Hot Schemes Read online

  “Tío! Tío Miguel!”

  Michael’s shouts carried across the water as they pulled alongside the boat. Niña Pilar had been painted on the boat’s bow in neat, bright-blue letters, a jaunty tribute to a woman Molly couldn’t imagine Tío Miguel leaving behind.

  “Can you get any closer?” Michael asked Raúl.

  “Sí,” he said, maneuvering until the boats were touching.

  Michael threw a rope across, then looped it through the railing of his uncle’s boat until the two were pontooned together. Only then did he leap from Raúl’s boat to the deck of his uncle’s.

  Molly’s breath caught in her throat as he made his way carefully from bow to stern. She nearly panicked when he disappeared inside the cabin and failed to return. She had one hand on the railing and was preparing to leap herself, when she heard the boat’s engine chug to life, then sputter off again. So, then, Molly thought in dismay, it hadn’t been a breakdown. Dear heaven, where was he?

  Finally Michael reappeared.

  “Michael?” she said softly, her heart hammering as she tried to read the expression on his face.

  He swallowed hard before he finally lifted his gaze to meet hers.

  “He’s gone,” he said bleakly. “The inflatable raft is missing, too. I can’t tell about life vests, because I’m not certain how many he carried.”

  “You’re sure he’s gone back to Cuba, though? Maybe the boat ran out of gas and he took the dinghy to get help,” she said, searching desperately for another explanation, even one that flew in the face of the sound she’d just heard of the engine running perfectly smoothly. “Maybe another fisherman picked him up.”

  “The boat’s fine. Besides, he would never have left it behind,” Michael replied with certainty. “We are in Cuban waters, or at least what they view as Cuban waters.” He looked to Raúl for confirmation. The fisherman nodded.

  “What does that mean?” Molly asked.

  “It means the Cuban government extends their territorial rights a couple of miles farther into the waters than international law usually dictates.” He sighed with obvious frustration. “Dammit, what has he done? Did he think he could get away with slipping into Cuba? The soldiers will shoot him on sight, either mistaking him for a rafter trying to escape or, if he is armed, seeing him for what he is, an enemy of Castro.”

  Raúl greeted Michael’s announcement with a barrage of Spanish. He hurriedly sketched a cross over his chest, his gaze flashing toward heaven. Though she could understand only about one word in ten, something in the fisherman’s voice told Molly he disagreed with Michael’s interpretation.

  Michael questioned him in impatient, rapid-fire Spanish.

  “What?” Molly said. “Michael, what is he saying?”

  “Estás loco,” Michael said derisively to the other man. “No es posible.”

  “Sí,” Raúl said just as adamantly.

  “What, dammit?” Molly said, shouting over the pair of them.

  Michael finally looked at her. “Raúl seems to think it is not possible that my uncle went back to Cuba. He says he would have taken his boat all the way to shore if that had been his intention. He would have tried to land on the beach, not taken a chance crossing the strong currents between here and there in a tiny inflatable raft.”

  Molly found herself agreeing with Raúl’s logic. “Then what does he think happened?”

  “He thinks he was murdered,” he said in a clipped tone.

  “Murdered?” Molly repeated, unable to keep the shock from her voice.

  Michael waved a hand dismissively. “You see why I say he is crazy. Who would want to murder an old man who has never done anything to hurt anyone in his life?”

  To Molly the passionate disagreements of the exiles had always seemed incomprehensible, but she knew that emotions ran high. Murder was not out of the question, given the right circumstances.

  “Can you dismiss what he is saying so easily?” she asked gently, though she didn’t want to believe Raúl’s theory any more than Michael did. “You’re a homicide detective, Michael. You of all people know how important it is to look beyond the obvious. You know that people can be driven to kill for reasons that make no sense to anyone else.”

  He glared at her. “Maybe just this once I don’t want to think like a detective,” he snapped. “Maybe just this once I don’t want to know anything about someone who might be sick enough to hurt an old man.”

