“Ready,” calls the woman.
“I thought you were going to put on your face,” says he.
“Oh, that’ll cost you, buster. I’m ordering a martini.”
Their feet hit the dock and I ease upright, listening as their footsteps fade. I’m eye to eye with a photo of Caprice laughing between her aunt and uncle. How did Galdino feel when his only child flew down here, cruising the islands, living like a rich kid, tasting a life Galdino could never give her? It’s not hard to imagine Galdino overcome by jealousy. And when Mel Lucas – a multi-millionaire who had everything -- demanded Galdino repay a measly hundred thousand dollar loan? Oh, the insult, the rage. Shake it all up and you’ve got one hell of an explosive cocktail.
I take one last look around the cabin before pulling the curtains shut. If Galdino did kill Mel on this boat, it couldn’t have happened down here. Mel was built like an aging linebacker. A puny guy like Galdino couldn’t carry that kind of dead weight up these steep steps.
Back up on deck, I consider the fishing chairs. If the two men were fishing back here, Galdino could have pushed Mel overboard, let him drown. No, too chancy. Mel might swim or float or be rescued by Flipper. But, if Galdino stabbed or shot Mel on board, the forensic mavens would have found blood evidence. They didn’t.
How would I do it? How would I kill someone without leaving a trace? I channel my inner Agatha Christie. This railing is a little lower than waist high. Hard to lift someone up and over, especially if they don’t want to go. But, if you get them close enough to the edge, it wouldn’t take much to flip them overboard then shoot them. The blood would draw sharks which would eat the evidence. But maybe not. Uneaten bloated bodies are found in the ocean all the time. Galdino couldn’t take a chance the sharks wouldn’t be hungry.
-Mel Lucas may still be alive.
-I know.
-He could have murdered his wife.
-I know.
-You don’t sound convinced.
-I’m not. Every photo I see makes me think the man loved his lady.
-You don’t know that.
-It feels true.
My puzzle-loving mind searches for pieces. Okay, so if Galdino did kill Lucas during that early morning on the boat, he’d have to weight the body, make sure it never surfaced. It would take something heavy. Most things onboard are designed to float. Except, of course, the anchor. I look down through the slot in the bow pulpit. The anchor is chained in place.
“Help you?” a voice behind me.
“Jeez!” I jump, heart hammering.
Lucky stands on the pier, looking down at me. The weathered beachcomber has swapped his murder trial witness suit for threadbare shorts and a Sam Barsh tee shirt. I clutch my chest, taking deep breaths, trying to buy some thinking time.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he says.
“I…wasn’t… expecting…anyone,” I say, slipping into Matron mode. “I thought I’d come…clean things up a bit.” I go below, return clutching the partially filled garbage bag. “It’s the least I can do.” I begin picking up the empty bottles and cans littering the deck. “It would just kill Brandy to see this mess.” Kill. Bad word choice.
“You a friend?” asks Lucky, squatting on his haunches, not going away.
I squint at him. “You look awfully familiar.” I pretend to think. “Didn’t I see you in court? On the witness stand?”
He looks surprised. “You were there?”
“I most certainly was. A group of us came, have been coming when we can, to see how the trial is going. I must say, you were the best witness we’ve seen so far.”
“Really?” looking pleased. He pulls out a pack of Camel’s and lights up.
“Would you like a beer?” I ask, the hostess with the mostess.
“Wouldn’t mind.”
I bring one up and hand it to him, then continue picking up debris. “It was so interesting, when you testified that you actually saw Mr. Galdino right here looking for Mel.”
“Yeah. Well, anyways, a man I thought was Galdino. I mean, it was so early, before dawn. I think that’s why it struck me strange.” He takes a long pull on the bottle. “Brandy and Mel always rolled out late. I almost never saw them before noon. You’d think the brother-in-law should ought to have known that.”
