Death By Blue Water (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

Thirty-Two

She gagged against the hand pressed over her face. The pressure over her mouth and nose made breathing impossible. Bright spots danced in front of her eyes. In the distance, she vaguely heard the sound of sirens. She didn’t know if they were coming to her aide or going to an accident site on U.S. 1.

A familiar scent filled her nostrils. She struggled to remember who she knew that wore it. Everything went black.

An awful smell under her nose brought Hayden back to consciousness. She weakly waved the hand away and struggled to sit up. Capable hands held her down on the wood floor. Mallory’s voice spoke to someone out of her range of vision. Why was Mallory here? Hayden heard her recount that she’d replaced the battery in the alarm transistor that day. Her blood froze when Mallory pleaded with someone not to tell Hayden about the cat.

Hayden’s thoughts raced in circles. She forced herself upright and slapped away the hands that tried to restrain her.

“Tiger, Tiger Cat. Come to Mommy, Tiger Cat,” she tried to scream, but her voice sounded more like a croak. Her thoughts cleared. She lay on her own floor nearly face to face with the legs of her table.

“Who are you people? Why are you in my house?”

Mallory appeared, her face tear stained. At any other time her costume of a long blue t-shirt with slipper socks that came nearly to her knees would have elicited at least a chuckle. Not tonight.

“Hayden, don’t get up. Stay where you are,” Mallory begged. “We’ll get Tiger Cat. He’ll come back, don’t worry.”

“Come back, what do you mean, come back? He never leaves this house except to go to the vet. He never goes out the door. He knows nothing good happens to him outside. Where is my cat?” She separated each word for emphasis. Her world spun out of control.

“Why are you worried about Tiger? Why are you here? How did you know he escaped?”

“Someone came in the front door. They left it open.” Mallory drew a wobbly breath through her tears. “We can’t find Tiger Cat, but that doesn’t mean he’s not hiding somewhere. You know how he is. We’ll find him.”

“Like hell you will, Mallory. You know that cat only comes to me. Given his start in life, I’m not surprised.” Hayden struggled to get to her feet fighting nausea and the wave of dizziness that threatened to engulf her. She felt like Alice in Wonderland falling through the looking glass. Why was she on her floor? Who were these people? Why was she having a discussion about her cat?

The two paramedics, alarmed by her vehemence, tried to press her back to the floor. Failing that, they tried to lead her to the sofa. “None of this makes any sense. Get your hands off me.” She shook off the hands that restrained her. “I’m fine, this is my house. I have to be dreaming. Please.” She looked at one of the paramedics. “Wake me up.”

One of the paramedics knelt next to her as she sat on the leather sofa. “What do you remember?”

Before she could frame an answer, Officer Barton emerged from the room Hayden used as an office. She headed out the front door to the van that had just pulled up. Hayden followed her out, unmindful of her bare feet. Crime scene investigators poured from the van. Hayden overheard Barton ask them to powder the front door, office, and the second bathroom window. Hayden intercepted the tall officer as she turned away from the van.

“Ms. Kent, how are you feeling? That was quite a blow you took to the head. Should you be up? I thought the paramedics were going to take you to Fisherman’s Hospital.”

“Blow to the head?” Her hand felt her scalp. She felt something sticky on the back of her head near the crown.

She had no recollection of getting hit. Hayden laughed. Officer Barton looked at her strangely. For some reason that made Hayden laugh harder. She laughed until tears flowed down her face. “I fell, no one hit me. Whoever was in the house cut off my air and I fell.”

The crime scene technicians walked a wide circle around the laughing woman. The two paramedics came out and each took one of Hayden’s arms. Hayden overheard Officer Barton suggest that they take her inside and make her comfortable.

The two paramedics led her back inside. Mallory was waiting for her in the living room.

“Hayd, sit down. Let me get you some tea, or coffee, or a drink, considering…”

One of the paramedics interrupted, “No. Don’t give her any alcohol. She’s had a blow to the head. She needs to get to the hospital. Alcohol thins the blood.”

Pain, beginning at the top of her head and ending in her eyeballs clouded her vision. Hayden gratefully allowed Mallory to point her in the direction of her recliner.

