Follow the Evidence (A Mac Everett Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

The man was terrified, but he still
hesitated.

“That’s enough,” Madison said. “We
will give him to you, Special Agent Hilton, do you have the forms ready to take
custody of this man?”

“He’ll kill me. I tell you, but you
have to protect me,” Cox said. “I’ll tell you. What do you want to know?”

“Who is behind this,” I asked
softly.

“I don’t know who the big boss is,
but Laszlo Munoz paid five of us to say the boat had been there. The TVs was my
payoff.”

“And it wasn’t there, was it?” I
asked.

“No, I never saw it.” Cox answered.

“How about the cigarette boat with
the dragon design, is that his too?

“Yes, I mean no. I’ve seen it, but
it weren’t there.”

I could smell his fear but I saw he
was telling the truth. His eyes went down and to the right, the way his
shoulders dropped all said he’d caved.

“Where is the boat?”

He just looked at me.

“Where is the boat, now?” I said
gently. “The invitation to Cuba is still open. How long is the flight from
Nassau to Guantanamo Bay, Agent Hilton?”

Hilton replied, “Not long, it’s
about…”

“Eleuthrea,” Cox blurted out. “He’s
on Eleuthrea. That’s an estate on the north tip of the island. I was there
once.”

I looked at Madison. She gave a
little nod indicating the information was good.

“There, Enderby, that wasn’t so
hard, was it?”

We heard something outside.
Sergeant Hitchcock, who had obviously been listening, put his head in the door
and said, “Transport lorry is here, mum.”

“Just in time,” I said. “You’ve
made a good decision Mr. Cox.”

Turning to the Sergeant Hitchcock,
I said, “May we get protective custody for our friend Mr. Cox here?”

He looked at Madison, who nodded.
Hitchcock said, “Very good, sir.”

The sergeant helped Cox to his
feet, and turned him over to the two transport officers. They patted Cox down,
cuffed him, and took him to the van.

“What charges this time, sergeant?”
one of the officers asked.

“Disorderly conduct and resisting
detention will do for now,” he replied.

“Post an officer,” Madison added.
“We will be applying for a search warrant, and then seize this contraband.”

“Right, mum,” the officer replied.
Then he said to Cox, “Come along old fellow. We have a nice cool place for
you.”

“Close protective custody for this
bugger if you please, Officer Child,” Madison said. “He’s squiffy again. Look
after him?”

“Yes, mum. We’ve picked old Enderby
up on more than a few occasions. We’ll take good care of him. Close custody it
is for him this trip.”

When the officers had removed Cox,
we all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Good job, Mr. Everett,” Hilton
said as he reached to shake my hand.

“Yes, well played indeed,” Madison
added. “I’d wager you’ve done that before.”

“A couple times,” I replied, “but
not usually with an audience.”

“What’s this about a dragon boat?”
Hilton asked.

“I’ll explain on the way. We have
to get out to Palm Harbor right away. How long will it take to get there?”

“I can have an officer there in a
few minutes. We won’t be far behind,” she replied.

“Like I said before, let’s try to
keep it unofficial,” I replied. “Agent Hilton, why don’t you interrogate Mr.
Cox? See if you can get any more out of him.”

“The dragon boat, what’s the deal
with that,” he asked.

“A witness saw something that could
have been a boat when he was rescued near the
Wind Dancer
,” I replied.
“It was a long shot the boat even existed, but now I’m sure and we have a name.
Come on. Let’s get going.”

Sergeant Hitchcock came through the
door and seemed wide-eyed. I wondered what he’d heard.

Hilton headed for the door and I
followed. Madison took my hand and I stopped. When Hilton was outside she said,
“You maneuvered Cox like a surgeon handles a scalpel. Who are you?”

“Just a PI from Florida,” I
replied.

“I hope you get another chance to
manhandle me,” she said.

We dropped Hilton off at police
headquarters. Madison arranged for him to interview Cox and then she and I
headed back to her car. Once we were in the Navigator, Madison unleashed a
barrage of questions. I had a lot of explaining to do and not much information.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “The
way you handled Cox, I know you’re a trained interrogator, the question is, who
do you work for.? Are you CIA? What’s this about a dragon boat and what does it
have to do with this cocked up mess?” she added. “What does Laszlo Munoz have
to do with this?”

