The lone man winked and said, “You come on down to dah bah and buy dah boys a cuppleha beahs, they’ll keep to demselves about dah size of yer hook der.”
The boat roared to life and I scanned the water for Alex. Her head popped up ten yards to my left. She whispered, “Who were they?”
“Those were my friends I was telling you about.”
She squinted and I could see she was trying to read the name of the boat off the side. She said, “Catch.” Her eyes widened, “So you were telling the truth.”
I nodded.
The Maine Catch was now close to three football fields away and Alex had steadily trod closer to me. We looked at each other clumsily. I decided to take one for the gipper and did a half breaststroke, half running man thing, until I was arms distance from her. She gaped at me and I thought I might have a boog dangling. I wiped my nose, but the expression on her face remained immutable. Maybe she’d seen my turtle and wanted to know where the rest of him went.
I asked, “What?”
“Baxter’s on the boat.”
I shot a glance over my shoulder at the lime green lettering bobbing in the current. I laughed, “It’s Backstern. Like back and stern. It’s a pun on my sister’s pug, Baxt—”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know—Baxter—is on the boat.”
I turned and saw Baxter asleep in the captain’s chair. If Baxter was on the boat, then Tristen Grayer had been on the boat.
Oh dear God.
How could I be so stupid? And I was supposed to be a detective? Maybe it wasn’t Baxter. Maybe someone else’s pug from the harbor had slipped into the boat. Nope, the pug in question was asleep at the helm. Definitely Baxter.
This did not guarantee that a woman of the deceased variety was stuffed somewhere in the boat, but it didn’t bode well. I put my head down and swam hard to the Backstern, then clambered up the schooner’s water ladder. It’s peculiar how you don’t really care that your pecker could fit inside a beer bottle when there is, in all likelihood, a dead woman stashed somewhere on your boat. I slipped on my shorts and edged my way to the top of the cabin stairs.
There were six small stairs leading to a narrow galley. My heart was crashing against my ribs, and it felt like each beat might be its last. I took five or six calming breaths before sauntering down the steep steps. The air was stale and musty, and since I’d never been down in the galley before, I couldn’t tell you if this was bizarre. I found a small light and it flickered twice before illuminating the six foot by eight foot cabin. There were no body parts strewn about and my heart beat slowed down to the two hundreds.
Had Baxter somehow found his way to the boat? I mean, I was always hearing these fantastic stories of dogs finding their way home. But Baxter hadn’t been awake longer than sixteen or seventeen continuous minutes. His life was a series of comedy shorts. How in the hell would he ever navigate to the Bayside Harbor and slot 23B?
I sat to ponder the impasse and heard a hollow thud echo from the cushion below. I stood and surveyed the long green cushion. It appeared to lift for storage. I had the ephemeral thought not to lift the cushion. I didn’t know if I could stomach any more death. I edged my fingers under the padding and delicately pried up the cushion.
Kellon was not at her mother’s.
Chapter 34
Kellon’s body was in shambles. Her face looked like it had been dropped from a ten story building and her short hair clumped together in the places where the skull was still intact.
I dropped the lid and ran up the galley stairs, dragging myself to the edge of the boat. I was choking on my own breath, my own life. A coursing dry heave caused every infinite muscle strand in my body to pulsate, and it felt like my spine was going to snap in thirds. After a stream of near epileptic fits, I crumbled to the boat deck. Why? Why was Kellon dead? How could I let this happen? Didn’t I say that each kill would be bigger, bloodier, and closer than the last? Hadn’t I known this would happen?
I looked up and saw Alex staring at me in studded silence. I read her thoughts: “What horror could possibly cause a grown man to behave in such a way?”
Well, that was me holding back, babe. What I really wanted to do was jump overboard and dry heave at the bottom of the Atlantic, suck in one lung full of water and turn off the lights. Forever. Kellon and I would go fly a kite.
Alex had tears in her eyes and she couldn’t stop shaking her head. She said, “Tell me it isn’t her. Lie to me. Tell me it isn’t. Tell me there’s isn’t a little girl down there slaughtered.”
