Bluewater Jailbird: The Tenth Novel in the Caribbean Mystery and Adventure Series (Bluewater Thrillers Book 10)

  Bluewater Jailbird

  by C.L.R. Dougherty

  Copyright © 2016 Charles L.R. Dougherty

  All rights reserved

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  Windward and Leeward Islands

  St. Lucia Channel

  Rodney Bay, St. Lucia

  Castries Harbor, St. Lucia

  Chapter 1

  As Liz Chirac walked down the dock at the marina in Rodney Bay, she swept her eyes over the dinghies tied at the end. There was no sign of the one she and Dani used on Vengeance. Frowning, she unzipped the small duffle bag that hung from her left shoulder. She took out her cellphone and called Dani again, upset when her call went to voicemail.

  "Dani? Where are you? I'm worried now! Call me!" Liz touched the disconnect icon and turned around, striding back toward shore as she wondered what to do.

  She checked the time on the phone's screen before she slipped it into her pocket. It was about a quarter to five; she'd emailed Dani from the airport in Brussels early this morning with her expected arrival time, and Dani had responded as Liz was boarding her flight. Her email had suggested that Liz meet her at the restaurant at the head of the dock for an early dinner before they went back to the boat.

  When Liz didn't get an answer to her call from the taxi a few minutes earlier, she'd thought that Dani was probably in their dinghy and couldn't hear the phone over the noise of the outboard. By the time she'd paid the taxi and gotten her bag from the back, ten minutes had passed since her call. She had expected to see Dani waiting in the restaurant's bar. Not finding her friend there, she'd walked down the dock, thinking she would meet Dani coming up to the restaurant.

  She stood at the head of the dock, tapping her foot as she considered what to do. Maybe the outboard had stalled; Dani could be paddling the dinghy in from their anchorage out in Rodney Bay. Her route would have been against the brisk offshore wind, so she would have to kneel in the bow and paddle vigorously to make any progress. Although the RIB had oarlocks, the pudgy little boat didn't row well, especially into the breeze. The notion of her friend's aggravation with their balky outboard brought a wry smile to Liz's lips, but then she remembered the unanswered phone.

  Shaking her head and frowning, she walked over to the concrete seawall. Following the walkway along the seawall to the area where water taxis and other local service boats tied up, she spotted the battered little flag-bedecked runabout that belonged to the man who made his living peddling fruit to the people on the yachts out in the anchorage. He was crouched in the boat, sorting his unsold fruit when Liz came within earshot.

  "Good afternoon, Timothy," she called.

  The man sat up and turned to look over his shoulder, a big grin lighting up his dark, whiskered face when he recognized her.

  "Good afternoon, Liz. Is good to see you; welcome back. You jus' now come?"

  "Yes, I just got in, but I can't find Dani and she's not answering her phone. I wondered if — "

  "I t'ink she on Vengeance when I go by jus' now."

  "Did you see her? I thought maybe she had trouble with the outboard. We need to clean the carburetor."

  "No, I didn't see her, but the dinghy tied to Vengeance."

  "How long ago?"

  "Mebbe ten minutes, at mos'. I don' stop, 'cause I know you not there, an' Dani, she don' buy the fruit. I t'ink I would wait for you to be back, 'cause you always out on deck lookin' fo' me. I figured you be back soon."

  "I'm a little worried, Timothy. She knew what time I was coming; she was going to meet me up at the restaurant for dinner."

  "Well, mebbe she do be comin' an' have some trouble wit' de motor. Come, we go see can we find she."

  "You don't mind? I could take a water taxi."

  "No need fo' dat, Liz. I happy to see you back. You come, now. We go see what she up to, that Miss Dani."

  ****

  Dani approached the table that was filled with muttering women, hostile looks on their faces as they watched her. There was one open seat at the end of the bench that was closest to her. She shut out the stench of the highly seasoned, over-cooked swill on her tray and set it on the table in front of the vacant seat.

  She put her hands on the table, one on each side of her tray, and swung a leg over the bench. As she sat, she brought her other leg over. Ignoring the sudden silence of her table mates, she stuck her plastic spoon into the sticky yellow mass of whatever comprised the main course.

  She resisted the urge to pinch her nostrils shut before she put the spoon in her mouth. She felt a beefy hand clamp down on her left shoulder, and before she could react, she was pushed off the end of the bench and thrown to the rough cement floor.

  "You in my place," a huge woman said, her voice deep and harsh. "And tha's my favorite supper, you little white bitch."

  Her assailant towered over her, an ugly grin displaying her gapped and broken teeth. Dani hooked her left foot behind the woman's right ankle and drove her right foot into the lower edge of the woman's kneecap with the force of a pile driver. The woman screamed as the ligaments around her knee gave way, her leg bending the wrong way as she collapsed against the table where Dani had been sitting.

  Dani scrambled to her feet and snatched her tray from the table, sending the food flying. She twisted at the waist, drawing the tray out to the side, and then whirled, swinging the edge of the aluminum tray into the woman's temple with her weight behind it. The woman's eyes rolled back in her head as blood gushed from the gash left by the tray.

