Bimini Twist Read online

  “No. And you’ll have to come with a search warrant next time if the lovers don’t come up for air in Rockland tomorrow.”

  I made a mental note of getting a search warrant before heading to Rockland tomorrow, but assumed this would be unnecessary if I could find someone in the crowd to assure me that they had seen either Frank or Bianca aboard. “Okay, well what can you tell me about a rendezvous the ship had with a local lobster boat yesterday? Insight?” I asked, trying to get something from the tight-lipped steward that might impact the case I really wanted to be working on.

  “We purchased lobsters from Larry yesterday for this event. He always delivers to the ship the day before.” Of course, that made perfect sense, I thought, almost disappointed to have that piece of the puzzle fit so tightly and unsuspiciously. I thanked the steward with a degree of sarcasm. I understood that he was just doing his job. But I didn’t like him. I continued my surveillance and was hopeful of finding a talker.

  I watched as men and women tended the fires and tubs. Empty tubs were taken to the edge of the water where they were filled from the cove with a few gallons of salt water. The tubs were then placed on fires, filled with lobsters, clams, and ears of freshly shucked corn, and covered with seaweed. I assumed the seaweed acted as a cover to keep the heat from escaping and helping to boil the water quicker. Small pans with pounds of butter topped the seaweed—perfect for melting, I thought. Some tub tenders declared theirs done, and picked tubs from fires using steel rods with hooks on either end with which to grab hot tub handles. Straddling steaming tubs, two men would walk the full tubs over to the dumping area where the piping hot food was gently deposited onto metal cooling racks held off the ground by beach rocks. Two women used long tongs to separate lobsters and corn from the clams and plated all three on stiff paper platters. A third woman poured melted butter into small plastic cups and placed one each on the full platters. Hungry guests exchanged tickets for platters and dispersed to various picnic spots to enjoy.

  I was number ten in line for food when another tub was brought over and dumped to cool. A woman behind me said, “Now this is the way to eat lobster!”

  “Yes,” I said as I turned to chat with her. “This is my very first Maine clambake. Are you a guest from the cruise ship?”

  “Yes. My husband and I are celebrating our twenty-fifth anniversary. We are from Texas!” she exclaimed with a smile. “Are you on the ship? I haven’t met you, have I?” she asked almost apologetically.

  Now I was faced with a challenge. Do I lie, or tell the truth? I realized that I had nothing to lie about—this was not a criminal investigation. I was looking for kids! “No, I am here on duty. I am a deputy sheriff, and have been assigned to follow up on two missing persons reports. A young Romanian woman named Bianca and a cadet from the maritime academy named Frank Avery.”

  The woman’s sunburned face went to ash. “There was a girl, too?” she asked. “We were told only about the boy. How tragic. And we are supposed to go on without a care and enjoy the rest of the cruise…”

  “What exactly were you told? And by whom?”

  “Well, we assumed that it was a drunken incident—the booze flows quite freely aboard ship. And all we have heard is rumor. Nothing confirmed. But that’s why you’re here, to confirm, right?”

  I gently pulled the woman from the food line and walked her away from the crowd for some privacy. I flashed my badge briefly and tucked it back into my pocket. “You need to tell me everything. I have to locate two people, and whatever you can tell me will be helpful. Even if you believe it’s just rumor.”

  “Of course,” she said, then cleared her throat as if she might be talking to a tape recorder. “At breakfast this morning, I heard that a female passenger thinks that she witnessed something last night. She was up wandering the upper deck, late—seasickness, I guess. She swears that she saw something fly by her from above and splash into the water. She looked and saw what she described as a body in a khaki uniform disappear in the wake. It was dark. She may have been drunk.”

  “Can you tell me the name of the woman who thinks she saw this? Or help me find her? I need to speak with her, obviously,” I said.

  “I never heard her name. But she’ll be easy to find. Just look for a purple hat. She has been surrounded by curious passengers all morning. We came ashore here in the same launch, and all the focus was on her and her story. Even the launch captain was glued to the drama.”