I wish someone else had found her and I could be the one lied to. Alex was an investigative journalist, she needed to know the truth, good, bad, or ugly. I nodded, “It’s her.”
She turned her back and went to fiddle with one of the sails. Her charade ended as soon as it began. Alex tucked her head in her hands and glued them together with an unrelenting stream of tears. I urged myself up and walked to her. As I enveloped Alex in my arms, she buried her face in my chest. She’d never laid an eye on Kellon, never seen her big brown eyes, never heard her lisp, yet Alex was broken.
She looked up, her Popsicle green eyes melting in the heat, and I said, “Kellon is dead, there’s nothing we can do about that now. I need you to be strong, I need you to get us back to shore as quickly as possible.”
She wiped her eyes and nodded.
I found my cell phone and punched Caitlin’s number. She picked up on the second ring and I said, “Bad news. I found her on my boat five minutes ago.”
The line went dead for ten seconds and I checked to see if I still had a connection. Caitlin finally shot back, “Who is she?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“Where are you?”
I covered the phone and asked Alex, “What’s our ETA?”
She looked out to sea, puffed her cheeks, and said, “Forty minutes. Fifty, tops.”
I told Caitlin and she replied, “I’d better call Gleason before their flight leaves.”
“When you get to the harbor, don’t say anything to anyone. I don’t want a circus awaiting our arrival.”
I hung up and put the phone in my pocket, then faced toward the galley stairs. I took the six steps to Hades, took a deep breath, and lifted the bench. The stench of death washed over me like a wave from the Atlantic. The dampness of the boat expedited the breakdown process and the body smelled twelve hours worse than it looked. What I’d really come down here for was to see about Kellon’s eyes. I needed to know if her big, brown, puppy dog eyes were resting peacefully in their sockets.
I used the blunt end of a screwdriver to gently push Kellon’s head to the side. Her skull was soft and I had to apply more pressure than I wanted to, but the skull finally lulled to the left. Kellon’s eye sockets were vacant. I wasn’t surprised. Come to think of it, I would have been surprised if her eyes had been present. I checked every nook and cranny in the small cabin and didn’t stumble on Kellon’s chocolate fudge brownies.
There was a small window, with the shade slid shut, like the kind on an airplane, and I approached it. I slowly slid the shade open, but no dice, snake eyes that is. Maybe Tristen had reverted back to his earlier pattern of taking the eyes as souvenirs.
I spent another twenty minutes fussing over the scene before retreating into the sunlight. We were closing in on land and I guessed we had less than ten minutes before we entered the Bayside Harbor. I surveyed Alex. She seemed in total control, the antithesis of the person I’d seen thirty minutes prior.
I scanned the deck for my shirt, but couldn’t locate it anywhere. I tried to think back to what I’d been wearing. A tan polo, right? I’d thrown it haphazardly when I’d undressed. Alex’s nipple had sort of short-circuited my hard drive. On my third canvass of the boat, I spotted the sleeve of the tan polo at the very back of the boat. Sorry, starboard. I rescued the shirt from its brush with death and slipped it over my head. There
were two fishing poles rigged to the back of the schooner that had come with the boat (I’d yet to touch either one), and I couldn’t help noticing both had their lines out.
I slipped one of the poles from its mooring and hoisted it up. The pole was heavier than I was used to, and the fishing line was thicker than the kind I used with my dad on the Puget Sound. I slowly began reeling in the line. After a good thirty seconds I saw a ripple where the line fed into the Atlantic. I reeled in the last twenty yards and saw I’d caught a tiny fish. On closer observation, it appeared to be a baby octopus or squid.
I held the pole with my left hand and grabbed my catch with my right. It was one of Kellon’s eyes.
Chapter 35
The hook had been pushed through the pupil and into the meat of the eye. I wasn’t sure if I should pull the eye off the hook or if I should throw the eye, along with the line and pole, into the watery waste. I broke the hook off the line and walked the eye over to the cooler. There were three beers left and I slipped them out, setting the eye atop the ice. Two of the beers fell over on their side, Alex striding over to pick them up. She handed me one of the beers, her gaze passing over the cooler.
