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

by Wayne Stinnett

  She quickly turned into an empty spot in the general parking area, close to the ER and watched Brady. He stopped outside the door and lit a cigarette. This struck Devon as odd. If he was concerned enough to come to check on Marty’s condition, why would he stop for a smoke break. It was another tick in her check this guy out column.

  Devon reached into a bag on the passenger-side floor and took out a pair of binoculars. She focused on Brady standing by the door. She wasn’t worried that he’d see her, it was growing dark quickly, and the sunset was behind her car. He casually stood beside a column, smoking.

  Through the glass windows behind Brady, she could see several people she recognized. She scanned the lobby and found Jesse. He was sitting on a couch, talking to his oldest daughter, Eve, and Rusty’s daughter, Julie. The Richmond woman was sitting on one side of him and her daughter on the other. The girl was busy writing or drawing something. Devon couldn’t help but think that they looked like a family.

  Jesse started to rise, but the woman took his hand and held him in place, as Brady walked through the door. The woman put a hand on his bare knee, leaning close to his ear and saying something. The touch of her hand seemed to steady Jesse slightly.

  As she watched, Brady went straight over to where Ben was standing and the two began talking. Jesse rose and walked toward the two men. Ben stepped back slightly as he approached. The look on Jesse’s face was one of murderous rage; he looked like he was barely holding it together.

  Devon watched anxiously as the three men exchanged words. The rising fury that Jesse was barely holding in check was clearly evident in his body language. She was worried that Jesse might do something rash.

  Jesse’s friends moved and formed a semi-circle around him, as if anticipating trouble. The Richmond woman came alongside Jesse, holding onto his arm and pulling her daughter close in front of them, as if their presence might calm him. She seemed to have some influence over Jesse. Devon watched, somewhat detached, realizing that this woman, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, held more sway over him than she did. She somehow felt certain that the child was his.

  Ben motioned toward the door and Jesse slowly followed him outside. Brady watched them leave, and then he turned and disappeared down a corridor she knew led to the main entrance of the hospital.

  A moment later, Jesse’s friends, Deuce and Chyrel, came outside. The four of them talked for a minute, Chyrel reading something from a small tablet computer.

  Turning the binoculars toward the hospital’s main entrance, Devon watched for a moment. Just as she was about to move the glasses back to Jesse and Ben, Brady came out of the building. He moved in the direction of his car quickly, looking toward the corner of the building that shielded the ER entrance.

  Devon dropped down low in her seat, as Brady drove past her. She waited until he reached the exit, then started her car and backed out. Brady turned north on the highway and she followed him, staying back far enough to not be obvious, allowing two cars to get between them on the four-lane highway.

  Brady kept going north on US-1, passing Key Colony Beach where she knew he lived. It was at his house that Devon had met Beverly Saint, the admin clerk at the substation on Ramrod. Brady had still been married then, but Devon could see the writing on the wall with them and knew they were headed for a breakup.

  Continuing north, she followed Brady as he passed the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key and started out onto the series of longer bridges to Long Key. On one of the bridges, Brady crossed the center line slightly, over corrected, and nearly scraped the retaining wall. Devon doubted he’d been drinking since he just came off duty. Probably texting or making a phone call.

  Traffic thinned out and Devon had to lay back even more, so Brady wouldn’t think he was being followed. Long Key fell behind them, and Devon became worried that he might be running. With only one road into the Keys and one road out, getting a head start when things go south was probably the prudent thing to do, if one was so inclined. She checked her gas gauge, pleased to see that she had more than half a tank. Eventually, she’d have to call it in to Ben and let him make the decision to bring in more deputies to make a traffic stop.

  She thought about Jesse as she drove. She thought about the Richmond woman and her child. Her eyes misted, and a lump caught in her throat. Devon knew that Jesse wasn’t the right man for her; too wild and adventurous. And she wasn’t right for him, either. The whole island and boat thing just wasn’t for her. She knew he’d never be happy living in Key West, or any other town for that matter. He loved his solitary lifestyle, sharing it with only a select few people. A single tear streaked down her cheek.

