by Rene Fomby
4
Customs Office, Cozumel Airport
The boat driver was waiting nervously for them when they marched into the tiny office, Espinosa slamming the door behind them as he grabbed one of two oversized chairs directly across a government-issued gray metal desk from the driver. Gavin sank into the other chair, pushing aside several piles of paper on top of the desk to make room for his yellow legal pad.
The driver was a small man, lean but well-muscled, dressed simply in a blue shirt, knee-length shorts and worn leather sandals. His dark eyes shifted back and forth between Gavin and Espinosa, uncertain of what to expect. He knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but—a visit from the Mexican Federales, that was never a good thing. It almost never ended up all that well for the person being questioned. So it was entirely natural that he would jump in his seat when Espinosa reached into a small refrigerator behind him and pulled out three bottles of water. Instead of a gun.
“Agua?” Espinosa asked, holding up a third bottle as Gavin opened his own bottle and took a swig.
“No, no gracias.” The boat driver was sweating profusely, the collar of his plain cotton shirt already stained a dark blue. Out of sympathy Gavin walked over and flipped on the ceiling fan, nodding to the driver briefly as he settled back into his seat.
For the next thirty minutes Espinosa grilled the poor man relentlessly, mostly in Spanish, only occasionally pausing to translate what was being said into English for Gavin’s sake to make sure they were both on the same page. Finally, convinced that the driver knew nothing more about the incident other than what he’d already reported, Espinosa sat back and hooked a thumb toward the door. “Tu puedes ir. Pero manténgase en contacto en caso de que necesitemos hablar con usted más tarde.”
“Si, si. Gracias Señor. Gracias,” the man responded enthusiastically, wiping his brow with a large red handkerchief and beating a hasty retreat out the door to freedom.
Gavin raised an eyebrow, so Espinosa filled him in. “I told him he was free to go, but to stay in contact in case we need him again later. But really, the guy was next to useless. On the plus side, he did happen to remember that Trevor Johnson mentioned his wife when he first came up out of the water. Said he thought she was with the rest of the divers from his boat.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that. So that’s consistent with the whole thing being nothing more than a stupid tragic accident.” Gavin scribbled something onto his legal pad, then looked up. “Okay, I suppose the next guy in line is the dive master from that night. Maybe he can lay out where everyone was positioned down on the bottom when Katy went missing.”
Espinosa shook his head. “We got a short statement from him last night, right after everything happened. He said he was floating ahead of the group, following a large moray eel that was slipping through various holes and cracks in the reef, so the first time he knew anyone was missing was when he ran a head count ten minutes later, and saw that he was down by two divers.”
“Katy and her husband,” Gavin noted, scribbling that onto his yellow notepad and circling it. “So, what about everybody else? Anyone else notably out of position down there?”
“With the strong current, almost all of the other divers were struggling just to stay together. And there were several other groups that had dropped down into the same general area as well, making the problem even worse. Actually, given the rough conditions down there, I’m surprised as hell any of the local dive masters gave the thumbs up for a night dive. Much less apparently all of them. We’re lucky we only lost one diver, I suppose.”
“Yeah. Lucky for us.” Gavin rubbed his nose. “Okay, let’s put off talking to the dive master for now. It sounds like we’ll only get more of what we just spent thirty minutes rehashing. Maybe later, when we know more, we’ll have some loose ends we’ll need to tie up, but for now, why don’t we just zero in on the four couples?”
“Three and a half,” Espinosa corrected him, taking a long pull off his bottle of water before leaning over the table to collect his small black notebook. “Three and a half couples now.”
5
Sea Trial, San Miguel Harbor
The short ride over to the catamaran from San Miguel Harbor was unexpectedly rough, the seas splashing heavily over the bow as they plowed through the waves. The rain had already begun in earnest, and way off to the west Gavin could make out almost constant, unmistakable flashes of orange lightning. Still too far away, though, for any noticeable thunder. Not for the first time he wondered whether he could get this whole sordid business wrapped up quickly and snag a flight bound for home before the weather got any worse.
