Wreckers' Key (31 page)

“Geez, B.J., what’s all that in English?”

“It means the boat’s GPS receiver will look like it’s working properly, but it’s producing a false or intentionally manipulated fix. While Motowave has been at the forefront of this research, I did find one website where an anonymous author had posted directions on how to build a homemade jammer.”

“I don’t believe that Pinder is smart enough to figure out how to do this on his own even if there are instructions on the Internet.”

“It is pretty complex,” B.J. said. “And there are two different types of receivers, one for the military and one for civilians. Just building the thing wouldn’t be enough.

To carefully set these boats on a wrong course, somebody would have to know a lot about the locations, orbits, and frequencies of the satellites. That was what the engineers at Motowave were working on recently. Their anti-jamming work was aimed mainly at preventing terrorists from using this on a commercial airliner or a huge oil tanker. It’s scary stuff.”

“And Arlen Sparks was one of those engineers. But for some reason, they laid him off shortly before he got his full pension.”

“I didn’t do all the research on who owns Motowave, but lots of these companies, these defense contractors, are owned by a few major corporations. They’re into squeezing maximum corporate profit out of the American military infrastructure. Paying out lots of money in pensions won’t result in maximum profits.”

“So there’s Arlen,” I said. “Left dependent on Medicare—no supplemental insurance—when his wife’s cancer returns. He’s desperate to get the money to fund this new treatment the doctors are dangling in front of him. And somehow, he teams up with Pinder and they come up with this scheme to cause a few convenient wrecks.”

“But if he’d sold the idea outright, he would have had his wife in treatment by now,” B.J. said. “We went over to visit Cat this morning when I first got to Molly’s. We saw Mrs. Sparks, and she looked very ill. What’s he been doing with the money?”

“He probably hasn’t seen any of it yet,” I said. “Pinder wouldn’t be able to pay him up front. It doesn’t work that fast. Lots of these salvage cases go to arbitration or wind up in court one way or another. It would be months before they get paid. And then you’d have to assume that Pinder
will
pay out. I wouldn’t trust that man—”

“So you think Nestor and Quentin were both killed over this?” Molly asked.

“This scheme could be worth millions. That’s a lot of motive. I can’t see Arlen doing the killing, though.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be headed?” B.J. asked.

“Arlen? My best guess would be Key West. He’s got Sarah with him. He needs to get her settled somewhere. And Key West is where Pinder is. When I was there last week, I saw Arlen go into Pinder’s office. I didn’t put it together at the time. I figured he was just a customer since he’s got a waterfront house down there. But why would he leave Lauderdale in the first place? I can’t see him being a part of anything that would hurt Catalina.”
 

“All I know is that Catalina could go into labor at any time,” B.J. said. “I don’t like this at all. I’m her labor coach and I promised her I would be there when she delivered.” He glanced at his watch. “What is it, a three, four-hour drive?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I want to go down there. Now.”

“Tonight? That’s a long dark road for one thing, and these people have killed twice already. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Whatever it is that has made Arlen panic, I’m not connected to it. They wouldn’t see me as a threat to anyone there. I just want to stand by for Catalina in case all this excitement pushes her into labor.”

“I’d go,” Molly said, “but Zale’s got school.”

“And I’ve got that stupid court date tomorrow. I’d give anything to miss it, but Jeannie would kill me.”
 

“Then it’s set, I’ll leave now.”

“I’m worried about you driving all night,” I said. I contemplated telling him about what had happened to me out at Hubcap Heaven, to warn him, but I decided against it. B.J. was always on guard, and I didn’t want him distracted and worried about me.

“What are you going to do once you get there? Just drop by for a visit? And how are you going to find the Sparkses’ house?”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “Hey, when you go running off to save the world, I have to trust that you know what you’re doing. I don’t try to stop you or tell you what to do, do I?”

I had to admit he had me there. He never played the macho male. He never tried to save me from myself. “You’re right. Sorry. Call me as soon as you get there, okay? I don’t care what time.”

