Surface Tension Read online

  I lost my balance and collapsed in an awkward heap, slamming my shoulder into the gold-leaf T painted on the yacht’s transom. My heart felt like it was trying to break out of my rib cage, and it was several seconds before I drew a normal breath. Great landing, Sullivan, I thought. Gorda was drifting back rapidly, and if I didn’t hurry, the line around my waist would soon pull me right into the sea. Quickly I stood and untied myself. Apparently the only one who had seen my bumbling arrival was Abaco, her head cocked to one side and her legs spread for balance, watching me from the tug’s bow.

  I climbed up the ladder to the aft deck and secured the line, adjusting the slack so that Gorda drifted angling off downwind, about forty feet off the big yacht’s stern. Then I called out, “Hello. Hello. Top Ten.” Neither the engines nor the generators were running, and in the shallow water, beam on to the wind, I could hear the vessel creaking and groaning as the hull wallowed in the swell. Yet even with that noise, the utter lifelessness seemed even more oppressive now that I was actually aboard.

  Stepping over a puddle of water, I made my way forward up the starboard side. I hadn’t been aboard the Top Ten since Neal and I broke up, and every detail I observed kindled a small memory.

  I cupped my hands to the glass on my left to try to see through the glare. The main salon was empty; a half-eaten sandwich on a paper plate and a romance novel with a gaudy cover rested on the glass table. Neal had served us charbroiled dolphin on that table the first night he came aboard as captain. That night we’d been so happy about his new job, and we celebrated on the huge bunk in the owner’s stateroom, blissfully unaware that it was that job that would be the end of us.

  A stainless ladder led to the bridge on the upper deck. I held tight to the rungs as the boat rolled, and I swung out, the water visible beneath my back. I used the momentum when the boat rolled back to pull myself up through the bulwarks, grabbing hold of the speedboat in chocks on the upper deck, but my sweaty hands slid across the smooth fiberglass. I dropped to a crouch to regain my balance.

  The voice of the Coast Guardsman calling on the bridge VHF radio startled me at the same time I saw the hand at the base of the companionway door. The fingers were curved upward in a distinctly feminine curl, soft and relaxed. As the yacht rolled, the hand rocked slightly, showing a flash of red nail polish on the thumb.

  “Hello,” I called out, feeling stupid as I did. Clearly, she wasn’t going to answer me.

  II

  Coast Guard Station Fort Lauderdale. This is the Top Ten.” My throat tightened. I couldn’t, shouldn’t look down. I’d had to step over the body to reach the dangling microphone, and it had taken every ounce of willpower I had not to run straight back to Gorda and get the hell out of there. The girl was on her side, resting in a pool of dark blood, the stainless-steel hilt of the dive knife showing below her left shoulder blade. Her long blond hair fanned out across the teak cabin sole and hid her face. She was wearing a thong bathing suit, and her exposed white buttocks looked more like smooth latex than flesh. I kept myself from looking down again, but the picture had been burned into my inner eyelids, and my mind kept flashing the snapshot over and over again.

  The sour taste crept up the back of my throat again.

  The Coastie’s radioman sounded almost excited when he came back on the air with his mundane questions. I didn’t want to spend any more time than was necessary on the radio. It was possible the killer was still aboard. The very thought made me swivel my head around and check out the windows on all sides of the bridge. I felt so exposed. I kept glancing over my shoulder as I listened to the Coast Guard. The killer must be gone, I told myself. If he had wanted to kill me, there had been plenty of opportunity as I’d wandered around shouting earlier.

  Besides, the big boat felt utterly empty. Maybe it was stupid to trust a gut feeling like that, but my intuition and instincts had kept me alive before. Finally I interrupted the Coast Guardsman, identified myself, and got straight to the point.

  “Coast Guard Lauderdale, there is a fatality here.” At the time I said it, I wondered at my own words. They sounded official and self-assured even if they were at a slightly higher-than-normal, breathy pitch, and yet I felt everything but. The girl was dead, as in cold, white, plastic-looking, no longer a human being. Is that why cops withdraw into that silly techno-speak on the TV news all the time? Because to use the real words conjures up that slide show on the mind’s big screen, and it doesn’t matter if you looked only once, it’s going to replay over and over again.

