Death By Sunken Treasure (A Hayden Kent Mystery Book 2) (16 page)

Twenty-Eight

The door between the kitchen and the bar swung open to reveal Jake entering the room at the same time as I slid off the barstool. A look of sheer panic crossed Caridad’s face and she dropped my wrist as if it were hot.

“Anything else you like?” She refused to look me in the face as she asked.

“You can go, Caridad. Take your break now.” Jake’s tone made it clear his words were not a suggestion. “What else can I get you, Hayden?”

His bright blue eyes seemed to light the room. For a moment, I was speechless. This was an interview I knew I needed, but I wasn’t prepared to conduct.

“Top up my wine?”

His gaze held mine for a beat longer than necessary. Then he picked up the empty glass, “Any particular variety?”

“Chardonnay.” The tension between us was thick. I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue and drew in a deep breath. So many questions filled my mind, but I was afraid of this man. The one thing I wanted, time to order my thoughts, was the one thing I didn’t have anymore.

He set the glass down on a coaster in front of me and leaned forward on his forearms, his gaze locked on the entry door to the bar. “Devon told me he talked to you about me and Dana. I know how close you are to her. I’m sorry if I hurt her.” He turned his face in my direction. “What I told Mike, that was to knock some sense into him.”

My mouth said, “How? Why bring up old relationships?” My mind screamed, “Why did you shoot at Cappy?”

He pushed up to a standing position. “I wanted him to defend his mother. To understand what a prize she was.” He walked toward the bar sink, picked up a dishtowel, and began rubbing down the area.

“So you weren’t trying to hurt him? Get back at him for pulling the salvage permit and the bar away from you?” There, I’d said it, not to his face, but aloud. The slight stiffening of his back let me know he’d heard.

The towel slapped down on the bar with a loud thwack and I jumped in my seat. Around me, the bar fell into silence. “Do you think I’m here as an employee? What are you talking about? I own this bar, me and Devon.” Spittle flew from his lips and his eyes grew so large I could see the whites surrounding the blue irises. He grabbed up the towel again and held it in his clenched fist. It took all my courage to stay in my seat. I’d never seen anyone go from calm to rage so quickly. He took two steps in my direction. “Just what the hell do you think you know?”

I felt my cheeks color. I knew Mike cut him out of the will, and I knew Mike did it deliberately. What I didn’t know was how the second will figured in. Or what Jake did to get him to sign it. Caridad’s words replayed themselves.
Mr. Jake and the handsome man took the envelope
. I chewed my lip, not wanting to say anything that would get Caridad in trouble. Talking to Jake was a bad idea.

One of the men who came in just before Jake did called out asking for a refill on his beer. Jake answered by lifting his hand, one finger extended. “And about the salvage permit, why don’t you see who applied for it, paid for it, and located the wreck.” He spun on his heel and went to tend to his customer.

I threw the bills on the bar, slid off the barstool, and headed for the door as soon as his back was toward me, glad to be able to escape without further exchange. His reaction seemed out of proportion to my questions.

Janice might suspect Dana in Mike’s death, but I knew the killer had to be Jake. I debated calling Deputy Diego or Janice as soon as I pulled out of The Petard parking lot. First though, I wanted to think through my theory. Experience told me to seek out the holes and argue the other side. That meant one of my famous lists. I remembered the chart I began days ago. Like five hundred lawyers at the bottom of the sea, it was a good start.

I pulled into my driveway at street speed, raced from the car to the house, shoved open my door, turned off the alarm, and bent in almost the same motion to pet Tiger Cat. My booted feet sounded loud on the wooden floor as I all but jogged to my office. I dropped into my chair and swiveled to open the bottom file drawer. The file marked “Mike” sat front and center, my yellow legal pad protruding over the tab. It practically jumped into my hand.

My old notes were so out of date in light of my new knowledge. With a thick black stroke, I crossed Kristin and Devon off. Finding a red pen, I drew circles around Rutger, Lisa, and Jake. Under Jake’s name, I put double lines. By the time I finished drawing the relationships among the various suspects, the chart in front of me looked like someone had tossed a bowl of spaghetti on paper. This was too complicated.

I pulled a fresh sheet toward me, drew a circle in the middle, and inserted Mike’s name. Then I surrounded his name with my suspects, like petals on a flower. Jake, Lisa, Rutger. I fought my instincts, but I added Devon and Dana too. Satisfied I’d named everyone, I started drawing relationship lines between Mike and each name. The unfinished chart looked like a spider. Now was the time to make it into a spider web and see whom my trap caught.

