Skeleton Sea

CHAPTER 23

“Whassup, Sis?”

Sandy Keasling nearly jumped out of her skin. What she did, instead, was spin around and shoot a killer look at her brother.

Jake sauntered into the game room. “Scare you?”

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. She did wonder how he’d managed to open the door without her hearing. The hinges squeaked. The game room was a separate building, connected to the main house by a covered walkway, and maintenance was lower priority here than maintenance on the house.

Hell, the whole hacienda was squeaking and flaking and rotting and sinking.

She glared at Jake.

He grinned. “Just wanted to see what you found in the closet before you get the chance to cover it up.”

“None of your business,” she snapped.

It was all she could do not to slam the closet door shut.

Not that she’d found anything worth covering up.

The closet was jammed with games. You could not see the floor, what with the croquet set, Frisbees, horseshoes, every manner of ball from soccer to softball. Bats. Tangled badminton net. Two shelves were stacked with board games. Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, Sorry — Sorrreeee — relics from the past. Checkers, no chess, the Keaslings weren’t a brainy family. Monopoly, now there was a Keasling game. Battleship, even better, stepping it up a notch in their teens. That’s when she’d had to really help Lanny. Jake had accused them both of cheating. Jake cheated, himself. God, they were a gaming family. On the top shelf in the place of honor was Clue, an enduring favorite. Nobody cheated. No need. Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick.

What better place for Lanny to hide a clue?

Although damned if she could figure what the red float was a clue to.

The float wasn’t in the closet, that’s all she knew.

Jake was looking around as if he couldn't believe how shabby the Keasling game room had become.

Sandy couldn’t argue with that. The felt on the billiard table was scabby. The corduroy couch sagged in the middle. The wet bar had a broken faucet and broken tiles. The windows were so dirty you couldn’t see if it was cloudy or sunny outside.

The only time Sandy came here anymore was when Lanny begged her to play a game of darts.

And now, she came when she’d had the brainstorm to look for the float in the closet. Sandy stepped away from the closet, leaving the door open.

Let him look.

He didn’t. “I assume you’re hunting for a certain object that Lanny is purported to have taken? About yea long.” Jake spread his hands, shoulder span. “I’m not a hundred percent sure about the size. Hard to tell from that cell phone photo that hot geologist flashed us. Let’s just call it a marine float.”

So big whoop, Jake knew what she was looking for.

She moved to the wet bar mini-fridge, which still worked. She took out a Coke. She didn’t offer one to her brother. No beer in the fridge, that's all Jake cared about. Sandy didn’t drink alcohol. Sandy didn’t want Lanny to get any ideas.

“No hidden float?” Jake’s eyes narrowed. “Then what’s our next move?”

“Ours?”

“Last I checked I’m still a Keasling.”

She popped the lid on the Coke and pulled a long drink.

“Me, you, and Lanny.”

Sandy sank to the couch and kicked off her flip-flops.

“Sea Urchins forever,” her brother added.

“Cut the crap, Jake. Like you care?”

“Blood ties. If I had my pocket knife handy we could slice our pinkies and mingle blood and swear undying loyalty.” He patted his T-shirt — no pockets. He rested his hand over his heart. “From the bottom of my most important organ, I care.” He added a grin. “Second most important organ.”

She shook her head.

“Come on, Sandy.”

“Come on, Jake.”

They stared at one another.

Sandy drained her Coke.

Jake sauntered to the dart board on the wall beside the couch and removed the four darts. He backed up. Positioned himself facing the board. Facing the couch. He transferred one dart to his right hand. Paused. “You might want to get off the couch. I’ve got a lousy aim.”

“I know,” she said. Unmoving.

“Your funeral.”

“Go ahead.”

He squinted, cocked his arm, and let the dart fly. It hit the wall above the board, bounced, and dropped to the floor.

Jake retrieved it and resumed his position. “Do over?”

She sighed. “What do you want?”

“Practice.”

“I’m not talking darts.”

He said, “I’m not talking darts, either. I’m talking about you and me practicing being family. Team Keasling. So we can figure out what to do next.”

“About what?”

He lifted the dart. “About some scary shit going down?” He aimed. “About your guest getting poisoned yesterday.”

She tensed.

“Your guest being the mysterious diver who Lanny mysteriously supposedly stole a float from.”

She’d been waiting for Jake to bring this up. He’d taken almost a full day to get to it. She assumed he’d been trying figure how he could play it to his advantage. She assumed he had the angle now. She waited for him to name a price.

She said, “What do you want, Jake?”

“Be nice to stop looking over my shoulder. How about you, Sis? You look in the fridge and wonder if the leftover pizza is poisoned?”

“I throw out leftover pizza.”

“Not even a little freaked?”

