Wreckers' Key

by Christine Kling

  “Mr. Gomez, what do you mean? Are you saying Mr. Berger left directions to have Nestor’s body cremated?”

  “Oh yes, indeed. And as I was saying, the county government is usually not so swift at getting a death certificate to us, but you were very fortunate this time.”

  “But Mrs. Frias doesn’t want her husband’s body cremated. She would like to have —”

  Mr. Gomez inhaled sharply and cocked his head to gaze at Catalina. There was something about him that reminded me of a raptor—a hawk or osprey. “Ladies, there was no reason to delay, and Mr. Berger had said his vessel was departing for Fort Lauderdale in the morning. Mr. Frias’s body was cremated earlier this afternoon shortly after it arrived.”

  XI

  I had so much work to get done before our departure, I decided to hail a cab on the street outside the Dean Lopez Funeral Home. Catalina hadn’t said a word to me as we’d walked out of the dark parlor, and the silence had stretched out long and awkward. It felt as though she were accusing me of being happy about this state of affairs—because I didn’t believe that someone had murdered Nestor and now there wouldn’t be any evidence. But there wasn’t anything that could be done about it at that point, and it didn’t seem to be Gomez’s fault. Granted, I did find it curious that Ted Berger seemed to have greased the wheels to get rid of the body, but it was possible he had his reasons. He wanted to get his boat back up north as soon as possible; in a certain light, what he had done could even be seen as a kindness.

  I finally spotted a taxi and raised my arm. The driver pulled over on the opposite side of Simonton Street and waited at the curb. When Cat stepped off, I said, “Wait.” I followed her and put my arms around her, drawing her as close as her belly would allow. Then I held her at arm’s length and said, “When we get back to Lauderdale, we’re going to have a wake for Nestor, okay? The hell with funerals and cremation and all that. We’re going to throw a party to celebrate his life, okay?”

  She broke away from me, her cheeks wet with tears, and started to flee across the street. The waiting cab had been partially blocking traffic, and a large SUV with tinted windows that had been waiting in the line of cars suddenly accelerated to pass the line of traffic. Catalina was stepping right into his path.

  “Cat! Look out!” I screamed and ran into the street, grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her toward my side of the pavement. My feet got tangled with hers and I felt us falling backward as the wind of the SUV’s passing blew dust and gravel into my face. I took much of the fall on my elbows and tailbone, because I refused to move my arms from Cat’s body. Her weight falling on top of my abdomen knocked the wind out of me.

  “Hey!” the cabbie yelled. “You all right?”

  I couldn’t breathe, much less speak. My hands were holding the sides of her enormous belly, and I felt the life within her. I yanked back my arms as though I’d touched a too-private part of her. Cat rolled off me and stayed on her hands and knees panting, the whites of her eyes visible through the dark hair around her face. I curled onto my side, dazed and struggling for air. I could tell we were in the shade of a sudden crowd of people, but they were just looking at us, not saying anything.

  Then I heard a couple of nearby whoops from a police siren. Within seconds there were two cops there, taking each of us by the arm, lifting and escorting us over to their car. It all happened so fast.

  “What happened?” the female officer who was holding my arm asked me. “We were just around the corner when someone called it in.”

  I lifted my arms and saw the pavement rash down both sides. The blood was dripping down my wrists, into my palms. “My friend was crossing the street.” I pointed with a bloodied hand. “This black SUV, big thing, came from that direction and nearly ran her down. Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”

  “We’ve got paramedics coming.”

  “Cat,” I said, squirming loose from the officer and stepping over to her side. “Are you hurt?” She was leaning against the back fender of the police car, her eyes closed, the male officer standing at her side.

  She shook her head and then opened her eyes. “I fell on top of you.” Her eyes dropped to my arms. “Seychelle, you are bleeding.”

  “Just some road rash. Nothing big.”

