There was no way we were going to get it loose without tools. Getting Marty’s attention, I shined my light on the pipe imbedded in the forward bulkhead and we swam the short distance to it. Along the way, I noticed other things that shouldn’t be in the hold of a shrimp boat. Electrical wires dangled from the overhead and there were several spots where something had been bolted to the bulkheads, but the bolts had been ripped out of the thin aluminum.
The hole in the bulkhead that the pipe was sticking out of was much bigger than the pipe itself. I figured there was something bolted to the end of the pipe that was larger. Whatever the pipe was attached to might be something we could take back and hopefully help us determine what caused the explosion. The blast was so powerful, whatever was attached to the end of the pipe had been forced through the aluminum bulkhead.
Marty took hold of the pipe and it moved easily. Slowly, he pulled on it, drawing it out of the hole.
Something dark with long threads hung off the end of the pipe, like a mop head. When I shined my light on it, Marty jumped back, an audible scream coming from his regulator.
He quickly composed himself as we stared down at the pipe, which had fallen to the bottom of the hold. Impaled on the end of it was the large object that had made the big hole in the aluminum lining of the hold; a mangled face was staring back up at us. Or it would have, if the eyes in the severed head hadn’t been pushed into the back of the skull by the pipe.
Suddenly, I heard the distinctive sound of a klaxon horn, the diver recall system I’d installed on both the Cazador and the Revenge. The underwater speakers broadcast the sound, which could be heard underwater at a great distance.
Marty dug into the cargo pocket of his shorts, pulling out a large plastic bag. Several smaller bags fell to the bottom, and I scooped them up while he worked the big bag around the head of the dead man.
A moment later, we exited the hull and swam around the stern of the trawler. I could only think of one reason Kim would activate the recall. Another boat was approaching.
We moved with the current, both of us pointing our lights upward to give Carl a visual on us. I could hear the low idle of Cazador’s engine, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I could also hear the rhythmic beating of another engine, slowly growing louder.
A light appeared above us, and the sound of Cazador’s engine died. We swam slowly upward, toward the illuminated surface, keeping our own dive lights trained on either side of it. I knew from experience that they could see our lights quite clearly.
Recovering divers in open water at night can be dangerous, but Carl and I have made many night dives and I was confident in his knowledge and ability.
We surfaced at the transom, both of us inflating our BCs and handing up our weight belts. Kim was standing on the swim platform.
“Carl,” I called out. “Come take this bag from Marty and put it in the forward fish box.”
He appeared at the transom and reached down to take the bag from Marty. “What’s in it?”
“Never mind that,” I said. “Don’t open it. Just put it in the port fish box. Why the recall?”
“That shrimp boat is coming back,” Kim said. “It’s about a mile away now and closing fast.”
Fast was a relative term. A trawler that size could probably muster ten knots, so it was still a good five minutes away. El Cazador could change that distance to two miles in that time.
Still in the water, Marty and I shrugged out of our BCs, handing them one at a time to Kim, who lifted them up to Carl. When we were finally on board, I could see the shrimp boat clearly. It wasn’t running without lights now. In fact, a large spotlight was trained in our direction, but I doubted they could make anything out just yet.
“Douse the lights,” I said, climbing over the transom. “Let’s get underway.”
Carl moved quickly to the helm and restarted the engine as Marty climbed aboard. “Go west, Carl, and angle away from them. Don’t let them get a look at the transom.”
El Cazador increased speed, climbing up on top of the water. I joined Carl at the helm, Marty and Kim taking up positions on either side of us.
The trawler began to turn after us as Carl steered a course to the west-northwest, keeping the name on the transom at an angle to the approaching boat. We had a huge advantage in both speed and maneuverability. The trawler would be lucky to maintain ten knots and Cazador doesn’t even plane until sixteen knots. I could easily triple the bigger boat’s speed.
At full throttle, running at more than thirty knots, we soon put a few miles between us and the shrimper. Checking my watch, I saw that it was after three o’clock.
“Turn toward Sawyer Key,” I said. “Make them think we bugged out into the backcountry. Close to the islands, we can get lost in the back scatter and then use Marty’s boat to block their radar, so we can get back out to it.”
“If they come inside the three-mile limit,” Marty said, “I’ll be obligated to respond, off-duty or not.”
Out of range of the boat’s spotlight and hopefully any binoculars they had on board, Carl turned due south, heading toward the marker showing the entrance to Cudjoe Channel. I kept an eye on the sonar and when we reached ten feet, I said, “Okay, turn east now, the back scatter of these islands will cover us.”
The radar screen showed Marty’s boat, floating at anchor where we’d left it. It also displayed the larger trawler, now approaching the three-mile limit. When the two echoes lined up with our position, Carl turned and kept Marty’s boat between us and the trawler.
“He’s turning,” Marty said, watching the radar.
Sure enough, the trawler had begun a slow turn to the west and then north, heading back the way it had come, just before crossing the line. We slowed as we approached Marty’s patrol boat, and Carl turned the helm over to me so he could put fenders out.
Kim joined me at the helm. “What’s in the bag that you don’t want me to see?”