  Finally, the brake lights on Brady’s car came on and he turned into a strip mall on the ocean side of Islamorada. Devon slowed as she approached the entrance, noticing that most of the stores were closed and there were only ten or fifteen cars in the lot.

  Turning left on a side street on the bay side of the highway, Devon parked on the side of the road and quickly doused her headlights. She grabbed the binos from the passenger seat, got out, and trotted back to the intersection, staying close to the foliage bordering the entrance to the subdivision.

  Watching through the binoculars, she saw Brady approach the door to one of the stores. The door opened, and a man came out. He was young, about twenty-five or thirty, average height and slight build, with shoulder-length brown hair and a scruffy growth on his chin.

  The two men didn’t shake hands, but both lit cigarettes and smoked as they talked. Devon wished she could get close enough to hear. A moment later, a burgundy Cadillac CTS turned in off the road and parked next to Brady’s Crown Victoria.

  Digging her phone from her back pocket, Devon opened the camera app and zoomed in on the men across the street. The lighting wasn’t very good and even zoomed in all the way, their faces weren’t very distinguishable, but she snapped several dozen pictures as the three men talked for a minute before going inside.

  Devon went back to her car and drove a few houses down before turning into a driveway and backing out again. She pulled the car close under a large gumbo limbo tree and waited. She thumbed through the pictures, enlarging each one, and either deleting it because it didn’t show the other two men’s faces well enough, or saving it if it did.

  When she had it down to five pictures that seemed decent enough to maybe get an ID from, she attached them to an email and sent them to the forensics lab and to Ben. She’d give him a few minutes, then call him to report what she’d seen.

  Returning to the ER lobby, we continued to wait. Ben Phillips had been back with Marty for nearly half an hour, along with Kim, when Ben finally came out.

  “The doctor said my boy’s gonna be fine,” Ben said to Morgan. “You find out who did this, you give me ten minutes alone with him.”

  “You know I can’t, Mister Phillips,” Morgan said. “No matter how much I’d like to do just that.”

  “They’re moving him to a room,” Ben said to me. “Kim’s going with him.” Then he turned to Morgan again. “The doctor also said you can talk to him again once they get him settled. Room forty-nine.”

  “How’s he feeling?” Morgan said, genuinely concerned.

  “Said it hurts like all hell,” Ben replied, “but they got him on meds and put blood back into him. He said he was hungry, and that’s a good sign. I was gonna go to Dion’s for some chicken. The doc said if it wasn’t fried it’d be okay.”

  I knew how Ben was feeling. When someone you care for is hurt or injured, you want to be doing something, anything, to help them.

  After Ben left, Deuce and Julie walked over. Julie was going to go get food for everyone. I asked Morgan if he’d like anything and he started to reach for his wallet.

  “I got it, Detective,” Deuce said.

  Morgan put his wallet back and pulled his phone out. I could hear it vibrating in his hand. He tapped the screen several times, then looked up at me and Deuce.

  “A text from Devon,” Morga
n said. “She followed Brady when he left here. He’s in Islamorada, talking to two men. Recognize either of these guys?”

  He turned the phone, so we could see it. The picture was grainy and not well lit. The man was looking at a slight angle away from the camera. He appeared to be mid-forties or so, fit, with dark blond hair.

  “Never seen him before,” I lied.

  Deuce’s eyes flitted up to mine for a moment, but he followed my lead. “Me neither.”

  “How about this guy?” Morgan asked, swiping the image aside, replacing it with another.

  The second man was the guy I’d seen on the fly bridge of the dive boat out on the wreck site. No doubt about it.

  “Haven’t seen him before, either,” I said.

  The security door whisked open and Doctor Trumble came out into the lobby. “Detective Morgan,” she said. “You and Mister Phillips can go up now.”

  “His dad went to get some food,” Deuce said. “Would it be all right if Detective Morgan and I visit Marty for a moment? I’ll leave as soon as his dad gets back.”

