The Scuba Club Read online

  The rising storm had stirred up an impressive amount of sediment from somewhere south of the island, and with the skies a lifeless gray above him, the water was more than a little murky, like walking into a light fog at night with a flashlight. Which didn’t help even the slightest bit to soothe the familiar tightness that was now gripping his chest. Shaking himself out of it, Gavin settled his nerves and looked down, down toward the depths of the ocean dropping off below him. Even with the murky black water he had no trouble picking out the divers descending ever so slowly beneath him, the tight cones of their dive lights leading the way in the dark. Clearing his ears, he dumped some of the air out of his BCD and descended as well. Two hundred twenty feet was a long way down.

  9

  Underwater, Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park

  The body hung limp, snagged on an outcropping of coral jutting out from a sheer wall that plummeted seemingly endlessly into the dark, formless depths below them. At over two hundred feet down, and with the skies above blackened by the storm, it felt like a night dive to Gavin, the only things visible being the cones of light from their dive lights and any passing fish and coral formations they trained those lights on.

  At sixty feet he came to the coral heads that Katy’s group had dived on, just a dozen or so feet from the sharp precipice leading to the bottom. He paused for a moment or two to shine his dive light on the sandy bottom, searching for clues. But he knew that the exercise was largely pointless. If anything interesting had been left behind, anything that might possibly help explain what had happened to Katy Mulcahey the night before, the heavy current would almost certainly have covered it up by now with the ubiquitous white coral sand.

  He pushed on, kicking over to the point where the cliff started to drop away, then, thinking about the strength of the current and its effect on Katy’s limp and lifeless body, he turned and swam south fifty feet or so, fighting relentlessly against the current the whole way. Swimming in the dark, and dolphin kicking as hard as he could to make progress against the current, he almost missed it. A small spark of light just below him, about ten or fifteen feet down the side of the cliff face. He kicked to get level with it, and still had to search carefully around all of the multi-colored corals, feathers and other sea creatures that made up the reef before he finally found it. The brief flash had come from his own beam of light reflecting off the business end of a small dive light that had apparently been dropped by its owner at some point and had wound up lying discarded on the sea wall, pointing almost straight up in a bed of freshly broken coral, its batteries long since spent. He picked it up by its strap and clipped it to his belt.

  Off to Gavin’s left a large mottled-brown Hawksbill turtle floated by, watching him cautiously as it passed. Or maybe just eyeing him curiously. Gavin knew that the creatures down here had very little fear of humans, since the national marine park had long ago been designated a protected sanctuary for them. Even dive knives were outlawed in the park, which made his next discovery all that more remarkable, lying just a foot or so away from where the dive light had been resting, wedged loosely in an up-thrusting arm of coral. He plucked it up carefully from the surrounding coral and sand and stashed it away in a small evidence bag he had tied to his weight belt. A further search of the surrounding area uncovered nothing new, so he swam back over to the edge of the cliff and continued his descent.

  Passing one hundred feet, the depth where the Americans said they were swimming when they first saw the yellow fins, Gavin marveled that they had managed to see anything at all in the gloom. But of course that had been several hours earlier, and the storm had been a little lighter at midday. So maybe it wasn’t just his old man eyes, after all.

  He checked his dive computer and noted that his descent had started to pick up a bit. The deeper he got, the more the surrounding water compressed the air in his BCD, reducing his buoyancy and sending him plummeting to the bottom ever faster. If in fact there even was a bottom to all of this. He added a small squirt of air to slow his rate of descent and turned to face the wall of coral, hunting once again for any clues that might tell him what had happened to Katy down here. Assuming, of course, that the body hanging from the coral outcropping was Katy Mulcahey.

  As he dropped, the current kept pushing him inexorably toward the north, and he realized he could easily wind up a good distance past the body if he wasn’t careful. And he had already had a good taste of just how difficult and time-consuming it would be to correct that particular mistake, swimming against the current trying to get back. Glancing down to verify his position, he saw that he was still a good distance south of the target, but his earlier search had caused him to fall well behind the dive team, and the other divers had already reached the body. The commander was signaling with his light for Gavin to join them, so he burped out some of the air he had added a few minutes earlier and hurried his descent.

  As he got level with the body, Gavin checked his dive computer again. Two hundred thirty-five feet. He added air to arrest his descent and establish neutral buoyancy, then pirouetted in place to focus in on the evidence.

  Even swollen and distorted by almost a day in the water, it was clear that the girl floating in front of him was Katy Mulcahey. Her eyes were largely gone, eaten away long ago by hungry sea creatures, and he noted a few places here and there where a passing fish had taken a small nip or two out of her hands and face, but in general she was in pretty good shape. For a dead person. And it was a good thing, too, that no larger creatures had noticed her—it would have taken little more than the slightest nudge to loosen the tentative grip the coral had on her BCD and send her back on her way to the bottom of the sea. But any larger beasts would probably have mistaken her for a living scuba diver, and hence would have given her a wide berth. Even in the national park, very few of the larger species of marine life welcomed human intruders. If it wasn’t food and it wasn’t a predator, it simply wasn’t all that interesting.

