Storm Sail - A Connie Barrera Thriller: The 4th Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Connie Barrera Thrillers)

by Charles Dougherty

  "I thought I heard him whimper," Connie said, "or I could have just imagined it, from the way he was acting."

  "Yes. I caught that. You didn't imagine it."

  "Still think he's an ex-con?"

  "Without a doubt. Even without the tattoos, the body language gives it away."

  "What body language?"

  "Well, it's not just one thing. He's always on the alert; he gives the impression of always looking over his shoulder. He's self-effacing. And did you see the way he was hunched over his bowl? Like somebody might snatch his food. He's got a bunch of quirks like that; most cons have them. It's hard to describe."

  Connie nodded. "I think I see what you mean. The tattoos are really awful. They caught my attention earlier, when he was ... ah ... "

  "What?" Paul prompted her. "What was he doing?"

  "I'd forgotten; I meant to say something to you earlier about it. Have you noticed the sores on his arms?"

  "Yes. Typical of a methamphetamine addict. Besides being an ex-con, our boy's a druggie."

  "Does the drug cause that? He was picking at them while he was talking to me."

  "Yes. They call those scabby places 'meth mites,' or 'speed bumps,' or 'crank sores.' It's from a combination of things. The drug dries out the skin and causes an itching sensation. Then the users hallucinate and think they've got bugs crawling over their skin, and they pick at it. Sometimes, they tear at it or even cut themselves, like with knives, or broken glass. Guess they're trying to get rid of the bugs."

  "Yuck. He can't have had a fix for a while," Connie said. "Several days, at least. How long does this withdrawal business last?"

  "No telling. It varies all over the place. Every batch of the drug is different, with different contaminants and different side effects, and people don't all react the same way to it. This skin thing is a psychosis; it can go on independent of the drug, once it gets started. Same with other kinds of hallucinations."

  "Okay, but are we talking about days? Weeks?"

  "I'm just a cop; not a shrink, but I think sometimes it's damn near permanent."

  Connie frowned and shook her head. "That's awful. Why would somebody do that to themselves?"

  Paul shrugged. "Ask Dalton."

  "I don't think so." She was quiet for a moment. "Gina seems to be straight, don't you think?"

  "Except for the company she keeps, yes. But what on earth could a woman see in somebody like him?"

  "Good question, but I don't think I'll ask her. Not unless she brings it up, anyway."

  "Probably smart not to. This will be over in a few days. For us, at least."

  "Yes," Connie said. "That reminds me, I'm going to use our handheld GPS and get a fix, now that the weather's settled. Then we can make a better estimate of how long we do have before landfall. I'll be careful of the batteries."

  "Good idea," Paul said. "There's an extra pack of a dozen AA batteries in the drawer under the chart table, so go ahead and use the GPS as much as you need to."

  "That's a relief. I was worried about how long the batteries would last. You still leaning toward a landfall in the USVI?"

  "Yes. More now than before, since we've gotten a better look at those two. We may need all the help we can get with this. I mean, it would be one thing if we could have called the Coast Guard right away. It'll come out okay in the long run, but there'll be lots of questions, given how long we've had them aboard. Having some people who know me on the other end of a phone can't hurt."

  Connie nodded. "Paul?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Do you think he's dangerous?"

  "Not necessarily, but crank-heads are unpredictable. We need to keep an eye on him, just in case he suddenly sees us as monsters or something."

  "You okay? Want me to get you anything before I crash?" Connie asked, after a minute or two. "Hair's dry."

  "I'm fine. Sweet dreams."

  She slid over and kissed him on the cheek before she went below deck.

  "He's a fuckin' cop, Gina!"

  Gina snapped awake and rolled to her side, ready to scramble out of her berth. She froze when she came face to face with Dalton. He had a frantic, wide-eyed look. He was standing by her berth again, his face inches from hers.

  "Take it easy, baby. We'll be okay. It's just us and them." She saw him frown; that was good, he was thinking, trying to make sense of what she said. "How long have you been awake?"

  He shook his head. "I was asleep?"

  "You were hallucinating at the dinner table, and I brought you down. You crashed pretty hard."