“Maybe some water, Mallory. That would be good. Can you find Tiger Cat?” Hayden operated the lever that tipped the chair back. There was a loud scream followed by a blaze of brownish yellow running from under the chair. Mallory dropped the water glass she was carrying and took off in the direction of the streak.

Tiger Cat had been hiding under the recliner.

When Hayden pulled up on the lever, the chair mechanism must have compressed or caught him. In any event, it was better than what Hayden had thought happened to him. Mallory came back into the room carrying a squirming ball of angry fur. Tiger hated being held by anyone but Hayden and he wasn’t shy about letting his preference be known.

“Hand over that slinky toy.” The cat filled Hayden’s arms and she buried her face in his soft fur. The cat responded by purring.

When she looked up, Officer Barton stood next to the recliner, a reporter’s notebook clutched in her hand. “What do you remember?”

“Sirens, I remember sirens and not being able to breathe and seeing spots and the alarm sounding. It’s all jumbled in my mind. I can’t put one thing or another first. It’s like it all happened at once. How did they get in?”

“They? How many people were here?”

“I don’t know. I only felt one. There could have been more. I didn’t see anyone. I was in a deep sleep. When I first heard the alarm and the phone, I thought it was all part of a dream. I remember trying to wake up.” She looked at the officer. “You know the kind of dream where the present intrudes. Where you can’t tell the difference between being awake and asleep.”

The officer nodded.

“The electricity was off,” Hayden continued.

Barton made a note. “How did you know that? Do you have a night light?”

“I picked up the bedside phone. The line was dead. It’s a portable. It needs electricity. The landline was still ringing. I ran towards the kitchen. I didn’t know there was a break-in. I thought it was a false alarm. I wanted to get to the phone and tell the alarm company before they called Mallory. He stopped me in the hallway.”

“We know.  Your blood is on the hallway floor. Are you sure it was a man?”

“Don’t know. Felt like a man. The person was taller and stronger than I am.” Hayden paused and searched her memory through the pain in her head She rubbed her forehead. “No, definitely a man. He talked. The voice was deep and it sounded disguised. Like it was someone I knew, or should know.”

The taste of bile rose in her throat. Hayden shoved herself out of the deep recliner and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“I’m going to be sick,” she said through her fingers. She passed out before she took two steps. Barton caught her before she hit the floor and called for the paramedics.

When she came to, her nostrils burned of ammonia.

“Definitely a concussion,” one of the paramedics said, after she’d recovered a bit. “You need to be in a hospital. There could be a fracture of the skull. No way to tell. It can happen with a fall. Doesn’t have to be a blow. We can’t take you without your consent but that’s where you should go.”

Pain shot through Hayden’s head as she shook it. “No,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine. I fell.”

The shorter of the two looked at Barton. “Do you want to ‘Baker Act’ her?”

“No,” Mallory said. She laid a hand on Hayden to calm her. “That would be an abuse. She’s not a danger to herself or anyone else. You have no reason to put her on a forty-eight hour psychiatric hold.”

Her eyes held Hayden’s, reassuring her.

“Put her in her own bed. They can’t do anything for a concussion anyway. I’ll stay with her. Make sure she stays awake.” The paramedics looked to Officer Barton. She nodded her assent.

Mallory and the policewoman half carried half led Hayden into her bedroom. Tiger leapt out from under the bed and tucked in next to his mistress. Woman and cat snuggled under the covers.

“Close the door,” Hayden said.

Mallory looked at her friend and did as she asked. “The guy who grabbed me? He smelled familiar.”

“What?”

“Really. It was his aftershave. He smelled familiar. I smelled it before. Recently. I can’t place it. Whoever was in here, I knew him.” Hayden couldn’t point a finger at any of the cops she’d encountered in the past weeks. But she was sure that’s where she’d encountered the aftershave.

Mallory sat on the edge of the bed. “Hayd, whoever was in here either used a credit card to get in or had a key. There’s sign of attempted forced entry on the bathroom window. The one the alarm transistor went out on. They didn’t get in that way though. The screen isn’t pushed in. Did you open the door to anyone? Or leave it unlocked after I left?”

“No way. And I’m sure it was locked.”

“I turned the alarm off when we came in today. Did you leave at any time today without setting it?”

“You turned it off today?” Hayden’s eyes widened.

“Yep. I sure did. Why?”