  “Sure, the more friends the better,” the doctor said, with a smile. “But no more than three at a time.”

  “Give us a second?” Deuce asked Morgan, taking my arm and leading me away.

  “That was Ballinger in the picture,” Deuce said in a low voice. “The guy you said bought the shrimp boats.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “The younger guy was on a dive boat I saw diving the wreck this morning.”

  “The storefront in the pictures where they were talking?” Deuce said. “It’s four doors down from our office. What do you want to do?”

  “Are Paul and Tom near Islamorada?” I asked.

  Deuce nodded. “Tom just texted me that he would be leaving the office in a few minutes. Paul’s already on his way here.”

  “Find out from Morgan where Devon is and maybe Tom can help her out somehow. I’m going to go up to Fort Myers aboard the Revenge. I want to know more about these floating meth labs. Can you see that Savannah gets back to the Anchor?”

  “I’ll take them,” Rusty said, walking toward us. “If the boy’s out of the woods, I got a business to run. You be careful, bro.”

  Rusty followed me to where Savannah was talking in whispers with Eve and Nick. Florence lay beside her with her head on Savannah’s lap, asleep.

  “Marty’s gonna be fine,” I said. “I have to run an errand, Savannah. Is it okay if Rusty gives you a lift back to your boat?”

  She agreed, and I gave her and Eve a hug, then turned to leave. Billie caught me at the exterior door, following me outside. “I’m going with you,” he said.

  “Going where?”

  “Steve won’t be flying back until morning. You’re going to Fort Myers tonight. Thought I might ride along.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to Fort Myers?” I asked as Billie fell in beside me. We turned toward the parking lot next to the hospital.

  “Because that’s where Eliminator and Alligator are.”

  Billie had a knack for understanding more than he hears. That or he was just clairvoyant. As a kid, he was always telling me how the spirits of his dead Seminole and Calusa ancestors talked to him. I decided it was a waste of time to try to figure out how he knew about the meth labs.

  Stopping, I looked Billie in the eye. “It might be dangerous.”

  “Living is dangerous, Kemosabe. It’s the dying part that’s easy.”

  Though it was late, the moon was bright, and we made it to the island in just thirty minutes. Billy and I didn’t exchange more than a few words the whole way. I knew what I was about to do, and Billy has known me long enough to know it, too.

  It wasn’t long after meeting Savannah for the first time that I’d made a similar run up to Fort Myers. Billy and I had gone up into Okaloacoochee Slough, near where he and I grew up. We’d hunted and fished the area many times, but this time we’d been hunting a man. We knew that area well from our childhood. We’d found Earl Hailey, deep in the swamp, and disarmed him. A woman whom he’d been holding captive had grabbed Hailey’s gun and shot him. She’d kept pulling the trigger until the gun was empty. Billy saw to it that the woman made it home safely, and I disposed of Earl’s body and belongings, making sure his campsite looked like nobody had been there. Billy didn’t need to be cautioned on what we were about to do.

  Arriving at my island, we wasted little time. I swung both doors open as we approached, and backed El Cazador in quickly. While Billy tied her up, I climbed up to the fly bridge on the Revenge and started the engines.

  The side door opened, and Carl entered the boathouse. “I’m not even gonna ask where you’re going at this hour.”

  I looked down at him. He was wearing only his shorts, obviously roused from sleep by our approach. I climbed down to the cockpit to join him. “I wouldn’t tell you if you did.”

  “Be careful,” he said, and turned away, leaving through the side door.

  “You need to get anything?” Billy asked, standing at the bow line.

  “No, everything we’ll need is aboard. Go ahead and cast off.”

  I climbed back up to the bridge while Billy loosed the lines from the cleats. He stepped aboard and quickly coiled the lines, as I nudged the big boat out from under my house. When we were clear, I pushed the button on the key fob to close the doors.

  Billy climbed up to join me and sat in the second seat, studying the array of electronics. “You have a plan?”

