The wind caught our raincoats and whipped them around our knees as we ran from the restaurant to the car.
“She’s not letting up any.” Max unlocked the car doors, and we slid into the warmth of the interior.
From the passenger seat, Grandy twisted around to talk to me. The beads of water in her white hair twinkled in the parking lot lights like dew on a foggy morning.
“I hope you won’t think I’m being nosy,” she said, “but I’d sure like to see those papers Jerry gave you.”
“Sure. Why not? Maybe you and Max can tell me what I’m not seeing.” I leaned back into my seat and watched the halos of light pass by my window.
We dashed from the car to the boat, crowding down the companionway and into the small galley.
“I’ll make coffee.” Grandy grabbed the old aluminum drip pot from the overhead cupboard. “You fetch those papers.”
I hung my slicker back on its hook and entered my cabin. When I moved the pillow aside, I found my hiding place empty. A quick search of the bed and the small storage space below revealed nothing. I was more than a little creeped out. Who had gotten in, and why would they take those papers?
I stuck my head out of the cabin. “They’re gone. Somebody took them while we were at dinner.”
“I locked the hatch door. How could anybody get in here without a key?” asked Max.
I thought immediately of Mr. Napolitani and his expertise with locks. My eyes met those of Grandy, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
“We were followed,” I said. “I’ll bet Jerry has those papers back in his possession.”
“Helped by a future relative.” Grandy slapped the pot lid closed and placed it on the stove.
“I guess for Napolitani, family is everything.” I sank into the gallery bench seat.
“Look, girls,” Max slid in beside me, “we’re all tired from the day and the weather. We can talk this through tomorrow. Let’s just get a good night’s sleep.”
“After coffee,” said Grandy.
“I’ll pass. I’m too bummed out and exhausted to stay on my feet another minute. I’m going to make friends with my berth.” I kissed both of them goodnight and entered my cabin. I’d just turned off the overhead light when my new cell rang.
I hit the answer button. Hard. “This better be important, like natural disaster important.”
“It’s Jerry.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whenever I feel like I’ve bottomed out, you show up and make things worse. Go away.”
“Okay.”
“No. Wait. First tell me why you took those papers.”
“What do you mean?”
I sat up in the bed and switched on the light, as if illumination might help me deal with my aggravating ex-husband.
“I know what was in them, and I don’t appreciate having our divorce settlement taken away so easily.”
“That’s the whole point, Evie. The property sales were never registered. I’ve got the only existing copies.”
“How was I supposed to know what you had in mind? Anyway, you gave them to me, yet you didn’t trust me enough so you had to break into my Grandy’s boat and steal them. Napolitani helped you, didn’t he?” I slammed my pillow across the small cabin in frustration.
“Are you saying you don’t have them anymore, that someone stole them?”
“You. You took them.” Now I was yelling into the phone, my voice loud enough to alert Grandy and Max. I hesitated. “You did steal them, didn’t you?”
“I did not.”
“Well then, do you know who did and why?”
“I’ve got a good idea.”
“You know the cops are looking for you, right?”
“Looking for me? Why?”
“For attempted murder and kidnapping.”
There was silence on the line. “I’m shocked. And innocent.” He sounded genuinely taken aback, but Jerry was a master at feigning surprise.
“Who did I kidnap and attempt to kill?”
“Me.”
More silence. The only way I could tell that he hadn’t disconnected was that I could hear breathing interspersed with gulping noises.
“Now that’s crazy. Why would I do that? Who said I did?”
“Sanders told the police you were the one who threw me into a car trunk and drove me off into the Everglades.”
“Figures.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say. Don’t you want to hear what happened to me? I could have been killed.”
“Sorry, honey. Listen, I’m parked in a strip mall in Ft. Lauderdale and … Cops. Gotta go.” He clicked off.
“You okay in there?” Grandy tapped on my door. “I thought I heard you yelling. Are you having a bad dream?”
A bad dream? That would have been nice.
