Fallen King: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 6)

by Wayne Stinnett

I nodded and she continued, “I am Margaret, from Trinidad.”

  She said it as though it was meant to explain something more, but I’m sure I’d never met her before. Her smile never wavered.

  “I feel a sense of honor and order in yer presence,” she said. “It comforts me.” Then, her smile fading somewhat, she continued, “I know dat dis boat has come in search of someone. But, you are both di seeker and di sought?”

  I looked at Bender, who’d already untied the stern line and come to stand beside me, holding the boat against the dock with the line.

  “I’m Jesse, from Marathon.”

  Her eyes sparkled at the reply and her smile widened again. Her eyes never left mine and in them I saw a quiet honesty, a life spent helping others. Visions seemed to dance into and out of my consciousness, like memories.

  “Di mon you seek is not here, but will be soon. Di woman you seek is here now.”

  An island mystic, I thought. Most would dismiss these people as frauds and con artists, but I’d been around the islands some and had seen a lot that couldn’t be explained rationally.

  “I’m not looking for a woman,” I responded.

  “Ya are, ya just don know it yet, mon. Move with caution, Jesse from Marathon. Der is danger here for you. Di woman is a dark one. Not on di outside like me, but dark on di inside. She di one dat will control di mon you seek.”

  “A dark woman?”

  “Light on di outside, but a dark heart on di inside. Ya turned yer back on her once and her heart is darker for you now because a dat. Do not make dat mistake again.” Then she turned and started toward the back of the warehouse. “Have a good day, Mistah Jesse and Mistah Po-lease-mon.” The cackling laughter followed her around the corner of the building.

  I dropped into the cockpit and started the engines as Bender untied the bow line and shoved the boat away from the dock before stepping aboard.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Bender asked as we turned out of the canal into the river. An island freighter about a hundred feet long was just ahead of us, its big diesel chugging and belching gray smoke. “And what made her think I’m a cop?”

  “No idea about the first,” I replied. “A fortune-teller of some kind, I’d guess. As to her knowing you’re a cop? You are a cop. You look like a cop, you act like a cop, and you talk like a cop. Nothing mystical about that deduction.”

  “Don’t tell me you believe in that shit.”

  I turned and looked at him. “I’ve seen a lot more unbelievable things than that, Bender.”

  It took twenty minutes to reach Biscayne Bay, due to the small freighter’s very slow speed. I had to shift to neutral and drift, then idle forward for a minute before doing it again, as we slowly followed the freighter downstream. While we drifted along, Bender asked questions about living in the Keys and daily life on the island.

  Since he probably knew anyway, I told him about the inheritance I’d received from Pap after he died. He’d worked hard all his life, building his own architectural firm. On weekends, he worked equally hard, building boats and selling them. Being his only heir, I inherited everything.

  Mam passed away in her sleep a few years before I retired from the Corps and Pap had her cremated. I was overseas at the time, and he waited until I could get home to spread her ashes on the Peace River. He died not long after that and I added his ashes to hers.

  A little more than a year later, I retired from the Corps after twenty years of service. With the inheritance and having saved a good bit during my years in the Corps, I could have pretty much done anything I wanted. With no family to speak of and no plans, I ended up in Marathon, where I wound up buying and living on a boat, then buying my island.

  Though I’m sure he already knew these things, he nodded appropriately as I told him. Passing under the Metrorail Bridge, Bender said under his breath, “Don’t be obvious, but check the pier at two o’clock.”

  I rose up in the seat slightly, looking over the port bow at the water, as if checking for obstacles, and then did the same to starboard with my head, but my eyes scoured the docks and piers on that side, shielded behind dark wraparound sunglasses.

  Three dark-skinned young black men stood by the seawall in a mostly vacant parking lot. All three wore variations of the same gang-style clothes, sagging pants or shorts and caps turned crooked, and one had on a tee shirt emblazoned with the Zoe Pound logo in bright yellow, red, green, and blue. The parking lot they occupied was where the river widens slightly before curving to the left.