Espinosa tapped the orange life vest Gavin was wearing. “You worried about something? I’ll assure you, this boat is more than up to the task of getting us out there and back without any danger.”
Gavin threw him a reassuring smile, waving it off. “I just think it’s better to be safe than sorry, is all. You never know.”
“Okay,” Espinosa said, turning to stare out across the water at the large sailboat squatting just ahead of them. “Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.”
“Right.” Gavin eyeballed the yacht warily as they approached. “You sure this is necessary? I mean, interviewing them all out here on the boat. Wouldn’t handling all of this on shore be a whole lot easier?”
“Easier on who?” Espinosa asked, shaking his head. “It’s all standard procedure, keeping the suspects isolated for as long as we can. Throws them off a little, and it helps keep any important details from leaking in or out. As long as they’re trapped there out on the boat, our little mice will stay nice and snug in their cages, and in my experience the isolation will start to gnaw away at their confidence over time. Make them all that much more pliable in the end.”
“I suppose you’re right. Still, being out on this boat with a storm brewing… I’m not totally convinced it won’t start eating away at us, as well.” Gavin hugged his life vest tighter, his heart already starting to throb a bit harder in his chest as they pulled up behind the yacht.
Compared to the dive boat they were using to make the passage, the large catamaran anchored in front them appeared relatively calm, shrugging off the rolling swells almost as if the angry sea was completely flat and placid. Its sails were down, the mainsail covered in a dark green canvas and two foresails rolled up on their stays. A broad teak boarding platform was lowered to the waterline at the aft end of the catamaran, and above it was scrawled “The Sea Trial” in foot-tall green script.
Coming up alongside the boarding platform, the contrast between the way the two boats were handling the storm was painfully obvious, and even the fenders thrown over the side of their boat were almost completely useless, the dive boat rising and falling precipitously alongside the almost motionless catamaran. Finally, a combination of ropes and fenders managed to stabilize the situation long enough for Gavin and Espinosa to jump unsteadily across a roughly foot-wide gap onto the platform, where they were immediately grabbed by two of the men on board the sailboat. The dive boat captain tossed over their small bags, then quickly hit his side thrusters and headed back to shore. And, for him at least, back to a calm and safe harbor for the night.
Holding onto his cap with one hand in the gusting winds while wrestling his luggage with the other, Gavin waited while the swim platform was raised automatically to the height of the transom, then followed the two men into the cabin of the boat, Espinosa hurrying along behind him. The moment they stepped through the sliding glass door at the rear of the cabin, another man Gavin hadn’t seen before stepped up quickly to pull it closed, shutting out the mounting roar of the storm and the roiling seas as abruptly as if he had just flicked a switch.
The man who had helped Gavin onto the boarding platform stuck out a hand. “Welcome to the Sea Trial,” he said, grasping Gavin’s hand in a firm grip. “You must be Agent Larson.”
“And you must be Trevor Johnson,” Gavin replied, recognizing him immediately from h
is pictures. Thinning brown hair, green eyes, bushy mustache, a jaw that looked like it might have been cut from granite. And eyes that were now noticeably swollen and red. From either grief or alcohol, it was hard to tell for sure. Gavin nodded toward his left. “This is my colleague from the Mexican Federal Police, Detective Tony Espinosa. Since this is his official domain and not mine, he’ll be leading the investigation into your wife’s, uh, disappearance. I’m only here as a courtesy to help out.”
“Gotcha.” Trevor pointed toward a nearby couch, a cream-colored leather affair in a style Gavin recognized from newspaper ads as Scandinavian. “Please make yourself at home. And in the meantime let me take care of your jackets and hats.”
