Swimming With the Dead (14 page)

It was almost one o’clock.  Capy had managed to finish off the rum as well as my lunch and was nodding off at the end of the pier when I left.  What had he told me?  Michael had left early in the morning, alone.  Seemed worried.  Maybe meeting someone.  O’Brien and Constantine had left shortly after.  Could Capy be mistaken about it being the same day?  How much could I believe from a man who was sloshed on rum by one o’clock, saw sea monsters, and was disappointed to discover that he had missed Bob Marley’s funeral?

Chapter 12

I found Edmund Carr in his office at Central Bank.  He was a small man, about thirty-five, balding, neatly dressed in a conservative business suit.  He immediately rose from his desk and flashed a warm smile, extending a delicate hand in a surprisingly firm grip.  I introduced myself and told him why I was there.

“Have a seat,” he said.

I settled into an overstuffed tweed affair and pulled out my notebook.

“Don’t know how I can be of help, but be happy to answer any questions,” he said.  “Mike was a friend.”

“How did you end up as part of the recovery effort when Michael was reported missing?” I asked.

“I volunteer for BVI Search and Rescue,” he said.  “Since there’s no coast guard in the islands, Search and Rescue was formed to provide twenty-four-hour coverage in the BVI.  We’re all trained in CPR, and the boats are equipped with emergency equipment.  Went out with Chief Dunn and Harry Acuff.”

“Why Acuff?” I asked.  “Is he also with Search and Rescue?”

“Used to be.  He was asked to resign just a couple of weeks ago.”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, let’s just say he likes his liquor.  Usually he’s either hungover or drunk.  Not an ideal state for diving.  He is unreliable, missed volunteer meetings, and is not disciplined in the water.”

After diving with Acuff yesterday, nothing Carr said came as much of a surprise.

“How did he end up going with you to the
Chikuzen
?” I asked.

“It was one of the few times that he was actually in the office monitoring the phone.  He took Dunn’s call.  I was the other diver on call, so Acuff called me.  We always take at least two divers along with a boat handler and, if necessary, a medical tech.  In this case, though, it was just the three of us—me, Dunn, and Acuff.  Actually, I was surprised that Acuff went.  He was always finding excuses.  Never wants to do anything he doesn’t have to.”

“What do you remember about the rescue?”

“Well, we got out there about ten o’clock that morning,” Carr said.  “
Lucky Lady
, Duvall’s boat, was still tied to the mooring ball.  Kind of eerie—that boat just bobbing there in the swells.  Nothing seemed out of order.  I could see the keys still dangling from the ignition, a couple of dive tanks propped in the rack, a bottle of sunscreen on the console.  Just felt weird.” 

“Then what?”

“Dunn stayed on the rescue boat and Harry and I went down,” Carr continued.  “We searched the exterior of the ship first, looking around the hull.  Next, we started on the interior, checking the wheelhouse, then into the refrigeration holds.  We found him in the middle section, in a smaller compartment way back inside the hold.” 

I knew exactly where he meant.  I was feeling lucky that Carr wasn’t down there retrieving my body instead of sitting across from me describing the scene of Michael’s death.

“He was just floating there,” Carr said, “his leg caught under that refrigeration compressor.  He looked bad.  You know, bloated and gray.  Leg torn up, cut to the bone.  Fish were nibbling on the body.  Funny, though, in all the horror there was something peaceful in his eyes.”

“Did you know Michael well?” I asked.

“Sure, we’d dived together several times.  He was also a Search and Rescue volunteer.  In fact, we’d dived just the week before on a rescue.  Guy had a heart attack while he was diving.  His dive partners already had him out of the water.  We did CPR and got him to the hospital.  Guy did okay.” 

“I’ve been told that Michael was safety-conscious and an expert diver.”

“Can’t think of anyone I’d rather have along in an emergency.  Mike was levelheaded, calm under pressure.  Loved the water, was completely at home a hundred feet down.  Maybe that’s why he could accept it as his final resting place.” 

“Anything seem unusual down there?”

“You know, I’ve gone over it again and again.  I just don’t really see how that compressor could have come down that way.  Mike would have to have been really tugging at it.  Why would he do that?  And when it came loose, why hadn’t he been able to get out of the way?  Dunn is right, though.  We will never know why.  Just takes a freak set of circumstances.  Maybe Michael had seen something behind the unit and was determined to get at it.  He was always looking real close at stuff, checking under boulders, peering under crevices.” 