“My cleaning lady was supposed to come today. I left it off for her. She doesn’t have the new code. She called before I got to your house. She’s sick. She couldn’t come. The alarm couldn’t have been on.”

“It was. I remember that I turned it off. I used my code though.”

Each of the friends had a personal code entered in the other’s alarm system. They also had the same kind of alarm. It activated it by punching the pound sign and on. To deactivate it, you needed to punch in the full code.

“You got your key back from Kevin, right?” Mallory asked.

Hayden answered with a nod. She winced as the movement brought pain. “Yeah, it was the only good thing about him showing up here. That and getting rid of his junk.” Her eyes drooped.

“Don’t you dare go to sleep on me.” Mallory gave her shoulders as slight shake.

“I won’t,” Hayden mumbled. “Could you get me some cola? The caffeine…”

Hayden must have dozed off when Mallory left. A soft knock on the door roused her. Officer Barton opened the door in response to her invitation and stood just over the threshold. The notebook was still in her hand.

“I know you don’t want to talk now.” A quick smile lit the woman’s face. “When you feel up to it, call.” She fished a card out of her pocket with her free hand and laid it on an old-fashioned vanity near the door. “We need to know if anything is missing from your office.”

Her heart pounding in her chest, Hayden sat up. She hadn’t thought about why the break-in occurred. Of course, someone had to be looking for something. Whatever it was, they had decided it was in her office.

“Let’s do it.”

“Later is fine.” She smiled again and Hayden noticed for the first time that the masculine looking woman was pretty.

“Nope, I need to know.”

Officer Barton rounded the bed and helped her. She continued to support her while they walked down the hallway.

The pair stood at the open door to Hayden’s office. She tensed and her mouth dropped open at the mess in the room. Her laptop lay on the lounge chair. The contents of each of the desk drawers was scattered on the floor. The contents of file folders were tossed around the floor like confetti. She felt sick, but this time she also felt mad.

“Anything missing that you can tell?” Officer Barton asked kindly.

“I don’t know. I can’t be sure. There’s nothing in here worth stealing other than what’s left. The computer equipment is the valuable stuff.”

“Hey Hayd.” Mallory had come up behind her friend. “Where’s the bracelet?”

Thirty-Three

“It was on my desk. Did you find a bracelet?” she asked the woman dusting the room. “Gold, lots of charms. Spanish writing and dates?”

The tech shook his head. They’d found no jewelry. There were a lot of prints. All over the front door, the office and the rear window, but no jewelry. “Was it valuable?”

“I don’t know. I found it diving. The water was pretty shallow. Snorkel depth about thirty feet. I saw it shining on the bottom. It wasn’t old. The last charm was dated 2004. I meant to put an ad in the paper today, with a picture. I don’t think it had a lot of monetary value but sentimental, that’s another story. With everything that happened today, I forgot to stop. I have the picture in the car. Will it help?”

The officer nodded.

“Err, Hayd, I have your car. It’s home. I took mine here.”

“Tomorrow will be fine. Hayden, let’s go back to your bedroom. Or the kitchen if you prefer. I know you saw Detective Landsdown today,” Officer Barton began. The two women walked down the hall back to Hayden’s bedroom. Hayden looked down at the hallway floor. Her blood pooled on the wooden lengths. Seeing the direction of her stare, the policewoman said “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure the crime scene techs clean that up after they photograph it.”

Hayden smiled her thanks. “Let’s do the bedroom. I’m okay as long as I’m semi prone. When I sit up or stand, things get spinny.”

Hayden climbed into bed. Tiger Cat looked up at her from the other pillow. Kevin’s pillow, she thought with a pang.

Barton closed the door and pulled up a chair. She leaned over and brought the sheets up under Hayden’s chin. “Sorry, motherhood will do that to you.” She smiled. “Landsdown will probably have my badge for telling you. Richard was involved in smuggling.”

“Drugs?” Hayden interrupted.

“People. He was a mule, not a smuggler. In some ways, he was even guiltier. He picked up the refugees from the boats that brought them here. He did it in Florida waters and he brought the refugees near to land. Any strip of land or shallow was fine. Once the boat was close enough, the refugees left and swum for shore. For that service, we believe he was paid anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars per person. At least that’s the going rate. Not bad for a night’s work.”

