The Scuba Club

by Rene Fomby

  35

  Sea Trial

  Nature picked that very same moment to demonstrate its naughty side, hitting the small catamaran yacht with a wave that, while not exactly on the scale of a full-on rogue wave, still left Gavin’s bowels feeling dangerously loose. Items that had thus far managed to withstand the constant onslaught of the storm without even flinching suddenly flew violently off of the shelves, and the chair Gavin was sitting on slid across the room to slam into the far wall, Gavin meanwhile doing everything he could to stay upright. Several colorful expletives burst from his mouth as he stretched out a hand to grab a jutting shelf for support. The boat, which had shifted to its starboard side a second earlier, now flipped almost instantly to the port side and the whole scene rearranged itself in reverse, with Gavin’s left hand holding on to the shelf in a death grip while Espinosa lost control and tumbled onto the ground with a groan.

  “Mother—” Gavin screamed as the boat flipped again. He lost his grip on the shelf and wound up on the floor, tumbled in a wild heap with Espinosa as the boat slowly bounced its way back to its normal but still unsettling rhythmic beat. After a few long seconds spent getting his wits about him, Gavin finally struggled to his feet, grabbing the edge of the bed with one hand to steady himself, then stretching out his other hand to help Espinosa up.

  Espinosa looked shaken from head to toe. “I—I think we may have overstayed our welcome out here,” he stammered.

  “You think?” Gavin offered, still trembling all over from the experience. He slumped down hard on the bed to get his bearings. “Was that the crazy rogue wave you were so worried about a little earlier?”

  “No, or at least not a very big one, but enough to give you some idea of what we could be facing if we don’t get this boat nestled safely in the harbor pretty damn soon.”

  “I’m with you on that.” Gavin slowly surveyed the chaotic scene in the little bedroom. “I guess we’ll need to clean all this up at some point, but first, let’s head upstairs and find out how everyone else made out when the wave hit.”

  “I’m right behind you,” Espinosa said as he righted a chair that was blocking his path to the bedroom door. And to the stairs beyond it.

  36

  Salon

  The upstairs salon looked like a larger version of what they had just left, with chairs thrown about seemingly randomly and broken dishes lining the floor of the galley from one end to the other. Sally was laid out on the couch, but a fresh gash on her forehead suggested she hadn’t remained on the couch the entire time the boat was flopping back and forth like a freshly caught fish. Billie was pressing a wet cloth against her forehead, trying to stop the bleeding.

  “When is the Coast Guard boat supposed to get here?” Billie pleaded, staring angrily at Espinosa for answers.

  Espinosa ignored the Coast Guard comment, deciding it was easiest for now to just go along with what these Yankis understood. “Assuming their ship survived the wave as well as we did, they should be arriving any minute now,” he answered, stepping up to the sliding glass door at the back of the boat and peering out. “In fact, I think I see their lights now.” He turned back toward Billie. “By the way, do you have any idea what kind of drugs she took? Might help the doctors if they knew what exactly it is they’re trying to counteract.”

  Billie shook his head, still working at staunching the flow of blood from her head. “I think it was some kind of downer. That’s her usual go-to whenever she’s feeling stressed. Probably wouldn’t have been all that big a problem if she hadn’t been drinking so heavily before.”

  Casey handed him a fresh towel, taking the blood-soaked cloth into the galley. He had to step carefully around the broken dishes to reach the sink, where he tossed the towel before stooping to collect the largest shards of pottery and glass to throw in the trash can underneath. “What an effing mess,” Casey muttered, and Gavin had to agree. The only good thing was that the wave hadn’t been powerful enough to flip the boat over. If that had happened, particularly in the midst of this storm, cleaning up broken pottery would have been the least of their worries.

  Brett and Tara emerged from the stairway leading down to the port pontoon, their eyes wide and shining with fear. “What the hell just happened?” Brett asked as Tara walked briskly to the couch to help Billie, who appeared to have finally gotten control of the bleeding.

