Backwater Bay (Kurt Hunter Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  During the summer months, it rained almost every day, and today was no exception. We had seen the large anvil cloud hovering above the mainland on the way in. There were no visible lightning strikes or special weather advisories on the VHF, so we continued in. It had started sprinkling when we passed the first marker for the channel leading to the park headquarters. The T-top and windshield had kept us dry until we were in the slip, but as we unloaded the equipment onto the dock the heavens had opened.

  The summer squalls common to the tropics were different from the storms out west. In the Sierra, you had your big storms. They came off the ocean, bringing high winds and lots of precipitation, but nothing like the sheeting rain and violent thunderstorms here. Within seconds it was raining so hard, I could barely see Justine standing three feet away through the curtain of fat drops.

  “I have to get the keys to the truck,” I said, leaving her and the gear under an overhang by the entrance. I went inside, shook off like a dog, and went to Mariposa’s desk. Seeing me shiver, she thankfully kept the conversation short and handed me the keys.

  Back outside, the rain was still sheeting down. “Let’s make a run for it,” I said, grabbing the tank. She picked up the rest of the gear and followed. The drops stung as we passed the entrance to the building and I looked up at Martinez’s window. It was obscured by the storm. I could only hope that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me.

  I unlocked the doors with the key fob when we were still ten feet from the truck. Tossing the gear in the bed of the pickup, we fell into the front seats. We took a quick look at each other, both drenched to the bone, which started a laughing fit that lasted several minutes and was only broken when the rain let up and we could hear ourselves.

  “Can you hang out for a minute and let me take my beating?” The humidity from the storm and our wet bodies had created its own weather system in the small truck. It got even steamier when she leaned in, surprising me. Her face was blurred by the water in my eyes and the cloud in the cab, and I almost missed it when her lips hit mine.

  It was our first real kiss, and I could only hope Martinez didn’t have security cameras back there to watch. Just the thought made me nervous, and I pulled away. “Rain’s let up. I better go before he sees the boat.”

  “Right. I’ll be here,” she said, turning on the heater.

  I put my game face on and headed toward the building, hoping the rain had been too heavy for Martinez to see anything.

  Mariposa took one look at me when I walked back in and directed me to the men’s room to clean up. There was not much I could do about my soaking-wet clothes. I dried my face with a paper towel and smoothed down my hair.

  My clothes clung to my skin, sending a shiver down my spine as I walked through the artificially cooled air and up the stairs. Susan was at her desk, as usual, and I gave her a quick wave, not surprised when she looked down at her computer screen as if she were too busy to acknowledge me. Though our job titles were the same, our approaches were totally opposite. We both held the title of special agent, though hers could have read “special agent in charge of paperwork.” I loathed her approach. I loved my job but hated the bureaucracy that came with it—the action was out in the field. Thinking about the report Martinez had asked for, I pulled my hastily drawn schedule from my pocket. What had taken me about two minutes to produce would have been a day’s work for Susan, and after she spent hours modifying it every day, there would be no time to actually follow it.

  His door was open and he waved me in. I sat and pulled the paper from the front pocket of my shirt. It was damp and I unfolded it, hoping Martinez wouldn’t hold the storm against me. It was curious how he was always on the phone when I entered his office, and that he seemed to purposefully cross the line where the length of the call became rude. I smoothed the map out on my wet pants and waited.

  “You’re not going to tell me that that’s your attempt at a schedule?” he asked after he hung up and grunted a greeting.

  I had no choice but to hand the paper to him. Without allowing a drop of water to land on him or his desk, he handed it back. Reaching for a file folder, he pulled out several papers stapled together and handed them to me. “This is a schedule.”

  I took the papers and looked at the neatly typed report. It was Susan’s work of course. “I don’t have a printer on the island,” I said, knowing it was a feeble excuse.

  “This is an office, Hunter.” He waved his hands around. “There’s actually one with your name on it down the hall.”

  Unless attendance there was mandatory, I wouldn’t be stuck in the closet-sized room. I could have whined that Susan’s office was four times the size but knew it would only further enrage him. “Right. I’ll do better next week,” I said, hoping I would have a reprieve.

  “If you’d stop sticking your nose in every damned mangrove bush in the park, we wouldn’t have a problem. The ecosystem here will clean everything up for us—if you let it. Your job is to pull tourists off the flats and make sure no one gets killed out there. If they’re already dead, I don’t care.”

  I noticed him glance at one of the pair of computer monitors on his desk and turned in my chair. From my position, I could just see the monitor and its checkerboard pattern of surveillance cameras.

  “Right. I’ll be better about that.” That was how he knew I had company. I wondered what he could see on the island and if my own house was monitored. Surely, I thought, the dock would be, and if he was here and watching, he would have seen the equipment we had recovered—and the lobster.

  A loud crash shook the building and we both turned to the windows. Thunder boomed and a brilliant blue lightning bolt looked like it struck the parking lot across the street. It was quiet for a second and then the deluge started again.