Did Lucky see Galdino just after the murder? Could Galdino have lured Mel out pre-dawn on the pretext of fishing, then killed him and tossed him overboard? I add a couple of wine bottles to the bag. They’re still wet from a morning storm. “The kids sure don’t take care of this boat. You think they’d put on the tarp.”
Lucky drags deep on the Camel. “Yeah, Mel and Brandy closed her up every night.”
Really? “That morning you testified about, when you thought you’d seen Mr. Galdino, was the boat covered then?”
“The aft tarp was rolled back,” he says. “I remember because after I saw Mr. Galdino on the pier I looked around for Mr. Lucas. Didn’t see him onboard. But, since the tarp was off. I figured he might be below deck.”
My heart strikes an errant beat. “And Mel would never have left the boat uncovered overnight.”
“Never. I figured either he was still on board or his kids were the last ones to take the boat out the night before.”
Bingo! The Lucas children were in Italy when their parents disappeared. If the aft deck was uncovered that morning it’s because Mel and/or Galdino uncovered it.
Lucky swigs the last of the beer. “Those kids are slobs, if you want to know the truth.”
“Tell me about it,” I say. “Brandy’s turning over in her grave.”
“You should leave them kids clean that up,” he says, standing, stretching, cracking his neck side to side. “Learn them some responsibility. It’s hard to sell a boat looks like this. Buyer’ll wonder what else they’re not takin’ care of.” A shrill whistle pierces the quiet marina. Lucky rolls his eye. “My master’s voice,” he says, tossing me the empty. “Much obliged.”
“I’d best be going, too,” I say, dropping his bottle into my bag. “I’ll have to come back and finish another time.” Like never.
18
I lug the bag of garbage to the large trashcan outside the Harbormaster’s Office and, in case Lucky happens to glance back, I make a big show of shoving it in. Deke’s waves me into his office. Did he see me onboard the Dandy Brandy? I go inside, trying to make up a reason for breaking and entering but Deke’s busy rummaging through the old Palm Beach Posts and Pennysavers on his desk.
“Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”
“Damned pills,” tossing an empty donut box and a couple of Styrofoam containers into the wastebasket. “They’re here someplace.”
Good, he didn’t see me nosing around. “Let me help,” I say. The pill bottle isn’t on his desk. It’s not on the shelves or in drawers. I finally spot it on the floor partially hidden by the leg of a table. Some of the pills have spilled out. They’re bright orange stamped with double “V’s”. “Got it,” I say.
“How the hell’d they get there?”
“That’s some lousy childproof top,” I say, rounding up the loose pills, setting them on his desk.
“Don’t really close it,” looking sheepish, “too hard to open.”
He reaches down the Jack Daniels and pours a few fingers for each of us, uses his to wash down a pill. “Picnicking again?” he asks.
“Not today. Something’s wrong with my propeller. A friend’s over on the dock putting in a new one.”
“You don’t carry a spare?”
“Propeller?”
“Hell, yeah. Say you’re cruising the islands having a grand old time. If your prop strikes or spins out a hub, you’re dead in the water. But with a spare, you can throw it on and not have to miss out on any fun.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Do a lot of people carry spares?”
“Here? Most everyone.”
I didn’t remember seeing one on Brandy’s boat. “Where would I stow some
thing like that?” I ask.
“Depends on your boat.”
“I guess she’s something like the Dandy Brandy.” Nothing like, but what the heck.
“Mel and Brandy stowed theirs in the front cabin, built a special cabinet near the bow. You can’t hardly see it if you don’t know it’s there.” His phone rings and while he’s talking and thumbing through files for something, I wave good-bye, walking back to the Dandy Brandy, not bothering with the pretense of calling out to the imaginary Mary, swinging on board, down through the galley to the front cabin, finding the cabinet that is all but invisibly installed. I undo the latch and look inside. No propeller. But there is a large plastic roll-up tool kit. I unroll it and find a set of instructions that, among other things, shows propeller installation requiring a large heavy wrench. A very large wrench. The wrench pictured on the instruction sheet is the only tool missing from the kit.