  “Got ’em,” I said. “See any guns?”

  “No, but they’re armed.”

  “Don’t get jumpy,” I said. “Liberty City is their turf, several blocks north of here. They’re in Little Havana and won’t start anything if they know what’s good for them.”

  I took the engines out of gear and drifted in the wake of the freighter as it slowed to make the last two turns before the river’s waters flowed into Biscayne Bay.

  We both dropped any pretense of watching covertly and stood up, looking directly at the three young men. I engaged the engines and we slowly idled past the parking lot, looking straight at them all the way. They stared straight back at us as well. Only when we’d put the stern toward them did one of the thugs say something to his cohorts, and all three turned around and left the seawall.

  We cleared the mouth of the river a few minutes later, with the freighter chugging due east in Fisherman’s Channel, toward Government Cut and the open Atlantic. I turned south and brought the boat up on plane, heading to the fuel dock at Rickenbacker Marina.

  While I was fueling up, Bender paced the dock. Finally, he stopped and said, “Scouting us out, or making a statement?”

  “I’m starting to lean a little more in favor of your hunch,” I said. “We got a bite while the boat sat there at the dock.”

  “Maybe that voodoo lady tipped them?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, climbing up to the dock. I went over to the Dockmaster and handed him my bank card for the fuel.

  Back at the boat, I started the engines as Bender untied the lines. Minutes later, we passed under the bridge at the north end of Key Biscayne into open water. I turned south and kept the speed down to sixty knots with the quartering sea.

  “Let’s assume for a minute,” Bender began, “that what Zoe Pound is doing in the backcountry really is connected to Beech in some way other than drawing you out of hiding.”

  “I’m not in hiding,” I said. I just don’t like hanging around people I don’t know and have no need to impress, I thought.

  “Intentional or not, you’d be difficult to find on any given day, but let’s put that aside. What possible connection could there be between a group of Haitians springing Beech from Gitmo and a Haitian gang in Miami blowing up reefs?”

  I thought about it as we bounced over the wave tops off Elliot Key, following the long, sweeping curve of islands, bays, and sandbars to the southwest.

  Beech was a loan shark, primarily. He ran a few drugs on the sides, some gambling and prostitution, and he also owned a junkyard for some reason. Nothing Deuce had dug up about the man pointed to any environmental concern, and when it comes to the environment, that’s not real high on any kind of gang’s agenda.

  “The lack of either having an environmental connection seems like the only connection.”

  “Exactly,” Bender said. “So the activity can’t possibly be about a bunch of inner city gangbangers suddenly turning tree hugger.”

  “I pretty much ruled that out from the start,” I chortled.

  “The activity, but not the motivation. If there isn’t a connection to you, then how could the gang and Beech be connected?”

  “I can’t think of any,” I said.

  “Then that only leaves two things. It’s just a coincidence or they are, in fact, trying to lure you out.”

  I’ve never subscribed to the idea of a series of coincidental random events being the causation of something. A butterfly flappin
g its wings on the Ivory Coast doesn’t create a hurricane that destroys a city in Texas. In my mind, coincidence is ruled out. He’s right, I thought. Zoe Pound wants to find me. But why?

  “An outside influence,” I finally said. “A wild card that we don’t know anything about.”

  We glanced at each other and Bender said, “Now you’re starting to think like a cop. Somebody pulling strings to make both happen? How many enemies do you have?”

  “We’d both have to retire and sit in a couple of rockers for the rest of our lives to cover that. But the vast majority of them never knew my name and are thousands of miles away.”

  He laughed. “Why don’t I find that hard to believe? What about the recent past?”

  “Not so long a list,” I replied. “Since I left the Corps, I’ve tried to lead a normal, quiet life.”

  “Until your wife was killed. What about before that?”

  I turned slightly south to avoid a fishing boat trawling the deeper waters. “A few dust-ups, mostly slight altercations in bars, nothing important.” Nothing that would have a gang of Miami thugs come looking for me, I thought.

