Slowly but surely it all clicked in Carol’s memory. She recalled a bizarre evening right after she first started going with Dale. She had run a piece in the Herald on cocaine trafficking and had suggested that the Cuban city councilman, Juan Salvador, was deliberately inhibiting the police investigations. At noon that day, a usually reliable source had called her editor at the paper and told him that Senor Salvador had just purchased a contract on Carol’s life. The Herald had assigned her a bodyguard and recommended that she alter her normal schedule so that her whereabouts would always be uncertain.
The evening of the MOI banquet Carol was in a fog. The bodyguard had been with her for only three hours and already she felt confined and restricted. But Carol had been genuinely frightened by the threat. At the banquet she had scrutinized every face, looking for an assassin, waiting for someone to make a move. As she sat in the hotel communications room fourteen months later, she did vaguely remember meeting Homer (he had been dressed in a tux) and some jolly fat woman who had followed her around for twenty minutes or so. Damnit, Carol thought. It’s my memory again. I should have recognized him immediately. How stupid of me.
“Okay,” Carol said to Dale, “I remember them now. But why were they at the MOI awards banquet?”
“We were honoring our leading benefactors that night,” Dale replied. “Homer and Ellen have been big supporters of our underwater sentry effort. In fact, he has field tested many of our prototypes at his facility there in Key West. Real solid test data too. Best compilation of sentry/intruder responses that anybody has catalogued. Why? it was Ashford who showed us how the MQ-6 could be fooled—”
“Okay, Okay,” Carol said, realizing that her tolerance threshold was still extremely low. “Thanks for the information. It’s now a quarter till four. I’m going to go down to the marina to meet Nick Williams and make arrangements for tomorrow. If anything new comes up, I’ll call you at home tonight.”
“Ciao,” said Dale Michaels. trying without success to sound sophisticated, “and please be careful.”
Carol hung up the phone with a sigh. She wondered if she should spend a minute or two figuring out where she and Dale were going. Or not going. As the case may be. She thought about all the things she needed to do. She closed her notebook and rose from her chair. Not right now, she thought I don’t have time now to think about Dale. But as soon as I have a break in this crazy life of mine.
Carol was really fuming when she walked back into the marina headquarters the second time. She approached the information desk with fire in her eyes. “Miss,” she said nastily to Julianne, “as I told you fifteen minutes ago, I had an appointment here at four o’clock with Nick Williams and Troy Jefferson. It is now, as you can see, after four-thirty.”
Carol pointed at the digital clock with an impatient, sweeping gesture that commanded Julianne to look. “We have both established independently that Mr. Williams is not home,” Carol continued. “Now ate you going to give me Mr. Jefterson’s phone number, or should I make a scene?”
Julianne did not like Carol or her obvious attitude of superiority. She held her ground. “As I told you, Miss Dawson,” she said politely but with a biting overtone, “marina policy prohibits our giving out the phone numbers of the independent boat owners or their crew members. It’s a question of privacy. Now if you had a formal charter through the marina,” Julianne continued, enjoying her moment of glory, “then it would be our job to assist you. But as I said earlier, we have no record—”
“Goddamn it, I know that,” replied Carol furiously. She slammed the envelope of photos that she was carrying down on Julianne’s counter. “I’m not an imbecile. We’ve been through this before. I told you I was supposed to meet them here at four o’clock. Now if you won’t help me, I want to talk to your superior, the assistant manager of whatever.”
“Fine,” said Julianne, her eyes firing darts of contempt at Carol. “If you will just take a seat over there, I will see if I can locate—”
“I will not take a seat,” shouted Carol in exasperation. “I want to see him now. This is an issue of extreme urgency. Now pick up the phone and—”
“Is something wrong here? Perhaps I can help.” Carol spun around. Homer Ashford was standing right behind her. Just to the right, toward the gate in the direction of the jetties, Greta and a big heavy woman (That’s Ellen. Now I remember her, Carol thought) were talking quietly. Ellen smiled at Carol. Greta looked right through her.
“Well, hello, Captain Homer,” Julianne said sweetly, “it’s nice of you to ask. But I think everything’s under control. Miss Dawson here has just indicated that she does not accept my explanation of marina policy. She is going to wait for—”
“Maybe you can help,” Carol interrupted Julianne defiantly. “I had an appointment here at four o’clock with Nick Williams and Troy Jefferson. They have not shown up. Do you by any chance happen to know Troy’s phone number?”
Captain Homer gave Carol a suspicious look and exchanged a knowing glance with Ellen and Greta. He turned back to Carol. “Well, it is certainly a surprise, Miss Dawson, to see you back here again. Why we were just talking about you this morning, saying that we hoped you had a good time on your free day in Key West.” He paused for effect. “Now I wonder why you’ve come back here again, the very next day. And did I hear correctly, you need to see Williams and Jefferson on an issue of extreme urgency? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with all that equipment you brought in here yesterday, could it? Or the little gray bag that Williams has been guarding since last night?”
Uh oh, thought Carol, as Greta and Ellen moved in around her. I’m surrounded. Captain Homer started to pick up the sealed envelope on Julianne’s counter but Carol stopped him.
“If you don’t mind, Captain Ashford,” she said firmly, taking his hand off the envelope and putting the photos under her arm. She lowered her voice. “I would like to talk to you privately.” Carol nodded her head at the two women. “Can we go out in the parking lot together for a minute?”
Homer’s beady eyes squinted at her. Then his face broke into the same obnoxious, lecherous smile that Carol had seen on the Ambrosia. “Certainly, my dear,” he said. He shouted to Greta and Ellen as he walked out the door with Carol, “Wait here. I’ll only be a minute.”
Necessity is the mother of invention, Carol thought to herself as she led Homer Ashford out the door. So invent, bitch. And now. As in this moment.
They walked up the steps to the parking lot. Carol turned to Captain Homer at the top of the steps with a conspiratorial look on her face. “I can tell that you’ve figured out why I’m here,” she said. “I didn’t want it this way, I thought it would make a better story if nobody knew what I was doing. But you’re obviously too clever for me.” Homer grinned foolishly. “But I would ask you to tell as few people as possible. You can tell your wife and Greta, but please nobody else. The Herald wants it to be a surprise.”
Homer looked puzzled. Carol leaned over and almost whispered in his ear. “The entire Sunday magazine section the fourth week in April. Isn’t that unbelievable? Working title, ‘Dreams of Being Rich,’ stories about people like you, like Mel Fisher, like the four Floridians who have won over a million dollars each in the lottery. On how sudden income changes your life. I’m doing the whole piece. I’m starting with the treasure angle because of its general interest.”
Carol could see that Captain Homer was reeling. She knew she had him off guard. “Yesterday I just wanted to check your boat quickly, see how you lived, see how it would photograph. I freaked out a little when you recognized me so fast. But I had always planned to go out with Williams first.” Carol laughed. “My treasure-finding equipment from MOI faked him out. He still thinks I am a genuine treasure seeker. I almost completed my whole interview with him yesterday. I only came back today to finish a couple of small items.”