Bluewater Voodoo: Mystery and Adventure in the Caribbean (Bluewater Thrillers Book 3) Page 19

  Chapter 30

  "Liz!" Dani yelled as she set the autopilot and stepped quickly around the steering pedestal to reach the zombie. She put her cheek down close to his nose, reaching for his wrist simultaneously. "You know mouth-to-mouth?" she asked, glancing at Lilly.

  Lilly shook her head.

  "Get Liz up here, quick, then," Dani said, as she put a hand under the man’s neck and pulled his jaw open with her other hand. She took a breath, pinched the man’s nostrils closed with her left hand, and put her mouth over his, exhaling as she watched his chest rise. As she took another breath, she saw Liz lift the man’s right hand in her left and feel for a pulse with her other hand. Dani noticed the network of ridged scars that looked like writhing snakes around the man’s forearm where his sleeve had fallen back. As Dani bent to give the man another breath, she saw Liz shake her head and straddle the man, placing both hands on his sternum and beginning to pump his chest sharply. Lilly stood by, a worried look on her face.

  After working for a couple of minutes, Dani sat back as Liz continued her rhythmic pumping. Dani put a hand lightly on the side of his throat, feeling for a pulse. She shook her head, and Liz sat up straight reaching around to massage her own lower back. "I think he’s gone," she said.

  "Yeah, me too," Dani agreed.

  They were silent for a minute, watching tears begin to roll down Lilly’s cheeks. "Dani?" Liz asked softly.

  "Yeah?"

  "Does he look familiar?"

  Dani studied the man’s battered face. "I haven’t really looked at him," she said. "Why?"

  "Try to picture him without the beard," Liz said.

  Dani stared for a moment and shook her head.

  "Mike Reilly?" Liz asked.

  "I don’t see it," Dani said, as Liz pulled the man’s sleeves back along both forearms.

  Liz traced the ropy scars with her fingers. "I recognize the scars," she said. "I’m almost certain."

  "You spent more time with him," Dani said. "Guess it doesn’t much matter, now."

  "No, I guess not," Liz agreed. "What now?"

  "I’m thinking," Dani said.

  "You mean where to take him? Who is he?" Lilly asked.

  "I’m not taking him far, whoever he is," Dani said.

  "No, I mean, who is Mike Reilly?" Lilly asked.

  "If he’s really Mike Reilly, he was wanted for murder in the States. Several murders, in fact," Dani said.

  Liz had been smoothing the beard, looking carefully at the still face under the matted hair. "I’d be willing to swear it’s Reilly," she said. "Should we take him to Dominica, or to Martinique?"

  Dani stared into space and held her silence, thinking.

  "Murder?" Lilly asked.

  Dani looked at her for a minute. "Long story, Lilly. Reilly tried to kill me around a year ago. The cops in the States had him pegged for a serial killer, and he disappeared when his yacht hit a reef off Antigua. Liz was aboard. Everybody wrote him off for dead."

  "How did he end up here?" Lilly asked.

  Dani shrugged, but she didn’t answer, staring into the distance again.

  "Dominica, or Martinique?" Liz prompted.

  Dani shook her head slowly.

  "Neither," she said, finally. "I don’t even want to think about it. We’ve got no papers for this guy; we don’t even know for sure that he’s Reilly. No idea why he died; probably full of drugs. Not a clue as to where he’s been. You and I would probably be in jail forever, Liz."

  "Can’t you just tell them the truth?" Lilly asked.

  "Them who? And what truth?" Dani asked.

  "What’s happening?" the professor asked, climbing out of the companionway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  ****

  Randy Wallace had been a parole officer ever since he returned from the first Gulf War. The son of a Vietnam veteran who had his share of problems, Randy had a soft spot for vets who got into trouble, especially trouble that was connected with their service. He was tough, but he went out of his way to help recently discharged men who got into minor scrapes, and he was distressed when Jack Roberts didn’t show up for his regular meeting. Jack had a problem with anger management that, coupled with a love of drink, had gotten him in trouble within days of his discharge. Jack had no record before he had gone into the Army and he had been a good soldier. He had come home to an economy that offered few jobs, particularly for people whose only skills were close combat. A sympathetic judge and an overcrowded county prison had put Jack back on the street after he sobered up from celebrating his return home.

