rumble of his deep voice coming from down the hallway and it sent her heart into embarrassing flutters. She mentally kicked herself, swallowed and waited.

  "Hello," he said, his eyes crinkling in warm welcome. "Are you here to see me, Miss Hunter?"

  "Yes, I am," she answered, eyeing the sergeant next to him.

  The chief turned, said a few words to the sergeant and then motioned for Katy to follow him. Over his shoulder, he said, "Would you like a cold drink?"

  At her nod, he leaned into an open door and spoke sharply at a deputy whose feet were up on the desk, hands folded over his chest. The guy's feet fell off, knocking over a wastebasket. His "Ay, mierda!" followed them down the hall.

  The inspector chuckled. "He may appear to have been asleep, but I assure you he's awake now."

  The amused crinkles around his eyes lasted until a smartly dressed woman came around a corner and charged at him with the velocity of a single-minded bullet. Ignoring his respectful greeting, she stuck a forefinger in his chest, gave him a few choice words in Spanish, then finished with, "Fuck you, Raul Vignaroli," and marched off.

  Katy stared after the woman, "Did that lady just…?"

  "Regrettably and in English, too. La Señora Alvarez is part of a very old and very respected Baja family. I went to university with her eldest son. Unfortunately, I had to arrest her youngest son today. He was using one of his father's fishing boats to smuggle marijuana into the States."

  He opened a door to a private office and invited her to enter. "I'm not sure if she's incensed because I chose to put her son in jail or because I impounded her husband's newest and most expensive fishing boat. But then I suppose that is why her son used it. It is his father's fastest boat."

  "I presume they won't be getting the boat back anytime soon."

  "No. It will be sold at auction. The money used to buy the supplies our police department needs. She'll get it back again, at a price she can live with, though I'm not so sure if the son will be returned to her anytime soon."

  Here was another point in his favor. The rest of it was yet to be seen. "Your country has a zero tolerance policy for drugs, so why turn a blind eye to Booth's drug use?"

  A light tap on the door and the deputy sheepishly set two sweating cans of Coke in front of the inspector.

  Raul fussed with the opening tab of his can while he tried to quarry an answer out of the ever-shifting sand of Mexican politics. This was not the time to quarrel over political differences.

  "Booth," he said, a sad note entering his voice. "He was dying, you know. Of course you do. I'm sure by now you know much of what I consider expedient methods in which I get my cases solved. If Americans don't like the way Mexicans behave, your government simply shoves them out of the country. It isn't so easy with us. I have a responsibility to weigh every decision when dealing with foreigners, especially American tourists, and shoving them out of the country is not always the best way to deal with a problem."

  She nodded, her admiration at his ability to juggle the diplomacy of politics tainted by what she still didn't know and needed him to answer, honestly. "Then Booth was the man you had on the dock to watch me."

  "We are understaffed, underpaid and overworked. I thought Booth a good choice for several reasons. But with his death, perhaps it is time for you to take your boat back to San Francisco and reunite with your fiancé."

  "Are you telling me you no longer need my help?"

  "I don't need the help if you don't trust me."

  She huffed out a laugh. "I didn't think you ever stopped to consider how much you were asking, or for that matter, cared. What about Gabe?"

  "Ah," he said, his fishing expedition taking a turn. She may not be so attached to the fiancé in San Francisco, but Gabriel Alexander was another matter. "You still care very much about him, do you not?"

  "We have a history, if that's what you mean, but that's all there is to it."

  "Not all of it. I know that you were married to him for a brief period of time."

  She visibly cringed. "We were kids. It was annulled, and if I hadn't bumped into him in the entry of your police station, I doubt I would've ever seen him again."

  "And now you are engaged to another man, are you not?"

  "I don't… what does that have to do with this investigation?" She licked at dry lips and plowed on. "I'm here because I found a tape, like the kind you use to record conversations, stuck in the dock next to Booth's slip. It might have something to do with why Booth is dead."

  He leaned forward, his brows lowering over his glare. "Do you have the recording?"

  "You knew that he was blackmailing someone? Was it you, Inspector?"

  His frown deepened, but he sat where he was and didn't reply. As a policeman,
Raul knew better than to butt in when an angry woman was on a roll.

  Then she caught him off-guard. "Did you also know that someone tried to attack me last night?"