  I thanked the woman and allowed her to rejoin the food line that was moving quickly again. I made my way around the perimeter of the cove, looking for a purple hat. At the far side, between the beach and trees, were a few picnic tables where some of the elderly people sat and enjoyed the sun and the lobster dinners. The purple hat stuck out from the green backdrop of spruce trees. The woman faced me as I approached. She was sitting with a broad-shouldered man who had his back to me as he sat across the table from my subject. As I neared, I saw that the man held her hands in his. When she noticed me, her eyes caught mine, causing her companion to turn and see who was interrupting their privacy.

  “You’re stalking me, right?” said Pete Alfond.

  NINE

  I attempted to mask my nervous confusion by laughing. When I realized that I was laughing alone, I stopped abruptly and stared, awkwardly waiting for Prince Charming to save me from sheer embarrassment. It was clear from the looks on their faces that I had thrown whatever train the two had going off track. Although I was sure there was a logical explanation for Pete’s presence here, and in fact everywhere I had been lately, I was now forced to question this degree of coincidence. I counted my heartbeats until Pete stood. He introduced us and shared the name of the woman he appeared to be “with.”

  “Deputy Jane Bunker is with the local sheriff’s department,” he said to his companion, whom I now perceived to be annoyed by me. There was a noticeable absence of and my date for tonight in his introduction, I thought. When I didn’t excuse myself and disappear, Pete finally stood and begged the woman’s pardon and promised, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Pete gently took my arm and led me away from the picnic table, I supposed so that the woman couldn’t hear his fumbling apology and lies. Or maybe that was my imagination. Just because I had a date with him tonight didn’t mean anything. We were not in a committed relationship, I reminded myself. We weren’t in any relationship. But I couldn’t help but be disappointed to see him occupied, and perhaps not as eligible as I had assumed. But if the woman wearing the purple hat was a passenger on the ship, how could she and Pete have connected so quickly? He sure works fast, I thought as he spun me around, forcing our eyes to meet. “Business or pleasure?” he asked gruffly.

  “Purely business,” I answered. “I am here following up on the same missing kids that I was looking for when I first met you. And the purple hat is part of my investigation,” I said, consciously avoiding the use of her name, which I had already forgotten. “It’s been reported that she may have seen something or someone fall from the ship last night. So I need to speak with her.”

  “Well then, you should know that the purple hat is in crisis. She is an alcoholic and has been severely intoxicated the entire cruise. Her companions have suggested intervention, which is why I am here. I am a substance abuse counselor and am here at the request of the cruise line to evaluate and advise.”

  I almost let out an audible “phew” when it registered that Pete was actually innocent of whatever I assumed he might have been guilty of. “I didn’t know that about you. Cool. I still need to speak with her, though.”

  Pete acquiesced, and warned me that the woman was fragile and not in her right mind. “She is borderline in withdrawal, and may even be delusional.”

  We walked back to the picnic table where I sat across from the purple hat and next to Pete. He explained that I had questions for her related to what she reported to have seen. “Well, it’s about time,” she said disgustedly. “Hey, hon,” she said to Pete. “Can you find me a
drink? I’m parched.” Her voice was dry and shaky. Her accent was pure New Jersey.

  “I can grab some water. Be right back,” he said as he left us alone.

  “I’m sure you’ve repeated this several times already, but I need to hear about what you reported,” I said. I noticed sweat on her face and trembling in her hands, classic symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol. I peered under the wide brim of the straw hat that shielded the sun and hid signs of age and abuse that had no doubt taken years to achieve. Her clothes were rumpled.

  “I guess I partied a little too hard,” she started. “But it is a cruise.”

  “Okay, but you reported seeing something. And I am here to follow up. Can you tell me what you saw?” I was very careful to not put words in her mouth or assist her soggy memory or imagination. She took a deep breath and looked around, I assumed for Pete.

  “At this point all I can do is tell you what I have been told by others. I think I must have blacked out at some point.”

  Oh great, I thought. Now she has amnesia. “Why don’t you start by telling me what you had for dinner last night,” I suggested in an attempt to get her talking. It worked.