  Dani took two steps back, feeling the concrete block wall behind her, as the other women converged on her in a semicircle. She held the tray in front of her like a shield and grinned at the women. "Which one of you wants to be next," she taunted, measuring the distance as they approached, shoulder to shoulder. "You gutless fools," she yelled as she feinted with the tray and dropped to a crouch, delivering a powerful kick to the knee of the woman at the right end of the line.

  As the woman went down, Dani threw the tray aside and grabbed the next woman's shirt, dropping her head a fraction as she lunged forward. She heard a satisfying crack and felt the warm blood run over her face as her head-butt knocked the woman unconscious. The women were backing away, throwing punches as Dani charged first one, and then another.

  She paused as two matrons with nightsticks pushed into the crowd from behind, watching as the measured blows to the backs of the women's legs took them down. They curled up as the nightsticks rose and fell in a rapid tattoo of blows. After thirty seconds or so, the larger of the two matrons looked at Dani and said, "Your turn, missy."

  Dani steeled herself, knowing that if she fought, she would inevitably be made to pay. The matron gripped her nightstick in two hands and thrust the end into Dani's solar plexus. Dani doubled over and the two women delivered a flurry of blows to her ribcage and lower back. She slipped to the floor, covering her face and head as best she could with her arms.

  To her surprise, she heard one of them say, "Okay, Amaryllis. I 't'ink she done had enuff." The matrons grabbed her under the arms and frog-marched her from the dining room.

  "Don' be feelin' too easy, now, little white girl. The warden, she want to see you while you can still talk. You don' tell her what she want to know, then mebbe we work on you some more. Or mebbe she want us to sof'en you up some, firs'. We see." />
  ****

  "Dinghy still there," Timothy said, as he and Liz approached Vengeance.

  Liz studied the RIB as it bobbed in the chop behind Vengeance. "It's still chained to the big boat," she said.

  "Mebbe Dani take a nap," Timothy said.

  "I don't know. The phone would have awakened her, I think."

  "Less'n she have it set to vibrate," Timothy said, as he shut down the outboard and stood up to fend off from Vengeance's side.

  Liz scrambled aboard. "Dani?" she yelled, as she stepped back to the cockpit.

  Alarmed to find the companionway doors locked, she fumbled for the key that they kept hidden in the small locker on the port side of the cockpit. She unlocked the doors and swung them back, reaching in to undo the barrel bolts that held the sliding hatch cover closed. She leaned against it with both hands, using her weight to push the heavy teak hatch open. "Dani?"

  "I wait," Timothy said, "'case you be needin' some help, mebbe."

  Liz nodded. "Thanks, Timothy."

  Liz went down the companionway ladder, noticing that the interior was in disarray. Her eye fell on Dani's iPhone on the chart table, next to the canvas briefcase that she carried instead of a purse. She touched the phone's screen and saw the notifications for the two missed calls she had placed earlier.

  She checked the cabins, noticing again that someone had rummaged through the boat, but that nothing seemed to be missing. Things were just slightly out of place, as though Dani might have tried her unpracticed hand at housekeeping. Liz would have been amused by that except that she was too worried.

  Dani's bed was unmade, but the others were undisturbed. That did bring a brief smile to her face; she knew that Dani would have made some attempt to make the bed before going ashore. She wouldn't have wanted Liz to catch her being sloppy.

  Dani always felt a little guilty that she was a slob at heart, but Liz found her lack of domestic skills charming. It was one of the things she teased Dani about. Still, something was wrong. She contemplated what to do, her thoughts interrupted by Timothy's call.

  "Liz?"

  "Sorry, Timothy."

  "You want me to take you back ashore? We go look for she?"

  "No, thanks, Timothy. I've imposed on you enough. I know you need to get home to your family. I'll be okay; I've got the dinghy, and I'm home now. I'll call around and see if anybody's heard from her."

  "Mebbe she go off wit' some frien's an' lose track of de time."

  "Maybe," Liz said, stepping onto the companionway ladder and poking her head out. "Thanks again for your help, Timothy. Have a good evening."

  "You, too." Timothy released his hold on Vengeance and bent over to start his outboard as his ragged little boat began to drift away into the gathering dusk.

  ****

  One of the matrons held Dani with her right arm locked behind her back, the tip of a nightstick in the crook of her elbow and her wrist up between her shoulder blades. Dani stood on her tiptoes to keep her arm from breaking. The other matron stood beside her at attention in front of the warden's desk.

  "Berger, this is not some waterfront tavern. We don't tolerate that kind of behavior. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I've been here for hours, and I haven't been allowed to call my lawyer."

  "This is not the United States, young woman. You have whatever rights I decide to give you, and that's it. What's the meaning of your behavior in the cafeteria just now?"

  "Why don't you ask the woman who tried to take my food? I was just defending myself."

  "That's the kind of statement I'd expect from a killer. That why you knifed Herbert Watson? Defending yourself?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about. I want to call the U.S. Embassy in Barbados. I have nothing further to say to you until I see my lawyer."

  "Oh, my. You have a lot to learn, Berger, and this is just the place to teach you. Start behaving like a lady and answer the Detective Constable's questions right now. He's waiting in an interview room. Are you going to cooperate?"

