Chapter 30
Barry had to call a cab to take him to the other side of the island where the morgue was. With an eighty-mile-long island and ninety-degree heat, not including the humidity, there was no way Barry could walk that.
On the cab ride over, he looked up the news feed on Charlie’s shipwreck.
Not a lot of details had been released on it other than a ship with a man had been found washed up on shore.
Police refused to release the name of the victim.
There were no signs of foul play, and police ruled it as accidental drowning.
Barry scanned through the photos on the internet, hoping a clue could be found. He might have to go through the police records since the news didn’t have any useful pictures. The forensic team would have taken pictures of every square inch of the space.
Barry paid the driver and asked him to wait. He didn’t think he’d be in the building all that long. He felt the instant cooling from the air conditioning.
He was used to the dry heat in Vegas, but this was something else entirely.
He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to feeling like he’d just stepped out of the shower; muggy heat all day long.
He took a second to just stand there under the blowing fan and swipe the sweat from his brow before walking up to the front desk.
“Hi, I’m Sam Keeley with Inner Coastal Investigation.” He pulled his badge from his back pocket and quickly flashed it before putting it back in his pocket. “I’m looking for Charlie Boudreaux’s effects.”
The person working the desk looked up the name and gave Barry a strange look. “You’re a little late, aren’t you?”
“How do you mean?”
“He died almost two months ago, and you’re just asking for it now?”
Barry didn’t really appreciate the kid’s attitude.
“Listen,” Barry looked down at his name tag, “Stanley, I’m months behind on paperwork.
This recently came to my desk. I would really appreciate your cooperation.
” Barry leaned over the desk and whispered softly, “Or should I have my boss call yours and tell him you’re not being cooperative?
” He finished by raising his eyebrow in question.
Stanley made an audible gulp. “I’ll be right back.” He left his desk and headed into the back before coming back a few minutes later with a small banker’s box.
Barry gave the contents of the box a cursory glance. A ratted white tank top, orange shorts. No wallet or other personal effects. Not surprising given he was drifting at sea. A wallet could have been tossed overboard.
“Do you have his autopsy report?”
“Shouldn’t you already have all this?” The kid sighed in exasperation. Barry gave him a death glare that had the kid jumping back up to his feet and heading for the back again. He soon returned with another form.
Barry scanned through the document. It was ruled as accidental drowning.
There was water in his lungs and a contusion on his head.
No other signs of trauma. There had been no alcohol or drugs in his system.
The coroner noted the contusion could have been from Charlie losing his balance and hitting his head on the wall during a wave.
Or a glass broken over his head. That could account for the broken glass Louis found. Most likely, someone knocked Charlie out and drowned him, then let the boat drift to shore with the evidence wiped away.
Barry’s eyes caught on one line on the report. There was a small slip of paper found clutched in Charlie’s hand.
Barry dug through the contents of the box until he found the slip. It was only an inch long and cut at a diagonal as if he had been gripping a larger piece of paper, and someone tore it from his hand, but he’d managed to keep this one piece.
Despite being clutched in Charlie’s hand, there were signs of water damage. If he’d had his full gear, he might be able to scan it and digitally recreate it, but sadly, that was back home. Barry squinted and could just make out a cursive scroll letter ‘M.’
“Thank you.” Barry put everything back in the box and left.
Barry carried them outside and headed for the cab. He had it take him back to other side of the island, where he hoped his boat captain was still there.
He thought about ditching the box, but there might be a clue that could have been overlooked.
The boat captain was right where he’d left him, still asleep. Barry was antsy as he sat on the boat for what felt like hours, until he made it back to the island. He needed to get on his laptop and go through the police report.
He hadn’t thought about bringing it, nor would it have worked on open water. A few hours weren’t going to change anything. Mac was still out on the water somewhere. There were a few hours of daylight left; he could get more research done.
Sadly, the report was as informative as the news article.
The pictures had been more helpful though.
There were perfect shots of the broken glass in the kitchen.
Barry zoomed in to see how the glass was broken.
The bottom was still perfectly intact while the rest was in hundreds of pieces, signaling it had smashed against something.