  Off northern Key Largo, I pushed the throttles forward, increasing speed to eighty-five knots now that we had a more following sea. I wanted to get back to the island and my mind was already plotting the fastest route.

  A few minutes later, I turned toward the western tip of Long Key and the low bridge over Channel Two. We had plenty of clearance, but I slowed as we neared it anyway. Fishermen used the old bridge, which was closed to vehicles, and divers dove the pilings.

  Once clear of the bridge, I pushed the throttles to the stops and roared across the placid waters of Florida Bay at over ninety knots, with a twenty-foot-high rooster tail trailing behind us. The shortcut across Florida Bay cut half an hour, and running flat out cut another half hour.

  Less than two hours after fueling up in Miami, we idled into the channel toward my house. I was relieved to see Pescador laying on the pier and breathed a sigh of relief when he stood up, stretched his forelegs and began wagging his big tail. Everything was just as I’d left it.

  “You were worried,” Bender said as I backed the boat up to the center dock, next to the Revenge. “If my hunch is right, it’s warranted.”

  “I’m still not a hundred percent on that,” I said. “But barring another plausible explanation, that’s the way I’m going to play it.”

  Later, as Kim and I sat on the north pier with Pescador, watching the sun set once again over a perfectly clear horizon, I explained Bender’s theory to her.

  “Want me to call Eve and see if Nick knows anything about this gang?” she asked.

  “No,” I replied a bit too quickly. “I mean, I doubt he’d know anything that Deuce wouldn’t be able to dig up.”

  “You’re probably right. Can I ask you something?” I nodded and she continued. “Why do you do it?”

  “Why do I do what?”

  “Going back to when you first joined the Marines. Then after that, getting involved in other people’s fights against bad people. It’s caused you so much pain. Why do you do it?”

  I thought about that a moment. Taking on the bullies of the world ever since I was little, I’d never questioned myself as to why. In grade school, I’d stepped between the playground bullies and whoever they were picking on.

  As a Marine, I found it natural to fight against those who did harm to others. Since leaving the Corps almost eight years ago, I’d tried to maintain my privacy here on my little piece of paradise, but there was always some schoolyard bully that needed to have his chain yanked. Though it had cost me a lot, personally, I knew I was good at yanking chains.

  “Ever hear of an Irishman named Edmund Burke?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard the name before.”

  “You’re Irish, lass,” I said in my best brogue accent. “You should learn more about your clan. He was a politician in old Britain before and during the Revolutionary War. I don’t remember much about him, can’t recall what his position in government was, but he was for peace above everything else. Not peace by force or capitulation, but true peace where all people lived in harmony. I remember that much from a lesson in grade school. Knowing that true peace was only possible in a world full of good people, he said something along the lines of the only thing needed for evil to win is for good men to do nothing.”

  “But why you?”

  “What? You don’t think I’m a good man?”

  “No, not that. Why does it have to be a certain good man?”

  “Not sure if I can answer that, kiddo. When a man sees evil things being done to good people he has two choices. Intercede or ignore. Ignoring evil only makes evil stronger. I guess it just goes against my nature to see good people get walked over.”

  We watched as the sun slipped its bond with the sky and sank into the shallows beyond Raccoon Key, leaving Neptune to watch over its retreat.

  Chapter Twelve

  Waking the next morning, my first thought was that in just three days, I’d be meeting my grandson for the first time. And my oldest daughter. And her husband, who had once tried to have me killed. Not directly, but the men he sent would have done it without a second thought.

  Late last summer, Doc and his wife found a clue to a long-buried treasure and we decided to try to locate it. What we didn’t know was that the agent who represented Florida in an earlier and much smaller treasure find, a guy named Chase Conner, had planted a bug on my boat during the sale of some gold bars to the Florida Historical Society. Conner wanted the new treasure find, but didn’t know where to look. He brought in some muscle in the form of a Croatian mobster who was represented by my son-in-law’s father’s law firm. The father and son attorneys, Alfredo and Nick Maggio, sent four people, two men and two women, to try to take the treasure from us. One of the two women was Linda, working undercover. Their plans failed and Deuce’s boss showed the two attorneys the error of their ways, in deference to the younger Maggio being married to my daughter. A few weeks after it happened, I asked Stockwell why he went out on a limb like that. He shrugged it off with a comment about maybe one day needing a legal asset.

