Free Hell's Bay by James W. Hall

flotation device of any kind.”
    â€œShe was murdered.” Mona’s tone was grimly matter-of-fact, as if the two of them had hashed this over so often the bitterness was rung out of it.
    Rusty stared down at the tablecloth. Her face was pale. The evening meant to celebrate her maiden voyage was spinning out of control.
    Milligan pushed his chair back and stood up. Rusty rose, too. She laid her hand on my shoulder, tightened it, and dug her nails into my flesh.
    â€œIsn’t it time we were getting under way, Captain Stabler?” Milligan said. “That is, if we’re still planning on fishing tomorrow.”
    â€œShe was murdered.” Mona stood up, stared across at me for a second, then shifted her fierce gaze to Sugarman. “Murdered, goddammit.”
    â€œWhy do you think that, Mona?”
    â€œThorn, that’s enough,” Rusty said.
    â€œI don’t think it,” Mona said. “I know it.”
    â€œBased on what?”
    â€œI don’t have to justify anything to you.”
    She blasted me with a scowl and stalked toward the exit.
    John Milligan crowded up to my shoulder.
    â€œYou might as well hear it from me,” he said. “Mona thinks I was behind Mother’s death. She can’t bring herself to say the words aloud, but that’s what she believes. That I’m a killer, or that I hired one.”
    â€œDid you?”
    Milligan allowed himself a faint smile. “What do you think?”
    â€œI just met you,” I said. “But so far I wouldn’t rule it out.”
    â€œGoddammit, Thorn,” Rusty said, “back off.”
    Milligan reached out and gave me a hearty clap on the shoulder.
    â€œThat’s a good one, Thorn. You’re a ballsy son of a bitch. Must be the Milligan in you.”
    Rusty stood aside and shook her head slowly as though she wasn’t sure what she’d just witnessed. She wasn’t alone.
    On the way out of the restaurant, I caught Sugar’s eye. What he saw written in my face caused him to nod twice. In all our years of friendship, I’d never asked for Sugar’s professional help. But now, without a word passing between us, I’d just engaged him to investigate my grandmother’s death.

 
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CHAPTER SEVEN
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    The night sky was bristling with stars as I headed the Mother-ship west out the Intracoastal to the intersection with the Yacht Channel, then turned north by northwest and ran outside of Sprigger Bank, Schooner Bank, and Oxford, then past Sandy Key.
    I watched our slow progress on the GPS screen, a green arrow plowing through the quiet black sheen. From the galley just below the wheelhouse I could hear the laughter, Milligan amusing Annette, and Annette amusing back. Rusty’s coughing chuckles. She was getting a little drunk. The stress of the trip, the unforeseen tension at dinner.
    I looked out at the water. The cone of light from the over-head spot shone on the calm seas. On our starboard side a dolphin rolled, basking in the foamy wake. Then another smaller dolphin appeared beside him, two slick shiny creatures hitching a brief ride, tickling their hides in the artificial surf. The twin Mercury outboards were running smooth. Four hundred and fifty horses pushed the big barge at a cruising speed of nine knots, which would make it a ten-hour haul to our anchorage.
    It was a journey I’d made countless times, in good weather and foul, outrunning storms and sometimes overtaken and slammed. Many times I’d motored my ancient Chris-Craft up this way, cruising slowly with a variety of friends, male and female. Days of sun and rum and fresh grilled fish, swimming naked in the transparent waters. Nights lying flat on the deck watching constellations wheel across the sky, trying to absorb the magnitude of the heavens, our tiny place in it all. The ache of longing to say the unsayable. Hours touching the flesh of lovers, being touched. The rambling talk, the