  Katy’s respirator had fallen out of her mouth and was hanging uselessly off to the right beside her. Made sense. When she died, her lips would have relaxed, and there was nothing else left to hold it in place.

  And then he saw it. Her inflator hose, the air line leading to her BCD, cut in half. The commander caught his eye, tapping on the valve of her tank and making a turning motion. Gavin tried it—the valve was closed tight as a tick.

  Using his mask-mounted dive light and a small hand-held light to peer into crevasses in the coral behind the body, Gavin searched carefully for any additional clues as to what had happened. But he held out little hope that he would find anything, not at this level. It was pretty clear now what had happened to the girl. Someone had shut off her air supply, then cut her inflator hose and bled all the air out of her BCD, eliminating her buoyancy and making it impossible for her to escape to the surface. Assuming she had even a ghost of a chance to make it all the way up, given the fact that she was completely out of air. But she could have dropped her weight belt, a move that would likely have popped her up to the surface in a heartbeat. He checked it, but there was no sign that she had tried to pull on the latch. Whoever killed her, then, must have held her in place for however long it took for her to pass out, then shoved her over the wall, expecting that, with her buoyancy drained away, she would plummet straight to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again. Everyone would just assume it was a tragic diving accident, and that the currents had carried her body far out to sea, where eventually the larger sea creatures could be counted on to finally pay her some long overdue attention. It was the perfect crime.

  Except, of course, that it wasn’t.

  10

  Cozumel Reefs National Marine Park

  When they returned to the boat, the Mexican SEAL Team carefully wrapped the corpse up in an olive green body bag, then covered it with bags of ice they had brought along with them in a large cooler to keep Katy’s body from decomposing any further on the way to shore. Espinosa and Gavin moved belowdeck
s to confer on next steps.

  “I’ll arrange for the body to be shipped to Houston, where the FBI has a large forensics lab,” Gavin explained, leaning back against the door to the small onboard bathroom to keep it from swinging open and hitting him every time the boat rocked. “Frankly, I’m not holding out much hope that they’ll find anything, given the nature of the crime and the length of time the body has been down there, especially given the corrosive nature of seawater. But you never know.”

  “I wouldn’t give up hope just yet,” Espinosa suggested. “I’ve had cases involving floaters that had been in the water for weeks, and still managed to throw off a few clues here and there. And it’s almost always the little stuff that matters. But of course, as for you and me, we already know who did it. Cases like this, 99 percent of the time it’s the husband. We check into his finances, check into any life insurance policies he may have taken out on her—”

  “Yeah, and check into any girlfriends he may have had on the side,” Gavin added with a wry, humorless smile. “Plus we have the convenient fact that both Trevor and Katy disappeared at pretty much the same time, only unlike her he somehow managed to come back, alone and still very much alive. Very convenient, indeed.”

  Espinosa inclined his head in the direction of her body, lying lifeless under the shade and ice up top. “Well, I guess this changes our mission, now. This is a murder case, after all. And in Mexican national waters.”

  “Which means you’re in the lead on this more than ever. Yeah, I get that.”

  Gavin rubbed his forehead, pushing back a wet lock of black hair that was dripping down his face. “But one other thing is starting to worry me. That storm out there, it’s getting worse, not better. Any word on what we can expect from it over the next few days?”

  “It appears to be stalled out just east of Cuba, and I’m told the forecasters still expect it to swing north, up and out of our way. But yes, I’m starting to worry, too. We don’t have a whole lot of time to solve this one. If that storm increases in force and turns our way, I wouldn’t want to be sitting out there on a small boat like a duck decoy when it hits us. When even the cruise lines are starting to make backup plans.”

  Gavin’s hair was dripping again, so he grabbed a small white towel off a stack lying beside him and started to dry off. “All right, so what do we do if that happens? Bring them onshore, and leave the boat lying out there exposed to the storm? Or maybe let them sail the boat down to Belize or somewhere else out of the way of the storm, and question them there?”

  “I would prefer to keep them all on board the boat for now,” Espinosa said. “If there is a murderer on board—and I think we can now take that as a given—the boat serves as a controlled environment that could help us single out who it is. Bringing them all onshore, that would only add new variables to the equation that I would sooner avoid.”

  “I would agree with that logic. At least for now. How about the Belize angle?”

  Espinosa shook his head. “That is never going to happen. My superiors are never going to let a murderer leave Mexican waters for another country. Among other things, it complicates the issue of who has ultimate authority over the investigation. It’s bad enough—”

  “That I’m in the middle of it. Yeah, I get that. But, speaking of which, you don’t have a problem with—”

  “You sending the body back to the U.S.? No, I think that’s wise. We’re in a real time crunch here, and your FBI compadres will make it a major priority, especially given all the pressure your guy Sanders is putting on everyone involved in the case.”

  “Yes, well, she was his goddaughter, after all, so I’m sure he’s feeling a great deal of pressure on himself, as well. You know, to make sure he does right by her. By the way, does your phone have any kind of signal out here? Mine’s got nada, and I need to make a few quick calls to get things moving. Make sure we have a plane sitting ready at the Cozumel airport to get her body back to Houston.”