“Freaked, no. Cautious, yes.”

He threw the dart. It hit the arm of the couch, impaling itself. “Good idea about being cautious.”

She said, “Leave it alone.”

“How am I supposed to get better?”

“I’m not talking darts, Jake.”

“Oh darn. I was, this time.”

“There’s nothing to gain. You might think you can trick me into telling you something. Not gonna happen. Give it up. I don’t know what happened to the diver.”

“Sure you do,” Jake said. “Anchovies! You’re a Keasling. Keaslings do anchovies!”

“Not anymore,” she said.

“It's in the blood!”

“Not poisoned anchovies.” She pushed herself up off the saggy couch, suddenly weary, wondering if she could keep up the effort. Her limbs felt like they were weighted with wet sand. She moved heavily to Jake. She grabbed his left hand and plucked two darts from his grasp. She turned to face the board and threw a dart.

It speared the triple ring, twenty-point section.

“Wow,” Jake said. “You’re in practice.”

She eyed him. “I live here. You don’t, anymore.”

He faced her. His coppery eyes gleamed, and narrowed. “Way to cut to the bone, Sis.”

“You want to move back in? Plenty of room. Rent’s three hundred a week.”

“That what you charge Lanny?”

“I give Lanny a discount.”

“That’s fair.”

“Yes it is. He shouldn’t be living on his own. You know that. He’s been saving up his wages. He wants to buy a boat.”

Jake hooted. “Captain Lanny Keasling.”

“It won’t happen. Doesn’t hurt to let him dream.”

“There’s the bottom line. Let’s all protect Lanny and his dreams. Let’s be sure he gets the biggest slice of the pie, while we’re at it.”

“You got your share.”

“I live in a shitty condo. I pay my own mortgage. I pay all my own bills. Lanny kick in for utilities here? Lanny buy the groceries?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Why Sis, I’m just a little fucking tired of Lanny always sucking up the sun.” Jake spun and threw a dart. It hit the board, the double ring.

Sandy said, softly, “I know you are.”

Jake froze in the process of aiming his last dart. “Say what?”

“I know you’re feeling second rate. I’m sorry. What would you have me do? About Lanny.”

“Stop wiping his ass.”

She suddenly felt close to tears. She would dearly love to stop wiping Lanny’s ass. Stop cleaning up his messes. Stop it all. She said, “Would you like to take over?”

Jake let his throwing arm fall. “Christ Sandy, you really know how to take the righteous out of a guy’s argument.”

She laughed, a short bark.

He tapped his dart hand against his bare thigh. “So. You think he’s in big trouble, this time?”

“Don’t you?”

“How would I know?”

She walked across the room and hitched herself up onto the billiard table. That’s all it was good for anymore. She regarded her brother. He was the best-looking of them all, even with the ridiculous green hair. She’d often thought his good looks were a curse, making life so easy for him he never felt the need to try. Grudgingly, she had to admit that wasn’t the only thing that messed up Jake Keasling. He was second rate, in their parents’ eyes. Didn’t work hard enough, didn’t show proper respect for the right things. Whether that was cause or effect of their parents’ judgment, it shaped him. And when they died, and she took over the estate and had to manage her brothers’ inheritances, she’d treated Jake the same way. As a screwup. And he played the role to a T.

And here he stood playing at darts. Playing at whatever the hell he was playing at.

She said, “You want to know why I brought Joao Silva to the cave, Jake?”

His eyes widened. “Joao. Aren’t we Miss Portuguese Speaker.”

“It’s his name.”

“Get a little intimate, did you?”

“You want the story? Or do you want to play the fool?”

“Whoa, hard choice. Hmmm. The story.”

She nodded. Smart choice. When it came to playing the angles, Jake always made the smart choice. She said, “I wanted to find out if what I thought I saw, I really did see. Which was Lanny taking something red out of Joao’s dive bag, on board my boat that day. When I confronted Lanny, he denied it. And that pissed me off. And worried me.”

Jake nodded. She saw that he got it. Lanny was an innocent. Lanny didn’t tell lies.

Except, he did.

She continued. “So I tracked Silva down and talked him into coming back here. Told him I had his dive gear. Brought him to the cave. Scared him shitless about being an illegal. Fed him, watered him, dumped the porta-potty. Asked him about the red float.”

“And?”

“And he played dumb.”

“So you got pissed and poisoned him.”

She said, carefully, “What would that gain me?”

“A diver who can’t talk. Who can’t report being kidnapped and held hostage by Sandy Keasling.”

“A diver,” she said, “who now can’t tell me what kind of trouble Lanny’s gotten himself into.”

