Chapter Twelve Turning Tides
Chapter Twelve
Turning Tides
Mikey was waiting patiently for the bank manager to call him back.
He sat at the desk and ran the numbers again.
Business was slow. The mystique of treasure hunting was waning.
People had other hobbies like trying their luck at the casinos.
Mikey wasn’t a math genius, but selling the place seemed like the best option.
They could pay off the back taxes and the creditors and maybe have a little left over to start over.
Where? He didn’t particularly care. He simply wanted to put all the misery and mystery behind him.
He decided to call Kurt Bahr, a local real estate agent, who also owned several pieces of commercial property.
If anyone could estimate the value of the dive shop, Kurt could, and he may have some contacts who would be interested in purchasing it.
That would solve almost all of his problems. Except for one.
Mikey was vacillating between caring about what the mystery man was going to do to him and not caring.
He’d become despondent. He spotted a pickup truck pulling into the parking lot.
A sign was painted on the doors. It was from a marina about twenty miles down the coastline.
It yanked him from his reverie, and he sat up straight when the door banged open.
A burly man entered the shop. “Hey. I’m looking for Dennis Farrell.”
“Dennis?” Mikey was confused.
“Yeah. You know where he is?” the man asked gruffly.
“Uh, he’s dead.” Mikey opened his hands and shrugged.
“What? When?” the man asked in the same tone.
“A few months ago. Why? What’s this about?” Mikey asked curiously.
“He owes me three months’ rent.” The man dropped an invoice on the desk.
“Rent? For what?” Mikey queried.
“For that forty-six foot ‘84 Chris-Craft houseboat, that’s what,” the man said plainly.
“A houseboat?” Mikey was incredulous. He knew nothing about a houseboat.
“Yep. Docked it and gave me a deposit, but I haven’t gotten any other payment.” The man tightened his lips. “Now I know why.” He paused, then said, “Who’s handling his estate?”
“Estate?” Mikey almost laughed. “You’re lookin’ at it.” Mikey swept his arms across the room. “It belonged to the three of us, but now just me and my other brother, Arlo.”
“Well, you need to fix this situation,” the man replied.
“Absolutely.” Mikey was dying to know the what and the how of it. “Can I take a ride down there and check it out?”
“You got until the end of the week.” The man turned. “By the way, my name is Riley. Riley Shields. Shields Marina.”
“I’m Mikey. Michael, actually.”
“See you, Mikey.” The man turned on his heel and left.
Mikey slumped down in the chair. Now he had three deadlines. Back taxes, mystery man, and now Dennis’s final parting gift: more debt.
Arlo entered the office with a bucket and a mop.
Mikey looked at him. “Good you remembered the bet.”
“Yep.” Arlo frowned.
“So, do you know anything about a houseboat?” Mikey wondered if Dennis had mentioned it to him.
“What kind of houseboat?”
“The kind that Dennis bought.”
“Bought? When?”
“From what I can figure, it was about four months ago.” A light bulb went on in his head. “Maybe that’s where the money went.”
“But why would Dennis buy a houseboat?” Arlo asked, stupefied.
“Come on. You and me are going to take a ride.”
“What about mopping the floor?”
“When we get back. The clock is ticking.” Mikey tucked the invoice in his pocket and grabbed the set of Dennis’s keys that were still hanging on a hook. He now had a clue as to the missing 50,000 dollars.
Mikey and Arlo arrived at Shields Marina in Point Pleasant.
Mikey looked at the invoice and found the dock and slip number for the boat.
There were dozens of large boats in the marina.
Day boats were on one side, and the private boats were on the other.
There were at least a dozen day boats used for fishing parties, and two other boats that were rented for events.
Once they got their bearings, they found the dock and then the slip.
“Whoa. This belongs to Dennis?” Arlo said, wide-eyed.
“So it seems.” Mikey boarded the vessel. He was in disbelief that his brother made such a large purchase and failed to mention it. Then there were all the unpaid bills. What was Dennis up to?
Mikey pulled the keychain from his pocket and began to test each one. The fourth key proved to be the one to unlock the cabin.
Mikey stuck his head inside. Arlo peered over his shoulder. “Whoa. Get a load of this place!”
Mikey could not bring himself to be impressed. He was seething with anger. How could Dennis buy this luxury boat? Mikey was so angry, he would have killed his brother if he weren’t already dead.
Mikey and Arlo slowly stepped inside. “Check around.”
“For what?” Arlo asked numbly.