  Randy had expected that Jack would waltz through his 90 days on probation without any trouble after chatting with him during their initial interview. He had suggested the Rescue Mission as a place that Jack could stay until he got his bearings. Now, Jack had missed their first scheduled meeting and the counselor at the Mission said that he had disappeared.

  "He went out to the corner kinda late that second morning," the counselor recalled. "But only because I made him wait his turn – you know my system."

  Randy nodded.

  "He was cool with that. He said the whole seniority thing made a lot of sense to him, in fact. Smart guy, personable. I’m surprised he’s slipped. I had him figured for a quick success story. He got here late afternoon that first day, but he asked if he could help clean up or work in the kitchen. Most of ‘em would’ve just watched TV. I was impressed."

  "So he spent two nights here. He didn’t go out to the corner looking for work the first day?"

  "Yeah, he did, but it’s been slow. Nobody hired him, so after lunch, he helped with the chores again."

  "Was he by himself yesterday morning?" Randy asked.

  "No. He was out with another new guy – Steve Williams. Williams was only here one night. They were out on the corner there for about 10 minutes when this white van stopped." The counselor gestured casually to the window of his tiny office, pointing to the corner where three men waited hopefully for someone to stop and offer them work. "I saw a guy get out, talk to both of them for a minute. They got in and drove away. That’s it – all I know."

  "Heard from Williams?"

  "No, neither one."

  "Know anything about Williams?"

  "Not really. Another vet; showed up filthy and hungry right before we started serving dinner. Not remarkable, except he was clean."

  "Clean? You said he was filthy."

  "Well, not his grooming," the counselor grinned ruefully. "He’d been living on the street for a while, I’d say. But no sign of drugs. Sober. Didn’t act like an alky."

  "He have a record?"

  The counselor shrugged. "We don’t check references. He needed food and a safe place to sleep. He was no trouble."

  Randy nodded. "Did you by any chance…"

  "Hey! Sorry. That’s it!" the counselor interrupted, jumping to his feet and rushing to the window. "Same van. Same guy."

  Randy watched for a moment, making a mental note of the vanity plate on the van. Then he darted from the office, down the half-flight of stairs, and out the front door. The man from the van stood on the sidewalk, his back to Randy, talking to the three men, obviously involved in some sort of negotiation.

  "Only need two of ya," he grunted, as Randy stepped into his field of view. He stopped and whirled to face Randy. "Cop," he blurted, giving Randy the once-over.

  "I wanted to ask you about the men you hired here the day before yesterday," Randy said.

  "I got nothin’ to say," José said, turning and climbing into the open passenger door of the van. With a squeal of tires, the van pulled into the traffic and was soon lost to Randy’s sight.

  ****

  The small house on the point where the Indian River flowed into the harbor served as a gathering place for the water-based entrepreneurs of Portsmouth, Dominica. Nominally the headquarters for the river guides who took the eco-tourists up the river, it was a center of gossip for the men who used their small boats to wrest a living from the water by any mea
ns at hand. Opportunities for gainful employment were limited, so a man might be a tour-guide one day, a water-taxi operator the next, and a fisherman anytime there were no tourists. In the late afternoons, they gathered in the shade out in front of the neatly kept little house to drink beer and tell tales. Their small boats bobbed gently along the riverbank, bathed in the soft golden glow of the setting sun as one of the men who had been out fishing that morning told his story.

  "Jus’ the sun up full when I hook the big tuna, an’ he pull so the line, it like to cut me han’s," the man said, pausing to take a sip of the beer that he was nursing. "An’ then this big sof’ RIB, he try to come ‘longside. Henry wave to he to tell he no; point to the line, wave to he to go ‘way."

  The giant Rasta man with the gleaming bald head listened politely. "An’ he go ‘way, he?" he asked.

  "Yeah, Sharktooth," the raconteur said, taking advantage of the interruption to take another sip of his beer. "He wait, stay out of the way, ‘til we get the tuna in the boat. Then he come ‘longside ‘gain, he. The man speak the English, but soun’ like he mos’ly speak the Spanish. Anyhow, he come ‘longside an’ he ax we got some puffer fish. I tell he no, an’ he frien’, he run the boat, he ax we can we catch he some puffer fish."