“How did you get him out?” I asked, wondering whether they had used the pipe I’d recovered from the wreck.

“Acuff and I had to wedge the compressor off of the body with a bar.”

“Did you use a metal pipe?” I asked. 

“No, we went up to the rescue boat and got a crowbar that’s kept on board.  Why do you ask?”

“I examined the site yesterday,” I said.  “I found a piece of piping underneath the compressor.  It was about an inch and a half in diameter, maybe four feet long.  Do you know where it could have come from?”

“You know, I remember seeing that lying there when we freed the body.  Tumbled that compressor on top of it without thinking much about it.  Think that’s what Michael used to pry that thing loose?”

“Possible.  Ever seen pipe like that around?” I asked.

“It could have been a piece of the shaft from a boat propeller.  Suppose you can find them in any of the boat yards.  Wonder why Mike would be using something like that.  He had all kinds of tools on board for collecting samples—hammers, small pick axes, crowbars, you name it.  Maybe it was dropped by another diver before Michael dived there.”

“What did you notice about the body?”

“Well, jeez, he looked bad.”

“Tell me exactly what you remember.  Everything, whether it seems important to you or not.”

“Like I said, he was floating there, with his leg caught, a big gash in it.  He had been chewed up pretty good by sea life.”  He hesitated.

“Go on,” I said.  “I’ve seen it all before.  I try to think of it as part of nature’s recycling system.” 

In fact, from the description in the police file, Michael’s body had been found in relatively good shape.  I’d seen a lot worse.  The term is
anthropophagy
, and all experienced recovery divers have seen it.  Crustaceans—crabs, shrimp, lobsters, crayfish—are the most voracious.  Not to mention sea lice.  For the uninitiated diver, finding a half-eaten body—eyes protruding from sockets devoid of all flesh, and teeth exposed in a freakish grin—can be horrific.  I suppose I should be concerned that it had all become routine for me.

“His hands were being nibbled on by juvenile fish,” Carr said.  “His face . . . jeez, there were a bunch of shrimp feeding on it.  Man, it was horrible.  His lips and ears were really torn up.  I just wanted to get him out of there.  When we moved him, a lot of blood seeped out from all the wounds, coloring the water around his body.” 

“What about around his mouth or in his face mask?  Did you notice anything at all?” 

“Well, there was just all that blood around his mouth.  His face mask was covering his nose and eyes.”

“Could you see anything in his mask?”

“His eyes.  They were open, staring right at me.”

“What about around his nose?”  I didn’t want to lead Carr, but I needed to get him to see again what he had seen down in that ship.  At this point, he was the only reliable witness I had who had been at the scene.  I’d already written off Acuff. 

“Yeah,” he said, “there was this foamy stuff around his nose.  I remember that.  It got washed away when we took him to the surface.  His mask came loose.”

“Did you notice any color in the foam?”

“It was pinkish.  That mean anything?”

“Possibly.”  Actually, the appearance of foam was a good indication that Michael had drowned.  It occurs as the result of mucus secreted from the tracheal and bronchial glands when water is inhaled.  The pink tinge would be produced when the alveoli in the lungs ruptured.

“What about rigor mortis?”

“He was stiff, if that’s what you mean.  Stiff as a board.  It was a real struggle getting him into the boat.  It took all three of us and we still banged him up a bit.”

“Did you take any photographs or measurements?”

“No, nothing like that.  Sorry.”

“What about the compressor?  Did it look like it had fallen straight down from the ledge?”

“Pretty much.  We tipped it away to free him.”

“Did anyone examine the area closely?” I asked.  “Pick up anything at all?”

“Don’t think so.  We just took Mike to the surface and got him up into the boat.  Dunn and I rode back together with the body, and Acuff followed with Mike’s boat.” 

“Did you notice anything unusual about the boat?”

“Nothing I haven’t told you, but I never got on board.  Guess Lydia will try to sell her.  It’s down at the marina.  I’m about done here for the day.  Be happy to take you over there.”