  "When?"

  She stole a glance at the porthole, seeing that it was dark.

  "This afternoon, a few hours ago, I reckon. We were eatin' dinner up in the cockpit with Connie and Paul. Remember the gumbo he — "

  "He's a goddamn cop," he muttered.

  "Don't let on that you know; keep your voice down so they don't hear us, okay?"

  He turned his head, peering around the cabin. After several seconds, he turned back to face her, a conspiratorial smile on his face. "Good thinkin'. I forgot. Where are they, you reckon?"

  "Connie and Paul?" She wanted to make sure he wasn't hallucinating now.

  "Yeah. Who the hell else you think I mean?"

  Good. His normal, abusive personality was back, at least for the moment. With luck and care on her part, the paranoia should recede and the frequency of his hallucinations should decrease as time passed. "I reckon by now, Connie's prob'ly on watch and he's asleep."

  "How the fuck did the cops find me way out here?" he asked.

  That wasn't a good sign; he thought Paul was chasing him. He might not be hallucinating, but he didn't have his feet on the ground, either.

  "You sure he's a cop?" she asked, buying time to think.

  He looked over his shoulder again and leaned in close to whisper, "Fuckin'-A right, he's a cop. I can smell them bastards a mile away."

  "Think he made you?"

  "Yeah, he made me all right; cops can spot a con just as quick as t'other way 'round."

  "He may know you're a con, but he won't know who you are."

  He looked into the distance over her shoulder, his mind working on that. "They ain't got no radio," he said, finally.

  "That's right," she said. "No news from the States, and they been gone from Annapolis long as we have, so ain't no way they've heard about you."

  "You might be right 'bout that. Hope so. I ain't ready to try sailin' no boat like this on our own. We couldn't handle Blue Wing, and this un's lots bigger."

  "We wasn't ready for no storm, but we mighta been all right, 'ceptin' for that," she said.

  "I reckon, but it wasn't workin' out with Harry and Marilyn. He was startin' to get up my ass. Always correctin' me, bossin' me around."

  "Well, I don't think these folks're lookin' for us to help sail the boat, so you can just rest up for a while."

  "You mean, wait and let them get us in sight of land?" he asked, the familiar, evil grin creasing his cheeks.

  She felt relief sweep over her; he was tracking pretty well now. She just needed to keep him calm for a little longer. "Should get easier," she said, surprising herself. She had not meant to give voice to her thought.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Sorry," she said.

  He gripped her shoulder. "What should get easier?"

  Her mind raced. She didn't want to tell him that she meant it would get easier to manage him. Then it hit her. "The closer we get to shore, the easier it'll be for us to take over." She was relieved to feel his grip relax.

  "Yeah," he said. "Reckon we ought to start payin' attention to how they do all this shit, though."

  "When the time comes," she said, "we can just take them sails down and start the motor and drive on in, don't you think?"

  "Yeah, but we gotta figger out how to do that. I 'member Harry and me tryin' to take them damn sails down when the storm blowed up. And that boat weren't nowhere near big as this 'n'."

  "Reckon you're right,"
she said. "We better start payin' attention. You okay for a while?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I was wonderin' if you could get back to sleep."

  "Yeah. Why?"

  "You get some rest, then. I'm gonna nose a round a little, see what I can find. If Connie's on watch, I'll set up there and talk to her for a while, now we got our story put together. You know, try to act normal so they don't suspect nothin'."

  "Don't let that fuckin' cop catch you pawin' through their stuff, you hear?"

  "I won't. I ain't forgot how. And I ain't gonna take nothin', not yet. Ennyhow, it'd be kinda strange for me not to look around a little, don't you think?"

  "I guess. Be careful, though. We need 'em to keep sailin' this damn thing for a while longer. See if you can get her to tell you how long it's gonna be before we get somewhere." He yawned and sat down on the edge of his berth.

  She waited, listening to the sounds of the boat as it rolled along, the hiss of the water rippling down the side and the sigh of the breeze in the rigging. When Dalton started snoring softly, she swung her legs over the side of her bunk and lowered herself to the deck.