She wanted another Coke. She needed the caffeine. Her headache was starting up. The Shitstorm again. Always. She had to admit she was playing her own angles, juggling The Shitstorm and her tugboat license and her growing fear that Lanny’s latest mess was going to blow back on her. The diver wasn’t the only one playing dumb. She’d been playing dumb for five years. Keeping that secret from Lanny — at least she bloody well hoped it was kept. She was playing dumb now, with Jake. She needed to know what Jake suspected. What Jake knew. What Jake had done.

Maybe if she just told him everything. Honesty. And then he would tell her everything.

She regarded her green-haired resentful brother.

Honesty?

He'd missed that boat.

So play it the way it needed to be played.

She said, “What about you, Jake? Did you find Joao in the cave? Maybe it was you who poisoned him.”

“Me?”

“You’re a Keasling! Keaslings do anchovies!”

“Such a quick wit, Sandy.”

She regarded him. He wore that green T-shirt with the Marine Mammal Research & Rescue logo. “Been out saving the mammals today?”

He glanced down, as if he’d forgotten what he wore. “This morning. Another sea lion.”

She said, “Red tide? Toxic chovies?”

“Those of us in the know call it by its proper name. Harmful algal bloom. You interested in joining us?”

“No.”

“My bad. You don’t do volunteer work.”

“Neither do you,” she said. “Unless there’s an angle. What’s your angle?”

“I like sea lions. And pretty girls. Pretty girls like sea lions.”

“I like connecting the dots,” she said. “Joao Silva gets poisoned from eating anchovies. Sea lion gets poisoned eating toxic chovies. Jake Keasling joins the rescue group and learns all about harmful algal blooms and toxic chovies.”

“Learned about toxic chovies the same way you did, Sandy. Way back when. From Dad.”

“Who called a red tide a red tide.”

“Dad didn’t have the benefit of mammal-rescue training.”

“My point, exactly.”

“You’re missing a dot there, Sis.”

“No I’m not,” she said. “Your group has a research program and they rely on volunteers to collect red tide samples — and animals up the food chain that bioaccumulate the toxins. Quote, unquote. Like anchovies.”

“Whoa. Junior detective Sandy Keasling.”’

“They have a website. I wanted to find out who all can get their hands on toxic chovies.”

“Try the bait shop.”

“One option. Going out there and snooping around red tides is another. You do that, Jake? You on the collection team?”

“I've gone a couple of times. It's an on-call deal. You get called, you go.” He shrugged. “Me and about a hundred other volunteers up and down the coast. You want to grill them all?”

“Just you, Jake. You have access to toxic chovies.”

“Shit Sandy, what would poisoning that diver gain me?”

“Good question.”

“Are you really asking if I'm capable of attempted murder?”

“You asked me. About a minute ago.”

They stared at one another.

Finally Jake said, “So, Keaslings don’t do murder. I’m down with that. You?”

The sea snake in her head stirred. She wanted to walk away from this. The two of them talking murder. Who is and who isn’t capable. She'd heard it said that anybody's capable, if push comes to shove. Jake was waiting for her answer, without his normal smirk. She said, through the pain in her head, “Yeah I'm down with that.”

“Cool.” Jake turned to head for the door.

“Hang on,” she said. “I told you why I brought Joao to the cave. Now you tell me why you took my boat and got it scratched up.”

He stopped. Turned to her. “We talking about what we talked about on the dock last Tuesday?”

“We are. We’re talking about Doug Tolliver and your hot geologist saying the Sea Spray got scratched up the same way the Outcast got scratched up. Same time Robbie went missing.”

“Ah, that.”

“Yeah, that.”

Jake raised his dart hand. “Make you a wager. I miss the board, I tell you what you want to know. I hit the board, you don’t ask me again about it.”

“Deal,” she said, “only make it the bullseye. You hit the bullseye, I won't ask you again.”

“Christ Sandy, I'm a lousy shot. Give me a ballpark chance.”

She got off the billiard table and went to the couch and extracted the dart stuck in the cushion. She took position beside Jake. “Then let’s turn it around. If I hit the bullseye, you tell me what happened.”

“If you miss?”

She wouldn’t miss. “If I miss, you give me a good reason why you don’t know what happened.”

“That's a lose-lose, for me.”

“Think of it as win-win, for Lanny.”

“How so?”

“You and I figure out what he’s gotten himself into. We save his sorry ass, if need be.” She shot Jake a glance. “You down with that?”

“Yeah, shit, why not? Sea Urchins forever and all that. On one condition, though.”

“What condition?”

“You advance me the money for the new double kayak.”

She hesitated, for show. She’d regretted changing her mind about the kayak, yesterday on the beach. Now, she thought, wouldn't hurt to cut him a break.

“Okay, revised stakes.” She aimed. “I hit the bullseye, I buy you a new kayak. You tell me what happened to my boat. Lanny survives. Win-win-win.”

