Under Full Sail - A Connie Barrera Thriller: The 7th Novel in the Series - Mystery and Adventure in Florida and the Caribbean (Connie Barrera Thrillers) Read online

  Under Full Sail - A Connie Barrera Thriller

  The 7th Novel in the Series – Mystery and Adventure in Florida and the Caribbean

  C.L.R. Dougherty

  Copyright © 2017 by Charles L.R. Dougherty

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  rev. September 2017

  Contents

  Leeward and Windward Islands

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Join my Mailing List

  A Note to the Reader

  About the Author

  Other Books by C.L.R. Dougherty

  Read a sample of An Easy Sail, the 8th Connie Barrera Thriller

  Chapter 2 - An Easy Sail

  Chapter 3 - An Easy Sail

  1

  Connie caught herself chewing her lower lip. Annoyed, she willed herself to relax.

  "Are you nervous about this?" she asked. She and Paul were pulling their dinghy up above the surf line, having anchored Diamantista II just off the beach. The yacht rolled in the swell that wrapped around the ends of the tiny sliver of sand and coral called Isla de Aves.

  "You mean because of the exposed anchorage?" Paul asked, as he unfolded the dinghy's ten-pound grapnel anchor and dug it into the soft sand above the high-water mark on the deserted strip of beach.

  "No, it's not that. I'm spooked. It's eerie being all alone out here. We're what? Around a hundred miles from the nearest inhabited island?"

  "A hundred twenty-five miles west of Guadeloupe, I think," Paul said. "You don't get anxious when we're alone at sea. How's this different?"

  "I'm not sure, but it is. I feel more vulnerable here than I would if we were at sea under full sail. Standing on this speck of dirt feels like we're at the mercy of anybody who comes along," she said, frowning as she watched the screeching terns settle back down. "I'm surprised the birds are so skittish in a remote spot like this."

  "I guess people visit often enough to frighten them," Paul said. "I read that fishermen used to come here from Dominica for the turtles."

  "For the turtles? You mean hunting them?"

  "Yes, and to dig for their eggs."

  "But they're protected," she said.

  "Now they are. It was an old article."

  "Look," Connie said, pointing at a pit in the sand with piles of loose dirt scattered around it. She and Paul walked over to the scooped-out depression a few feet above the high-water mark.

  "Speaking of turtles' eggs, somebody raided this nest," Connie said, pointing at the trampled area in the damp sand.

  "Recently, too," Paul said. "Those are fresh footprints."

  "How can you tell?"

  "The edges are still crisp," Paul said, squatting to poke at the footprints. "See, the sand around the perimeter is still moist. It's drying fast, and then the edges will crumble. Somebody was here watching us sail in."

  Connie shivered. "I didn't see anybody."

  "Neither did I, but I was looking for other boats. I wouldn't have noticed somebody on the beach, hunkered down digging turtle eggs."

  Raising a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the glare, Connie peered around, sweeping the horizon. "If there's anybody here, they're hiding. And how'd they get here? There aren't any boats around. Now I really am spooked."

  "The only place to hide is in those ruins," Paul said. "Looks like the footprints lead that way. Shall we?"

  "I think we should get out of here. What if it's some Venezuelan official?" Connie asked. "We aren't even supposed to be here without permission."

  "Permission? From the Venezuelan Navy? Not likely, given the current state of affairs down there. Whoever's here is walking around barefooted digging up turtle eggs. That doesn't sound like a government official to me. Even if they are, they'll just tell us to leave, worst case."

  "Okay. You're right; I'm just being silly. Let's go." She took Paul's hand and they walked along the beach to the platform that stood on concrete pilings on the south end of the tiny island. The crumbling structure had been built by the Venezuelan Navy in the late '70s as a base for scientific expeditions.

  When they were within a few yards of the ruins, Paul stopped and called, "Hello! Anybody here?"

  A man of medium height and build staggered from behind one of the columns that supported the platform, a wary look on his sun-bronzed face. His skin and hair were caked with salt and sand, and he was unsteady on his feet. "You speak English?" he asked, his voice cracking.

  "Yes," Paul said. "Are you okay?"

  "Water?" the man croaked. "Bad thirsty."

  Paul looked at Connie, raising his eyebrows. She nodded and said, "Come with us. We've got water on the boat."

  The man grinned, his lips cracked and bleeding. "Prayers answered," he muttered. He took a halting step and stopped, swaying and shaking his head. "Help me?" he asked, looking at Paul and extending his right arm.

  "Sure," Paul said, stepping close to the man and grasping his wrist. He draped the man's arm over his shoulders and put his own arm around the man's waist. "How's that?"

  "Good," the man mumbled.

  After a few halting steps, Paul stopped. "Hey, Connie, maybe you should take the dinghy back to the boat and bring a couple of bottles of water ashore. He's in a bad way."

  Dick Kilgore knocked on the door of Pinkie Schultz's office. He'd considered his options and decided it was best to do it here. Anywhere else he would risk someone seeing what happened. Here, he could do what had to be done and leave the clean-up until the club downstairs closed.