Footsteps ring down the pier alongside the boat. “Laura?”
Parker. I stuff the tool bag and instructions back in the storage space. The boat rocks as he jumps onboard and crosses the deck above me. “Laura?”
“Down here,” I call, all sunshine and light, moving out into the cabin as he comes below.
“I thought that was you.” He pauses. Is he waiting for me to explain? Do I tell him about my trespassing and snooping? It’s nothing I’m proud of. “Does this boat belong to friends of yours?”
“Friends? Oh, no. I was just walking by and…saw the For Sale sign in the window and, well, you told me I had a lot of time to kill, so I thought to myself why don’t I take a look around?”
“What for?”
Good question. “It’s a woman thing,” I say, breezing past him, up the steps, lightly leaping from boat to pier. “I just love to see how other people decorate. And I’m always looking for new storage ideas. You know, Michael always said there’s never enough storage space on a boat.”
He looks confused. “But you’re selling your boat. Why bother -- ”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t still like to look.” And I babble on and on like the airiest of airheads, walking and talking, going on and on about boats I’ve seen, ways people decorate and construct built-ins, not stopping for breath until we’re back on the newly propellered Go Bears and heading home.
The whole ride back all I can think of is that empty space where the propeller should have been and the wrench needed to install it. Even a twerp like Galdino could swing a heavy wrench into his brother-in-law’s thick skull, especially if that brother-in-law is sitting in one of those fishing chairs, looking out to sea. Galdino could have swung that wrench hard enough to kill or stun Mel. It would give him enough time to wrap one end of nylon cord around the spare propeller and the other around Mel’s leg, then heave them both overboard.
I’m not sure how much a propeller weighs but, if it’s anything like the one Parker’s friend just put on my boat, it has heft to it, more than enough to keep a dead man down.
We dock and tie up. “I’ve got a meeting,” says Parker. “Gotta run.”
He’s half-way down the dock when I think to call out, “Thanks for the new propeller.”
He turns, walking backward. “Not a problem. I’ll call you.”
I watch him go, a man of economical and purposeful movement. It occurs to me that not once this whole trip did he come on to me. Not that I wanted him to. Still… now I’m really confused. Maybe our day together was just about him giving me a new propeller. And maybe his interest is only in my boat. And maybe the odd vibe I felt was coming not from him, but from me.
19
Windblown and sunburnt, smelling of sea air and boat fuel, I pull up to my building in desperate need of a hot tub and cold scotch, not necessarily in that order. In front of me, a valet unloads suitcases from the trunk of a car. Caprice is helping a frail woman out of the backseat. I do a double-take. Just a couple of hours ago I saw a younger, healthier version of this woman in photos aboard the Dandy Brandy. She’s Caprice’s mother, Galdino’s wife, Brandy’s older sister. Her face is a ruin of lines. Her slight body bends under the weight of too much sorrow.
The woman is obviously exhausted from her flight. She clutches her daughter’s arm, walking slowly to the stairs, sighing as she faces the daunting climb up four whole stairs into the building. From the photos I’d thought she was close to my age but I swear she could pass for a hundred. I climb out of my car. “Hello,” I say. Caprice glances up and nods briefly, quickly returning her attention to her mother. I walk on ahead, not wishing to intrude. This is exciting. The fact that she’s here in Florida must mean she’ll testify soon. As soon I get upstairs I’ll call Lucille and tell her ‘Elvis is in the building.’
“Thank God you’re home,” says Bitsy, wild-eyed and sunburnt and angry.
“What’s wrong?”
“You have a phone?”
“What?”
“Do you have a phone?”
“Of course I have—“
“Is it too much work to turn it on?”
I pull out the phone in question which is, indeed, off. “I forgot to charge it,” I say.
“This was slipped under the door while I was at the pool.” She holds up a sheet of lavender paper:
STAY AWAY. THIS IS YOUR SECOND WARNING.
YOU WON’T GET A THIRD.
