“I don’t know how you’ve managed to stay single, Juli.”
“On account of I don’t want any full-time man around,” she replied. “Once I use them up, what good are they? I’m thinking it’d take me quite a bit of using before I tossed you aside, though.”
I smiled, though she made me uncomfortable. “Doc Fredrick’s not around, is he?”
“You just missed him,” she said. “He was here less than an hour ago. Wanted to look over some dive gear again.”
“That tourist that had to go to the chamber last week?”
“Yeah,” she said. “The guy’s fine now and has only his own dumb self to blame, but he’s suing the city.”
“Doc say where he was going?”
She smiled brightly. “How important is it to you?”
My face flushed and she laughed.
“I can call him,” she offered. “Let you talk to him.”
“Would you?” I asked, hoping to get out with my dignity intact.
Juli picked up the phone and stabbed a single button on the dial pad with a very long, well-manicured claw.
“Hey, Leo, Juli here,” she said into the receiver. “I got some boat bum here in the office wants to talk to you.”
I couldn’t hear his response, as Juli just handed the phone over. I took it and half-expected to hear the medical examiner declining to talk, but there was just laughter on the other end.
“Doc, it’s Jesse McDermitt,” I said.
“Captain McDermitt!” Doc said. “I thought that was you I saw in my mirror. I just left the detention facility. What in blazes are you doing in Key West?”
“I was just dropping my girlfriend off for work,” I said, both as a reason for being here and to stack more bricks on the wall between me and Juli. “Got nothing else going on this morning, so I thought I might buy you a coffee and pick your brain a little.”
“I’m just getting onto Overseas Highway, I’ll turn around.”
“Don’t go out of your way, Doc,” I said, hoping he would. “If you’re working, we can do it another time.”
I heard tires protesting the pavement and a horn blare.
“Nonsense, my boy. I’m already turned around.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I said, and handed the receiver back to Juli. “Gotta run; he’s just a block away.”
“Next time you have some time to kill,” she said. “I know a great way to while away the hours.”
I thanked her again and hurried to the door, yanking it open and taking the stairs two at a time. Outside, Doc pulled up to the curb just as I exited the hospital, and I got in the passenger side of his antique Peugeot. To call the old French sedan an antique only alluded to its age, not its desirability. Most locals drove cars like it—throwaways, or Keys cars. The salt environment, hot temperatures, and constant slow-speed, stop-and-go traffic would destroy a new car in a very short time.
“You’re taking a risk,” he said, putting the car in first and spinning the bald right rear tire slightly. “Miss Wilkins is probably responsible for half the missing men on this island.”
“I’m glad you were close by,” I joked. But not really.
“There’s a Starbucks just around the corner,” Doc said, turning right on US-1 and accelerating through the gears. Crossing the bridge over Cow Key Channel, he slowed before making the right turn onto Roosevelt. He hit second gear before the left-hand curve and moved across the left lane into the middle turn lane, known in Key West as the suicide lane. The little car’s front air dam scraped as we bounced into the Starbucks parking lot.
“So, what’s on your mind?” Doc asked, getting out and slamming the door.
Still shaking, I climbed out of the car. “What do you know about methamphetamine?”
We walked toward the door. “It’s a stimulant,” he replied. “It’s been used successfully to treat ADHD, but having heard about your latest business endeavor, I think you’re probably asking about its illegal use.”
I held the door for the older man. “How did you hear about that?”
He smiled warmly. “There isn’t much going on in these islands that I don’t hear about.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m specifically interested in how the stuff’s made.”
Doc ordered two large black coffees, smiled, and nodded to the girl at the counter when she served them, then carried his cup to a table. I reached for my wallet, but the girl waved me off. “No charge for Doctor Fredrick and his friends.”
Sitting down across the table from him, Doc leaned in close. “Why exactly are you asking about this?”
“I’m not planning on going into the illegal drug business, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“The thought never crossed my mind,” he said. “I assume you’re working on a case through your new detective agency?”
“I haven’t brought it up at the board meeting yet,” I replied with a grin. “I’ve just noticed some weird things are going on, and I think illegal drug manufacturing might be related.”
“I see,” he responded. “Methamphetamine can be made pretty easily using common products you can buy in a hardware or automotive store, along with certain over-the-counter cold medications.”
“Something a user would make for themselves?”
“Yes, it’s become quite widespread; you can easily find the ingredients and how to make it on the internet.”
“What about something bigger?” I asked. “Like someone making it to sell in bulk?”
“The meth that users make is very impure and dangerous,” he said. “Perhaps fifty percent purity. In a homemade lab, with the right equipment, one might be able to make a slightly better product, though not much purer. I’ve heard of more elaborate lab busts that were making nearly pure methamphetamine, upwards of ninety percent.”
“How big would a lab like that have to be?”
“Most of the illegal methamphetamine used in this country comes from Mexico. Big super labs hidden in the desert or up in the mountains. Those are huge, probably thousands of square feet.”
