Swimming With the Dead (20 page)

O’Brien motored around the point, where we found a calm little cove where the water was like glass.  Amazing how the water conditions could vary so drastically.

While I lounged in the sun watching pelicans dive, O’Brien went below and brought up the lunch.  We sat in the cockpit, eating and talking about the dive.

“Did you see that Elkhorn coral I was pointing to?”  O’Brien asked.

“I did.  It looked like it was dead,” I said.

“It was.  Last year, it was majestic—flourishing.  It had to be over a hundred years old.  I don’t know why it died.  Perhaps too much stress on the environment—one too many anchor lines or diving fins brushing against it.”

After lunch, we headed to Gorda Sound.  The only boats we saw were other sailboats, many with the SeaSail logo.  Peter O’Brien was obviously engaged in a booming business here in the islands.  I was admiring a beautiful boat coming toward us flying a French flag.  It took me a minute to realize that the captain stood at the wheel, buck naked.  The rest of his crew was the same, though a couple of them sported caps and sunglasses.

“Those French,” O’Brien smiled, “they know how to sail!”

Chapter 19

We spent the next four hours sailing up to Virgin Gorda, the fat virgin, named by Columbus for the island’s silhouette.  At the far end we made our way into the narrow entrance that opened into Gorda Sound.  Just ten feet off our starboard side, a man was standing in the rocks that jutted into the water, collecting mussels.  Gorda Sound was like a big, deep lake, surrounded on three sides by land and reefs.  O’Brien sailed around the shoreline, pointing out the sights.  The Bitter End Yacht Club sat at the water’s edge at the far end.  Behind it, fuchsia-colored flowers blanketed the hillside.  Along the water’s edge were colorful sailboards in front of ritzy hotel rooms.  The harbor was filled with sailboats, some in slips and about seventy-five tied to moorings.  We sailed back to the other end of the bay and dropped anchor in a quiet spot just off a place called Drake’s Landing.

O’Brien pulled a grill out of a locker and attached it to the side rail.  When the coals were hot, he cooked steaks while we sipped Cabernet and watched for turtles.  Pelicans fished nearby and goats cried from the hillside.

“I keep thinking it can’t get any nicer,” I said. “This is exquisite.”

“Isn’t it?  I could never leave these islands.”

“Really?  You plan to grow old here?”

“Yes, someday I’d like to marry, have children, pass my parents’ business on to them.”

“What about Lydia?”  The cop in me still questioned O’Brien’s motives.  If he were romantically involved with Lydia, he’d have one more good reason to want Michael out of his way.  Unfortunately, my own motives for asking went beyond the investigation.  I was falling for O’Brien.

“Lydia?  Absolutely not,” he said, amazed that I was even suggesting it.  “Michael was a good friend.  Lydia still is.  Since Michael’s death I’ve tried to be there for her, but never as more than a friend.”

“She is a beautiful woman.  No one would condemn you for stepping in.”

“Not going to happen.  I’ve never thought of Lydia in that way.  Are you asking because you’re a cop or do you have some other interest?”

“Just curious.”

“What about you, Hannah?  Is there someone back in Denver that you care about?  Or are you consumed only by your work?” 

“I was in a relationship once.”

“Once?”

“Yes, it ended.”  I really didn’t want to talk about Jake.

“You don’t let many people know you, do you?  What are you so afraid of?”

“Afraid?  Don’t be silly.”

“I think you were hurt and now you’re protecting yourself.”

“He died, okay?” I was trying to stay matter-of-fact.  O’Brien was right.  I was afraid of my emotions and afraid of what opening up to him might mean.

“I’m sorry.  What happened?” 

“Jake was my dive partner on the Denver team.  In fact, he’s the one who got me into diving.  We’d been called to do an underwater investigation up at one of the alpine lakes.  A car had gone in the water—a Mercedes, with a woman inside.  It didn’t look like an accident.  The local sheriff roped off the area and called us.  Diving at altitude is always a little tricky, and the water was freezing, the lake deep.  We’d already done a couple of preliminary dives.  On the third, Jake was right next to me one moment and in the next, he was gone.  He just disappeared.  They recovered his body the next day.”

“How did he die?”

“It seemed likely that he’d blacked out.  It can happen.  His dive partner should have been aware enough to help him.”

