After kicking the door closed, I flopped facedown on my bed, grabbed a pillow, pulled it tight over the back of my head, and screamed into the mattress. Pain? Yeah, I knew pain—the pain of rejection. The fabric around my face grew wet with spit. I didn’t care.
When I finally got up, I took a few deep breaths and looked around my room. It was a mess, like my life. Why, oh why was I coming on to B.J. like this? I was behaving like an idiot. I sorted through several piles of wrinkled clothing before finally settling on a pair of jeans and a plain green T-shirt. When I walked out into the living room, still combing the snarls out of my hair B.J. was sitting on the couch drinking a glass of orange juice.
His smiling eyes watched me cross the room. “Jeannie called me,” he said. “She was worried about you—sent me over here to find you. I guess she’s been leaving messages on your machine and trying to reach you for almost twenty-four hours.”
I glanced at the machine. The red light was blinking.
“Did she say what she wanted?”
“Just that she’s pinned down the owner of the Top Ten. She said she needs to talk to you about it.”
I dialed Jeannie’s number but just got her answering machine again. I left a brief message so she’d know I was alive, and told her I’d call back later.
“Do you want to talk about what’s going on?” B.J. asked.
I opened the fridge and searched fruitlessly for something edible. I reached for the orange juice and got a glass for company’s sake.
Flopping down into my mamasan chair and tucking my feet under me, I considered how much to tell him. Not that I didn’t trust B.J., but I didn’t want to get him worried—or more worried.
“As near as I can tell, Neal was after something when he went out there on the Top Ten. He was diving for something on the bottom. Remember those two guys I told you had hassled me and Elysia?”
“Yeah.”
“Yesterday, after I got back from the memorial service, I took the Whaler and went back out to try to find the same spot where I found the Top Ten, and those two guys were diving out there. They were checking out some artificial reef wrecks. Neal knew where it was— whatever it is—so that’s why they were trying to find Neal the night they jumped us. I have no idea what Elysia had to do with it, but I’m sure her death is connected.
“So, anyway, last night I went aboard the Top Ten and got the last position out of the GPS. And it seems at least one of those guys had the same idea. While I was poking around the boat, I noticed something weird on the afterdeck. It was this big compressor. Maybe Neal was planning on using it as a hookah rig so he could stay down longer than he could on a tank. But I don’t know how deep you can go on a rig like that.”
“Me neither.”
“I thought maybe I would go over to Pier 66 and ask some questions, see if Neal had talked to anybody about it when he brought it aboard.”
“I think you need to leave things alone, Seychelle. Let the police deal with this.”
“Yeah, right. They wouldn’t even know the right questions to ask—that is, if they were even interested in asking them.” I punched the button on my answering machine to see if anyone had left messages besides Jeannie. As the third message started to play, I recognized Detective Collazo’s voice.
“Miss Sullivan, I need to speak to you. It concerns the Daggett girl. Please call me or beep me immediately.” The robot voice on the machine told me that his message had been recorded at eight-thirty in the morning. Neither B.J. nor I said anything for several long seconds. I just sat on my stool rubbing my hand across my lips and chin, staring at the machine.
B.J. was the first to break the silence. “Are you going to call him?”
“I don’t trust him, B.J. I think he’s just using Ely’s name to make me call. There were cops on the Top Ten when I came back by it this morning.”
“The police are not the bad guys, Seychelle.”
“They think I killed Neal and Patty. Pete says Collazo’s been poking around the Downtowner asking about me. He’s not even looking for other suspects. What’s he
going to think when they figure out it was me on the Top Ten last night?”
“You want me to drive you over to Jeannie’s? She’ll know what to do.”
“Yeah, but she’s not home, remember?”
“We’ll wait for her.”
“B.J., these guys scare me, but jail scares me even more. This guy Collazo, he’s just too focused on me. I didn’t do anything, but I’ve watched enough segments of 60 Minutes to know that innocent people do go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit—and it’s usually because of some pit bull type of cop who just won’t let go and makes the evidence fit the perp he wants it to fit. Naw, I’ve got to do this other thing first. I need to find out what the story is on that compressor on the boat. If I can figure out what Neal was doing out there that morning, then okay, I’ll feel a lot more comfortable talking to the cops. But not till then.”
He shook his head but smiled. “You are one stubborn, hardheaded woman.”
I grabbed my shoulder bag off the bar and rummaged around for the keys to Lightnin’. “I’ll be fine.” I lifted my arm and rotated my wrist. The pain was barely noticeable. “Thanks for everything, B.J.”
“Okay. But I’m going to be working around here the rest of the day. I’ll be inside the big house. If you need me, I’ll be here.”
XVIII
The Top Ten used to berth on B Pier, in Slip B37. It was third in from the end, so I walked out the length of the pier. Most of the bigger boats had changed since the days I used to visit Neal there. These megayachts usually stayed on the move in order to remain one step ahead of the tax man. Their transoms bore hailing ports such as George Town, Cayman Islands; Road Harbor B.V.I.; or Hamilton, Bermuda—all exotic ports with little in the way of industry for their people, so providing tax-dodge hailing ports kept the millionaires in town for a few days out of the year.
My Way was in her slip, but the boat was all locked up. I didn’t see Nestor around. The docks looked deserted. I thought I would at least find Raymond out here working on the deck of one of the big yachts. Raymond was from down island. He had come up to the states from the Caribbean as a crewman on board a big classic wood charter yacht and then had some kind of falling-out with the skipper in Lauderdale. That was about four years ago, and he had supposedly been working to make his fare home to Bequia ever since. He worked illegally, on a cash-only basis, but he could lay down a coat of varnish that looked like glass. His skin was nearly as black as the Ray-Ban shades he always wore, and his dreads were shoulder length. He always looked like he was just loafing around, but he got more work done than three average men, and the skippers fought to hire him. He rarely spoke, but he was always listening.
“Seychelle, ova hea.” The voice came from the foredeck of a hundred-foot-plus British flagged schooner.
I walked a bit out the finger pier. Under the low blue foredeck awning, Nestor and Raymond sat grinning and passing a joint back and forth.
“Come join the party, Seychelle,” Nestor said.
I grabbed the wire lifelines and climbed onto the high deck of the schooner. She was an old-timer dating back to the twenties, but she was in immaculate condition. I remembered her from a few years back when Red towed her up the New River. The captain was a British gentleman who had invited me below for a tour. She looked like she had been under Raymond’s care for several weeks. Her brightwork shone like blown glass.