part0012

BEFORE GETTING DOWN TO the serious search for anything that might give a clue as to what George Winter had been up to, Evan poked through the galley cabinets and the refrigerator. As Rodriguez had said, he found nothing stronger than light beer. There were a couple of cans of it in the fridge and that was all. No doubt Winter stocked up when he had a charter booked, preferring the company at one of the many bars in town to drinking alone on his boat when he was moored up. There was no hard liquor on board at all. Just the empty whisky bottle.

Faced with the daunting task ahead of him, he appropriated one of the cold beers from the fridge. Even though he knew it was stupid, he didn’t want to take it outside and sit in the fighting chair drinking it in the sun in case Segal came out again and saw him. Why he should care what a drunk like Segal thought, he didn’t know. But he did. So he slid into the bench seat behind the polished teak table in the galley instead.

From there he had a good view of the whole of the salon. It depressed the hell out of him, the number of potential hiding places. Then there were the staterooms downstairs. And then outside. And what about the engine compartment, why not there while you’re at it?

Finally, he couldn’t put it off any longer. He crumpled the empty can in his fist, slid out from behind the table. It was a low table, bolted to the floor. And he had long legs. So his thighs brushed the underside of the table as he half stood and slid out.

That was when his day took another turn for the worse.

A piece of chewing gum was smeared across his thigh. Some slob had stuck it to the underside of the table. The beer can in his hand crumpled noisily as he stared angrily at the gum, thinking how he’d like to grind it into the dirty, lazy bastard’s hair if he got hold of him. Maybe use his face to clean the residue off the underside of the table.

It couldn’t have been Winter who’d stuck it there. Nobody does that to their own property. The rest of the boat was spotless. Someone he’d taken out on a charter, then. Thinking they’d paid for the use of the boat, they’d do what they damn well liked.

He picked it off carefully, rolled it into a disgusting little ball in his fingers. Tried not to think about it having been in some slob’s mouth. Probably while he swilled his beer and smoked at the same time. Then, almost as an over-compensation for what the slob had done, he found a knife in one of the galley drawers and scraped the last of the gum from the underside of the table.

However, there is a limit to what a man will do with a piece of another man’s gum. He wasn’t about to climb back up to the dock and go searching for a trash can. So he went outside, balanced the sticky little ball on his fingernail, tensed the finger against his thumb ready to flick it far out into the sea. Then stopped. Not because of a last-minute pang of conscience. He smiled to himself, looked to his right. At Segal’s boat. The open door to Segal’s salon would be an easy shot.

He didn’t do it, of course.

That would have made him as bad as the slob who stuck it to the table in the first place. He flicked it far out into the water of the marina without another thought, happy in the knowledge that a hungry fish or a crab would eat it.

It would’ve saved him a lot of trouble down the road if he’d indulged his childish thoughts and flicked it onto Segal’s boat instead.

He started with the exterior of the boat because he reckoned it had less hiding places and the added advantage of working in the sun. He soon found out that he’d been wrong about the number of hiding places. There were locked storage compartments everywhere for rods and tackle, the keys to them on the ring Crow had given him. There were a number of livewells too—tanks used to keep bait fish healthy and frisky by pumping water through them. They had clear acrylic tops and side windows to monitor the bait, make sure it was healthy. That made life a bit easier. Evan could see with a quick glance that most of them were empty and dry. Although one was full of water. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing when he saw the solitary fish inside floating dead on the surface, its white belly distended. So much for a livewell. More like a deadwell.

Apart from the fleeting amusement caused by that discovery, there was nothing of interest. After a couple of hours’ fruitless searching he fetched the last remaining beer from the fridge and sat in the Pompanette fighting chair to take a break, enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sun rather than just work in it. After the last two hours he didn’t give a damn whether Segal saw him or not.

And just occasionally, not giving a damn is exactly what’s called for.

Swiveling around to face the glass doors leading into the salon, he saw another door to the side of them, underneath the steps leading up to the flybridge. He guessed it was the day head—the bathroom used by everyone on board, not located in one of the staterooms. Leaving his beer in a drinks holder clipped to the back of the chair—the most sensible accessory he’d seen on the boat so far—he went to take a closer look.

The lock had been forced. He pulled the door open gingerly expecting to be assaulted by the stench, to find nothing but a chemical toilet full of shit and piss courtesy of whoever had been taken short and broken in. Instead, he was surprised when a load of diving equipment came tumbling out, landed at his feet. He was looking at two or three thousand dollars’ worth of gear at least.

