Just Add Salt (2) (7 page)

Chapter 7

“I already told you,” I told the umpteenth cop for the umpteenth time, “I don’t recognize him and I did hear something last night, but I was too sleepy to check it out.”

The detective’s phone beeped, he listened for a while, jotting notes. After he hung up, he had a sardonic smile on his face. “Miss Coffey, headquarters tells me you have an interesting file.”

Crap. Jan, who had been moping on the settee, piped up. “She never did anything really illegal. Right, Hetta?”

“Of course I haven’t.” I tried to sound confidently indignant, but wondered how much of my past the detective knew about. Jan was right, though, I’d done nothing too illegal.

Detective Norquist consulted his notes. “A shooting incident?”

“Which one?” I stupidly blurted.

He raised his eyebrows. “A few years back.”

“Oh, that. I did shoot a humongous wharf rat that stowed away in my furniture when I moved back to Oakland from Japan.”

“Uh-huh. Your dog carjacked a post office jeep?”

“He was acquitted.”

“And how about that body in your hot tub?”

“Some guy killed Hudson, my ex-boyfriend. I had nothing to do with it. Your office has a copy of Alan, the murderer’s, confession. It was recorded on my boat's security camera. He killed Hudson and then tried to kill me. It’s all on record.”

“And so is Alan’s disappearance, after you shot him.”

“
At
him. I was suffering from blood loss, so my aim was off.”

Norquist shook his head and actually chuckled. “I see you know our Detective Martinez. He left a note or two in your file before he retired.”

“Hey,” Jan asked, “do you have his phone number in Mexico? We want to call him, maybe see him soon.”

I shot her a dirty look, but it was too late.

“You’re planning a little trip south of the border?”

“Uh, yes,” I told him. “I have a consulting job in Mexico coming up.”

“I wouldn’t make any reservations just yet, if I were you.”

“Oh, we aren’t gonna fly. We’re gonna take Hetta’s boat.”

Was there no way to shut the woman up?

Norquist gave us both an incredulous look, muttered something like, “Martinez was right,” under his breath, and folded up his pocket notebook. “Ladies, do not take your vessel away from the dock until you hear from me. We’ll have more questions later. After the autopsy. For now, though, where can I find you?”

“Uh, I live here.”

“Not for the next twenty-four hours, you don’t. Where can I reach you?”

Jan gave him her address and phone number. I was officially homeless.

My homelessness was short-lived. The very next morning, after another interview, the cops removed their yellow tape declaring
Raymond Johnson
a crime scene, and released my boat back to me. They were very polite and didn’t seem to be exactly accusing me of anything, but, just in case, I called Allison Wontrobski, my lawyer, of sorts.

“Hey girl, what’s up? You in jail?” Allison drawled. She hadn’t lost one bit of her Texas accent since she, Jan and I all migrated to the Bay Area from Houston. Allison—petite, beautiful, black and sassy—was a legal barracuda. My kind of lawyer.

“Not exactly. I do have this itty bitty problem, though.” I explained the situation and that, even though I had my boat back, I was told not to leave town. And, they wanted to talk to me again, downtown. It was the downtown thing that made me think it a good idea to bring along legal muscle.

“Shit, Hetta, I was kidding. How do you get yourself into these messes? Oh, never mind. Where and when? I’ll be there. Do you seriously think they are gonna book you for murder? I ain’t no criminal lawyer, you know.”

“I didn’t murder anyone, so no. But I could use some moral support. Just look criminal lawyerly.”

“You got it.”

Norquist and another cop seemed to be having a grand old time at my expense. Jan was allowed into the interview, as was Allison, whom I introduced as my lawyer.

“So, Miss Coffey, you say you never met,” he shuffled in his notes, “Mr. Lonnie Jones?”

“Never met him, never heard of him. Is he the, er, victim.”

“Oh, he's the victim, all right. A victim of advanced organ failure due to substance, probably alcohol, abuse.”

“You mean he got drunk, fell off the dock and somehow got tangled on my anchor and drowned? It was an accident?”

