“Daan,” I said, “why don’t you tell us how long the Netherlands had been studying, planning, and diverting water to save your citizens from having to live in scuba gear?”
“Since the year 1000BC.”
Jaws dropped around the table.
❋
We moved camp to another spot on Lake Buchanan the day after our meeting with the LCRA brass, this time ending up on vacant land owned by the LCRA. We had to dry camp, but our Verizon coverage was great. High speed internet was so important to our project reporting that we had a back-up satellite system, but hadn’t had to use it so far.
We continued with our original game plan, waiting to hear anything different from headquarters. Not my problem. Yet.
Meanwhile, I had other stuff to deal with.
We were making zero progress locating Nacho or Jeff, and Becky was growing more frantic by the day.
Antoine was settling in at Stanford, but I was still conflicted over telling him exactly who his father was, and then dropping the bombshell on Jean Luc.
Part of me—the revenge part that wanted to shock Jean Luc’s sorry ass—picked up the phone several times to do just that. But the reasonable me felt ashamed that I would even think of using my son to do so. And then there was the selfish me that didn’t want to share Antoine with his father at all.
The last thing I’d said to Jean Luc in France before heading back to Mexico last year was, “We’ll always have Paris.” Which, of course, I stole from Casa Blanca. Little did I know at the time what happens in Paris doesn’t stay in Paris; right now he was in California.
I called Jenks and he advised not doing anything until the paternal DNA test results came back, then to call Jean Luc and get his reaction before telling Antoine who his father was.
What he didn’t say, bless his heart, was that maybe Jean Luc might deny everything. In which case, I would fly to France and strangle him, making Antoine a half-orphan. I did not share this with Jenks.
Jan agreed with Jenks, but then said I should maybe call Jean Luc and just ask him to come to the States without telling him anything, but I reminded her that Jean Luc might think I’d changed my mind about rekindling a fire that was dead to me. No way.
Mother and Daddy said I’d do the right thing. How long had they known me?
And then I received an email that changed my priorities, big time.
❋
The email started out so tamely that I figured it was one of those “thank you for your business” kinda things. I almost hit delete, when something caught my eye.
Thank you for using our yard, and we hope you will consider us again in the future. Please find attached your PAID IN FULL receipt, which included the launch of Raymond Johnson two days ago. Please note that we were unable to finish painting the bottom, but it is primed and will be easy to complete when you return. We already purchased the paint and will hold it for you.
Just as I was looking for my phone to call Jenks, he called me.
“Hetta, are you in Mexico, or Texas?”
“Texas.”
There was a pause. “Okay, then, did you have someone launch Raymond Johnson? Maybe take her back into your slip for some reason?”
“No. I thought maybe you did. What the hell is going on? They haven’t even painted the bottom yet, so it has to be a mix-up of some kind.”
“I’ll call the boatyard manager, but wanted to touch base with you first. Hang tight. I’ll get back to you in a jiffy.”
I hung up and slumped down into the passenger seat I use for my office chair in the RV, mulling over possible scenarios. Most of them bad. Best case, the entire email was a mistake, and another boat was launched. Worst case? I was seriously homeless.
I immediately accessed the documents I’d scanned and filed in my computer under the label: Shit happens. A sub-file for the insurance policy? Mega Shit Happens. I’d already ponied up the twenty bucks.
Reading the gobbledygook legalese concerning why they probably wouldn’t pay for anything short of my boat being eaten by a giant squid, one thing jumped out at me: the boatyard’s insurance should cover a loss if your boat is stolen. Yeah, like that was going to happen in Mexico. They don’t got no stinkin’ insurance, and even if they did, they rarely pay out.
We’ve seen boats topple due to shoddy boatyard practices, causing a domino effect of five or six boats laying on their sides and each other, and even though it was probably because of negligence on the yard’s side? Too bad, so sad.
We were working from the inflatable that day, so I put my phone into a waterproof pouch, and got busy doing what I was paid to do, but kept checking to make sure I hadn’t missed a text message or an email from Jenks.
