The gangway was down and no precautions had been taken to keep people from boarding. The Coasties probably didn’t expect anybody to get this far without being challenged.
Stepping onto the deck, my memory flashed back to when I had jumped aboard last Thursday. The same eerie feeling came over me as soon as I stepped aboard. Lots of sailors and fishermen get to thinking their boats have personalities and wills of their own. I’ve always been a skeptic about this, but this ship did feel as though she had lost her soul.
I started at the bow on the lower deck and worked my way aft, jiggling all the doors and windows, trying to find my way in. The police had placed yellow crime scene tape across the doorways, but at this point it was the locks that were most effective at keeping me out. On the stern, I made out a dark shape on the side deck that I hadn’t noticed the last time I was aboard. A black oilcloth tarp covered what looked like some kind of machinery. Yachts of this size and caliber didn’t normally need to have machinery stored out on deck. I pulled off the cover and found what looked like a small engine mounted on top of a pair of tanks. Squatting down below the level of the bulwarks, I clicked on my flashlight and examined the aluminum plate on the side of the red steel tank: Powermate Contractor 5.5 HP, 120 PSI Max. Pressure. It was apparently some kind of gas engine-driven air compressor. Red had installed a small compressor on Gorda that we sometimes used for filling tanks. What was this one for? For filling dive tanks? That didn’t make sense. The Top Ten already had an electric compressor in her engine room below deck. I wondered why on earth Neal had brought it aboard.
I heard a loud scraping noise aft, and I clicked off my flashlight. At first I heard nothing but my own heart pounding and the whistle of the air in my nostrils as I tried to slow down and breathe normally. Then I heard the noises of the port across the turning basin, the beeping of forklifts loading containers onto ships, trucks and tugs moving and working. A pilot boat passed on the channel side, and the Top Ten strained at her dock lines. The aluminum companionway creaked as it rolled on the seawall. When my heart finally slowed to a mere gallop, I stood and peered around the cabin on both sides of the yacht. There was no one there.
On the seaward side, I found a window left open a crack for ventilation. I slid it open wider and managed to squeeze through, although I had to leave my pack outside on the deck. I was in the main salon, close to Neal’s cabin.
In the beam of my flashlight, I could see that the police had left the place a mess. They had probably already found everything that was worth finding, but I had to try.
The crew’s quarters were up forward in the bow. I had visited Neal’s cabin several times before we finally broke it off for good. The door stood ajar. Most of the personal possessions in the cabin were the same ones I had picked up and put away over the months that Neal had lived with me in my cottage: his clothing, a machete he’d picked up in Panama for opening coconuts, a scrimshawed whale’s tooth. Nothing there told me anything new about the life he had been leading. I closed the door to his cabin and headed up to the bridge.
Somebody had cleaned up the blood. I began to search through the paraphernalia. Various letters, bills for boat maintenance, marina charges, fuel receipts. Neal never had been very good at bookkeeping. Finally, I picked my copy of Bowditch’s The Practical Navigator. Inside the cover there were some personal letters and some photographs, including several of me.
I leaned against the helmsman’s seat and examined a picture of the two of us taken down at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. We were up on top of the fort, sitting on the ramparts with the various blues and greens of the anchorage in the background. From that picture, you would think those two would never be apart the rest of their lives.
Tucked between the pages of Bowditch, I found some odd sketches. I had no idea what they were. Obviously the police hadn’t thought they were important, if they’d looked at the book at all. Near as I could tell, the drawings delineated some compartment or container. The measurements were sketched in as well as the rough calculations of the square footage of the space. I slid the sketches and the photo back into the book. I felt fairly safe taking it now. I doubted the cops would even notice it was gone.
It wasn’t difficult to find the GPS, but I had never used this model before, so it took me several minutes to figure out how to recall the way points that were stored in memory. Neal had way points for Miami Harbor entrance, Bimini, Marathon, West End, you name it. Each way point was named with a three-letter code name like MIA, MAR, or WND. The last position entered was located just north of the entrance to Port Everglades. I lifted up the chart tabletop and rummaged around inside for a slip of paper and a pencil. I wrote down the coordinates, latitude 26°09.52’N, longitude 80°04.75’W, as well as the name, BAB. What the hell did that mean?
I slipped the papers and photos back into the book, let myself out the side door and made my way to the aft lower deck, where I’d left my backpack. I slid the copy of Bowditch in between the skates and zipped the pack closed.
I heard a noise behind me. I whirled around, twisting in a crouched position. The next thing I knew was blinding, searing pain as a blunt object slammed down on my left shoulder. A figure dressed in black grunted and pulled a fire extinguisher back into the air preparing to hit me again.
My attacker looked like a giant Pillsbury Doughboy in blackface. He growled a deep animal-like noise and came at me again. This time I rose up swinging the pack with every bit of pain and fury I had in me. The pack smashed into the black ski mask. I heard him groan, then gag and spit. I raced for the aft deck, looking frantically for another weapon, anything.
He hadn’t stayed down more than a couple of seconds. I tried to turn around at the end of the main cabin area, but my feet slipped on the sharp right turn. I heard him before I felt his hands grab hold of the cap hanging from my ponytail. He threw it to the deck and grabbed my ponytail. He yanked my hair so hard, I could hear some of my hair being pulled out at the roots, and then he slowly pulled my head farther back. I thought he’d break my neck. I couldn’t breathe. Every time I struggled, he pulled harder.
“Bitch,” he breathed in his deep voice.
He forced me to the back corner of the deck opposite the covered compressor. Just as I thought I was about to black out, I felt his other hand reach between my legs and grab me by the crotch.
He yanked my hair back harder and when I tried to scream, nothing but a pain-scrambled gurgle came out. Then I was rising, being lifted by my hair the hand between my legs. I saw the turbulent black water of the inlet beneath me.
“Adiós, bitch.”
He heaved me into space.
Grabbing the swim step would be my only chance to stay with the boat, a lesson my father had taught me since childhood. As I fell, I swung my right arm in the direction of the teak platform. I heard the skates crash onto the wood, and my wrist slammed down onto the steel strip at the edge of the step. My right hand went limp, releasing the strap, unable to grab hold of the swim step, as a new, mightier pain tore up my right arm.