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

by Wayne Stinnett

  She looked at Rusty for a moment, then sighed. “She turned eight last July.”

  “July, huh?”

  “I never told Derrick I was pregnant,” she said. “We were already legally separated, even before I came down here. And I’d already kicked him out by the time I learned I was pregnant. When he left, my dad hired a lawyer, a good one. We had a pre-nup, so he knew he wasn’t getting anything and signed the divorce papers. It included language where he gave up custody of anything he left behind. Dad gave me Sea Biscuit and told me if I stayed away from Derrick for a year, he’d do a complete refit, pulpit to transom. So I did. I moved onto the boat and went to Charleston. That’s where Flo was born.”

  “And he still has no idea?”

  Savannah looked deep into Rusty’s eyes, as if searching for something. “He hit me, Rusty. And forced himself on me. Flo doesn’t have a father.”

  Rusty wrung his hands, not wanting to ask the obvious question.

  “You’re wondering if Jesse might be Flo’s father,” she said.

  “I’m just a dumb ole Conch,” he replied, “but I can do math.”

  “I don’t know, Rusty. And I really don’t want to know.”

  “You don’t?” he asked.

  Savannah fidgeted in her seat, then looked out at Flo playing with the dog. “Derrick wasn’t daddy material. Never was and never would have been. I don’t acknowledge him as Flo’s father, nor do I need him as the father. I just don’t want to know.”

  “And Jesse?”

  Savannah looked at him, again searching his eyes. “I’d never want to put the burden of that possibility on him.”

  “There are ways you can find out.”

  “I know,” she said, sighing once more. “But I couldn’t ask him to do that. Besides, what kind of dad would he be?”

  Rusty grinned, noticing Marty’s pickup pulling into the lot and parking next to Kim’s car. That was one of the reasons he’d tried to call Jesse; to find out why Kim hadn’t left that afternoon.

  “Well,” he said, “you could ask one of his daughters.”

  “A quick bite,” Kim said, as she and Marty got out of his truck, “but I need to get back early. I don’t have any classes today, but I have a lot of studying to do before tomorrow.”

  Together, they walked into the Rusty Anchor. It was nearly empty, except for Rusty, who was sitting at a window table with a blond woman. He waved them over and stood.

  “Hey, Kim,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be back in Gainesville already?”

  “No class today, Uncle Rusty” she said. “Dad was gone most of the day yesterday, so I had Marty bring me back to my car.”

  “I’d like y’all to meet an old friend,” he said. “This is Savannah Richmond. Savannah, meet Kim McDermitt and Marty Phillips.”

  Savannah stood and shook hands with them. Kim felt some strange connection when she took the woman’s hand.

  “We were trying to get ahold of your dad,” Rusty said, waving a hand at the next table. “Have a seat. I’ll let Rufus know you’re here.”

  The two sat down, adjusting their chairs to include Savannah.

  “You’re Jesse’s daughter?” she asked. “I knew him a long time ago. I remember he’d mentioned that he had two daughters, but hadn’t seen them in a long time.”

  “It’s a long story,” Kim said, deciding she liked the woman, “but I came down here looking for him a few years ago and met him basically for the first time.”

  “So you live here with your dad?”

  “Every other weekend,” Kim replied. “I go to college up in Gainesville, but I spent nearly a year living on his island and loved it.”

  “And you’re also in college, Marty?”

  “No, ma’am,” he replied. “I’m a sheriff’s deputy right here in the Middle Keys.”

  Rusty came back in and straddled the seat he’d left. “Your burritos will be up in just a minute, Kim. Savannah here knew your dad back when he first came down here after he retired.”

  “Richmond?” Marty said, recognition showing in his eyes. “From up in South Carolina?”

  “Marty’s a deputy,” Rusty said. “He might be able to tell you more.”

  Kim caught the cautionary look Rusty gave Marty.

  “You’re investigating my sister’s death?” Savannah asked.

  “No, ma’am, not exactly. That is, it happened in international waters. We’re a small department down here, so we help out the Coast Guard when we can and vice versa.”