  “Not really,” I replied, feeling the phone in my pocket vibrate. I looked at the screen. It was a text message from Deuce. I’d lose the signal soon after leaving the island. “Do me a favor,” I said to Billy. “Go down to my cabin. There’s a satellite phone in the charger on the port bookshelf. Grab it for me?”

  He went down the ladder, and I turned Gaspar’s Revenge into Harbor Channel and slowly pushed the throttles about halfway. Once up on the step and with the bow pointed toward the light on Harbor Key Bank, I opened and read the message from Deuce.

  I don’t know what you hope to find up there, but good luck. Marty positively identified the younger man in the pictures Ben showed him as the guy who shot him. Morgan is trying to get a warrant.

  I typed a quick response, telling him I was turning off the cellphone and would be on the sat-phone. I also told him to send the pictures if he could get them from Morgan and anything else he finds out to the sat-phone. After sending the message, I powered the unit off and dropped it into a drink holder.

  When Billy returned to the bridge, I turned on the sat-phone. We cleared the bank and found the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I pushed the throttles up to not-quite-full speed, adjusting to maintain forty knots, then set the autopilot. The GPS showed three hours to Sanibel Causeway.

  The water was flat calm, and visibility was excellent. The only light on the bridge was the red overhead light, to retain our night vision. It provided enough light to make out the helm and instruments with their backlights off. I adjusted course to go a little further to the west to avoid all the lobster trap floats between Marathon and Cape Sable.

  A soft chirp from the sat-phone alerted me to a message. I opened the app and saw the same pictures Morgan had shown us earlier.

  I handed the phone to Billy. “Recognize either of these guys?”

  Billy flipped through the pictures, then flipped back. “The older guy is Gene Ballinger. Flies in high circles, actors, sports figures, even politicians.”

  “Recently, he bought some shrimp boats and converted them to meth labs,” I said. “At least that’s the way it looks. There’s a dirty cop involved, too. That’s how Marty got shot, because he found evidence of the drug making equipment. Know anything else about Ballinger?”

  “Not really,” Billy replied. “Send me those pictures and I’ll ask around.”

  “You won’t get a signal out here.”

  “What?” Billy said, grinning, and pulling a phone from his pocket. “You think only whites have satellite phones
?”

  “You do it,” I said, and handed him my phone. “The younger guy works for Ballinger, I think. He was diving the wreck of one of the floating meth labs this morning. And he’s the one who shot Marty.”

  Billy worked with my phone for a few seconds, then handed it back. “I’ll send his picture to a few people I know. How sure are you that Ballinger’s making meth? He’s got a pretty good rep in the business community.”

  “After that younger guy left the wreck, I dove it myself. They’d removed some things from the hold. Equipment that was bolted to the interior bulkheads. I found half a pound of meth in a watertight package.”

  “And this guy just let you dive the wreck?”

  “They had a scuttling charge planted on it,” I replied. “I found it and dragged it off the boat before it detonated. They thought I was killed in the blast.”

  “Dammit, boy!” Billy exclaimed. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  “A few times over,” I said. “Ballinger’s dirty. I don’t care what kind of reputation he has in the business world. In my world, he’s a turd fondler and needs to face justice or be put down.”

  My phone chirped. Another text from Deuce.

  Tom is with Devon. No warrant yet. Me, Tony, and Andrew are riding with Morgan to Islamorada.

  Devon continued to watch Brady and the two men inside the store. They seemed to be having a disagreement, and the older man was doing most of the talking. The parking lot and sidewalk in front of the store were well lit.

  Suddenly, a shadow moved next to her car and a man was at her window, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

  “Detective Evans, I’m a friend of Jesse’s.”

  Her hand was going for her sidearm, before his words registered.

  “Easy, Detective,” the bald, black man said, stepping back and raising both hands. “My name’s Tom Broderick. Jesse and I served together in the Marines, and now I work for him and Deuce.”

  The man had his face turned slightly, as if watching the store across the highway.