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

by Charles Dougherty

  Vincent was writing notes; Connie and Paul waited until she looked up. "And how did you overpower him?"

  "Gina told me he was planning to rape me; that I should watch myself. I decided to take the initiative, choose my own time for a confrontation. I slowed the boat down to keep us close to the Virgins, and then I picked a time when she was steering. I was in the cockpit with her, and he was below. He had Paul bound and gagged in the saloon. I stripped off my clothes and called out to him; when he looked up, I threw my underwear at him and taunted him into coming after me. I said everything I could think of to make him angry and waited until he came at me in a rage. I hit him with a winch handle a couple of times."

  "You're a gutsy lady," Vincent said.

  "I was thoroughly pissed off at him and I had nothing to lose."

  "Well, I guess. I'm not sure I'd have had the nerve to provoke him like that. Where was Gina in all of this?"

  Paul and Connie exchanged glances.

  "I mean, was she part of his plot to hijack the vessel, or not?" Vincent asked.

  "We wondered about their relationship the whole time," Connie said.

  "She seemed to be under his spell," Paul said, "and she didn't exactly come across as the clean-cut girl next door, but there was something about her that didn't fit with being his sidekick in all this, either."

  "She had moments when she projected a kind of child-like innocence," Connie said. "She'd known him all her life, and she put up with all kinds of horrible abuse from him. Paul and I couldn't figure it out."

  "Couldn't figure what out?" Vincent asked, scribbling on her clipboard.

  "Why she was with him. She claimed he forced her to come on this sailing trip, but it didn't quite add up. She seemed relieved when I knocked him out, though. She said, 'Thank God it's over,' or something like that. And she yelled at him to stop when he was attacking me. But I guess neither one of us ever quite trusted her. I don't know what else to tell you."

  "What I'm getting is that you didn't trust her, but that she didn't do anything overt. She didn't take part in hijacking the vessel. Is that right?"

  "Yes, I think that's a fair assessment," Connie said, looking at Paul.

  "I agree. She didn't do anything wrong, but she didn't quite seem right. After 20-odd years as a cop, my gut kept warning me that something was off about her."

  "Okay. That's helpful. I think we're about done here, but we may need to get in touch with you for some follow-up. I know you don't have any working communications gear aboard, but I'm guessing you're going to get that all fixed in St. Martin."

  "Yes, that's right," Connie said. "We should be there sometime tomorrow morning; we're going to cheat and run the engine so we don't have to beat into the wind the whole way. Can you treat this like some kind of float plan? Like if you don't hear from us by, say, noon tomorrow, you'll know we're in trouble?"

  "Sure. I can set that up. Are you going to use your cellphone to call us, once you're in St. Martin?"

  "Right," Connie said. "I'll give you the number."

  "I need a signature by the 'X'. If you don't mind, just write the number on there and print your full names under the signature." She handed Connie the clipboard.

  When Connie handed it back, Vincent looked down at Connie's signature and nodded. She stood up. "Billy, wave the RB-S over," she said, standing up.

  "You folks have a safe voyage, and please don't forget to call us by noon tomorrow." She and her companion stepped aboard the response boat, which had pulled within a foot of Diamantista II's starboard quarter. She turned to face them and gave a wave as the RB-S pulled away into the darkness.

  25

  "What say we stop at the yacht club and have breakfast?" Paul asked, as they got in their dinghy at the police station in St. Martin. He had been standing outside, on the phone with the Coast Guard, cancelling their float plan. Connie had been inside handling the clearance paperwork.

  "Great," Connie said. "I'm ravenous. We got so wound up last night that I forgot I missed dinner."

  "But we've had several peanut butter sandwiches since then." He thought for a minute. "Did you get anything to eat while Dalton had me tied up below?"

  "Yes, Gina fixed sandwiches. How about you?"

  "No," Paul said. "They didn't ... Gina fixed sandwiches?"