There hadn’t been anything in the autopsy report, so the glass could have been washed away either falling off into the sea while drifting or while Charlie had been drowned.
Giving up on the report, Barry turned his attention to the contents of the box. He took a picture of the scrap of paper and uploaded it onto his computer. The only thing visible was the letter ‘M.’ Even using his computer skills, he couldn’t read through the water marks.
His first thought would be Miles, but why would Charlie have a piece of paper with Miles’s name on it? Barry went back to the email he’d found on Annabelle’s phone of the invoice. There was a letter ‘B’ overlapping the ‘M,’ so it couldn’t have been an invoice from the hotel.
Barry checked the letter ‘M’ with his other businesses. Only the hotel chain had the ‘MB.’ His business dealings in oil were listed under Smart Reliable Holdings, so that was no help.
Maybe Miles hadn’t been involved in Charlie’s death after all. It could have been someone who just wanted Charlie’s money, but it didn’t explain the paper.
Barry got up from his chair to go through the box when there was a knock on the door. He checked the time on his watch. Where had the day gone? The sun was already setting. It must be Mac.
He checked through the peep hole first and let her in. Mac looked like someone had just run over her cat.
“Come on in.”
Mac walked in on leaden steps, not even looking up at him, just walking into the room and plopping down into his recently vacated desk chair.
She looked like she had just come from the boat.
She was in the same clothes he’d left her in, and she smelled of the sea and fish.
Now didn’t seem the time to point that out.
Barry closed the door and came over to her, squatting down so he could look up at her face. “What happened?” Asking if she was okay was a rhetorical question.
“We found another shark,” she said hollowly. Her eyes closed, and Barry could see the pain on her face from that statement.
“I thought you would be happy about that,” he responded gently, feeling he had to choose his words with care.
Her eyes snapped open, and he could see them rimmed with red as if she had been crying recently. “It was trapped in a gill net.”
“Oh,” he said as if he knew fully what that meant. He was still learning about the sea world. He knew what a gill net was, but some fish survived them; couldn’t the shark?
“Gill nets are set up for catching fish as they try to swim through. It’s common in fishing and not as harmful as bottom trawling to the ecosystem, but when bigger animals like sharks get caught, they can’t move, and when sharks can’t move, they die.”
That explained her upset. “Oh shit. And you found him? Her? It?” Mac hadn’t told him what it was; he shouldn’t just assume the sex.
“She, and she was pregnant.” Mac’s hand tightened into a fist, looking like she wished she could slam it into the person’s face who was responsible.
“Is there any way to find out who did it?”
Mac scoffed. “There should be a marker on the net to identify the owner, but—shocker—there wasn’t.” She threw her hands up in anger. Barry rocked back on his heels to avoid a hand to his face.
“Do you think someone did it on purpose to kill the shark, or did she just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
Mac looked away, her lip twitching to the side in a look of annoyance.
“The second would be my guess. No one here hunts sharks. It was probably a local person just trying to catch some fish to feed their family. It just upsets me. The sharks are already depleting in this area and to see one killed so needlessly.” Mac closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if trying to calm herself down.
Barry rubbed his hands over the top of her thighs in a soothing gesture, remaining silent and allowing her this time.
After a moment, she opened her eyes and appeared more grounded. “Please tell me you found something.”
Barry cringed, knowing it wasn’t going to be the news she wanted.
“Nothing good. I went through the data on Annabelle’s phone, and it led me to a name.
The same name of a fisherman that packed up from the north side two months ago.
He got rich and disappeared. Well, now I know the reason he disappeared. ”
“He’s dead,” Mac guessed.
“Yeah, a while now. Judging from the autopsy report, only a week after he got paid a million dollars.”
Mac’s eyes widened in shock at the amount. “That’s a lot of money for a fisherman. Even here. I know most of the fishermen here do well, but not that well.”
“I saw the fishing boats. They’re nice but not multimillion dollar nice.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to do with that kind of money,” she remarked, looking off into nothing over his left shoulder.
“Well, this person sold their fishing boat and bought a yacht.”