“So, Mallory was right.”

“Mallory?”

“Yeah, my friend. She said the same thing.” Hayden glanced over to the window seat expecting to see her friend perched there. She winced at the pain the movement caused her. “Where’s…Oh, I remember, she went to her house for the photo.” Hayden rested her head back against the pillows.

“Maybe I’m more hurt than I think I am.” She grimaced. “What does this have to do with me? I never smuggled anyone. I don’t know much about it, except what I’ve seen in the news. ”

“Maybe nothing. Your former boyfriend was his brother. You were going to buy his boat. The same boat he used to smuggle people. You see where this is going?”

“Frankly, no. I didn’t know anything about this. I don’t know if Kevin did either. Kevin worked for a living. He works for Monroe County as a mechanic.”

“Boat mechanic. He had access to the people who patrol the water. He knew who was on the water and who wasn’t. We never caught Richard. We only recently began to suspect him.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that. Landsdown may be able to, but I can’t.”

“What happened this morning, out near the end of the street? I saw the coroner’s van.”

Officer Barton chewed her lip. To Hayden it looked like she was trying to come to a decision. “We found the body of a young girl. She’d drowned. Near as we can tell, she came from Richard’s boat on his last run. We can’t find the boat though. The trail ends the night before you woke up at the marina.”

Hayden plucked at the sheet that covered her. She debated telling the policewoman where the boat might be. Weighing the pros and cons, she decided she needed to speak to Janice first, before she said anything that might point a finger at Elena. Hayden looked at the clock: six thirty in the morning. Too early for Janice to be on her shift. The boat wasn’t going anywhere so a day or so more wouldn’t matter.

“Who died? Do you know?”

“Yes. We think we do. She had a money belt under her clothing. It had identity papers wrapped in plastic. Nothing had photographs though, just a birth certificate and some informal religious documents, things like that. Her mother told us they paid a smuggler and they expected her last week. They thought she was still in Cuba and the boat hadn’t made it yet. I’m glad I wasn’t the one who had to tell her the boat made it, her daughter didn’t.” Barton looked down at her feet, sorrow etched on her features. “It’s always a tragedy when this happens.” She looked up at Hayden, “I hate what these smugglers do. Puncturing hope and replacing it with pain. Then they take off and don’t look back. So few of them get caught.”

Someone tapped out shave and a haircut on Hayden’s door. Her heart stopped. Then she realized Kevin wouldn’t dare show up with all the police cars around. Would he?

“Hayd?” Mallory’s voice called.

Relief flowed through her. Mallory, not Kevin. “Come on in, you looney toon.”

Mallory came in, her face wreathed in smiles. “Well, I went home and got the photo. This should help move things along.” She held out the photo to Officer Barton. “Here’s the bracelet.”

Officer Barton picked up the color photograph and held it close to her eyes. Hayden saw something in her face when she looked at it. She couldn’t be sure what.

“Is something wrong?”

“Exactly where did you find this bracelet?”

“Do you dive?”

Barton shook her head.

“Then you may not know,” she continued. “The name of the reef is Barbara’s. It’s pretty close in. Lots of coral and bottom structure. Goes from about twenty to thirty feet depending on where you are. I found this in thirty feet of water. You’d have to ask Cappy for the coordinates. He probably has a GPS. Is it important? Did someone report it stolen? I can’t figure out why someone would break in and only take the bracelet.”

“Opportunity.” Barton’s face closed. She continued to stare at the photo. “You had it on the desktop. The alarm went off, they couldn’t stop it, they grabbed what could go into a pocket and they made a run for it. No mystery. Happens all the time. Opportunity. It will probably show up in a pawnshop on the mainland.”

The look on Barton’s face told Hayden the cop was lying. She was about to press the point when the crime scene tech stuck his head around the door. “Sorry to interrupt, we’re finished. Before we go is there anything else we need to do?”

Barton jumped at the sound of the man’s voice. She’d been staring at the photo of the bracelet.

“Landsdown will be in touch with you probably tomorrow,” she said to Hayden as she stood.

Hayden’s top teeth worried her lower lip. She decided not to confront the officer until she had more information. Something had changed. There was something about the bracelet. Barton was no longer friendly.