  "Yes, while I was steering. She — "

  "Damn it!" Paul said.

  Connie paused as she was about to start the outboard and looked over at him. "What?"

  "It just came back to me when you mentioned her fixing sandwiches."

  "What, Paul?"

  "Did you notice a cut? On her left hand, it would have been?"

  "No," Connie said, a puzzled frown on her face. "Why?"

  "She set me up! She was working in the galley and Dalton was steering. She called out to me for help, said she'd sliced her hand making a sandwich. She held it up to show me, had a dishtowel wrapped around it. I started down the companionway, and the lights went out."

  "I didn't see any cut. No bandage, either," Connie said.

  "Neither did I. I'd better call the Coast Guard back and give them a heads up. I think she was working us all along."

  "Think you can call from the club? I'm really hungry."

  "Sure. Let's go. Maybe I'll remember more on the way."

  Ten minutes later, their waitress brought their breakfast. As she set the steaming plates down, Paul's cellphone rang; he had left a message with the Coast Guard in St. Thomas.

  "Paul Russo," he said, sliding the icon on the screen of his phone. He touched the speakerphone icon and set the phone on the table between them.

  "Lt. Russo?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Chief Warrant Officer John O'Malley with the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service. I got a message that said you had some more information on Gina Smith."

  "Good. Before I get started, you're on the speaker, and Connie Barrera's with me. You okay with that?"

  "Sure. Both of you feel free to tell me whatever comes to mind. What do you have on the Smith woman?"

  Paul explained what he had remembered.

  "Okay, thank you, sir. Ms. Barrera, did you notice a wound or bandage on her hand?"

  "No," Connie said.

  "All right. Thanks for calling in; wish you had noticed last night, but I understand you took a pretty good crack on the head. Glad you're okay, but the horse has left the barn already."

  "What are you saying?" Paul asked.

  "Gina Smith skipped out on us. One of the folks from the RB-S brought her to the hospital where we took Dalton Evans. They had her in a private lounge, waiting for one of my folks to get over there and question her, and she asked for food. She was alone for all of about thirty seconds; the vending machines were only a few steps from the lounge, but that's all it took."

  "She's looking pretty suspicious, isn't she, Chief?" Paul said, frowning.

  "Yes, sir. She is that. Do you know if she had any money? There was no reason for them to search her; she wasn't under arrest. Based on what you told Vincent last night, we weren't sure what her role was."

  "I understand," Paul said. "But we don't know, either. Seems unlikely, but she could have had something concealed on her person, I guess."

  "Well, thanks again for calling in. She'll probably turn up; St. Thomas isn't all that big, and we're putting the word out to the local police. Call me direct if you think of anything else; I'll probably be calling you two from time to time over the next few days."

  "Will do," Paul said, and disconnected the call.

  He and Connie finished their breakfast in silence, eager to get on with organizing the repairs to their electronics. When the waitress brought the check, Paul said, "Can you get this? I forgot to get any cash from you after you went to the ATM in Annapolis."

  "No problem," Connie said, reaching into her shoulder bag for her wallet. She flipped it open and her face went pale. "That little scumbag! The $500 I got in Annapolis is gone."

  "You didn't noti
ce when you paid the harbor fees?" Paul asked.

  "I used the card, like always, so we'd have a record for the books. I guess Dalton went through my purse. I'd forgotten she said he got into the lockbox." She ran a finger down into one of the card slots in her wallet. "This doesn't make sense. The key to the box is still here. Seems unlikely he'd have put it back."

  "He probably didn't find the key. He could have picked the lock on that box," Paul said. "Let's get back to the boat and give everything a thorough going-over. Either one of them could have taken the money, or anything else, I guess."

  Paul and Connie were eating a light lunch in Diamantista II’s cockpit. They had spent the time since breakfast fielding questions from their insurance agent and several electronics shops

  "Well," Paul said, "we're lucky all the parts for the repairs are in stock on the island."