“You are fatigued, Hetta?” one of the Nederlanders asked when I almost ran us aground.
“Sorry, guys. I’m a little distracted today. My boat in Mexico has gone missing.”
They bombarded me with questions, so I suggested we take a break for lunch. We anchored out a bit to catch a breeze and unpacked our sack lunches. While we ate, I told them about living aboard in the Sea of Cortez, that my boat had been in drydock for repairs, and someone took it. They were as confused as I was, but also impressed that I had a boat. The Dutch love boats, as most of them live below sea level. And Daan was raised on a canal boat, which was high on my bucket list after Jenks and I rented one in France to spend two weeks on the Canal du Midi. We’d discussed buying a narrow boat and cruising the rivers and canals of Europe one of these days.
During the rest of our break, we speculated as to how a boat could disappear out of a boatyard; it isn’t as though someone could back up a pickup, hook Raymond Johnson up to a bumper hitch, and take off.
Just as we were returning to work, my phone barked and I was relieved to see it was Jenks finally calling me back, hopefully to tell me the whole thing was a huge misunderstanding. It was almost midnight in Dubai. Way past Jenks’s bedtime. “Hey, you’re up late. I hope you have good news?” I said, trying to sound much more positive than I felt.
He sighed. “Yes and no.”
“Gimme the no part first. It’ll give me something to look forward to.”
“Two men showed up, one introduced himself as your boat captain, showed the office staff a letter from you telling them to release the boat to him immediately and, well, they did.”
“That’s pretty bad, alright. Why would they just let him have the boat? Letter or no.”
“That’s the good news part. The so-called captain said he would bring your boat back soon. And then, so they wouldn’t doubt he was who he said he was, he paid your quite substantial bill. In cash. And, added a sizeable tip.”
“I don’t even know what to say.”
“That’s a first,” Jenks teased. Then he added, “There’s more.”
“And me stuck out on a lake with not a single beer to my name.”
“I asked the office manager to describe the captain and the other guy. He did, in great detail. They were big tippers and made no effort to disguise themselves.”
“And?”
“They have a security camera in the office, so the office manager sent me a clip. Your bogus captain is non-other than Nacho, and I don’t recognize the Gringo who was with him, but I’m sending you a text message with his photo. The images are a little grainy, but maybe you can figure him out.”
❋
Back at the RV, I made myself a stiff commiserative Captain Morgan and Coconut and Pineapple Bai, then went outside and waited for Jan and Becky to arrive with dinner. They were running late and I had a little buzz going by the time they showed.
After my nightly reunion with Po Thang, he and Scruffy took off for the lake, and Jan and Becky produced a bottle of wine to complement our lamb chops. I fired up the communal campsite grill and while our dinner cooked, I told my friends I had an announcement to make.
“I wondered what you were celebrating, Miss Hetta. You started without us.”
“Yes. Yes, I did.”
“Nacho and Jeff stole my boat.”
Their mouths dropped open.
Jan recovered first. “Well crap, Hetta, you just gotta learn not to beat around the bush. Ya know, get right to the crux of the situation.”
Chapter Sixteen
After I dropped it on Jan and Becky that Nacho and Jeff were not-only together, but had stolen my boat from the La Paz boatyard, Jan had to bring Becky up to snuff on exactly who her fiancé was hanging out with. Or at least as far as we knew.
“So, this Nacho, who has been involved with you two in several situations, as you call them, is a good guy, right? I mean if you overlook the fact that he threatened to kill Jenks and Hetta over a can of gasoline, and then kidnapped you and Hetta. After that somewhat shaky start, you’ve become friends?”
Jan flourished a palm-up hand toward me. “You take this, Chica.”
I shrugged. “Friend is such an over-used word. Let’s just say we now sort-of trust him.”
“So, this guy you trust just stole your boat?”
“Yeah, well, he’s a friend in a criminal kind of way.”
Becky shook her head in obvious disbelief. “I’m having a lit’tle problem grasping that concept.”
