Deceived (3 page)

“Hmm.” Sam nodded his head, his mouth too full to speak.

“Well, I think I’ll get one of them teas. Give me a call if you want crew, hear?”

“Sure thing, Andy.” Sam raised a hand in a single wave and shoved another bite in. He watched Andy order a drink and leave in his car.

Then Sam headed back to Jenny’s.

Chapter six

Jenny was still in her black dress when she opened the front door for Sam. Without a word, she walked to the beachside screened porch and resumed sitting, staring into the ocean’s midday glare.

Sam followed like a chastened puppy, afraid to break the silence, but eager to ask about Lee’s keys. He sat down on the wicker ottoman at her feet and took a deep breath before speaking.

“Jen, I wonder if I could borrow Lee’s keys.”

“Keys? They’re in the clamshell on the dresser. Help yourself. But what do you need them for? I already gave you the key to
Stormy Monday
.” Not once did she look away from the ocean’s glassy horizon.

“I just thought I would drive his car so you wouldn’t have to. It’s important to run that Mustang’s engine every couple of days, you know.”

“That’s what Lee always said, too. Sure, you know where it is. Excuse me if I don’t join you.” With that, Jenny looked right through Sam and stepped out on the beach.

Sam watched her walk toward the water’s edge, then turn north. Her walk was slow and steady now, not like this morning at the service, Sam noticed. He headed to Lee and Jenny’s bedroom and found the keys in the wide shell on top of the dresser.

Doing as he said he would, he opened the garage door and slid into the driver’s seat of the classic 1968 Acapulco Blue fastback. This vintage model was a four-speed with a V8 engine. The polished chrome-styled steel on the wheel rims gleamed, and the blue interior looked like something out of a showroom. Even though he was not the Mustang buff Lee was, Sam knew Lee’s car was worth about $25,000 in its current condition. He had helped Lee many nights, taking apart some aspect of that car and putting it back together again. Sam smiled at the dream of owning it, but he shrugged it off when he thought of his salary.

Sam fingered the keys hanging from the ring while the engine purred. No unusual keys, just a house key, a key to Jenny’s maroon Jeep, and the one in the ignition.

Sam pulled out of the driveway and drove toward the highway to warm up the car’s innards.
Poor Jenny. One more thing to deal with,
Sam thought. But at least this car was a collector’s item. It would sell fast, unlike Lee’s boat
.

Stormy Monday
. Sam thought about the note mentioning “seacock.” After about an hour on the road, Sam returned to the condo. He turned off the car, quickly felt inside the empty glove compartment and trunk, and then returned the keys to their place on the dresser.

Back at the dock, Sam stopped by
Angel
long enough to grab that key.
Stormy
was well tied in her slip just a few slips down from his boat. Sam noted the extra spring lines Lee had put out.

“Must make a note to do that for my boat before the next strong wind,” Sam thought. He stepped aboard her stern and into the cockpit. Lee’s handiwork was apparent everywhere; mounted drink holders, mesh bags for lines and winch handles, and canvas winch and binnacle covers were all well-protected by the hard dodger he had formed and constructed a few summers ago. On top of the dodger were mounted two solar panels. Under the dodger, Lee had fashioned sleek dry boxes for
Stormy
’s instruments and electrical hook-ups for the electronic gear stored off the boat during winter months. After unlocking the companionway hatch boards, Sam entered the salon. Unlike
Angel
’s center-cockpit,
Stormy
’s cockpit was aft. This layout had its advantages, including only one hatch to fumble with during foul weather while sailing. Below, the L-shaped galley was to port opposite a small navigation station whose seat doubled as the top of a quarter berth, extending the boat’s width. Lee had fashioned a back rest at the nav station as well as some removable partitions that sectioned off the quarter berth into manageable storage for coolers, extra lines, anchors, and dry goods—a novel idea. Lee was trying to figure out a way to patent his design before approaching the folks at Catalina, the boat’s manufacturer.

