CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

It was a joyful reunion, and Martine was beyond relieved to see how healthy her uncle was. She’d always imagined him as being bedbound and weak and depleted, as he was when she’d last seen him over thirteen years ago.

“I was sick for a long time, expecting to wind up in my grave any day, every day. And then, just about a month ago, my health was restored to me. It was a miracle. It was . . . well, I know you all don’t believe in witchcraft up here. So, you’re not going to believe me. But there’s more than a few witches where I come from, and I can’t help but think that one of them took a liking to me and somehow breathed life back into me. All of a sudden, I was well again. Can you believe that?”

Martine had long hidden the extent of her illness from her uncle. She had never told him about the wheelchair, knowing how much anguish it would cause him. But she couldn’t help but wonder now if her own revival had somehow affected him all those thousands of miles away – for not a day went by when he wasn’t in her thoughts.

But what a time for a visit. Although he could certainly take care of himself, Martine didn’t want him mixed up in the murder investigation or having to encounter any slimy characters like Milner. And she didn’t even have an extra bed for him. This was a momentous event in their lives. He deserved a hero’s welcome. Better yet, a Beaumont welcome.

*****

Martine and Pierre stood outside the Beaumonts’ house. “This is my boyfriend’s family. They are going to take great care you while I run and finish up this urgent thing that, unfortunately, has to be taken care of so that you and I can relax and have a great visit.”

“Your boyfriend’s family? They’re not going to want to put up with an old man, a stranger they don’t even know.”

“You haven’t met the Beaumonts,” Martine said, knocking on the door.

It was Morgan’s mother at the door, Meryl.

“Martine! Hey, everybody, it’s Martine. What a wonderful surprise. And you brought someone with you.”

Martine held onto her uncle’s hand and guided him into the living room, where the Beaumont clan was sprawled about the room.

“Everyone, this is my Uncle Pierre.”

There was a hushed moment of stunned silence. And then Pierre Cadet was besieged with more affection and good wishes than had ever been heaped on him in his life.

“Uncle Pierre!”

“Uncle Pierre!”

“How lovely to see you. You are looking so well. I can’t tell you how happy we are to meet you.”

“He is looking wonderful, isn’t he? We were afraid that you were ill. But, you’re as fit as a fiddle. Martine, what a wonderful surprise.”

“I know this is not much notice, but I have this urgent business that I have to wrap up, and I didn’t want to abandon Uncle in my dark little apartment.”

“Oh, he must stay here! What a brilliant idea. Oh, please say you’ll stay. We’d love to have you.”

“Well, I don’t think a man ever got such a sweet welcome. How could I say no? I just got one question. Who is this standing on my foot?”

Crew looked up, grinning. He knew that Uncle Pierre was a very important person and he wasn’t about to let go of his leg.

Martine hated to leave them, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Naomi Webster was the key to Theodore Kingston’s murder. It was time to get the truth out of her.

*****

Naomi was right in the middle of the aisle at Holloways, checking out the sales signs on the canned foods. Martine approached with frightening determination.

“I don’t have time for any more small talk. Or lies. Or church stories. Now bear with me. I’m going to give you a big hug.”

Naomi could not have been more confused, but she could also see that she really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. “O–okay.”

The long hug revealed what the earlier brief touch had left out. It was Zachary Brooks, the new owner of the yacht business, who was pointing a gun at Naomi Webster. Martine broke off the hug.

“Your life is in danger, so it would behoove you to start telling the truth. Zachary Brooks wants to kill you, and you need to tell me why.”

This was too terrifying for Naomi to hide behind any more lies. “How do you know? Did Brady tell you this? Oh, my God. What am I going to do?”

“Tell me about your relationship with Brady. And your relationship with Theodore Kingston. I need to know everything, and I need to know it right now.”

Naomi flinched. “I can’t. I can’t talk about Brady. Not unless . . . You’ll have to speak to him first and see what he’s willing to say.”

“Tell your supervisors that you have a splitting headache. We’re going to go find Brady, right now.”

*****

Brady was in his front yard, giving instructions to the gardener. He stiffened at the sight of Naomi and Martine together.

“Hey, I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to get the house together for some potential buyers. So maybe we could do this visit some other time,” he said.

“Zachary Brooks wants to kill Naomi Webster. You need to tell me why. And you need to help us stop it.”

Naomi nodded sadly at Brady. “I didn’t tell her anything. That’s up to you. But I’m getting scared. I’m really scared, Brady.”