“So you blame yourself.”

“Yeah.”

O’Brien remained silent.  At some point he had put his arm around me.

“Dance?” he asked.

“Here?”  There was about a foot of open area to move around in the cockpit.

“Why not?”  He pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me, his embrace firm but at the same time gentle.  We shuffled around the cockpit table, our bodies pressed together.  A sea breeze brushed against our faces; then a lone goat gave a final cry and was silent.  O’Brien leaned down, kissed my neck.  I was losing myself—in the scent of the sea and in O’Brien’s embrace.  It felt good—too good.  For the moment, I forgot that O’Brien was still a suspect. 

We were swaying to Rod Stewart’s “For the First Time” when a dinghy pulled up alongside, two men aboard.

“Ahoy, Peter!” a voice called.

“Louis, come on aboard.”  Louis threw a duffle bag over the rail and then stepped aboard.  He thanked the driver of the boat, who gave us a quick wave and took off.

“Hannah, this is Louis Capriot.  Louis, Hannah Sampson.  Louis and I will spell each other for the passage over to Saint Martin.”

So much for dancing in the moonlight.  I was relieved and at the same time disappointed to learn that O’Brien and I would not be making this trip alone.

“Louis has been a captain at SeaSail for, what?” O’Brien was asking.

“Jeez, gotta be coming up ta twenty-five years.  Since Peter here was ’bot diz tall,” he said, holding a hand up to his waist.  Louis, a sinewy five-eleven with skin the color of eggplant, was close to sixty-five.

“For a long time it was just my parents running things with Louis’s help,” O’Brien said.  “He is the best sailor in the islands and knows every rock and shallow.  He can practically sail the islands blindfolded.”

They went over the chart, discussed compass readings and GPS settings.  We’d be sailing in the Anegada Passage, against the wind.  The weather looked good but there were predictions of squalls from the south.  It was possible we could pass through a storm.  The fourteen-hour trip, O’Brien explained, was best done overnight so that we would arrive at Saint Martin at dawn, when it was light enough to safely enter the harbor there.

O’Brien and Louis spent an hour preparing the boat, rigging the lifelines, stringing a radar reflector in the mast.  The reflector would make the little sailboat a more obvious blip on any large boat’s radar screen.

“We don’t want to be rammed by some freighter or cruise ship out there,” Peter explained.  “Amazing how it can happen with so much ocean.  We also have radar so that we know what boats are in the vicinity.”

I could just see it; a wall of steel bearing down on our little vessel and crushing us like a toy boat under its massive bow.

Louis had brought an EPIRB, a device that would send an emergency signal to a satellite in the event that the boat sank.  It’s important that someone be able to locate us if we are floating out in the open sea without a boat, they explained.

Christ!  I was beginning to think our chances of survival would be thin.  If we didn’t get rammed by some huge freighter, we’d get caught in a storm and sink.

“And the rule is, if you’re up top, you wear a life jacket attached to a lifeline,” O’Brien said.  “If you go over the side in the dark, it would be hard, maybe impossible, to find you.  With the lifeline, you’re attached.”         

Wonderful.  If I fell overboard, I’d be dragged through the sea for miles gulping salt water, bait for every big game fish in the area.  I should have opted for air travel to Saint Martin.

We headed out of the sound and into open water.  O’Brien went below for a couple of hours of sleep, and Louis took the first turn at the wheel.  He set the heading and switched on the autopilot.  We watched the last rays of light bounce off the clouds.  The sky turned a glowing pink that shifted to purple and then black.  By the time the sun sank into the water, Virgin Gorda was just a dark outline in the distance.  It would be several hours before there would be any moonlight.  It became painfully clear why they had taken so many precautions.  We were enveloped in a purple void, a speck being tossed in water hundreds of feet deep.

Our running lights reflected on the water that chopped and swirled around the boat.  The only other light was the soft glimmer from the cabin below and the light on the compass.  We seemed utterly alone in an abyss.

“I can’t imagine how anyone could spend months at a time out here.  Those sailors who circumnavigate the globe must go a bit mad in this vast emptiness,” I said.  “It would have to get very lonely.”