“Some things are just as bad knowing as seeing,” I replied.
Once Marty was aboard the patrol boat with his gruesome find, he called it in to his dispatcher. “Y’all probably want to get out of here,” he said, untying the lines. “I violated strict orders to not do what I just did, and I’ll get into a lot of trouble if my boss finds out I involved civilians.”
Kim went to the rail and hugged Marty tightly across the gap between the boats. I started the engine and turned east toward the flashing light at Harbor Key Bank.
As we made the turn into Harbor Channel, I asked Carl, “When do you think you’ll move?”
It seemed like a lifetime ago that we’d started the conversation, but it hadn’t even been a full day yet.
“Charlie wants to take advantage of the Christmas break,” he replied, uneasily. “She doesn’t want the kids to miss any school.”
“That soon?”
“I could stay on,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you in any kind of a bind or anything.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just, well, I’m gonna miss you guys.”
Slowing for the turn into my channel, Kim rose from the front seat and joined us. “You’re moving?”
“Yeah,” Carl replied. “We don’t have any kin here, except Angie. Both our families live up in Louisiana and Mississippi.”
Punching the button on the key fob, the doors below my house started to swing open. We were tired, but I took the time to spin El Cazador around, using the bow thruster, and backed into her berth. You never know when you might need to leave in a hurry.
Finn came trotting down the steps, barking and running back and forth on the pier until we’d docked.
I took the catch bag from the forward, refrigerated fish box. “Just leave everything else,” I said. “It’s nearly four o’clock and we’re all bushed. We can clean everything up in the morning.”
The truth was, Marty’s evidence bag had leaked and there was blood and brain tissue in the aft fish box, and I didn’t want Kim to see it. Finn n
early melted down, when I opened the outside door. I rubbed his neck for a moment, while I said goodnight to Carl and Kim.
We each went to separate houses, me to my stilt house, Carl to the one he and Charlie had built, and Kim went to the western bunkhouse.
After putting the fish and lobster in the fridge, I set up the coffee maker, but didn’t set the timer. I planned to wake before sunrise, but I also planned to roll over and go back to sleep after calling Jimmy.
Stripping down, I took a quick shower, and set my alarm for two hours later. I didn’t want Jimmy to get out of bed if he didn’t need to. And the fishing trip was off for the morning.
When I woke for the second time, it was late morning. Jimmy had asked a bunch of questions when I’d called him just before sunrise. But I’d only told him that a night dive had taken a turn and we’d stayed out much longer than anticipated.
While pulling my shorts on, I had a sudden moment of clarity, as the face of the woman who’d been killed by the shark entered my mind. I remembered where I knew her from, and the realization stopped me in my tracks. We’d met briefly, about seven or eight years ago, and I’d become involved with her sister, Savannah.
Charlotte Richmond had been nothing like Savannah, except that both women were beautiful, just in different ways. Where Savannah was fair-haired and dark-tanned with deep blue eyes, Charlotte was fair-skinned with chestnut hair and dark brown eyes. They were polar opposites in temperament, too. Savannah had been adventurous and outgoing, while Charlotte seemed to need a manicurist within ten miles at all times. Nobody who met the two would ever guess they were even distantly related.
Could that have been Charlotte? I thought, continuing into the living room of my two-room house. The image of the woman’s face stuck in my mind. Older, with dyed black hair, but it was definitely her. Why would Charlotte Richmond be involved in whatever was going on aboard that shrimp boat?
Letting Finn out, I switched on the coffee maker and stood at the large, south-facing window. Staring out across the water to the narrow gap between Howe Key and the Water Keys, I thought about Savannah. I was still living aboard the Revenge at the time, tied up in a slip at Dockside.
We’d been good together, and were rarely apart. Right up until the morning I woke to find the other side of the bed empty. I’d then gone outside and found her boat was also gone. The very next day, I’d come out here. My island was nothing but overgrown mangroves, sea grape, scrub oak, and a few trees then. I’d spent the rest of that summer and fall working, clearing the underbrush and trimming back the jungle to build my house. Her leaving and the deceit had hurt deeper than I’d cared to admit.
Charlotte had left early in the summer, after Savannah had told her that she wanted to stay on in Marathon for a while. They’d come to the Keys aboard the family yacht on some kind of a vacation getaway, dodging responsibilities while their parents were abroad. Savannah had told me she’d gone through a nasty divorce, which was a lie.
The Richmond family was wealthy, the old school way. Her father was a fisherman from up in South Carolina and had retired owning a whole fleet of commercial fishing vessels, which he’d sold. Maybe that was the connection to Charlotte being on a shrimp boat.
A sound interrupted my thoughts. Far off, I heard an outboard and went out on the deck to see where it was coming from. Looking first to the island’s interior, I saw nothing to indicate that Carl or Kim were awake yet, and Finn was lying beside the door to the western bunkhouse, where Kim was probably still asleep. The sound of the boat was coming from the south.
The water in that direction was dangerously shallow, with a winding system of cuts and natural channels which drained the backcountry into Harbor Channel twice a day. None were marked, so anyone coming up from that direction would have to be good at reading the water, or already know the way.