Brady walked over to sit on the front steps and dropped his head in his hands, overwhelmed. The two women waited for him to compose himself, and finally, he looked up, defeated.

“Naomi is my Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. She’s supposed to protect my privacy, so she never tells anyone about that. Somehow, my uncle Theodore found out about her, and he was obsessed that I was still using. Which I’m not. I’ve been clean for over a year now. But Uncle Theo never trusted me. He was always sure that I was going to relapse.”

“That’s why he was always confronting me at the store,” Naomi added. “I told him that I couldn’t discuss Brady with him. It was a violation of my oath to protect his privacy. He wanted me to spy on his nephew for him, and he was constantly badgering me, trying to get information about how Brady was doing and whether or not he was relapsing. He was horribly intrusive.

“But after he died, I sincerely did regret his passing. I knew that as long as Theodore Kingston was alive and Brady was living with him, it would help him stay on the straight and narrow. But if Brady was alone and had nothing in his life to help resist the lure of drugs, then I really feared for him. Especially if he was going to sell the yacht business and have nothing to do with his time. All those empty hours could lead him down the path to more trouble. That’s why I didn’t want him to sell the business. Especially not to that character.”

“Okay, somebody tell me about Zachary Brooks.”

Brady hesitated. “He’s a big-time drug dealer. I know a lot of drug dealers, and he’s the biggest. Makes deals all the way from Canada down to Florida. And I had the same arrangement with him that I had with a lot of other dealers. My uncle thought that he was just paying me a commission to get new customers for the yacht service. But most of them were dealers. I would take the sellers out, and they would leave the product on the boat. And then the next day, I took the buyers out. And they would leave the cash on the boat. It minimized the risk for everyone.

“It was a smooth system . . . until Uncle Theo got suspicious and went to check out the yacht that had gone out the previous day. And he found the product. Oh, my God. Was he furious. You wouldn’t believe how mad he was. He just had no idea the kind of people that we were dealing with. Otherwise, he never would’ve done something so stupid, so reckless, so dangerous. He threw it all overboard. All of it. Four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of product. Into the ocean. He might as well have signed my death warrant.”

Martine gasped. “That’s why he killed your uncle.”

Brady nodded sadly.

“And then . . . you just sold him the yacht business!”

“I didn’t sell it to him. We had to put on a show. That whole wire transfer thing was just putting on a show. Oh, I did have to actually transfer ownership over to him. He owns that business now. But he never paid me for it. He considered it restitution for the loss of his property. And I considered it a reasonable trade-off for his not killing me. So, yeah, there never was $1.8 million.”

“Brady? You never told me that he killed your uncle! I certainly wouldn’t have been confronting him and getting him angry at me,” Naomi fussed.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” Brady said sadly.

“The murder is hard to prove. But drug dealing, in those kinds of quantities—that’s enough to put him behind bars, and enough for the police to take a murder investigation seriously.”

“What are you suggesting?” Naomi asked.

“We’ve got to have the police raid the yacht while it’s got big drugs on it. Brady, do you know when that will be?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact. There’s a big deal going down today. Big deal. And then a pickup and payment happening tomorrow.”

“So, the drugs are going to be on the yacht tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

*****

Martine and Naomi were going to go to the marina under cover of dark and confirm that the drugs were on the yacht. They were only going to get one shot at this. If they sent the police onto the boat and there was nothing there, they would never be believed again.

Brady’s job was to meet Zachary Brooks in a bar across town and to keep him busy socializing, leaving the young women to check out the boat in safety.

But Brady had warned them that there would be an armed guard standing right in front of the yacht. As reluctant as Martine has been to drag Morgan into this mess, his assistance was going to be urgently required. He was at the family home when Martine called, and she could hear Uncle Pierre’s hearty laughter in the background.

She waited until they were face-to-face before she filled him in on the details of the plan. Not surprisingly, Morgan thought they were all a bit insane, and was strenuously opposed to their scheme. But he could also see that there was no talking her out of it. And if they were right, then calling the police right now would reveal their plan to this murderous drug dealer, and endanger all involved, in the very near future.

Morgan’s job was to stroll past the guard, pretend to take him for a fellow marina resident, chat with him about the outrageous new docking fees, and then render him unconscious, by any means necessary. A previous two-year preoccupation with mixed martial arts was sufficient preparation for the task.

Then the man had to be dragged away to a safe spot and tied up to await the eventual arrival of the police. That was going to take at least twenty minutes. Then Morgan would call Martine and find out if they were still at the yacht, and where he could meet up with them.