Stormy
’s salon had a dinette to port and a long bunk to starboard with shelves over it, holding countless CDs and paperbacks. Forward was a head to port and a deep hanging locker, which had been converted for the HVAC system, a blessing on sticky nights at dock, for which North Carolina is famous. Forward was a small but adequate V-berth stacked high with the cockpit cushions Jenny had covered.

Seeing them reminded Sam of the weekends when Jenny and he had taken turns on her sewing machine, making new covers for their respective boats. Though Jenny’s were covered with a splashy bright fish pattern, they were similar to his in size and design. Sam wondered whether he would be able to repair his slashed cushions, but he guessed he’d have to start again.

Convinced that everything was the way it was supposed to be on a boat not yet prepared for the approaching sailing season, Sam moved aft to look at the engine compartment. First, he checked the hoses, then the belts on the engine. Next, he opened the seacock in the engine compartment. There were no apparent leaks. He checked the engine’s oil, getting just a little on his fingers to test its viscosity, and finally the engine’s water level, which needed to be topped off a bit. Once everything checked out below, Sam went topside, checked that the throttle was in neutral, and turned the key in the ignition. After a few turns, the engine came to life. Sam dashed aft and looked over the rail to see what the engine might be spewing out. Ejecting water was a signal that the engine’s mix of oil and fuel was correct.

While Sam ran the engine to let it get warm, he stepped below to the galley to wash the oil off his hands. He reached for the water pump switch on the switch panel and turned the faucet’s knob. Grayish green water sputtered out hesitantly, then grew into a steady, clear stream.

The sink filled halfway before Sam remembered what he had forgotten to do: open the seacock under the sink so the water could drain. He quickly turned off the water, grabbed a paper towel, and looked under the sink. He tried to move the brass handle from its horizontal position, but no amount of pushing or pulling budged it. The seacock’s handle was frozen solidly in place. Sam wasn’t anticipating a handyman special on Lee’s boat, but he had to open the seacock to drain the water.

Returning momentarily to his own boat to fetch his tools, Sam overheard the screaming owner of the large motor yacht in the slip next to Lee’s. Glancing toward the high cockpit of the forty-two-foot Hatteras, Sam saw the backside of the large man. His thick, hairy neck peeking out from his multi-colored golf-shirt collar was the color of a lobster just plucked from boiling water. The man cursed into the cell phone nearly hidden in his fat fist. Sam tried hard not to listen, but it wasn’t easy to miss the gist of the one-sided conversation. “What do you mean they found it? Look; your ass is on the line for this one. We’ve got too much riding on it, and somebody is going to pay!” the chunky man yelled. Sam reboarded Lee’s boat and headed down below to get to work on the seacock, but he took two seconds to pop open the starboard portholes so he could hear more of the yelling, just for sport.

This particular “boater” was the bane of the marina. He thought nothing of waking the entrance as he brought his boat in, and he had ripped up more than one piling getting into his slip over the last few months. He claimed he was a yacht broker to everyone in the marina, though there was little evidence that he did any actual work either on or off his boat.

When the fat man was on board sporadically, everybody knew he was there by the volume of his voice and the show of “prospective buyers” aboard, not a few of whom wore high heels and extremely short skirts. And whenever this overweight “captain” did take his yacht out, every other boater in the marina, and probably on nearby waters, cringed. Sam mused that this guy’s expertise must be in selling because it sure wasn’t in boating. Maybe he only had to sell a few a year to keep up with his own boat’s expenses and the yard crew that took care of it for him. Sam didn’t know his name, but this guy was entertaining, to say the least.

Applying WD-40 and elbow grease, Sam was able to loosen the seacock’s handle a bit. He decided to see whether the seacock was fouled, so he kept a tethered six-inch long wooden peg at the ready to plug the seacock when he took it apart. Carefully loosening all of the mounting bolts around the handle, he yanked the fitting off quickly and prepared to plug the hole so water wouldn’t gush in. But there was no water gushing. Not even a trickle.

Training his flashlight on the interior, he saw a secondary block had been cut just large enough to fill the hole.