  Neither Kim nor Eve knew about any of this and I preferred it stay that way. But how will I deal with someone who wanted me dead being here on my island? I wondered.

  Pouring a cup of coffee and heading toward the door, I heard a muffled boom to the east. I dashed out the door, leaving the mug on the counter in the galley. Racing around the deck toward the south side of the house, I heard heavy footfalls on the rear steps. I stopped and looked back as Bender bounded up the last few steps, gun drawn.

  “It came from the east,” I said and continued around the front of the house, to the east end of the deck. The same trees that blocked the view of the house partially blocked the view of Harbor Channel angling away to the northeast. It did nothing to stop the sound of the voices and the outboard motor. They were close. Too close.

  “Where are they?” Bender whispered.

  “Out near the end of Harbor Channel. We can catch them, if you’re game.” I started back to the door to get my Sig.

  “No,” Bender said forcefully. “A defensive perimeter only.”

  I stopped in my tracks and turned around, furious. “Defense? Are you outta your fucking mind?”

  “You have innocent people here!”

  Kim, I thought, calming and thinking rationally in an instant. “You’re right, Bender. What the hell was I thinking?”

  “You weren’t. You were reacting.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We need more firepower than that Beretta and my Sig.”

  As we rounded the corner of the house, Kim was coming up the steps, with Carl not far behind.

  “Kim, get in the house,” I ordered. “Carl, go get Charlie and the kids and join her.”

  Carl raced back down the steps and Kim joined me at the front steps leading down to the dock area. “What’s going on, Dad?”

  “Get inside. My S
ig’s on the nightstand by my bed. Bad people are close.”

  “You’re not going to—”

  “No,” I interrupted her. “We’re going to go down where we can see them better and just watch. With luck, they won’t come up the channel and see the house.”

  “And if they do?”

  “We’ll heed Mister Burke’s advice,” I replied. “But only as a last resort.”

  With that, Bender and I went down the steps and I leaped aboard the Revenge, making my way forward, with Bender right behind me.

  “You any good with a rifle?” I asked him.

  “Better with a pistol, but okay.”

  I punched in the code on the digital lock below the end of the bunk in my stateroom and it raised up with a hiss from the hydraulic arms. I grabbed two long fly rod cases and lowered the bunk back down. Stepping around the bunk, I opened the small dresser beside it and took out Pap’s old Colt 1911, checked the magazine and racked the slide, chambering the first of eight .45 caliber rounds.

  Flipping open the first case, I took out one of my M-40 sniper rifles and inserted a fully loaded magazine. Handing it to Bender, I said, “The scope’s zeroed at two hundred yards. At that distance, a man’s body will fill it.” I opened the second case and slapped a loaded magazine in its twin and said, “Head through the mangroves beside the vegetable tanks. There’s a trail that leads to a dead palm tree near the water that you can use for cover. I’ll be at the south side of the house, down by the turning basin.”

  We met Kim and Carl and his family at the top of the steps. I handed Pap’s Colt to Carl and said, “There’s only one way into the bedroom. Defend your family if you have to.”

  Carl took the gun and pulled the slide back a little, ensuring that a round was already chambered. He did this with practiced ease, but I’d never known him to carry a gun.

  “Be careful, Dad,” Kim said.

  “Open the window above the headboard. You won’t be able to see much from there, but you can hear and the deck doesn’t go around to that side.”

  When they were inside and the door was locked, Bender and I went down the rear steps and split up. I worked my way through the tangled undergrowth along the east side of the house, my bedroom window directly above and Pescador at my heels. Reaching the water, we slogged as quietly as possible through the shallows at the edge of the small turning basin toward a spit that stuck out into the water just east of it.