Rising Fury: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 12)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “We can listen to it on the way home,” I said, tilting my bottle for the last swallow. “Is Marty coming for supper tomorrow?”

  Deputy Martin Phillips and Kim had been dating for a couple of years now. Being a deputy meant working odd shift changes and weird hours. I knew that he went up to Gainesville when he had time off, and I was pretty certain he stayed with Kim in the apartment she shared with a friend. But when she was here on the island, he always seemed to have an early shift the next day.

  “Yeah,” she replied. “If it’s okay with you.”

  I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. “Your friends are always welcome.”

  Jimmy and Al Fader slipped away from the group and joined us as Rusty leaned over the bar to talk conspiratorially. “Your shrimper ain’t the only weird incident. Al here saw something unusual and I heard about something up island a lot like what he saw.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Yesterday morning,” Al began, “we were anchoring up on New Ground and a shrimper from out of Cape Coral anchored with us.”

  “Happens a lot this time of year,” I said. “Pinks are running.”

  “Yeah, but he never wet his nets,” Al said. “Come nightfall, when the rest of us were readying to make our last trawls for the week, he pulled the hook and headed back north.”

  “Same exact thing happened two nights ago,” Rusty offered. “Up near Sprigger Bank. I called Justin Creech this morning. He owns Instigator, the boat that anchored up with the Islamorada fleet. Or he used to. Sold three of his boats a couple of months ago, Alligator, Instigator, and the boat Al saw, Eliminator.”

  “Why would they come all the way down here and not fish?” Kim asked, putting a voice to my own curiosity.

  “No idea,” Al replied. “Bob Talbot and I, along with Charlie Hofbauer and one of my crew, went over to Eliminator to tell them they weren’t welcome. One of their crew said they had no intention of fishing. I circled around their boat to see where they hailed from, and when I was downwind, it stunk to high Heaven.”

  “A smelly shrimp boat ain’t too unusual,” Jimmy said.

  “No, not the usual stink,” Al said. “I’m used to that. This was some sort of industrial smell, like a chemical plant.”

  “I smelled the same thing,” I said, still trying to place the odor in my mind. “Out on the wreck this morning. Like a solvent or something.”

  Kim’s eyes went wide. “Wreck?”

  “A shrimp boat blew up out on the Gulf this afternoon,” I said, rising from my stool. “I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

  I knew Dink would be retelling the story soon for anyone who bought him another beer. I also knew that, as with all sea stories, the retelling would become more grandiose. Kim didn’t need to hear all the gory details, especially when the details become elaborated with drink.

  We said goodbye to our friends and Jimmy followed us out. “Got a sec?” he asked once we were away from the noise.

  “Go on ahead, Kim,” I told my daughter. “See if you can round up Finn. He’s probably out back, begging for scraps.”

  After she’d walked away a bit, Jimmy turned to me with a serious expression that belied his typical laid-back demeanor. “You and Al both mentioned a strong smell. Acetone maybe?”

  “On a shrimp boat? What for?” I considered it a moment. “Yeah, might have been acetone.”

  “It’s used to make methamphetamine, man.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Doesn’t surprise me that you don’t know,” he said. “Never did it myself; it’s a synthetic drug, super addictive, and dangerous to make. There just ain’t no good reason to have acetone on a commercial fishing vessel.”

  “Dangerous how?” I asked, as I watched Kim coming back around the side of the building, Finn trotting and jumping alongside her.

  “For one thing, the fumes created when they cook meth can kill you, and some of the chemicals used are explosive. If real methylamine is used, combined with acetone on board, a fire could cause a massive blast.”

  “Like the kind of explosion Dink and I saw?”

  “Yeah, a white-hot flame, man. If they were cooking meth on a boat, they were freaking nuts. Bouncing around would be bad news.”

  “Any idea how long it takes to make?”

