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“Anyway, Monck pulled some intel on Doyle and theCod Bless Us. Doyle’s outing was to be a six-hour fishing charter.”
“So Doyle would’ve provided food and water for a day.”
“Presumably.”
“No one reported him missing?”
“The bloke was a loner, lived by himself. Correction. A turtle named Irma inhabited a pen in his kitchen.”
“What about Doyle’s passengers? No one missed them?”
“Apparently their two-week trip to the Bahamas was to be a macho bonding thing. Overby and his son, Kyle, and Overby’s two buddies made a big deal of allowing no female ‘meddling,’ as Malvino’s wife put it. The men swore a pact agreeing to zero communication with those back home. Wanted to teach Kyle how real men operate.”
“Sounds like a dick move to me.”
“Yathink?” Musgrove’s response oozed disdain.
“The group had been incommunicado since leaving home, so no one noticed when they went radio silent,” I reasoned out loud.
“Yes.”
“Who was the shirtless guy?”
“Barry Bernstein, age forty-three, also a resident of Vero Beach.”
“The boat ran out of gas and ended up six hundred miles from home. Jesus. How does that happen?”
“Hopefully the engineer will find something to explain it. Lindstrom confirmed they’d both arrive in Provo early tomorrow. The guy’s name is Flores, by the way. Lindstrom plans to complete all needed autopsies by the end of the weekend.”
“Sounds ambitious.”
“His call. Since we’ll be out collecting the second set of bones tomorrow, I scheduled a meet for Saturday morning. Probably best you sit in.”
Musgrove didn’t make that meeting.
By Saturday, she was dead.
15
FRIDAY, JULY12,TOSATURDAY, JULY13
Friday was another day of bones and bugs. A more complicated one since the second skeleton was scattered over an area approximately forty meters square. Bone distribution suggested tag team scavengers. Gnaw mark patterning suggested dogs.
By seven p.m. we’d collected everything but three distal toe phalanges.
And the left hand. Search as we might, the hand was nowhere to be found.
Musgrove insisted on taking me to a place called Da Conch Shack before dropping me at my condo. When I mentioned our less than immaculate state, she handed me wet wipes and said we’d be sitting outside.
Hunger trumped hygiene. I didn’t argue.
Ten minutes later we were barefooting down a sand trail bordered by sun-bleached conch shells. Hundreds of them. The path led to a cluster of tables that would have made Schiaparelli proud. The luminous paint looked joyful against the white sand.
We’d just slid onto benches when a pink-shirted waiter appeared at Musgrove’s side, cocoa skin glistening with sweat, enormous teeth beaming. The two hugged like old friends. Which they probably were. The waiter’s name was Arthur.
A moment of small talk, then Musgrove ordered a drink whose name implied an overly complicated relationship with rum. I craved the solace the magic brown liquid would bring, the fiery trip down my throat, the honeyed warmth in my gut. In deference to my history with booze, I asked for island punch, virgin style.
Arthur had barely gone when Musgrove’s phone pinged an incoming text. Her brows rose as she read the message.