  She understood his desperation, felt something akin to it herself, and yet clinging to an illusion wouldn’t help them to find answers. “I know you, Michael. You won’t rest until you know the truth. Not about something as important as this.”

  A sigh shuddered through him then. He slid his sunglasses back into place, shading his eyes, though it was long past any need for them. Without another word he secured Tío Miguel’s boat to be towed back to Miami, then gestured to Raúl.

  “Wait,” Molly said. “Couldn’t we take the boat back?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to chance destroying any evidence that might be on board.” He again gestured for Raúl to begin heading home.

  The fishing boat turned to the north and began chugging through the swift currents of the Florida straits. Molly could no longer read Michael’s expression in the darkness closing in around them, but he stood facing south—toward his homeland. Toward Cuba.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  Hours later, by the time the silent trio reached the marina again, Metro-Dade evidence technicians were waiting at the dock, summoned by Michael over Raúl’s ship-to-shore radio. Once again Michael leapt aboard his uncle’s boat, started the engine, and guided it the last hundred yards into its slip. As soon as the fishing boat was secured, the sleepy, out-of-uniform evidence techs—Ken Marshall and Felipe Domínguez—joined Michael on deck. When Molly made a move to join them, Michael waved her back.

  “I want them treating this like a crime scene,” he said grimly. “There’s no point in adding another set of prints or messing up what’s already here. If you’ll wait at the restaurant, I’ll call a cab for you in a minute.”

  Molly shook her head. “I’m going to make a phone call, but I’m not leaving.”

  He opened his mouth, clearly intending to argue, then shrugged. “Fine. I’ll give you a lift when we’re through.”

  At the pay phone inside the restaurant, she called her ex-husband. He was not going to appreciate the fact that she was calling at what he would consider the middle of the night or that she hadn’t called much earlier. She shrugged off his displeasure. Hal never approved of much she did anyway. He could just add this to the list.

  “Where the hell are you?” Hal DeWitt demanded. “I thought you were picking Brian up at eight o’clock. It’s the goddamned middle of the night.”

  She almost laughed at the predictable response. Instead, she managed to sound dutifully contrite. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t get to a phone before now.”

  “The woman who keeps a cellular phone attached to her eardrum?” he retorted with derision.

  “Hal, is this really necessary?”

  “I think it is.” When that was met with silence, he added, “Okay, okay. When are you getting here?”

  “I’m not. I really need you to keep Brian another day or so.”

  That was greeted with his most put-upon sigh. “Couldn’t you have called earlier? He could have been in bed by now. You haven’t gotten yourself mixed up in another goddamn murder, have you?” he inquired sarcastically.

  The last three homicide cases in which Molly had inadvertently become entangled had irritated the daylights out of her ex-husband. He’d acted as if she personally had been responsible for the deaths. He also made it seem as if she’d done it only to aggravate him.

  “No,” she said, refusing to accept the possibility that Tío Miguel might be dead or to be drawn into an argument. “But a friend of mine is in the middle of a family emergency. I’d like to be able to help out. It’ll be easier if Brian
stays with you.”

  Since leaving Brian with him more often was exactly what Hal had been pleading with Molly to do, she guessed he wouldn’t dare deny the request, though he’d do his best to make her feel guilty in the meantime.

  “I suppose it’ll be okay,” he said grudgingly.

  She bit back a sarcastic retort about his enthusiasm. Instead, her tone deliberately mild, she said only, “Thanks. Since he’s still up anyway, let me speak with him, please.”

  To her amazement, Hal didn’t argue. Maybe he didn’t want to know what friend she was helping. He wasn’t fond of her best friend, Liza Hastings, and he was downright hostile about Michael. A few seconds later, Brian was on the line.

  “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”

  “I’ve asked your dad if you can stay with him another night or two. He’s agreed.”

  “How come?”

