The Complete Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Collection

by David F. Berens

  Pulling on his khaki shorts, he grabbed his hat and threw it on his head. His new Ray Ban Wayfarers – the Costas had fallen into the water a few months back – perched on his face nicely and made his grin turn more from McConaughey into Cruise… at least that’s what the girls had told him.

  He tapped his knuckles lightly on the other stateroom door. Nobody answered. Probably still hung over as hell. He decided to leave them be for a bit, maybe catch a few fish and throw back a mimosa or two… or maybe a bloody Mary. As if on cue, his head began to pound. The fridge revealed that his orange juice was out of date and empty to boot. The champagne bottle clinked around on the floor – just as empty. There were two beers sitting sideways in the fridge so he grabbed one and popped the top off.

  “It’ll have to do,” he muttered to himself and took a long gulp.

  When he began to feel slightly more human, he decided to head up on deck and see what the lobster cages had caught. Hauling them in by hand, he was pleased that they felt heavy. A good score would put a little money back in the bank for fuel and bait.

  Hand over hand he pulled the cage up and was happy to see several big guys clicking around the wire mesh. And that’s when everything stopped… or more precisely began to run in slow motion. At the center of the cage, with a lobster climbing on it, was a head… a human head. It had been chewed on for sure, but it looked like it hadn’t been there long. Dragging the cage on board, he got a better look at it and saw that there were – to his horror – two heads in the cage.

  The first was Dana’s… the second was Kimberly’s. Troy dropped the cage and bounded down the stairs to the stateroom. For reasons he didn’t understand, he knocked. He pounded. Nothing. He stepped back and put his foot up. Slamming it into the door, the jamb splintered and it sprung open. Inside the room were two beds covered in huge pools of blood.

  “Dangit.” Troy muttered. “Here we go again.”

  2

  Tuesdays And Thursdays

  Troy tried to recall how many times he’d been handcuffed, dragged from his home – or boat on some occasions – and thrown into a jail cell. Some of his days in Vegas and Louisiana were a bit hazy, but he could remember the odd instance here and there through the years. He tried desperately to shake off the blackout from last night and remember what the hell had happened, but it was hidden in margarita slush.

  He could remember most of the shrimp boil from down at the Austin Fish Company where he worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Kim and Dana had made a batch of shrimp with the wrong seasoning, so it had to be done all over again. Pounds and pounds of Cajun shrimp would be thrown out without even gettin’ cooked and the girls would foot the bill for screwing it up. Troy thought that was a crime, so he’d paid the tab, bought the shrimp, and offered the girls a meal after work if they could bring the beer. They’d laughed and giggled all the way to the Seaside Six Pack and back. Not long after that, the evening had started to glow. Troy boiled up the shrimp in the closed shop’s kitchen. Then they’d all sat underneath the scraggly palms out back at the picnic table, peeling shrimp, dippin’ ‘em into cocktail sauce, crackin’ open beers, and singin’ Bob Marley tunes until well after dark.

  And that’s pretty much where it all went black. Troy assumed he’d gone to the boat after that to sleep it off…and obviously the girls had come with him. Waking up to find the empty, blood-soaked beds would’ve been bad enough, but then to find their heads in the lobster cage. He shivered at the thought. What the hell had happened?

  The door to the cell opened and the officer who’d brought him down here cuffed him again, ushered him out. The island station wasn’t very big and Troy guessed there might’ve been four officers working including Darla at the front counter.

  “Hey, Troy,” she called and waved at him.

  “Darla,” he said as he nodded and realized his cowboy hat wasn’t on his head.

  Had they taken it from him or had he left it on the boat? He had no idea. As the officer led him down the hall toward one of the offices, he asked him about it.

  “Did I come in wearin’ a cowboy hat?”

  “Don’t remember no hat, buddy.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Troy hoped it was somewhere on the boat. Then he wondered if that was a ludicrous thought. He might never leave this jail again. The officer stopped them at the last door and knocked.

  “Y’all come on in,” a slow South-Carolinian drawl called from behind the frosted glass.