His heart, instead of sinking at the discovery of an overflowing toilet, picked up. Because in all the neatness and order of the rest of the boat, something wasn’t right. Nobody stores that much expensive equipment in a toilet with a broken door.

He stepped backwards, spread it out on the deck. There was a BCD, the lifejacket lookalike that allows you to control your buoyancy underwater. And a regulator, the piece you put in your mouth with its attached hoses and dials, plus assorted small equipment—mask, snorkel, fins, knife. Everything but the oxygen tanks themselves. The BCD was the most likely candidate to conceal something in, with a number of zippered compartments. He sat on the deck with his back against the glass salon doors and started to go through them. It didn’t take long to determine that they were all empty.

Then he worked his way methodically across the surface of the BCD with his fingers. Squeezing and feeling for bumps that would indicate something inserted into the fabric of the jacket. As he did so, a vague thought scratched at the back of his mind, a feeling that he was missing something obvious.

He looked up suddenly from concentrating on the BCD, saw Segal watching him from the cockpit of his boat, the wine glass in his hand full once more. Evan raised his arm, waved at him good-naturedly. After discovering the busted door, it seemed the guy wasn’t so paranoid after all. But Segal didn’t acknowledge him, didn’t ask what he was doing. A minute later, he drifted back inside the salon.

Then it came to him, sitting on the deck with the BCD in his hands. Like a small boy playing with his new toy and finding a part was missing. Because the oxygen tanks weren’t the only piece of equipment missing.

People are buoyant. So are aluminum tanks full of air. Strapping on a BCD only increases the tendency to float on the surface. Scuba diving wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if all you did was float around on the surface. You need something to weigh you down, to counteract all that buoyancy.

The weight belt was missing.

When he’d picked up the BCD, he hadn’t noticed the weight of it—or the lack of weight. It was only after going over it inch by inch with his fingers that it struck him that there were no integrated weights. Anybody wearing this particular BCD would need a separate, old-fashioned weight belt—a canvas belt with heavy lead weights threaded onto it.

What better to tie a sealed waterproof container to, submerge it in the water under the boat? Attached to a length of heavy-duty fishing line, the other end tied off on one of the many cleats around the boat, it would be almost invisible. The weight would be sufficient to hold something as large as a laptop—certainly something as small as a phone or a USB thumb drive—hard on the bottom.

Knowing he was right and pleased that Segal had gone back inside the salon and wasn’t watching his every move, he made his way slowly around the perimeter of the boat, checking every cleat and handrail support for unexplained fishing line disappearing into the depths like a forgotten crab line.

Feeling deflated, he dropped into the fighting chair again. The beer he’d left in the drinks holder and forgotten about was now too warm to drink. He let his head loll backwards and closed his eyes, felt the sun warm on his face. He’d been so sure he was right, was doubly glad Segal wasn’t watching him chase his tail. He’d be calling the men in the white jackets, not security, if he was.

There was nothing for it now but to make a start on the inside. He’d be spending the night on the boat at this rate. Instead of driving down to Key West, only an hour away, which is what he had planned. A photo sent to Guillory from the bar of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville would teach her to think twice before she pretended to be too busy next time.

Feeling as if he’d just finished fighting a world-record-beating Marlin, he pushed himself out of the chair, headed towards the salon. The diving equipment littered the deck at the entrance to it. He shoved it aside with his foot. Then stopped. Looked at the mask, an idea popping into his mind.

He’d stick his head in the water, take a quick look under the boat. Maybe the fishing line had snapped as the boat moved with the swell, anchored too securely to the bottom by the heavy weight belt.

A buzz of nervous excitement started up in his gut. This time he was right.

He kicked off his shoes, stripped down to his boxers in case he accidentally toppled in, hoping nobody was watching him from the dock. Standing stripped-off on the deck a shiver rippled over his skin despite the warmth of the sun.

Something was waiting for him under the boat.

He pulled on the mask, adjusted the strap. Didn’t bother with the snorkel. He wasn’t going to be looking for that long.

He had no idea how right he was about that.

Then he maneuvered himself carefully into position, balanced his body over the gunwale. Gripping the underside tightly with his fingers, he lowered his face slowly towards the water. A couple of inches above the surface he took a big juddering gulp of air right down into his lungs, his chest expanding, then submerged his face, the cool water fresh and clean on his skin.