Chapter 36
Jerry Baugh
Agent Koshida sat opposite Jerry in The Old Eileen’s trashed salon. Jerry nudged a beer can with his toe to hide it from view. He knew how this must appear to Koshida: a slovenly
fisherman unable to keep a rich man’s yacht clean. But the agent seemed unconcerned, all of his attention trained on Jerry.
“Do you want coffee?” Jerry asked. He didn’t feel particularly hospitable, but anything was better than hearing whatever this
man had to say about Steve. At the same time, Jerry needed to know. He needed to know, but he couldn’t stomach knowing.
“I’m all right,” Koshida said, but Jerry got to his feet anyway. He made himself a cup of joe, black as coal, and downed it
before the steam had time to cool.
“Would you like to sit down, Mr. Baugh?” Koshida gestured at the seat Jerry had vacated.
Jerry shifted his weight from foot to foot. “No. Uh, thanks. I’d like to stand.”
“You sure?” A line of concern trailed between Koshida’s sleek, dark eyebrows. “I anticipate this being a difficult conversation.”
Jerry slammed his cup down on the counter with more force than he’d meant to.
“I just, I, uh, I don’t understand it. My brother—Steve—he died thirty years ago.
And I wasn’t there, so I’m not too sure what you’d like me to say to ya.
” He was blabbering. He shut his trap and busied his hands by making a second cup.
The case of beers under the table still had a few cans left, but to get to them Jerry would have to reach right next to Agent Koshida’s legs.
“Right . . . you’re sure you wouldn’t like to take a seat?”
Jerry shook his head.
“Very well.” Agent Koshida straightened his tie and sat forward. “Mr. Baugh, due to a series of recently uncovered crimes,
the police had cause to reopen your brother’s case.”
“Case?” Jerry interrupted. “There was no case. He drowned.”
“Yes, but in situations of unnatural death, even with accidents, the police keep records. So like I was saying, Steven’s case
was reopened when new evidence has come to light that, well . . . Mr. Baugh, we have reason to believe Steven’s death wasn’t
an accident. We think it was a homicide.”
The coffee mug fell from Jerry’s hands and shattered on the floor, black liquid seeping in every direction.
The young agent shot from his seat to guide Jerry to the bench, but Jerry was already there, sinking.
“Mr. Baugh? Mr. Baugh, can I get you a glass of water?” Koshida knelt at Jerry’s side.
Jerry zeroed in on the case of beers under the table. “Steve,” he muttered. “Not Steven. He hated that.”
Koshida nodded in earnest. “Steve. Got it. Thank you for telling me.”
“And I’m Jerry.” Jerry sniffed hard, then cleared his throat even harder.
Koshida swept to the galley where he collected a wad of paper towels, sopping up the worst of the coffee and handing the rest
of the roll to Jerry who blew his nose like a freight horn.
“Nice to meet you, Jerry. I’m sorry, this must be coming out of nowhere after so long without Steve.”
Jerry tapped his foot underneath the table, scrubbing his nose with a rough paper towel. “Tell me what happened.”
So he did.
Steve Baugh had been twenty-seven years old, wind-chapped and hungry when he’d left the world, his girlfriend, and his sales
career behind to commit himself to the sea like he’d always dreamed. He’d done what Jerry, at the time, was still only dreaming
about. Steve got a job at the docks for a wealthy man and ended up being best buds with the other hired crew. He must have
told Jerry about those friends; he must have heard their names a hundred times. But details of people’s lives weren’t Jerry’s
specialty. Brenna Madden, Ida Graves, even Sheila’s dumb cat had all slipped his memory at some point or another. Sheila was
lucky her name had been memorialized in Jerry’s boat in a fit of vengeance after she’d kicked Jerry out.
So of course Jerry didn’t remember Alejandro Matamoros and Francis Cameron. Not from Steve, anyway.
Steve worked with them for years. Then the captain tasked his crew with chartering the boat alone from North Carolina to the
Bahamas. Three young, stupid men alone on a boat with no safety regulations because the wealthy thought they were above safety
regulations. The accident had been chalked up to a rich man’s pride costing a poor man’s life. Tale as old as time. The rich
guy had settled the lawsuit filed by Jerry’s mother. The settlement payment was more money than the Baughs had expected to
see over a lifetime. Jerry inherited half, enough to pull a Steve and live somewhat comfortably at sea (although, he’d chosen
the route of owning his own fishing boat instead of sailing other men’s yachts), and his mother had gambled away her half
and run herself into a well-deserved grave.