Maybe it was the quiet descending on the marina that woke me, a startling silence after a long night of rain lashing against the windows and palm fronds rattling in the frenzied wind. Then I heard soft footsteps on the deck above. A tap on my door soon followed.
“I heard it, too,” whispered Max through the door. “I’ll take care of whoever’s up there.”
Max was seventy-eight years old and in good shape for a man of that age, but handling an intruder would take strength as well as stealth. I opened the door and grabbed a heavy skillet from the galley. Max might require support.
When I stepped onto the deck, I could see that my help was superfluous. Max was standing against the cabin with a spear gun in his hands, pointing the ugly thing at a man in the bow.
“This guy says he knows you.”
Grandy came up the companionway, a flashlight in her hand. She pushed around me and pointed the beam of light at our intruder’s face.
I expected Alex or Jerry, but the face I saw was a complete surprise.
“Dwight Sanders. What are you doing here?”
“Hold this.” Max handed me the spear gun. “I’m going to search him.”
I handed Grandy my frying pan and took Max’s weapon.
Dwight didn’t move while Max thoroughly patted him down. When he was finished, I handed the spear gun back.
“The cops are looking for you. They think you killed your stepmother. I think you kidnapped me and left me in the swamp to die. I’m puzzled. Why are you here? Trying to get another shot at me?”
“No. No.” He held out his hands and moved toward me.
Max menaced him with the spear gun, and he backed away again.
“Could you tell the old guy to put that thing down? Do you have any idea what that could do to a man if it went off?”
“Yes, I do, son.” The spear gun remained pointed at Dwight’s chest. “Eve, call the cops.”
“Wait. Give me a little time here. I didn’t kill anybody. I can prove it, too.”
“How?” I asked.
“In my car. I’ve got a tape of a conversation between my …”
Suddenly an explosion ripped through the air, and a fireball shot into the night sky.
“That was close. It looks like it came from the parking lot of the Mariner’s Motel,” said Grandy.
Dwight groaned. “That’s where I left my car.”
Grandy, Max and I watched as flames shot into the air. Charred and burning pieces of debris fell onto the dock nearby.
Another sound, like hands clapping, rent the air.
“Get down,” yelled Max. “Someone’s shooting at us.” The three of us hit the deck.
“Oh, crap!” yelled Dwight. “They must have followed me here.”
I heard a splash and Dwight was gone.
We waited but heard no more shots. The fire lit up the marina, and many of the boat owners who had moved up to their decks when the commotion began were now running down the quay toward the conflagration.
I peered overboard, expecting to spot Dwight’s body, but there was nothing there except the eerie reflection of undulating orange and red flames in the black water.
The sound of fire engines and emergency vehicles filled the night air. The fire was now giving off mostly sooty smoke. As firefighters and EMTs flooded the scene, my thoughts were carried back to Sabal City and the night my car had met a similar fate.
By the time the police had finished interviewing us and the firefighters had completed their work on the burned car, it was close to morning. A wedge of sun appeared for a moment on the horizon, but a line of gray clouds slapped it away. The rain began again and the temperature dropped another ten degrees.
Instead of going back to sleep, we stayed up and drank several pots of coffee to kick our brains into gear. Seated around the galley table, we were playing yet another hand of Pitch, probably our fiftieth of the morning.
“You think he got away?” Grandy shuffled the deck and dealt.
“Absolutely, or we would have found a body this morning floating in the canal,” said Max.
“I still don’t get why he came here to talk with me. How did he know where I was?”
“It was no secret that you were coming down here with me.” Grandy threw her ace onto the table and took my two of trump.
“It sounds to me like he was trying to finish what he had messed up by leaving you in the Everglades.” Max examined his hand and scowled.
“I just don’t get any of this. Once he had botched the kidnapping and I had the opportunity to identify him as the man by Valerie’s car at my shop, he should have stayed out of sight. There was no reason for him to come here and try again.”