“Anything. Anything that looks like something. Papers. I dunno. But we gotta figure this out.”
The two men began to search the cabinets and drawers. After a few minutes of rummaging through what looked like some of Dennis’s clothing, Mikey came across a folder filled with maps. They were of the intracoastal waterway. He laid one out on one of the countertops, peering at it closely.
“Looks like our big brother was planning a trip.”
“Yeah? Where to?” Arlo said with a nuance of enthusiasm. He obviously didn’t get that his brother was going to take off, leaving Arlo and Mikey holding the bag.
Mikey rifled through the rest of the brochures. “Huh. He’s got a whole lot of information about Cuba and marinas.”
“He was going to a Commie country?” Arlo said in disbelief.
“Sure seems like it.” Mikey was beyond pissed.
He had to find the bill of sale, put the boat on the market, and pay back the mystery man.
But before anything could happen, they had to pay the back rent, which was over 3000 dollars; otherwise, they’d never let him take the boat.
Mikey hoped he could strike a deal with Shields.
He had to believe his luck was going to change. It had to.
After tearing the place apart, Mikey finally found the paperwork for the boat. Sure enough, Dennis bought it right after the mystery dude paid him. The sales receipt showed Dennis paid 40,000 in cash. So where was the rest of it?
“Arlo, open everything that can be opened.”
“Didn’t we do that already?” Arlo was getting tired of this treasure hunt.
“Yeah, but according to the bill of sale, Dennis paid forty grand, which means there’s ten grand laying around somewhere.”
“Do you think it’s here?” Arlo stupidly asked.
“I have no idea where it is. We didn’t find anything in his apartment, so it’s gotta be here, unless he buried it somewhere.”
“Like Captain Kidd?” Arlo smirked.
“Arlo, you’ve already used up all your chits. And your jokes are garbage. So shut the heck up and pry open anything that he could have used as a safe.”
Mikey knew that most boats had push-latch compartments for maximum storage and efficiency. “Just keep pushing on anything that looks like it might open.”
Mikey spotted rectangular molding under the table, along the hull.
It looked like the outline of a shoebox.
He got on his knees and crawled over to it and gave it a push.
Bingo! A small door popped open. Inside was a waterproof box, not unlike the one they pulled out in search of another fortune.
Mikey hoped there was better news inside this one.
He crawled back out and placed the box on the table.
It was locked, but that wasn’t going to stop him from prying it open. Even if it took all night.
If he had any luck that wasn’t bad luck, maybe the key would be on Dennis’s key ring.
He quickly went back to the door, pulled out the set of keys he’d left in the lock, and looked for one that could be used for a personal safe.
A small, tubular, three-prong key was hanging on it.
He closed his eyes, took a breath, and said a prayer, something he hadn’t done in years.
If anyone needed a prayer answered, it was Mikey.
He slipped it into the keyhole. It fit. He took another deep breath and slowly turned the key.
A click announced the tumbler had moved.
The next prayer was for something worthwhile in the box.
Arlo was leaning in so close that Mikey could smell his breath.
“Get off me!” Mikey ordered, then pushed down on the lid and lifted the latch. Inside was Dennis’s passport, his marine license, and a wad of hundred-dollar bills.
“Jackpot!” Arlo exclaimed.
“Don’t get too excited. We have to pay the marina owner for back rent if we want to sell this boat. And I gotta get that other guy off my back.”
“We done everything he wanted, right?” Arlo had no idea what the man’s endgame was. Neither did Mikey, for that matter.
Arlo had followed Mikey’s instructions, all of which generated absolutely nothing. Knocking Crusty unconscious wasn’t part of the plan, but he got in Arlo’s way. Arlo failed to mention that tidbit to his brother.
After Hannah and Charlie left, Madison pulled Viggo aside to tell him her idea.
“What if we work this backwards?”
“How do you mean?”
“We take a small skiff downriver to where Dennis’s car was found.”
“And?”
“And then we slowly make our way back to where they found the kayak. From there, we go to the boat house. We time it, taking into consideration he was paddling.”
Viggo nodded. “That shouldn’t be hard to do. What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know, but getting a fix on the logistics might help.”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Viggo agreed. “Do you want anyone else in on this?”
Madison looked around an empty room. “No. There’s already too much going on. Let Hannah and Charlie handle the Crusty situation. Lincoln and Olivia can deal with the deed.”
“When do you want to do this?”
“The sooner the better,” Madison replied.
“I have an early morning shift tomorrow. Should be out by two. We could go around five, since that’s about when the incident probably began.”