Without a Grave

EIGHTEEN

WHILE A HURRICANE IS IN TROPICAL WATERS, IT IS INFLUENCED BY THE NORTH EAST TRADE WINDS AND MOVES TOWARD THE WEST OR WEST-NORTH WEST AT A SPEED OF ABOUT 10 TO 15 KNOTS, BUT IT IS DIFFICULT TO MAKE ACCURATE PREDICTIONS CONCERNING THE PATHS OF HURRICANES.Sallie Townsend, Boating Weather: How To Predict It And What To Do About It, p. 21

Sometime during the first week of August, 2008, Frank and Sally Parker had died of ligature strangulation. This information didn’t come to me from the authorities in Nassau, nor from the Marsh Harbour police. I found it out from Paul who had it from FBI Special Agent Amanda Crisp, whose supervisor contacted the office of the Bahamian Minister of Health, Hubert Minnis, and pressured a nervous office assistant, dazzled by being singled out for attention by the FBI, into divulging the results of the autopsy. On condition of anonymity, of course.

Due to the high-profile nature of the case, two pathologists had performed the procedure, Paul reported, a Bahamian doctor and one especially flown in from Florida. In a follow-up email to my iPhone, Paul wrote that the cause of death was listed as asphyxiation by a cord-like object partially circumferencing the victims’ necks, the pattern and dimensions of which were consistent with a three-strand twisted polyester rope, approximately five-eighths of an inch in diameter, commonly available.

Commonly available. Jeesh. Boat lines, dock lines, anchor lines, mooring lines, tow lines, halyards, sheets for main and jib. A properly rigged sailboat used dozens of lines. But presuming you could identify the specific rope that killed our friends among all that spaghetti, even Super Glue fuming couldn’t bring up fingerprints on it.

I rode across the harbor in Pro Bono to share what I knew about the autopsy with Gator.

‘Nice of them to let me know,’ Gator grumbled.

‘Paul tells me there’ll be an inquest. Will I have to testify?’

‘I will for sure.’ He picked up an air tank and strapped it into a rolling carrier. ‘Probably you and Molly, too, having been there when we found them.’ He grunted, hefted another tank into the carrier. ‘It’s the law. Once they set a date, you’ll get a summons.’

‘Are you telling me, don’t leave town?’

‘Something like that.’ Gator started up the dock toward his dive shack, dragging the air tanks, and motioned for me to follow. ‘Been meaning to tell you. You know that mini-sub you were talking about?’

‘Yeah?’

‘It’s gone. Towed out to sea and scuttled, according to Jaime Mueller.’

I glared, head cocked, fists on hips. ‘And you believe him, Gator?’

‘It’s not like I could check it out, Hannah. The bank drops off to twenty-five hundred meters out there.’ He waved vaguely in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean as if he thought I didn’t know where it was.

I watched Gator thread a dock line through an eye bolt screwed into the roof of his dive shack and secure it to a cleat set in the concrete. ‘Just as well it’s gone. Wouldn’t want something like that banging up against your dock with a hurricane coming.’

‘Hurricane? You’re kidding.’ Without Paul home to noodge me awake, I’d overslept and missed the Cruisers’ Net that morning, so this was news to me.

‘Tropical storm Helen for now, but they may upgrade her shortly. They’re predicting she’ll reach us Friday. Winds eighty to a hundred, they say.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘Seen worse.’ He stepped over Justice, picked up a dock line and threaded it through another eye bolt.

Gator’s strange activities had suddenly become clear. ‘So you’re tying stuff down.’

‘Lots to do.’ He bent down, picked up a coil of rope and tossed it to me. ‘Give me a hand?’

Our landlords used the side of the refrigerator like a bulletin board. Who to call if the propane tank runs out (Earl Sands). Where to report a power outage (BEC). What to do in the unlikely event of a hurricane (Pray). The first thing I did when I got home was consult it.

Bring porch furniture in, secure doors and windows… on and on and on I read. Dozens of bullet points about how to secure their property, but nothing about what I should do personally other than getting myself to the airport and flying the hell out. I’d have to talk to Molly.

My talk with Molly was delayed temporarily by a visit from a representative of the Royal Bahamas Police Force, Marsh Harbour Division. I had been fixing to go to Molly’s, when someone pulled up to the dock. I watched curiously from the living room window as he alighted from his Boston Whaler, ambled up the dock, tall and straight and proud, all decked out in his uniform – a light-blue short-sleeved, open-necked shirt tucked into navy-blue trousers with a wide, red stripe running up the side. His military-style hat, also navy-blue with a red stripe, was perched on his head at a rakish angle. He carried a clipboard, the pages flapping as he climbed the steps to the porch and rang our bell.

I came out, all smiles. ‘How can I help you, officer?’

He consulted his clipboard. ‘Good morning, ma’am. I’m Sergeant Wilbur. Are you Hannah Miles?’

‘It’s Ives, officer. I-V-E-S. Ives. Would you care to sit down?’ I indicated one of the wicker chairs. He sat in one and I took the other. I folded my hands primly and waited.

