Superior Storm (Lake Superior Mysteries) (18 page)

Leyla stood with her hands behind her back, her long dark hair spilling in waves over her right shoulder. Her eyes glittered with mischief. “You could punish me with a kiss,” she said in a small voice. For some reason
,
I became aware of my heart pounding in my chest.

“You
are
bad, aren't you?” I said. I moved towards where she stood, her head bent down now like a naughty school girl. Just then
,
a car pulled up next to mine. Through the windshield I could see Angela and Phil. I checked my movement, opting instead for pastoral decorum. Leyla grinned wickedly and winked at me.

I introduced Leyla to the Krugers. Phil seemed keyed up, his dark eyes sparkling and his sensual mouth active and smiling. He was wearing blue
nylon pants, the kind some runners wear,
and
a
dark
,
blue
nylon jacket
. Angela seemed excited too.
Her outfit was almost identical to Phil’s, only the jeans and sweater were clearly style
d
for the female form
.

I
shook
their hands and introduc
ed
them to Leyla.

“Wonderful to meet you,” said Angela, glancing from Leyla to me, and back to Leyla again. “Jonah didn't mention that he was married.”

I felt a little
twinge
of awkwardness. I opened my mouth, but Leyla rescued me. “Oh
,
we're not married,”
she said. “I'll be the captain for this cruise.”

Phil glanced quickly at Angela. She wrinkled her brow.

“Captain?”

“Yes, I'll be sailing the boat. Jonah isn't really qualified,” she added unnecessarily, touching my cheek with the palm of her hand.

They noticed the touch, and I saw another glance pass between the Krugers. I cleared my throat, feeling strangely embarrassed.

“Leyla and I are also, ah, seeing each other.”

Phil gave a kind of shrug. “Well
,
this will be terrific,” he said.

“It will,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing. Now that we were here, I thought it could be a very long weekend indeed, if the Krugers and Stones didn't cooperate.

Angela looked around, took a deep breath and sighed. “I have really been looking forward to this,” she said to no one in particular.

“Well,” I said, “let's go find the boat.”

There weren't that many boats still in the water by that date in October, and we found her easily enough.
Tiny Dancer
was painted in a loose freehand font on her stern. In fact, it looked almost like an amateur paint job. I wondered about that. My impression of nautical matters is that there was a great deal of superstition involved. Wouldn't someone consider it bad luck to have the name of your boat painted in such a sloppy fashion? Even so, if it didn't bother Red Hollis, it was no business of mine. Maybe he'd painted it on there himself out some
other
nautical superstition. Some sailors are funny that way.

She was a nice
-
looking yacht and didn't seem all that tiny to me. Leyla said she was a forty footer. The cabin, with tiny windows, stood up only a foot or so from the rest of the hull, but ran almost the whole length and width of the vessel.

“Looks like there will be plenty of room below,” said Leyla approvingly. I took her word for it.

Ropes and pulleys ran all over the deck and the top of the cabin. There was one mast that towered into the bright blue autumn sky. Near the base of the mast, a pole extended horizontally – the boom. It was wrapped with some kind of bulky blue canvas cover. At the bow of the boat
,
a steel cable climbed to the top of the mast. Around that cable was wrapped a sail.

“That's the
foresail
or jib
” said Leyla, seeing me looking at it. She was looking around too. She pointed to the base of the
foresail
where a kind of wide, flattened pulley was installed.

“That will make things much easier,” she said. “It makes it much simpler to control the
sail
.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking how nice it was that we had one of those,” I said, dodging a blow from Leyla. “I thought sailing was supposed to be a simpler, old
-
fash
ioned thing,” I added, looking at the spider’s web of ropes draping the vessel,
“I've seen computers less complicated than this.”

“Oh, it's not so bad,” she said. “It's basically the same as that catamaran we go out on sometimes. Just bigger, that's all.”

At the rear end of the boat (
aft
as I learned it is called) there was an open cockpit. It didn't seem all that large.
Behind
that
,
was the wheel, about two feet in diameter, apparently made of steel tubing.
It was attached to a small pedestal that also held a compass, an engine throttle and a GPS unit.
The walls between the outer hull and the inner cockpit were very thick.

At the front of the cockpit was
a
doorway that was blocked by boards and padlocked shut.

Leyla walked to the
m
arina office to pick up the key, while I went back to the car for our bags. Phil and Angela also picked up their luggage. I have many failings. Among them is great pride in my ability to pack small and light. Leyla, apparently, did not share the same pride. For a moment
,
I felt slightly embarrassed about the amount I was forced to carry, until I noticed that the Krugers had even more.

As I went back for the second time, a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up. Jasmine and Tony Stone got out. Stone looked, as always, like his name. His face was flat and expressionless. Like Phil, he wore blue jeans, but he wore a gray University of Minnesota Sweatshirt.
There was a small, old-fashioned pager on his belt.
He nodded when he saw me, and then went without a word to the back of the blazer for their luggage. Jasmine was animated as always, but in a businesslike way today.

“Do you have everything set?” she asked.

“I think so,” I said. “The boat seems to float anyway.” I started to move toward the back of the blazer. Jasmine stepped into my path, stopping me.