“What’s this?” Sam wondered, reaching for the wooden circle. A small handle was fitted on the top, just large enough to grip with a pair of pliers. Again, Sam stood ready to stop a rush of water with the long tapered plug, but as he extracted this circular block, there was no water.

Attached with some form of epoxy to the underside of the round wooden peg was a small waterproof dry bag. And further still in the seacock was another smaller plug, also with a tiny d-ring for a handle.

“Lee was thorough,” Sam smiled. He pulled at this smaller plug and at last was pleased to see water rushing in so he could stop it with the long tapered plug. He deftly reinstalled the seacock mounting and handle, tightened all the bolts, and cleaned up the watery mess that the quick job left. Sam hid the blocks of wood in the locker of the port settee and stuffed the dry bag into his pocket. He would study it as soon as he got back aboard
Angel.

Turning off
Stormy Monday
’s engine, Sam could hear with greater accuracy the ranting of the man on the Hatteras as his deep voice rose in pitch. Surely, the entire marina could hear him.

“I don’t care who was at fault. That was my haul, and I want it back. You’re supposed to be handling things, not me. If you’ve got to hire divers, then do it! I’m coming down there.”

With that, the hefty man stormed from the cockpit and was out of sight. The air was still now that his shouting was over. It was as if birds breathed a collective sigh of relief and started chirping again, and a flock of small purple martins flew about the docks, working on their nest-building skills once more.

The quiet gave Sam a moment to think. What time was it? Looking at his watch, Sam realized he’d be pushed to catch the last ferry of the day, so he hurriedly closed the ports and secured Lee’s boat. He had just stepped over
Angel
’s lifeline into the cockpit when the fat man pounded up the dock toward the parking lot, his weight leaving a small wake of its own with every step.

Sam ducked below and grabbed a pair of well-worn jeans and a copper-colored sweatshirt. It was starting to cool off a little, and a ferry ride could add to the chill. He took the little dry bag from Lee’s hiding place under the galley sink with him, figuring that no one was the wiser that he had it, whatever
it
was. He’d have to look at it later.

Chapter seven

Sam’s was the last car to board the Fort Fisher-to-Southport ferry. He was waved aboard by a crew member dressed from head to toe in khakis who motioned him to stop while shoving a hunk of wood under his rear tire. Once the ferry was underway, Sam got out of his car and moved about the open platform ferry, all the while looking for a red Miata. It wasn’t aboard.

Maybe she missed the boat
, Sam thought,
or perhaps brought a different car
. Casually walking to the upper deck and peering into the fishbowl-like passengers’ cabin, Sam didn’t see anyone who looked like the woman who had hugged him at this morning’s service.

“Maybe my boat’s getting tossed again,” he thought, feeling the small dry bag in his jeans pocket.

Leaning over the railing of the upper deck, Sam saw a woman standing next to a battered blue bicycle. A ball cap hid her hair, but when she walked to the rear of the ferry, Sam was sure it was her. She was sassy even in shorts and a baggy white cable knit sweater.

Sam slowly made his way against the people walking up the stairs and meandered between parked cars until he was within five feet of her. He leaned on the railing, looking at the brackish waters of the Cape Fear River rushing by.
The ride won’t take that long, so if she intends to talk, she had better get started
, Sam thought.

Sam kicked the side of the solid metal panels meant to keep cars on and waves off. The thud-thud sound had its desired impact.

She glanced at him, then inched closer until their elbows nearly touched on the top of the railing. She too leaned over and stared at the water.

Sam kept his eyes on the water, but he glanced at her every few seconds. He guessed her to be in her late twenties, nearly half his age. He guessed she was pretty, though her oversized sunglasses hid her eyes, and the too-large black ball cap hid her hair with only a few long strands finding their way out of the hole in the back of it. In canvas sneakers, she was about 5’6”. And she was not smiling this afternoon.

“Thanks for coming,” she started in little more than a whisper. “I didn’t know Lee very well, but he spoke highly of you and told me he was going to tell you about me. I didn’t know who else to trust. Did he have a chance to tell you what happened?”