“Not exactly. You see, Mr. Jones was embalmed.”

“Been there myself a couple of times.”

Norquist and his partner burst out laughing. I wasn’t all that amused with my clever self.

Allison was a little quicker than Jan and I on the uptake. “You mean,” she asked, “that Mr. Jones, who somehow ended up on Hetta’s anchor, was already dead and had been embalmed?”

“So it seems. His body was lifted from a local funeral home.”

I was stunned into silence, not a natural state for me. Jan’s eyes were bigger than usual and I detected a touch of green around her gills. “Someone,” she gasped, “stole a dead person? How awful for his family.”

Leave it to Jan to worry about others, all I felt was a huge sense of relief. But why my anchor? “Was this some kind of practical joke?” I asked, hoping it was just that. Deep down, though, I suspected this was no joke and that someone, for some weird reason, put that poor man’s body on my anchor. A warning? For what?

Norquist must have sensed my dismay, for he asked, “Miss Coffey, do you have any reason to think otherwise? Do you suspect Mr. Jones was deliberately, uh, placed on your particular anchor?”

“Certainly not.” I tried to look properly indignant.

“Well then, I guess you can return to your boat.”

“You mean I’m off the hook?” I asked, then regretted my unfortunate word choice.

Jan shot me a horrified look, but Norquist didn’t seem to notice my gaffe. Oops, there I go again.

“Just let us know when you plan to leave the dock, and how to reach you.”

“I can go to Mexico?”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

I guess two can play the word game.

Back on
Raymond Johnson
, I spent the afternoon scrubbing decks and anchor chain. Not that any of Mr. Jones remained, I just felt the need for a physical and mental cleansing.

By the time I ran out of soap and steam, it was getting dark.

I closed the front window blinds, blotting out my bow and therefore the scene of the what? Crime?

I collapsed into a back deck chair and sipped a glass of wine while watching the sun set over Alameda Island and the Estuary. A couple of sailboats ghosted by, their occupants enjoying a late day sail. Everything seemed so normal. But somewhere in Oakland, the family of Mr. Jones was preparing to bury him. According to the obit I pulled up on the computer, he’d been almost ninety, was born in Arizona and was a Shriner. Belonged to a local Lutheran church. Survived by five children, ten grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren. His over consumption of alcohol aside, Mr. Jones would be missed. I just hoped his family didn’t know anything about his extra baptism en route to his funeral.

I checked the newspapers and found there was some mention of a body found in the estuary, but no details. Thank goodness for that, but you can bet your sweet rear end the yacht club was abuzz with the real story. I gave the club a miss for the evening and fell into an early and uneasy sleep.

Several times during the night I jerked awake, thinking I heard a splash.

Chapter 8

Jan was on her fourth cup of mocha and just concluded her seventh rejection from a boat captain when the phone rang. Not in the best of moods after being rebuffed and called nuts all morning, she snatched up the phone and growled, “Hetta’s Hell.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and continued working on my computer until I heard her coo, “So, Captain Fabio, you are available?”

I mouthed, “Fabio? You’ve got to be kidding.”

Jan frowned and motioned for me to cut the crap. She listened a minute or two and gave me a thumbs-up. “Uh, can you hold a minute?” She cushioned the phone against her sweatshirt. “Hetta, I got a hot one.”

“How did he get our number?”

“Who cares? He’s available.”

“Tell him to fax his credentials. Where is he?”

“Ensenada.”

I did a little victory dance while Jan gave Captain Fabio my fax number. When she hung up, I mixed a couple of mimosas to celebrate and while we quaffed our drinks, we reveled in how much we would relish telling the Jenkins brothers we have engaged a guy named Fabio as our boat captain. Visions of flowing blond tresses, huge pecs and a sexy, accented voice saying, “I caaan’t believe it’s not but-tah,” danced in my head. Within thirty minutes the fax arrived and the orange juice and champagne set up an acid factory in my stomach.

Jan, reading the fax over my shoulder squawked, “He doesn’t have a green card?”

