“So you think one of the Sand Diggers was out on a boat, slipped into the water while pretending to fish and killed Laurie?” Will asked. “Why? The Sand Diggers supposedly wanted someone to find the treasure.”
“I don’t know,” Kat said. “We’ll have to ask them. Logan should be getting back to me with some information pretty soon. We can check them out tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow morning we dive the site.”
Kat turned to him. “You sound excited about it.”
“I am. A shipwreck like the Jerry McGuen? Come on, you have to be somewhat excited!”
“Thrilled to pieces,” she muttered. Maybe one day, she’d tell him about the experiences she’d already enjoyed because of Amun Mopat!
“You don’t believe in a curse, do you?” he asked, grinning.
“No. I do, however, believe that people can go a little crazy because of them.”
“I agree,” he said. “I spent a lot of time in the Caribbean. Islanders can be very superstitious. I’ve seen men who felt convinced they were possessed, and women who managed incredible feats of contortion in a ceremonial dance. The mind is a powerful influence on the body.”
Kat nodded.
“You think someone would sabotage the mission to keep Amun Mopat from being brought back to the surface?” he asked. “That’s an idea.”
“Crazy people can latch onto anything, but…at this point, I don’t know what I think or feel,” Kat told him. “Except that it’s been a really, really long day!”
“And it’ll be an early morning,” he said.
She was glad he’d said that; his stamina seemed to be on a par with the Energizer Bunny’s. She hoped he was taking her back to her hotel. “I’m at a place called the Edwardian off Michigan Avenue.”
“Yep.”
“You know that, of course,” she said.
“Of course.”
He didn’t just drop her off; he brought the car in front to the valet. She sighed as she saw him get out and walk around to her. “You’re staying here, too.”
“Government dollar.” He shrugged. “We go where they get their deals,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at eight.”
“We’re diving at 8:00 a.m.?”
He hesitated. “You’re not required to go down.”
“I wouldn’t miss it. Remember? We’re excited about this.”
“Would you like to get some dinner?”
“I think I’ll just go upstairs and order in,” she said.
“Good night, then.”
There was a small restaurant in the hotel. He walked toward it, a folder and an iPad in his hands. He was going to keep working, she realized.
And she was starving….
He stopped suddenly, a curious frown tightening his brow. She was startled to notice again what a striking and unusual man he was.
He walked back to her. “All day I forgot to ask… Well, I suppose you would’ve said, but…did you get anything from the corpse?”
Kat studied his eyes. She was surprised, after the day they’d spent together, to feel strangely close to him. But then, when you were one of the lucky or the cursed who’d always assumed they were ever so slightly crazy, there was an instant bond with others who shared that luck or that curse. She shook her head. “No, and I was hopeful. We’re always hopeful,” she said quietly. “You?”
“Nothing at all. And I just think that in this situation, with the money involved in salvage, what seems to stink does stink. I really believe he was murdered. I grew up in the islands. I’ve been diving since I was a kid. No, he should never have gone down alone, but from what I’ve learned and seen, there was nothing that should have caused him to lose control. His equipment was in perfect working order. Even after being tested for leaks, his tank had air.” He paused. “It’s strange. We still can’t explain why some souls stay around, and some don’t.”
“Maybe some people who die by violence aren’t compelled to stay on earth to see that justice is done,” she said. “Some may find peace—who knows? There’s an incredible amount that we haven’t begun to understand.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” he said. “Well, get some rest.”
He started to walk again. He was a workaholic, she thought. Usually so was she. But she really was tired.
Still, they were supposed to be working this case together. She sighed.
A mummy. Great. It just had to be a mummy. The mummy of Amun Mopat.
“Wait,” she called. “I’ll join you. We can discuss what direction we’ll take after the dive.”
Yes, she was going to dive. And the idea gave her the creeps.
She suddenly wished the Jerry McGuen had remained lost to the world forever.
4
Will passed his iPad over to Kat as soon as they’d ordered. “Just click Go. You’ll see the footage that was taken when they found Brady Laurie,” Will told her.
Startled, Kat looked at him. “You had this all along?”
“Yes. But the cops who were on duty when Brady was brought up, not to mention the salvage companies, are easier to visit by day—not at night.”
She didn’t respond, thinking he might have told her he had the film footage. Sure, he said he was giving her the lead in their investigation, since her Krewe had been called in. Somehow, he was taking the lead, anyway. She felt like getting up and going to her room, but reminded herself that she was the one who’d said they weren’t in a pissing contest.
Kat touched the icon, and the footage leaped onto the screen. She lowered the volume, not wanting anyone nearby to hear, but there really wasn’t any sound, other than the videographer’s breathing, and then, of course, the muted screams when Amanda and Jon came upon the body of Brady Laurie.
