Cliff Hanger

by Mary Feliz

  “We’re fine,” Max said. “Let’s get inside where we’ve got light and warmth. I’ll fill you in. You need to wash out those eyes.” He took the bottle of window washing fluid from me and scanned the label. “Looks like this stuff won’t do any permanent damage to your vision, but we’ll call poison control to make sure that a good rinsing is all your eyes need.

  “But what about them?” I asked, tilting my head toward the three men crumpled on the beach. They stirred and Munchkin growled, the hair on his back standing up in a ridge like a Mohawk.

  “Leave them to Rocket, Stephen, and Munchkin. They’ve got this.”

  Stephen dragged the men to their feet, and they lurched over the sand in the dark. With their hands cuffed behind their backs, their balance was off, and they stumbled frequently. One cried out as he banged his shin on the steps. I almost felt sorry for him.

  We waited until they crested the top of the stairs before we started back to the condo. “Rocket fired the shot,” Max said. “Blanks. He was trying to get the smugglers to focus on something other than you, silhouetted by the security light.”

  I winced. “That was stupid of me. I was so focused on getting help that I forgot about the sensors.”

  “No harm. No foul,” Max said, reaching out his hand to help me up, and we trudged over the dunes to our condo.

  “Where’s Stephen taking them?” I asked.

  “Gatehouse. Waiting for the sheriff’s men.”

  “Yeah, about that. It might be awhile.” I waited until we returned to the condo and had removed our shoes and damp jackets before explaining about the multiple emergencies that were delaying the first responders. I made tea and toast, which we ate, barely noticing what we were doing. We sat without talking. Though questions flitted through my head, I was too tired to utter a coherent thought. I would have fallen into bed if I’d had the energy to stand and walk the few feet separating me from my pillow.

  We must have left the front door unlocked, because Stephen knocked softly and then entered, collapsing into the only empty chair in the living room. Munchkin padded silently after him, sniffed a hello to Belle, and flopped at his feet with a sigh.

  “Rocket’s got them,” Stephen said, echoing Munchkin’s sigh with one of his own. “We locked Oh-Oh in a back room, and his sidekicks are so scared that they’re telling us everything. They’re just kids. They’ll need to repeat it all to the sheriff, of course, but Rocket’s listening carefully. If their story changes, he’ll know.

  “Have you learned anything so far?” I asked, yawning before I could cover my mouth or apologize. I started an epidemic. When we’d recovered, Stephen summarized the kids’ confession.

  “The kids are working for Diego Baker,” Stephen said.

  “The traditional farmer with the fields south of the organic farm and the barn,” I clarified.

  “They’re smuggling, but they say they don’t know what they’re bringing in,” Stephen said. “They meet a fishing boat twice a week. The boat drops a pallet. It floats. One of them tows it behind the kayak until they bring it up on the beach, break up the load, and they both carry the packages uphill to the barn.”

  “What’s the connection to Jake’s death?” I asked. “And Mrs. Nesbitt’s mysterious packages?”

  Stephen shook his head. “We’re not sure yet. We didn’t want to slow their roll or give them a chance to think about the consequences of telling us everything. So, we didn’t ask questions.” He cleared his throat and took a sip of his tea. “But, right now anyway, it looks like there’s no connection between Jake and the smuggling. And I’m still waiting for the labs on Mrs. Nesbitt’s piece of the puzzle.”

  Stephen stood and brushed sand from his jeans. He looked down, froze, and blushed. “Sorry about the mess,” he said.

  “Don’t worry about it. I think I brought in half the dune on my shoes. It’ll vacuum up tomorrow.”

  * * * *

  In the morning, I was awakened by a phone call from the district attorney’s office saying that something had come up and our deposition was now scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. I hoped the delay was a result of the workload generated after authorities rounded up the smuggling ring. I was glad for the reprieve, since there was so much we still didn’t know about what had happened to Jake, except of course that Brian and David had nothing to do with his death.

