Marcia Talley - Without a Grave

I gasped, sat back. It wasn’t out of surprise at the identity of the victim – I had been half expecting that. It was because Jaime’s entire left leg had been torn off at the hip.

Gator buried his face in his hands. ‘Shit, man. I counted heads. Thought he’d made it back after the eye. Drowning’s a helluva way to die.’

‘This is the last time I go out boating with you, Gator Crockett,’ Molly scolded. ‘Every time I do, we turn up a body.’

‘The police…’ I began.

‘I hear you,’ Gator said.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘We just can’t leave him here.’

‘We can in a way.’ He passed the boat hook to Paul. ‘Here. Hang on to him for a minute.’

While Deep Magic bobbed erratically on the restless sea and Paul tried to hold on, Gator went rummaging in the box where he kept his equipment, coming up a few minutes later with a dinghy anchor. He made a rope fast to the anchor, then looped the other end through Jaime’s belt and tied it securely. Then he threw the anchor overboard.

‘Now we call in the pros,’ he said, picking up his microphone. ‘Dive Guana, Dive Guana, this is Deep Magic . Come in Troy.’

Jaime Mueller’s would be one of five bodies claimed by Hurricane Helen. Found floating by a fisherman off Poinciana Point. Sharks may have contributed to Mr Mueller’s deathThe Abaconian would report.

But, I had seen the fury, the tears in Alice’s eyes.

I knew that Jaime was dead before he even hit the water.

Whoever recommended the mangrove was right on the money. Except for minor scrapes, Pro Bono had survived. In a matter of minutes we untied all the lines, climbed aboard and with a farewell wave to Gator, headed back to Bonefish Cay.

Molly’s dock was canted up and missing some planks, but still useable. Likewise ours, although we’d lost our favorite bench from the end of the pier. Branches, palm fronds, coconuts, even whole bushes, littered both yards and trash would continue to wash up on the shore for weeks. Paul hurried to check on his pet banana tree and when I heard him cheer, I knew it, too, had survived.

Inside the house, it was if the storm never happened. ‘Molly was right,’ I told my husband. ‘These houses are bulletproof. We should have stayed here.’ I pawed though Mother Hubbard’s cupboard, checking each can, looking for something that might do for dinner.

Paul opened the refrigerator, but there was no light to greet him. No milk, no cheese, no leftover spaghetti, no ice for his Bahama Mama. The corners of his mouth turned down in a pout, purely phony. ‘I guess it’s time for me to set up that generator.’

Before she left the island and the battered Tamarind Tree Resort and Marina, I paid a call on Gabriele. She met me in the dining room where a simple cold lunch was being served to the worker bees she’d hired to put the place in order.

‘Soft drink?’ she asked. ‘Our kitchen isn’t yet open.’

‘A Coke if you have one.’

We sat in lounge chairs by the side of the pool, which had been drained. Workers swarmed around in the deep end, shoveling debris out of the bottom and putting it in plastic sacks.

‘I’m sorry about Jaime,’ I said.

‘Thank you. He wasn’t much of a brother, but in my own way, I loved him.’

I took a sip from my can. ‘I’d like to talk to Alice. I promised her lunch, but looking around here, I think it will have to be at my place.’

Gabriele blinked and looked away. ‘We sent her home to Texas. Jaime’s death came as a great shock.’

I’ll bet. There were only two people who knew what really happened on that headland overlooking Poinciana Cove during the eye of the storm. Alice was one, and the other one was dead.

‘During the storm, Alice hinted that she might be pregnant,’ I said.

‘She is. Due in April.’

‘That should be a comfort to her, don’t you think?’

‘ Al vivo la hogaza y al muerto, la mortaja , Papa says. Live by the living, not the dead.’

I sat quietly for a while, thinking. My late mother would have agreed with Rudolph Mueller.

‘Did Alice take the dog with her?’ I asked.

‘Beckham?’ Gabriele smiled sadly. ‘Yes, yes, of course. The paperwork was a nightmare, but she wouldn’t be separated from Beckham.’

There didn’t seem to be anything left to say, so I wrote my address on a napkin and extracted a promise from Gabriele that she’d give it to Alice the next time she saw her.

‘One thing else, Gabriele. Promise me you’ll take care of Alice?’

She considered me with cool green eyes, nodded, and walked away.

I invited Molly for dinner. Afterwards, we sat on the porch, sharing a chocolate bar by candlelight.

‘We’ve worked it all out, haven’t we, Molly.’

Molly put a square of chocolate in her mouth and licked her fingers. ‘You should write a book, Hannah.’

Paul lay in the hammock, only half listening, I was sure. ‘Worked out what?’

‘Jaime Mueller was running drugs,’ I said. ‘The plane would fly in from Colombia or somewhere, they’d off-load the drugs into the mini-sub and toodle over to the United States. Underwater.’

‘ Way under the radar,’ Molly added. ‘I saw it on CNN. The Coast Guard and the Navy are making it so difficult for boats and planes to get through that drug smugglers are turning to submarines.’

‘Right. Jaime was the kingpin. The late Craig Meeks, Jeremy Thomas and maybe even trigger-happy Kyle were his accomplices.’

‘Who…?’ Paul began.

I held up my hand, still holding the chocolate bar. ‘Wait a minute. I’m coming to that. When Frank did that underwater dive, he saw the sub. Maybe he even watched it go out. Trouble was, Jaime saw him, too. So I suspect Craig and Jaime murdered Frank and Sally and stashed their bodies under the lobster trap.’

‘And after he sailed Wanderer back to Hawksbill Cay,’ Molly added, ‘Jaime bumped off Craig Meeks.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Paul wanted to know. ‘Why would Jaime kill Craig?’

‘Maybe Craig was OK with the drugs, but not with the killing?’ I shrugged. ‘Anyway, I figure he killed Craig to keep him from talking. Set his body on fire so it looked like the poor sap died in the wildfire. That’s why he was so eager to volunteer. Ugh.’

Molly chimed in. ‘But Jaime kept Sally’s ring, and the dog Duffy, and gave them to Alice.’

‘Right…’

‘Now that’s what I don’t understand,’ Paul cut in. ‘Stealing Wanderer and trying to cover it up was dim-witted enough, but holding on to the dog and that ring was just as good as saying, “Hey, look! I killed those people.”’

‘Yes, except Jaime never expected the bodies to be found. When they were, he panicked. Alice told me he asked for the ring back, but she refused.

‘As for Duffy,’ I continued, ‘Jaime probably thought a dog is a dog is a dog, until he discovered the microchip under Duffy’s skin.’ I paused long enough to pass the chocolate bar around again. ‘And then poor Duffy had to go, too. Alice told me Jaime threatened to throw the dog off Poinciana Point during the eye of the hurricane, but I think Jaime went over instead.’

Paul rolled on to his side, setting the hammock swinging. ‘She killed her husband over a dog ?’

I shook my head. ‘It took me a while to put it together, but earlier in the week Gabriele mentioned that Alice had been under the weather. Then something Alice said during the hurricane finally clicked. “He said I couldn’t keep it.” At first I thought she was talking about the ring. Now that I know she’s pregnant, I’m pretty sure Jaime was pressuring his wife to have an abortion.’