A False Dawn

SIX

I had to get some fresh air. I tossed my phone on the sofa in the salon, went out the sliding glass doors leading to the cockpit, and climbed the ladder steps to the fly bridge. This was the perch I liked most. I unzipped and folded up the isinglass, exposing all four quadrants of the bridge to the coastal breezes. I sat in the captain’s chair, swiveled around, propped my feet up on the console and sipped the beer. Another hour and the sun would be setting beyond the expanse of estuaries and flat, tidal marshes. A half dozen brown pelicans sailed effortlessly across the marina.

I held the cold bottle to the left side of my forehead. The alcohol and aspirin seemed to work in unison, the throb becoming less of a pain and more of a state of mind. I looked across the marina toward the wide Intracoastal and thought of the last time I sailed with Sherri. I closed my eyes and could hear her voice.

“Hey Sean! Got a minute?” It was Dave Collins, standing on the bow of his boat, rinsing off the swim platform.

“Sure.”

Dave Collins wasn’t one of the boomers who dreamed of sailing around the world. Before retirement, he was employed by American oil companies. He’d worked in countries like Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Israel. He had been in “human resources, ” a recruiter, so he'd said. Dave had two daughters and one grandson living in Michigan. His boat, Gibraltar, a 42-foot trawler, was a few slips away from Jupiter.

Dave shut off the water and put away the hose. In his early sixties, he was silver-haired and broad-shouldered. No beer belly in spite of his love of dark beers. Like me, he’d lost his wife, but his loss was because of divorce.

As Dave stepped onto Jupiter’s cockpit, I said, “Get a beer and come on up.”

He whistled as he rummaged down in the galley and then climbed the bridge ladder, beer in hand, with the agility of someone half his age. “You had a visitor.”

“Who?”

“A detective. Said his name was Slater.”

“What else did he say?”

Dave sipped his beer. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Sean?”

“By default.” I told him about finding the girl.

Dave sat the beer in the cup holder. “I saw a little piece on the news. They didn’t have much. Said an unidentified woman was found beaten and stabbed near the St. Johns River. The reporter said police are questioning a ‘person of interest.’ By the detective’s line of questioning, I bet you’re that ‘person of interest? You think this Joe Billie did it?”

“Wish I knew.”

Dave made a slight grunt and sipped his beer. “Tell me again what the victim said, the words she uttered to you?”

“Atlacatl imix cuanmiztli.”

Dave wrote it down on the back of a napkin. “Wonder what it means?” He folded the napkin and placed it in the pocket of his Hawaiian-print shirt. “If English isn’t her first language, what is? Where’s home?”

“She looked exotic, similar to the people I’ve seen in areas of Central America. I’d held her hand waiting for paramedics. There were no calluses. Nails were painted, lipstick smeared, she wore tight jeans and a blouse.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m wondering if she made it. Who’s her family? Where’s she from?”

“Sean, this detective Slater is curious about you.”

“What else did he say?”

“Didn’t seem like your typical sleuth.”

“How?”

“Poor listener. Knew answers to questions before he finished asking them.”

“What sort of questions?”

“The usual. How much time did you spend on your boat? Did you ever bring women here? Any rough stuff or noises? He was trying to see if you fit a profile.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him you were a loner and came to the boat only on the night of a full moon and on a high tide.” Dave chuckled and swallowed the last ounce of his beer. “I didn’t tell him a damn thing, really. Nothing to tell. You’re one of the good guys, Sean. A burnout, but one of the good guys. Seen my share of the bad ones.”

“Bet you have.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

“Maybe I can catch you for eggs and issues in the morning.”

Dave never referred to the morning meal as ‘breakfast.’ It was always called ‘eggs and issues’ because it was when he liked discussing the morning newspaper.

“Tiki bar at eight a.m. for breakfast,” I said.

The roar of a dozen Harleys carried across the marina. The bikers seemed to parade through the marina’s gravel parking lot, disembarking in front of the Bayside Bar and Grille. Black leather and jeans stepping from the shiny chrome, like cowboys tying up horses in front of a saloon at sundown on a Saturday night.

I could smell the smoke from blackened Florida redfish coming from the Bayside, which was an outdoor tiki bar with a roof of dried palm fronds. The hangout catered to tourists, boaters, bikers and a few vagabonds that fell between the cracks and landed on barstools. The tiki bar sat on stilts over the water.

Maybe I’d stay on Jupiter for the night, make sure the bilge was performing well. As I debated whether to make the drive home, I thought about Max and her tiny bladder.

So it would be an evening with a wiener dog. I’d call Dave and cancel breakfast.

I crossed the Dunlawton Bridge just as the sun was painting the Halifax River in shades of flattened copper and deep merlot reds that simmered across the water like a river of blood. The day’s events seemed a lifetime ago. Was the girl okay? No, she wasn’t okay. Never would be. But was she alive?

Then I turned my Jeep around and drove fast toward Halifax Hospital.