  “Miss, please step over here so I can take down some information,” the female cop said. I told her what I knew, which was damn little. I still couldn’t believe the guy hadn’t even stopped. If I hadn’t pulled Catalina back, he would have hit her. No question about it. It was as though he was trying to do it. I thought about the newspaper story that had run that morning, and I wondered if I should mention it to the police. Could it have been someone trying to run her down? They’d probably laugh at me, think I was being paranoid. This was Key West, after all, and drunk drivers were practically the norm. And I had to remember that as far as the cops were concerned, Nestor’s death had been an accident.

  When the paramedics arrived, they insisted on cleaning up my arms and wrapping me with white gauze and bandages. They checked Cat and listened to the baby’s heartbeat, pronouncing both of them fit. While we’d been sitting with the medics, the cops had worked the crowd, and they returned to tell us that no one could either name the exact make and model or remember the license plate of the big vehicle. They concluded that it was a near accident and that we had been lucky. The female officer offered to drive Cat back to the boatyard on Stock Island, and I thanked her profusely.

  My first stop on my walk back to my boat was just around the corner at a phone booth outside Fausto’s market. I needed to give B.J. a call to let him know what was going on. We didn’t have the kind of relationship where we were joined at the hip. In fact, I wasn’t even sure that relationship was the right word. But I knew that he thought about me and wanted to know I was safe. Heck, it was only polite to give him a call now and again, and after what had just happened, I really wanted to hear his voice. It wasn’t as if he could call me. I didn’t realize how much I longed to talk to him until I heard the recording of his answering machine start. I wanted to tell him everything that had happened these past couple of days, to hear his calm voice, his intelligent, even-tempered take on everything. The man kept me grounded, and I was really surprised to realize how much I missed him. I left a short message telling him about Nestor. I added that the loose plan was for us to arrive back on Saturday evening, but that he shouldn’t be concerned if we failed to show up. Plans have a way of changing on board boats, and I didn’t want him to worry.

  When I hung up, I stepped back and glanced down Fleming in the direction of Ocean Towing. Pinder was standing on the street arguing with a man I didn’t recognize. They were too far off for me to hear what they were saying, but their body language made it clear that Pinder was dressing the other down. After pointing his finger in the man’s face, Neville turned, yanked open the door to his office, and disappeared inside. The other man strode off down Fleming and turned the corner at the far end of the block. I wondered briefly what it had been about, but I figured it was just Pinder’s management style. He had to do something to merit his island-wide reputation as a jerk.

  I don’t have much of a galley on Gorda, but I didn’t want to feel dependent on the Power Play on the trip north, so I headed into the grocery store first to buy the fresh stuff, then got some ice for my on-deck cooler, and made my trip out to the boat with a loaded dinghy by four in the afternoon. My dog yelped with joy when I pulled up and did her best to get in my way as I heaved the bags onto the deck. Abaco is a social dog, and these long days alone on the boat were boring for her. She kept running aft and staring longingly at the dinghy as I put my food away, but when I started the tug’s engine, she ran into the deckhouse and mouthed my hand—her way of saying, Thank you for moving this boat someplace more interesting.

  I had decided to head for the fuel dock at the Key West Bight Marina to take on diesel and water. After that I would motor around to Robbie’s Marina, where I could tie up next to the Power Play so that we
could work out our lines and take care of all the tow details during the day tomorrow. As I pulled alongside the fuel dock, a familiar figure came out of the office to take my lines.

  “Hey, Quentin,” I said, tossing him a spring line. “Thanks for the help.”

  He nodded shyly then tied the spring off while I went back into the wheelhouse to give her a squirt in reverse to stop the boat’s slight forward motion. By the time I got back outside, Quentin had secured the bow and stern lines and was readying the diesel pump to hand to me.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, nodding at my bandaged arms.

  “No, I just fell and scraped the skin off my elbows.” I grabbed a rag from inside the wheelhouse. “It’s nothing.”

  “Dat’s good.”

