The Turquoise Shroud: A Seth Halliday Novel Read online

  The U-shaped inlet was protected by a short cliff wall behind us. Every evening at high-tide the small stretch of sand fronting the ocean disappeared until early morning. All the locals would know. Tourists in paradise would never have gotten close enough to hear or see Nancy struggling to keep her head above water. Whoever murdered Nancy had planned well, wanting her to suffer before her death.

  I reached down and stroked her dark brown hair, made darker from the wet sea, and whispered her name with regret. Nancy couldn't hear me now. Her mouth was open, an involuntary relaxing of face muscles as she'd finally lost consciousness and the watery darkness had won its victory.

  I sighed and made the sign of the cross as Catholics do, even though I'm not Catholic. Maybe I just didn't know what else to do. Even if I'd had a shovel I knew I couldn't move her. The Mexican cops would take a dim view of an American tourist, even an ex-cop, tampering with their crime scene.

  Old Harry, who knew more about boats and the sea than anybody I knew, was sleeping off last night's tequila on my big cruiser/houseboat, Stella. She'd been named after Gail Russell's character in an old classic film titled, The Uninvited. It was Harry's favorite movie.

  I'm one of the two people left on the planet who doesn't own a cell phone and doesn't want one. Harry is the other. I would have to leave Nancy and walk the half-mile or so back to where we were docked and radio the cops. "I'll be back, sweetheart," I whispered with tenderness, and leaned over to kiss the top of her head.

  I left my tackle box and rod on the sand because I could walk faster without it. It suddenly seemed very important that I get her out of the sand as quickly as I could. Nancy deserved some dignity in death. Maybe we all deserve it, but she deserved it a little more.

  I'd met her the first time only a day after we'd cruised in from Florida. It had taken Harry and me a little longer than it should have to make Cozumel because Harry had gotten the DTs about halfway there and I'd almost turned back. He'd been drinking most of his life, ever since an error in judgement around the Keys. The story went that a small group of fisherman had chartered his boat and despite warnings from Harry about the weather, had demanded to get their money's worth. Supposedly a man and his wife had been swept overboard and drowned. It's about all I knew or anyone else knew, but when he was delirious Harry would talk in his sleep, and it all lined up.

  Harry was feeling better by the time we docked, and ready to charm the panties off any woman who was in a charitable mood, or had a grandpappy complex. The frequency of which he found one or the other never ceased to amaze me. He reminded me of Walter Brennan in "To Have and Have Not" and if he ever started talking about dead bees I might start believing in Shirley MacLaine.

  The Golden Parrot was sort of an open air watering hole set up for tourists who had come to see the Mayan ruins and bask in the tropical atmosphere of Mexico. It was the kind of place with fake artifacts hanging on the walls and totem poles sitting around wooden tables. A lot of drinks had colorful little umbrellas in them. Harry needed a drink and as long as I could keep him to a few per day he was alright. It was only if he deviated either way from the routine -- more than that, or none at all -- that he got sick. So we did the touristy thing. When in Cozumel…

  Nancy had been sitting at the long bamboo counter with a big smile on her face when we arrived. It was an innocent smile, the smile of someone from Iowa who thought drinks with umbrellas floating at the top and fake tiki torches were what paradise was supposed to look like. But even from twenty-five-feet away, over the laughter and hustle of young people down for summer break and middle-aged couples trying to cram in some living before life took them back to a dreary computer cubicle, I sensed a vulnerability. I wasn't the only one who'd sensed it, unfortunately.

  It took me thirty-seconds or so to realize the person hitting on her was a girl. She was part of that lesbian sub-culture who dressed like males yet hated them for having something in their pants they didn't. They preyed on girls like Nancy, hurt by someone and a little uncertain. They offered them what they needed in soothing tones, the way a street-corner dealer offers a crack-head what they need, becoming the center of their world. And like a dealer who has no interest in his mark getting clean, they are territorial, and quick to discard their submissive if they begin to stand on their own two feet. Predators of a different kind.