She popped the top of her beer and asked sedately, “Where were they?”
“The son of a bitch baited the two fishing poles at the back of the boat and tossed them out to sea.” Speaking of “them,” I should probably go reel in the other one.
Alex nodded solemnly like this was practical, even routine, and said, “What’s the deal with the eyes?”
“I’ve been racking my brain and I don’t have the slightest clue.”
This seemed to appease her and she went back to work on the sails. The next five minutes were spent reeling in the second line. If anyone was watching me they would have thought I was having a grand old time, doing some fishing, swigging on a beer, living the good life. Nope, buddy, I’m reeling in the eye of a seven-year-old girl I just found in my galley.
Salúd.
I had the ripple within about ten yards when a five-foot sailfish decided to have Kellon’s eye for lunch. I heard a barrage of whistling and screaming, and noticed two passing boats on their way out to sea. There were about ten people leaning over their respective railings screaming the likes of, “Give ’em hell,” and, “Kick his ass.”
I leaned back, heard the distinct snap of fishing line breaking, and toppled backward landing on my ass. There was a collective, “Ahhhhh,” from my spectators and one gentlemen yelled, “Can’t win ’em all!”
I tossed the pole in the ocean absentmindedly and readied myself for the onslaught of Feds, forensics, and father. Kellon’s that was.
As we neared Bayside Harbor, I had to rub my eyes once. I thought I’d seen Kellon’s small frame amongst the larger bodies, but it was, in actuality, Todd Gregory. He was standing next to Caitlin, only she was a head taller than him. I closed one eye and squashed him between my thumb and forefinger. Squish, squish, squish.
Do I deal with death efficiently or what?
We entered the marina and I made out Kellon’s deadbeat dad amid the burgeoning throng. I wanted to despise the man, but couldn’t muster the strength. He’d just lost a daughter, and I would be the one to tell him. Hey, if the world didn’t suck, we’d all fall off.
They’d cordoned off a slip for the boat and Alex eased us in. I threw the mooring lines to Gleason and he fastened the ropes to the dock. Gleason uprighted and said, “Nice boat.”
“Thanks. Want to buy it? I’ll give you the Fed discount.”
He threw a half smile he does sometimes but said nothing. There were about ten people that looked ready to storm the boat the second we departed the premises. Alex had Baxter in her arms and Gleason helped her over the small gap between the boat and the dock. As she passed Caitlin, they traded looks like each had suspicions the other let go a silent stinker.
Caitlin grabbed my shirtsleeve but I ignored her and continued on to Kellon’s father. I strode toward him and he gave me the once over. He cleared his throat and said, “People talking like there’s a dead feller on your boat.”
I guided him to his office and informed him about his daughter. He didn’t believe me at first and called his wife. I only heard his side of the conversation, but it was evident Kellon was not supposed to be with her mother this weekend. He broke down and I told him how sorry I was, then left before I lost it. I found my cell phone and dialed Lacy. Her excitement at Baxter being alive and Kellon being dead, averaged out to mildly upset.
Speaking of Baxter, Alex was standing forlornly at the top of the pier with the squirming pug. I walked over to her and she asked, “How bad was it?”
I assumed she was referring to my interlude with Kellon’s father. “On a scale from one to a ten? Five hundred, forty-eight thousand, six hundred, and forty-two.”
I found my keys in my front pocket and handed them to her. “Take my car. I’ll be here for a while and catch a ride with Caitlin.”
She nodded. At her taking my car or my riding with Caitlin, I wasn’t sure, she didn’t specify. I wasn’t certain what the right parting words were in this situation, but from the expression on Alex’s face, “I saw your nipple” were not them.
Chapter 36
The Range Rover disappeared in a cloud of dust and I turned my attention to the schooner. There was only one person on the deck of the Backstern, which by default put nine people in the already cramped cabin. Caitlin and Conner emerged as I ambled onto the deck.
Caitlin said earnestly, “Horrific. Who was she?”
“Kellon Atkins. She was my pal.”
A voice from behind Conner spat, “Why didn’t you mention her name when we were making our list of possible victims?”