  “So you wouldn’t have any idea why my sister was on that boat?”

  “No, ma’am, I surely wouldn’t,” Marty replied, earnestly. “But if I did, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it while the investigation is still going on.”

  Savannah looked down at her hands for a moment. When she looked up, Kim could see the hurt. “Do you know how long the investigation might take?”

  “Could be days, or months,” he replied. “I’m guessing you’re asking about how long before the ME releases the body?”

  “Doctor Frederic said to check back with him on Wednesday.”

  “That sounds about right,” Marty said. “I meant that the whole investigation might take months.”

  A little girl followed Rufus in, who carried another platter. He smiled at Kim. “Where yuh puttin’ all dis food, Miss Kim?”

  “Your cooking is hardly fattening,” she replied, picking up one of the burritos and taking a bite. “Mmm—I don’t know how you do it.”

  The girl stood next to Savannah, who introduced her to Kim and Marty. Rufus stepped back, crossed his arms, and seemed to be admiring the girls.

  “What’re you grinning about?” Rusty asked the old man.

  “Di gods, dey like to play games sometimes,” Rufus said, his wide, gap-toothed grin giving his ebony skin a darker hue. “I just admiring something I don see very much of. Dese three girls all have di same aura; pink and purple, but with a lot of di orange of passion.”

  “You’re a mystic?” Savannah asked him.

  “Nah,” Rufus replied. “I just a cooker. But sometimes di gods whisper things to me. Most times I don know what it means they tell me.” His grin grew wider. “Yuh have come a long way, Cap’n Savannah. But yuh have arrived at di place where di mother and child should be.”

  Taking the tray, Rufus turned and went back out to the kitchen. Rusty stared after him, wondering just what he’d been getting at, if he could actually see the connection that Rusty had always thought was there.

  “Is he always like that?” Savannah asked.

  Kim wiped her mouth. “It’s hard to understand what Rufus is talking about, sometimes. You have to kinda think beyond the words.”

  “Where does your sister live?” Savannah asked.

  “Just up in Miami,” Kim replied. “She’s married, with a little boy, so she doesn’t get down here very often.”

  Savannah’s eyes went wide. “Jesse’s a grandfather?”

  “Pappy,” Kim corrected her. “That’s what Fred calls dad.”

  “Fred is your nephew?”

  “Alfredo Jesiah Maggio,” Kim replied. “Named after both his grandfathers.”

  Savannah smiled. Kim thought she had a nice smile; the little lines at the corners of her eyes told her the woman smiled a lot.

  “Jesse’s real name is Jesiah?”

  Kim laughed. “Don’t tell him I told you. My great-grandparents on Dad’s mother’s side were Jewish and my grandparents wanted to honor the ancestry of both their parents in naming Dad. His middle name’s Smedley. Guess where that came from.”

  “Hey now,” Rusty said, as Savannah covered her mouth to hide a grin. “Smedley Butler is one of the Corps’ greatest heroes and your great-grandpa served with him.”

  “I really have to run,” Kim said. “Final exams start tomorrow, and I need to study.”

  Rusty stood as Kim rose and he gave her a hug. “Yeah, God forbid you get just a regular A in one of your classes.”

  Waking sl
owly, I felt pain all over, and my ears were still ringing. By the angle of the sun through the window, I surmised that I’d slept for about eight hours. I slowly sat up in my bed, wincing from the effort and remembering the events of the day before.

  After the explosion, I’d blacked out for a moment, but managed to reach the surface with the tank sucked dry.

  I’d somehow managed to climb back aboard El Cazador, but the near brush had sapped me. I’d simply collapsed on the deck for quite a while, lucky to be alive. When I’d finally gotten to the helm, the radar showed the dive boat was a good ten miles away. I’d calculated that it’d take me an hour to catch them. And if I had, it would have been six against one. That wouldn’t have been the first time I’d gone up against high odds, though. A glance at the fuel gauge had told me I could probably catch them, but wouldn’t have had enough fuel to return. I’d kicked the tank with a bare foot out of frustration. That had only added to the pain I felt in every joint.