  I talked it over with Max. “The most reasonable explanation I can think of is that Jake saw something he shouldn’t have, and someone tried to scare him off, or worse, killed him.”

  “Tampering with an aircraft is a felony,” said Max. “And any death that occurs during the commission of a felony is charged as murder. Even if the culprit only meant to scare Jake by hobbling the ultralight, that person is now a murderer.” Max spoke with conviction, though I knew his only legal background came from television. As a result, his store of expertise was a mixture of American military and civilian laws, along with a pinch of British, Australian, and New Zealand legal precedents. A broad smattering of knowledge from dubious sources, to be sure.

  I continued brainstorming. “Even if we’ve nailed the smuggling ring, it doesn’t explain the missing memory cards from Jake’s camera.”

  “Jake could have taken pictures of something incriminating without knowing what he’d done,” Max said. “Or someone could have suspected that he had. Wouldn’t be the first time some innocent person was killed for no reason.”

  I frowned. “I hate that idea.”

  “Real life is never as tidy as it is on television.”

  “Sorry. I just wish it were as easy as Gibbs and his team make it look on NCIS. There are never any annoying loose ends.” I cradled my coffee mug and inhaled the steam. “So, you think we should discard the traditional motives?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Follow the money. Cherchez la femme.”

  “Hmm. Greed and lust. How would that play out?”

  “Jen’s beautiful and accomplished. Could someone have wanted her for themselves?”

  “Himself, you mean?”

  “Or herself.”

  “Good point,” Max said. “We don’t know much about Jen or her friends. Does she have family? Could one of them have been retaliating against Jake for hurting her with the breakup? For sending her far away to graduate school?”

  I thought for a moment and then outlined what might have been the strategy of our imaginary villain. “Jen said she’d offered to apply to a local university and wait a year. Jake wasn’t ready to commit. So, Jen looked to the East Coast and Southern California, making it Jake’s fault that she’s considering a move. If our killer had romantic designs on Jen, getting Jake out of the way would have served the dual purpose of keeping her in town and removing Jake as a competitor for Jen’s attention.

  “And what about money?”

  Max’s question stumped me. “Aside from ill-gotten smuggling gains that would be at risk if Jake spilled key evidence to the authorities, I don’t know of any financial angle on this case, do you? It’s not like Jake was getting buckets of money from lucrative grants that would go to someone else if he wasn’t around. He hadn’t nabbed a plum job that someone else wanted. People don’t murder others over jobs at the Jumping Bean or Starbucks, do they? Or graduate assistantships?”

  Max shook his head and we went back to reading the paper and sipping our coffee. As soon as the kids were up, though, we wanted to check out the beach and the barn, and see what we could piece together about events that had unfolded after we’d gone to bed.

  Brian wasn’t up to the long hobble on his crutches and elected to stay home. David, Belle, Max and I set off.

  Tide and the wind had obliterated any footprints that had been left in the sand near the shoreline the night before. Only tire tracks from Charlie’s truck and remnants of the deep pits the boys had dug remained as reminders of the previous even
ing’s activities.

  “Looks like we almost caught something else,” David said, pointing to twin wheel tracks. They narrowly skirted the edge of the pit.

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. “We’d waste the morning digging out the ranger, probably get the bill for a broken axle, and he’d never let you or any other kids spend the night on the beach.”

  David looked crestfallen.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Was that too much of a reality check this early in the morning?” David stuck out his lower lip and adopted the expression of an unhappy bloodhound. I gave him a hug. “Too much melodrama, too,” I teased. “Don’t push it.”

  David laughed and raced ahead to catch up with Belle who was chasing seagulls.

  There was little wind. The beach was warmer than it had been for several days. I unzipped my windbreaker and then stripped off my sweatshirt, tying them both around my waist. David and Belle played in the waves, so Max and I headed up the cliff face toward the barn. Cliff face might have been too dramatic a description for the steep hill, but after a sleepless night, my muscles responded as though we scaled a precipice. “An escalator here would be nice,” said Max. I didn’t have enough spare breath to laugh. I grunted instead.