  She didn’t want to alarm him about Tío Miguel’s disappearance until they knew more. “It’s already late and Michael’s tied up for a while, so I can’t get home. You might as well get a decent night’s sleep.” “Oh.”

  She picked up on his unenthusiastic tone of voice. “You okay with that? Is everything all right at your dad’s?”

  “I suppose.”

  It was an amazingly reticent answer for a kid who was never at a loss for words. “Brian? What’s going on?”

  “He’s got this lady here,” he finally blurted. “She keeps looking at me like she wishes I’d get lost.”

  Molly was surprised. Hal had always been careful not to have his dates around when Brian visited, perhaps to give the illusion that he was still pining away for Molly. For a time anyway, he had been, or so he’d claimed. However, they’d resolved all of that months ago. Apparently he’d finally accepted that they had no future and moved on with his life. Brian was normally just fine with that in theory, possibly because he adored Michael and hoped that something would develop between him and Molly. In fact, he’d done everything up to and including personally proposing marriage to Michael on Molly’s behalf. Molly had been horrified. Michael had taken it in stride. He’d had a man-to-man talk with Brian, taken his concerns seriously, and promised to keep the suggestion in mind.

  Obviously, unlike Michael, this particular woman hadn’t done anything to ingratiate herself with Brian. Apparently she didn’t understand the value of having a precocious kid in her corner.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Molly advised. “Your dad wants you there, and that’s all that matters. I’ll talk to you sometime tomorrow.”

  “What about summer school? I’ll probably be really tired anyway, since it’s so late. Do I get to stay home?” he inquired hopefully.

  “Not a chance. I know you stay awake playing video games until this hour, when you think I’m already asleep. You’ll get by.”

  “But dad’s never taken me to school before.”

  “Your dad knows the way. He’ll drop you off.”

  “But my homework’s at home.”

  Molly had to hold back a chuckle at this one last try. Homework was not something uppermost on Brian’s mind most of the time. “Tell your dad to stop off at the condo so you can pick it up,” she advised him.

  “Okay,” he said, accepting defeat gracefully. “See you, Mom. Tell Michael hi for me. Has he asked you to marry him yet?”

  “No, Brian, and he never will if you keep on pestering him about it.” She thought about the implications of her response and quickly amended, “Not that I want him to, anyway.”

  “Yeah, right,” Brian teased.

  “Bye, kiddo. Behave yourself.”

  When she’d hung up, Molly walked back to the dock. She leaned against a piling, hoping that just watching the investigation going on on the boat might spark a few theories of her own about what might have happened to Tío Miguel.

  As she waited, Raúl once again unloaded the cooler filled with his day’s catch. When he caught sight of her, he went back aboard and brought her a rusty lawn chair that had been stored in the cabin, apparently for family outings on the nearby beaches.

  “Sit,” he instructed her.

  Even though the chair had clearly been the victim of too much salt air, it was better than continuing to stand indefinitely. “Thank you.”

  She studied the middle-aged Cuban, wondering how much English he spoke and understood. He and Michael had spoken only Spanish in her presence. “Raúl, do you speak English?”

  “Sí, I speak some English,” he said haltingly.

  “Why do you believe someone harmed Miguel?”

  Something that might have been fear darkened his eyes. He shook his head, muttering, “No comprendo, señorita.”

  Molly’s knowledge of Spanish was too limited for explaining the complexities of her question. Besides, she had a feeling that Raúl understood her perfectly well. Something about Miguel’s disappearance, however, frightened him.

  She tried again, hoping to take a more innocuous route to the same information. “Was he alone this morning?”

  “No sé.”

  “You don’t know?” she said disbelievingly. “I thought you saw him.” “Sí.”

  “But you saw no one else?”

  He shrugged.

  This was getting her nowhere fast. Either he had seen someone and that someone had terrified him into having a convenient memory lapse or he was implying that someone could have been hiding belowdecks on Miguel’s boat or on another boat that had followed Miguel to sea or … Hell, his vague response could have meant almost anything. Molly sighed.