  Jimmy looked out over the marina. “I don’t know for sure. Like I said, I don’t mess with synthetics. Eight or ten hours? I don’t know.”

  About the same amount of time that a shrimper lays at anchor during the day, I thought. Almost instantly, my mind changed gears as Finn came trotting ahead of Kim. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I live in the now.

  “These people are dangerous,” Jimmy said. “The manufacturers only care about the money, and the tweakers only care about where they get their next fix. And both would kill to get what they want. Cuidado, hermano.” Then changing the subject as Kim approached, he added, “We need to get out for some wahoo one day.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy,” I said. “Let’s do that. You free on Wednesday?”

  “Sure am,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder as he turned.

  He went back toward the bar and I started toward the dock, Kim angling to intercept. “What did Jimmy want?”

  “Said the wahoo bite is on,” I replied. Completely true. Some things, you have to shield your kids from. “We’re going fishing Wednesday.”

  “Can we go tomorrow?”

  “Hey, Jimmy!” I yelled, catching him as he was reaching for the door. “Wanna go tomorrow?”

  “Sunrise?”

  “Make it an hour after,” I replied.

  “I’ll be here,” he said, waving, and stepping inside.

  “Wahoo!” Kim cried out, dancing in circles. “You really live the life down here.” She stepped across the forward casting deck of Dink’s skiff and loosed our bow line.

  I started the engine and untied the stern. “I’m getting used to it.”

  Cedric Harper paused before getting out of his car. He’d parked in front of a building on the outskirts of Fort Myers. The warehouse in front of him looked like a dozen other upscale commercial and industrial buildings in the area. And for the most part, it was.

  The business manufactured a line of time-release deodorizers in cans and strips meant to be placed inside the return air ducts of air conditioning systems. They shipped the scented canisters and strips all over the world. Cedric wasn’t part of that business, but he worked for the man who owned it.

  Pulling the handle, the hinges creaked as the door on the old Toyota Corolla swung out and drooped slightly. Everything about the car seemed to sag, from the headliner, to the suspension, to the driver.

  Cedric got out of the car and looked around nervously. It was dark, but the orange glow of the sodium-vapor lights mounted on the front of the building and out on the street illuminated his surroundings, casting an orange glow and creating long shadows from the trees and buildings. A tall security fence surrounded the building, save for the parking lot where his car was parked. It was the only car in the lot, but Cedric knew the building was occupied.

  Approaching the entry door, he looked up at the camera mounted above it. The thing always made him a little jumpy; the tiny red light above the lens was like some sort of unblinking creature of the night, staring coldly at him.

  He pushed the button beside the door and heard a faint buzzing sound from inside the building. After a moment, there was a click and another, quieter buzz from the locking mechanism. Cedric pulled the door open and went into the expansive lobby.

  The ceiling was a good fifteen feet above his head. During the day, the lobby was bright and airy. Potted plants flanked comfortable-looking leather chairs. A desk was centered on the far wall with a large painting of an old schooner under full sail in heavy seas hanging above it. Hallways extended at right angles from there to the many business offices.

  The chair at the receptionist’s desk was empty, as it always was when Cedric came in
. The woman who occupied it left every weekday evening at exactly five o’clock; never a minute early nor a minute late.

  Turning left, he walked down a long hallway with closed office doors on the left and a wall of framed photographs on the right. Eugene Ballinger, the owner of the business, was featured in most of pictures, usually on one of his boats, and almost always with scantily clad women surrounding him and whatever rock star or actor he was with. Ballinger had friends in high places and money to burn.

  At the end of the hall, he pushed open a steel door on the right and stepped out into the huge warehouse. A number of box trucks were parked diagonally in two lines, extending from the big rollup door at the far end of the warehouse. They were used to deliver the scented air fresheners to shippers and distributors. Machines to package the products, and pallets loaded with boxes filled the rest of the area; finished products were on one side and incoming supplies to make them were on the other.