“Hold on, Madison,” I said. I held
up one hand to fend her off. “I only have bits and pieces.”

“Well, tell me what you know or
you’ll be on the next plane out of here,” she snapped.

“First, I’m not with any government
agency. I spent a couple tours in Iraq squeezing Intel out of tougher men than
that drunk.”

“The boat?”

“Like I said, I’m wasn’t sure it
existed. Now I know it does, but I have no idea what it means,” I replied. “The
chopper crew that discovered the
Wind Dancer
thought they saw something,
but couldn’t confirm it. A kid rescued near
Wind Dancer
might have seen
something. Look at this,” I said. I pulled out my phone and showed her the
photos of Danny’s drawings.

“Gawd!” she said.

“As for Munoz, I never heard the
name before today. Who is he?”

“Laszlo Munoz is the closest thing
we have to a crime boss in The Bahamas. He’s wealthy, politically connected and
covered in Teflon. Nothing we’ve had on him has stuck. He has circumvented a
couple drug charges, smuggling, and a homicide too. There was even a rumor of a
connection to a California drug ring. Sources tell us a handful of midlevel
dealers escaped a shootout with police and slipped in from the U. S. and now
work for Munoz. We’ve never been able to confirm that, however.

“You seem like you have a personal
interest in this guy. What’s with that?” I asked.

“Three years ago, I commanded an
interagency smuggling task force. EUROPOL issued an alert on a ship expected to
sail from Cuba suspected of carrying weapons bound for the Middle East. A Royal
Bahamas Defense Force offshore patrol vessel spotted the ship west of Eleuthera
a day later, but when they intercepted it, it was empty. The captain didn’t
have the appropriate papers to be in Bahamian waters. After a few days, he
found he didn’t like the accommodations at Fox Hill Prison. He admitted to
running guns for Munoz. He even named two of Munoz’s men as his contacts. They
were Americans. Three days later, we found him hanging in his cell and within a
week both the men he fingered turned up dead. We had an empty ship and three
dead men-a lot of nothing.”

“Did you get anything from the
crew?” I asked.

“When the captain was killed they
developed total amnesia. All we learned was that the ship sailed from Cuba and
was the offloaded to a handful of smaller boats and…”

“And one of them was a cigarette
boat with a dragon design on side,” I said. “How did you tie it to Munoz?”

“We had the captain’s statement but
after he committed suicide…”

“Even with the other two deaths you
had to consider the captain’s statement unreliable. I get it.”

“The ravings of a deluded mind, as
Munoz’s attorney put it.” Madison said.

“How can we track down this boat?”
I asked.

“Perhaps we’ll learn something
useful at Palm Harbor,” Madison said.

I hoped she was right.

A Bahamian police officer met us at
the marina. He had secured the marina’s logs, the digital video recorder and
had the assistant marina manager waiting for us.

“Well done, Officer Spear,” Madison
said when the officer completed his report. “Introduce us to the manager,
please.”

Madison led the way into the marina
office, on the ground floor of the pastel building we’d seen in Maria Summers’
photos and on the satellite photo. Sitting behind a desk at the back of bright
room was a spindly guy with unkempt black hair and black framed glasses. He had
on a blue polo shirt and from baggy shorts. A pair of pale stick skinny legs
protruded from his shorts when he stood. His pasty complexion was the last
thing I expected from a guy who worked at a marina in the Bahamas.
The
manager
doesn’t get out much
.

“Superintendant Todd, this is Mr.
Bain, the manager.” Officer Spear said.

“Assistant Manager,” Bain
corrected. He offered Madison his hand. “Andrew Bain, ma’am, pleased to meet
you. Officer Spear said you have questions for me.”

“This is Mr. Everett from the
states. We share an interest in one of your guests.”

“Mr. Bain,” I said. The man’s hand
was clammy.
What was he afraid of
, I thought. “Did you have a sailboat
named
Wind Dancer
docked here?”

“Oh yes sir,” Bain replied. “Mr.
Sebastian and his son are regular visitors. It was a shame that fine sloop
sank. She must have left after the office close though.”