Sergeant Wilbur eased a pen from his breast pocket, scribbled something on his papers – presumably changing ‘Miles’ to ‘Ives,’ ascertained that I was, indeed, one of the people aboard Deep Magic when the bodies of Frank and Sally Parker were discovered, and asked me to tell him about it.

While I was talking, he took notes.

When I wound down, he asked, ‘I understand that you knew the deceased.’

I explained the Naval Academy connection. ‘But I hadn’t seen the Parkers for several years,’ I added quickly, ‘and I certainly didn’t know Frank had been invited to Hawksbill Cay. I wish I had. Things might have turned out differently.’

Suspicion flashed in his dark eyes.

‘What I mean,’ I blathered on, ‘is if we had known they were coming, they might have stayed with us here at Windswept and not been in Poinciana Cove at all.’

‘Why do you think they were in Poinciana Cove?’

‘I heard it from someone on the Cruisers’ Net,’ I said, tap-dancing as fast as I could.

His eyes began a slow roll, which he checked almost at once. It was abundantly clear that Sergeant Wilbur considered the Cruisers’ Net a bunch of unreliable nosey-parkers. ‘We have credible information that their boat was found near Eleuthera.’

I didn’t comment. What was the point? From that single statement, I knew he’d talked to Jaime Mueller and had taken what the creep told him seriously. I’d believe the word of a cruising sailor over that of a spoiled-rotten daddy’s boy any day.

‘We theorize that the Parkers were attacked somewhere near where their bodies were discovered,’ he continued. ‘Then their boat was taken to Eleuthera where it was stripped and abandoned by the thieves.’

It’s my personal theory that if enough money is involved, certain Bahamian authorities can be convinced that the Gulf Stream flows from north to south and the sun rises in the west.

‘Pirates?’ I said. What bullshit, I thought. Pirates, drug-runners, desperate Haitians, teenagers partying late who need a ride home… they’d steal a go-fast or a cabin cruiser, or even a peppy little runabout before they’d saddle themselves with a sailboat that could make only seven knots per hour even with a twenty-five knot wind pushing on its sails.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he nodded sagely.

Wilbur opened the clip on his clipboard, released a sheet of paper and handed it to me. ‘There’s going to be an inquest on September 10 at the courtroom in Marsh Harbour. This is a summons requesting that you appear.’

I must have looked worried because he added, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll just tell the coroner and the jury what you told me today. There’ll be other witnesses, too. Then the jury will bring in a verdict.’ He stood, rearranged his papers under the clip, and extended his hand for me to shake.

‘But what about the storm? I hear there’s a big one coming.’

‘We cross that bridge when we come to it, ma’am. If the inquest is cancelled, we’ll be sure to let you know.’

‘Can you tell me how the Parkers died?’ I asked even though I already knew the answer.

‘No ma’am. Sorry. That’s for the pathologists to say.’ He checked his clipboard again. ‘Which dock belongs to a Mrs Molly Weston?’

I pointed to the path through the bushes. ‘You can leave your boat tied up here, Sergeant Wilbur. Her house is just through the trees.’

When the last blue speck of Wilbur’s uniform disappeared into the foliage, I powered up my laptop and Googled the police website. Little seemed to have been updated since 2006. Many of the links were ‘under construction,’ amateur clip art warred with text blocks sometimes overwriting them, and a click on ‘Abaco’ produced a 404 file not found error. I suspected that the link to ‘Police Most Wanted’ would return mug shots of thugs who had long ago escaped the short arm of the law, but decided not to test my theory.

I knew ten-year-olds who could build better websites. Didn’t do much to inspire confidence in the Royal Bahamian Police Force.

When I heard the rrrhumm of Wilbur’s departing Whaler, I popped next door.

I had to laugh. Molly had received Officer Wilbur wearing a 1950s-style cotton house dress and fuzzy-pink bunny slippers. Her hair stood out in erratic spikes like a victim of The Mad Mousser.

‘You get a summons, Molly?’ I asked.

‘Same as you.’

‘Did you hear we’ve got a tropical storm coming?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said wearily, pointing to her television where CNN was tracking the storm. ‘Believe it when I see it.’

‘I was thinking of evacuating, especially since Paul’s back in Maryland. But with this summons, I’m kind of stuck.’

‘I’m not leaving,’ she said. ‘This old place has survived every hurricane for the past fifty years, and that includes some humdingers like Floyd, Frances and Jeanne. The biggest danger is storm surge, and we’re high enough above sea level never to be bothered by that.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Tell me you’re not really leaving, Hannah?’

I paused to consider her question. Paul would have a fit and fall in it if I stayed. But he’d be worrying unnecessarily. I’d been through hurricanes before. Eloise, Floyd, even Isabel scored direct hits on Annapolis, but other than a foot of water in the basement, a few lost shingles and a twisted gutter, we’d lived to tell the tale. As long as I could hold out inside a sturdy, well-built house, I wasn’t particularly concerned. Windswept, like Southern Exposure, had been built by shipbuilders, men who knew how to confront, exploit and tame both wind and sea. We’d be just fine.

But I didn’t fancy riding out the storm alone, so I smiled at my friend and said, ‘Not if you aren’t.’