Baja Florida by Bob Morris Page B

eight days ago.”
    â€œSix of them on board,” Charlie said.
    Jen’s name was at the top, listed as captain/owner. It showed her date of birth—she was twenty-two—and listed her passport number.
    I found a pencil and paper in one of the desk drawers and wrote down names and pertinent information for the five other people on board: Justin Hatchitt, 28; Torrey Kealing, 25; Karen Breakell, 23; Will Moody, 22; and Pete Crumrine, 22.
    Below the list of names, Mr. Bethel had duly noted that Jen Ryser paid $300 in cash for a cruising permit good for three months, including departure tax.
    And below that was the notation: “Benelli: M4-L38777634 and M4-L38777704 (4 boxes/24 per).”
    I said, “Who’s Benelli?”
    â€œNot a who, it’s a what,” Charlie said. “Shotgun. Italian made. Kind of a chi-chi designer gun. Run about two thousand dollars each and up.”
    I looked at Charlie.
    â€œHow do you know these things?”
    He shrugged.
    â€œSome things need knowing,” he said.
    â€œSo they have one of these Benellis on board?”
    â€œTwo of them, actually.”
    â€œAnd that’s legal?”
    Charlie nodded.
    â€œIt’s OK to bring guns into the Bahamas on a boat, but you have to declare them, give the serial number, and show exactly how much ammunition you have on board. You also have to keep any weapons under lock and key at all times. If authorities board the vessel somewhere down the line, they can ask you to produce the ammunition. And if it’s not all there, then you better have a good explanation.”
    I looked at him.
    â€œYou got a gun on the plane?”
    â€œZack-o, please. If I had a gun, I would have declared it, wouldn’t I?”
    I waited.
    â€œLike I told you, some things need knowing,” he said. “And some don’t.”
    I don’t like guns. I don’t carry any guns on my boats. But I could understand why some people did, especially young women setting out on long cruises.
    I scanned other pages in the ledger, but there was nothing that jumped out or looked as if it would be helpful in leading me to Jen Ryser.
    I put the ledger back where it had been sitting on Mr. Bethel’s desk. We stepped outside.
    Charlie looked down the runway, toward a sprinkling of small islands across a channel to the east.
    â€œI’m thinking we ought to hop over to Miner Cay,” Charlie said.
    â€œSee if Cutie knows anything?”
    Charlie nodded.
    â€œCutie knows all,” he said.
    I looked around but Mr. Bethel was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t think it would hurt his feelings if we didn’t give him a formal good-bye.
    Heading for the plane, we spotted Boggy in a ditch that ran the length of the runway. It looked as if the ditch had been backhoed fairly recently, probably to help drain the runway.
    The walls of the ditch exposed layers of crumbly shell and soft limestone. The bottom of the ditch was mud soup. Boggy knelt in the mud, his knife in one hand. It’s more dagger than knife really, a short, well-honed piece of steel with a bone handle. Boggy used the knife like a pick, chopping away at the ditch walls. Then he would pluck out pieces of this and that, examine them, toss some pieces away, and put others in one of the leather pouches he always carried with him.
    â€œYo, Louis B. Leakey,” I said. “Time to go.”
    Boggy finished extracting something from the ditch wall—looked like a dark rock of some kind—and stuck it in the pouch.
    He climbed out of the ditch. His shoes and pants were covered in mud. There were splotches of mud on his shirt and splotches of mud on his face and in his hair. The overall effect was Neanderthalic.
    Charlie said, “Afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to clean that crap off before you climb into that new plane of mine.”
    Boggy looked himself over, as if he was only in that moment realizing exactly what a mess he was.
    He