I took the lighter, pulled the stuffing out of the bottom, and found her small USB storage drive hidden inside. “Got it,” I said and almost laughed.
“What do you think is on it?” Padre Thomas asked and stubbed out his cigarette.
“Let’s find out.” We went to her office and used the laptop.
Tracy had been the ultimate note taker. All pages were dated. Some were no more than a thought, while others were a page or two. Names, dates, contact information, the wherefore and the whys of the information. The most helpful were her personal thoughts on the information, or who gave it to her. I was impressed.
I had the link she was looking for, the hospital. She had gone undercover to find out who pulled The Master’s strings. She wanted to know what he did with the body parts, who they went to and why. She considered the possibility that it was a cannibalistic ritual, but had her doubts.
“Padre, what do you think of all this?” I asked when I closed down the laptop and put the flash drive in my pocket.
“She was closing in on the devil, Mick,” he hissed and lit a cigarette. “He killed her.”
“It’s more than one man, Padre, it’s a whole group of them,” I said and stood. “I don’t think it’s cannibalism. There’s no money in that.”
“That leaves what?” he asked as we left the house.
“There’s money to be made in supplying body parts, if you can find a donor who’s a good match to the recipient.” It wasn’t my idea. Tracy had considered it too.
I took Padre Thomas home.
On the boat, I went through the files on Tracy’s flash drive again and printed out a few that piqued my interest. I lit a cigar and went out on deck to read them. I reread them after my cigar was gone, but my conclusion remained the same. It was a lot of guesswork on my part, on Tracy’s too, but reading between the lines of what she’d written, adding my own hunches to hers, it was bad no matter how I looked at it.
The cops would say there wasn’t enough evidence for a warrant. No warrant, no search. I didn’t need a warrant, I needed a way onto the yacht so I could turn speculation into fact.
“What are you doing up at the witching hour?” Alex asked from the dock.
I hadn’t been paying attention to anything going on around me. “Trying to make sense out of someone’s notes,” I said. “What are you doing?”
“I was downtown listening to Clint Bullard. I walked, so it took awhile,” he said. “Anything happening on the other thing?”
“Not officially” I told him. “But I’m still working on it.”
“Need help?” There was a slight hint of excitement in his voice.
He came onboard. I told him about my need to get onto the yacht and asked if he could think of a way. I told him I needed to get below, unseen.
“There’s an aft hatch to the engine room,” he said. “There has to be an entrance from the engine room to the lower section, wouldn’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I mused. “There has to be more than one way in and out.”
“The hatch is behind storage lockers,” he said. “I noticed it when I was pacing off the deck. I didn’t see a lock on it, but I wasn’t really looking for one. It could be locked from below.”
“How well is it lit and what goes on out there?”
“Most of the light comes from the salon windows, but there is an anchor light,” he said. “I don’t think they encourage anyone to be outside.”
“That’s a good thing.” I smiled.
A white light at the aft section of any anchored boat is a maritime safety requirement and without one authorities can board and ticket you. The yacht was in compliance.
My boarding plan was simple. The difficult part would begin when I got on deck. Alex was excited about helping, but I didn’t share that excitement, though I needed him in place in case things went wrong. A late-night call to my friend Burt found him downtown and willing to help with the skiff.
Alex took the shuttle boat at Simonton Pier and knew to signal when it was safe for me to board.
It went like clockwork. At one-thirty, the sky was cloudy and the Gulf side of the yacht was dark. Alex signaled, a wave of his arms, and Burt dropped me off. I brought my Glock, a small laser flashlight, and a pry bar for the engine-room hatch. I dressed all in black, T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and watch cap that I pulled over my red hair. I quietly climbed the ladder from the yacht’s tethered go-fast to the deck.
Alex smoked a cigarette on the aft deck and I heard him talking loudly to someone. I hugged the salon’s outside wall and waited for Alex and his friend to go inside. I crawled to the storage lockers and sat on the deck next to the engine-room hatch. The anchor light shined from a short pole and gave enough illumination for me to work. The hatch was locked from inside, just like the hatches on Fenian Bastard. Music escaped the salon and thankfully it was punk rock so it was more noise than comfortable listening music. Prying the hatch loose was easy because of its age, but it did make a loud popping sound as the two screw locks below gave way. Of course, at that hour the sound carried.
I waited to see if anyone would investigate the noise. They didn’t. I raised the hatch, dropped the pry bar overboard, and climbed below. I needed the flashlight to find my way through the dark engine room. A door led to the yacht’s bright, carpeted hallway and staterooms.
There were two doors on either side of the hallway and one at the end. Noise of people gathered in the salon and the recorded music could be heard by the stairway to the salon, but it was muted.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but knew I’d recognize it when I found it. Searching for the unknown is like that. There wouldn’t be a problem getting a search warrant once I delivered the proof. Of course, I didn’t know proof of what. Tracy had suspicions and so did I. We came up with our suspicions from two different directions; she had what I was missing and I had what she needed, so something was here.
I tried the door closest to the engine room, on the right. It was a small stateroom with double berths. I tried the door across the hall. It was dark inside. I searched the wall for a switch and turned the lights on.
And found all the evidence the police would need.
In the middle of the large room, there was a gurney with an unconscious young man covered to his shoulders by a sheet. I pulled my Glock and closed the door. This had been two staterooms but they’d been gutted to make one large hospital-style room, with metal storage cabinets, ceiling lights, IV stands, and portable trays. The kid was hooked up to a heart monitor that quietly beeped and an IV. At least he was still alive.
He looked like he was sleeping, but I guessed it was IV induced. His blood pressure was 120 over 80 and his heart rate was 65. I thought the numbers were good and removed the IV needle. He didn’t yelp when the tape pulled at the hair on his arm. The heart monitor caused a problem because an alarm would be set off if the heartbeat stopped. If someone, somewhere was monitoring it, things would go to hell very quickly. I left it alone for the time being.
The thought made me nervous and I searched the ceiling and walls for possible security cameras, but found none.
I slapped his face. He didn’t wake or show he even felt it. His black clothing lay neatly folded on a chair. There was no wallet in his pants. A few dollars and some change was all. I turned on the bathroom light and shut off the overhead light so the glow wouldn’t show under the door.
When Richard answered my call, I knew I’d awakened him. It was after two A.M. and he was home sleeping. I told him where I was and what I had. He was angry and then he was concerned because he couldn’t send city cops. He hung up after assuring me he was calling Sheriff Pearlman and Captain Fitton at the Coast Guard right away.