  He stood up, his chair crashing into the wall behind him as he rounded his desk to check her for injuries. "Were you hurt? What happened? Why didn't you call me?"

  Her mouth dropped open. Then she tilted her face up to his, her unanswered question reflected in his eyes. "It was a kid, sent to do some damage, maybe warn me off. I gave him more than he bargained for and he ran."

  He heaved a shaky sigh and let his hands drop to his sides. For a minute, he was tempted to embrace her, but caught himself before he blundered into a disastrous act that would probably get him a well-deserved slap on the face

  "You have a bruise on your right cheek. Did he strike you?"

  "No. I got that when I stepped between the catfight between Astrid and Myne. I'm okay."

  He stepped back, breaking the intimacy of the moment, and went to his desk to rummage around in it for pad and pen while his heart slowed in his chest.

  "Have you listened to this tape? Do you have it with you?"

  "No," she said, looking at her hands in her lap. "But I can get it."

  "You didn't bring it with you, Miss Hunter?" he asked softly. "Is it because you still have doubts about me?"

  "No, it's… just…."

  He sat drumming his fingers on the desk, then making a decision, stood up, his jaw tight. "We're going for a ride," he said, taking the steps around his desk to grab her by the elbow and propel her out the door and down the hall before she could think to question his right to take her anywhere.

  With one hand still firmly holding her elbow, he pushed through a back door and pulling car keys out of his pocket, beeped the key fob to unlock the doors, then opened the passenger side of his big Mercedes and motioned for her to get in.

  A nasty thought crept forward to cut a chunk out of her confidence. If Gabe was right about the inspector, perhaps he was taking her for her last ride. First her, then Gabe. Oh, God, her imagination was running amok again. The question she should be asking was, would David come storming down here to look for her should she go missing?

  The answer to that was probably the reason why, without a peep, she got in, buckled up and waited. Because with everything she'd seen of Raul Vignaroli, something told her that if she went missing, here was the kind of man David Bennett was not. This man would come looking for her and he'd find her, no matter what it took or who he had to kill.

  Raul wheeled out of the parking lot, and taking a frontage road, crossed over a bridge, bumped through a back alley until he stopped in front of a large metal building.

  "Miss Hunter, Katy. Look at the sign on this building. What does it say?"

  She read the sign. "It says Vignaroli Canning Company." The building took all of a city block. "Yours?"

  "My family. We own a good portion of the fishing fleets and canning plants from here to the southern border. I am a shareholder in the company. It allows me to continue the lifestyle I was born to, but I am also part of a federal task force dedicated to fight the cartels. My family approves of this, they know that the work I do is important. I hope you understand now."

  She blushed and looked at her hands. "You didn't have to do this, you know." Then she looked up at him again. "Why do you care what I think of you?"

  "Is it such a terrible thing—to want your approval? Has no man ever done anything to show you that your opinion of him mattered?"

  "I'm… I'm not sure what it is you're saying."

  His eyes took on a bemused expression. "Perhaps I'm not making myself clear. I am asking for you to trust me," he said, giving a quick nod towards her shoulder bag.

  "Oh, yes. I see what you mean." She rooted around the inside of her bag and pulled out the small black tape recording. Holding it up she made a point of demonstrating that the tape wasn't going to fit into his CD slot.

  He reached out and covered her smaller hand with his. "Will you trust me with it?"

  Her hand opened and she offered up the little black cassette to him.

  His smile of gratitude was tinged with only the slightest wave of regret as he pocketed the tape and turned his car around.

  Katy insisted he not take her back to the hotel, but drop her off at a local grocery store, where she loaded up on basics for her boat. Then with her purchases, she took a taxi back to the hotel and pushed her loaded dock cart down the ramp towards her dock.

  A long bank of fog now blanketed the horizon as it did every evening about this time. Overhead, stars pushed through the inky sky, and though the moon had yet to come up, the day was definitely gone.

  She walked past boats with lights on, people talking over music, laughter as easy as the warm evening breeze on her face. Dragging her plastic bags into the cockpit behind her, she ducked under her boat bimini thinking how nice it would be to have someone to help. Not that her fastidious ex-fiancé would ever consider sailing to Mexico a vacation. David's idea of roughing it meant having to do without room service. Of course, now her opinions were tinged by what she knew of Raul. What he said to her today—has no man ever done anything to show you that your opinion of him mattered?—and the way he'd said it wound ropes of longing around her heart.

