Free Just Add Salt (2) by Jinx Schwartz Page B

cleansing.
    By the time I ran out of soap and steam, it was getting dark.
    I closed the front window blinds, blotting out my bow and therefore the scene of the what? Crime?
    I collapsed into a back deck chair and sipped a glass of wine while watching the sun set over Alameda Island and the Estuary. A couple of sailboats ghosted by, their occupants enjoying a late day sail. Everything seemed so normal. But somewhere in Oakland, the family of Mr. Jones was preparing to bury him. According to the obit I pulled up on the computer, he’d been almost ninety, was born in Arizona and was a Shriner. Belonged to a local Lutheran church. Survived by five children, ten grandchildren, sixteen great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren. His over consumption of alcohol aside, Mr. Jones would be missed. I just hoped his family didn’t know anything about his extra baptism en route to his funeral.
    I checked the newspapers and found there was some mention of a body found in the estuary, but no details. Thank goodness for that, but you can bet your sweet rear end the yacht club was abuzz with the real story. I gave the club a miss for the evening and fell into an early and uneasy sleep.
    Several times during the night I jerked awake, thinking I heard a splash.

Chapter 8
     
     
    Jan was on her fourth cup of mocha and just concluded her seventh rejection from a boat captain when the phone rang. Not in the best of moods after being rebuffed and called nuts all morning, she snatched up the phone and growled, “Hetta’s Hell.”
    I stuck my tongue out at her and continued working on my computer until I heard her coo, “So, Captain Fabio, you are available?”
    I mouthed, “Fabio? You’ve got to be kidding.”
    Jan frowned and motioned for me to cut the crap. She listened a minute or two and gave me a thumbs-up. “Uh, can you hold a minute?” She cushioned the phone against her sweatshirt. “Hetta, I got a hot one.”
    “How did he get our number?”
    “Who cares? He’s available.”
    “Tell him to fax his credentials. Where is he?”
    “Ensenada.”
    I did a little victory dance while Jan gave Captain Fabio my fax number. When she hung up, I mixed a couple of mimosas to celebrate and while we quaffed our drinks, we reveled in how much we would relish telling the Jenkins brothers we have engaged a guy named Fabio as our boat captain. Visions of flowing blond tresses, huge pecs and a sexy, accented voice saying, “I caaan’t believe it’s not but-tah,” danced in my head. Within thirty minutes the fax arrived and the orange juice and champagne set up an acid factory in my stomach.
    Jan, reading the fax over my shoulder squawked, “He doesn’t have a green card?”
    “Nope, doesn’t look like it.”
    “Well, crap. Now what?”
    I had to think. Okay, so no green card for Captain Fabulous, as I nicknamed him, but his resume looked good. A graduate of the Mexican Naval Academy in Mazatlan, he’d worked as a captain on shrimpers and commercial fishing boats in Mexico after serving ten years in the navy. And he worked regularly for a broker in San Diego, taking yachts from Ensenada to Cabo.
    I called the broker he gave as a reference and she gave Fabio  a  glowing recommendation. In fact, she said, Captain Fabio was overqualified for ferrying yachts, but as long as he was willing, she planned to continue using him. Yippee!
    “Okay, Miz Jan, so Fabio can get us south from Ensenada, we just have to get to him. You know, you and I could do that part. Ensenada is only sixty or so miles south of San Diego. We could stop in a marina every night on the way down to San Diego and still make it in four or five days. Six, tops.”
    “If the weather is ideal and if we don’t have a single mechanical problem. Hetta, we can’t fix diesel engines.”
    “We have two. One quits, the other keeps going.”
    She looked unconvinced. “Don’t we still have to have a crew of three for your insurance company?”
    “Not until we get