“You're a real hardass, Sis.”

She threw.

It was a bullseye.

“For the win,” she said.

Jake went over to the fridge and got himself a Coke, groaning for show. He took a seat in the stained beanbag chair. He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. He popped the lid on the can and drank. Made a face. “This stuff’ll rot your teeth.”

Sandy resumed her seat on the billiard table. “Beer rots your brain.”

“Story time!” He belched. “Last Saturday night I was at Pedro’s knocking back some brewskies and I saw a lovely lady go outside to the balcony and so I followed her out, just to be sure she didn’t fall into the water. Turned out she already had company. So I found myself a lonely spot at the rail. While I was brooding on my sorry love life, I saw a boat heading out into the channel. The Outcast. I thought, that little shit Robbie is going out after squid. I thought, he must know where they’re running. So I abandoned all thoughts of beer and chicks and ran to the parking lot and jumped in my Jeep and drove to our docks.”

Sandy said, in some disgust, “You drove drunk.”

“A little buzzed.” He drained his Coke and crushed the can. “I couldn’t follow Robbie in a kayak so I borrowed the Sea Spray.”

“Where’d you get the key?”

“Where you hide the spare. Taped to the underside of your Captain’s chair.”

She resolved to find a new hiding place.

“So I put-putted our boat up the channel and out the harbor, figuring the Outcast had a head start. I couldn’t find her with a visual in the fog so I switched on your radar. Another thing I don’t have on a kayak.” He grinned. “There was only one radar target right where I figured Robbie to be. I followed. When I saw the Outcast blip on my screen stop, I stopped. Shut off the engine. Not close enough to see what Robbie was doing. Couldn’t see shit through the dark.”

“You realize the Outcast would have radar too. Would have known you followed.”

“Do I have idiot written on my forehead?”

She refrained from answering that.

“Yeah Sis, I realized Robbie might have a fix on me. He probably shut off his radar when he stopped — he sure didn't yell who goes there.”

“What was he doing?”

“Squid jigging, I guess. There was some noise. Thrashing around in the water noise.”

“Any voices?”

Jake hesitated. “Maybe. Low voices. Could have been his radio.”

“Then what?”

“Then I sat there freezing my ass off debating if I should go back to harbor and get another beer at Pedro’s or go home and eat leftover pizza.”

“What did you decide?”

He tossed the crumpled Coke can toward the trash basket. Missed.

Normally she'd tell him to pick it up but now she just waited.

He said, “Finally heard the Outcast engine start up. I waited until he left then decided to go see whassup in Squidville.”

“What was up?”

“No more squid.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

“How’d you scratch my boat?”

“Beats the hell out of me.” He gave her a straight-ahead look. He waited for her to buy it. “There might have been an old buoy in the water. Rusting. I might have bumped into it, looking for squid.”

“Might have?”

“Okay yeah, sure, there was. I didn't see it in time.”

She stared at her brother. She didn't buy it. She didn't not buy it. “What about Robbie's boat?”

“Same place. I assume he was as shitty a driver as I was.”

“Then what?”

“Then I decided on the pizza. Headed for the harbor.”

“No sign of the Outcast, along the way?”

“Nope.”

“Next day when you heard about the Outcast adrift, about Robbie going missing, didn’t you wonder?”

“Yup. Didn’t really give a shit, to be honest. I assumed he went off looking for more squid and tangled with Moby Dick or something.”

“Why didn’t you report what you saw to Doug?”

Jake hesitated. Then said, “I didn’t see anything Doug could use. I didn’t know where the Outcast went after leaving Squidville.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Didn't think you'd approve of my joyride.”

“So you deleted the trip from my GPS track log?”

“Yup.”

“That’s it?”

“You have it all now.” He mimed throwing a dart. “I’ll send you a link to the kayak soon as I get to my computer.”

She nodded. A deal’s a deal. But she thought, he's holding something back. She could keep asking. And he'd keep saying you have it all.

Jake got out of the beanbag chair and went to the closet.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for something.”

She said, “It's not there.”

“The red float's not there.” He waded into the stuff on the floor and picked up the Checkers box. “This is.”

She could not endure another game.

He unhooked the bungee cord that held the box closed and flipped open the lid. There was no board, no game pieces. Instead, inside, swaddled in bubble-wrap, there was a pistol.

She stared. “Where’d you get Dad's gun?”

“In his dresser drawer. After they died. You told me to go through his stuff and take what I wanted. I took. Father-son legacy.”

“Why did you hide it here?”

“I didn't have any use for it.”

Her headache went full sea snake. “And now you do?”

“Uh, once you start wondering if your pizza is poisoned you get a little defensive.”

“Do you know how to shoot?”

He smiled. “Practice.”