  I had seen dead bodies before. In six years working as a lifeguard on Fort Lauderdale’s city beach, I’d pulled one heart attack victim out of the surf, there had been several drownings, and I’d found that girl who overdosed, sitting up, back to a palm tree, facing the sunrise. And long before any of that, there had been my mother. But seeing it doesn’t make you get used to it. Besides, this one was different. This was no accident. Someone had intentionally thrust that blade through her skin. Although the hot sun shone brightly through the bridge windows, I shivered.

  The boat rolled almost thirty degrees on an oversized swell, and a Heineken bottle crashed over on the console. I jumped back, my hand at the neck of my T-shirt, as the amber liquid spilled across the teak, wetting a chart folded back to reveal about a ten-mile stretch of coast. Weighting the chart down was a copy of Bowditch’s Practical Navigator. I looked more closely at the blue clothbound book, and I realized it was my copy of Bowditch—I’d loaned it to Neal several months before.

  That was when I noticed the gun for the first time. It was on the console next to the depth sounder: a black handgun. I had no idea what kind it was. There were some holes in the instruments on the console, too. Obviously the gun had been fired. Then my ankle rubbed against cool flesh.

  “Shit!” The sound of my own voice frightened me, and I knew I had to start doing something to get both myself and the Top Ten under control. The yacht was rolling worse, which meant she was getting into shallower water, While Gorda drew only four feet, the draft of a yacht like the Top Ten was closer to eight feet. I couldn’t let either boat touch bottom. Out the port-side windows, the morning sun reflected off the glass and white plaster of the condominiums several thousand yards away. A crowd was gathering at the water’s edge, retirees out for their morning walk and swim, now delighted at the prospect of their daily ritual being livened up by the chance to see a multimillion-dollar yacht about to go into the surf line.

  I reached for the engines’ starter switch, but nothing happened. Either the engines needed to be started down in the engine room, or the damage here on the bridge had shorted out some necessary connection. I wished B.J. were here. He would probably be able to get these engines started. If not, at least he would have helped me get a line on this boat. Hell, it felt more like a ship. There was no more time to take the chance that the engines might not start.

  I didn’t want to have to step over the body again. Dropping the mike onto the dashboard, I slipped out the port side of the bridge. My boat shoe slid on the deck, and a quick glance down revealed a red smear. I’d slipped on blood. More droplets led aft, and there was a good- sized dark puddle in front of the port ladder. Beyond, I could see the line of breakers, now no more than a couple of hundred yards off.

  On the bow I found some yacht braid dock lines. I tied several of them together with hasty bowlines and ran the line from the Top Ten’s bow, outside everything, back to the stern. Abaco yelped and wiggled like a pup when she saw me. I could tell from the tension on the line between the two boats that there was no way I could pull up the Gorda by hand. Fortunately, the Top Ten had an Ideal warping capstan on the stern. I assumed the winch was hardwired directly to the ship’s batteries, but I still breathed a soft “thank you” when I hit the button and the drum started turning. I was able to winch the line in until the two boats were banging together. Gorda's aluminum bow was munching the big yacht’s teak swim step a bit, but it was nothing compared to what a few hours in the surf migh
t do.

  I tossed the Top Ten’s bowline onto Gorda’s foredeck and pulled myself up onto the tug. Abaco licked my face once as I came aboard, and then she stood back, out of the way. After untying the line that secured us to the big yacht’s stern, I tossed that line into the water. I wasn’t going to have to worry about Top Ten’s props getting tangled on the line; her engines were out of commission.

  I walked the line that was tied to Top Ten’s bow back to the stern of Gorda and tied it to the tow bit. From the wheelhouse, I brought the tug around in a half circle to the seaward side of the Top Ten’s bow, careful not to foul the towline on my own prop. If the Top Ten didn’t touch bottom before I swung the bow around, she must have been missing by just inches. As we pounded our way offshore, away from the breakers, I noticed Perry circling in Little Bitt, probably praying my towline would bust. Then I heard the siren and saw the blue flashing lights of the Fort Lauderdale Marine Police Unit and, behind them, the Coast Guard cutter.