  “Careful with the boat in this weather. Maybe ride out the storm in that office of yours and get me a schedule. Susan would be happy to help.”

  “Good idea,” I said. I would have done anything to get out of there, even if it meant asking Susan for help. “I’ll do that.” I rose to leave and saw his glance drift back to the monitor. “I’ve got some errands to run, mind if I check out a vehicle when I’m done with the schedule?”

  He nodded. As long as he got his paperwork and could monitor the park from the comfort of his office, I don’t think he cared about anything else. I left the office and stopped at Susan’s door. “Boss says you can help me make a schedule?”

  “I see you got a girlfriend.”

  There was just a tinge of venom in her voice. I looked across the neat desk at her. She was sitting in her regulation uniform, with everything just perfect, including her hair, which was as flat and polished as her gun belt. She was clearly not my type. Not that I would have crossed the line if she was. Justine might even have been a little too close to work for a relationship, but I had already rationalized that and decided that since she worked for another jurisdiction it was okay.

  She must have noticed my evaluation. “Just log in to the network and you’ll find a folder marked—get this—Schedules,” she said. “Do a little copy-and-paste work and you’re good to go.”

  I thanked her and walked to the other end of the hall, where my broom closet was located. Unlike hers and Martinez’s, it was an interior office, with no window. The furniture consisted of a chair and a bare desk facing a blank wall. I sat in the chair and stared at the dark computer monitor.

  I sent a quick text to Justine saying that I was waylaid for a few minutes. Reaching forward, I turned on the computer and monitor and waited for them to start up. I entered my password and pulled the chair closer. Paperwork was my enemy, but I knew my way around computers. After locating the network drive, I found the folder where Susan said it would be and opened her latest schedule. It took less than a minute to realize it was fiction. I had actually been fishing some of the places she was scheduled to patrol.

  If this was what Martinez wanted, I could grant his wish. Following her example, I filled in
a blank form with places and times. I glanced at my watch noticing it had been almost a half hour since I left Justine in the truck. Feeling guilty, I opened my email program and sent Martinez the schedule. On my way to the stairs, he called out thanking me. I smiled. This wasn’t all it was going to take to get him off my back, but it was a start.

  Downstairs at the reception desk, Mariposa offered her usual invitation to dinner and that good rum she would only allow her husband to break out for special guests. I would have to go one of these days just so the poor soul could finally taste it.

  With the heat on high, I found Justine asleep when I got back to the truck. Trying not to wake her, I pulled out of the lot. The storm was gone now, leaving a brilliant sky behind and every rut and pothole full of water. Most of the trip was against rush hour, but the traffic was slow following the storm. The rain was slowly soaking through the porous limestone and into the aquifer. I was finally driving the speed limit. As I passed downtown Miami on the 836. I continued onto the MacArthur Causeway, passing some bazillion-dollar houses on the left and the cruise ship pier on the right. When we hit South Beach, Justine woke up and looked around. Before she could ask where we were, I turned south onto Alton Road and found the address on the inspection sticker located inside a marina on the right.

  After grabbing the tank from the bed of the truck we headed across the parking lot, dodging the massive puddles left from the storm. To the right, I saw a red and white dive flag flying from a pole above one of the buildings and we headed toward it.

  By the time we reached the shop my arms were aching from carrying the tank. The entrance was on the marina side and I couldn’t help but notice the money sitting in the water in front of me as I dragged the scarred steel cylinder through the door.

  A chime sounded when we entered and I looked around the store. The front at least was more of a boutique selling shirts, hats, and sunglasses than what I expected a dive shop would look like. I guessed the rent was high enough there that one couldn’t be a purist. Wondering if we had been noticed, we walked toward a pair of swinging doors blocking entry to a back room. It sounded like a big compressor was running and I called out a greeting. A minute later, the noise died and a thirty-something man walked toward us.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  I had my uniform on. There would be no small talk. “You know who this belongs to?” I asked, not knowing where else to begin.

  He took the tank and rolled it until the inspection sticker faced him. “This is Abbey’s tank,” he said, brushing the milled steel.

  8

  “Does Abbey have a last name?” I asked.

  “Give me a minute and I’ll check. We keep copies of all our regulars’ certification cards on file,” he said, and disappeared behind the swinging doors.

  I heard the compressor start back up and assumed he was doing double duty, filling tanks while he talked to us. The sticker on the tank had turned out to be a solid lead, and I could tell Justine was as excited as I was. Her phone rang and she motioned with her eyes that she was going outside to take the call. The shop was noisy with the compressor running. Alone in the store, I wandered the aisles trying to figure out how all the different pieces and parts of the scuba equipment went together.

  “Thinking about learning?” Justine asked, surprising me. I hadn’t heard her come back in.

  “Actually, I should.” I picked up two stainless steel parts and examined them.

  “We should take a road trip to Key Largo. Alicia and T. J. will take care of you.”

  I had met them several weeks ago. “Sounds good.” I noticed a change in her. “Something wrong?”

  “Just work. That was my boss asking when I’d be in. Apparently, we’ve had a busy day. You okay if I take off?”