  As I’d started to pull the anchor, I saw another boat approaching. I’d gotten the ground tackle up quick and motored toward them and away from the wreck site. I doubted they’d believed me, but I’d told them that my engine had backfired, before I pushed the throttle down and left them behind.

  I didn’t want to come straight home; Kim would have asked too many questions. So I’d gone to the only person I knew who had any experience with concussion injuries. He wasn’t hard to find, but every ripple on the water jarred my body.

  The whole Key West shrimp fleet worked together and anchored up together just a little over an hour west of the wreck site. Bob Talbot used to be a Navy Corpsman and had served with Marines in Afghanistan. I woke Doc up and he’d checked me out. Nothing broken and no rupture to either ear drum. It was nearly dark before I’d managed to get back to the island.

  I dressed slowly, then walked out onto the deck surrounding three sides of my house. It was mid-morning. It was quiet. Finn was laying on the fixed pier in front of my house.

  “Charlie took the kids to school,” I heard Carl call out. I looked toward the island’s interior. He was on the far side of the garden, cutting suckers off the tomato plants. “She said she was going to go into town to the Kmart to get some packing crates.”

  He started up the steps. “Damn, you look awful. What happened?”

  I probably felt worse than I looked. My body felt like it had been used as a heavy bag in a boxing gym.

  “Had a run in with those shrimpers yesterday,” I replied, slowly sitting down at the table. “At least I think it was them.”

  “Are they still alive?”

  The chuckle hurt, and I winced. “Coming back from dropping Devon off, I decided to head out and see what the Coasties were doing with the wreck. When I got close enough to see, divers were working the wreck, but they weren’t Coast Guard.”

  Carl sat down, a concerned look on his face. “What’d they do? Wreck your boat?”

  “They left as I got closer, so I waited until they were a good distance away and dove down to see what they’d been up to. They planted an explosive on the boat.”

  “Were you still in the water when it blew?”

  “Right at the surface,” I replied. “I had Doc Talbot check me out. He said I was just dinged up, nothing broken, and the ringing would probably go away in a day or two.”

  “Man, you could have been killed. Why didn’t you go to the ER? I mean, I like Bob, hell he was my first mate, but he’s not a real doctor.”

  “He was a Corpsman with a Marine combat infantry unit in Afghanistan, Carl. He’s probably treated more blast injuries than every doctor in the Keys combined. I’ll take his word. And I know he won’t say anything.”

  “Which leads to my next question,” he said. “You didn’t contact the Coast Guard.”

  “That wasn’t a question.”

  “No, I guess it wasn’t. Here’s a question; why the hell not?”

  Carl rarely gets angry and I wasn’t in any mood for it. “I don’t like drug dealers in my backyard, Carl. Damned cops are more concerned about not hurting some panty-waisted drug addict’s feelings and getting them help for their disease than they are about protecting innocent people from their filth.”

  He stood up, looking out over the deck to the south. “Someone’s coming. Probably Jimmy and Angie.”

  Damn, I thought. I’d told them to come out today to get an idea of the day-to-day running of things.

  “Sorry,” I said, standing next to him. “I shouldn’t’ve lashed out at you over what happened.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’d be pissed if someone blew me up, too.”

  “Can you handle this with them?” I asked, nodding toward the buzz of Angie’s outboard to the south. “I have to go somewhere.”

  “Where?” he asked. “Never mind. I probably don’t want to know.”

  “I just have to meet an old friend,” I said.

  I went down the steps quickly. Finn came bounding up to me, as I reached the door to the dock area.

  “No, you stay here,” I told him.

  Finn cocked his head, arching his ears. He usually rode with me anywhere I went, so he was confused. I didn’t need the distraction.

  Within minutes, I had the big doors open and idling El Cazador out as Jimmy and Angie approached the channel from the south. They waited for me to come out.

  “Where ya headed?” Jimmy asked.

  “Got a last-minute charter,” I lied. “An old friend, paying top dollar. Carl’s gonna show you around.”