“Nope, doesn’t look like it.”

“Well, crap. Now what?”

I had to think. Okay, so no green card for Captain Fabulous, as I nicknamed him, but his resume looked good. A graduate of the Mexican Naval Academy in Mazatlan, he’d worked as a captain on shrimpers and commercial fishing boats in Mexico after serving ten years in the navy. And he worked regularly for a broker in San Diego, taking yachts from Ensenada to Cabo.

I called the broker he gave as a reference and she gave Fabio  a  glowing recommendation. In fact, she said, Captain Fabio was overqualified for ferrying yachts, but as long as he was willing, she planned to continue using him. Yippee!

“Okay, Miz Jan, so Fabio can get us south from Ensenada, we just have to get to him. You know, you and I could do that part. Ensenada is only sixty or so miles south of San Diego. We could stop in a marina every night on the way down to San Diego and still make it in four or five days. Six, tops.”

“If the weather is ideal and if we don’t have a single mechanical problem. Hetta, we can’t fix diesel engines.”

“We have two. One quits, the other keeps going.”

She looked unconvinced. “Don’t we still have to have a crew of three for your insurance company?”

“Not until we get into international waters, or way offshore. Much further offshore than we’ll ever be. And,” I waved my hand in the direction of the yacht club, “that bar is home to some of the best sailors in the bay area. They’d jump at the chance for an all expenses paid cruise to Ensenada. We can put ‘em on a plane back here. So, let’s sign this Fabio up, at least, and then figure out how we’re gonna get this tub to Ensenada, okay?”

“I guess. Why not?” She handed me the phone.

Several clicks, buzzes and fade-outs later, I heard the distinctive double chirp of an international call.

“
Bueno
,” a woman’s voice answered. I heard Mariachi music in the background and the clink-clank of glass. Fabio lived in a bar? My kind of guy.

“Captain Fabio, please.
Por favor
.”

“¿
Quien
?”

“
Capitán
, uh,” I looked at his resume, “Fabio Maria Jesus Jose Hernandez,
por
favor
.”

“
Momentito
,” she said, then bellowed, “Jose!
Teléfono
.”

Static followed, then, “
Bueno
.”

“Is this Captain Fabio?”

“
Sí
. Yes, this is I,
Capitán
Fabio.” Good grief, he did sound a little like a bodice-ripping blonde.

“This is Hetta Coffey. You talked to my friend a few minutes ago about taking my boat to Cabo?”

“Yes. You receive my paper?”

“Uh-huh. Are you familiar with the Californian motor yacht?”

“Oh, jes. I have drive many. They are fine sheeps.”

Sheeps? Oh, ships. “And you have no problem with an, uh, unseasonable, cruise?”

“I do not understand.”

“You aren’t worried about hurricanes that time of year?”

“
Señora
, it is you boat.”

He had a point there. If some nutso gringa wanted to take her boat into harm’s way, why should he care? I outlined our plan, telling him we would somehow get the boat to Ensenada so he could take over. When I finished, he asked, “Do you have a fine mechanic for you sheep in Oakland?”

“Well, not really. Someone was taking care of it, but he, uh, well….” I didn’t know what to say. Left me? Deserted me?

Fabio saved me the trouble of explaining my lack of fine mechanic. “I will send my cousin. He live in Ah-lah-med-a.”

“Alameda? Great.” I gave Fabio my location and boat name, and then we discussed his terms. When I hung up I was ecstatic. “Listen to this, Jan. This guy only wants twenty bucks a day, a dollar a mile and a bus ticket back to Ensenada from Cabo. He probably won’t set me back more than a couple of grand. Three at most. What do you think about that?”

“I think you get what you pay for.”

Cousin Ernesto showed up an hour after I hung up with Fabio, and two hours later he emerged from the engine room. “You know,” he said with little trace of an accent, “this boat is in very good shape. Someone has really given her a going over. I would suggest we change out a few belts, just to be safe. And install an extra set of Racors.”

“Uh, of course. Go ahead. What do they cost?”