“What about something in between?” I asked. “Not for worldwide distribution but more on a reginal scale?”
“A small storage building,” he replied. “About the size of a one-car garage, but the odor would make it necessary to put the building in a remote area.”
“Because of the acetone?”
“That, and other products. It creates a powerful odor, which law enforcement is all too familiar with. Like an overused cat litter box.”
The hold in the trawler was about the size of a small garage, I thought.
“I guess it’d need some sort of specialized equipment, huh? Any idea what it’d cost to set up something like that? A one-car garage size?”
Doc sipped at his coffee, and looked at me over the rim. “Twenty to life here in Florida.”
I chuckled. “Just want to keep my options open.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “To set up a good lab, one that could produce about three or four pounds per cycle, in a highly pure state, you’d need that kind of room. And yes, the equipment can be very hard to come by. Most of the big stuff is tightly controlled and expensive. Probably a hundred thousand dollars to do it right.”
“What’s it look like? The drug, I mean.”
Doc leaned forward. “You don’t know what crystal meth looks like, but you suspect someone is making it near your home?”
“Just things I’m hearing, Doc. Nothing I can really go to the police with. Not yet, anyway.”
Doc sat back in his chair. “It’s a multi-faceted crystalline substance, usually clear to cloudy white in color. Depending on the quantity, it can vary in size from a small rock no bigger than a pea, to an oblong crystal as large as a man’s thumb.”
Now, all I had to do was find out if Doc knew anything about the head, without raising his suspicion.
“I appreciate the intel, Doc,” I said, sitting back and casually sipping the coffee. “Any interesting cases com
e across your desk recently?”
He eyed me for a moment. I met his gaze and held it.
“You should never attempt a career as a poker player, Jesse. What is it you’d really like to know?”
“That obvious?”
He nodded. I didn’t want to implicate Marty in something he’d get in trouble for. Maybe Doc wouldn’t ask too many questions.
I leaned across the table and whispered. “Was a human head brought into the morgue?”
His eyes piqued with interest. “Just a head? No. Why do you ask?”
“A headless body, maybe? Besides the one you picked up at the wreck, I mean. Maybe a dark-skinned headless body?”
“Neither, Jesse,” he replied. “The only body parts currently in the morgue were recovered from the wreck you reported on Friday. And of course, the body of the woman. If you know something about the explosion, another body part, or anything about a meth lab, you should report it.”
This bothered me. Doc Fredrick is the chief medical examiner for all of Monroe County. He was brought in on investigations and consultations all over South Florida. If a head was ever turned in, he would have known about it.
“Just scuttlebutt I picked up. A rumor.”
“A rumor about a decapitation?”
“There are extenuating circumstances, Doc.”
He sipped his coffee as he studied my face. “I know more about you than most people around here,” he said. “For instance, your connection to the dead woman.”
There were only a handful of people in the whole world who knew about Savannah and me. “How do you know that?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Doc smiled, leaning back in his chair. “I told you—”
“Nothing happens in the Keys that you don’t hear about.”
“I trust that when there is something to report,” he said, beginning to rise, “you will do the right thing.”
“Thanks, Doc,” I said, standing. “I will.”
“Can I give you a lift back to your car at the hospital?”
“Thanks,” I said, not wanting to put the man out any further, nor ride with him again, “but I came by boat. It’s docked just across the bridge.”
We walked back outside together, and I shook his hand, thanking him, once more. As he was getting into his car, curiosity got the best of me. “Doc, can I ask you something?”
“There’s more?”
“The coffee?” I asked. “You have a regular bar tab with Starbucks or something?”
Doc Fredrick looked inside, and I followed his gaze. The young lady at the counter smiled and waved. Doc waved back.
“Her name’s Connie,” Doc said. “Sweet girl. She lives in my building. One day I heard a scream and looked outside to see a commotion at the pool. By the time I got down there, others had already pulled her lifeless son’s body from the pool. I performed CPR and resuscitated the toddler. She’s never let me pay for coffee since.”
We said goodbye and I crossed the parking lot. Crossing Roosevelt on foot can be very dangerous on a Sunday, so I pushed the button at the crosswalk and waited. If Doc didn’t know about the head, that could only mean one thing. Marty’s shift supervisor hadn’t turned it in. There were several reasons a conscientious police officer might delay that.
It was the weekend, for one thing. But would a good cop put a head in a cooler until Monday? I didn’t think so. Perhaps he simply forgot, but within a few hours, the smell would be a constant reminder. And a man doesn’t become a shift supervisor by forgetting something like a severed human head. Another possibility might be that he lost it, but a conscientious police officer would report the loss, even if it meant he’d get in trouble. Eventually, Marty was going to have to say something.
Could this Sergeant Brady have something personal against Marty? That would explain the suspension over what I would consider a minor infraction. If Marty hadn’t dug up something, maybe. But whenever one of my troops failed to obey orders and did something that was good and right, I never considered punishing them for it. Initiative is a trait that needs to be cultivated, not cut. And it needs to be taught where the line really is. The line between initiative and dereliction.