  "Wha’ chew say to he, Felix?" the one called Sharktooth asked.

  "Henry say why he don’ buy some nice tuna we jus’ catch. Fresh, he say. Henry hold up the tuna, still ‘live."

  "An’ then what?" Sharktooth, ever the straight man, asked.

  "Man say, ‘no thanks,’ an’ shake he head. Henry say, ‘Puffer fish, he no good to eat. Mebbe poison all ‘a time,’ an’ man say he know dat. He not goin’ eat the puffer fish, he say. He say he dry they an’ paint they wit’ the varnish. Sell to touris’s in Florida, he say. So, I say okay, he come back tomorrow morning same place an’ we bring he plenty puffer fish. Henry, he gon’ catch they tonight, over by the customs dock."

  "Soun’ plenny strange," Sharktooth said. "Mus’ make a lot of money, he, sell puffer fish to touris’s, he pay for the big RIB. Where he come from?"

  "Out to the wes’. He take off wit’ the big 200-horse Yamahas, two engine, run wes’, fas’. He gone, can’t see he in a minute."

  "Mebbe from a yacht, you t’ink, Felix?"

  "Mebbe. I don’ t’ink so, though. He don’ look like the yacht kinda man, ‘Tooth. You know, rough-like."

  "No tellin’ what he up to," Sharktooth said.

  "Never know wit’ the white peoples. Nobody know why they do what they do," Felix agreed.

  Chapter 31

  "That can’t have been legal," the professor said, a worried frown on his face.

  "We should have gone to the authorities," Lilly said.

  Dani said nothing, her attention focused on the sails as she applied light pressure to the helm to keep Vengeance from rounding up into the wind. She locked the helm for a moment and stepped forward to ease the mainsheet, keeping an eye on the luff of the mainsail as she adjusted the trim. She resumed her position at the helm, releasing the lock and giving a nod of satisfaction as Vengeance held her course with no need for her to steer.

  "That’s better," she said. "Weather helm is tiring, and it slows the boat down. We’ll probably pick up a quarter to a half a knot, once she settles."

  "You can’t just avoid discussing it, Dani," Lilly said. "Chuck and I talked it over while you and Liz chained the anchor to his feet. We’re going to report this. You can’t just dump a body at sea like that."

  "Burial at sea is a maritime tradition," Dani said. "We didn’t have a cannonball to stitch up in his shroud, and I didn’t have the canvas for a shroud anyway, but that spare anchor was too little for Vengeance and too big for the dinghy, so it was perfect."

  "But it just wasn’t right," the professor said.

  "Well, we did miss two things. I always thought that stitch through the nostrils was barbaric, and it doesn’t serve any purpose that I can see. We didn’t have the Book of Common Prayer to read from, but he didn’t strike me as the religious type. I think we did everything else in accordance with tradition. He’s in deep water, well weighted; not going to foul anybody’s nets or wash ashore. It’ll be fine."

  "You’re making light of it, but we’re serious," Lilly said, an edge in her voice.

  "Okay, look," Dani said. "I’m making light of it, yes. I apologize if that offends you, but Liz is certain this guy was Mike Reilly. If she’s right, he’s the guy that knocked me senseless and tossed me over the side a year ago. Left me for dead several miles off St. Vincent. If some white slavers hadn’t fished me out and cleaned me up to sell, he would have killed me. I didn’t kill him, but only because I didn’t recognize him. The guys that rescued me from that mess had a warrant for his arrest for more than one capital crime. If he was Reilly, I’m glad he’s dead. Just wish I had killed him. If he wasn’t Reilly, then I’m sorry he died, but we didn’t have anything to do with it. You need to forget this thing about reporting everything to the authorities. You ain’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. If we had put in to port, any port, with an unidentified body and no plausible explanation for how he came to be aboard, Liz and I would probably have been locked up. I know you don’t think so, but that’s what would have happened. It would have taken months to sort things out, and Vengeance would have been impounded. Everything of value aboard her would have been stolen, and if we ever got out and got her back, she would have been a wreck. Forget explaining that we were rescuing a zombie and he died. Would you believe a wild tale like that?"