“You don’t believe he’s innocent, do you?” Max tossed a junk trump card when Grandy led with her jack. “You better come back at me with trump, honey.” He waggled his bushy eyebrows at her.
“Forget it. I’ve made my three points.”
I sat at the table, looking at my cards but not making any sense of what was in my hand. I had thought for sure that Dwight was the one who’d kidnapped me and killed his mother. It all fit so nicely. Except for motive. Why would he kill her?
“You still playing, Eve?” asked Grandy.
“I got nothing. I’m just marking time here.”
Several minutes later, Grandy made her points, for the fourth time in a row, while Max and I both sat empty handed. At least Max had some points on the board from other hands. My score was minus eight.
“Time for lunch.” Grandy busied herself making tuna sandwiches while I put the cards away and wiped the table. Their moods were absurdly buoyant on this lousy day, and I couldn’t figure out why.
“You beat the pants off both of us at cards, Grandy, so I can understand your cheerfulness. But, Max, you surprise me. No charters in this weather, and it doesn’t look like it’ll clear soon. Yet you’re as chipper as she is. What’s going on?”
Just then someone yelled, “Permission to come aboard.”
“Aha. Come on. We’re below,” Max yelled back.
The companionway door opened with a rush of wind and salt water, and Alex’s head appeared.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.
“You didn’t tell her you called me?” He removed his jacket, held it back out the door and shook the rain off.
“We wanted to surprise you, Eve,” Grandy said. “You seemed so down, we thought that Alex might cheer you up. He can give you a ride back to Sabal City. He’ll be much more interesting company than I would be.” Grandy’s eyes twinkled.
Their heightened spirits irritated me. If I wanted to be upset, I had the right. After all, someone had tried to kill me. More than once.
“If you didn’t want to drive me back, you should have said so. I can take a bus.”
Three faces settled hurt looks on me.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I felt bad about lashing out at them. After all, they were just trying to help.
“No, honey, we’re the ones who should apologize. You put on such a brave front, I guess we didn’t realize how shook up you were over what happened,” Grandy said. “I assumed you were out of sorts because of the weather. We wanted to make this weekend better for you, so we called Alex.”
Part of what she had said was true. She did want me to have a good time. The Alex part? Well, that was the matchmaker in her surfacing. It had nothing to do with what I wanted.
“I can leave,” offered Alex.
“You can, but I bet you won’t.” I bit my tongue. I was in a foul mood. “Anyway, I think I’d like to get back to the shop.”
“Why? It’s Saturday. By the time you arrive, it’ll be closing time. Tomorrow is Sunday. You aren’t open,” Grandy said. “Let’s take in a movie at the local cinema and have dinner out. You can leave early tomorrow.”
My shoulders slumped in resignation. Then I glanced at Alex. I’d forgotten how appealing he could look. It was absolutely yummy the way his damp hair curled over his forehead and ears. “Sounds good.”
The movie we saw was a romantic comedy and it would have been funny had it not been for the temperature in the theater. Nobody invests in central heating in the Keys, and the movie theater was no exception. On the other hand, the cool temperature did have its perks—Alex wrapped his arm around me to keep me warm. I wanted to stay for another showing.
Instead of staying for a double feature, we decided to go to a local eatery for wings. For some inexplicable reason, that place had a furnace, and, to my disappointment, it was on. I sat next to Alex and the warmth from his body made the place even toastier.
It was after eleven by the time we got back to the boat. Alex took the cabin across from mine. I thought that I might have difficulty sleeping, that his proximity would send out waves of attraction, luring me toward his berth, but I fell quickly into a dreamless slumber. I didn’t even stir until the next morning when Max shouted that he had the Sunday paper.
“You’re gonna want to see the headlines.” He tapped on my door.
I threw on a tee shirt and a pair of jeans. Running a hand through my hair, I appeared in the galley, where my shipmates were already devouring the news.
“Let me see that.” I grabbed the paper out of Alex’s hands and read.
“Looks like our murderer got murdered,” he said.