  “I had the same thing that I had for lunch and breakfast,” she confided. “Liquid diet.” She swallowed hard and continued. “Late last night, I was feeling lousy. I don’t know if I was seasick or just needing another drink. The bartender at the all-night club cut me off, so I went out on the main deck for some air.”

  “What time was that? And were you alone?”

  “I think it must have been one or two. I was alone. My friends deserted me when I got flirtatious with a stranger. But it is a cruise.” She defended whatever she regarded as reason for her companions to abandon her. She looked around again for Pete. “Where is he with my drink?”

  “He’ll be back,” I assured her. “So continue. Where were you and what were you doing?”

  “I was trying to sober up enough to get another drink,” she said honestly. “I sat in a deck chair and wondered why there were no stars or moon. And that’s when I saw a body fly by. I got up and looked overboard and watched it disappear behind the ship.”

  “It was dark, right?”

  “Yes, it was dark! But the ship is lit up like a football stadium at night. That’s why I couldn’t see any stars. And that’s how I got such a good look at the body. I have explained this to everyone,” she said with growing impatience and thirst.

  “All right. What did you do? Who did you tell, and how much time elapsed between what you saw and your report?” I asked, knowing that she was less than credible. I noted that she was more concerned about her next drink than she was about what she claimed to have witnessed.

  “That’s when things get blurry,” she said. “I was told that I was heard screaming at the top of my lungs. I am not sure who responded, or what I might have told them.” Wouldn’t anyone in their right mind be distraught about seeing a body go overboard? And wouldn’t that event act to sober a person up? I was getting antsy, and wanted to wrap this up and get out to the ship to ask around about Bianca and Franklin. She walked me in stages, with plenty of prodding, back through what she recalled. By the time Pete showed back up with a tray that held three full lobster dinners, I knew that my time would be wasted by continued questioning of the purple hat.

  Pete placed the tray in the middle of the table and said, “Help yourselves.”

  “I think I’m going to puke. Excuse me.” And the woman in the purple hat staggered away and toward a group of young people who were enjoying the clambake with a cooler of beer.

  “More for us,” Pete said. “Did you get what you came for?”

  “Not yet,” I answered as I pulled a platter from the tray. A bright red lobster and a perfect ear of corn were nestled in a pile of steamed softshell clams. “Did you? I mean, are you here to intervene, or advise?”

  “I spoke with her friends just now. They tell me she is notorious for making up stories for attention when she’s drunk, and then recanting when sober.” Pete pulled both claws from his lobster and separated the tail from the carapace. I watched and mirrored his actions. “They are getting off the ship tomorrow in Rockland and taking her home. So my work here is done.” He pushed succulent-looking meat from the tail, pulled a strip from the back, dunked it in drawn butter, and slurped it up. “Is this your first lobster?” he asked with a smile.

  “No. Second. My first clambake.” I pushed a piece of lobster into my mouth. Butter dripped down my chin. It was perhaps the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. “Wow. Thank you so much. You didn’t have to buy my lunch.”

  “No, I didn’t have to. I wanted to,” he said. “I think it’s something I would like to make a habit of.”

  Did he really just say that? I was stunned. Yes, it was something I wanted to hear. But I didn’t know how to respond. So I kept eating, following his lead. I devoured the lobster and started on the clams, pinching off the outer skin from the necks, then using the neck as a handle for dipping into butter. We were both too full to eat the corn, so Pete placed both ears on the untouched platter he had provided for the now partying purple hat, and asked me to take it with me. “Lobster and clams to go?” I asked. “Sure, I’ll give it to my ride if you’re going to throw it away.”

  “Your ride?” Pete asked. “Who might that be? Should I be jealous?”

  Now he was really flirting, I thought. And I loved it. But the mention of Cal reminded me that I was here on business, and needed to act accordingly. “I need to get back to work. I’m hoping to avoid a trip to Rockland tomorrow, so I need to locate the missing kids. I’m sure the ship’s crew will talk.”

  “Okay. See you tonight. Are you sure I can’t pick you up? Now that we have our first date out of the way?”

