A False Dawn

SEVENTEEN

I skipped breakfast the next day, loaded a case of beer and Max into the Jeep and drove straight to Ponce Inlet Marina. I was looking forward to a quiet Monday on Jupiter. I’d plan to install a GPS system on the boat.

As I walked by the tiki bar, on the way to my boat, Kim, the bartender, smiled one of her thousand-candlelight smiles and held up her hand for me to stop. She was in her early forties. Easy smile. Dark hair and brown eyes that had their own sense of humor.

“Looks like a party,” she said, glancing at the beer and then at me.

“I always seem to get thirsty when I work on the boat all day.”

“Hi Max!” Kim bent down and picked Max up, kissing her head. “So you’re the lucky girl who’s first mate.” Max’s tail wagged nonstop.

“Sean, were you on Jupiter a couple of nights ago?”

“No, why?”

“I was closing and thought I saw a light on your boat. Like a flashlight.”

“Sure it was Jupiter?”

“Not positive. But it looked like it was your boat.”

“Did you see anyone leave?”

“No.”

“Thanks, Kim.”

She set Max on the ground to follow me. “No problem. That’s what I’m here for, neighborhood watch.”

The breeze across the Intracoastal delivered the scent of a receding tide, barnacles drying on pilings, exposed oyster bars, and mullet feeding across the mud flats.

The St. Michaels had returned. Nick’s fishing boat, with its Old World look and feel, seemed to rest quietly in its slip. On the dock next to the boat, Nick's Calico cat squatted on its haunches, chewing a severed fish head.

Jupiter sat waiting for me like an old friend. I stepped into the cockpit and began carefully examining everything I owned. Deck chairs, cooler, ropes, anything that might look out of place. I raised the hatch to the engine and begin looking for any sign of intrusion or something that didn’t belong in the bowels of Jupiter. Nothing.

I opened the salon door lock and stepped inside, Max following at my heels.

The first sign. Max darted around the salon sniffing every piece of furniture. The fur raised slightly on her back. “What do you smell, Max? Let’s check below.”

The second sign. Sherri’s picture had been moved, slightly, but I could tell. A faint dust line on the shelf gave it away. If it were not for Kim tipping me off, and Max’s antics, I may not have noticed that someone had been on Jupiter.

I examined the rest of the boat and could find nothing stolen. A few things seemed slightly out of place, but nothing gone. I would check topside in a moment. I didn’t think I’d find anything taken from there. If robbery wasn’t the motive, what was?

Through Jupiter’s portside window, I saw the feet with the flip-flops. A few seconds later, Nick Cronus bellowed, “Permission to come aboard.” Nick eased down like a sloth from the dock into the cockpit. He had thick curly black hair, moustache, smiling dark eyes, and skin stained the hue of creosote. A lifetime at sea, pulling nets, traps and battling storms had given him a Herculean build tempered with the survival skills of an Argonaut. Nick was a blend of Zorba and Will Rogers. He had a string of ex-wives, children, girlfriends, and creditors in his circle of acquaintances. But he had the heart of a St. Bernard, too, loyal and trusting where his friends were concerned. I was glad to be included as one of them.

By his slow movement, I could tell he was slightly hung over. I would wait a few minutes before asking him if he’d seen anyone around Jupiter.

Max ran out to greet him, her tail fanning. He leaned down and lifted her up using one hand like a giant with a toy. He held her over his head. “Hot dog, you come to sea with me! I feed you some octopus, give you’re a starfish for a chew bone, and let you bark at the porpoises. It’d be a good life, yeaaaah!”

He did a 360 spin, holding Max even higher in a Greek dance. It was more excitement than Max’s bladder could hold. She let loose a trickle that ran down his arm. I yelled and Nick laughed. Max looked dizzy.

“Hot dog! What you do to me?” Nick set Max down like he was holding a ten-pound glowing coal. She looked up at him through sad brown eyes. “Little one, don’t be ashamed. It’s often the effect I have on the woman.”

“Let me get you a towel,” I said.

“No, Maxine is trying to tell me something.”

“What’s that?”

“She hates me so much she pee on me, or she say, Nicky my buddy, you need a shower and I’ll encourage you to take one.” He looked at Max, peeled off his shirt, opened the door from the transom to the dive platform, kicked off his flip-flops and dove into the water. He swam out about fifty feet and turned over to float on his back. He bellowed, “What a fine bathtub!” He turned over and swam like an Olympian competitor back to Jupiter.

I tossed him a towel. “You’re lucky the tide’s in, otherwise Max urine shower might be cleaner than the marina.”

“I don’t think about it, at least not long enough to stop me from having some fun.” A gold cross hung from a chain around his neck and winked in the sun as he dried off.

“Nick, have you seen anybody on my boat, or around it?”

“Lemme think. I’ve just been back one day. Had a little too much Ouzo last night and slept like a dead man.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if steadying himself. “When I first brought my boat back to the marina, I was working against the tide. I remember two people I haven’t seen on the docks walking away from your boat. Man was as bald as an onion. Couldn’t see the woman’s face, but she had a nice ass.”

I told Nick about the murder, the investigation, Slater, and how I’d become involved. After I finished, he looked up at me through eyes so dark you couldn’t see the pupil and said, “Wanna beer?”

“It’s a little too early on my clock for a beer.”

“Come fishing with me, storms and shit send your clock in a twilight time zone, man.” He shuffled into the galley with Max following him, tail wagging. I could hear him chatting with her like she was human. He returned with a Corona, popped the top and took a long pull. “Sean, you got some dick with a hard on for you. You find a woman ‘bout dead, call for help and he thinks you did it. What’s his gig?”

“Don’t know, but I do know someone broke into Jupiter.”

“They steal from you?”

“Don’t think so. Can’t find anything taken. But things have been moved.”

He leaned back into the sofa in the salon, held Max in his lap, and propped his flip-flop clad feet up on a shellacked cypress table. He set his beer on the table and picked at a small scab on his dark forearm. “Think that cop was the one on your boat?”

“Maybe. Why not search my house? It’s closer to the crime scene.”

“He coulda been there. Maybe you just don’t see it yet.”

“Or there could be another reason he was on my boat.”

Nick finished his beer. “What reason?”

“What if he wasn’t hunting for something?”

“Huh?”

“What if he was leaving something?”