  David caught up with us at the top. “Let’s keep our voices down,” I said. “We don’t know who else is around.”

  “Surely the police and the sheriff rounded up all the bad guys last night,” Max said. “Who could be left?”

  We made our way along a dirt path at the side of the barn. I nearly slammed into Max’s back when he stopped dead before rounding the corner.

  “Shh!” he said, raising a finger to his lips and putting Belle on a short leash. I peered over his shoulder and gasped. A mere thirty feet beyond our hiding place, Diego Baker stood speaking with Renée. Our Renée. Our friend. Renée and Diego, the bad guy who the teens had fingered as the ringleader of the smuggling operation only a few hours earlier. Between them was Brian, his face a dreadful gray-green shade. Renée and Diego scowled at him and gripped his arms, holding him captive between them.

  What was Brian doing here?

  Chapter 26

  For repetitive tasks such as vacation packing, keep a master list on your computer to make it easier each time. Adjust the list as you fine tune your needs. Online packing lists are available, but they are often more complex than necessary. Avoid them if you tend to overpack.

  From the Notebook of Maggie McDonald

  Simplicity Itself Organizing Services

  Sunday, June 23, Late morning

  I ducked back from the corner of the barn, but I was too late. Renée and Diego had spotted us.

  “Max. Maggie,” called Renée. “Come on over. We have news.”

  We sheepishly emerged from our hiding place. Only Belle remained unembarrassed. She pulled on the leash until Max let it go and she bounded toward Renée, sniffing at her pockets for treats and wagging her tail so hard her entire body shimmied.

  Diego knelt down, rubbing Belle’s chest. “What a good dog. Where’ve you been all my life, gorgeous? Did you know I’m partial to auburn hair?” He looked up and his face reddened. “I’m a sucker for a golden retriever,” he said. “I had one as a kid. It’s time for another one.”

  Belle’s endorsement of Renée and Diego’s warm doggy greeting disarmed me. Could I have misread the situation? Had Renée and Diego been supporting Brian rather than capturing and threatening him?

  “Are you okay, Bri?” I asked. “I thought you’d be home asleep.”

  Renée stepped forward. “That’s my fault, I’m afraid. I stopped by to ask your advice on some storage cabinets I’m considering for the office. You weren’t around, so I asked Brian if he wanted to come with me to check out the rumors I’d heard about a big drug raid on Diego’s farm.”

  Diego stood, brushed his hands on his jeans, and then extended his right toward Max, who shook it firmly. “I’ve seen you all around,” the farmer said, smiling. “But I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Diego. Diego Baker. Probably the only farmer in the area who isn’t related to Renée. But we’re old friends from school, which after all this time is almost the same thing.”

  His charming demeanor made me wonder whether Stephen, too, had got it wrong when he’d told us that the young smugglers had fingered Diego as the head of the crime ring. Could this affable man who seemed to be flirting with Renée truly be the ringleader of a deadly local gang?

  I tried to smile, but I couldn’t fool Renée. We hadn’t worked together long, but it was long enough, apparently, for her to reliably read my face and my emotions.

  “What is it, Maggie?” she asked. “We were just talking about last night. What excitement, eh? Can you believe it? Smuggling. Back to the days of the swashbuckling pirates. I knew there was some of it going on around here, but I didn’t expect to find anyone arrested right on my doorstep.”

  Renée either had stellar acting chops or she was innocent of any criminal activity. I glanced from her face to Diego’s, which was equally guilt-free.

  “Did you see anything from your front windows while it was all going down?” Renée asked. “I heard it took ages for the cops to get there. Apparently, a local gang was in on it all and set some fires to tie up the first responders. What a mess. The fire at the apple juice factory got out of hand quickly in the wind. Several people were badly burned. No fatalities, thank god, but a lot of people will be out of work for months while the company takes care of the repairs.”

