Without a Grave (18 page)

Gator snorted. ‘Pirates? In the Abacos? There haven't been any pirates in the Bahamas since the eighteenth century.'

‘Haitians, then.' Jaime raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Look, man, when I got on board, there wasn't nobody there. No . . . who'd you say? Frank Parker? No papers. Nada. I reported it to the police. What more do you want?'

‘I've been asking about
Wanderer
and the Parkers on the Cruisers' Net every day for a week now.'

‘I don't listen to the Cruisers' Net, do I? So how was I to know? Maybe you should have printed up a “lost” notice and tacked it to all the telephone poles around the island.' His eyes narrowed. ‘Besides, how do I know it's the same boat? Lots of boats have the same name.'

That, at least, was true. ‘It won't take long to trace the numbers on the boat's builder's plaque,' I said. ‘Which brings up an interesting point. Why did you have the plaque removed?'

‘I figured it didn't matter.'

I took a deep breath, counted silently to three and let it out. ‘Didn't matter? I'm sure it mattered to the boat's owner.'

‘
I'm
the owner.'

I opened my mouth to protest, but Gator laid a cautionary hand on my arm. ‘He's right. If the boat was abandoned, and he salvaged it, then it's his.'

Across the table Jaime nodded like a bobble-head doll. ‘The boat was a derelict, thrown up on the rocks, jagged hole in her hull. I'd say that qualified as being deserted by those in charge of it, without hope of recovery, and with no intention of returning, don't you? Bahamian Law. Chapter 274, Title 7.' He pressed on in that vein, peppering his dissertation with legal-speak and words like flotsam, jetsam and ligan. The S.O.B. had memorized the law. I wanted to wipe the smirk off the supercilious bastard's face.

‘Whatever happened to the Parkers,' I said, turning to Gator, ‘it happened on that boat. Frank and Sally
never
would have left
Wanderer
voluntarily. It was their
home
!'

‘You're free to search it if you want,' Jaime said.

I looked hopefully at Gator. ‘We should contact the police. Have them look the boat over for signs of . . .'

Jaime leaned back in his chair and laughed. ‘Foul play? Oh, right.
CSI
Marsh Harbour.'

‘Don't they . . .' I began.

Gator leaned toward me, forearms resting on his knees. ‘I'll talk to them, Hannah. Since US citizens are involved, they may send out the crime scene unit from Grand Bahama.'

‘How about the US Coast Guard?' As I talked I skimmed through my mental Roledex of contacts in Washington DC. ‘The FBI? Or Interpol?'

Gator touched my arm. ‘One step at a time.'

Nothing about what Jaime said made any sense. Frank and Sally had last been sighted in Great Sale, heading toward Hawksbill Cay. Eleuthera, where Jaime insisted
Wanderer
had been found, was an island chain way to the south and east of the Abacos.
Wanderer
would have had to sail
past
Hawksbill Cay, down the eastern shore of Great Abaco and out into the Atlantic Ocean before reaching Eleuthera. A two-day sail, at least.

‘Do you have any witnesses to back up what you're telling us,' I blurted.

Jaime sucked in his lower lip and shook his head. ‘Yes and no.'

We waited. If the jerk didn't start telling the truth soon, I was going to rip a tiki torch out of its holder and club him to death with it.

Jaime took a deep breath. ‘The guy who was with me? Craig Meeks?' A sigh. ‘Thought you might have heard.' A long pause while Jaime arranged his face into a fairly good imitation of sadness and concern. ‘He's the one who died in the wildfire.'

A vision of Craig Meeks as I had last seen him swam into my brain, taking dark possession of it. The tiny sips of tea I had consumed threatened to make an encore. I pressed a napkin to my mouth. ‘Excuse me,' I mumbled. I sprang to my feet and dashed madly in the direction of the ladies room, hoping I'd make it into a cubicle before disgracing myself in the frangipani.

When I returned to the veranda five minutes later, Jamie was nowhere to be seen, and Gator was waiting for me in the golf cart. As the main gate swung shut behind us, Gator said, ‘Died in the fire, huh? How very convenient.'

Still fighting back waves of nausea I said, ‘Jaime's a lying sack of shit.'

