“Yes and no,” he said. “They met once and I followed them. The second time Surfer Dude had a fatal accident.”
“He’s dead? She killed him?” Helen asked.
“The police aren’t sure, but I am. He died in West Hills. Our friend Detective McNamara Dorsey is on the case.”
“She’s good,” Helen said. “She’ll figure it out.”
“If she doesn’t, I’ll give her a little help.”
“Did the lady kill him the same way?” Helen asked.
“No. I’ll keep looking for the method.”
“Be careful, Phil. I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”
Helen heard a thunk and laughter. The crew was back. She sleepwalked through her work for the rest of the day. The owners and guests returned at two a.m. and went straight to bed. The staff was free.
Helen showered and dried off in her narrow bath. She banged her elbow on the wall and noticed she was nearly out of toilet paper. Helen found a spare roll and took the cardboard core off the holder. The spindle sprung apart. Inside was a tightly wound wad of bills.
Hundred-dollar bills.
Helen counted them. One. Two. Three … on up to ten. One thousand dollars.
She stared at the money while the thought formed in her buzzing brain. Louise didn’t buy a trip home on the charter boat. The thousand-dollar stash was still in her cabin.
CHAPTER 30
Mira had lied. Louise hadn’t left the yacht on a Miami-based fishing charter.
Helen staggered out of her steaming bathroom with the thousand dollars still clutched in her hand. She sat on her bunk, stunned.
Why did Mira lie? What did it mean?
Was Louise washed overboard? What was she doing out on deck? And why didn’t Mira report her missing?
A wave of sickness flooded through Helen. Louise was dead. There was no way she could have survived that violent sea. And Mira had kept silent. Louise’s death must have been Mira’s fault somehow. Either Louise fell overboard—or she was pushed.
The head stew didn’t want to admit her responsibility.
It was two forty-eight in the morning. Helen didn’t want to wake the captain at this hour. He couldn’t save Louise now. This news could wait another three hours.
Louise is dead. She’s dead. Dead.
Helen couldn’t stop thinking about it. She’d seen the wild water from the safety of the yacht. She’d felt it slam the ship. Poor little Louise, lost in the ferocious waves. She could see her hopeless struggle as the ship sailed away.
The second stew’s death added to Helen’s sense of failure. Louise was dead and Helen had failed to find the smuggler. Now she’d have to work another week on the yacht. Life aboard the Earl had lost its charm. It was dreary and deadly.
Helen needed sleep. She put a pillow over her head, but couldn’t smother the pictures flashing through her mind. She saw Louise disappearing in the crashing waves. She felt the stew’s hopeless struggle. Despair seemed to seep into the cabin like damp.
Helen must have dozed off sometime after four in the morning. When she checked her alarm clock again, it was four thirty-two. She’d have to get up in less than an hour. The clock’s digital numbers gave the room a faint green glow. She couldn’t escape emeralds even in her bunk.
Her restless dreams were lit by the dull green glint of fake emeralds and the green fire of Max’s ring. The smuggler’s pinkie ring was real. She’d seen that same green sparkle since the dinner with Max.
Beth? The boat owner had worn a savage emerald necklace and her poodle had an extravagant emerald collar and leash. Pepper wore an emerald-and-diamond choker with her film-goddess dress. All those stones had had that authentic blaze, like spring leaves igniting.
But those emeralds didn’t nag at Helen. There were other jewels. She could see them in her mind. They were just as sparkling, but the gowns weren’t as glamorous.
Gowns! That was it!
The rubbishy gowns that Mira brought on board, covered with jewels. Helen had thought they were fake. Now she wasn’t sure. Mira had stowed them in the smuggler’s hiding spot, the bosun’s locker.
Helen leaped out of bed, threw on her uniform, grabbed the emergency flashlight and slipped it in her pocket. She tiptoed out of her cabin. In the passage she heard a symphony of snores: The crew was still asleep. Helen climbed the ladder to the bosun’s locker and turned the hatch wheel.
She was in. It was still dark outside and the space was a metal cave. She shone the flashlight around the locker, picking out shammy mops, yacht brushes and buffing tools. Mira’s waterproof duffel melted into the shadows behind the plastic buckets.
Helen dragged the bag out, plopped it down on a gray plastic storage bin and unzipped it. Out tumbled grimy satin, worn velvet and tired chiffon studded with glass rubies, plastic sapphires and cheap rhinestones. Except—what was that?
The belt on a sea green gown flashed in the light. This was different from the dull glitter on Suzanne’s green T-shirt. Emerald-cut stones blazed like green bonfires. Each stone was nearly an inch long. There were twenty.
Helen had found the emeralds.
Mira was smuggling jewels. Helen pieced together their conversations and indicted the head stew in her mind:
Mira said she was investing in her boyfriend’s theater company. Helen knew Mira wasn’t using her savings as a stew. Those wouldn’t finance a high school play. Mira wanted to be a real angel and shower the theater with the proceeds from smuggled emeralds.
Mira said she and her boyfriend were flying to New York the day the Earl docked in Lauderdale. So Kevin could try out for a New York production? Maybe. To sell smuggled stones? Helen thought that might be the real reason. Max said smugglers took the stones to brokers in Miami or Manhattan. The stew was smart to choose New York. That put more than a thousand miles between Mira and her fence.
Helen started shoving the dresses back in the duffel, then stopped. She remembered Mira folding the dresses neatly in the crew mess. Helen pulled them back out and forced herself to slow down and carefully pack the bulky dresses. She put the gown with the emerald belt on the bottom.
Helen saw only one reason for Mira’s silence about the missing Louise: She knew Mira was the smuggler. That emerald belt and the tackle box full of cut stones would give Mira at least a million dollars. Once she had the money, Helen bet, she’d never come back to the yacht.
Louise’s death would be one more mystery at sea.
Helen wanted to shout in triumph. She’d found the smuggler. Once she told the captain, she was free. Wait till Phil found out. She wouldn’t even mind his “I told you so” brag. She was an equal partner in Coronado Investigations.
She zipped the duffel closed and dropped it back behind the buckets. She didn’t need the flashlight now. Daylight poured into the bosun’s locker. The sky was a glorious pink, like the inside of a conch shell.
As she climbed back down the ladder, Helen heard the crew preparing for the day—showers, soft conversations, doors sliding shut. She was relieved she’d reached her cabin without seeing anyone.
She checked the clock. Helen had twenty minutes to dress. She could see the captain if she skipped breakfast. She was so amped on adrenaline she didn’t need coffee. She washed, brushed her hair, then ran upstairs.
Captain Josiah Swingle and Carl the wallet smuggler were on the bridge. Now the lanky first mate with the no-color hair didn’t look shrewd to Helen. She thought he seemed shifty.
Josiah was annoyingly alert early in the morning. Helen wondered what made some people natural commanders. Josiah wasn’t the tallest man on the yacht—Carl topped him by several inches. He wasn’t the strongest. Young Sam would win that title.