“It’s an island. Doesn’t count. That’s the mainland.”
She smiled again. “You really love it here, don’t you? You seem more relaxed and at ease than any time since I met you.”
“Yeah, this is one of my favorite places in the whole world. My parents brought me here when I was a kid and later, my grandparents brought me many times. Later still, I came here by myself or with friends. I grew up just a hundred miles north of here and spent a lot of weekends down here in my teen years.”
We passed the first small creek that goes back into the interior of the island. It’s an interesting creek, better left to kayaks even at high tide. Twisting and turning, it runs for more than five miles, but eventually gets to the lake. We turned into the larger second creek a hundred yards past it. Just a little further east is a manmade canal that allows larger boats access to the lake, but bypasses the lagoon. By larger, I mean flats skiffs, or maybe a small center console.
The current in the narrow creek was reversed by the flooding tide, bringing clean seawater into the lagoon. It was so clear, you could make out the details of the sandy bottom four feet below us. We drifted silently upstream with it, twenty feet apart, paddling only to adjust course. This was the Florida I remembered as a youth, wild and natural. No cars or roads, no planes overhead, nothing but time to enjoy the things you could see and hear and the company you were with. I was eager to see if this canoe trip would have the same effect on Kim and Linda as it did on me all those years ago.
Kim rode silently in Rusty’s canoe, sitting tall on the front bench, looking all around and watching the bottom glide by. They were ahead of us as we rounded a bend in the creek and I heard her sharp intake of breath. Rusty slowly and quietly back paddled the canoe until we caught up. Rounding the bend and coming alongside, Linda had the same reaction.
The predominant color on Cape Sable is green, with many variations from bright to dark, set against the white sand that covers all the dry land and a smattering of brown and tan bark. There before us, wading in the shallows of the lagoon, was a large flock of flamingos, nearly a hundred of them. The sudden appearance of the vibrant pink and red birds foraging in the yellow-and-cream-colored shallow water was startling against the customary green background.
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Kim sighed.
Linda turned toward me, her face full of wonder, smiling. “You knew this would be here?” she barely whispered. I nodded and she mouthed, Thank you.
We drifted silently on, slowing as the current decreased in the broad expanse of the lagoon, making no sound to intrude on the birds feeding in the shallows. If they hadn’t been here, we could have fished along the edge of the lagoon for the elusive sea trout. Instead, we floated slowly past the flock, drifting toward the short creek mouth that would pass us on through to Lake Ingraham.
Once in the much larger lake, we separated by a few hundred feet and fished the mangrove-covered banks. Kim was first to catch a trout, using the same rod and reel I’d received as a kid only a few hundred yards from this very spot and what seemed like a lifetime ago. I’d given it to her on Christmas just a few weeks earlier.
We drifted and fished the morning away, talking little and enjoying the warm sun, light breeze, and beautiful scenery. Again there wasn’t a cloud to be seen except way to the east, over the heart of the Everglades. I pulled off my work shirt and felt the sun warming my arms and shoulders through my light tee shirt.
Well before noon, we’d all caught our limit of four fish, keeping them in two coolers we’d brought just for that purpose, filled with seawater from the lake. Sixteen trout would make for a great dinner back at the island tonight.
As we were getting ready to take advantage of the outgoing tide, I heard Pescador bark once. A moment later, I could just make out the high-pitched whine of an outboard engine getting closer. We were on the north side of the lake, away from the narrow isthmus that is Cape Sable. Beyond that was our camp and Florida Bay. Standing up in the canoe, I could just see the wings of the plane over the far dune.
“We better paddle across and check it out,” Rusty said.
The pitch of the outboard increased as we started across the lake to the far shore. Pescador started barking more when suddenly the sound of the engine raced and then died completely. The fool had run aground, which meant it probably wasn’t a skiff. I paddled harder as Pescador continued barking even more nervously.
We made it to knee-deep water and I jumped from the canoe, splashing ashore as fast as I could, distancing myself from the canoes. By the time I made it to shore, Pescador’s barking was mixed with viscous snarls. He was pissed. I ran headlong into the tangle of sawgrass, young mangroves, casuarinas and sea grapes, crashing through them with reckless abandon. Somehow I sensed that this wasn’t good.
When I got to the top of the dune, I heard the first gunshot. I quickly pulled my Sig 9mm from the holster in the back of my pants. The center console was aground fifty feet beyond my plane, and two black men were wading toward it. Pescador was in the water, swimming toward them and still barking. One of the men took aim at him and fired again, missing by ten feet. I was two hundred feet away, well beyond anything remotely considered accurate range for a handgun. I stopped, planted my feet and aimed. I squeezed off two quick shots, then ran down the slope toward our camp.
The two shots were both wide. I knew I didn’t have a chance of hitting anything from that range. I just wanted these guys to know they were in for a gun battle if they decided to continue. I called Pescador off and he turned immediately and started swimming toward me. The two men had reached my plane at the same time that I reached our camp and sprinted past our tents to the water. Two more shots rang out and kicked up twin geysers to my left.