Gavin thankfully peeled off his cap, and then immediately regretted it, the move flinging a small spray of rainwater onto the polished beech floor in front of him. “Hey, sorry about that—”
“Not a problem,” Trevor assured him. “That’s why we have towels.” He made a small flickering motion with his hands and the man standing beside the rear door grabbed a couple of towels from a nearby pile and tossed them over. “Oh, by the way, that’s Casey Thompson over by the door. And this guy here is Brett.” He pointed to a muscular man with a tight blonde crew cut seated on the edge of a couch off to his right. “Brett Cutler. You may have heard the name, being from Texas and all. His family owns several big car dealerships in the Metroplex.”
Gavin shook his head. “Afraid I don’t get out that way very much these days. But what makes you think I’m from Texas?”
“It’s the accent,” Trevor answered with an appraising smile. “I’m guessing somewhere out west, maybe the panhandle.”
Gavin’s face remained largely a blank slate, but he couldn’t help but smile inwardly at himself. Am I really all that easy to peg? “A little cotton farm just outside of Lubbock, actually. Good place to be from, if you catch my drift.”
Trevor nodded his head. “Right. Well, we all gotta be from somewhere, I suppose.” He gestured toward one of the two stairways leading down into the pontoons mounted on either side of the boat. “Anyway, Billie is down below checking on our bilge pumps. He’s kind of our all-around fixit guy, knows his way around any type of engine or mechanical device ever made, and he’s our absolute go-to guy on dives. Something goes wrong down there and he’s on it like stink on a polecat. Tightening down a leaky valve, resetting a mouthpiece that’s bleeding air, you name it, he’s got it locked down before you can say Jack Sprat.”
“Good to know. And the three women, where are they?”
“Oh, the girls are all downstairs in their cabins, getting changed out of their swimsuits and spruced up a bit. It was kind of a long night—” He hesitated, looking away for a long moment before swallowing hard and returning his focus to Gavin and the Mexican federal agent. “Anyway, I imagine they’ll be up shortly. Can I get you anything in the meantime? Beer? Glass of wine?”
Gavin shook his head, his eyes already sweeping across the small cabin, taking it all in, treating it as a potential crime scene. The cabin was a study in various shades of tan and turquoise, all very tastefully and expensively done. More to Gavin’s specific interest at the moment, though, was the fact that everywhere he looked the cabin was littered with the unmistakable evidence of widespread and heavy drinking in the not-so-distant past—beer cans and glasses on the tables, wine and liquor bottles lined up on the counter in front of the galley. “No, Mr. Johnson, I’m afraid this is all business for the two of us for the time being. But thank you. And don’t let us kill your party.” Yeah, wife missing for almost a day now, but we can’t let that put a damper on the old pontoon party, now can we? Interesting. Gavin took a seat on the cream-colored leather couch, motioning for Trevor to join him across a small marble coffee table. Espinosa sat down next to Trevor, flanking him.
“Actually, I’m glad you’re here,” Trevor said, reaching for a bottle of beer on the coffee table and then stopping suddenly and pulling his hand back empty. “This whole situation—”
Then, without further warning, he leaped to his feet and darted toward a small set of stairs off to their left, disappearing down them in an instant, leaving Gavin to wonder whether he’d been too quick to judge the man. Always hard to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, especially in a situation like this. Not exactly a situation anyone was ever really prepared for.
Brett sat down in Trevor’s place, pushing a hand across the blonde bristle that served as his haircut. “Sorry about that. He’s been kind of up and down over the last twenty-four hours. And I mean that literally, since all the bedrooms are stationed down inside the pontoons. He’s been spending most of his time today in the owner’s suite, on the starboard side of the boat. Up in front.”
Gavin shook his head, noting the brooding look that hung heavily over Brett’s eyes, which were every bit as watery and bloodshot as Trevor’s. “No, don’t worry, it’s quite understandable. I can’t imagine what I’d be like if something like this ever happened to my wife.” Actually, Gavin had experienced a very similar situation just six months earlier, his future wife kidnapped and tortured by a billionaire madman. And only the adrenalin rush of trying desperately to find her had kept him sane through any of it. “But, okay, while he’s busy dealing with all that, maybe we can talk. Espinosa and I would like to work through this process as painlessly as possible, then send you guys on your way, while we get back to our own day jobs.”