  Gina froze, her hand on a drawer pull. The sound had come from the cabin that was under the cockpit, the one that Paul and Connie shared. She sat down in the corner of the seat at the chart table, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. This was where she'd faked falling asleep after Connie fed her earlier; she put her head back and closed her eyes, listening. Finally, she heard soft snores coming from the aft cabin.

  Paul must have awakened for some reason, but he was out again, now. She decided to give it a few minutes to be sure. Paul's snores reminded her of Dalton. He'd always snored, even when they were kids. She sat up and shook her head, banishing the memories. None of them were good, not even the ones about Dalton.

  As the boat rolled, she felt her right elbow sliding across the surface of the chart table. She looked down and saw that her arm was on a sheet of paper, a nautical chart that was spread out on the table. She remembered old Harry ragging on them when they called the charts "maps." He'd been a pain about using the right names for stuff. That was one of the things that had set Dalton off. "Dickhead's on my ass 'bout ever'thing," he'd said, after one of Harry's lectures.

  A series of pencil marks on the chart caught her eye, and she cocked her head to see better in the dim red glow from the nightlight over the chart table. There was a line a few inches long, and close to one end there was a heavy dot with a small circle around it. She read the neat, hand-printed date and time notation, thinking that must show where they were. She'd ask Connie. She had checked when she first came out to see who was on watch, managing to peep out into the cockpit without being seen.

  Deciding that she'd explored enough for now, she got to her feet, timing her movement to the boat's roll. She caught the side of the companionway ladder with her left hand and steadied herself as her foot found the first step.

  "Hey, Connie," she said, as soon as she could see over the bridge deck. "Good mornin', I reckon."

  "Hi, Gina. Close enough to morning, I guess. Sunrise isn’t far away. Can't you sleep?"

  "Reckon I'm gettin' caught up. Dalton was a-snorin'. That don't usually bother me none, but I was just a-lyin' there awake, listenin' to him, and I decided to get up and visit a little, if 'n that's a' right."

  "Sure. Come on up; it's a beautiful night. I could use a cup of coffee. How about you?"

  "I reckon that'd be real nice. You want me to make it?"

  "You mind taking the helm for a minute?" Connie asked. "I know where everything is, and I could use a quick look at the chart while the water heats."

  "I can do that," Gina said, sliding onto the seat beside Connie. "You ain't usin' the autopilot?"

  Connie stood up, arching her back, stretching. "Lightning zapped it, along with the rest of our electronics."

  Gina put her hand on the helm. "I thought I seen you movin' around and lettin' her go by herself earlier. How'd you do that without no autopilot?"

  "She balances well under sail," Connie said, "especially on a beam reach. Your boat wouldn't track like that?" She backed down the companionway ladder as she watched Gina getting the feel of the helm.

  "Uh-uh. Wandered all over if you wasn't steerin'."

  "That's one of the differences in modern designs and the old-fashioned ones." She spoke softly, directing her words through the open porthole over the stove as she adjusted the stovetop rails to hold the kettle over the burner. Unlocking the gimbaled stove to allow it to swing on its pivots, she lit the burner. "Instant coffee okay with you?"

  "Sure. That's fine."

  "Want anything in it? Cream? Sugar?"

  "Black's good for me."

  "Me, too," Connie said, spooning the coffee into two mugs.

  While she waited for the water to heat, she turned to the chart table and looked at the clock. It had been two hours since she last plotted their position. She took the GPS out of the drawer and powered it on. As it searched for satellites, she heard the water start to boil.

  Turning back to the stove, she switched off the gas and poured the steaming water into the mugs. She passed one through the open porthole, holding it for a few seconds until Gina crabbed her way around the cockpit and took it.

  "Thanks," the girl said.

  "You're welcome. I'll be right up. I want to plot our position first."

  A couple of minutes later, she joined Gina in the cockpit. "How's everything up here?" Connie asked.

  "Beautiful," Gina said. "You figger out where we're at on that there chart?"

  "Yes. We're making good time, and right on course. Figure about 4 days until we see the Virgins, if this breeze holds."

  "Cool," Gina said, taking a sip of coffee. "I was wonderin' 'bout that."

