Smugglers 1: Nikki (10 page)

CHAPTER 12

A blood curdling scream came from the Broward early in the morning. Mark and Nikki and two others ran to see what was going on. When they got to Cynthia’s boat, she appeared at the door in her night gown which was covered in blood.

The only thing she was missing was the 380 in her hand, Nikki thought. She followed the others aboard the boat and found Bill all crumpled up in the hallway with a 38 ultra-light still in his hand. There was blood everywhere. Cynthia never, that’s never, quit screaming and running around. The 380 was at the bottom of the steps covered in blood, too. Rigor mortis had set into Bill.

Cynthia told everyone on the dock she woke up at the foot of the stairs with the gun in her hand. She didn’t know what happened or how Bill got shot. Nikki called the cops and asked them to come as soon as possible. She had a murder on her dock.

The boats started coming back from the cuts and the Cypress trees. Half of the people started tying up the boats and talking about Bill and Cynthia and the murder. Nikki met the cops on the dock and took them to the 100 footer. Cynthia was sitting on Don’s boat crying and drinking coffee. The two cops went aboard Cynthia’s boat.

Within twenty minutes there were two other cops on board and one plain clothes detective. They were on the boat for about four hours and spent time talking to Cynthia for hours. At the end they called the coroner and had Bill’s body taken to the morgue; Cynthia was cuffed.

Nikki went to Cynthia and asked “Do you want some clothes? And I’ll clean up the boat while you’re gone.” Nikki said this to Cynthia while she had a cop on each side of her so she would have a witness and a reason to be on the boat. She had to look for the money.

The next day two cops saw Nikki and asked her about Bill’s shooting. She said she didn’t see or hear anything because of the hurricane. After thirty minutes they were done asking questions, and Nikki asked if she could clean up the boat.

They told her “Not yet. Call at the end of the week.” She went down the dock to make sure everything was all right. All the boats had hundreds if not thousands of scratches on their sides from the hurricane’s wind blowing junk in the water up against them. On Friday Nikki called the Sheriff’s office and asked him if she could clean up the blood and stuff on Bill’s boat. He told her they would get back to her after he talked to the detectives. He never called, so Nikki contacted him again on Monday. He said he forgot to call her, that Cynthia could not remember anything and that she was lawyered up so he could not talk to her without her attorney being with her. Anyhow, he thought they were done taking pictures and running lines from the steps to where Bill’s body was found.

Nikki went on the boat just to look around and think. Where would Bill put two bags of money? Where would Bill put two bags of money that Cynthia wouldn’t find? The engine room, under the boat or dock or under the floor boards of the boat? She would start tomorrow by first taking the carpet out of the boat and go from there. She told Mark she’d be throwing the carpet full of blood on the dock and would he see that it went to the dumpster come morning. She had a plan to search the boat from stem to stern.

In the morning she had her coffee with Don and Mark. At around 9:00, she went to the 100 footer with her tools and started cutting carpet and padding. She made a sketch of the boat and marked down where the carpet was last. Bill would use those spots over tacked down places. When she finished stripping the boat she went to the engine room. With a head flashlight and a four-inch hand-held, she looked in every nook and cranny in the engine room. She even took up the checker plate on the floor, and she finished the day knowing it was not in the engine room that was marked out. The day was over so she quit and went home.

It was 2:00 in the morning when she was awakened by a thought that both of the engines were backwards because they were v-drives. Maybe Bill put the bags at the transmission. She’d need a screw gun to get at them from the guest room and would have to take a piece out of the bulkhead to see the v-drives. The bags weren’t there either so she went back home again and lay back down. Tomorrow she would start on the main salon and work her way back. She would look at every screw to see if the paint was messed up on any of them.

Loretta and Jerry on the Sea Cactus got back from up north that morning, so she went down to help them tie up and tell them about Cynthia and Bill. They had been gone over a week. They said they went to the Hard Rock Café in Miami to get out of the path of the hurricane. They had taken the Outside all the way up, and the sea was like glass.