  I shook my head, searching for the right words to use to respond to Renée, but she barreled on. “I heard some local people spotted the activity on the beach and phoned it in, but the sheriff arrived just in time to arrest a team that had already been apprehended by some amateur detectives.” She looked at David. “It wasn’t you and your brother again, was it? You’re like a superhero team, fighting crime and saving lives.”

  She paused for a breath and glanced at me again, then Max, then David. “It was you. Unbelievable.” She fist-bumped my eldest son. “I did the right thing when I hired your family, I’ll tell you. Tess sure knows how to pick them.”

  Diego stepped forward to shake David’s hand and thank him. David took a half step back. My confusion must have shown clearly on my face. Diego also seemed surprised.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Wait. You don’t…” He shook his head and stepped backward toward Renée.

  “What?” Renée said. “You don’t think Diego had anything to do with this smuggling plot, do you?” She laughed. “We were just talking about that. He’s so gullible.” She glanced from me to Diego. “Tell them.” She turned back to me. “He didn’t even suspect.”

  “It seems so obvious, in hindsight,” Diego said. “Some guy who said he was from the university approached me. Said I’d won a grant that would foot the bill for hiring former gang members and drug addicts, to help put them on the right path. The plan was that the California Department of Corrections would send me their most promising parolees. Their wages would be paid with the grant money. For me, it was like getting free labor.”

  He grimaced and shook his head. “I wonder if the situation the university guy described is even legal. It was too good to be true. But I fell for it anyway. Because I wanted to believe it and I was desperate. Without the grant, this year’s payroll would have bankrupted me.”

  Diego’s shoulders drooped and he smoothed the ground with his foot. “On some level, I knew it was suspect. The workers who were supposedly funded by the grant had daily meetings in the barn that I wasn’t allowed to be a part of. They said they were running a twelve-step program and their get-togethers had to be anonymous.”

  He clenched his jaw, swallowed hard, and looked up, squinting. “And I fell for it. But about a month ago I noticed that some of newest guys didn’t seem to know the first group of people I’d hired under the terms of the grant. They seemed le
ss like former gang members and more like current thugs. I wanted to call my original contact to double check the details of the arrangement, but I couldn’t find the name and number of the guy who’d set it all up. Now I’m not sure he gave me a card or anything. He said his team would handle all the paperwork.”

  He kicked at the sandy soil, creating a small cloud of dust. “I’m an idiot. I should have known. Things that seem too good to be true usually are. But I was so busy and, like I said, desperate. And I was afraid to be too confrontational. Ex-cons, you know. If they were bad guys, and I accused them, I was afraid they’d retaliate or try to shut me up. And if they were good guys, they didn’t need me second-guessing their activities.”

  Renée put her hand on his shoulder. “You’ve always been so gullible, Diego. Always wanting to see the best in everyone. It’s one of your best qualities.”

  Diego reddened and smiled. There was something between the two of them. A blossoming romance? An adolescent attraction rekindled? I couldn’t be sure, but amid the turmoil of the last few days, their flirtation was refreshing, innocent, and charming.

  I drew my attention back to detangling the details of the smuggling operation. “So, what was going on?” I asked, feigning innocence in an effort to discover how much Renée and Diego knew. “Did anyone get arrested last night?”

  Diego nodded. “Two local kids with otherwise promising futures. Smart enough to get scholarships to college. But dumb enough and immature enough to want to make a quick and easy buck.”

  Max frowned. “What’s the justice system like in this county? Will they get decent legal aid? Are there sympathetic judges and a district attorney who can give them a suspended sentence in exchange for a promise to straighten up?”

  Renée sighed and brushed invisible dust from her plaid shirt and jeans. “We can only hope. They’ll get the wrong kind of education and the wrong kind of job training in jail, that’s for sure.” She pushed the hair back from her forehead. “Those kids know something about some of the local thugs and their operation though. That information might be a valuable bargaining chip for them. We’ll have to see.”