  Lilly and the professor sat in silence, looking worried. After a long while, Dani said, "No, I didn’t think you’d believe it, and neither would I."

  "So, okay, let’s say Lilly and I can get over this. What happens next?"

  "Well, I’m taking Vengeance back to Martinique. You’ve paid for her use through the end of October, so once we get her provisioned and I return the weapons I borrowed, what happens next is up to you. What do you want to do?"

  "I need to talk it over with RDF, I guess. My bet is he’ll want us to go forward with this whole zombie reality TV thing. He’s not the one that’s been through this bizarre experience, so it will probably be business as usual, but I’ll have to check. You think Racine Laveau will still be willing to help?"

  "I don’t see that much has changed from her perspective. I’ll call her once you talk with this RDF character. Don’t forget that Martinez still has the houngan in captivity and is holding his niece hostage. We don’t have a clue as to what he’s up to. We don’t know why he tried to kidnap you earlier, and it looks like he tried to kill you yesterday with the bomb, so I’m not sure you’re exactly safe. You sure you don’t have any idea what he wants with you?"

  The professor looked shaken, staring into the distance, his face pale under his tan. "I’ve been so rattled I forgot about that," he confessed. "You think the bomb was meant for me?"

  "Well, at this stage, it was probably meant for all of us, but you were his first target with the kidnapping. If he had just wanted to get rid of the zombie, he would never have called you to pick him up, the way I see it. That was a trap. We’re probably safe until he discovers that he missed; we need to keep looking over our shoulders, I think."

  "Shit. You’re probably right. I’ve been so distracted that I never thought of that."

  ****

  Once Greg Elliot had begun to poke around in Jerry Smith’s files, he found it difficult to stop. Hacking was an addiction, and Jerry’s security was a new challenge. He unraveled the filaments of Jerry’s defense and followed the Martinez thread that had first lead him to the zombie, and he found himself in someone else’s files. His natural curiosity led him to explore what was there. At first, he was confused about what he was reading. Like everyone else who watched television news, he was aware of the groundswell of unrest among the nation’s homeless, and being in Florida, he couldn’t avoid hearing Senator Rufus O’Rourke’s tirades about the liberal administration. Every file he opened
was related to one or the other of these topics. At first, he thought he had found his way into a wire service database, but as he scanned some of the material, he noticed too many inconsistencies in the attribution. Then he thought that he was looking at clipping files from several different wire services, until he discovered that some of the articles had release dates in the future. He picked a couple of files with release dates a day or two away and copied them, deciding to see where they surfaced.

  His next step was to try to determine to whom the files belonged. He had already connected Martinez with the Venezuelan embassy, and he had worked his way through their security without much difficulty. He didn’t learn much from the embassy files except that Martinez drew on the embassy staff for all sorts of support but wasn’t a member of the diplomatic mission. He could also tell from the differences in the database architecture and the security algorithms that the clipping files weren’t part of the embassy’s data. He set a number of subtle traps to capture i.p. addresses of people accessing the data, and then he moved on to some paying work for another client.

  ****

  As Kathy Conners removed the pancake makeup in her dressing room, she thought about the dossier she was preparing on Senator O’Rourke. Being completely mercenary herself, she wasn’t judging O’Rourke personally. Her only interest was the impact that her story would have on her ratings. O’Rourke’s Bible-thumping conservatism resonated with a surprisingly large segment of the population, which made him an ideal target in her estimation. Sleeping with him had been one of the more ethical means she had used to flesh out her file on him. Blackmailing his gay chief of staff to get the particulars on O’Rourke’s long-time black mistress was a little farther over the line, to her way of thinking, but in her business, you did what you had to do to get the story. The public had a right to know, and she was determined to support that right, no matter the cost. She had little use for men anyway, except as pawns, but she had been appalled to learn what a two-timing bastard James Evans was. He had been in a long term, supposedly monogamous relationship with his gay partner for years, but Kathy and her team had discovered that he was bisexual. A few photographs uncovered by one of her investigators had put Evans in her debt. Now she knew more about the Senator’s hypocrisy than the Senator himself.