The men had made it to my plane and one had climbed up on the starboard float, but the door was locked. I started walking toward them, gun raised and aiming at the guy still in the water. Suddenly Kim was at my left side, her own Sig Sauer P229 raised and taking aim. Hers is a smaller version of my P226, but the same caliber.
“What are you doing here?” I said. “Get back up to the camp and take cover!”
“He’s my dog, too,” was her only response. I was only seventy feet from them now. Still a long distance for a handgun.
“Drop your weapons!” I shouted, stepping between Kim and the two men by my plane.
The guy in the water took aim and fired again. I started quickly forward, firing with each footfall in the shallow water. I hit him high in the shoulder with my third shot, barely noticing that Kim was also firing. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a splinter of gelcoat fly off their boat. Good girl, I thought, keep firing at their boat. The man I shot spun and nearly went down. His friend jumped down from the pontoon and grabbed him as they both splashed their way back toward their boat. I changed my aim and joined Kim in firing at their boat, a steady barrage that hit I know hit it quite a few times. Maybe we damaged it, no way to tell. The two men struggled on through the water and a moment later one man helped his injured friend into it and began pushing on the bow, trying to get it into deeper water. Finally, it broke free and the injured man started the engine. He helped pull his buddy aboard and reversed the engine, throwing too much throttle to it.
Hit a rock, I thought, or a shallow spot, or a log, anything.
Willing it to happen was unsuccessful and the boat was soon in water deep enough to put the engine in forward and turn away from us, just as Linda and then Rusty came splashing up beside us, guns also drawn. The guy hit the throttle too hard, and the prop churned up the sandy bottom as the stern sank lower. It didn’t stop them and they were soon up on plane, rocketing away to the south, heading out into Florida Bay.
I turned and took Kim in my arms for a second, then held her out at arm’s length. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“What the hell were you thinking? You could have been killed!”
I could see the sting in her eyes. “My
bad, bro,” Rusty interjected. “She jumped out before I could stop her.”
“She’s not your responsibility!” I shouted. Then it dawned on me. She’s my responsibility. My first instinct was to advance toward the sound of trouble. It’s what I was trained to do. What I should have done was protect my kid.
“What did they want?” Kim asked.
Rusty looked from me to Kim and said, “To rob the plane or maybe even steal it.” Turning and still breathing hard, he trudged back toward camp.
“Don’t ever do anything like that again!” I said to Kim.
“None of us were in range, Dad. And I can outshoot a couple of thugs.”
I hugged her to me, again realizing that it was my actions that had put her in danger. “All it takes is one lucky shot. I’m just glad you’re alright.”
“They’re turning!” Linda shouted.
I looked where she was pointing and saw that the boat had turned and was heading straight for East Cape Sable.
The men in the boat reached East Cape before we could reach the plane and untie the anchor lines from the pontoons. A couple of minutes later, we heard a single gunshot as we were climbing aboard. I skipped the preflight, and a few precious minutes later we were skimming the glassy surface as Rusty called the Coast Guard on the emergency channel. I could see the boat’s wake as it headed due south, away from the Tolivers’ camp. A part of me wanted to give chase, but we had to stop and check on the Tolivers. The flight lasted only a few minutes and I brought the Hopper down smoothly on the water, then turned toward shore.
“Coasties are putting a bird up out of Boca Chica,” Rusty shouted. “They’ll be here in thirty minutes. They said to stay put.”
I came in a little too fast and was still at planing speed when I felt the port pontoon skip off the bottom. As I quickly cut the throttle to idle, the plane jerked to the left and the other pontoon grounded.
Great, I thought, run aground in shallow water with an outgoing tide.
I climbed out of the pilot’s seat and splashed into the water, yelling back over my shoulder, “Stay in the plane, Kim!”
Linda was already halfway to the Tolivers’ camp as I splashed through the water behind her. She had her own handgun out, held straight out with both hands as she moved toward the camp. She came up short at the water’s edge and I was beside her a moment later. Gene Toliver lay face down in the sand fifty feet beyond their camp, a pool of brown sand around his head.
Chapter Six
Linda had grabbed a blanket from the Tolivers’ tent and covered Gene’s body after first checking his pulse. Both were futile gestures. She told us to be careful and not disturb the crime scene. Rusty took Kim down the beach, away from the carnage, but she’d already seen him lying there in a pool of his own blood.
I followed Linda’s lead. After covering the body, we walked wide around the camp back to the water, following the shoreline until we found the footprints coming out of the water. From there, it was easy to see what had happened.
There were two sets of tracks that came out of the water, where the two shooters had probably beached their boat. Following the tracks, Linda pointed out where they went from a walk to a dead run around the curve of the cape.
Passing the Tolivers’ tent, she pointed again. “There’s where Gene and Nancy tried to make a run for it. Running inland might have been a better idea. Maybe he was trying to get to the creek.”
It was obvious the Tolivers had run from their camp as the two men approached. Knowing there was strength in numbers and we would be coming back out on the tide, maybe they were trying to get to us, not knowing it was me doing most of the shooting. Having heard the gunshots and being unarmed themselves, it was hide or seek help. Gene chose wrong.
