Page 75 of No One Aboard
“You’re what’s wrong with him,” she said evenly. “With all of us.”
She dropped the brain-splattered mallet at his feet.
Chapter 36
Jerry Baugh
Agent Koshida sat opposite Jerry inThe Old Eileen’s trashed salon. Jerry nudged a beer can with his toe to hide it from view. He knew how this must appear to Koshida: a slovenly fisherman unable to keep a rich man’s yacht clean. But the agent seemed unconcerned, all of his attention trained on Jerry.
“Do you want coffee?” Jerry asked. He didn’t feel particularly hospitable, but anything was better than hearing whatever this man had to say about Steve. At the same time, Jerry needed to know. He needed to know, but he couldn’t stomach knowing.
“I’m all right,” Koshida said, but Jerry got to his feet anyway. He made himself a cup of joe, black as coal, and downed it before the steam had time to cool.
“Would you like to sit down, Mr. Baugh?” Koshida gestured at the seat Jerry had vacated.
Jerry shifted his weight from foot to foot. “No. Uh, thanks. I’d like to stand.”
“You sure?” A line of concern trailed between Koshida’s sleek, dark eyebrows. “I anticipate this being a difficult conversation.”
Jerry slammed his cup down on the counter with moreforce than he’d meant to. “I just, I, uh, I don’t understand it. My brother—Steve—he died thirty years ago. And I wasn’t there, so I’m not too sure what you’d like me to say to ya.” He was blabbering. He shut his trap and busied his hands by making a second cup. The case of beers under the table still had a few cans left, but to get to them Jerry would have to reach right next to Agent Koshida’s legs.
“Right... you’re sure you wouldn’t like to take a seat?”
Jerry shook his head.
“Very well.” Agent Koshida straightened his tie and sat forward. “Mr. Baugh, due to a series of recently uncovered crimes, the police had cause to reopen your brother’s case.”
“Case?” Jerry interrupted. “There was no case. He drowned.”
“Yes, but in situations of unnatural death, even with accidents, the police keep records. So like I was saying, Steven’s case was reopened when new evidence has come to light that, well... Mr. Baugh, we have reason to believe Steven’s death wasn’t an accident. We think it was a homicide.”
The coffee mug fell from Jerry’s hands and shattered on the floor, black liquid seeping in every direction.
The young agent shot from his seat to guide Jerry to the bench, but Jerry was already there, sinking.
“Mr. Baugh? Mr. Baugh, can I get you a glass of water?” Koshida knelt at Jerry’s side.
Jerry zeroed in on the case of beers under the table. “Steve,” he muttered. “NotSteven. He hated that.”
Koshida nodded in earnest. “Steve. Got it. Thank you for telling me.”
“And I’m Jerry.” Jerry sniffed hard, then cleared his throat even harder.
Koshida swept to the galley where he collected a wad of paper towels, sopping up the worst of the coffee and handing the rest of the roll to Jerry who blew his nose like a freight horn.
“Nice to meet you, Jerry. I’m sorry, this must be coming out of nowhere after so long without Steve.”
Jerry tapped his foot underneath the table, scrubbing his nose with a rough paper towel. “Tell me what happened.”
So he did.
Steve Baugh had been twenty-seven years old, wind-chapped and hungry when he’d left the world, his girlfriend, and his sales career behind to commit himself to the sea like he’d always dreamed. He’d done what Jerry, at the time, was still only dreaming about. Steve got a job at the docks for a wealthy man and ended up being best buds with the other hired crew. He must have told Jerry about those friends; he must have heard their names a hundred times. But details of people’s lives weren’t Jerry’s specialty. Brenna Madden, Ida Graves, even Sheila’s dumb cat had all slipped his memory at some point or another. Sheila was lucky her name had been memorialized in Jerry’s boat in a fit of vengeance after she’d kicked Jerry out.
So of course Jerry didn’t remember Alejandro Matamoros and Francis Cameron. Not from Steve, anyway.
Steve worked with them for years. Then the captain tasked his crew with chartering the boat alone from North Carolina to the Bahamas. Three young, stupid men alone on a boat with no safety regulations because the wealthy thought they were above safety regulations. The accident had been chalked up to a rich man’s pride costing a poor man’s life. Tale as old as time. The rich guy had settled the lawsuit filed by Jerry’s mother. The settlement payment was more money than the Baughs had expected to see over a lifetime. Jerry inherited half, enough to pull a Steve and live somewhat comfortably at sea (although, he’d chosen the route of owning his own fishing boat instead of sailing other men’s yachts), and his mother had gambled away her half and run herself into a well-deserved grave.
Cameron and Matamoros didn’t accept a settlement. The case went to court, where the yacht-owner was ruined and the young men got away with millions to account for the danger they’d been put through and the emotional damage of losing a friend.