  "Yeah?" Schultz yelled. "Who is it?"

  "Me, Pinkie," Kilgore said, as he opened the door.

  "What's goin' on, kid? Why ain't you out on the street, kickin' ass and takin' names?"

  "We got a problem, Pinkie." Kilgore saw that both of Pinkie's hands were under the desk. That wasn't a good sign.

  "What's this 'we' shit, Kilgore? I ain't got any problems. That's what I got you for. You been doin' real good the last coupla months. You gonna fuck it up now?"

  Kilgore knew about the sawed-off shotgun mounted in the kneehole of Pinkie's desk. He needed a reason to get past the desk, to get out of the field of fire. Otherwise, he wouldn't have a chance. "With Sam gone, I don't know who else to talk to, Pinkie. Ain't many people I can trust, you know?"

  "I miss Sam," Pinkie said, relaxing a little. His hands were still out of Kilgore's line of sight. "You ain't heard nothin', ha
ve you? About who killed Sam, I mean?"

  Kilgore shook his head. "Uh-uh. Nothin', Pinkie. You know I'd a told you if I had. But I been thinkin' about that."

  "About what happened to him?"

  "Yeah. I was rememberin' somethin' me and Sam heard before he got killed."

  "You mean after you two went to Tampa?"

  "Yeah, that's right. Somethin' about a new cartel movin' in on our turf."

  Pinkie's eyes went flat and hard. "What new cartel?"

  "Whoever the Tampa guys were dealin' with, I guess. You know, back when they started buyin' their shit from somebody else?"

  "You and Sam said they told you about some woman frontin' for a Mexican cartel. And some guy with acid scars on his face. Right?"

  "Yeah. The guy from St. Thomas said the same thing when me and Sam questioned him."

  "What the fuck are you gettin' at Kilgore? You pickin' up more rumors?"

  "Yeah, some," Kilgore said, shuffling his feet.

  "Sit down and start talkin', then. I ain't got all night."

  The two guest chairs in front of Pinkie's desk were squarely in the shotgun's field of fire. Kilgore stepped to the right and put his left hand on the back of the rightmost chair, pulling it back from the desk a bit. "Hey, Pinkie? This is gonna take a few minutes. Mind if I grab a beer from the fridge?"

  Pinkie rolled his eyes and sighed, leaning back in his swivel chair. "Yeah, but hurry the hell up, kid."

  Kilgore moved to the bar that stood against the wall to the right of the desk. He put his left hand on the bar and leaned over, opening the small refrigerator with his right hand. His coat fell open as he bent to look in the refrigerator, blocking his right hand from Pinkie's view. He grasped the butt of his pistol and drew it from the shoulder holster, careful not to snag the suppressor.

  He straightened up and took a stride to his left, putting himself to the side of Pinkie's desk as he brought the pistol to bear on Pinkie. Pinkie was trying to unclip the sawed-off shotgun from its bracket under his desk when Kilgore shot him in the shoulder. The .45 caliber hollow point knocked Pinkie out of his chair before he got the shotgun free.

  Kilgore said, "It was the scar-faced man, but you knew that all along, didn't you?"

  "Any regrets?" Bert Holsclaw asked, taking a sip of wine. He and Marian Canaday sat in the cockpit of Windsong, watching the yachts come in to pick up moorings for the night.

  "Only one," she said, smiling at him over the rim of her glass. They were anchored near the park dock at Fort Shirley in Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica.

  "What's that?" he asked, frowning. His voice was tense.

  "Relax, Bert. It's not what you think. I just wish we'd done this earlier. We wasted a lot of years."

  "Whose fault is that? You're the one who — "

  "Stop it!" she said. "Don't spoil the moment."

  "I'm sorry, Marian, but you're the one who seduced my best friend all those years ago."

  "Damn it, Bert, why can't you let it go? It was a mistake, all right?"

  "Some mistake," he grumbled. "All those years ... "

  "Okay, already. So Steve and I had a drunken fling one weekend while you were away playing Army, or whatever."

  "Shit, Marian, it was more than a fling. You married him."

  "Only after you dumped me for Karen. That was stupid."

  "Yeah, it was. But I paid for my foolishness. And Karen and I didn't stay married for 15 years, like some people."

  "Give me a break, Bert. Steve was a nice guy; you stayed best friends all these years, even after all that."

  "Yeah. So you and I could keep seeing each other. Dumb bastard never guessed, did he?"

  "I don't know," Marian said. "Sometimes I wondered, but he never said anything to me. Did he ever drop a hint to you?"

  "No. No, he never did. But I think he knew, somehow."

  "It doesn't matter now, does it?" She put her wine glass on the cockpit table and snuggled up against him.

  He put an arm around her, pulling her in for a kiss. "No. It's just the two of us from now on."

  "Think of it as pleasure postponed. It's all the sweeter for the waiting, don't you think?"