  It was obvious Nancy was uncomfortable, and didn't know how to handle the situation. The "male" lesbian was bold as brass and aggressive. I told Harry I'd get him another Corona and made my way to the bar. I slid in between them, nudging the muscular tattooed arm away from Nancy's shoulder as if by accident.

  "I'm sorry we're late, sweetie. Your uncle Harry and I had a little trouble finding the place. We've got a table over there, you can bring your drink."

  Her brown eyes were filled with relief and gratitude as she slid quickly from the bamboo stool and took my hand. The lesbian's eyes were filled with something else.

  We walked back and sat down. She reached across the table to shake Harry’s hand. The girl at the bar had already found another victim by then and wasn’t looking. A chubby goth-girl.

  "Well, there sure are some pretty ones in Mexico, hey, Seth?"

  She turned to smile. "Seth? Thanks for rescuing me. That was just creepy. I guess you aren't supposed to say that, but it was."

  "You can say what you want here, we'll just think you've kept your sanity."

  She laughed. It was a nice laugh. And she was comfortable. We were her kind. "My name's Nancy. Have you seen Coba or Tulum yet?"

  "No, but we figured we would. We just arrived."

  "Where are you from? Oh, I'm sorry, it really doesn't matter. I don't like to talk about myself, maybe you're the same." There was a melancholy in the air as she finished the sentence.

  "We're from Florida. Miami. I used to be a cop but I'm retired now."

  "I used to be a lady killer but I ain't decided whether to retire or not yet," Harry said with a wink. We laughed and Nancy leaned over and whispered to him, "You see that pretty lady in the flowery dress? She's been watching you." Harry turned around. The woman smiled. She was in her mid-to-late forties, maybe early fifties. She probably thought she was carrying about twenty pounds too much but it looked good on her. She was a handsome woman.

  "Looks like the old Harry charm is still workin'," he said. "I ain't gettin' any younger, so I hope you understand if I can't stick around and get acquainted more with ya."

  "Some other time, Harry. I wouldn't want you to disappoint the lady with good taste."

  Harry was already sliding out of the booth and turned to look at Nancy. She'd meant it and he knew she'd meant it, and it wasn't about anything. "Now ain't you the one!" he whispered. If I hadn't known him better, I might have believed he blushed. Then he walked over to buy the lady a drink, feeling a bit taller, a bit more handsome, and a little less like an old drunk.

  Nancy switched places to sit where Harry had been sitting, across from me. She was wearing a light blue tank top and white shorts, both of which looked good against her skin, which was white but softly and evenly tanned. As she switched seats I confirmed that she was tattoo-free. I was even more impressed, and more convinced that she was something special.

  The tattoo craze had begun with the young and now it was simply part of a culture which got less substantive day-by-day. They wanted to be different, unique, differentiating themselves from each other, and in doing so had all become the same. If every girl had a tattoo on her lower back, just above her ass, how was it unique? None of them thought about growing old, or how it would look when it wrinkled. None of them realized that real difference, real uniqueness, came from within. They hadn't realized, and maybe never would, that you can't paint character or worth on your arms or your legs. Nancy was the real deal, she didn't have to write how special she was on her butt, or paint pictures on her modest but lovely breasts. Anyone who met her just knew.

  "You seem pretty young to be retired."

  "Thanks!
I thought I'd seem an old geezer to someone your age."

  "Well, you hold it well, pops." She smiled and there was shyness in it. I wasn't Harry, and there existed the possibility that I might like her romantically. She wasn't afraid or uncomfortable as she had been at the bar, just a tad uncertain.

  "Nancy, you have a certain je ne sais quoi that makes you better and far more enticing than every other girl here, and if you were interested, I'd be hard-pressed to say no, but otherwise, I'd like us to be friends, if that's okay."

  Her smile had more candle power than the sun, and for just an instant, that buried trace of turmoil I'd glimpsed earlier was nowhere to be found. "Deal," she said.