  They passed a few minutes in silence, sipping coffee and admiring the stars. Connie watched the girl's face, her pleasure at the sight of the night sky plain to see. "Did you ever see so many stars?" Connie asked.

  "When I was real little, up on the ridge line where we lived, we'd get a view of the sky like this if they wasn't no clouds. Looked like you could reach out and snatch them stars right out of the sky. How 'bout you?"

  "No, never. There was always too much light pollution from the cities everywhere I lived. I didn't see stars like this until I started sailing a few years ago."

  "Weren't no cities 'round where I growed up. Not much of ennything, really, 'cept rocks and coal. Weren't even no 'lectricity within miles of us; no lights to spoil the view."

  "You said you grew up in Mingo County?"

  " Yes, ma'am. West-By-God Virginia. That's where I come from. Dalton, too."

  "I grew up in the farming country in California. It was flat and dirty. Crowded, too. Lots of cars zooming around, cities never far away. There was so much smog you couldn't even see the sky."

  "Never been there. Don't sound like a place I'd want to go, neither."

  “I’m not interested in going back, myself. How about Mingo County? Would you ever like to go back there?"

  "Naw. I mean, it's awful purty country, up in them hills. Down in the hollers, too, but it's dirt-poor livin'. Ain't nobody got any money, and the soil's too poor to grow much. Hard livin'. People got it rough, 'cept the rich folks. They's a few of them, mine owners, but they might as well be on a different planet, I reckon."

  "Sounds like you did well to escape, then," Connie said.

  "I reckon. Ain't nothin' there for me, not no more. Never was, really. I been on my own since my pappy died. I weren't but 13 then."

  "Did your parents have a farm?"

  Gina laughed, a hard, unpleasant sound. "Not hardly. Onliest crop they raised was young ‘uns."

  "I was an only child," Connie said. "My folks were poor, too. They were itinerant farm workers, and I got dragged all over the place. Wherever they were working. Sometimes there'd be other children, but mostly, I was alone. I always thought it would be fun to ha
ve lots of brothers and sisters."

  "Well, I dunno. I didn't have no brothers and sisters neither. Not really."

  "But I thought you said your folks raised 'young ‘uns.'"

  "Yeah, they did. Foster kids. They figgered out they could get paid for it, so that's what they did. It was pretty miserable, let me tell you. Want to hear 'bout why I run away?"

  "If you want to talk," Connie said. "We've got all night, and the company's nice. I'm a pretty good listener."

  "You're a real sweet lady, you know that? Ain't nobody else ever been interested in nothin' I had to say."

  "People all have interesting stories," Connie said. "You just have to listen. A friend of ours who writes says you have to listen as carefully to what people don't say as you do to the things they tell you."

  "A writer, huh. What kinda stuff does she write?"

  "He. Sea stories. Thrillers. You read much?"

  "Ain't never had the chance, but I'd like to. I kin read purty good, considerin'. Reckon one of these days I'll try me one of them books you read for fun, maybe. How 'bout you?"

  "Everything I can get my hands on. It's given me a whole different outlook."

  "Reckon maybe I'd like that. Havin' a different outlook on things, I mean. How 'bout I fix us another cup of this here coffee, and I'll tell you 'bout growin' up in Mingo County?"

  "Deal," Connie said, handing Gina her empty mug and resuming her position behind the helm.

  11

  Connie was wide awake, thinking about Gina's story.

  "What's new?" Paul asked, interrupting her musing.

  "Not much. Is it time already?" she asked, surprised to see him.

  "Yes. I double-checked; couldn't believe it when the alarm went off. You okay for a couple of minutes?"

  "Sure," she said. "Take your time. Make yourself a thermos of coffee; I'm fine."

  "You sound pretty chipper for a lady who's just finishing a four-hour night watch."

  "I had company; it helped keep me from getting drowsy."

  "Oh? Which one?"

  "Gina. She was in a talkative mood; said she'd caught up on her sleep."

  "Anything interesting on her mind?"

  "Well, yes. Get your coffee started and come up for a few minutes. I'll tell you all about it."