“I will. Listen, I don’t intend to contact them at all. I’ll watch from the street, and unless it looks like she needs me, I won’t step in. I’ve got my MacBook out in the truck, and there will be places with free wireless in Key West. Everything I need is on the Internet. I’ll find the address, don’t worry.”

I had no doubt he would.

XXVIII

Abaco’s whiskery muzzle rubbed against my hand. In my half-awake dream state, I was rubbing the day’s growth of beard on Ben Baker’s face. The dog started whining and even though I knew it was just a dream, I lay there for several seconds trying to bring it back, to see where we were and what we were doing. I had the strange feeling that I had been dreaming of making love to Ben, and some perverse sense of curiosity prodded me to try to bring back those images.

The second time the dog whined, I sat bolt upright in bed. I looked at the clock on the nightstand and saw that it was after seven.

He hadn’t called. I was supposed to meet Jeannie for breakfast at eight o’clock at Lester’s Diner, and I hadn’t set an alarm because I was certain B.J. would call me between four and six in the morning.

I leaped out of bed and searched my living room for the cordless phone. I dialed his cell, but the damn thing went straight to voice mail.

“B.J., where are you?” I said after the beep. “You promised me you’d call. As soon as you get this message, call me.”

Jeannie was already seated at a table sipping coffee when I hurried into the diner. “What happened to you? You don’t look too hot.”

I slung my bag on the back of the chair and slumped into the seat. When I’d gone into the bathroom to shower earlier, I’d found dark circles under my eyes— probably a result of the blow to the head the night before. I had a small goose egg under my hair, but I’d blow-dried some volume into it to try to cover the bump.

“Mostly, I’m worried about B.J.” I told her the whole story about Arlen having worked with GPS while he was at Motowave, and how he must have partnered with Pinder. “Last night when I got back home around eleven, B.J. and Molly were at my house. Molly saw Arlen Sparks drag Catalina into his car and take off. His wife, who is in so much pain she’s on a morphine drip, was in the front seat. We figure Arlen must have gone to his Key West house. B.J.’s supposed to be her birth coach and he doesn’t want Cat down there with no one to turn to.” The waitress brought me a big white ceramic mug and poured me a cup of black coffee. She asked if we were ready to order, and I shook my head. I couldn’t stand the thought of food at the moment.

“So he left,” Jeannie said. “I’m surprised you didn’t go with him.”

“Believe me, I wanted to. But I had this damn hearing or whatever this is today. Jeannie, the thing is, he promised me he would call as soon as he got there. He left around midnight. He should have been in Key West by four or five in the morning.”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to wake you.”

“I was home until almost eight. He knows I’m an early riser. Why didn’t he call between seven and eight? I waited until the last possible minute to come here.”
 

“Have you tried calling him?”

“Of course. I only get his voice mail.” I twisted around in my seat to reach my shoulder bag and pulled out the digital camera, setting it on the place mat in front of Jeannie. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been more help to you with this lawsuit. B.J. and I went by the guy’s apartment. We took these photos of him moving furniture, getting into a fight. I didn’t have time to print them.”

“You’re going after him, aren’t you?”

“It’s not like him not to call.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle this business this morning on my own. You should eat something first, though. You look like you haven’t eaten in days. That’s not like you.”

“Food,” I said, shaking my head. “No, something’s wrong. I’ve got to go. If I get hungry, I’ll stop along the road and eat while I drive. He’s in trouble or he would have called.”

I swung by my cottage and threw a bunch of clothes and toiletries into a duffel. Jeannie had agreed to keep an eye on Abaco while I was gone, but I still kneeled down in the middle of my living room and crooked an arm around her, burying my face in the fur at her neck. “You be a good girl while I’m gone, okay?” She licked at my ear and gave one short whine. She didn’t like it when I left, but she had learned to live with it. Besides, if I knew Jeannie, she’d be bringing her meat bones from the butcher and cooking her scrambled eggs.