“I did it,” Louis said.  “Was about thirty-five years old, just lost my wife and only child to meningitis.  I was hurtin’ real bad.  Took to the only comfort I knew—the sea.  Was gone more’n a year.  Went from the BVI around Cape Horn, up the other side of South America, came through the Panama Canal, found jobs on the docks when I ran outta money along the way, did some heavy drinkin’.  Guess you could say I worked my way into oblivion and back.  Finally made it back to the islands with nothin’ but the boat, no money, no family left.” 

“How did you end up working for SeaSail?”

“Met the O’Briens down at the marina,” he continued.  “I was livin’ on the boat.  They was jus’ startin’ up back then, had two boats, knew I needed work and offered me a job.  Been there ever since.  They got to be the family I lost.  After they died, I kinda took up the slack, helped Peter run things till he could get his feet under him.  He took their deaths real hard, but he was bound and determined to keep the business going.  It was their love.  Now it’s his.  And it’s not just the boats.  It’s the islands and the people here.  The O’Briens loved these islands, really became part of them.  They respected the way of life and the beauty.  They passed all that on to Peter.”

“You think the people who were born here can accept someone like him, an outsider?” I asked.

“Peter isn’t considered an outsider.  He is well liked and respected.  Folks think of him as a native islander.  He’s doing a lot for the territory.  That goes a long way with the people here.  He feels real strongly about raising the standard of living and getting kids educated.  Established a fund for education, getting kids to school, keeping them going, helping them go to college if they want.”

“Seems like all of that would be a good public relations ploy and good for his business,” I said.

“That’s not it at all,” Louis said, angry that I’d suggested it.  “Peter is concerned about growth.  Says that a well-educated population will be able to find ways to control it and still maintain a good standard of living.  Lots of people get real mad at him.  Say he’s threatening their livelihood.  Say it’s easy for him to talk about controlling growth and tourism; he’s already got all the money he needs.  But he supports the programs that he promotes with his own money.”

“Sounds like you admire his efforts,” I said.  Louis seemed sincere enough.  Maybe O’Brien was the kind of man who cared more about people than money. 

“Peter is a good man.  Guess you could say that I love him like he was my own son.  Hey,” he said, looking at his watch.  “You ought to go below, get thirty winks.”

“You’ll be okay up here by yourself?” I asked.

“I’ve spent half my life alone up top,” he said. “I’ll be calling Peter in a couple of hours to take his turn at watch.”

O’Brien was still awake when I went below.  He was sitting at the table with his feet propped up, shirtless, reading
Moby-Dick.
  The cover was tattered, the spine broken. 

“It’s old,” O’Brien said, handing me the book.  “It was in my grandfather’s library.  I’m fascinated by the story of Ahab’s obsession to kill the whale whatever the cost.  Did you know that Melville based it on an actual event—the ramming of the
Essex
by an enraged sperm whale?  There were all sorts of tales back in the late nineteenth century about whales turning on the huge square-rigged ships that preyed on them.”

I sat next to him and fingered through the book.  It was one of those old hardbound copies that felt good to the touch, the pages yellowing and fragile. 

“Think you’ll be able to sleep down here?” O’Brien asked.  The boat was heeled to the side and waves crashed over the bow. 

“I’ll be fine,” I said.  “What about you?  Thought you were already asleep.”

“I decided I’d wait for you.  Make sure you got settled in okay,” he said, mischief in his eyes.

“Awfully considerate.”

He took the book from my hands and gently placed it on the table.  I knew where this was going.  He brushed a stray hair off my cheek, pulled me toward him, and kissed me with that same tenderness I’d felt while we danced.  I found myself kissing him back.  There was something about O’Brien that I didn’t want to resist. 

When he raised my tank top over my head, then ran his fingers lightly over my breasts, I didn’t stop him.  It felt too good.  I moved into him, pressing my bare chest against his, skin on skin.

We stood and he moved up behind me, his hands moving along my neck, fingers exploring my collarbone and then skittering over my belly.  My breath came hard; heat radiated from deep inside my chest all the way into my fingertips.  Without a word, we went into the cabin and dropped onto the bunk, where he carefully removed my left shoe, then the right.  He smiled playfully and actually started nibbling on my toes.  Then he slid his hand up my calves, thighs, hips, and pulled off my shorts.