Nikki was back on the 100 footer. She started searching in the master stateroom and worked her way forward. When she got to where Bill had been found, the wood floor had a stain from his blood that had soaked through the carpet, padding and all, even through to the wood. She looked at the stain for the longest time, and tears formed in her eyes thinking about Bill and the good times they had had. People never remember the bad, just the good times. Then she wiped her face and went back to work and she thought, ‘Screw him! He left
me
. I didn’t leave him. He moved in with that bitter old bitch for money, so why should I care?’

Nikki kept working; she went through the boat with a fine tooth comb. The day came to an end and she found nothing but lots of jewelry and shoes. The boat was clean from stem to stern and from top to bottom. She was tired and done for the day. Tomorrow she would get her tank and dive the boat and dock. She went home and made dinner. She had a full day ahead of her.

Nikki got up around seven, made coffee and had breakfast. Then she took a shower, got into her wet suit, and readied her dive tank. She went to the boat and talked to three or four people on the dock. When asked why she was wearing a wet suit, she told them that she had to check the boat to make sure it was sea worthy and did not have barnacles all over the running gear. She got ready and went into the water, going under the boat by the shafts and props. No bags, but plenty of barnacles. The boat needed scraping. Then she went under the dock and down to the thousand pound cement anchors that held the floating dock in place.

When she was looking the block over something nudged her back and she spun around and against her face was a basketball size face with six inch whiskers. She let out a scream and all her air came out. That scared the two thousand pound Manatee away; it was startled by her scream. Manatees are very friendly and docile creatures that only eat grass and not people. After her heart settled back to a normal beat, she checked the rest of the anchors and hold down chains. No bags. Then she went to search the docks. Nothing there. No bags under the boat, anchors or docks.

She got out of the water. She had thought she would find the money in a few days. Nikki carried everything to her apartment with Mark’s help. When she got there she made a drink for herself and took a shower then came out and sat at her desk, sipping her drink and wondering where he had hidden the money?

A thought occurred to her; maybe he had opened a safe deposit box in a bank and put it there? Then it’s gone forever! He’s dead! Oh, shit, he’s dead! She’d have no chance of getting it back.

Another idea occurred to her, so she met with the Chief of Police for breakfast. Nikki would find out if they found a box under Bill’s name and if they found the money. “Chief, I may have a problem. Dave took some pictures of me and Bill in the nude three or four years ago on the sand bar at Holiday Isle. Bill had them, so if you find out that Bill has a safe deposit box at some bank let me know, or get those pictures for me if you can.”

If she discovered he had a safe deposit box, she would sic her attorney on the money Bill lied about on his net worth statement for the divorce.

After coffee she went to the hardware store. When she got back to the dock she went down to meet a new boat that came in for a month. It was a really nice power Catamaran. The 46 footer arrived with two strong young men on board, Brian and Brett. They had just come from Key West and were going to take the Inside to Miami. They would stay a week or more and would let her know by the end of the week. They flirted with Nikki and any other woman they met on the dock, so she figured that they must both be straight. They invited her down for drinks later, but she declined for that night.

Nikki went to see Mark and then went to her office. Mark was about fortyish, weighed around two hundred pounds and was in good shape. He was also good looking and tan. She spent the night going over the 100 footer in her mind. Had she missed something? A space, a groove, or a hiding spot? After three or four drinks she went to bed. In the morning she got on the 100 footer again. She went through the entire boat again. She’d inspected every inch of the boat, and she had not missed anything. The money was not on the boat. Bill had put it somewhere else. If the cops found a bank safe deposit box with the money she had a chance to sue for it. Other than that she didn’t have a clue as to where it was, but she knew Bill, and he would not share it with Cynthia.

She had twenty six hundred dollars in cash and less than seven grand in her checking account. The electric bill and garbage bill of about four thousand would be there any day. She was caught up with the bills but she wanted the four million.