Gavin heard footsteps directly behind him. It was the guy Trevor had identified as Casey Thompson. “Yeah, and all of us get the hell away from this storm, for sure. It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies. Especially after—” Casey joined them on the couch, leaving that last statement unfinished.
Gavin sized him up quickly. Casey was African American, thinner than the other two men but slightly taller, well-groomed and sporting an easy smile that revealed a set of teeth so perfect they almost looked artificial. On his left wrist he was wearing a watch, expensive by the looks of it, and not at all common for his age, Gavin thought. Kids these days usually relied on their phones for keeping time, so the watch struck him as some kind of affectation. There was no wedding ring, or any other jewelry that he could make out at first glance.
Espinosa pulled up a radar weather site on his phone. “The weather service is predicting this will all blow over by tomorrow morning, so we should be good.”
At just that moment a bolt of green lightning raced horizontally across the starboard windows, and seconds later a long peal of thunder rocked the boat.
Casey gave them all a hard look over the top of his black horned-rim glasses, his dark forehead suddenly creased with worry. “Yeah? Well, Santy Claus and the Tooth Fairy called ahead and are joining us for dinner, is all I’m saying. And I hear they’re bringing the Easter Bunny along for the ride. The thing is, man, I grew up in Kansas City, so I know what a storm looks like, and this one here is a real mofo, in my humble opinion. We need to be thinking about getting way the hell out of the path of this one, before it’s too late.”
Gavin was starting to regret turning down the offer of a cold beer. “Yeah, I would have to agree with you on that. The sooner we wrap this whole thing up the better. But the thing is, my colleague here, Detective Espinosa, his hands are pretty much tied as far as that’s concerned. Until we can finish our investigation and determine for certain that Katy’s death was accidental, he can’t let any of you leave Mexican jurisdiction. In fact, at this point, I think we should assume none of you can even leave the confines of this boat. That is, until we get a few more answers about what exactly happened down there.”
Casey jumped to his feet. “What? That’s crazy! I swear to God, if this storm gets any worse, we’re all going to die here. Katy will just be the first of many. And I have responsibilities back home—”
Espinosa had somehow located a cup of coffee in the galley, and now placed it gently on the coffee table in front of him as he calmly scowled down his nose at Casey. “And
yet that is the situation we are all faced with, my friend. All very inconvenient, I am sure. But I have my orders, gentlemen, and they do not account for any of your own personal issues or needs. So I would suggest we move forward with this investigation without any further delay. The sooner we have our answers, the sooner we can all go back to our regular lives. Bueno?”
“I guess it will have to be bueno, then,” Brett muttered in a low voice, sitting perched on the edge of his seat. “I—I just can’t believe this is all happening, you know?” He sat up straighter and nodded in Espinosa’s direction. “Okay then, let’s get this shit show started. Who do you want to interview first?”
Gavin and Espinosa stared at each other for a long moment, then turned to face Casey. “Why don’t we start with you?” Gavin said.
6
Casey
Brett reluctantly agreed to return to his bedroom while Gavin and Espinosa interviewed Casey alone. One of the girls popped up momentarily to grab a bottle of wine, and in the process poured cups of coffee for the three men, freshening Espinosa’s cup.
With Casey now seated across from them, slouching slightly over his coffee, Gavin nodded to Espinosa to take the lead in questioning him.
“Okay, to begin with, please explain to me how this whole thing became some sort of annual event. How all of you decided to get together in Mexico every year to go diving.”
Casey shifted in his seat, his discomfort readily apparent in his body language. He had shrunk down into a defensive ball at first, but was leaning forward now, his legs slightly spread, both hands grasped firmly behind his head. “Okay, I don’t know how much you two know about Texas football—”
Gavin leaned forward himself. “I grew up near Lubbock, so I drank the Kool-Aid by the gallon, but Espinosa here is a native of Mexico, so football to him is actually a whole other sport. Why don’t you go ahead and spell it all out for him?”