  Espinosa shook his head slowly. “I think we got slammed broadside by a big wave. We’re lucky it didn’t flip us over.”

  “Yeah. Real lucky,” Brett said, examining the destruction laid out all around them. “Looks like we’re not going to get our deposit back.”

  “Holy crap!” Trevor had finally joined them from the owner’s cabin, his eyes sweeping quickly across the widespread chaos before finally lighting on Sally. “What the hell happened to her?” he asked, quickly grabbing the blood-soaked towel from Billie before he could let it drop onto the white rug at his feet.

  “I was sitting on the couch with her head in my lap when the wave hit,” Billie explained. “Then everything went topsy turvy, and the next thing I knew she was on the floor next to the coffee table. Must’ve hit her head on it hard when she flew off the couch.”

  Trevor’s eyes went immediately to the rug underneath the coffee table, but he didn’t see any blood stains that needed to be soaked up. “Well, it doesn’t look too bad,” he said, striding toward the galley, where he quickly checked the sink before finally giving up and tossing the second towel into the trash. He glanced over at Gavin. “But it’s clear we got lucky, there. We all need to get off this boat pretty damn quick before something worse happens. And when is the damned Coast Guard getting here? Can’t we all just catch a ride to shore with them? This storm is getting way, way worse than you guys promised.”

  Gavin didn’t actually remember promising anything in regard to the strength of the storm, but he had to agree with Trevor’s sentiment. “Given the fact that this rig is worth at least two mil, I think Espinosa’s plan is to motor it over to the harbor and tuck it away safely for the night. Are you up for that?”

  Trevor shook his head vigorously. “I wouldn’t object, really, but I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to get this boat underway. I know I sure as hell can’t drive it. Katy and I arranged for it to be delivered out here from the shop in Miami, and a crew is scheduled to fly in next week to sail her on to Houston. Maybe Billie can manage it though,” he suggested, looking over at his friend, who was still sitting on the couch tending to the unconscious Sally.

  “Uh, no, I mean, it’s possible I could pull that off under ideal conditions, but I’ve never dealt with running a boat this size under power before. Plus I have no idea even where the harbor is, much less how to navigate inside of it, particularly given the almost zero visibility out there.”

  Espinosa pulled out his phone. “Okay, I’ll call the harbor master to see if he can get somebody out here to help us, and if that fails I can always lean on the Navy for assistance. I’m pretty sure nobody wants this boat to end up on the bottom of the bay, particularly since that might endanger the big cruise ships. The money boats.”

  He stepped aside to make the call, and Gavin took that as an opportunity to check his sat phone for any messages from Harry, but so far nothing had popped up yet. Looking out the back, he saw figures from the Navy ship jumping across a small gap onto the swim platform, already securing lines to the catamaran as they pulled a short gangplank in behind them.

  “Well, folks, it looks like the cavalry has arrived,” he noted, pointing outside. “Billie, I think you’re pretty much in the clear as far as this investigation goes. Why don’t you hitch a ride with Sally to the hospital? We’ll touch base with you later on today to see how she’s doing, after we get everyone else safe and sound on solid dirt and get this boat tied down back on the island.”

  “Sure thing. And—thanks,” Billie said, moving aside as two Mexican sailors gently lifted Sally up between them and shuffled towar
d the rescue ship.

  Espinosa rejoined the group just as the rear door slid closed and the sailors carefully passed Sally hand-over-hand between the boats, the rain drenching her almost completely in the few seconds it took them to carry off the maneuver.

  “The harbor master says he has a friend who has extensive experience piloting yachts like this one, but he’s on the other side of the island, so given the storm it may be a few hours before he can get out here to guide us in. In the meantime, he suggests we should try to remain in our cabins. There’s a whole lot less in the way of dangerous stuff lying about down there that can fly around and hit someone, plus if the boat ever flips over we’ll have much better luck crawling out of the portholes than being stuck in an upside-down main cabin.”