Cameron and Matamoros didn’t accept a settlement. The case went to court, where the yacht-owner was ruined and the young men got away with millions to account for the danger they’d been put through and the emotional damage of losing a friend.
From there they had taken off and turned millions into more. Investments. More cons. Steve’s death had only been the beginning.
Francis started his own yachting company promoting safety at sea. He had sailors who worked for him, guys like Ernie Carmichael,
who would sail with rival companies and catch them breaking maritime laws. At least that’s what was claimed. How many of his
rivals were framed? How many companies suffered financial and reputational blows because Francis Cameron knew how to pull
a good con?
“The start-up capital for his yachting company, Unwind, was solely comprised of the money Cameron and Matamoros got from Steve’s
accident,” Koshida explained.
“So you don’t think it was that. An accident.”
Koshida shook his head. “They had a negligent boss, a man worth millions who sent them out in an undermanned ship in unsafe
waters. The dominoes were all in a row. All they had to do was push.”
Jerry saw his brother, jaw set in concentration, shouting orders to his fellow crew in a storm. He watched Steve turn around
to ask why they weren’t listening, only to be faced with his friends looking cold and conniving. Was it premeditated? Or did
one of them get a brilliant idea and act in the moment? All they had to do was push . . .
“I don’t understand. How did you figure this out?” How did it take so goddamn long?
Koshida spread his hands. “It wasn’t their last crime.
For thirty years Francis Cameron has been doing whatever it takes to climb.
His workers, guys like Matamoros and Carmichael, would get jobs for rival yachting companies and plant evidence they were breaking maritime laws.
It’s hard to keep track of legalities if you spend most of your time at sea.
Suspicion alone can sink a ship. Or a company.
Pretty soon Cameron’s yachts got the best reputation around.
He hammers his clientele with a narrative of safety.
Doing everything by the book. Slaps a slogan on every ad campaign, billboard, and life preserver so people know he means it. ”
Jerry remembered the orange ring sitting in the stern up on deck.
“Safe to sail in any gale,” he murmured.
Koshida continued. “Cameron sits for interviews to describe the trauma he went through working on an unsafe vessel, seeing
a friend drown. He tells the public his life’s mission is to prevent incidents like that from happening again.”
Jerry’s hands had formed fists without him realizing. “Profiting off Steve’s death.”
Koshida slapped the tabletop. “Exactly. Only a few months ago, someone tipped us off about his history. We looked into it,
and everything started to fall apart. Right now, some of my guys have Ernie Carmichael in an interrogation room. Carmichael
says he overheard Cameron and Matamoros bragging about . . . well, about how this all began. About that night in the storm
with Steve. So I’m here to see how deep the bullshit goes, see if you know anything at all, and inform you your brother’s
death has been reopened and is being looked at as a homicide. My guess is Carmichael is more involved than he says, and soon
he’ll be a whistleblower. Fraud, embezzlement, murder . . . Francis Cameron’s entire legacy is a sham.”
“Who?” Jerry said after a moment.
“Who what?”
“Who tipped you off?”
Koshida sighed. “Not for me to say. But we no longer have contact, so we’re doing our best to explore other avenues.”
Jerry picked at something dark under his fingernails. “Why can’t you contact them anymore? They stop talking?”
“That’s one way to put it.” Koshida sighed. “They were on The Old Eileen.”
Jerry’s head spun. His tongue ached; he must have burned it on the hot coffee. He shut his eyes, willing the pain to ease
as Koshida went on.
“They were supposed to be on that boat to keep an eye on things. Now everybody’s missing. Somehow, Cameron guessed we were
on to him, and that’s when his family vacation turned into something more.”
“What do you mean,” Jerry said slowly and made air quotes, “family vacation?”
“I mean that it wasn’t just a celebratory trip. The Camerons are on the run.”
Jerry bit his tongue to stop his head from swirling. The perfectly seaworthy ship, the missing life raft, Steve facedown in
the water. “On the run? You think . . .”
Koshida nodded, the intensity in his gaze unmistakable. “I think they had a plan. I think they fled never intending to return
to the United States. I think Cameron and Matamoros purchased a private island outside US waters and one or both are hunkered
down there now, likely with Francis’s family and at least some of the crew. This is all conjecture, but if Carmichael talks . . .”
Jerry’s mouth hung wide, a ringing in his ears as Agent Koshida got to his feet.
“Your brother’s killers are almost certainly alive, Jerry. And I’m going to catch them.”