  "I want to see my lawyer."

  The warden turned to the two burly matrons who still held Dani's arm twisted behind her back.

  "Give her the full treatment. And then put her in the hole. We'll see just how stubborn you are when you can't stand up by yourself, Berger."

  Chapter 2

  Detective Constable Zachary Lucas nudged the woman with the toe of his shoe, annoyed at her lack of response. She was curled into a ball on the floor of the cell, resting on her side with her legs drawn up and her ankles crossed, her arms protecting her face and head.

  "Talk to me, and the beating will stop."

  "I want a lawyer, you asshole. I have nothing to say to you stupid shits."

  One of the matrons raised her nightstick and stepped toward her. Lucas put up a hand, stopping the woman before she could swing.

  "After you answer my questions. You haven't been charged with anything yet."

  "And you haven't asked a question. Not that I'd be inclined to answer."

  "How did you know Herbert Watkins?"

  "Who?"

  "Herbert Watkins, the man you killed."

  "Never heard of anybody named Herbert Watkins, and I didn't kill him."

  "Who was the man on your boat last night?"

  "He didn't introduce himself."

  "You picked him up at one of the tourist bars and brought him back to your boat. He didn't tell you his name?"

  "You're full of shit; what are you talking about?"

  "Tell me how you met him, then. You had dinner by yourself at the yacht club. You picked him up somewhere and brought him back to your boat afterward."

  "You're making this up. I didn't bring anybody back to my boat."

  "People saw you with him on your boat."

  "That's not a question, shithead. That's a statement. I thought a detective would know the difference."

  Lucas considered the belligerent woman on the floor in front of him. She must be in agony from the flurry of blows the matrons had rained on her ribcage and hips, yet she was taunting him. This wasn't going well.

  He didn't know whether she had killed Watkins or not, but she was his best suspect. He had eyewitness testimony linking her to the victim not long before he was stabbed on the beach near Gros Islet. She had to know something, even if the witness was confused.

  He was upset that the jailers had put her in with the inmates; that had never been his intention. He knew to handle visitors with discretion, at least until he had an airtight case against them. But it had happened, thanks to the morons he'd sent to pick her up. By the time he'd arrived at the lockup, she'd gotten into an altercation with some of the prisoners.

  From what the warden told him, she'd laid waste to the toughest woman in the cellblock, too. The situation had spun out of control just before he arrived on the scene, the warden taking it upon herself to discipline the prisoner.

  "I thought she had it coming. Besides, it will soften her up for your questions," she had explained.

  Lucas could see that the matrons' ministrations had produced the opposite effect. This Berger woman wasn't a typical white tourist; she was a charter boat captain. Her passport showed that she'd been in the islands for years, and her behavior demonstrated that she wasn't easily intimidated.

  Her arrogant insistence that she be allowed to talk to a lawyer had been like catnip to her captors. They were accustomed to the more deferential locals. If he'd been here when they brought her in, he could have avoided this, but he was committed, now. She'd brought this on herself, but that didn't make the situation any better from his perspective. She was still an American citizen, and he knew there'd be hell to pay now unless he hung the murder on her.

  Then, he'd have plenty of help covering up the mistakes they had made. Otherwise, this had the makings of a career-ending debacle. Whether she was innocent or guilty didn't matter at this point; she had to go down for the murder of Watkins, the worthless bastard. He sh
ook his head.

  "Look, Ms. Berger, it wasn't supposed to be like this. I'm not sure how it got so far out of control, but I just wanted to talk to you when the officers brought you in. Maybe if you just told me what happened with Herbert Watkins last night, I could make this all right."

  He was dumbfounded to hear Berger laugh, a genuine, deep, belly-laugh. A groan interrupted her mirth, no doubt a result of the damage to her ribs. He felt the flush rise on his face, but he choked back his anger; he needed to manage this situation. He waited as she took a few deep breaths.

  "You're so stupid that you think you can be both the good cop and the bad cop, huh?"

  "I don't understand. I'm offering — "

  "You're offering bullshit, but I'm not buying. I don't know what your game is. We're done talking, at least until I see someone from the U.S. Embassy, and a lawyer, for a start. Beating me is just going to dig you into a deeper hole, you dumb bastard. Unless you think you can solve this by making me disappear, but I wouldn't advise that. Too many people know where I am. They'll come looking for me."

  Lucas chewed the inside of his lip, frowning as he digested what she said. After thirty seconds, he looked up at the matrons. "Take her away. Give her some paracetamol for the pain, and a bottle of water. And keep her away from the rest of the prisoners."

  "Warden say she goin' to the hole after we finish. We ain't through with her. She — "

  "You're through with her. I'll talk to the warden, but nobody touches her from now on without my okay. And put her in solitary; not the hole. You understand me?"

  "Yes, sir." The woman bent with her partner, each grasping Berger under an arm and lifting her to her feet.

  "I can stand and walk. I don't need your filthy hands on me," she barked, shaking off their assistance.

  The matrons looked at the detective.

  "You heard me," he said. "Take her away, but don't lay a hand on her unless she asks for your help."