‘He's also a bit fuzzy on maritime law, Hannah. A salvor can take possession of an abandoned boat, but technically it's still the property of the owner. If the owner wants it back, he's obliged to come to some sort of agreement with the salvor. Money usually, but the owner can say, screw it, keep the boat.'

‘If you can find the owners,' I added grimly.

I hung on to the canopy to keep from being dumped into the casuarinas when Gator made a hard right. He center-lined the wheel and turned his head to look at me. ‘I
know
the bastard stole that boat, but what I can't figure out is why. He's got more money than God. Or at least his Papa has.'

‘Guys like Jaime learn early on that rules apply only to other people,' I said. I thought about the special treatment recruited athletes get, even at the Naval Academy where sports weren't supposed to be as big a deal as they were in the Big Ten. Cocky jocks whose performance on the field was so important to mankind that it couldn't be interrupted by anything so mundane as class work or exams. Or, if one really got into trouble, jail time. ‘Maybe Papa keeps his little boy on a short leash,' I added.

Suddenly, the wheels on my side of the cart wobbled off the pavement and dipped into the sand. I made a grab for the wheel, shouting, ‘Eyes on the road!'

Seconds before we might have gone crashing ignominiously into a poisonwood tree, Gator regained control.

When we were safely on the road again, I said, ‘
Wanderer
might have been abandoned for some reason I don't even want to contemplate, but barring some dramatic shift in the tectonic plates of the time-space continuum, there's no way in hell she was all the way down in Eleuthera, not if that cruiser who reported seeing her up in Great Sale a few days ago was right.'

‘Bermuda Triangle?' Gator snorted at his own joke and gunned the accelerator.

Back in Hawksbill settlement, Gator eased his golf cart into a vacant parking spot near the Pink Grocery and walked back with me to the dock where I'd tied
Pro Bono
. As I climbed down the ladder and jumped into my boat, he said, ‘I'll contact the Marsh Harbour police and make sure they know that the
Wanderer
's been found.'

‘Thanks, Gator.'

He untied the painter and after I'd started the motor, dropped the rope down to me. ‘Meanwhile, see if you can rustle up anyone on the Net who actually saw
Wanderer
with the Parkers aboard between Great Sale and here.'

‘Will do.'

‘And, Hannah?'

I looked up, way up, into Gator's worried, suntanned face. ‘Yes?'

‘Remember what I told you. This is the Bahamas, not Maryland USA. Leave it to the locals. Don't get involved.'

I pushed
Pro Bono
away from the piling and pointed her out into the harbor. ‘I'll try, Gator,' I shouted to his diminishing figure. ‘It's not in my nature, but I'll honestly try.'

THIRTEEN

I'N'I BUILD A CABIN, I'N'I PLANT THE CORN;

DIDN'T MY PEOPLE BEFORE ME SLAVE FOR THIS COUNTRY?

NOW YOU LOOK ME WITH THAT SCORN, THEN YOU EAT UP ALL MY CORN.

WE GONNA CHASE THOSE CRAZY, CHASE THEM CRAZY,

CHASE THOSE CRAZY BALDHEADS OUT OF TOWN!

Bob Marley,
Crazy Baldheads

T
he next morning on open mike, I asked listeners if anyone had seen
Wanderer
. My question was met with depressing silence.

The next day it was much the same.
Breaking Wind
called in to report seeing a vessel named
Wanderer
anchored in Black Sound up Green Turtle Cay way, but it turned out to be a Hunter, not a Reliant.

On Friday, my last official day as moderator of the Net, my open mike call was returned by an Ericson 38 just returning to radio range after a cruise to Allen's Pensacola, an uninhabited island to the north and west of us.

‘
Windswept
,
Windswept
, this is
Northern Star
.'

‘Come in,
Northern Star
.'

‘You're looking for a boat called
Wanderer
? A Reliant for- . . . ?'

I was so excited that I stepped on his transmission, depressing the talk button before he had finished. ‘That sounds like the boat, Captain. Over.'

‘About ten days ago,
Wanderer
was anchored in Poinciana Cove behind Hawksbill Cay. My wife and I dinghied over to invite the owners for cocktails.'

‘Frank and Sally Parker?'