As she’d heard, Brady could be seen floating in the hold. Jon had come upon him first; he’d tried to get the regulator back in Brady’s mouth. Amanda had been at his side soon after. For a few minutes, there was nothing but shots of the inside of the hull and the flooring, covered with plankton and other growth, and strewn with holes. The videographer had momentarily forgotten his task in the horror of their discovery. When he regained control, Kat was glad to see that once they’d found Brady, they had left behind all curiosity and interest in treasure; they started back to the surface immediately. In the course of doing that, they had to make a few safety stops. At the surface, the footage ended.
“I met with Alan King, Bernie Firestone and Earl Candy last evening, as soon as Jackson reached me,” Will explained, studying her across the table. “Earl wanted to destroy his film—he doesn’t want gawkers watching the discovery of a man’s death. I promised him that when the investigation’s over, I’ll destroy this copy.”
“Of course,” Kat murmured. She pushed the iPad toward him, frowning. “I just don’t see how anyone could have gotten to Brady between the time he went down and when his coworkers and the film crew arrived.”
“Easy enough, I suppose. Down in Lake Michigan, it’s damned dark. If someone was already down there, knew the lake and was a good diver, he—or she—could have found Brady’s coordinates just before Brady did…and waited for him. Remember, Brady had made a big thing of his belief that he could find the Jerry McGuen. If someone hacked into his computer or even read his blogs, they could follow his reasoning and figure out where the ship might have ended up. That’s one idea. Or, perhaps, someone could’ve been surprised by Brady. If you know the area, you keep to the depth, follow your compass and then come up at a distant point.”
“True,” Kat said. “But still, the timing…”
“How much diving experience have you had?” he asked her.
She tensed inwardly. “A fair amount in the Caribbean—around a number of the islands. I’ve dived cold-water springs in Florida and caves in Mexico. I haven’t done a lot of cold-water diving, so I admit I’m grateful it’s still summer.”
“I don’t see the temperature as much of an issue. Think about how much time—at that depth, with safety stops—it took Amanda and Jon to get down there. And then to go back up—and call a search and rescue boat. The depth isn’t that great, but we’re talking time and water pressure.”
She nodded. “So you think it could be Landry? Or Simonton?”
“Maybe neither,” he said with a grimace. “And I don’t know whether Brady Laurie died because he surprised someone down there, or if the intent was to start killing people so the search would end.”
“Let’s hope it’s the first.”
Their meals arrived; they’d both ordered fish. “I would’ve taken you for a steak eater—in Chicago, anyway,” she told Will.
“Ah, but we’re going down nearly a hundred feet tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going to keep it light.”
“But you do eat steak?”
“Yes. You’re a vegetarian?”
“I’m a wannabe. I like cows. They do no ill, not to my life, at any rate.”
“Russian?” he asked her.
He changed focus quickly, she thought. “My dad,” she said. “My mom is a good old American mix of English, Irish and Scandinavian. You?”
“I was born in the States. My parents are Trinidadian. A mix of English, Chinese and Indian,” he said. “Your first time?”
She sat back at the question, stunned at his audacity.
He laughed. “I meant your first time with a ghost.”
She wished she wasn’t so pale and that a flush didn’t instantly cover her from head to toe. “A ghost. Of course,” she said, looking down. She raised her eyes again. “I was at a Civil War reenactment with my parents. I was about ten. I talked with a soldier. Everyone assumed I’d talked to a reenactor, and I believed them. Years later…I was at my grandfather’s funeral. He was desperate that my grandmother find his financial records. He died suddenly, you see, and had barely written a will, much less made sure that his affairs were in order. She was old school and hadn’t paid bills or known anything about finance. He told me where to look for his papers.” She hesitated. “I think my grandmother had something of whatever this…ability is, too. She seemed to understand right away how I knew things—and she warned me to be careful. People would make fun of me, or worse, she said. They’d see that I was locked up. And then…when I was in residency after med school, I was present at the death of a child. There’s nothing worse. But she’d written a letter to her parents, filled with love. She’d had a severe case of cystic fibrosis and wanted them to know she was at peace, and that she loved them and her sister. She told them that her time with them had been happy. After that…an old M.E. I knew talked me into changing course. Who knows? Maybe he had a bit of it, too. So I went to work as an M.E., and I wound up working with the San Antonio police a lot—and with Logan Raintree, who was with the Rangers’ office then. Eventually, we all met Jackson Crow and worked a San Antonio case before becoming, unofficially, the Texas Krewe. And you?”