  “It’s nice to be around somebody who knows boats,” I said, taking the pump from him and dragging the hose on deck toward the deck fill.

  As I watched the numbers flipping over on the pump, he approached me with the water hose. I pointed to the freshwater deck fill and he climbed aboard, opened it up, and inserted the hose. Watching him, I thought about Jeremy, Drew, and Debbie—my crew for the tow north. “So you’re working here now, Quentin?” I asked. “No, miss, I just help out here because it is a good way to meet the captains and the harbormaster can always use the help.”

  “Sounds like pretty good thinking to me.”

  He shrugged. “I thought so, too, but no job yet. I think these charter boat captains aren’t interested in a fella who looks like me.”

  “You might be right. Maybe Key West isn’t the place for you. Did you ever think about going up to Fort Lauderdale? There are lots more yachts. Maybe you’d do better finding a permanent spot on a boat up there?”

  “I’ll go where I need to go if it means there is work.”

  I wasn’t aware of having made the decision, but next thing I knew I heard myself speaking. “Quentin, I’m leaving Thursday morning to tow a ninety-four-foot yacht up to Fort Lauderdale. If you’re interested, I’d like to hire you to work as my deckhand.”

  “I am very interested,” he said, nodding briskly, making his dreads bounce.

  “Okay, can you collect your gear and meet me out at Robbie’s Marina on Stock Island in an hour?”

  The smile lit up his whole face. “You bet, skipper.”

  As it turned out there was no slip available at Robbie’s, so I rafted up alongside the Power Play. The crew brought out some enormous fenders to protect the yacht’s paint job and tied off my lines while Jeremy watched from the bridge deck in silence.

  Once Gorda was secure, I jumped aboard Power Play. When I opened the sliding door to the aft salon, Jeremy was standing inside, blocking my path.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “I just came to check on Catalina. I want to make sure she’s all right.”

  “She’s fine. She’s resting.”

  “Look, kid, are we going to have to have a pissing contest every day of this trip? Just let me go talk to her.”

  At that moment, Ted Berger emerged from the companionway that led to Catalina’s cabin. With both his hands he was smoothing the white hair at his temples. “What’s going on out here?” he asked.

  “I’m here to see Catalina. This asshole is trying to stop me.”

  “I told him not to let anyone disturb her. She’s resting. She was very upset when she returned to the boat this afternoon. It seems something happened in town.”

  Jeremy was grinning and I wondered for a moment if his could have been the face behind the tinted glass in that monster SUV, then dismissed the idea. I was really getting paranoid. Berger had just met this guy; I doubted he could convince him to attempt murder for him within twenty-four hours.

  I held up my gauze-covered elbows. “It happened to the both of us. Some asshole almost ran her over, and I pulled her out of the way.”

  The concern in Berger’s face appeared genuine. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but I just wanted to talk to Catalina, to see if there was anything else she remembered about the vehicle.”

  “Sure. Come on,” Berger said.

  Jeremy stepped aside, and Berger led me to the closed cabin door. He knocked softly, and Cat came to open the door herself. She frowned when she saw Berger and looked as though she was about to let loose with some harsh words when she saw me.

  “Hey,” she said. “You’re back.”

  “Yeah, can I come in?”

  “Sure.” Without looking him in the eye, Cat thanked Berger and closed the door in his face.

  We sat on the edge of her bunk, quiet at first. Finally, I broke the silence. “Is everything okay over here, Cat?”

  “Yes, it’s fine.”

  “When I tried to come aboard, it seemed as though Jeremy had been assigned to run interference to let Ted Berger have some time alone with you.”

  “No,” she said. “It was not that.” She twisted the hem of her blouse in her fingers. Then she looked up at me. “Seychelle, tomorrow we will go back to that place and get Nestor’s ashes, and then we will leave Ted Berger and this island for good, yes?”