Lisa had a relationship with Rutger, and she worked for the ME. She would have known about the report and had access to the tanks. She could have changed the gas in the tank to air. Did she deliberately mistype the numbers of the cold chamber too to delay the cremation? I wrote ME and drew a thick circle around it with a line from Lisa to the name. I made smaller circles around her and inserted the words boat, diver, and baby. Then I drew a line from Lisa to Rutger, and from Lisa to the baby to Mike.

Rutger’s chart circles bore the titles diver, SEAL, strength, employer, losing defendant, and boat. I tapped the pen against my lips a few times. I didn’t think Rutger knew Jake, Devon, or Dana. His ties were all with Mike and Lisa.

At Jake’s name, I inserted circles with strength, boat, diver, treasure, and Petard. I drew a line to Devon and Dana. I surrounded Devon with the same circles as Jake’s. I drew a double line to indicate the relationship between Dana and Jake. Another thought struck me. Where did Mike leave his tanks before his last dive after he picked them up from his house? I considered the timing. Maybe he left them at The Petard, or on the little boat he borrowed from The Petard. I drew circles for tanks and connected them to Jake and Devon. In red, I wrote Cappy, and drew a bold line to Jake. He threatened him. Why?

I double circled Dana’s name. Her only crime was being Mike’s mother. Sure, he cut her out of his will. But kill her son? Not in her character. The thought made me nauseated.

I drew a circle near her name. Dana didn’t dive or drive a boat. Nothing to connect her to the treasure site. A dark black x crossed her out.

One other item joined most of the suspects. Doubloons. They all had shadow boxes with smiling doubloons. Five doubloons. Was greed the uniting motive? Or did the five coins symbolize something else? Jake, Devon, Mike. All three involved in the salvage. Buddy. Why him? And Dana…hers were not in the shape of a smile—were hers a thank you for the loan? Did Dana mortgage her house to help pay for the treasure hunt? I rocked back in my chair. The theory fit, it felt comfortable. I jotted a quick note to ask her.

So then, did each of the five coins symbolize an active partner? Someone involved with the treasure? Was that the connection? If so, then what was Buddy’s role and who had the fifth set?

I stared at the spider web. All the lines led to Jake. My only viable suspect. More circles surrounded his name than any other. To test my hypothesis, I plotted pages with each of my suspects in the middle and checked where the lines and circles led. Satisfied that my hypothesis held, I booted up my computer, opened a document, and titled it “Evidence Against Jake.” Grant’s ringtone interrupted my typing, but I had enough to share with him. My thumb touched the speaker icon. “Wait until I…”

“The tox screen came back.” Grant’s voice floated through the air. “Oxycodone, Percocet, and marijuana. The oxy and Percocet were well above the usual therapeutic levels. The marijuana, who knows.”

My heart froze. Mike’s blood was a swirling cocktail of legal and illegal drugs. No way I expected that. The hissing sound I heard was air escaping from the balloon of my theories. Mike was stoned. He didn’t need anyone else to kill him. His own bloodstream provided a pretty efficient suicide machine. Worse, as far as I knew, none of the people on my suspect list had any involvement with drugs. Only Mike. My chest tightened. I pictured Dana’s heartbreak.

“It’s easy to have poor judgment at depth with those kinds of drugs,” Grant said.

It took me a few minutes to rally my thoughts. “Yeah. In normal circumstances, I’d agree. But Mike’s physical condition meant he used the prescription drugs for a long time. His body would be accustomed to them.”

“Did you uncover anything about drug use? Seems to me, with this concoction…” He let his voice trail off.

The fade-out made it clear. Grant believed the death certificate. It didn’t make sense to me though.

“Mallory told me she’d heard Doc Green tell him he wouldn’t prescribe any more narcotics. He needed to find a better way to manage his pain.”

“That fits with suicide,” Grant said. “He was cut off, he needed more. He didn’t count on his body returning to land. He planned to make it look accidental.”

“We didn’t see any indication…”

“His personality was different. We just didn’t associate it with drugs,” Grant interrupted me. “Face it. This finding blows your murder theory right out of the water.”

I wanted to snap back that I had evidence. But I kept quiet. My evidence consisted of jumps of logic. I had to fine-tune it. I promised to meet him in the morning for a strategy session. I also volunteered to tell Dana before she found out from someone else.

I gathered up all the papers on my desk and held them in both hands. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to rip them up. Instead, I put them back in the “Mike” folder and tucked them into my file drawer. Then I picked up my car keys and prayed for the right words to say to Dana.