  The door read: Samuel F. DeFur in gold leaf, bold type letters. The officer opened the door, led Troy in, un-cuffed him, and directed him to sit in a chair across from a man sitting behind a slate gray steel desk. The surface of the desk was neatly organized into piles of manila folders, yellow pads, and loose sheets of paper. They were stacked meticulously. What the man didn’t have was a computer, a stapler, or a cup with various types of pens and pencils in it. He was holding a black Ticonderoga pencil in his left hand, the only writing instrument Troy could see anywhere in the office. The man’s right hand was on the yellow pad, tracing lines of notes written on it. His lips moved as he read silently. Every so often, he’d mumble something incoherent, make a small notation, and then continue on. Troy waited for what seemed like ten minutes before Sam looked up at him.

  “Well, well, well,” the detective said in Morgan Freeman’s voice. “Mista Bodean. What have we got here?”

  Troy took a deep breath. “Sir, I know what this must look like, but I didn’t have anything to do with those poor girls getting’—“

  “I see you served in Afghanistan, Mista Bodean.”

  “Sir, yes sir.” Troy felt himself inclined to answer that way, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “Army?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Admirable.”

  Troy shrugged his shoulders and said, “I suppose so, sir. I was just doin’ my duty.”

  His knee ached with the memory and he rubbed it with his hand.

  “Wounded?” Sam asked him.

  “Yes, sir. I.E.D.”

  “Ya know, I’ve heard a lotta stories ‘bout wounded soldiers comin’ back with them PTSD’s and goin’ off the rails. Maybe doin’ somethin’ grizzly, like killin’ them girls. Zat what happened here, Mista Bodean?”

  “Sir, no sir.”

  Sam was quiet for a long moment. He stared into Troy’s eyes. The man’s face was wrinkled and black in contrast with his stark white hair and eyebrows. His expression was hard as a rock. Troy felt like he was being searched down to his very soul under the man’s gaze. After a while, the detective leaned back in his chair…it didn’t creak at all. Troy imagined the man treating it regularly with WD-40 or maybe gun oil.

  Sam jerked a thumb toward the wall behind him.

  Without looking back, he asked, “You see them two girls there?”

  Troy nodded.

  “Them’s my babies.” He pulled his hand down and clasped his fingers together in front of him. “Oh, sure, one just turned seventeen and the other is almost fifteen, but they will always be daddy’s babies.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sam slid a couple of photographs out of a folder and began laying them neatly in front of Troy. He could see they were pictures of Kim and Dana’s heads lying on a stainless steel table. He gulped.

  “Forensics, as best they can tell, what with the water and all, puts the time of these girl’s murder at somewhere around midnight…give or take an hour.”

  Troy opened his mouth and then shut it. He had nothing to say about that. Hell, he couldn’t remember midnight. What if I did have some sort of PTSD? What if I’ve finally snapped? No, it didn’t sit right with him.

  “These poor girls, as you know, have had their heads whacked clean off their bodies.” Sam tapped on of the photos. “Coroner says they came off in one stroke, Mista Bodean, one quick, clean stroke. Now, I don’t know about you, but I ain’t seen that before.”

  In fact, Troy had seen a couple of beheadings in Afghanistan, but it was
always messy. Decapitation was a difficult thing to pull off at best, sometimes requiring up to ten hacks with an axe or a sword. Most times, terrorists used dull machetes. Troy shivered at the screams echoing in his head.

  “I can see the wheels turnin’ in your head, Troy,” Sam said. “I’d like to know where you were around midnight last night, but I’m pretty good at readin’ people’s thoughts. I’m bettin’ you can’t remember it at all, can you?”

  “No, sir,” Troy whispered.

  “Then let’s start with what you do remember.”

  Troy recounted the evening in as much detail as he could. From everything he could remember, it was a fun night. Lots of dancing, laughing, taking selfies, all of that.

  “Selfies?” Sam asked.

  “At least a thousand, sir.”

  Sam picked up his desk phone and punched a button.

  “Darla, do we know if anybody found a cell phone on Mista Bodean’s boat?”