Gregory had slipped up the stairs without my notice. I faced him and said, “Hey, Frodo Baggins, I didn’t see you down there. If you must know, I didn’t mention her because I like little girl jigsaw puzzles. It’s kind of a hobby of mine.”
He glared at me. “How is it you’re always the one who stumbles on these girls’ bodies?”
I looked at Caitlin, then Conner, and finally back to Gregory. I was speechless. When my capacity to speak came back, I said, “I hope you’re not suggesting what I think you are.”
Gleason came up the stairs and Gregory said to him, “I was just telling Thomas about our little theory.”
Someone smashed their fist into the bridge of Gregory’s nose and he fell to the ground. I looked at Conner and said, “I can’t believe you hit him.”
He smirked, “You hit him.”
Did I?
Blood was dripping from Gregory’s nose and he screamed, “You broke my nose, you son of a bitch! I’m gonna sue your ass, Prescott.”
I offered my solution, “How ‘bout I just give you this boat and we call it even.” Gleason helped Todd to his feet and I leaned into him, “If you ever so much as mention me in that context again, it will be your neck next time. Capiche?”
Caitlin edged herself between the two of us and said, “Tell us what happened.” I recounted the events in 70% truth. I left out the part about Alex and my skinny-dipping—make that just my skinny-dipping—alleging that Baxter appeared from below deck while we’d been sailing. And I left out the part about the sailfish. They followed me over to the cooler in the far back corner and I showed them Kellon’s eye.
Conner asked, “Where’s the other one?”
“I have no idea.” I lied.
Conner dropped me off at Alex’s around nine. We hadn’t had much for small talk the duration of the ride. I think my screwing over his sister, both literally and figuratively, and Lacy dumping him had negatively impacted our relationship.
I opened the door to his Camaro and he asked, “Are you going to be at the meeting tomorrow?”
“Probably not. I think I need to find a lawyer before I’m in the same room with the Toddler.”
&nbs
p; He nodded and said, “Well, if you want the run down, give me a call.”
I nodded, slammed the car door, and watched as he peeled from the drive. I found the eight young bucks nestled in the living room. They were each wearing a different, yet similar expression. Let’s see here: Kim was flashing despair, Holly was donning anguish, Ali was clad in gloom, Tall Tim was sporting melancholy, Fat Tim was up to his ears in dreary, Blake was modeling woe, Caleb was showing affliction, and Lacy was displaying morose. Speaking of Ms. Morose, she was sitting on the ground between Caleb’s legs, Baxter prancing over hers like he was in the steeplechase.
Caleb shook his head, “I can’t believe this shit. What do we do now, professor?”
“The next hot date isn’t for another five days. I want you guys to stay alert, but it appears Tristen is only striking on the hot dates.”
Kim Welding asked, “Can we do anything to help?”
“Right now, I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.”
I retreated into the kitchen. Alex was slurping up the last bites of the Froot Loop primordial soup and I asked, “Mind if I have a bowl?”
She slurped down the last bite of her cereal. “Yes.”
“Well, I’m having one anyway.”
“Suit yourself.” Wow, Déjà vu. I grabbed a bowl, a spoon, and the milk, and joined her at the small table.
I picked up the box of Froot Loops. Empty. I couldn’t help but notice Alex now had a heaping bowl of cereal. She smiled and said, “There’s more in the cabinet.”
I walked to the cabinet and opened it. Cha-ching. House Mom had evidently gone grocery shopping. There were seven different boxes of cereal, including an unopened box of Lucky Charms. I poured the cereal and asked Alex, “What are the odds I find an article about this in the Waterville Tribune tomorrow?”
She picked a green Froot Loop from her bowl and held it up.
Chapter 37
Today was October 7th, which meant today was Jennifer Pepper’s funeral in New York. The service started at 1:30 p.m. which meant I was running late. Is it possible to be running early? If so, I’d never experienced the phenomenon. Lacy was snuggled up with Caleb and Baxter on the floor under a down comforter and I shook her lightly. I said, “Up and at ‘em. We have to be dressed and on the road in half an hour.”