  “That makes sense,” Brett agreed, as he crossed the salon toward the galley. “But if we’re going to be stuck down there with nothing at all to do the rest of the afternoon, I’m at least taking a beer with me. Maybe even two.”

  “Grab me one, too,” Casey said as Jillian waved a half-hearted goodbye to the group and headed downstairs.

  In less than a minute Espinosa and Gavin were left alone in the salon. Gavin thought he’d felt his sat phone buzz, but didn’t want to check it out with Espinosa staring straight at him, and quickly dismissed the idea of heading to the bathroom again so soon. That excuse was already wearing pretty thin. So that left him with only one option.

  “Hey, Espinosa, I suppose we should take our own advice and ride out the wait in our own cabins, even if it means braving the weather outside to get there.”

  “I think you’re right about that. But before we take a break, where are you with the investigation now? Our little talk with Billie and Casey made it pretty clear to me that neither of them did it, even if Casey could arguably have had some kind of motivation to kill her. Jillian and Sally are off the list, too, since they were on the boat the entire time. Once again that leaves us with just our three original suspects, Brett, Tara and Trevor, and two of those three can alibi each other. Plus, as you may recall, Trevor himself placed both of them well ahead of Katy for the entire dive. So as they taught us back in the Federale training academy—”

  Gavin finished the thought for him. “Yeah, 99 percent of the time it’s the husband. I get it. But seriously, unless something else turns up by the time we make port, and I’m talking something pretty substantial, I think I’ll have to agree with you. My number one suspect right now is Trevor. And I don’t really even have a suspect number two.”

  37

  Forward Port Cabin

  By the time Gavin managed to slip into the forward cabin and close the hatch behind him, his head and most of his upper body were soaked to the bone. He grabbed a towel out of the tiny bathroom and dried off, testing the toilet to see if Billie had succeeded in getting it operational. He evidently had, meaning Gavin wouldn’t have to make the run back and forth to the main cabin if nature actually did happen to call over the next few hours.

  Sitting down on the single bed that was wedged into the nose of the catamaran, he slipped off his jacket and pulled out the sat phone. The message from Harry simply said to call him. Gavin dialed the number by heart, and Harry answered almost immediately.

  “Gavin, you are not going to believe what I found out!” Harry almost shouted. “Seems our friend Brett Cutler was handling more than just Katy’s inheritance issues. It appears he was her family lawyer, as well.”

  “Family law? You mean, as in Paxton?”

  “No. Far more interesting. Turns out Katy was in the process of divorcing Trevor when she died, and Cutler was evidently handling all the juicy details himself. Plus, it seems he was fully aware of that secret bank account in the Caymans, although I still haven’t figured out what it was for.”

  Gavin couldn’t decide whether the new revelations changed anything with the investigation, or whether it all just amounted to juicy titillating tidbits of arcanery, a mysterious peek into the fatally broken life Katy Mulcahey had shared with Trevor. “Did Johnson have any idea this was going on?”

  “I don’t think so. And it seems the whole divorce thing popped up rather suddenly about a month ago, at almost the exact same time she started making the secret transfers of cash.”

  “Could they have been payments to Cutler for handling all her legal issues?” Gavin asked.

  “Highly unlikely, especially given the size of the payments. No, my best guess is that they are somehow related to her divorce, but only tangentially. There is one good way to find out, though.”

  Gavin laughed to himself. “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you have in mind?”

  “You think you can round up a friendly judge to okay a search warrant for Cutler’s law office? I mean, limited to his dealings with Katy, of course, and predicated on your investigation into her death.”

  “Yeah, I know a few judges down your way from back in my FBI days. Federal or state?”

  “I don’t think it really matters, just as long as they are willing to slap their John Hancock on a piece of paper authorizing me to dig through his files. And we should make it a sealed warrant for now, so he doesn’t know who’s looking into his affairs and why.”

  “Good idea. I’ll make the call now, and text you what you need. How soon can you be downtown at the county courthouse?