  I smiled to myself. A little late, boys.

  III

  “You’re the one who found her.”

  I wasn’t sure whether he was asking me or telling me, or even if he meant the girl or the boat. “Yes.” I stuck out my hand. “Seychelle Sullivan.”

  He looked at my hand for a moment as though he were being offered a dead fish. Then he reached out and shook it in one brisk stroke.

  “Detective Victor Collazo, Fort Lauderdale Police.” Long black hairs curled out from the cuffs of his white shirt, and though it was only midday, his face was already darkened by coarse black stubble. “Tell me about it,” he said.

  “When I got there, the boat was unmanned and adrift. No captain, no helmsman, nobody. Nobody alive, at least. The vessel just missed going on the beach by minutes, but then I got a line on her and towed her in.”

  “You just happened by.”

  “No. I heard the mayday call on the radio. Towing is what I do.” I handed him a business card from my shoulder bag. “Sullivan Towing and Salvage. I’ve always got the radio on.”

  We were sitting on the bright tropical-print sofa in the Top Ten’s main salon. With no generators and no air, the atmosphere in the boat was like an overheated engine room. He glanced at my card and dropped it in his coat pocket.

  “And the victim,” he said.

  “I didn’t touch a thing.” I nodded toward the upper deck. “That’s how she was when I found her.”

  The Coasties had swarmed aboard as soon as Gorda nudged the Top Ten alongside the Port Everglades Coast Guard dock. Once I’d tied up the tug, I went back to tell them my side of the story, and they ushered me aboard, telling me to wait. Not too much later, the cops showed up, some in uniforms, others in plain clothes. There was a regular parade heading up and down from the bridge deck carrying suitcases, flash cameras, even video cameras. They all seemed to ignore me. Finally, I got up and asked a uniformed policewoman what they wanted me to do. She, too, told me to sit and wait. At that point, the last thing I wanted was to sit there with nothing to do, allowing my mind to replay the dead-girl slide show in my brain. Over and over, I watched myself approach the bridge, spot the hand, and then slowly, as I come around the corner, see the knife and the blood.

  Only this time, I was suddenly on a beach, and there was no blood. The sun was so bright, it leached the color out of everything, and there was the overpowering coconut-sweet smell of suntan lotion. I heard hushed voices as I pushed my way through the crowd, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. The only word I could hear was the last word I’d said to my mother. I was eleven years old again when I reached down and turned her head, brushing the sea grass from pale sandy skin; I knew that face.

  Shaking my head as though to pry loose the memories, I refocused my eyes and my brain on the scene at hand. What was taking so long? What were they doing to find Neal? Were they thoroughly searching the boat? The sea? They surely wouldn’t know where to look. They didn’t know him like I did.

  I remembered the book then, Bowditch’s Practical Navigator, and those days when we were down in the Keys aboard his little wooden sailboat, and he was teaching me celestial navigation. He was a lousy teacher. He carried it all around inside his head, and he didn’t know how to share it. He recommended I bring the Bowditch along and read it. I tried, but I was always getting lost, because the teacher was more interested in getting his student off the subject (and on to studying human anatomy) than in teaching navigation. Now, maybe that man I once loved was hurt and lost, and I was stuck in that hot salon, waiting.

  I’d been sitting there trying hard to turn off the memories for over an hour when Collazo finally showed up. I was feeling irritable, hot, and sweaty. But the few drops on my upper lip were nothing compared to the sweat on that cop. Within minutes he was pressing a linen handkerchief to his face and neck, trying to mop up the rivulets of sweat, but no sooner had he wiped his face and neck dry than more droplets popped out of his skin. The man was an honest-to-God sweat machine. Immaculately dressed, he had taken off his jacket when he first sat down, revealing his perfectly pressed, custom-fitted shirt, but he never loosened his tie. Even so, above his collar I could see the tufts of hair peeking out. I figured he had to be a regular gorilla underneath all his clothes. Maybe, since some women don’t react too well to hairy guys, he tried to keep himself covered, no matter how miserable he might be.