  Abaco and I met Quentin at the boatyard gate. His gear amounted to a single duffel, but he had changed into a long-sleeved, collared white shirt that he wore buttoned to the neck. With a different pair of plaid shorts and orange flip-flops, the man exuded a certain dignity. I liked the look of him, and I knew that on this trip north I was going to need a strong ally. My dog jumped up and put her paws on his shirt; rather than scold her, he kneeled and scratched her ears while she looked adoringly into his eyes. Any doubts I had harbored about hiring a man I barely knew disappeared at that moment. I knew no better judge of character than Abaco.

  Wednesday passed in a flurry of preparations. I barely saw Catalina. The only words we exchanged came when I gave her my handheld VHF and made her promise to call me if anything or anyone bothered her on the trip home. We set up a schedule for radio checks on channel seventy-two.

  The weather held and we made good time Thursday on the trip north to Marathon, a fact I was thankful for due to our late departure from Robbie’s. Berger had shown up just before we were supposed to leave, and he got into some kind of disagreement with the yard over the final bill. With Gorda towing Power Play, we weren’t going to be traveling any faster than five or six knots, and we had almost forty miles to cover. When we got under way at ten o’clock, I was fuming.

  The anchorage outside the entrance to Marathon’s Boot Key Harbor offered little protection from southeast winds, but as the daylight faded out of the sky, the winds dropped to a near calm. I always get a little nervous when the weather cooperates to that extent. I wonder what kind of havoc is ahead. We approached the anchorage just south of the harbor entrance and cast off Power Play to drop and set her hook first. Quentin stowed the towline aft while I circled, and then he went forward to drop our anchor. I positioned us alongside the motor yacht and signaled him to let the chain fly as I backed down. Quentin’s teeth glowed in the light from the big yacht when he turned to give me the thumbs-up, the anchor was set, but the smile faded from his face when I shut down the engine and we heard a panicked voice from the VHF radio.

  “Mayday, mayday! This is the sailing yacht Rendezvous!”

  XII

  For the next several minutes it seemed like everybody in Marathon harbor was attempting to answer the guy. They all tried to talk at once, and the result was garbled static and squealing from the radio. Quentin and I stood in the wheelhouse listening to the occasional bits of intelligible talk, and within less than five minutes a boat came roaring out the Marathon entrance channel. He passed close under the stern of the Power Play, and we could make out the bright yellow-green of an Ocean Towing boat. Near as I could tell, we didn’t even know where the guy was yet, but the Ocean Towing craft swung around the point and turned northeast. The Coast Guard finally came on the air and told everybody to be quiet.

  “Sailing vessel Rendezvous, what is your location?”

>   “Hard aground close by Coffin’s Patch.”

  “What is your vessel’s description?”

  “Rendezvous is an eighty-four-foot ketch drawing nine feet.”

  Quentin turned to look at me. We’d been checking the chart all afternoon, and I figured we were both thinking the same thing. How the hell had he done that? He’d gone aground at dusk, but there was a light out there off Coffin’s Patch. No skipper in his right mind would take a boat drawing nine feet across that patch.

  We listened to the Rendezvous rescue play out on the radio as we prepared our meal. We had considered inflating the dinghy to dine on board the big yacht, but we opted instead for soup heated on the single gimbaled burner in Gorda’s makeshift galley and pointed the dog toward her Astroturf. The tide was dropping, and the big sailboat was hard aground. The Ocean Towing boat got to her and started to rig lines to pull her free, but they decided not to try right away because of the damage they might inflict on the marine environment dragging the yacht across the coral. The morning high tide around dawn would not be nearly as high as the tide that had put her aground. Looking at the numbers on our tide chart, Quentin and I thought they’d likely not get her off until the next evening.

  A friend of the Rendezvous captain hailed him on the radio to offer his assistance, but the tired voice of the stranded captain replied that there wasn’t much more that could be done at the moment.

  “I don’t know what happened. It was some kind of glitch with the instruments. We were going around Coffin’s Patch, man.”