  He listened for a minute, made a careful notation on his yellow pad and then laid the receiver down.

  “No phones found. Which makes sense, since their bodies were not recovered at the scene.”

  Troy slumped. He wasn’t sure what the phones might tell them, but he felt sure it would help him remember the night.

  “Now, I can’t let you outta here for now, Mista Bodean.” Sam stood and moved toward the door as he spoke. “But I want you to know that I ain’t sure this is on you. You may not know it, but we had a rash of strange things happen a few years ago that make me think this is somethin’ else. I’m gonna hold you for a bit while I do some checkin’ on these girls. Gonna see if I can find the bodies, and maybe the cell phones to go with ‘em.”

  The officer that had led him here came in and cuffed Troy again. Sam walked down the hall with them.

  “Do your best to get a little shut-eye, Mista Bodean,” Sam said as he grabbed his coat from a hook on the wall. “It might help jog your memory.”

  Troy nodded as he walked into the cell. The officer took the cuffs off and closed the door. Troy lay down on the stainless steel bench and closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep at all.

  The jangle of keys on the cell door let Troy know someone was coming in. Actually, to call it a cell was a bit of a stretch. It was more like a drunk tank, all concrete block, stainless steel, and a heavy metal door with a narrow slat of wire-embedded window. As he stood, he was pretty sure every bone in his body crackled and popped. A long night lying on the bench made him stiff as a board. Troy held his hands out to be cuffed as Officer Duffy came through the door.

  “No need for that,” he waved him off as he said it. “Chief needs to see you. Long night?”

  “Slept like a baby.” Troy resisted the urge to rub his neck. “Don’t I get some scrambled eggs and bacon or somethin’ like that?”

  “If you were staying in longer, yup.”

  He motioned Troy down the hall. “I can at least get you a cup of coffee. How do you take it?”

  “Lots of sugar, lots of cream. Thanks.”

  He nodded as Troy opened the door.

  “Have a seat, Mista Bodean.”

  Troy sat, thankful the chair was cushioned.

  “Guess you’ll be wantin’ this back?”

  DeFur slid the outback tea-stained cowboy hat across his desk. Inside was a plastic bag with Troy’s wallet, his cell phone, and the key to his boat. He slid the hat on his head and tucked the other belongings into various pockets.

  As he did this, he noticed the yellow pad, which had been about half full last night, was crowded with a page full of new notes now. Troy craned his neck, trying to see what the chief had written there.

  “Ah-yup,” Sam said noticing Troy’s gaze. “We’ve had quite a few developments in the case since I saw you last. Quite a few.”

  “Do you know who killed the girls?”

  “Not yet, but I do know one thing. It wasn’t you.”

  Troy relaxed and sat back in the chair.

  “For one thing, we found Kimberly’s phone at that old dive up on the pier,” he looked down at his pad as he spoke. “Fish…Heads. Or something like that.”

  Troy opened his mouth to say he didn’t know what that had to do with anything when a hazy memory began to come into focus in his head. Drinks with the girls, bunch of selfies, too many shots…yes, they had been there.

  “I reckon we did go there.” Troy leaned forward.

  “Then why the hell didn’t you mention that yesterday?”

  “I told you I didn’t remember it. I’ll be danged if I remember much of it now.”

  Sam studied Troy.

  “I had to go back out to visit her mama.” He took a deep breath. “She’s still hysterical over the whole deal and wants me to hang you.”

  Troy swallowed a lump in his throat.

  “Chief, I didn’t have anything to do with this, ya gotta believe me.”

  “I do believe you. But if you hold out information like this in the future, I’m gonna arrest you for obstruction, you get me?”

  Troy nodded.

  “Now, as I was sayin’,” Sam said tracing a line on his pad. “We found her phone and naturally, we scrutinized the text messages, call record, and photographs. There are a couple of fine ones of you, Mista Bodean.”

  Troy smiled and then realized the man was being sarcastic.

