Final Sail

the Angostura bitters.”

“No—” Helen began, then realized she had been. “Yes,” she said. “You know me better than I know myself.” She turned to face him.

“I was wrong,” he said. “I should have told you what I planned.” He kissed her forehead.

She ran her finger lightly along the bridge of his nose. She liked his nose. Like Phil, it was both noble and slightly crooked.

“You are my partner, Helen,” he said. “My equal partner.”

He kissed first one eyelid, then the other, while she held him close.

“In work and in love,” he said. “Forever.”

And then he kissed her on the lips, the way he did the night they married.

EPILOGUE

“Well, well, this is a nice surprise,” Margery said as she read Violet’s check. “Green. My favorite color.”

“I thought it was purple,” Helen said.

“It will be,” Margery said.

The landlady bought a magnificent gold and amethyst necklace and a purple silk hostess outfit, then wore them to a party she threw by the pool. Phil barbecued chicken and ribs, and the Coronado denizens feasted and toasted one another.

“So, am I a member of Coronado Investigations?” Margery asked.

“You’re an independent contractor,” Phil said.

“Accent on independent,” Helen said.

Violet Zerling sold her father’s Fort Lauderdale mansion. “Too many sad memories,” she said. Her real estate agent introduced her to a fifty-one-year-old corporate attorney named Gordon. They dated for a year before announcing their engagement. Violet knows her fiance isn’t marrying her for her money—Gordon is even richer than she is. She did insist that they both have wills and designated health-care surrogates. Violet and Gordon married at his Fort Lauderdale mansion and plan to live happily ever after.

Andrei, the fired first engineer on the Belted Earl, finally found work on a yacht called Threesome. That boat name is popular on porn sites and in XXX-rated movies. It is also used by some freethinking yachters. This particular Threesome was known to South Florida yachters as a perpetual party boat. Underage girls scampered about on the decks. Drugs were as abundant as boob jobs. Miraculously, the yacht was never boarded by the authorities. Competent crew regarded this Threesome as the last stop before the crazy train derailed. The owner made the crew miserable with his miserly pay and capricious changes.

Helen thought a stint on the Threesome was a fitting punishment for the Bulgarian engineer. Andrei was surrounded by lush, willing beauties who never noticed him. In the port bars, even the most naive stewardess would not go home with a man who wore a Threesome crew uniform.

Dick, the second engineer, was promoted to Andrei’s job on the Belted Earl. Captain Swingle found replacement staff through a reputable Fort Lauderdale yacht crew agency, then hired Coronado Investigations to do background checks on the new crew.

HSI agents found an empty plastic tackle box and a duffel full of grimy evening gowns in a trash can near the car belonging to Mira’s boyfriend. Kevin had parked his car in the Fort Lauderdale airport garage. Kevin said he didn’t remember Mira ever having a tackle box. Mira gave him the gowns for his theater company’s production of Rain, but the dresses were too damaged to be used as costumes. The company closed before the show’s opening night.

There was not enough evidence to charge Kevin as an accessory to Mira’s smuggling. Kevin missed his off- Broadway audition when he was detained for questioning at the airport. He went to New York three months later. He now works off Broadway—as a waiter.

Tests showed that the blond hair found in Louise’s pocket was a DNA match with Mira’s hair. Police produced Mira’s credit card receipt for a silver two-toned Ficcare barrette purchased from HeadGamesOnline.com three months before Louise’s death.

Faced with this overwhelming evidence, Mira confessed that she had seen Louise leave the bosun’s locker after the head stew hid the tackle box of smuggled emeralds in there. The next time Mira checked the locker, the box was secured with a bungee cord. Mira never knew that the captain had found the emeralds and hired Coronado Investigations. She expected Louise to accuse her and Mira didn’t want to get caught with the latest load of emeralds.

Mira saw the rough seas on the crossing as a way to end a potential problem. She lured Louise outside with a story that the boys had left a wicker sofa unsecured on the lower aft deck.

Mira got down on the deck, peered under the canvas cover and said, “The lower bungee cord snapped.”

“Where?” Louise asked, as the shifting sea slammed into the yacht and knocked her off balance. That’s when the much stronger Mira grabbed her ankles and tipped the hundred-pound Louise overboard.

Mira was charged with murder one. Her public defender reminded her that Florida is a death penalty state and Louise’s cold-blooded murder would horrify a jury. Mira accepted a plea bargain for life without possibility of parole.

Shortly after the news of Mira’s sentence, Captain Swingle held a memorial service for Louise at sunset on the Fort Lauderdale beach. Suzanne, Dick, Matt, Carl, Sam and Helen attended the service. The captain brought a dozen white roses. Suzanne set out a buffet table with appetizers that looked like the elegant, edible art Louise had served on the yacht, as well as the boys’ favorites, pigs in a blanket and pizzas. Guests sipped champagne and drank beer.

Each crew member talked about how much he or she admired Louise, and tossed a white rose into the soft silvery sea. Sam the deckhand, fortified by several brews, was the last to speak at Louise’s memorial.

He gave a less rambling version of his good girl/bad girl speech, then said, “Louise was a good girl. No, a good woman. And we were good friends. The best. She loved life and she loved the ocean and she even loved the pelicans. She said they were what pterodactyls must have looked like. I’ll miss Louise.”

Sam gently left a rose on the edge of the warm surf. Captain Swingle set the remaining flowers next to it. The tide carried the roses away as a squadron of pelicans glided above.

“Yay, Louise!” Sam shouted, waving his beer.

The crew lifted their champagne glasses in a final salute to her.

Helen watched the crew drift away after the service. She walked alone on the beach to the site where Margery had married her and Phil, and where her husband had pledged his love a second time. She had a pledge of her own to keep. Her sister, Kathy, had received the phone jack and the digital recorder that Helen sent her, and practiced daily, determined to catch the blackmailer. Kathy told Helen that she could slap the jack on the recorder in two seconds, even if Tommy Junior was teasing his little sister, and his father was asking if dinner was ready. Kathy felt prepared to record Rob, or whoever the blackmailer was.

Helen stood alone in the surf, watching the sun slip into the soft silken sea and the stars come out.

Then she said out loud, “I swear that I will trust my husband and tell him what happened to Rob. We will catch the blackmailer together. And then I hope that he will still love me.”

.   .   .

Phil was waiting for Helen in their office when she came home, her hair tossed by the sea breeze. “I’ve been going over the books,” he said. “Coronado Investigations is safely in the black. We could use Violet’s bonus as the down payment on a bigger place.”

“Do you want a house?” Helen asked.