  “Did you recognize the victim?”

  “No.”

  “The captain wasn’t aboard when you arrived.”

  His voice was a monotone, unaccented and almost without inflection, and he had this weird way of asking questions by making statements and then waiting for me to agree or disagree.

  “No, I didn’t see him, and I never heard him on the radio on my way out there. Does anybody know if Neal was even aboard?”

  Collazo gazed up at one of the uniformed officers searching the boat. He watched the man as he rifled through the drawer of CDs under the stereo system. Then he turned back to me, sizing me up. Given my height, I was used to it. I could tell he was trying to guess how tall I was. I’d been five foot ten ever since junior high school, and generally I could classify men into two categories: those who found it intimidating and those who didn’t. I figured Collazo fell in the latter category.

  “You knew Neal Garrett.”

  The way he said it, it sounded almost like an accusation.

  “In my business, I know most of the professional captains.”

  “You heard the mayday call.”

  We’d been over this part already. It seemed like a detective should be better at asking questions and getting the story straight. I knew I didn’t want to stay in that heat any longer than necessary, so I told him the story exactly as it had happened. He nodded as I spoke, and sometimes wrote in a little notebook he had. His handwriting was small, neat, and precise. When I got to the part about the girl, he stopped writing and our eyes met. I explained about the knife, and I saw her all over again reflected in the detective’s dark eyes. Then when I’d finished, he had me go over several parts and repeat them.

  “You started out there on your tugboat after the girl started calling for help.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And someone saw you leave your dock.”

  “No, nobody was around. I tried to find my mechanic, BJ. Moana, to help me out, but I couldn’t locate him. Time was running out. The Seventeenth Street Bridge tender might remember me going through, though.”

  He wrote in his book.

  “You knew the captain”—he glanced down at his book—“Neal Garrett.”

  I sighed. There probably wasn’t any way to avoid talking about it. He’d find out soon enough if he asked around.

  When Neal and I had finally agreed that it was time for him to move his wet suits, weight belts, dive tanks, and precious few clothes out of my cottage, we had both grown tired of the yelling. It seemed we were arguing more often than not, and he accused me of ruining our relationship by “ask
ing too many questions.” I’d watched him undergo a transformation in two years from a shaggy-haired boat bum (a refugee from a long stint as a Navy Seal) who wanted nothing more than to sail naked, dive for conch and lobster and make love under the forepeak hatch of his lovely H-28, Wind Dancer, to a driven, gold-epaulettes-type captain of a boat right out of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. He began to forget that the boat he was driving wasn’t really his. He wanted me to give up my boat and the business I’d inherited from my dad so I could become his first mate and stewardess. We’d had some great times together, especially in bed, and I admit I was tempted briefly—long nights in that queen-size bed in the Top Ten’s master stateroom and no more struggling to pay bills. But Neal brought that same passion to our arguments, and there was no way I was ready to take orders from him. I knew we were finished the night his rage took over; he was totally out of control, screaming at me and cursing, and he lifted his arm, threatening to hit me. I stood up to him, staring silently into the eyes I no longer recognized, fighting hard inside not to let him see just how much those eyes frightened me. By the time he moved out, I didn’t think his leaving would matter much to me anymore. But two days later I was balled up in a soggy robe, clutching a bottle of Mount Gay, burying myself in the sofa behind closed drapes.

  “Neal and I lived together for a bit over a year. He moved out several months ago. We hadn’t seen much of each other lately.”

  He wrote in his book. Then he watched me expectantly.

  I tried hard not to volunteer anything more, but the silence was just so empty. “I heard he had a new girlfriend.” I pointed overhead with my index finger. “That may be her.”

  “And you know who owns the vessel, then,” he said.

  “Not really. I used to know who the old owner was, but the boat was sold last summer. Neal said it was some corporation that bought it. It used to belong to the guy that owns those topless clubs, you know, the ones with the Top Ten Girls. That’s how the boat got its name.”