  "Yes," Connie said. "I guess we'll be back in business by day after tomorrow. Have you heard back from O'Malley?"

  "No," Paul said. He had called John O'Malley after they had gotten back to the boat to tell him about the missing cash, but had found that he was unavailable. Paul had left a message requesting a callback, but had not given any further details. He had expected that they would complete their search of the boat and could tell O'Malley if anything else was missing by the time he returned the call.

  While he did that, Connie had called their insurance agent and started the claim process. They had both been surprised at the speed of response from the local electronics vendors, and had been distracted by their questions and visits.

  "Let's see if the earrings are here," Connie said. "I'll open the lockbox. Can you think of anything else worth stealing?"

  "No," Paul said. "But while you do that, I'll strip the beds. We might as well get laundry done while we're waiting on the electronics; I feel like we need to fumigate the crew’s cabin after those two, anyway."

  "Paul?" Connie called, a few minutes later.

  "Yes?" Paul was bundling up their dirty laundry.

  "The lockbox is empty, and I don't see any sign of the manila folder or the earrings."

  "Okay. Did you toss their cabin?"

  "No. You were working in there."

  They both went into the amidships cabin. Paul lifted the mattress on the bottom bunk as Connie ran her hands under the edges.

  "Nothing," she said.

  They repeated the process with the upper bunk. "Here's the folder," Connie said, "and the little bag the earrings were in, but no sign of them."

  "Let's try O'Malley again," Paul said.

  "Should I make us a pot of coffee first?"

  "Go ahead. I'll see if I can get him on the horn."

  Paul sat down at the saloon table and placed the call on his speaker phone. To his surprise, O'Malley himself answered.

  "Hello, Lt. Russo. Sorry for the delay; I just got back to the office; I was down at the police station, picking up our friend Gina."

  "So they caught her?" Connie asked, joining Paul at the table.

  "She caught herself," O'Malley said. "I'll tell you about it, but you called first. What's on your mind?"

  Paul told him about the missing money and earrings.

  O'Malley's laughter poured from the phone's speaker. "Sorry," he said. "Looks like your instincts about her were right. She had four crisp hundred dollar bills and a pocket full of smaller change — probably around $450 total."

  "That makes sense," Connie said. "I had five new $100 bills, fresh from an ATM in Annapolis."

  "You said she caught herself," Paul said.

  "Yep, but first, about those earrings ... "

  "They aren't important," Connie said. "They're worth less than the money she took, by quite a bit."

  "I'm relieved to hear that," O'Malley said. "I was afraid she was still ahead of us, somehow."

  "I don't follow you," Paul said.

  "She took them to a pawn shop in Charlotte Amalie," O'Malley said. "When the pawn broker told her he couldn't give her but $25 for them, she pitched a fit. I mean screaming, kicking, clawing his face. The woman in the sandwich shop next door called the police, thought it was a robbery or something."

  Connie and Paul chuckled. "That's a pretty low price," Connie said. "I'd be upset, too. They were worth at least two or three times that. They were first quality cubic zirconium stones, and the settings alone cost me a hundred bucks."

  "She's raving about a safety deposit box full of diamonds in Martinique worth millions of dollars," O'Malley said. "Said she saw the appraisals herself."

  Connie gave Paul a sharp glance and shook her head. "Maybe she spent some of the cash on drugs. I do have two sets of real diamond earrings that look just like the ones she stole. I'm afraid they aren't worth millions, but they're not junk jewelry, either. They're in my safety deposit box, and the appraisal was stored with the fakes."

  "We'll return those earrings and the cash, at some point. I'll send you a receipt for now, if you'll get me an email address. We'll probably need them for evidence, I'm guessing, assuming we charge these two with something."

  "What's the story on Dalton?" Paul asked.

  "He's had surgery to relieve the pressure in his skull, and he's in a medically induced coma for now. You know doctors; they won't commit to anything, but they say he might recover. There's not any permanent damage that they can see, but they never know with a head injury like that, I guess. They said wait and see."