‘Roger. They joined us on
Northern Star
, stayed for dinner. Frank told me about the work he was doing on behalf of Save Hawksbill Cay. Said he was going to do a couple of night dives. You can't get a full picture of the health of a reef unless you can see it at night. What fish are out. What they're eating. Yada yada.'

‘Anyone else in the cove with you?'

‘Nope. Just the two boats. Even for hurricane season, it was pretty empty.'

‘When did they leave?' I asked with growing dread.

‘They were still there the next morning when we weighed anchor. I don't think they had any intention of leaving. Frank told me he was planning to testify at a meeting over in Hope . . .'

‘
Sea Wolf
,
Sea Wolf
,
Sea Wolf
. Come back to
Happy Hooker
.'

Some fisherman with a more powerful radio and no sense of netiquette was overriding our signal. I waited for
Happy Hooker
to finish impressing
Sea Wolf
with the sixty-pound amberjack he'd wrestled aboard his Hatteras, then hailed
Northern Star
again.

But,
Northern Star
couldn't add anything to what he'd already told me. Frank and Sally had been anchored in Poinciana Cove off Hawksbill Cay at the end of July. By the beginning of August they had vanished. It was looking very bleak for my friends.

Had Frank stumbled on something during his dive, something that Jaime Mueller, or someone else in the Mueller family wanted to keep secret?

I thought about all the laws the government of the Bahamas had put in place to control fishing and boating as well as the construction industry, regulations that were sometimes just for show, that could be bypassed if the right amount of money reached the right bank account of the right government official at the right time.

El Mirador Land Corporation had dotted all their I's and crossed all their T's. They'd been given a clean bill of health by the big shots in Nassau. As long as they didn't deviate from their plans and permits, they would be untouchable.

Was El Mirador up to something else, then?

Something worth killing for?

It was clear to everyone involved in the meeting that Frank M. Parker, BS, PhD, SERC Senior Scientist (Retired), cruising sailor, husband and friend, would not be testifying for Save Hawksbill Cay in Hope Town on Wednesday evening. Callers to the Net that morning had wondered if the meeting was still on. Henry Allen, Warden of the Abaco Land and Sea Park, representing himself as well as the Bahamas National Trust, assured everyone that it was. Five thirty. St James Methodist Church. Be there or be square.

The day of the meeting dawned hot, humid and virtually windless, the only breeze ruffling our hair being generated by
Pro Bono
itself as Paul, Molly and I skimmed along the Sea of Abaco from Bonefish to Elbow Cay.

By day, Hope Town's signature candy-striped lighthouse served as a landmark, welcoming boaters in; by night, its beacon (which can be seen for seventeen miles) warned them away from a dangerous reef where eighteenth-century locals had supplemented their income by ‘wrecking.' The village probably looked a lot then as it does today – a quaint, pastel-colored New England fishing village.

Paul successfully negotiated the busy channel at the harbor's narrow entrance, and managed to snag a prime ‘parking spot' at the Hope Town dinghy dock well inside the snug, protected harbor.

While Paul made
Pro Bono
secure, I rooted through my fanny pack. ‘Who has the shopping list?'

‘I do,' he said. ‘First stop, Lighthouse Liquors. Seems we've been running through the Sauvignon Blanc at a fairly fast clip.'

‘Guilty,' I said. I stole a glance at Molly. ‘Not making any excuses for the bottle I drank last night, practically single-handed, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.'

Molly wrapped an arm around my waist, hugged me close. ‘I know you're worried about the Parkers, sugar, but you shouldn't let it get to you. Worrying yourself to death isn't going to help anyone, least of all the Parkers.'

Angry tears pricked my eyes. ‘If Jaime Mueller is at the meeting, you might have to hold me back, Molly.'

‘Come on.' She looped her arm through mine as we turned left and walked ‘Down Along,' one of only two principal streets on the island, both so narrow that not even golf carts were allowed to drive on them. Where ‘Down Along' split we took the right fork and headed up the hill, carefully negotiating the cracks in the concrete. We left Paul at Lighthouse Liquors to restock our modest liquor cabinet as he saw fit, and continued on to Vernon's Grocery, a concrete, practically windowless building on Back Street. Its owner, Vernon Malone – Mr Vernon to you – was an island institution. His seven-times great grandmother, Wyannie Malone, had founded Hope Town settlement in 1785.