The Mystery Megapack

Mr. Dalton, and grab the line before we list too far to starboard.”
    For a split second everyone seemed frozen in place.
    Kate watched in mounting horror, sensing the scene had been choreographed and she wasn’t one of the players. Ship of Fools. Hadn’t they all died? No … maybe that was The Flying Dutchman.
    The wind whipped up, bringing bigger waves, tossing the double-ender around in the rough sea. In typical Florida fashion, the weather suddenly had changed and they were in the middle of a wicked storm.
    The captain turned the wheel hard to the right. Bob Dalton rose to his feet and reached for, but missed, the jib’s line. The rain came, hammering the boat, and Marlene was flung across the deck. Crawling, Kate snatched the line, lowering the sail. Thank God they hadn’t raised the main.
    Out of nowhere, Connie Dalton charged forward, swinging a winch handle. A shot rang out. Though the handle had been aimed at Clive—had Connie gone crazy?—in the shifting, strong win, it slammed into Juan Martinez’s temple and he slid to the deck. Marlene, back on her feet, grabbed Martinez’s gun, then screamed as Clive Weber went overboard.
    Only then did Kate think it odd that none of them were wearing life jackets.
    “Go radio the Coast Guard, Connie,” Kate shouted over the wind. “Tell them we have a man overboard.”
    Captain Mike, struggling with the wheel, said, “The radio’s broken, Mrs. Kennedy.”
    “Use your cell phone, Marlene.”
    “I doubt Ms. Friedman will get through. We’re several miles out and the weather’s bad.” For a captain in danger of losing control of his boat, he sounded almost smug.
    What the hell was going on here?
    Marlene fumbled in her massive beach bag for the phone, finally finding it, only to realize the captain had been right. Not even a dial tone.
    “Damn.” She handed the gun to Kate, threw the phone on the deck seat, kicked off her shoes, and jumped over the starboard rail into the turbulent sea.
    Marlene’s ad-lib heroism gave the plot a new twist.
    Kate aimed the gun at Bob and Connie. If this entire voyage had been staged, they were part of the act.
    Juan sprawled on the deck, holding his bloody head.
    “Down the hatch.” Kate always wanted to use those words in some other context than trying to convince a toddler to eat. “You, too, Juan, get up.”
    The Daltons and a shaky Juan climbed down the ladder and she locked the cabin.
    Know your characters, Kate thought. The authors of this charade hadn’t been aware that Kate had practiced on the firing range with Charlie Kennedy for years. Nor had they known Marlene was a champion swimmer. Or that her big heart wouldn’t allow even slime like Clive Weber to drown without making an effort to save him.
    A few minutes passed in silence as the captain fought to keep the Shady Lady stable. An exhausted Marlene heaved herself over the railing. No Clive.
    With the gun to his head, and fighting the rough sea, Captain Mike steered the Shady Lady back to Palmetto Beach.
    “Look, dead ahead. There’s the lighthouse,” Marlene shouted. They entered the inlet, the rain stopped, the wind abated, and Kate reached the Coast Guard.
    * * * *
    “Even when you two aren’t playing Miss Marple, trouble just leaps into your laps, doesn’t it?” Palmetto Beach Homicide Detective Nick Carbone frowned.
    Carbone, less than a friend, yet more than a colleague in crime solving, and Kate had investigated (though he called her contribution “snooping”) a murder case a few months ago and formed a grudging respect for each other.
    Exactly twenty-four hours after Kate and Marlene had disembarked from the Shady Lady , they were sipping chocolate ice cream sods in Dinah’s, maybe the last coffee shop in America that allowed small, well-behaved pets to accompany their mistresses. Ballou sat happily at Detective Carbone’s feet. Humph. Nick must be sneaking the Westie whipped cream.
    “So, Detective, are you going to give us the scoop or what?” Marlene sipped her soda. “After all, we brought the bad guys in.”
    “Indeed you did.” Carbone looked over at Kate. “According to Mike Hastings—that’s the captain—the Shady Lady moonlighted several nights a month as a transport ship, smuggling Cubans into the United States. But Clive Weber got greedy, using the Lady to bring in drugs from Bimini. The captain, suspicious about the amount of fuel used when the boat supposedly was in port, spied on Clive. Then, together with