Had Marty been derelict in his duty, by watching the wreck site after the Coast Guard had left it? Had we not found the head, nobody would have known he was out there. That changed things in my opinion. No, Marty hadn’t been derelict. Why he’d chosen to go out there after being told to stay away from it by his superior, I didn’t know. But he had. And we’d found evidence of criminal activity on the boat. At least I thought we had.
Walking slowly along Roosevelt, I wondered if the Coast Guard had found anything. If Brady hadn’t turned in the head, it was likely he didn’t relay the new location to the Coasties.
Passing the Marriot, I turned left toward the bridge. The walk was only two miles, and I wanted to think. Stopping on the bridge over the channel, I looked down into the clear, fast-moving water. Sea fans waved back at me and a few dark shapes moved here and there—fish hunting for a meal.
A boat passed under, heading south toward the reefs, rod holders at the stern bristling with tackle. I nodded at the two guys in the open center console just a few feet below me, and they nodded back. After a few seconds the disturbed water from their boat’s outboard was whisked away by the current. The sea fans continued to wave, unfussed by the boat’s passing.
A young woman pushing a stroller approached, and I stepped back against the roadside guardrail to give her room. She smiled, and I continued across the bridge, turning left onto College Road.
By the time I reached the marina, I’d ticked off every possibility I could think of but two. Either Marty’s supervisor had a grudge against him and took advantage of his forgetfulness, or Brady was no good and didn’t log the head and pipe as evidence for some unknown reason.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, startling me. It was Rusty. Pushing the Accept button, I said, “Find out anything more about that shrimp boat?”
“Not exactly,” he said, “but there is a connection to something.”
Another woman, walking hand in hand with a young girl, approached from the boardwalk that went around to the slips on the north side of the marina.
“What kind of connection?” I asked.
“That Grand Banks I told you about?” Rusty said, as I stared at the approaching woman. “She left Boot Key Harbor in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, absently watching Savannah walk toward me. “Gotta go, bro.”
Savannah hadn’t yet seen me. Ending the call, I shoved the phone in my pocket. I could easily take two steps to my left and be behind some trees, out of her sight, then just turn my back and walk away. Had I not stopped on the bridge, I’d already be tossing off the lines, anyway. My feet remained planted.
Her eyes came up and she saw me standing there.
My appearance has changed some over the years. When Savannah had been here before, I still wore my hair short, almost Marine Corps regulation, and I shaved at least every other day. Now, my hair was over my ears and past my collar, and the week’s stubble on my chin was showing some gray.
The woman walking toward me hadn’t changed at all. The same blue eyes that looked like two pools of deep, clear water were looking back at me. She had the same dark tan, and though her hair was slightly longer, it was the same sun-streaked blond I remembered. Even dressed in slacks and a light-blue, long-sleeved blouse, I could tell by the way she moved that she was still as agile and fit as any professional athlete. What stood out was that she was wearing shoes. The whole time we’d spent together, she’d worn flip-flops once and was barefoot the rest of the time. On her feet now were low, sensible, open-toed shoes.
She walked straight toward me, her eyes fixed on mine. She stopped five feet away and seemed to study my face. Up close, I could see the beginnings of fine lines at the corners of her eyes. She was only a few years younger than me, but looked a lot better than many women in their twen
ties.
“You’ve aged some, Jesse.”
“And you haven’t changed a bit,” I replied.
“The new look becomes you.”
“I guess this is where I should imitate Bogey,” I said. “Talk about all the gin joints and all the towns.”
“Except you already know why I’m here.”
There was something else in those eyes. Some deep emotional scar that I couldn’t get a read on. Something other than the grief of losing her sister.
“Yes,” I said. “Word spreads in the islands. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“She went off the deep end some time ago,” Savannah said. “We tried to help her, but it was just a matter of time.”
“Who is that man, Mommy,” the little girl said, tugging Savannah’s hand.
I looked down at her, realizing she was there for the first time. She was tall for an eight-year-old, but Savannah was tall, about five-ten. The girl had darker hair than her mother. But I had a feeling that if Savannah didn’t spend so much time in the sun, her hair would be closer to that of her late sister, a rich brown. They eyes were almost exactly the same.
“This is Captain McDermitt,” Savannah told the girl. “Jesse, this is my daughter, Florence.”
I smiled at the girl and extended my hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Florence.” She took my hand, and though she was just a little girl, her grip was firm and unafraid. Another trait she shared with her mother.
“I remember you thought that tradition was kind of hokey,” I said to Savannah.
“People change,” she said. “Circumstances change. What are you doing in Key West?”
For a moment, I completely forgot why I was there. I didn’t want to tell her that I was probing around to find out why her sister was on a floating meth lab. Just looking in her eyes, I could tell she wasn’t involved.
Easy, McDermitt, I reminded myself, you’ve been fooled by a pretty face before. This same pretty face, actually.
Rising Fury: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 12) Page 11