The drive down to Key West gave me plenty of time to think. Lightnin’ roared down the turnpike, the engine having not so much as a single hiccup. Old Ben said that someone had stuffed a shop rag up the intake manifold. That was no accident. He’d cleaned it all out and gotten me back to running right, but the questions remained: who and why. The old guy said the Jeep should have quit—he was amazed that she had kept running at all. Someone had wanted my car to quit on the road that night that big vehicle had followed me. It had to have happened while I was at the Downtowner. Just like someone had broken into my home and rearranged things. Like someone had followed me to Hubcap Heaven and tried to—what? Knock me out? Again, I returned to why and who. All these near hits weren’t quite believable. Nestor and Quentin had wound up dead, but it seemed that someone was just messing with me.

Involuntarily, my eyes flicked again to my rearview mirror. I’d been checking it compulsively ever since I pulled away from the Larsens’ place. So far, I hadn’t seen one single neon green vehicle, no black SUV, nor could I make any other vehicle following me. I wasn’t a pro or anything, but I was watching pretty closely. I remembered the smirk on Pinder’s face as he’d watched me across the bar in the Downtowner. Was it because he had just been messing around under my Jeep?

Late morning certainly isn’t rush hour, but the traffic on the turnpike where it passed through the outskirts of Miami was miserable. Then there was an accident on the route between Florida City and Key Largo, and all the traffic was at a complete halt as the emergency vehicles cleared the mangled metal from the roadway. I switched on the radio I almost never used. The engine noise was usually too loud to hear it, but since we were stopped, I figured it would pass the time. I turned the dial trying to find a station with news and weather.

Outside, the sky had gone slate gray and the temperature was rapidly dropping. I hadn’t listened to the Coast Guard marine weather in a couple of days. I’d been too distracted, but I could tell by the look and feel of the air that a low-pressure area was sweeping in over us and we were going to be feeling some nasty wind by nightfall.

Right then I guessed it was only blowing five to ten knots out of the northwest, but once the front really moved through and the cold descended on the area, the wind would pick up and blow out of the northeast like a witch.

I finally found a station that reported the weather at the top of the hour. I had to sit through ten minutes of a radio-team routine about today being Groundhog Day. Their stupid one-liners made me realize that I wasn’t missing much by doing without the radio in my noisy vehicle. It might have taken me three days to make this same Keys trip by boat, but I found myself getting more and more frustrated the longer I sat in the stalled traffic. The guys in the truck ahead of me had taken out their poles and were fishing in the lagoon off to the side of the road.

The traffic had just started moving at eleven when the weatherman reported essentially the same thing I had already figured out—a cold front was moving through. The only real point of interest he added was that a second stationary front over the Bahamas was going to squeeze the air; the winds would be stronger than normal starting tonight and running through Saturday. He promised his listeners that by Sunday we’d see the sun again, but for the moment even that was hard to believe. The sky was solid gray flannel.

When I drove over the bridge from Stock Island and found myself on the island of Key West at last, I decided to head straight to the police department and try to find Lassiter. I’d left him a message on his cell phone, but I hadn’t received a call back. First, I had trouble finding a space to park—Key West had been much easier to navigate on foot. Once I got there, the receptionist told me it was Lassiter’s day off. She wanted to know if another detective could help me. When I told her no and asked for Lassiter’s home address or phone, she gave me such a withering look that I simply thanked her and left.

I stood next to my Jeep in the motel parking lot where I had finally found a spot to park and tried to decide what to do next. The weather was worsening. I could see whitecaps on the water off Garrison Bight. The few tourists walking the streets wore faces of grim determination. The weather wasn’t cooperating for water sports, but they weren’t going to sit in their hotel rooms.

Maybe I’d be lucky and the Sparkses would be listed in the telephone book. I crossed the lot and asked for a directory in the motel lobby. The man behind the desk, whose mutton chop sideburns made him look as if he’d time-traveled from the 1850s, told me that I could find one in my room. I leaned across the counter.

“Look, I’m not staying here yet. I’m trying to decide what kind of customer service you offer. If you can loan me your phone book for just a minute, I might consider taking a room.”

He replied that regulations did not permit him to loan out the front desk telephone books. While he was talking, he stared at his computer monitor, his fingers tap-tapping on the keys. He never even looked at me.