“If they’d bolted into the brush, they might have been able to hide long enough for us to get here.”
Linda looked at me for a moment. “It happens most of the time,” she said. “Victims in a panic rarely make good choices.”
Same with trained Marines, I thought.
We arrived to where Gene’s body lay about halfway between their camp and the first creek. We kept to the water, reading the tracks. I was good at following tracks. In the Corps it wasn’t “what is the quarry doing and thinking?” as much as “where is he?”
Linda pointed to a patch of sand just past the body that was churned up with many prints. “This is where they split up. Gene stopped to face his attackers. Nancy realized it and stopped as well. He must have told her to keep running and hide in the mangroves around the creek mouth, before walking toward the shooters.”
Where he took his stand was where his body was lying. Even I could tell that they’d forced him to his knees and shot him in the back of the head, while barely breaking stride.
Following Nancy was easy for them. Hers were the only tracks in the sand. They found her in the first, narrow creek mouth. The tracks returned closer to the waterline, occasionally washed away by the small waves.
“Here, they were dragging her,” Linda said as we followed the footprints back toward the camp. “One on either side. She struggled to get free right there.”
Linda stepped closer to the tracks, where only two sets continued back to the boat, one much deeper than the other.
“She got free for a second,” I said, pointing to where a scuffle had occurred. “One of the men probably knocked her out and carried her. See how one set of tracks is deeper?”
Linda nodded and looked all around at the southern horizon.
Nancy was gone.
We heard the heavy whump-whump of an approaching helicopter and looked southwest. The unmistakable orange and white markings identified the Sikorsky MH-60 Jayhawk as being a Coast Guard bird.
The chopper landed on the beach, just to the north of the Tolivers’ camp and two men jumped out. Both were armed. Linda approached them, holding up her badge to identify herself as an FDLE Agent, and explained what had happened. There was nothing they could do for Gene. The two Coasties stayed with us, asking more questions as the chopper lifted off and headed south, looking for the boat.
Within an hour, more choppers had joined in the search and two small boats had arrived, one a launch from a Coast Guard Cutter lying offshore and another from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. Rusty knew one of the sheriff’s investigators and went over everything that had happened with him. The investigator said the sheriff’s office also had a chopper in the air and they were doing everything they could to find the missing woman.
They found her another hour later. She was floating in Florida Bay near Sand Key, ten miles southeast of Cape Sable. She was wearing only a tee shirt, a hole in the back of her head.
After making the plane secure and setting the big Danforth up near the beach, we walked back to our camp. The next high tide wouldn’t be until an hour before sunset and there was no chance of getting the Hopper off the bottom until the tide floated her.
We portaged the canoes across from the lake and began taking down the camp, loading everything into them. It took a while, but we found the four smaller Danforths we’d anchored the plane with yesterday. We’d untied them from the plane in a hurry to get to the Tolivers’ camp.
What the two men did made no sense at all. I know I shot one of them and he was injured. The smart thing would have been to get far away as fast as possible. Why had they taken the time to kill Gene, then kidnap and rape his wife, before killing her?
We were in knee-deep water, pulling the canoes toward the plane two miles away. Rusty and Kim following along behind us. I’d so wanted this trip to be special for Kim. A trip full of the wonder and beauty that is south Florida. Instead, it turned into something a teenager might experience in Miami, or Chicago.
“It’s not logical,” Linda said, as if reading my mind. “They should have hightailed it right back to where they came from.” Then thinking out loud, she muttered “Why stop and kill the Tolivers?”
“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied as w
e trudged along, doing the stingray shuffle. “It’s almost like they were targeted for some reason.”
“I’ll dig into his background when I get back to my office. Remember, he said he was a pilot, too. Whoever those men were, they might have thought your plane was his.”
Except they escaped southeast, I thought. Instead of saying that, I said, “If they came hunting the Tolivers, they probably would have started in the Tampa area.”
Linda looked over at me, her face conveying the serious cop look. Still beautiful in the late afternoon sun, but with a totally different purpose now. She came to the same conclusion I did.
“You’re right. They went south. I’ll check into his business dealings anyway. Maybe he has something going on in Miami.”
When we got to the plane, I asked Linda to go up and check with the investigators to see if they’d learned anything else and the three of us started loading the plane. Linda returned as we were strapping the last canoe in place on the struts.
“They found a shell casing,” she said. “A forty-five ACP, with one good print on it. The lead investigator thinks it was a retribution murder, but now I’m just not buying it.”
“What’s your cop instinct tell you?” Rusty asked.
She looked back up to where the body still lay, covered with the blanket. “It’s a statement.”
Then she turned to me. “They said we can take off any time we want.”
I checked my watch. It was still an hour before high tide. I leaned against the starboard pontoon and tried to shove it with my knee. It didn’t budge. “We’re here for another hour.”
We walked up the beach a little way so Gene’s body was out of Kim’s sight. She’d been quiet since we landed, hardly saying anything. I blamed myself. I’d have gladly given up the plane and everything in it, if I could only turn back time to spare her the trauma she’d experienced seeing him lying on the beach like that.
Fallen King: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 6) Page 6