Standing on the deck near the top of the stairs, I listened. The boat was moving slow, still half a mile away, if not more. I went back inside and poured a cup of Hacienda la Minita coffee.
Outside again, I could hear the boat accelerate. A moment later, it came into the narrow gap from behind Howe Key. I didn’t know the boat, but easily recognized the man at the wheel and the woman sitting next to him.
Hearing a creak from behind me, I turned to see Carl coming up the steps. “That sounds like Angie’s boat.”
“It is,” I replied, as Carl strode across the deck to join me. “Jimmy’s with her.”
Carl and I walked down the steps to the pier and a moment later, Jimmy turned into my channel, slowing the boat to idle speed.
Carl caught the line that his daughter tossed and tied it off. Jimmy reversed the engine, backing the eighteen-foot Dolphin flats boat snuggly up to the dock.
Angie stepped up on the pier and gave Carl a hug. “Hey, Dad. I ran into Charlie; she should be here shortly.”
“What brings y’all up this way?” Carl asked. “Not that I don’t like you visiting.”
Jimmy stepped up beside me, after tying off the stern line. “I have information you need to know, man.”
“Want some coffee?” I asked, sweeping a hand toward the stairs.
“Only if it’s the same kind Rusty has,” Jimmy replied. “I’m kinda spoiled.”
“It is. What’s this information you’re talking about?”
Carl led the way up the stairs, but Jimmy hung back. “The wreck yesterday. Word is that the woman on the boat was—”
“Charlotte Richmond,” I said finishing his sentence.
“You already know?”
I turned to follow Carl and Angie up the steps. “Carl and I almost had her aboard, when the shark took her. I only remembered where I knew her from this morning.”
Jimmy’s shoulders shuddered. “No worse way to go, dude.”
“There’s a good way?”
“I want it to be while I’m stoned to the gills on some primo weed, napping on the beach, man. Anyway, there’s more to the story than just who she was.”
I went inside and brought out a tray of mugs with the pot in the center. Angie took the tray from me, and placed it on the table, pouring three cups full.
“From what I heard, Charlotte Richmond had some kinda falling out with her folks,” Jimmy said. “About a year or so ago. She’d been playing around with different drugs and got arrested for trafficking coke.”
That couldn’t possibly be true. Charlotte was the quintessential charming Southern belle, finishing school and all. “Doesn’t sound like the woman we met way back then.”
Jimmy shrugged. “Just some things I picked up. Not sure if it’s true or just gossip.” He grinned. “I haven’t told you the best part. Her sister’s supposed to be on her way here to claim the body.”
Savannah?Coming here? I thought. She’d left, leaving little more than a note, telling me that she’d lied about being divorced. I’ve only seen her once since then. We were both called as witnesses to testify against Earl Hailey up in Miami.
Kim came up the steps, picked up the coffee pot, which only had about a cup left in it, and disappeared inside the house without saying a word. Like me, she needed that jolt to her system to be sociable.
When she came back out, she had a mug in her hand. “I put on another pot. What are you guys doing up here, Angie?”
I caught the questioning look Angie gave her father, as well as the subtle nod he returned. “We want to come and work for your dad,” Angie replied, matter-of-factly.
“You already work for me, Jimmy,” I said, sensing a conspiracy.
“Angie’s boat is nickel and diming us to death,” Jimmy said. “No matter how much money we pour into the thing, it doesn’t displace the bilge water. And renting a trailer wouldn’t leave much of what the two of us make.”
“What about the school?” I asked.
Jimmy worked part time for me as mate on charters and worked as a guide and instructor for a school I helped create, also. It was the realization of a dream my late wife had.
“Tha
t’s just a part-time gig, man. And you don’t do enough charters anymore to keep me busy enough. So I’m looking for a third job.”
“And since Carl and Charlie are moving, you think I need help out here?”
“You do,” Carl said. “You won’t last a month out here by yourself.”
My mind was still on Savannah, which it shouldn’t have been. Devon and I have been together for several months, and aside from her odd schedule as a detective with the Sheriff’s Office, we had a pretty good relationship going.
Bringing my mind back into focus, I considered what Jimmy said. He was a hardworking man, of that I had no doubt. And he was as reliable as the day is long. Both are qualities that are difficult to find. And Carl was right; I’d go nuts out here completely alone. My nearest neighbor was Mac Travis and Mel Woodson. They lived on an island several miles away and Mac was probably more reclusive than me. Many weeks ago, I’d dropped him in the middle of the ocean from my plane, with nothing but a pair of pliers and two screwdrivers to salvage a derelict Cuban refugee boat. He’d promised to stop by and fill me in, but as far as I can tell, he and Mel haven’t left his island.
Devon wasn’t real crazy about boats or islands, though she lived and worked on one. So it wasn’t likely she’d move out here any time in the near future. The work on the aquaculture system would certainly suffer. Not that I needed the income, but a lot of restaurants relied on us.
“You’re hired,” I said. “Again.”
How he’d work around my hard and fast rule against pot, I didn’t know. But I trusted him to do it and he knew it applied here as well as on the boat. So there was no need to bring it up.
Rising Fury: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 12) Page 7