  “No.” I blushed. “Let’s stick to the plan. I’ll see you at your aunt and uncle’s. Six o’clock?”

  “I am truly looking forward to it. And all I have left today is to take the pilot back ashore. Then I can get to work making myself beautiful for tonight. Can’t wait!” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. I wished that I had been the one to exclaim excitement for our anticipated date.

  We got up from the table and walked together—me with a lobster dinner plus extra corn—to the edge of the water. Pete pushed a small rowboat from the beach into the incoming tide, stepping into it over the bow. I forced myself to stop watching him row and went to find Cal.

  Cal was close to where I had left him. He had perched on a rock where he could watch both the dinghy and Sea Pigeon. I handed him the platter of now-cold food. “I already et mine,” he said. “But I’ll take it home to Betty,” he said, meaning his wife. “We ready to go?”

  “Not yet—I have to question some of the ship’s crew,” I said. “All I need is confirmation that someone has seen the people I’m looking for. That, or I’ll have to get aboard The Princess tomorrow to do my questioning.”

  By now the crowd had thinned a bit. Two launches from the ship shuttled passengers from the shore back aboard in groups of ten or twelve. People who had come in private boats began disappearing too. I had wasted a lot of time with the purple hat, I thought as I scrambled to meet a launch before any passengers could get into it. “Hi, I’m Deputy Sheriff Bunker from Hancock County. I’m investigating two missing persons reports. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Fire away,” said the skinny young man driving the launch.

  “Do you know Franklin Avery or Bianca Chiriac? Franklin is a cadet doing an internship aboard, and Bianca is a nineteen-year-old Romanian who we believe may be stowing away aboard The Princess.” I opened my phone to Bianca’s Facebook profile picture and held it for the launch driver to inspect.

  “Wow! She’s hot,” remarked the young man. “Nope. I have never seen her. And I’m pretty tight with the ladies onboard.”

  I found the picture of Franklin in full uniform and showed it. “Not to sound like an idiot,” he said. “But they all look alike.” When I scowle
d in disapproval, he continued. “All of the officers think their shit don’t stink. Except for the steward, they don’t even ride in the same launch with the passengers! Do you see any uniforms here at the clambake? No, you know why? Because they are too good for us common folk.”

  The launch captain was not going to be much help, I thought. Setting aside his attitude, which displayed the same derisiveness between the classes aboard a ship that everyone who had ever seen Titanic is aware of, I believed he had been honest in not recognizing either Franklin or Bianca. “I can take you out to the ship if you want to interrogate some of the brass,” he said snidely.

  “Thanks, but they won’t let me aboard without a search warrant—already tried.” I believed that telling him that I had been forbidden access might win him over—make him feel like we had that in common, being perceived by the ship’s officers to be of a lower rank and class, and therefore unfit to even ask questions of them. “Unless the lost is found, I’ll see you in Rockland tomorrow.”

  “Yup. I imagine that the presence of local law enforcement aboard ship isn’t good for business,” he added as he lent a hand to the first passenger to board for a ride back to The Princess. “And we wouldn’t want to rock the boat, would we?”

  It seemed that I had been hearing a lot of that rhetoric lately. Don’t bust any druggies. It might upset tourism. Don’t make a scene about looking for two missing people. It might be bad for business. I smiled and nodded as the launch quickly filled with happy passengers, many of whom chatted about the lovely time they had had at the clambake. The launch shoved off, leaving me on the beach with nothing more than I had come with. Unless you count the short yet meaningful repartee I had enjoyed with Pete. That was something I would take home that would buoy my spirits until seeing him again tonight.

  I glanced at my watch and realized that I was ahead of schedule. There was nothing else I could do here, I thought. As the trip to Rockland tomorrow was now unavoidable, I knew that it would eat up most of my workday. I still needed to follow up with The Wharf Rat on his call to the tip line that nobody knew we had, I thought as Cal rowed efficiently and methodically from the shore to Sea Pigeon. “Hey, Cal?” I asked. “How long would it take to steam to Bar Harbor from here?”