“Does he keep all his boats here?”
I asked.

Madison gave me a subtle raised
eyebrow.

“Yes, sir, he docks his racing boat
here too, when she’s not on the circuit.”

Sebastian owns both boats. That
was a big lead
.

“He races?”

“Not Mr. Sebastian himself, of
course. He sponsors a team. They take part in races all over the Caribbean as
well as some in Central America, I believe.”

“Does he use the boat himself?” I
asked. “I’d love to see it.”

“Young Mr. Sebastian or Mr. Munoz
usually pilots the boat,” he said. “Mr. Munoz was at the helm when they left
here a few days ago. Mr. Sebastian has it over on Eleuthrea. He has a home
there.”

I traded a look with Madison who
kept a straight face, but gave me a little nod and an arched eyebrow.

“Maybe I’ll look him up. I’d love
to see that boat.”

“You may see it here, if you wait,”
he replied. “
Dragon Lady
is in and out every week or so.”

“Do you have surveillance video of
the marina?” Madison asked.

“We’re interested in October 7
^th
and 8
^th
,” I added.

“The weekend of the hurricane, of
course,” he said. “We have eighteen surveillance cameras here, but video for
October would be on the backup,” he replied. “I back up the digital recorder
the first of each month.”

“So you have that on a computer?” I
asked.

“On no, it’s on CD. I transfer the
video myself each and every month,” Bain said.

“So you have video from October?” I
asked.

“Of course, it’s just not on the
DVR,” Bain replied.

The guy wasn't the brightest bulb.

“We would like a copy of the
October video, if you please, Mr. Bain,” Madison said.

“Certainly, Superintendant,” Bain
replied. “I’ll just get to work on that.”

Bain thumbed to the end of a row of
CDs on a shelf behind his desk, selected the October CD, and put it in his
computer. He put a blank CD in a second drive and started to copy the CD with a
few mouse clicks.

“Right! It will be ready in a
jiff,” Bain said as he turned his attention back to me.

“I’d love to see his boat,” I said.

“It’s not here now,” Bain replied
impatiently.

“Were all three of Mr. Sebastian’s
boats here in October?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Bain said. “It will
be on the video. Ah, there, the copy is finished. What date did you say you
wanted to see?”

“October 8,” I replied.

“I will take just a moment,” Bain
said. He opened the CD, advanced it to the correct date stamp, and started the
video.

“This shows all the cameras,” Bain
said. “I can isolate individual locations.”

Bain opened an index identified by
camera number.

“Let’s work through them until we
see
Wind Dancer
,” I suggested.

“Right,” Bain mumbled.

“There, is that it?” Madison said,
pointing to an image of a sailboat in the center of the screen.

“Let’s see,” Bain replied.

The still image was of a two-masted
sailboat. Bain enlarged it.

“That’s not it, Bain said.
Wind
Dancer
is a sloop-one mast.”

“How about this one?” I asked
pointing to another image.

Bain opened the image and said,
“Yes, that’s it. Do you want to see the video?”

“Yes please.”

Bain clicked on the video. It
buffered and then began to play. The video, shot at night, showed the dock
lights playing on the moving water. The name
Wind Dancer
reflected in
the lights was plainly visible on the bow of the sailboat on the far side of
the dock.

This begins at midnight,” Bain
said. “Would you like to fast forward until there is something to see?”

“Sure,” I replied.

The video ran at four times normal
speed. At 3:10 A.M., two people stumbled down the dock to
Wind Dancer
arm in arm
,
a man, and a woman.

“You can’t make out much, can you?”
Madison said.

“No, it’s much better in daylight,”
Bain replied.

The two people stumbled boarded the
sailboat, went below and a moment later the lights came on in the cabin. They
people reappeared a few minutes later, each with a drink in their hand. We
watched while the silhouettes embraced. It was obvious they were kissing. After
about ten minutes both of them disappeared into the cabin and the lights went
out.

“Can you fast-forward again?” I
asked.

“Certainly,” Bain replied.

“Whoa, what’s that?” I exclaimed.

Madison moved closer. I could feel
her hot breath on my neck. The scent of her hair almost made me lose track of
what I was doing.