The marina was always such a pretty sight by the light of day. But tonight, it was looking particularly ominous. Even with Zachary Brooks’ guard taken out of the equation, it felt like an alarmingly convenient place for a crime to take place.

Martine waited on the dock while Naomi took the spare key that Brady had provided her with and scurried onto the boat. Brady had told her exactly where to look to find drugs. She just had to do it without turning on any lights or bringing any attention to the boat. Just a mini flashlight was all they could risk. As soon as Naomi could confirm the drugs, then they’d be set to call the police.

It seemed to take forever. Naomi finally emerged after a long fifteen minutes, holding a plastic baggie with white powder in it.

“I found it! I found it. And I got a sample to show to the police. It’s a huge stash. It’s got to be worth at least a quarter-million.”

“Closer to half a million,” Zachary Brooks leered, stepping out of the shadows. “Where's my guy?”

 “Guy? Your guy? Martine stalled, knowing exactly what guy he meant. “Um…um… bathroom?”

He pulled out a gun and aimed it straight at Naomi. “You two should have left well enough alone. Nobody messes with my business. Nobody. Not even the high and mighty Theodore Kingston. He threw my shipment overboard like it was chum for the fish. Which earned him a bullet through his head. And who’s this?”

From a distance, they could see a tall, strong man approaching through the shadows. Martine had to hold back a gasp on seeing that it was Morgan. Zachary let his gun arm drop to his side, slightly concealed.

“Not a word from you two, or you know what’s gonna happen.”

 Morgan barely glanced at the women – he zoomed right in on Zachary. “You Mr. Brooks? I was told by Brady to ask for a Mr. Brooks. He said that you were someone who could handle a big order.”

“Brady Kingston, huh? Well, I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Maybe we should set up a meeting.”

“Sure. But I got fifty grand with me right now.” Morgan pulled out a big wad of cash. “Anything you can show me tonight?”

“Bring that over here,” Zachary demanded.

Morgan nonchalantly strolled over and handed him the stack of bills. Zachary held the bills with one hand, but he needed to use his gun hand to rifle through the stack to make sure that it was legit. That was the tiny window of opportunity that Morgan needed. He twisted Zachary’s gun hand upward as he gave him an elbow straight to the nose and an uppercut to his left jaw. After that, the gun was quickly wrestled away from the dealer, and Morgan held the gun on him as the sound of police sirens filled the air.

“Baby, your phone’s not working,” he said to Martine. “Brady couldn’t get ahold of you when this joker left their meeting early. Did you forget to charge it?”

“Um . . . it’s been a really busy week.”

“So, Brady’s afraid to call the police because they think he’s a no-good addict who can’t be trusted.”

“Recovering addict,” Naomi interjected.

“Sure. So, he calls your friend Jeremy, who is not such a bad guy, and he calls the police, and then he calls me because he knows I live at the marina and can get here faster. And I told him, I’m already here, and I’m already part of this screwy plan.

“And I got this idea of being a customer, and I grabbed this petty cash I always keep on my truck and slapped this phony stash together—looks pretty real, doesn’t it? So much for this perfect plan. I can’t believe that you put yourself in this kind of danger. I could wring your neck.”

Is that the kind of neck wringing that turns into a massage? ’Cause I could use another one of those.

After the police had taken Zachary Brooks away and gotten assurances that the other three would come in for statements the following day, it was time to call it a day.

“So, you’ve met my Uncle Pierre?”

“Have I met him? He and I are already talking over some designs for a guest cabin behind our house that he’ll be able to use when he’s in town. I hope you don’t mind.”

Martine gave him a big hug. “I’ve already picked the contractor for the house. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, are you two engaged to be married?” Naomi asked, happy to witness some good news.

“Not quite yet,” Morgan said. “First, we have to get a ring, which my family has to supervise because they think I’m going to screw it up. Then, I think it’s going to be time to start that whole happily ever after thing. What do you think?”

They clearly could use a little privacy. Naomi backed away. “I’m going to go check on Brady. He really needs his sponsor in times like these.” She took one last look at the couple, lost in a happy embrace, and then headed back for town.

In Morgan’s arms, Martine was particularly entranced by the vivid details of her latest premonition. An ecstatic Morgan was gently handing a tiny baby to her. The little boy had her hair and her eyes. But he’d been spared the fate of being called Tilapia. His name was Dune.