Brett from the new Cat came into the office and said his circuit breaker kept blowing. Nikki and Brett went to find Mark. Mark got a new fifty amp breaker and some tools and followed them to Brett’s pedestal. After shutting off the power, Mark changed out the fifty amp breaker. He said that sometimes the breakers just got tired from being turned off and on all the time. When Mark turned the power back on it ran fine. Brett thanked him and kept flirting with Nikki the entire time they were together.

Later, Jerry and Loretta came down to meet the new neighbors, Brian and Brett. Nikki returned to her office. The folks from the Sea Cactus took a tour of the Power Cat and then had Brian and Brett on the Sea Cactus for a tour and drinks. Brian and Brett had been out to sea for about two years and had been most places. They had all the toys on board the Cat, sail boards, dive gear, and more. They had spent an entire year in the Bahamas. Nikki went back to the Sea Cactus for drinks and to look at the fine tan, thin young men.

Brett started to flirt with her as soon as she got aboard. Brian divided his attention between the three of them, Jerry, Loretta and Nikki. Nikki couldn’t help but wonder why Brian and Brett were coming on to all of them or was it just her imagination. Jerry broke out some beef kabobs and put them on the grill. The day was sunny and nice and they ate and drank until about eleven that night. Then Nikki said she was not on vacation and had to work tomorrow. Brett offered to walk her home. When they got to her office Brett went inside and kissed Nikki. She knew that if they started now, they would end up in her bed, so she told Brett, some other time, not tonight. Brett left and Nikki went to bed.

Then next morning Nikki was on the dock by nine, she noticed that one of the boats that stayed there year round had a hell of a lean. She went back to her office to get the extra keys and find Mark. When she found him they went back to the boat. As she went down the stairs her feet didn’t get wet. Mark found the trouble. The line from the air conditioner going outside was plugged up; the pan under the air unit had overflowed. The bilge pump was shot, so Mark had to fix that, too. Both went to work. She told Mark to keep track of his hours so she could bill Roy and Judy, the couple in New York who owned the 40-foot Regal.

The couple renting Dave’s apartment showed up and had the rest of the money, which was twenty-two hundred dollars. She gave them the keys so they could start making trips with their stuff. Rita, who would be renting Mercedes’ apartment, would be there today or tomorrow with twenty-two hundred dollars most likely in ones, fives and tens. All of her apartments were totally furnished to the max, including new eight-inch memory foam mattresses.

Nikki went down to see how Mark was doing. He had replaced the bilge pump and was blowing out the air conditioner tubes with a shop vac. He would be done in an hour or so. She went down the dock and went to work on other things. At around 5:00 p.m., Brett and Brian were on the back of the Sea Cactus with Jerry and Loretta having drinks and they asked her to come aboard. She said she would after she showered and ate, and Brett, flirting again, said he would take half of that action. Nikki just laughed and told them she would see them in less than an hour.

When she went back to the Sea Cactus she had a vodka low ball in her hand as she boarded. Jerry, who was pouring shots said, “We’re all telling jokes and if everyone doesn’t think it’s funny you have to do a shot. In fact, you must do one now to catch up.”

“The last time I did shots, I kept having a recurring dream during the night that we took off all my clothes. In the morning when I talked to the other five people on board they all said I was the only one on board who was completely nude and all my clothes were still on board. That meant I walked to the office nude, too,” Nikki said. They all laughed but Nikki took a shot anyhow.

It was Jerry’s turn to tell a joke. “My eighty-year-old mother, who loves me, told me I can’t get married anymore, I can’t afford it. She also said that she has figured me out and why I had been married three times. She said, you’re gay, you’re a lesbian!

They all laughed and Loretta laughed so hard it made her drink come out of her nose. So Jerry didn’t have to do a shot. They kept playing and drinking until they were all dizzy. About ten or eleven o’clock Brett and Nikki excused themselves to leave for Nikki’s apartment. Brian said he felt like a fifth wheel and Loretta told him he could stay with them. They said that they would see to it that he wasn’t lonely.