Sam looked intently at the water, not sure what she meant. “Lee didn’t tell me anything.”

“I am sure he would have if he’d had a chance. He was a good guy.”

“What was it that he didn’t get to tell me, uh, what did you say your name was?”

“Oh, sorry. Deloris, but everyone calls me Del. I guess you can, too.” Del sighed and pushed her hat up a bit, revealing a tan furrowed forehead. “Lee sort of stumbled onto a really bad scene, and I think the further he looked into it, the worse it got. My boyfriend Tommy got killed over it. Tommy wasn’t too bright sometimes, but he took really good care of me and Emily, our little girl. I wanted to nail the guys who left Emily without her daddy, so I found out through the grapevine about Lee, how he was this good cop on a mission to help others. I wasn’t sure how to approach him, so I had one of my friends find him. She said he was trying to help kids stay off the streets by taking them sailing or something like that, and her boy, Sharick, was getting a lot out of it. Sailing was keeping him out of trouble. So one day when Reneeta dropped Sharick off for a day of sailing, I had her slip him a note telling him about Tommy and the trouble he had caught. Well, Lee was on it in a hurry. We met a couple of times, and he took down everything I knew about Tommy, his friends, and the boats.”

“The boats?”

“Yeah, drug boats. They bring the stuff in, right here to Southport. It’s a mean business. Tommy was just a little fish. He was trying to go straight for Emily and me, but his boss wouldn’t let him. Tommy told me he had one more run to do, and then we would be moving to Florida where he could do something else. We talked about running a dive shop or something like that.

“Anyway, on this last run of his, his boat got boarded by a gang and Tommy got killed. Two of his crew were down below in the galley when they heard an approaching boat coming at high speed, so they hid. They both have records, and I guess they thought it was the Coast Guard. Anyway, they heard it all happen, but they didn’t see anything. The boat was holed, and it sank.”

“What about the crew? What happened to them?”

“As the boat was sinking, they slipped into the water and swam to Bald Head Island. I bet those fancy-pants property owners over there didn’t know what to make of them two washing up on their pristine shores. They rode home on the contractors’ boat the next day, and no one was the wiser. When Tommy didn’t come home, I tracked them down and hounded them until they told me what had happened. Then I contacted Lee.”

Sam took it all in. “What about the cargo? What happened to it?”

“That’s the thing. There wasn’t any, according to the two guys who were with Tommy. They were on their way out to meet one of the shrimpers. Tommy had an old beat-up Grady White. It wasn’t much to look at, but it sure could move.”

“You mentioned a key in your note this morning. I’m assuming you wrote the note, didn’t you?”

Del nodded her head. “That’s right. I wrote that note.”

“What did the key open?”

“Oh, it wasn’t that kind of key. Lee was making what he called a matrix, a key to a chart or something like that.
He was putting together all the pieces of the puzzle, he said, and the matrix helped him keep the players straight. I figured if I could get it back, maybe I could see what it all meant and find out who killed Tommy and maybe Lee. Tommy sometimes mentioned the number on the scrap of paper I gave you, so I thought it might be important.”

At this, Del looked straight ahead. “Can you help?”

It was a simple question.

“Del, Lee was my friend in addition to being my partner. If what you say is true, then I will find the bastards who killed him and Tommy. You need to focus on Emily. It’s probably a good idea for you two to move, if you can. There’s not much more you can do here.”

Sam turned his back to her, breathing in the moist salt air brushing his face as the ferry moved forward toward Southport’s ferry dock. When he turned around again, she was gone. Her bike was still there.

She couldn’t have gone too far
, he thought, as the ferry slowed and lined up with the boarding ramps on the Southport side of the river. Sam walked briskly to his car, checking between the others for Del. No sign of her. He drove off the ferry, and waited by the vending machines, watching to see whether a lone walker came off, but he didn’t see her.

“She must have gotten into a car,” he said to himself, searching each passing car hastily, but none contained a driver or passenger resembling Del.

Stumped, Sam drove his borrowed Altima the few miles into the historic deep-water port town of Southport.