  Too tired to switch on the light, she laid the groceries on the galley floor, then reached into her icebox expecting to snag a long-neck Pacifico. Confused, she batted the empty space.

  Behind her, someone burped softly. She stiffened and switched on the overhead light.

  "Sorry," Gabe said. "Kept the lights off in case it wasn't you."

  Her last two Pacificos were now empties on the table and ready for the recycling bin.

  He stood up and offered to help with her groceries.

  She stopped him. "Wait a minute—wasn't the boat locked?"

  He grinned. "You need to give the tumbler a twirl if you want to keep reprobates like me out. You take that cassette to Inspector Vinegar?"

  "I told you not to call him that. He has absolutely no idea who Booth might have been trying to blackmail and I believe him." Okay, not his exact words, but she wasn't going to allow Gabe another ounce of doubt about Raul to grow in her mind.

  "Why? What'd he do for that?"

  "He didn't promise me the moon if I married him."

  "Ouch. Okay, I deserved that. I wish you'd give me a little slack here, Katy, I'm just trying to help."

  "Where did you go last night?" she asked.

  "What do you mean? I had a job to do, remember? Did you come back? Why? Did you change your mind about us?"

  "No, Gabe. I left to go back down the path to the marina and someone tried to attack me."

  "No! My God, Katy," he said grabbing her by the arms, giving her a once-over. "Are you hurt?"

  She brushed his hands away. "I used that flashlight you gave me to beat him off or I would've ended up at the bottom of the cliff."

  Gabe sank back down onto the settee. "I left right after you did. Went to check out Astrid Del Mar like I said I would. Did you tell the inspector I'm helping you?"

  "You and I don't communicate anymore, remember?"

  He seemed pleased with her answer. "Got what you wanted." He held up a small spiral notebook and flipped a page. "California driver's license number, address in LA and her real name is Astrid Woods, age twenty-six." He peeled off the lined page and handed it to her.

  "That's great, Gabe," she said, praising him for the task but also guessing the ID was a fake, since that's the age she always put her on own fake IDs. "I'll give this to my contact in California and see what he can come up with."

  "I brought you something else," he said, reaching down to pick up a cardboard box. Opening the flaps, he pulled out a small orange-stripped kitten, its big ears chewed from fighting with its littermates and it looked to have some kind of skin disease.

  Katy shook her head at the kitten. "No. Sorry. My apartment building in San Francisco won't allow pets."
>
  "Ah, come on. Every boat needs a cat on it. We got cockroaches down here the size of footballs and she's already cleaned my place of all the bugs."

  Katy warily eyed the sleepy kitten. "Her feet are huge."

  Seeing Katy was close to relenting, Gabe pushed. "This is a Baja fish cat. When she's a little bigger, she'll fish for her own dinner."

  "She'll what?"

  "It's some kind of a genetic mutation. See?" he said, spreading out the kitten's paws to show the deeply webbed skin between each toe. "They use their webbed feet to reach into the water and catch fish."

  "Gabe, I just don't think it's a good time for me to have a pet."

  "Tell you what," he said, putting the box on the table and edging for the ladder. "If you still don't want her by tomorrow, I'll pick her up and take her off your hands."

  She looked at Gabe and then at the kitten in the box curled up on the rag and asleep.

  "Well…." she said, turning to watch him take her ladder and exit her boat.

  She pulled a beer out of the six-pack she'd brought home, tipped off the cap and up-ended the bottle till it was empty, then found a plastic tub suitable for a kitty box and hiked out the gate and scooped up enough dirt to use in the box.

  Back in the boat she made a bed for the kitten out of a shallow pan and an old towel and let the kitten try out its new digs.

  Tomorrow, she'd ask someone about a vet. The poor thing had some kind of skin problem. And it would need its shots and maybe neutering, if it wasn't too soon.

  Gabe left her a present so he could keep a thread of communication open. Or he could have done it so that he'd know when she discovered he was the one who murdered Booth.

  If she accepted Raul's explanation about his income and his work with the federal police against the cartel, then why did she tell him about being attacked but not that it was when she was coming back from Gabe's, or that Gabe was helping her with the investigation? Probably because she needed to hang onto the last vestiges of her distrust—something, anything that would keep her from making a fool out of herself and falling in love with a married man.