  "Any word on his escape?" Paul asked. "Or even who he is?"

  "One of my techs printed him a couple of hours ago. The hospital wouldn't let us near him earlier. We got hers, too, when she got herself arrested for disorderly conduct, so we're sending them up the line. We should know something eventually. I'm sure you know how fast that stuff moves, Lieutenant."

  "Amen," Paul said. "Why don't you give us your email, and we'll send you one as soon as we get ourselves back on line. That way, we'll know our email is working again; it's tied to our satcom."

  "Sounds good to me. It's John.Omalley@USCG.mil, with no apostrophe after the 'O.' You folks stay safe. Look forward to hearing from you."

  "Nice to have everything working again," Connie said. The repairs had taken a day and a half, leaving them yesterday afternoon to rest. This morning, they were headed for Martinique. She played the throttle and the shift lever to hold them in position while they waited for the 9:00 a.m. drawbridge opening so that they could leave Simpson Bay Lagoon.

  "And it only took two days," Paul said. "Being anchored in the lagoon is convenient."

  "We didn't lose much by waiting." Connie picked up her iPad, turning it to show Paul the wind/wave charts that she had downloaded a few minutes earlier from the NOAA website. "The wind's settled in at 15 to 20 out of the northeast for the next several days — couldn't have a better forecast."

  "Should I call O'Brien or O'Malley while we still have cell service and see what's new?" Paul asked.

  "You know," she said, "unless your curiosity is more than you can stand, I'd rather you didn't. Bill said he was coming to Martinique for the wedding, right?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, he can tell us all about it when he gets there."

  Paul raised his eyebrows and tilted his head. "You don't want to know?"

  "I really don't. Not right now, anyway. We have two or three days of glorious sailing ahead of us. Why spoil it thinking about them? Dalton's a monster, and Gina's ... I don't quite know how I feel about her. I'm stunned by her thievery. I alternate between being angry that she stole from us and being angry that I fell for her con."

  "If it was a con," Paul said.

  "What do you mean? She took our money and the earrings."

  "She was desperate, Connie, with no clue what was going to happen to her. Whatever her relationship was with him, she'd lost everything. We'd already decided that we'd give them a few hundred dollars, and the earrings were fakes. If she had asked — "

  "But she didn't know that, the conniving little ... damn it, Paul! This is exactly
why I didn't want you to call." Connie's dark eyes flashed as she shook her hair back and put it in a ponytail. "Now I'm irritated all over again. And I can't believe you're making excuses for her."

  "I can't either. I'm sorry. You've got the right idea; let's put it behind us."

  "There goes the bridge." Connie shifted into forward gear and opened the throttle.

  Diamantista II surged forward, the first vessel through the draw. Connie gave the bridge tender a friendly wave and throttled back to cruising speed as they cleared the dredged channel and entered Simpson Bay.

  "We've got time for a cup of that coffee before we make sail," she said. “I'd like to get clear of Pelican Point and see how the wind is."

  Paul filled two mugs from the thermos and passed her one. "We'll be in St. Martin's wind shadow for an hour, at least," he said. "Might as well put on the autopilot and relax. Thermos is still half-full."

  "Which way do you think we should go?" Connie asked. "North of St. Kitts and Nevis and then around Montserrat? Or the rhumb line for the south end of Martinique?"

  "You're the one who's been watching the weather. What's your best guess? The wind going to hold out of the northeast like NOAA says, or is it going to clock?"

  She shrugged. "Who knows? These are the same people who overlooked the hurricane."

  "The rhumb line will be faster, as long as the wind holds out of the northeast," Paul said.

  "You're right. We could shave a day off our trip that way."

  "Okay, then," Paul said.

  "I vote for sailing close-hauled. Let's go to the windward of Montserrat," Connie said. "Then we'll fall off onto a broad reach and scream down the islands."