  That night we insisted she sleep on the boat rather than at the backpacker motel she'd been crashing at. She'd refused the cabin below, opting to sleep on deck beneath the stars. I'm a light sleeper and sounds I didn't recognize woke me up in the middle of the night. Beretta at my side, I'd crept up top only to realize it was Nancy's moans which had woken me. She was tossing restlessly in her sleep, mumbling in anguished tones. I backed slowly down the steps and left her to her demons.

  Her sporadic presence in our lives over the next several days was like the sun's rays every time she came around. She'd play cards with Harry, and she came with us to Passion Island where we had a picnic. Harry taught her how to operate the boat, which she picked up quickly and was very excited about. She missed out on the Coba ruins, but we had a nice day looking at two floors of exhibits at the Cozumel Museum and walking through El Cedral, a century-old ruin of a settlement dating back to Spanish exploration in the early sixteenth century.

  In the evenings when she was there, we'd sit out on the deck, looking at the sun set in an orange glow against the turquoise sea. We'd laugh and talk into the wee hours beneath the Mexican sky, and twice the small kitchen was filled with the smell of bacon because she'd made us breakfast.There was no pressure, she came and went as she pleased. It made the attachment stronger somehow, as if Harry and I couldn't really have any fun without her.

  As I walked the last hundred yards to the boat, the sun was beginning to rise in earnest over the sea. Harry had picked out a bicycle for Nancy to get around the island in and we had stashed it on board as a surprise. I could see it sitting on deck. Harry must have rolled it out there in case she came by this morning. Its bright chrome fenders and small wicker basket looked terribly lonely sitting there, because we would never see the expression of joy on her face upon seeing it for the first time.

  I knew Harry was up and about because the bicycle hadn't been there when I left, but I didn't feel like hollering for him to come topside. Instead I stood looking at the bicycle, touching the girly basket in front of the handlebars. It had taken me months to make peace with killing Escobar.

  I knew I had to find out who had buried her and left her to die in that terrible aloneness like no other. I owed it to Nancy for the sunshine she'd brought into our lives. I needed to go below and radio the Mexican cops, but lingered another moment by the bike, not ready to let her go just yet. My gut told me I was about to cross a line from which there was no way to return. I turned and walked down the steps. Harry is a wise old bird -- a lot of drunks are -- and he knew from the expression on my face that he now had one less friend in the world. I didn't have to say anything. He listened as I called the Cozumel cops and arranged to meet them down the beach. I turned around and Harry's look held the kind of pleading only a man who has come to the realization that he can't get the job done himself anymore has. I'd have that look one day, too.

  "We ain't gonna let them Mexican cops mess this up, are we Seth? We're gonna make it right, ain't we?"

  "Yeah, we're gonna make it right, Harry. We owe it to her."

  His eyes were red around the edges, but for once, not from drink. The pain he felt was trying to spill out. He stared blankly at the stairs leading up to the deck, murmuring, "She never got to use her new bike, Seth."

  Two

  Another boat had pulled in next to us two days before, and its owner smiled and gave a little wave as I jumped down to the small dock. I'd noticed her immediately because she was so lovely it was impossible not to. She was perhaps twenty-six or seven, and appeared to be by herself in a boat at least as upmarket as Stella. Harry had been living aboard her since he'd stopped sailing but sold her to me for a song on the condition he could stay. I loved the idea of taking my home with me whenever the wanderlust struck me, or whenever I became disgusted by the latest rapper celebrity and his plastic wife traveling to Cuba to party and reporting how great it was there, never having spoken to any refugee who'd risked their life to make the shores of Miami and escape. Both occurred with alarming frequency.

  It was the perfect marriage -- sort of -- for Harry and me because despite enjoying the tropical atmosphere of Miami, I didn't like swimming, and was no sailor. And, Harry needed someone to look out for him. Truth be told, at the time we met up, which was shortly after I'd killed Escobar and received that long-distance phone call, maybe having Harry to look after gave me a purpose while I tried to reshape my perceptions of who I was. I'd felt sorry for Harry but always had the impression that deep down, Harry felt sorry for me, and might even have figured I was the one who needed looking out for.