  “I’m just across the street right now, fixing to grab some lunch. And the federal courthouse is just as close.”

  “Well, then, make it a quick lunch, and I’ll have everything lined up in less than thirty minutes. Will that work for you?”

  “That’s perfect, Gavin. I’ve got my laptop with me, and I brought along a portable printer, as well, anticipating your call.”

  “Smart man. Okay, so we’ve got a solid plan in place now for digging a little deeper into this whole hornets’ nest of relationships in this cozy little group, and it’s coming not a moment too soon. I was about ready to hang this one up and let the Federales frog-march Trevor off to a Mexican hoosegow. But it’s entirely possible this new info might shed some fresh light on the case. And it’s at least worth taking a good hard look to find out. I have to tell you, I’m especially intrigued by whatever it was Katy and Cutler were cooking up out in the Caymans. That just couldn’t have been anything legitimate, especially given the fact that it happened right when they started plotting her divorce.” He paused. “Hey, you think you could pull the same trick with Trevor’s phone, get access to his email as well?”

  “Given that he’s still alive, I’m pretty sure that would take a search warrant, as well. And if he looked at his phone he’d see immediately that someone was trying to access his email, so that might turn out to be problematical.”

  “Yeah, I get you. Okay, let’s focus on what we can find out from Cutler’s office, and go from there.”

  “Super. Text me just as soon as you’ve nailed down a judge.”

  “Will do, Harry. And, once again, I owe you big time for all your help with this.”

  “Not a problem, Gav. You’d do the same for me. Plus, I gotta admit this is a lot more fun than answering another motion for summary judgment or sitting through an arraignment hearing for the millionth time this week.”

  “Still doesn’t mean I’m not on the hook for a big steak dinner next time I’m out in Houston. But look, I’ll let you go so you can grab lunch and I can hunt down a judge. Buzz me just as soon as you find out anything, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  Harry hung up and Gavin quickly dialed the number for Bob Sanders. If anyone had leverage over a judge to get a search warrant granted with little more than his word to go on, it would be Sanders. As the phone started ringing on the other end, Gavin’s mind was still buzzing with questions about Katy’s sudden decision to file for divorce, and the secret bank account she had opened at almost the exact same moment. It all had to tie together in some crazy but still logical way. But how?

  38

  Forward Port Cabinr />
  Gavin had barely finished up with Sanders and plugged his borrowed phone in to charge when he was hit with a surge of exhaustion. He laid down on the bed and closed his eyes for just a moment, then awoke an hour or so later to a steady tapping sound on the hull just above his head. Throwing on his jacket and grabbing a baseball cap out of his bag to pull on over his head, he ventured out of the cabin to investigate the source of the noise.

  The rain had let up somewhat and was no longer a tropical downpour. More like a heavy summer rain, but Gavin appreciated the difference as soon as he poked his head up out of the hatch. He swiveled around, trying to identify where the sound was coming from, but nothing appeared obvious in the gloom. Emerging completely from the cabin, his eyes were drawn immediately to a strong glow coming from the front of the boat, down near the water line. He stepped carefully up to the small safety lines that ran along the full perimeter of the boat and peered over, trying to locate the source of the light. And then something or someone grabbed him firmly by the ankles and tossed him headfirst into the sea.

  39

  Underwater

  The water slapped the right side of his face hard, and it was all Gavin could do to keep from exhaling the little bit of air he still had left in his lungs in a long scream. Not from the pain, but from the memory. The plunge from the boat forced him deep beneath the surface of the water, the darkness brought on by the storm raging high overhead making it almost as impenetrably black underneath the water as it was on a night dive, and Gavin had trouble deciphering up from down as he fought a slow but losing battle to keep from sinking further into the void. He tried to pry his eyes open, hoping to reorient himself with the occasional flashes of lightning racing through the clouds above his head, but the salt water stung his eyes even as it tried to crawl up his nose and into his sinuses and lungs.