  “Sure.” Espinosa reached into the pocket of his raincoat and fished out his phone. “Three bars, so you should be good. Remember, though, you have to put in the country code for the U.S.—”

  “Yeah, I just spent a year out in Morocco, playing official nursemaid for rich American tourists, so I know the drill.”

  Espinosa looked puzzled. “Morocco? I thought you were FBI?”

  Gavin shook his head slowly, careful not to inadvertently cause another small spray of water from his wet hair to splash onto his colleague’s face. “Was with them way back when, but I’ve switched jobs since. Now I work for a civilian branch of Naval Intelligence.”

  “But still, what was the FBI doing with an agent way out in Morocco? I thought you guys were almost entirely domestic?”

  “It’s a long story,” Gavin answered guardedly, but noted thankfully that the gruesome news of his career-destroying screwup clearly hadn’t made it all that far beyond the southern border.

  Reading the American agent’s evasiveness on the subject like an open book, Espinosa decided not to press the point, and simply handed over the phone without further comment. “Bueno. You get the plane lined up, and while you’re at it, I’ll head up top and radio ahead for us, make sure we have an SUV or an ambulance to get us over to the airport, and send instructions to make doubly sure that boat of theirs is locked down extra tight.”

  “Good idea. Now that they know we’ve found a body, who knows what might conveniently disappear off that boat.”

  “Exactly. And given that we have almost no evidence to work with at this point, even the slightest little thing could wind up being critical to the case.”

  “I’m with you on that.” Gavin turned away for privacy and punched in the number by heart, already rehearsing what he had to say. These calls were never easy, even when the person on the other end was a complete stranger. And after everything that had happened over the past year or so, Bob Sanders was anything but a stranger to him.

  “Hey, Bob,” he said when the call finally clicked through. “It’s me, Gavin. I’m using a buddy’s phone, mine’s dead in the water.” He paused, the irony of what he had just said suddenly hitting home. He had never been all that good at the whole diplomacy thing. He gulped it back and continued. “Listen, Bob—I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news—”

  11

  San Miguel Harbor

  Standing on the back deck of the cruise ship, he had a perfect unobstructed view of the yacht sitting all by itself a little further out in the short stretch of ocean that separated Cozumel from the mainland. Sitting all by itself because anyone with half a brain would have left for calmer waters a long, long time ago.

  And while his perch was perfect for keeping track of the comings and goings on board the little catamaran, it provided little to no protection from the rain and wind that were now whipping angrily across the deck, drenching him to the bone despite his dark colored rain gear. On any other day the agent would have just folded up and gone inside, content to explain to his boss that the weather had made it impossible to keep an eye on the boat. But Espinosa had made it abundantly clear that careers would be on the line if anyone got caught abandoning his post today. So spying in the rain it was. For now.

  Then it happened. A bulb came on, lighting up the entire rear deck of the catamaran, and a man slipped through the sliding glass doors. Not even bothering to put on a raincoat, just what looked like a swimsuit and a white pullover shirt. Grabbing his camera out of its protective bag, the agent started squeezing off shots of the man on the boat stepping quickly to the swim platform and tossing something small into the water, then just as quickly racing back to the safety of the boat’s main cabin.

  The agent turned sideways, using his body to block most of the rain, and checked his pictures of the action down below. The rain had left a few blurs here and there, but it was mostly pretty good stuff. Good enough for Espinosa to spring for a few rounds of tequila later to make up for this godforsaken posting. He pulled his c
ellphone out of his left pocket and hit the speed dial entry for his boss. Maybe more than a few rounds.

  12

  Sea Trial, San Miguel Harbor

  While the rain seemed to be easing up, at least for the moment, the winds had picked up alarmingly and were now tossing three-foot whitecaps repeatedly over the teak swim platform at the rear of the yacht. Gavin stepped cautiously off the side of the small dinghy onto the platform, his pant legs rolled up slightly to stay clear of the water. And his heart pounding almost out of his chest. Once he made it safely across the yawning gap between the two boats, he reached back tentatively to help Espinosa. The dinghy was rising and falling dramatically, and it was becoming crystal clear to Gavin that the small boat would soon be rendered next to useless if the storm conditions got any worse. Already the eastern sky was starting to ripple with lightning, and to Gavin’s untrained eye it seemed the lightning was getting closer. Much closer. And wasn’t the storm coming out of the west just yesterday?

  All seven members of the group were waiting for them expectantly when they entered the main salon. It was Trevor who first broke the tense silence, asking the one question all of them had on the tip of their tongues. And getting the one answer all of them dreaded the most.

  “Is it?” Trevor asked, his voice trembling.

  Gavin nodded gravely. “Yes, I’m afraid so, Mr. Johnson. We located the body at right around two hundred feet down, snagged on a coral reef. There—isn’t any doubt as to the identity.” For now, he and Espinosa had agreed to leave unspoken the fact that she had been murdered, or any other details of the crime for that matter. No sense in giving the perpetrator any help in covering up the murder. Or creating a workable cover story.