  Raúl regarded her worriedly. “The señorita would like something to drink?” he asked, suddenly finding his English vocabulary.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I have very good rum.”

  “No.”

  “Beer?”

  Molly regarded him evenly. “Nothing.”

  He backed away then and picked up his cooler and fishing gear. As he started down the dock, he hesitated. “I am sorry, señorita.”

  “That’s okay, Raúl. You’ll call Señor O’Hara if you think of anything, right?”

  He bobbed his head. “Sí, sí, I will call.”

  Molly figured Michael shouldn’t hold his breath expecting evidence from this particular source, whether he was a friend of Miguel’s or not.

  She glanced back at the Niña Pilar and wondered what was going on belowdecks. What could they find? Fingerprints? On a charter fishing boat wouldn’t that be like hoping to use prints to ID a killer in the crowd at Joe Robbie Stadium? Even though Tío Miguel was a fanatic about cleaning up his boat, who knew how many sets of prints could have been scattered around the cabin and on deck since the last time he’d polished everything. Maybe Michael was hoping to find some suspicious piece of evidence, a piece of cloth snagged from someone’s shirt, a button, traces of blood indicating a struggle.

  The thought of the latter sent a shiver down Molly’s spine. Just as she’d anticipated, Michael wasn’t likely to ignore any possibility, no matter how absurd or terrifying he personally thought it to be. His success as a homicide detective was based on his gut instincts and his cool, meticulous attention to detail. He would bring that same skill to bear on an investigation of his uncle’s mysterious disappearance, no matter how difficult it might be for him to remain objective. If anything, he would be more relentless and thorough than usual.

  He was still grim faced when he finally emerged nearly an hour later. He looked dismayed when he saw her, as if he’d completely forgotten her existence. It was an understandable reaction, but hardly flattering.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We’ll be able to leave soon.”

  “Don’t apologize. Have you found anything?”

  He shook his head. “Not a damn thing. Oh, there are plenty of prints, but who knows how long they’ve been around.”

  “Any signs that he might have struggled with someone?”

  “Nothing.”

  Molly had a sudden thought. “What about a gun?”

&n
bsp; “If he owns one, he took it with him.”

  “A map of Cuba?”

  “He knows those waters and that shoreline like the back of his hand. He wouldn’t have needed one.” He muttered a curse in Spanish. “We couldn’t find one damned thing to indicate what he might have been up to out there besides fishing.”

  “His gear was still aboard, then?”

  “All of it, as far as I could tell.”

  “Had he caught anything today?”

  “What the hell difference …” Michael began, then grinned. He leaned down and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Molly, you’re a genius. If he caught anything, then this was just another fishing trip. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  He jumped aboard the Niña Pilar and headed for the stern of the boat, which was apparently where Miguel kept ice-filled coolers for the day’s catch. When he came back, his expression was even more somber than before.

  “Any fish?”

  He shook his head. “But there is melting ice in one cooler as if he’d expected to fill it with fish. Another has ice and beer and a couple of sandwiches. I didn’t see any empty bottles. Whatever happened must have happened right after he got out there.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  “I think it means that Raúl could have been right,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. “Someone could have forced him off that boat. He wouldn’t have headed for Cuba in an inflatable raft without any provisions. Even from where we found his boat, he was hours from shore depending on the currents. Hell, from what I know about the water in the straits, he would have been a goddamned fool to abandon his boat there and head for Cuba on a raft. He’d have been fighting the currents all the way. The rafters leaving Cuba count on those currents to take them north to America, not south.”

  “Will you tell your aunt that?”

  For the first time in all the months she had known the extraordinarily confident detective, Molly saw genuine uncertainty in Michael’s eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what the hell to say to her. I don’t want to alarm her, but …”

  “Michael, she’s already alarmed, I’m sure. She’d have to be. I think you have to concentrate on what’s being done to find him, rather than on all the things you don’t know.”