“Tony is very particular about our stuff. I wouldn't offer to help him, if I were you.”

“Farthest thing from my mind,” I said without thinking. “I mean,” I added when I realized how that sounded, “I had other things I was thinking about.”

Jasmine smiled and laid her hand on my arm. She stood a little bit closer to me than I felt comfortable with. “It's
okay,
Jonah,” she said. “We're very grateful that you are willing to help us.” I could smell her perfume and for some reason that was unsettling. Her black hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail held with a lavender band, and she wore a matching outfit of lavender
-trimmed
blouse and pants.

When I got back to the
Tiny Dancer
with the second load, I found Leyla had opened up the hatch. I stepped from the dock to the deck around the cockpit, and then down into the cockpit. Two more
strides
took me to the hatch and companionway. There were four
more
steps down
,
and by the time I reached the bottom
,
I was pleasantly surprised. I could stand up fully without banging my head. In front of me was the saloon,
or, main cabin. It was
a long room with a padded s
ettee on each side. It was neat
and well
-
appointed
,
with polished wood paneling and cupboards. It even seemed a little spacious, like a large and unusually wide camper-trailer. On the right hand side slightly toward the front, the settee was formed into a wide U around a table.
The table had a little lip on all around it, presumably to keep things from sliding off the edge when the waves tilted the yacht.
Directly to my right was a small, but neatly ordered
,
galley
, complete with stove, refrigerator and sink. The counter formed the back of one arm of the U-shaped settee. I looked over my shoulder and saw a narrow door
aft
of the gall
e
y
. I swung it open to find the tiniest toilet-shower room that has ever been built. I bet the Pilgrims had bigger facilities on the
Mayflower
. I swung back to the left and found another door that seemed to lead toward the back of the boat. I opened it to find the small stern cabin. I could stand up in the area right next to the door, but the bed was underneath the floor of the cockpit
.
S
leepers would lie with their faces only a
foot or two
from the ceiling.
The outside wall had two long narrow windows. The inside wall, I assumed, separated it from the toilet.

There was another cabin at the front of the boat, under the bow. It was, not surprisingly, v-shaped. Once again, at that point
,
the cabin no longer protruded above the deck, and the sleepers would be tucked in fairly close to the low ceiling. There was a skylight
above the bed, which apparently could be opened and used as a hatch.

In the main saloon, on the port side, aft of the straight settee
,
was a little desk.
Like the table, it has a small lip all around it.
Above it, set in the wall
,
was a bank of electronic equipment. It held what looked like a
CB
radio and possibly a GPS unit, or maybe a depth finder, I wasn't sure which.
There was also an ordinary stereo of the kind you might find in a car.
The
CB
radio was on, a mechanical, computer-generated male voice droning out a weather report. It sounded promising.

Leyla came down the steps
into the cabin. She turned to the radio and switched it off. “Well
,
the radio works and the weather sounds good.” She turned to me. “What do you think?”

“It's kind of like a camper,” I said.

She regarded me with a long, level gaze.

“A big camper,” I amended.

The look did not waver.

“A big, fancy camper,” I added, “with sails.”

“This could be a long trip,” she said for some reason. “We've got the
se
berths
,” she said, turning and gesturing
at the settees
, “which one do you want?”

“I guess I'll take the one on the left,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” said Leyla.

“Sorry,” I said, “port.”

“That's better. We might as well make this as authentic as possible.
When
we
are facing forward, l
eft is port. Right is
s
tarboard.”

“Aye-aye Cap'n!” I saluted.

She eyed me with twisted lips. I returned her look with wide-eyed innocence. “A
really
long trip,” she muttered, turning away.

There was a little flyer on the table. It read,
“
Welcome aboard
the
Zephyr
.” It was some kind of pamphlet for a rental yacht, which was apparently quite similar to the
Tiny Dancer
.

“Hey look at this,” I said to Leyla. “Whoever was on here last was
thinking of
renting a different boat.”

Leyla looked at the flyer. “I don’t see why,” she said, shrugging. “It’s
exactly the same model of boat.” She looked more closely. “Basically
identical in fittings, actually.”

“Maybe the owner of the
Zephyr
charges less than Red Hollis,” I said.

It took about half an hour to get everyone's luggage stowed. Both the Stones and Krugers insisted on handling all of their own bags, so I was occupied stowing my things, and then Leyla's,
in cupboards in the main saloon.
A
fter that
,
I transferred our food from the coolers in our vehicle to the
galley
on the
Tiny Dancer
.

When we had completed everything, Leyla called us all together in the cockpit outside. I
i
ntroduced her to the Stones.

“OK,” she said. “I need to go over some things. You may have heard that at sea, a captain functions as supreme dictator of his ship.”

“Or
her
ship,” said Angela, a little more loudly than was necessary.

“Yes,” said Leyla. “The point is, there is a reason for that. At times, decisions may have to made quickly, and actions may have to be taken immediately or we could experience major disaster.” She paused. “I mean, life-ending kinds of disaster. I don't expect that sort of thing to happen. But if we do get into a tight situation, you have to do what I say immediately, without arguing, or questioning, or something very bad could happen. Are you with me?”