  "I guess," he said, nibbling her ear.

  "Besides," she said, "there are some advantages to being a widow. How many people our age could afford to do this? Drop out and live on a million-dollar yacht? Never have to work again? Think about it, Bert. This is our life until we decide we'd rather do something else."

  "You're making me feel like a kept man," he said.

  "I'm trying." She stroked his thigh. "Be my kept man?"

  "I ... that's not ... " his voice trailed off.

  "I know that's not why you did it, Bert. I don't think of you that way. I didn't mean to offend you. I was trying to make light of ... well, you know."

  "Yeah. I know. I'm having a little trouble with this whole situation. I have to get past feeling guilty about Steve. I never saw myself ... well, as capable of that kind of thing."

  "We're all capable of it, Bert. It's as old as human nature. It's not like we cooked up some cold-blooded plan. It fell into our laps. We can't undo it. I mean, I feel kind of the same way, remember. I'm a good person; you're a good person. It happened. Let's roll with it; make the best of it."

  "We don't have much of an alternative, do we?"

  "Uh-uh, not really. But I know a way to take our minds off our troubles. Come below with me, lover."

  2

  When Connie returned with the bottled water, she found Paul sitting on his knees next to the castaway, who was stretched out in the shade of the platform. "You didn't get far," she said, twisting the top from one of the bottles as she crouched beside them.

  "He collapsed before you even got back to the dinghy." Paul worked a knee under the man's shoulders, cradling his head with his right hand and steadying him with the other. "See if you can get a little of that in his mouth — not too much, though."

  Connie put the bottle to the man's raw lips and tipped it slightly. He moaned, shifting his position a bit and opening his mouth to accept a trickle of water. He closed his mouth and swallowed with difficulty. He opened his eyes, looked at her, and murmured something unintelligible. She fed him another sip of the chilled water, watching as he swallowed. This time, he nodded when he was ready for more. In a few minutes, he had consumed about a quarter of the pint bottle.

  "Better ease up," Paul said. "Let's be sure you're going to keep that down. There's plenty more; don't worry."

  The man nodded. "Thanks," he said, his voice not much more than a whisper.

  "You're welcome," Connie said, moistening a washcloth with a little of the water. She bathed his face, careful to let the water dissolve the encrusted salt so that she didn't rub it into his chapped skin. He flinched as she wiped his forehead, and she saw the swelling above his hairline. "You've had a knock on the head." She pushed his hair back and bent closer, examining the knot. "It's not bleeding. No cuts. What happened?"

  "Don't know." He eyed the water bottle.

  "Want another sip?" she asked.

  He nodded and opened his mouth, taking a good-sized swallow from the bottle. He put a hand to the ground and pushed himself up to a sitting position, reaching for the bottle.

  She handed it to him and said, "Don't push it; take your time."

  He drank several swallows of water. "Doing better. Thanks. No water here — just turtle eggs."

  "How long have you been here?" Paul asked.

  The man wrinkled his brow for a moment, lost in thought. He shook his head. "Don't know."

  "How did you get here?" Connie asked.

  "I ... " he shook his head again. "I ... don't remember."

  Connie and Paul exchanged looks as the man peered around.

  "Your boat?" he asked, his eyes resting on Diamantista II.

  "Yes," Paul said. "I'm Paul Russo, and this is my wife, Connie Barrera. We run term charters on her; she's called Diamantista II."

  "Spanish," the man said.
>
  "The boat name, yes," Connie said. "We're American. How about you?"

  The man shrugged. "Where are we?"

  "Isla de Aves," Connie said.

  "Spanish," the man said. "Bird Island."

  "What's your name?" Paul asked.

  The man scrunched up his face. After a few seconds, he shrugged and shook his head.

  Paul looked at Connie and raised his eyebrows.

  "You speak Spanish?" she asked.

  "Poquito," he said. "Nada más."

  "You can't remember your name?" Paul asked. "Is that it?"

  He nodded. "Sorry; I'm trying."

  "You may have a concussion," Paul said, "from that blow to your head. You don't remember how you got that knot?"

  "No. Where are we?"

  "Isla de Aves," Paul said.

  "Did you tell me that? Before?"

  "I did," Connie said, "and you translated it to English."

  "Did I?" he asked. "I speak Spanish?"

  "Only a little bit, you told me."

  He shook his head. "More water?"

  Connie unscrewed the top from another bottle and handed it to him. He took a big swig and sighed.

  "Thought I was gonna die," he said.

  "Do you remember anything about how you got here?" Connie asked.

  "On the beach," he said. "Big turtle. Laying eggs."

  "Did you dig them up?" Paul asked.

  The man smiled and nodded. "Right. And ate them. Starving."

  "Think you can walk?" Paul asked.

  "Try," the man said. "Where?"

  "We should get you aboard the boat and let you clean up a little. Wash off the salt and put some lotion on your skin," Connie said. "You look pretty uncomfortable."