“Well, it can be as cheap as a hundred for parts, but I don’t think you should cut corners on this one. What happens, if you get in really crappy weather, the fuel gets to sloshing around, stirs up junk from the bottom and plugs up the fuel filters. No fuel, engines quit. Now you’re rocking and rolling because you can’t keep the boat into the swell. And you gotta go down and change filters. It can get pretty ugly. With the system I’d like to install, you just flip a switch to a new bank of filters, the engines start and while you’re heading into the seas, then you change the other set in case it happens again.”

“Ernesto, you wanna take a boat ride to Mexico?”

“Nope. I fix ‘em, I don’t ride in ‘em. Get seasick. Sorry.”

“Too bad, I could use you. Uh, Ernesto, is your cousin, Fabio, an okay guy? I hate to ask, but we are putting our lives, and my boat, in his hands.”

“I only knew him when I was a kid. His mother is my mother’s second cousin. Never heard anything bad about him. He had a problem once with some owners of a boat he was running. Nothing bad, just that they had different ideas about what he should and shouldn’t catch. I got the idea the owners asked him to do an illegal catch, and he refused.”

“So your cousin has principals. That’s a good thing. You know I’m on a tight schedule, so can you do this filter thing fast?”

“How’s tomorrow morning?”

“¡
Fantástico
!”

True to his word, Ernesto was on the dock at seven sharp, and he had company. I couldn’t help but notice Ernesto’s helper was tall, dark and handsome, with a tinge of gray in his thick black hair.

“Good morning, gentlemen. I’ll leave you to your work. I gotta run to West Marine and spend my next year’s salary. There’s coffee in the carafe on the table. Oh, and just in case the Satfone guys show up to install my sat system, tell them I’ll be back by eleven.”

When I stepped onto the dock, the other man strode forward with his hand held out. “
Señora
Café, it is I, Fabio.”

My mouth fell open. “Captain Fabio? But how in the heck did you get here so fast? And I thought you didn’t have a green card.”

He waved the air like he was batting a fly. “I, of course, took the Greyhound. And I do not worry of such things as green cards. Now, I shall accompany Ernesto to make you boat perfecto while you have a nice shopping,
sí
?”

“Uh,
sí
.” I watched them board the boat, then walked to my car, still a little dazed. Then I began to chuckle. Okay, so I had an illegal alien for a captain, but at least I had a captain.

When I returned, the men were gone, but Jan was there. I thought she’d be thrilled that we’d scored a captain for the trip to San Diego, but she was far from ecstatic.

“Hetta, do the initials I.N.S. mean anything at all to you? Or say, U.S.C.G.? As in, United States Coast Guard? Who, by the way, stop boats in order to, and listen closely here, guard. The. Coast. And do you know how they do that? They board boats looking for, amongst other things, illegal aliens. We could go to Federal prison for smuggling an illegal.”

“Well crap, Jan, we’re taking him
to
Mexico, not the other way. Besides, he must have some kind of ID. He got here in record time, via Greyhound. Maybe he’s using someone else’s ID.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure the I.N.S. thinks all Mexicans look alike.”

I was saved from addressing this piece of insight by a dinging fax machine. “Hold that thought,” I stonewalled, and escaped inside to avoid Jan’s quite unreasonable summation of our captain problem. The fax was from Jenks, with yet another list of stuff to do before we left. The cover sheet said: Since you are going anyway, I want you to be safe. Let me know exactly what this mechanic is doing to the boat so I won’t have to worry. Love, Your Jenks.

I handed the list to Jan to add to our already engorged tome of lists. She read it. “Oh, isn’t that sweet. He signed it, Your Jenks.”

“Sweet, my sweet ass. If he is mine, why isn’t he here for me?”

“Shall I recount the reasons? Or do you wish to remain terminally unreasonable?”

“The latter. Okay, let’s go over the schedule so I can make our marina reservations.”

“Not so fast, Miz Hetta. What about Fabio? Aren’t you worried that we might be boarded?”

“Nah, what are the odds of that?”