“Oh, really?” Jan asked, her voice dripping sarcasm. “Hell, girl. You don’t even know what Jeff does for a living, and you’re engaged to him.”
“Not for long after this little stunt,” Becky growled. “The last thing I need in my life, which has finally gotten back to normal, is a man I can’t trust.”
I couldn’t argue with that; I trust Jenks without a single qualm. And I certainly couldn’t say I’d ever known another man, short of my father, that I could say that about.
Jan was having similar thoughts. “Chino is a rock. And so is Jenks, so we aren’t exactly ones to give advice about Jeff, but I’ll say this, even though his job is a little on the suspicious side, I have a feeling, from what you’ve told me, that he’s either a good guy, or a very good actor.”
Becky let out a ragged sigh. “Oh, just great. So, Hetta, what are you gonna do about your boat?”
“Not much I can do. I certainly am not going to sic the Mexican navy or US Coast Guard on Nacho and Jeff. I just hope they don’t manage to sink Raymond Johnson. I guess the good news is that everything that can go wrong already has?”
“Oh, Hetta,” Jan said, “you know better than that. With you, everything always gets worse.”
As it turned out, she was soooo right; things went wonky in a hurry.
Jan announced she was leaving, since she had to get back to the Baja and finalize details for Chino’s kayak expedition, which was already assembling in the northern end of the Sea of Cortez.
Nacho, Jeff, and my boat were nowhere to be found.
I got into a kerfuffle with the American A-hole on our study team and had him sacked, which bit me in the butt when he went to the press with his version of how the Dutch were able to do such wonders with flood control: the government just took the land they needed.
The media, never known to let a good story get screwed up by facts, jumped on his bombastic press conferences in which he painted me as the Benedict Arnold of Texas.
Our project was summarily put on hold.
So, in short order, it seemed I had no job, no place of my own to live, and no money coming in to pay for one.
Oh, and I’d gained three pounds.
❋
“It could be worse, Hetta,” Jan said as I drove her to the Austin airport. “After all, Nacho at least paid off your boatyard bill when he stole your boat.”
“Gee thanks, Pollyanna.”
“You could go stay at the whale camp,” Jan said. “We’ll be gone, but Flaco will be there.”
“What will I do with Trouble? Mom and Dad are getting ready to pack up their RV and take off for Canada, so I can’t leave him with them. And I absolutely will not give him back to Aunt Lil.”
“Why not? He was her bird to start with.”
“He doesn’t like her.”
“How do you know?”
“He calls her a pinche puta.”
“Ha! Okay, then why don’t you just stay at your parents’ house while they’re gone?”
“They’re having a huge indoor remodel done. That’s why they’re leaving early.”
“Looks like our whale camp is your best bet.”
“Maybe, but that means I’ll have to smuggle Trouble across the border three times. South, then North when the project resumes, and then South again.”
“You’re right, that’s pushing the odds of getting caught. How sure are you that your study will start again. Our fellow Texans are pretty riled up by your favorite hydrologist.”
“That A-hole. Not only did he get us shut down, he’s now on the payroll, as an expert, for the opposition.”
“Want me to take him out before I leave? I have,” she checked out her watch, “an extra hour if we don’t stop at Rosies.”
“Lemme think. Tamales or vigilante justice. I must be getting old, cuz I vote for tamales.”
❋
After I dropped Jan off at the airport, I attended a meeting with my team about our future. We’d been told we were on hold as far as field work, but we weren’t sure what came next.
“Looks like you’re all gonna get a paid vacation,” Chuck, our contact at the LCRA told us. “The numbers crunchers figgered out that to regroup, pay airfares again, and all that will cost more than putting y’all out to pasture for a month. And, if you wanna pay for your own gas and such, you can keep the RVs. Wouldn’t want it said we throwed a bunch of Dutch hydrologists out on the street.”
“Hey, what about me?” I asked.