  Turning left, Cedric made his way around several pallets stacked with boxes, wrapped in plastic, and ready to ship. He continued to the corner of the warehouse where another door stood open. A shaft of light from the doorway illuminated the concrete floor in front of him and he stepped through it into another hall, much shorter than the one he’d just come through.

  Stopping at the first door, Cedric paused and took a deep breath, before turning the knob and pushing the door open to the man’s inner sanctum.

  “What did you find out?” Ballinger asked, not looking up from the laptop screen in front of him nor wasting time on pleasantries or idle chit-chat. “Where did they go?”

  “It’s not good, Mister B,” Cedric replied as he nervously approached the man’s desk. “In fact, it’s really bad.”

  The man’s head came up and he looked over his reading glasses, his small, amber-colored eyes holding Cedric motionless, like a deer caught in the headlights of a fast-moving truck. He was slightly taller than Cedric’s five-eight and a few pounds heavier. Though in his mid-forties, he looked to be in good shape, tanned and fit, with dark blond sun-streaked hair that always looked wind-blown.

  “It blew up.”

  “What?” Ballinger shouted, pushing away from the desk. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “The boat just exploded, Mister B. It went down in the Gulf, taking everything with it. The word I got is that there weren’t any survivors.”

  “None?”

  Cedric hesitated a moment, knowing what the man was asking. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking down and shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “She was on board.”

  “Killed in the explosion?”

  Cedric was reluctant to tell his boss what he’d heard, but knew better than to lie or omit anything. “I heard from a very reliable source that she survived the blast but was killed by a shark.”

  Ballinger stared intently at the younger man. Finally, he blinked and nodded. “Thank the gods for small favors. She needed to go, anyway. What happened?”

  Cedric fidgeted, realizing that he’d never known anyone with such a cold heart. The woman had been his boss’s mistress for over a year. She was the one who convinced him of the money that could be made in his current side business. A woman of some means, she’d put a good bit of her own money into the new venture.

  “I heard that a couple of do-gooders saw it happen and went to help. They called in the cops and the Coast Guard. They told the cops that it just exploded while underway.” Cedric paused for a second. “Mister B, if they dive on it, they’re bound to find something.”

  “If?”

  “Yeah, well, it happened just before dark. The shark that killed Miss Richmond wasn’t the only one in the area. They’ll probably dive it tomorrow.”

  Ballinger thought it over for a moment. “Do you know exactly where my boat is?”

  “Well, yeah,” he replied, knowing the boat’s last position was stored on his tracking software. “But it sunk in thirty feet of water.”

  Ballinger stood up behind the desk and walked over to a window, which looked out over a retention pond. “So, we have what? Ten hours?”

  Cedric gave his boss a puzzled look. “Ten hours for what?”

  “To move it.”

  “Move a sunken boat?” Cedric asked, still puzzled.

  “The name and home port are on the stern. That’ll connect the boat to me. Not good, if they recover the equipment on board. Contact whichever boat is nearest and have them drag the wreck at least a mile from where it went down.”

  “Drag—you mean the whole boat? How?”

  “It’s a trawler, Cedric,” Ballinger said, turning to face him. “Those big things that stick up in the air with all the ropey looking stuff hanging off? Those are nets meant to drag the bottom. They can snag the wreck and drag it and any debris away. But they gotta get it done before daylight. Which boat is closest?”

  Cedric pulled his cell phone from his pocket and opened an app that displayed a map of the southwest Florida coast, the Keys, and a big chunk of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “The Alligator is twenty miles northeast, just off Cape Sable, and Eliminator is halfway home. Alligator had to work late to finish up, and will be getting underway pretty soon.”

  “How long before they can reach the wreck?”

  Cedric studied the tiny chart in his hands. “Three, maybe four hours, I guess.”

  “Call the captain on his satellite phone,” Ballinger said. “Tell him to go to the wreck and move it at least a mile away and record the position so we can recover the equipment. And be careful how you word it; the government can snoop on anything.”