  I didn’t wait for a reply. Pushing the throttle halfway, I turned northeast to go around Spanish Banks to Rocky Channel. The boat skimmed across the skinny water and I turned south in the channel, accelerating to thirty knots. It would have been better to take the Grady, but El Cazador needed fuel anyway.

  Half an hour later, I was tied up to the fuel dock at Burdines Waterfront. It’s a small marina at the west entrance to Boot Key Harbor. Once I’d paid for the fuel, I moved the boat to the day dock. Above it was a restaurant on stilts, with an outdoor dining deck. I took a table at the end, where I had a good view of the harbor.

  When the waitress came out, I asked if it was too late for breakfast and she said that it wasn’t. I gave her a large order. I wasn’t all that hungry, but I knew I needed it.

  Savannah didn’t say she would definitely stop here, but I thought there was a good chance that she would. Wherever she was going from Key West, Marathon is a good jumping off point and nearly a full day in a slow trawler.

  I ate slowly while I thought it out. I didn’t go to the Coast Guard because I’d wanted to find these guys and crack their heads together myself. Going up to Fort Myers and just walking in blind wasn’t something I’d normally do, but the thought had occurred to me. I tempered that notion with reason.

  Savannah would have information. She might not know what it was, but there was a reason her sister had been on that shrimp boat. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. When she’d looked back at me yesterday in Key West, it was just like the day we’d met.

  From the vantage point of the deck, I could see a good portion of the harbor, and the approach to Sister Creek. I moved my eyes across the lines of boats tied to mooring balls in a highly regimented fashion. It looked as if every ball had a boat swinging from it. Savannah’s trawler wasn’t one of them.

  She could be in one of the other marinas, tied up in a slip, but she’d said she wanted to leave on the evening tide. My instinct told me it was because she didn’t like crowded places, so she probably planned to spend the night in a secluded anchorage near Key West. Moving at night when you don’t have to is best avoided.

  Running on the Atlantic side from there to here at trawler speed would take a good five or six hours. If she left before sunrise, she’d be here before noon.

  While I waited, I took my phone out and scrolled through my contact list. Chyrel answered almost immediately.

  “You want me to snoop the Coast Guard computers?” s
he said, instead of the usual hello.

  “Are you practicing your mind reading?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t take a mind reader, Jesse. A boat blew up near your house. It was only a matter of time before you got curious. You’re pretty see-thru about a lot of things.”

  Predictability can be a good thing. In nature, it’s a great deterrent. I don’t need a warning sign telling me that if I encounter a grizzly bear in the woods that I shouldn’t poke it with a stick. The bear’s reaction to such a provocation would be a lot like my own. Very predictable.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m calling about the Coast Guard. Can you do some searches for me?”

  “What do you wanna know?”

  I thought about it a moment. All I had was suspicion and conjecture, but if anyone could connect Savannah’s sister to the new shrimp fleet owner, it would be the ex-CIA computer analyst on the other end of my call.

  “The guy who used to own the boat, sold it recently, as well as the rest of his fleet. The guy who bought them is a man named Eugene Ballinger. The boat’s home port was Cape Coral, Florida.” I paused for just a second, envisioning Chyrel grinning on the other end. “But your curiosity about my curiosity tells me you already know all that, though.”

  “Oooh, Now I’m getting predictable.”

  “Predictability isn’t always a bad thing,” I said. “It can save time.”

  “Ballinger is squeaky clean,” she said. “He’s a successful businessman with warehouses in Fort Myers, Tampa, and Cocoa. They manufacture and market a variety of industrial, commercial, and residential air fresheners, distributed world-wide.”

  “Do you know how long ago he bought those warehouses?”

  “He’s owned all three for five to eight years.”

  “What about any warehouses or facilities that he sold recently?”

  “Sold?” she asked.

  “The three that he has are on the coasts. But none are deep-water ports for worldwide shipping. A good business man would at least want a big warehouse near his shipping hubs.”

  “I’ll check on that,” Chyrel said. I could envision her grin fading. But only slightly and not for long.