  Our new neighbor had that clean, very pretty, LeAnn Rimes kind of look and easy way which left the impression of a leggy blonde despite being a couple of inches shorter than myself. She was pretty enough, and smiled enough, to discourage all but the bravest. I'd almost fallen in love with her from afar when on her first night in Cozumel Daryl Hall's sexy "Cab Driver" could be heard playing on some high-quality speakers somewhere below deck.

  Nancy had yelled a hello to her while we were sitting in deck chairs the following evening and whispered that I should ask her over soon. While I'm not bad-looking by any stretch, and have had more than my share of women attracted to me, I held no illusions. I'm in my late thirties and have some wear, some of which shows. I'd also killed a guy, and if I thought about it too hard, I'd gotten paid for it. Enough to give a trophy girl like the one moored next to me pause if she ever found out, and me pause even if she didn't. Like the man said, you have to know your limitations.

  Dream girl headed below deck in her short yellow sundress but glanced over and smiled again before disappearing. I looked behind me and Harry was leaning over the silver railing of the bow. "Staying here?" I asked quietly.

  He answered in a guilty tone. "Maybe if I don't see her, Seth, I'll just remember her like she was, and she'll be a little less dead."

  I nodded. I wished I hadn't seen her dead and couldn't blame Harry for not wanting to. "Check out the bilge pumps while I'm gone, will you? They were making a funny sound the other day. I'll be back as soon as the cops are done."

  "Will do." He knew it was just busy work but was grateful to have something to do. Even being drunk most of the time before I'd run across him, he'd kept his boat in tip-top shape, and knew more about marine life and equipment than anyone I'd ever known with the exception of a sometime-smuggler named Sonny in Miami.

  It was a long walk back to the beach and I was in no hurry. I didn't want to get there before the Mexican cops and stand around any longer than necessary looking at the end of Nancy.

  I heard the sirens approaching when I was about a hundred yards away. They passed me and came to a screeching halt on the highway above. As a coroner's wagon pulled up behind them, two cops dressed in suits too expensive for an honest cop's salary got out and carefully made their way down a brush-lined trail to the beach. One of them stopped to look at his loafers every ten steps or so and cursed in Spanish. They finally reached us.

  "You called it in?" His accent was light, his english clean and pure. He was the guy in charge -- you can always tell. It was his partner who'd been checking his shoes.

  "Yeah, her name is Nancy."

  The other one looked up from his notebook. "Last name?" His tone was annoyed. Probably upset about his shoes. He had that pre
tty-boy, God's-gift-to-women aura surrounding him.

  "Me or her?"

  "You bein' a wise-ass?"

  "Calm down," said his partner coolly. The detective in charge had an Armand Assante thing going on. The dangerous version, from I, the Jury. He was wearing those dark metal shades like Horatio Caine. They got American TV is Cozumel apparently, the poor bastards. He took charge. "You knew her?"

  I nodded. "Nancy Wells, she said."

  He was sharp enough to catch it.

  "Any reason to doubt it?"

  I shrugged. "We only knew her about a week and a half. I got the impression she was running from something but she never talked about it."

  "Looks like she didn't run fast enough," shot back the second cop. I took a quick step towards him. Armand Assante stepped between us. "Check it, Jesus!"

  "I think we've gotten off to the wrong foot here. You have the look of a cop."

  "Ex, Miami."

  "Ah! I thought so. I'm Detective Sanchez and my overzealous partner here with the big mouth is Sgt. Carillo."

  I told him my name.

  "So, you think this is more than a spring-break prank fueled by too much cerveza and tequila?"

  "She wasn't the type. She was a loner, and she wasn't in school." I was finding it hard not to look down at Nancy. I felt like I shouldn't be answering the questions but she should. Only she couldn't any longer.

  "Now, don't get upset again, because I have to ask, but were you and she involved?"

  "No, just a friend."

  He acted as if he believed me but it might have been an act. I couldn't see his eyes clearly behind the dark shades.

  "Earlier, you said, 'we'."

  I told them about Harry.

  "I take it he wouldn't be much help?" He was giving me an out so that Harry needn't be questioned.