The
Lucky Lady
looked just as Carr had described it.  The sunscreen still lay on the console.  The boat was wood with a wooden top that framed the windshield and covered the cockpit and steering wheel.  It was about twenty feet long and wide enough to provide lots of working space.  Painted green and white.

“Boat once belonged to one of the dive shops,” Carr said.  “Michael bought it cheap when the shop decided to upgrade its fleet.  He painted it and modified it to meet his needs.”

I stepped aboard the front part of the boat, not an easy task in Birkenstocks.  I almost lost one in the water.  I crab-walked from the front and stepped around the windshield and into the cockpit.  A cooler was there, Pepsis and bottled water floating in stagnate water.  The boat was rigged to be functional.  Dive tank racks holding three tanks were lashed on one side.  The other side was made up of bins of various sizes, covered with worn and faded seat cushions.

In a heap on the floor were a wet suit, a regulator, a tank, and a dive vest.  “Was this Michael’s gear?” I asked Carr.

“Sure looks like his.  We took it off him in the police boat.  Guess it got dumped here.”

“Did anyone check his equipment?”

“Just his air supply.  His tank was flat empty.  Gauge registered zero.”

“Did you try his regulator?”

“No reason to.  His air had to have been flowing through it okay for his tank to be empty that way.  It seemed pretty obvious that his equipment had been working fine.  He was trapped under that compressor, after all.  Breathed until he ran out of air.”

I was sure that Carr was right, but I would have checked it.

I held my breath, counted to ten, and tried not to blame Dunn.  He had been convinced, even before the body had been brought up, that Michael had died because he had been a careless diver.  He’d seen no reason to check the equipment or preserve evidence.        

I knelt down on the deck and untangled Michael’s gear.  His regulator was still attached to the tank.  At this point, the issue of fingerprints was irrelevant.  By now the equipment had been in the hands of Carr, Acuff, Dunn, and probably several marina employees.  And the boat had been sitting out in the sun and rain for a month.

I twisted the knob on top of the tank to open the valve, allowing air into the regulator, and checked the gauge.  The needle didn’t move.  The tank was flat empty, just as Carr said.  When I hooked the regulator to one of the spare tanks and opened the valve, the pressure-gauge needle flipped to 3,000 psi.  When I breathed into the regulator, air flowed freely.  So Michael’s equipment had been functioning when he’d drowned.

“Look at this,” I said to Carr.  A piece of netting, dried and salty, was caught on the knob on top of Michael’s tank.  It was just a small strip, about four inches long and maybe two inches wide.

“Looks like an old piece of fishing net,” Carr said, peering closely at the netting.  Stuff is all over the place.  You see it spread out in the sand and draped over wooden frames drying out.  Every fisherman on the island uses it.”

“How would a piece of it end up tangled around the tank?”  I was wondering aloud.

“Good question.”

I retrieved a pair of tweezers and an evidence bag from my backpack, gently untangled the netting, and placed it inside the bag. 

“I better get going,” Carr said, stepping ashore.  “Let me know if I can help you with anything else.  You can always reach me at the bank.”

“Thanks for your help,” I said.  I meant it.  Carr had been able to provide some significant information about the recovery of Michael’s body. 

I picked up Michael’s wet suit, which lay in a heap under his weight belt.  It was old and worn and had a tear in the shoulder seam.  The tear could have been there for months or it could have happened in the struggle to free himself from the compressor.  Then again, maybe Michael had torn it trying to get untangled from a net.  It would be a good way to disable a diver, keep him contained until he ran out of air.

I searched the rest of the boat, pulling the cushions off and looking into the lockers that lined each side.  One held an anchor, boat bumpers, ropes, life jackets, a bucket, and a brush along with the array of tools that Carr had described, including a small crowbar.  Inside another were extra fins, a mask, weights, an underwater flashlight, and other dive paraphernalia.  In the last were three boxes.  I opened the lids of each using a pencil I’d had in my pocket.  It wouldn’t hurt to ask Dunn to dust the protected areas on the boat for prints.  One of the boxes was filled with test tubes and vials, hemostats, and water droppers.  Another box contained a heating unit that was designed to hold the test tubes, and the third box held a centrifuge.  Both devices were designed to run on the boat battery.  Michael obviously had done some of his sample preparation while he was still out on the water.