Free Wreckers' Key by Christine Kling Page B

keeping me from breaking into pieces is the rage I feel at whoever killed my husband. I will find who did this to him,” she said. “I will.”

    As we walked through the boatyard parking lot, a small, mousy-looking woman climbed out of an older, dusty Toyota Corolla and walked toward us.
    “Catalina Frias?” she asked.
    “Yes, that is me,” Cat said.
    The woman had an oversize fabric shoulder bag bulging with its unseen contents, and she carried a notebook in her hand. She extended her hand and said, “My name is Theresa Banks. I write for the Key West Citizen . Could I speak to you for a minute?”
    I did my best to steer Cat away from the reporter, but she shook her arm loose from my grip. “Yes, I will speak to you. This is about Nestor, correct?”
    “Yes. My sympathies, ma’am, but I’m writing a story on the accident, and I wanted to get a little more background material on your husband.”
    “This was no accident,” she said. “Nestor was a champion windsurfer in the Dominican Republic. He was too skilled for such an accident.”
    I stepped between them. “Listen, Cat, right now Ted Berger is going to let you stay on the boat until we get you back to Lauderdale, but if you go talking to the papers like this—”
    “Mrs. Frias, if you don’t think it was an accident, what do you think happened out there?”
    I spun around to face the reporter. “Please, show a little respect. This woman just lost her husband. She is not going to talk to you today.”
    I turned back to Catalina. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
    Cat reached past my body, snagged the woman’s offered business card, and stuffed it into her handbag.
    We reached the street just as a city bus was passing in front of the yard, so we flagged it down and I tried to help Catalina aboard. She shooed my hands away and pulled herself up the steps with the handrails. I told the bus driver we were headed for the Key West police station and were looking for a good place to eat close by.
    He dropped us off at Garrison Bight Marina with directions to Captain Runaground Harvey’s Floating Restaurant. We ate without much talk, and I was trying to figure out what I could do to break through the tension when Cat asked for the check and hustled us out. She said she was in a hurry to get to the police station to see what they had discovered.
    Through the window, we told the officer behind a desk that we were there to see Detective Lassiter. He called another officer, who ushered us inside to a small waiting room with a table and about half a dozen chairs. When he came in, Lassiter didn’t seem any more comfortable in his coat and tie than he had the night before. He wore a look of perpetual irritation. Dropping the file folder onto the table, he sat down across from Catalina with a heavy sigh.
    “Ms. Frias, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
    Cat nodded her acknowledgment of the detective’s statement, but her straight-backed posture seemed to indicate she didn’t quite believe it.
    He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “The medical examiner has determined that the cause of death was an accidental drowning. The body can be released to you at any time now. By law, the hospital cannot keep the body there for longer than twenty-four hours, and we don’t have an official coroner’s morgue on the island. They are getting anxious to know what your plans are. Do you have a preference for the funeral home? Had Mr. Frias made any prior arrangements?” Catalina looked at the detective with her mouth sagging open, her eyes squinting.
    He turned to me. “Does she speak English?”
    I nodded. “Oh yeah.”
    When he turned back to face Catalina, she said very softly, “That’s it? The police are not going to do anything more than that? You call my husband’s death an accident? You wash your hands and you think that makes you clean?”
    “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Ms. Frias.”
    “Detective, my husband’s death