  “I doubt anything will be salvageable,” Cedric said.

  “We still have to retrieve it. Lobster divers could stumble on the location and find what’s aboard.” Ballinger stepped closer. “Show me where the wreck is.”

  Cedric nervously fiddled with the device, zooming in on a spot marked with a red dot, then zooming out again to get a reference of the location.

  “It went down here,” he said, pointing at the red dot. “About three miles north of this group of deserted islands, maybe ten miles north of Big Pine Key.”

  “Those islands have names?”

  “I don’t think they have individual names,” Cedric replied. “The group is called the Content Keys.”

  When we arrived back at the house, Carl already had the big center console out. El Cazador was tied to the fixed pier, looking eager to be on the hunt. Thirty feet long with a wide beam and single inboard diesel, the Winter Yachts fishing boat made an ideal dive platform. Lots of room to move around, fixed tank racks, and plenty of seating. With its big Carolina-style bow flares and sharp entry, it made for a very comfortable and dry ride in any sea conditions.

  “We’re going diving?” Kim asked excitedly.

  “I found a deep hole about a mile off Sawyer Key,” I replied, steering the Grady into the dock space under the house. “Some kind of sinkhole opened up recently. It’s small, but deep, nearly eighty feet. You okay with that?”

  “I’ve been deeper.”

  “Yeah, but this is vertical diving,” I cautioned, maneuvering the Grady into position behind my skiff. “The sink is only about fifteen feet across at the surface, layers of limestone restrict horizontal clearance below that in a couple of places. Kinda like a vertical cave with stalactites going sideways.”

  “Marty and I have been doing some cavern diving up in Ocala, Dad. I’m good with it.”

  As we tied up to the dock, I noticed that Charlie’s boat wasn’t back yet. I’d given Carl and Charlie a slightly larger Grady-White when they came to work for me. It had been a wedding gift from my friend Deuce Livingston and had belonged to his murdered father before that. Charlie’s drinks with the girls must have gone into overtime.

  “I put six tanks aboard,” Carl said, coming through the door to the outside. Finn took advantage of the opening and bolted outside to find a tree. “You don’t plan on more than a couple of dives, right?”

&n
bsp; “Two’s good,” I said. “Charlie’s not back yet?”

  “She called and said she’s gonna spend the night with Bob and Nikki, so I don’t have a curfew.”

  “Give me five minutes to get changed,” Kim said, as she grabbed her overnight bag from the forward storage box and followed Finn.

  “I loaded a cooler with sandwiches and fruit,” Carl said. “Didn’t know if you guys ate at the Anchor or not.”

  “Thanks,” I said, as we walked out onto the fixed pier toward El Cazador. “We came straight back as soon as Kim arrived. Not sure if she ate on the way, but I can always eat.”

  Three dive bags sat on the pier next to the boat. I grabbed mine and stepped down into the cockpit, placing it next to the large fish box built into the deck. Knowing Carl, there was no need to check the lights, and I knew my own gear was in perfect order. I lifted the hatch and put my bag in, then added the other two as Carl handed them to me.

  “I’m all set,” Kim said, coming down the steps to the pier.

  “Then let’s go blow some bubbles,” I said, turning the key in the ignition switch. The big Cummins diesel roared to life, then settled into a quiet, burbling idle.

  Raising the electronics panel in the top of the console as Carl and Kim climbed aboard, I took my wallet out and retrieved the GPS numbers I’d saved when I’d found the spot in the Grady.

  We idled down my short channel and turned left into the deeper water of Harbor Channel. The sky was clear, and the moon and the stars were shining bright as I nudged the throttle up. El Cazador came up on plane easily, with plenty of throttle left, nosing its way toward deeper water, befitting its name, The Hunter.

  Carl went forward and sat in the big double seat in front of the console and Kim joined me at the helm. “Looks like the tide’s dead low.”