Police cars, blue lights flashing, surrounded The Petard when I drove past. My stomach did flips. Superstitiously, I reached for the guardian angel image clipped to my sun visor and said a speedy prayer of thanks that I left before whatever excitement was happening, but part of me wanted to pull over and check it out.

Dana’s car sat alone under her house when I arrived. Her voice called out to me to come in before I could knock. She sat at her kitchen table sipping a cup of tea. Her hand gestured toward an old brown Betty teapot. She brought the ceramic pot with her from England when she came over as a bride. Her love story started out as a classic GI romance, her husband a military man stationed outside London. They met and fell in love at the local pub. Time softened her accent, but when I listened, it shone through her words.

The words I needed to tell her stuck in my throat. I used the time to pour a cup of tea to try to find the right ones. I sat across from her and reached out for her hand. An expression of concern crossed her face.

“Are you all right?”

How like her to worry more about me than herself. Especially after all she’d been through. “There’s news about Mike.”

Her throat worked. Butterflies churned in my stomach. I offered up a silent prayer that I would say this right.

“There were drugs in Mike’s system when he died.” Dana’s face crumpled. Unshed tears made her hazel eyes luminous.

“What drugs?” she whispered.

I took a deep breath and reeled off the names.

“I gave those to him.” She sniffled. Placing both elbows on the table, she scooted forward and dropped her chin between her cupped hands. “Had been for quite a while. He lived in tremendous amounts of daily pain. He couldn’t get enough in a prescription to last more than a few weeks.” She straightened up in the chair. Her eyes bored into mine. “He understood self-medication. The drugs didn’t kill him.”

“You gave him pot?” My face felt like someone injected it with too much Botox. Too many expressions warred and canceled each other out. I didn’t know where to direct my gaze. I struggled to take the information in. He may have understood “self-medication,” but the body can only take so much, and the tipping point between relief and overdose isn’t all that obvious. I knew that from my probate practice.

“No. That he got on his own, but I did give him the narcotics. I wondered when Dr. Green would figure out my arthritis and back pain escalated with Mike’s needs.”

I breathed a little easier. At least she wasn’t supplying illegal drugs. Of course she was. The drugs were only legal for her. Was this what Janice meant? Did Dr. Green call the police after Mike’s death? I drew a deep breath, and then another.

“Do you think he might have accidentally overdosed?” I stumbled over my words. Grant insisted that in this case, an accidental overdose was a cover for a suicide. I didn’t want to tell her that.

“Bullshit.”

My head jerked back as if slapped. Dana never swore. She moved my hand off hers. I winced at the scraping sound her chair made on the tile floor when she stood. “He didn’t overdose.” She leaned forward, resting her fisted hands on the table. “He studied. He knew how much to take.” She spun on her heel and continued. “He had other sources, too. Do you realize how painful burns are? How long the pain continues after the incident? How the pain multiplies with every surgery?” Dana’s eyes flashed fire. “And then the ultimate insult, just when it starts getting better, the nerves start to revitalize.” She snorted. “They call that exquisite pain, like it’s a gorgeous piece of jewelry. No. He got pure drugs from me. He. Did. Not. Overdose.” She poured herself another cup of tea. “One of those bastards at The Petard murdered him.”

My phone chimed out Mallory’s distinctive ringtone. Dana slapped the table with the flats of both hands. The teacups jumped. I punched the decline button on my phone. Despite Dana’s obvious disapproval, I tried to gently tell her Grant was proceeding on the assumption of suicide. I held back the knowledge our will might be the valid one. If Caridad’s timeline held, he visited us before his final dive, and he signed the last of his last wills in our office.

My phone played its two-note text chime. I glanced at the screen. Mallory.

“Jake arrested.” My mouth dropped open and I thumbed back, “For what?” I looked at Dana. “I’m sorry. It’s Mallory. There were police lights when I passed The Petard on my way here. Mallory says Jake has been arrested.” An odd expression crossed her face. Almost one of satisfaction. She nodded and sat down.

“Drugs. In Petard.” I thought about that for a moment. Something in the story didn’t ring true, and why did Dana look pleased? My thumbs typed out, “More to this???? Not making sense.”

Dana touched my arm. “Why was Jake arrested?”

For the first time, I wondered if the dating and dumping story Devon shared was true. If Jake dumped her, did it still affect her? I watched her to gauge her reaction. “Drug charges.” Did this explain his behavior? Did he suspect something? I put the thought away for later.

She sent a knowing look in my direction. “There you go.” She nodded hard. “Jake overdosed him. He would do anything to get back at me.”

Before I could make sense out of her response, my phone sounded again. The message from Mallory read, “Surveillance. Jake says narcotics from Dana. He was holding for Mike.”