  “Best timeline we can put together goes somethin’ like this. You all entered Fish Heads around ten. Bartender on duty says you were pretty trashed when you came in. He served you for an hour before you passed out cold on the bar. He says the girls got tired of waitin’ for you to wake up and left you there around eleven-thirty. The last picture on Kimberly’s phone, taken at eleven-twenty-four, is a good shot of you droolin’ on a napkin.”

  Troy started to speak, but Sam interrupted him.

  “The bartender says you finally woke up around three-thirty in the mornin’ and he kicked you out. Security camera verifies this too.”

  “So, where did the girls go?”

  “We don’t know that much yet. What we do know, you might remember me sayin’, is the coroner says the girls were murdered somewhere in the neighborhood of midnight…give or take an hour.”

  “How does he know that?”

  “She,” Sam emphasized the word, “knows a lot more about such things than me or you. She says around midnight, I believe her.”

  Troy said, “Yes, sir.”

  “So, goin’ back to our timeline, I’ve got the girls leavin’ you at the bar at eleven-thirty, gettin’ their heads hacked off around midnight, and you sleepin’ like a daisy till three-thirty. At which point, you were thrown out and I presume, went home…to your boat.”

  “That is where I woke up, yes sir.”

  Sam scratched his chin, lightly stubbled with stark white scruff.

  “So, what we need to know is what happened to those girls between eleven-thirty and midnight. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “And how the heck they got on my boat.”

  Sam was quiet. He glanced down at the photographs of the girls’ severed heads.

  “Looks personal, don’t it?” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” Troy asked.

  “Somebody hated these girls enough to cut their heads off. Don’t you feel like that’s a personal crime? A crime committed by someone who really… really, hated them?”

  Troy thought about it for a second. “I don’t know about that. I saw terrorists doin’ lots worse than that to folks they didn’t even know.”

  “Mmhmm,” Sam sucked air through his teeth. “Maybe so. But I think we need to know more about what these girls did on a day-to-day basis. Who did they go to school with? Who did they work with? Where did they go on weekends? All that jazz.”

  “They worked with me, down at the Austin Fish Company. We were just finishin’ a shift when we got that bad shrimp order and boiled it up.”

  Sam picked up his Ticonderoga pencil and made a few notes. Troy realized it was much shorter now
than it was yesterday. He’d sharpened it several times.

  “Then that’s where I’ll start.”

  The chief’s intercom buzzed.

  Before he pushed the button, he said, “Mista Bodean, you are free to go. I don’t think it would be wise to leave town. If we need anything further from you, we’ll give you a call.”

  “Thank you, sir. I ain’t goin’ nowhere. This is home.”

  For now, Troy thought.

  As he walked out the door, he heard Sam click his intercom button.

  “What is it, Darla?”

  As he walked down the hall, he could hear Darla continuing her side of the conversation.

  “Yeah, the Moss woman, Kim’s mom, she’s hired a P.I.”

  On the receiver and echoing down the hall, Troy heard Sam curse.

  He shrugged and pushed the door to head out of the station.

  “Yeah, some woman named Meira Carr,” he heard her say as the door closed.

  The sunshine blasted him in the eyes and he realized he didn’t have his Ray Bans. He hoped they were still on the boat too. Squinting through the light, he saw Officer Duffy leaning against his cruiser watching him walk out.

  “Need a lift?”

  “That’d be nice.”

  “C’mon in.” He motioned to the front seat as he said it. “Where you headed? Back to your boat?”

  “Actually,” Troy rubbed the back of his neck. “I could use a beer. Is it five o’clock yet?”

  “It is somewhere.”

  Troy smiled and said, “Take me down to the Tortugas Lie.”

  “No Fish Heads eh?” he laughed.

  “Not a chance.”

  3

  Practice Your Chops

  The night before Troy woke up to the horrific scene on his boat, Barry Olsen Barron licked the razor sharp blade of his Dadao. He had worked the blade for months after he’d ordered it to ensure that the sword would slice through anything without hesitation. Sure he needed it for work, but it was so much more than that…it was his weapon in the game. It was his warrior’s sword.