  “Sure, let’s just get the info from Mr. Dive Dude and I’ll drive you back.”

  “No need. I told him if he wanted me to come in early he should send a patrol car to pick me up.”

  I would have rather had her beside me. “How about if I swing by later and we look at the gear?”

  “That would be good. Text me first though.”

  The compressor was still running and I looked back to the saloon doors. There was no sign of the guy, so I walked Justine to the door and said goodbye. It was a work goodbye, like two partners splitting up to take different assignments, not the date kind of goodbye that I had in mind. I watched her walk around the building and went back inside.

  The dive guy was behind the counter digging through a file when I came back in. I felt awkward standing in front of him. This kind of work was new to me and I had to figure out the right demeanor to present; too much or too little attitude would not get me the information I needed. I decided to take the mellow approach since he was working on what I asked for and took a step back to give him some room.

  A few minutes later, he pulled a paper out and looked up. “Bentley’s her last name.” He laid it on the counter.

  I stepped closer and picked it up. The certification card had a picture that, if you squinted, could have been of the victim. Maybe there was some kind of facial recognition software we could run to confirm it, but the cheekbones and eyes were the same. It looked like Abbey Bentley was our Jane Doe.

  “Mind if I take a copy of that?” I asked.

  “I guess I should ask for a warrant.” He paused and I saw the fear in his eyes. “Look, she’s a good kid. Works for Bottoms Up, cleaning ships’ hulls. Can you tell me what you’re after?”

  We were probably the same age, but I expected the uniform lent me an air of authority. “What’s your name?”

  “Laird,” he said.

  I wondered for a second if you were destined to do this kind of job if you had a surfer name, then decided it was not the kind of detective work that was going to help. “I need to find her family,” I said, thinking it was a nice way of saying I needed to contact the next of kin.

  “She comes in here for air fills all the time. Pretty sure most of her work was out of the marina here. We talked some, but it was mostly just dive stuff; nothing about her friends or family.”

  “So, the copy?”

  “I don’t know. I could lose my job.”

  My phone was still in my hand. “Here, you were in back filling tanks and never saw this.” I stepped forward and took a picture of the paper. A brochure for their certification program lay on the counter.

  He must have seen me looking at it. “You can take it. We can hook you up if you want to check it out,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket as I looked at the paper. “You know where her address is?”

  “The Gables,” he said. “Out by the U.”

  I thanked him, not really sure what he was talking about but figuring Google would take it from there.

  I left the shop with the tank in hand, thinking I had a new friend. I decided to use one of the half-dozen wheelbarrows lined up on the dock instead of hauling it this time. Back at the truck, I slung the cylinder into the bed with the BC and climbed into the front seat. Opening the picture on my phone, I looked at the head shot of Abbey Bentley and enlarged it. It was a little creepy looking at a dead woman, but I was just trying to make some kind of connection. I entered the address into the maps app and set the phone on the passenger seat.

  I wasn’t the seasoned law enforcement veteran my résumé made me appear. My reputation from finding the pot grow was misleading. It wasn’t police work that had landed me on the front page of every paper from Idaho to Mexico City. It was fishing. For most of the year, the small towns and foothills of the Sierra Nevada were quiet. Meth was a problem there as anywhere, but the labs were usually on private property, not on national forest land. Six months a year, most of the forest was under a blanket of snow. The cross-country skiers and snowshoers were not exactly the criminal demographic. Snowmobilers were a little more radical, but aside from dangerous stunts or crossing into areas where the machines were prohibited, they wer
e no trouble. Summer was the busy season when illegal dredging or claim jumping and poaching kept me busy. In half a dozen years there I’d had no dead bodies and few arrests.

  I figured I was in the big leagues now with two bodies only weeks apart. The first had been a refugee. He was never identified, but the discovery of the body had led to the takedown of a human smuggling enterprise. The second was Abbey Bentley.

  Laird had said something about her working for Bottoms Up. Half expecting a strip bar, I punched the name into the search engine and found Abbey’s place of employment. The website said Bottoms Up was a business employing scuba divers to clean boat bottoms at the owner’s slip. Looking around at the hundreds of boats visible from here, I expected there was plenty of work. The address appeared as a link, which I clicked and opened a map. The app informed me that the business was closed, but the office was in this complex.

  I decided on a quick look before I went to Abbey’s house. Locking the truck, I followed the walking directions until I had completed two circles. Frustrated, I put the phone in my pocket and, resorting to some old-fashioned police work, asked the closest man who looked like he worked there. He pointed me down a dock with two shack-like buildings near the end. I walked out and saw the marketing genius of the owner. It was like the hot-body maid thing, except with hot girls cleaning boat bottoms in bikinis.

  The sign showed the scantily clad bottom of a young lady in the foreground while she cleaned a boat bottom. It did attract your attention, and if I’d had the kind of money spread out on the water in front of me, I would have called them for my boat—no references required. I walked to the sliding glass door that served the office and pulled the handle. The app hadn’t lied and the business was indeed closed.