“Sorry, Hetta, I meant you too, but since you’re hourly, we’re gonna have to put you on a forty-hour week and cut your rate in half, if you’ll agree to it.”
It didn’t take me any time at all to do the math. Forty hours a week at a hundred dollars an hour? Not to work? I glumly agreed, trying not to break out in a happy dance.
“Okay, then, you’re all free to roam at will, but let us know where you are. We do need to get a final wrap up on your findings, so get everything to Hetta by…” he looked at me.
“End of this week okay?”
Everyone nodded. Then I addressed the elephant in the room. “How about Donnie, the jerk?”
“Oh, we double-fired his sorry butt. He’ll never work for us again.”
We all clapped and cheered, but somehow I was certain we hadn’t seen the last of Donnie. Maybe I’d use some of my down time to keep tabs on him.
After the meeting, I had just parked at my parents’ house when I received a text that changed everything. Again.
The text was from my friend, Gypsy, who lives in Punta Chivato, a beach community just south of Santa Rosalia and north of Mulege, on the Sea of Cortez. And she attached a photo taken through a telephoto lens. The text said, Hey there, Chica. Is that you going by out there? Why didn’t you stop in? You are so busted!!!
The photo was of my boat, Raymond Johnson, cruising northward, with the very recognizable Isla Tortuga in the background. It was a long distance shot, but I know my boat when I see it.
I sent Gypsy an answer. “Sorry, I’m in Texas. Sure wish I was there.”
Not exactly a lie, but I didn’t want any heroics on the part of my friends. If I told them my boat had been stolen, they’d round up a posse of fishing boats, and maybe even send up an airplane.
As I was walking into the house, Jenks called. “Hey, Red. I’ve got news!”
“So do I. You go first.”
“I turned on the GPS tracker on Raymond Johnson yesterday and it finally started up today and I’m getting intermittent signals. I’ve gotten a couple of hits, one off of Loreto. And another just now, south of Santa Rosalia. Looks like your boat is making a beeline north.”
“Yep, she sure is. I got a text from my buddy, Gypsy, at Chivato. She managed to get a lo
ng distance photo of my boat. Not that I can tell who’s on board, but it was Raymond Johnson, for sure.”
“Do you remember how much diesel you had in the tanks when you hauled out?”
“I do, because I got the bad news from el mecánico after that last trip out when I realized she was running rough, so to lighten the load for the haul-out, I didn’t refuel like I normally do.”
“Yes, rule number one with diesel engines; keep the tanks topped off. So, ballpark estimate is the boat has a little over two hundred gallons? Maybe two-twenty five?”
“Yep, and we always figured about a gallon per engine per hour at cruising speed, which is conservative since we rarely went that fast, but I still use that estimate to be safe. So, unless Nacho refueled in La Paz, he’d have to take on fuel at Puerto Escondido, or push on to Santa Rosalia. I wouldn’t take a chance on it, myself.”
“Well, they did. The crew at the boatyard said Raymond Johnson headed straight out toward the islands, and didn’t double back into La Paz for fuel. Then, I got a reading as they passed PE and they were five miles off the coast. And with a sighting off Chivato they’ll pull into Santa Rosalia pretty soon. They have to get fuel there if they’re headed anywhere at all.”
“Gotta call Jan, I’ll get right back to you!”
I crossed my fingers until she answered. “Hey, just about to board the plane for Loreto. Ya miss me already?”
“Sure do, but that’s not why I called. It looks like Raymond Johnson will be pulling into Santa Rosalia any minute now. If I remember correctly, your Tijuana to Loreto flight arrives in Loreto around two, and flies fairly low over Santa Rosalia on approach to Loreto. See if you can spot my boat, okay?”
“I sure will. Wow, this is exciting.”
“Don’t do anything until you talk to me.”
“What am I gonna do, Chica? Drop a Margarita bomb on them when we fly over?”
I wish you could. Right on Nacho’s thievin’ head.”
“I’ll do it in person. I drive right by the marina on the way to the fish camp, ya know.”
Just a Happy Camper Page 9