“You can’t go back to that trial,” she says, jiggling the paper in my face. “They don’t want you there.”
“This is not about the trial. As far as I know, Caprice is the only person involved with the trial who’s in this building. And I really doubt she left this note. She was at the trial this morning and I just saw her come home from picking up her mom at the airport.”
“Who left it, then? And why?”
“Give me a minute,” I say, “let me unwind.” I pour myself a Scotch from the bar and Bitsy follows me into the kitchen waiting while I add ice cubes. I’m pushing away a sick feeling. What if these threats are about the trial? Did someone see me at the marina today? Did someone see me boarding the Dandy Brandy? Does whoever sent the note know who I am and where I live? Do they think I have something to do with Brandy’s murder or the missing safe or the price of mangos in Miami?
“I’m calling the police,” she says. “Even if it’s nothing, at least we’ll be on record in case it turns out to be something.”
“Let’s wait,” I say.
“For what?”
Good question. “Well, for one thing, who leaves threats on purple paper?”
“What? Killers don’t color coordinate?”
I forget who I’m talking to. “I’ll check with Harry again,” I say, “see if anyone else in the building has been getting these notes.”
And I do go downstairs, purple note in hand. But Harry is out with a cold and the new hire on duty is being lambasted by a tenant about dog poop someone neglected to scoop. I go back upstairs.
“This can wait until Harry comes back,” I tell Bitsy.
“We could be dead by then.”
“Don’t get hysterical.”
But hysterical isn’t Bitsy’s style. And dead isn’t something I want to consider.
20
The courthouse courtyard is as packed as Joe’s Stone Crab in season. The impatient mob presses toward the closed courtroom door, inching into position, intent on scoring seats. Word must have leaked that Mrs. Galdino is in town.
I search for a familiar face, feeling the effects of a lousy night’s sleep. It wasn’t so much the newest threatening note keeping me awake. It was more that, every time I’d start drifting off, I’d jerk awake with visions of the Dandy Brandy’s missing propeller wrapped around Mel Lucas’ body. Sometimes I’d see him dead before Galdino heaved him into the ocean. But, just as often, he was still alive.
The courtroom door opens a crack and the guard signals a few people to come inside. Hey. Not fair. This is a public trial. Seating is supposed to be first-come first-served. I’m working up a good angry over unmitigated fa
voritism when he nods my way. I look around. He nods again. Me? You talkin’ to me? Ah, that’s different. “Excuse me,” I say, “coming through. Thank you. Thank you. Coming through.” People make way, probably assuming I’m Press or a relative or whoever else receives the blessing. The guard whispers as I pass, “She’s up front.”
Blood-smell fills the courtroom. Lucille is not in her usual back row seat. “Up front,” the guard had said. I fall in behind a gaggle of giants inching down the center aisle, pass the fourth row, the third. Cliques of reporters have commandeered the seats to my left. Chatting, laughing, they seem relaxed except for restless eyes sizing up each new person entering the room. I feel them scan and dismiss me, a person of no interest. If only they knew I’m harboring a clue, something I’m pretty sure the cops and prosecution missed. Yes, it’s possible the missing propeller means nothing. But my gut says otherwise.
Lucille occupies the aisle seat in the second row on the left. With today’s mob, she couldn’t save me a seat with her knitting bag which sits on the floor under her seat. But she’s managed to spread herself out, taking up more real estate than necessary, sort of like the Hummers and Mercedes that regularly straddle two parking spaces. Next to her, Farley also seems to be occupying more territory than his fair share.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “Morning.” They shift and a space magically opens between them. “Thanks,” I say, settling in. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” says Farley.
I lower my voice. “Suppose someone finds out something about a case, something the police might have missed?”
“Tell the police,” says Farley, like it’s a no-brainer.
“Any particular case?” asks Lucille.
“Say, this one.” This gets their interest. “But, maybe this person got this information while they were breaking the law.”
“What law?” Farley asks.
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