“I see,” I said. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Amy placed her hands on her belly. “I still have a part of him, and always will. Were you an officer?”
“No,” I replied. “I retired as a Gunnery Sergeant, E-7.”
She asked more pointed questions about my service, trying to get a feel for my morality, I guess. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision and stood up. “Wait here a second.”
She left and walked toward the trailer, so I got up and wandered around the house, admiring the construction. The whole structure was extremely well built; many would probably say it was over-built. But knowing that Dan had been an engineer, I didn’t expect to see short-cut construction methods or materials. My grandfather raised me, and Pap was an architect, so I know good work when I see it.
Amy returned carrying something in her hand. When she sat down again, she placed a folded handkerchief on the table and unwrapped it. In the middle was a green stone the size of my thumbnail.
“It’s an emerald,” she said, sliding the handkerchief across the table.
I picked up the stone and turned it in my fingers. Light danced through the crystal, as I held it up. “Looks very valuable.”
“I found it after Wilson skipped out on me.”
“Who’s Wilson?”
“He arrived here about a month ago, several weeks after the funeral. He said he’d served with Dan and just got out. He wanted to help me finish the house. Said he owed it to Dan.”
“Then he just up and left?”
“In a hurry,” she replied. “He left his duffel bag and hadn’t collected the last week’s pay I promised him. He’d been sort of camping out here in the house, sleeping in a hammock, and working from dawn to dusk. He seemed nice, though he didn’t really accomplish a whole lot of work. Still, there were some things I needed help with.”
“After he left is when you found the emerald?”
Amy stood up. “Follow me.”
We walked through a wide opening in the back, which I assumed would be either French doors or a sliding glass door once it was finished. It opened onto a large deck, with steps down both ends and a wide set of steps down from the center. The backyard was lush with new sod, and quite large. A stand of coconut palms, trimmed neatly up to eight feet or so, took up most of one corner. A nice shady spot to watch a little boy playing in the yard.
I noticed one of the concrete pillars at the bottom of the center steps was damaged. It was shorter than its counterpart on the other side, and several broken pieces of block lay around it.
“Last weekend,” Amy said, “I went up to Vero Beach to visit with Dan’s sister and take her a few things of his that I thought she’d like to have.” She pointed at the shorter pillar. “When I got back, I found that post destroyed and Wilson gone.”
I went down the steps to the broken pillar and looked at it. The opposite one was built two feet square and about four feet tall, with a large capstone on top. The shorter one had the capstone laying in two pieces and what looked like the top course of blocks broken away. The second course looked like it had been hollowed out; the inside parts of the four blocks that made up the course weren’t broken like the others. They had been cut away with a concrete saw, creating a hollow big enough for a basketball.
“I found the emerald inside there,” Amy said.
Finn sniffed around at the broken blocks and kept coming back to sniff the larger half of the capstone. Then he sat down in front of it.
I lifted the hunk of concrete and turned it over. On the edge was a dark brown smudge, which I recognized. “There’s blood on this piece.”
“Not surprised,” Amy said. “Wilson was accident prone.”
I placed the stone back on the ground and Finn stood and sniffed it again, wagging his tail.
“Can you remember that?” I asked him.
Finn started sniffing around, moving out into the yard and around to the side of the house away from the trailer, his nose to the ground. I tailed him and Amy came down the steps and followed me.
On the side of the house, Finn stopped about twenty feet from the wall, moving back and forth and sniffing around at the ground. Then he sat down again, his big tail brushing the sand on either side.
“What was here?” I asked Amy.
“Your dog has a good nose. That’s where Wilson parked his car. In the shade of the house.”
We went back around to the backyard and I looked down into the top of the broken pillar. I could just make out some sort of rectangular indentation in the mortar of the next course down. The two lower courses appeared to be poured solid; the indentation in the mortar looked like something had been placed inside, while the mortar was still slightly wet.
“Pretty big hiding place for a single stone.”
“Which is why I think there were a lot more,” she said. “In a box.”
“How long ago were these built?”
“Dan built them when he came home on leave from Ecuador, four months ago. I went up to Miami to visit my little brother, and when I got home there they were. They weren’t on the plans, and Dan said he just decided to add them.”
“I see,” I said, squatting beside the remnants of the post and looking at the broken blocks. It was obvious they’d been removed without finesse, smashed with a sledgehammer. Rising, I stepped over to the other post and slapped my palm on the capstone. It sounded solid. “Got a hammer?”
Amy disappeared inside and returned a moment later with a big framing hammer.
I took it and tapped lightly on the capstone, so as not to leave a mark. “This one’s poured solid.”
“Everything is,” she said. “Dan sunk two dozen well points around the perimeter before digging the footers, and pumped water out for two days before pouring. Concrete extends four feet below grade, poured on top of ancient limestone and coral. Every course was poured solid, with half-inch steel reinforcement rods all the way up to the rafters.”
“Hurricane proof,” I said, looking at the broken post again.
“Wind- and wave-proof at least.”
I nodded. “Nothing stops a tidal surge.”
“We’re higher than the record storm surge of thirty-five, and the first floor is the garage and Dan’s man-cave.”
“Obviously, your husband hid something of value inside this post. Just from what I’ve seen, he wasn’t the kind of man to cut the corners off blocks, just to save a buck. And if it were just the single stone, the cavity is overkill.”
“It was more than just the one emerald,” Amy said. “Whatever was in there, Wilson Carmichael took.”
“Was anything else missing when you returned?”
“Nothing at all,” she replied. “And like I said, he left behind everything he’d arrived here with, plus a week’s pay.”
“And you have no idea where he went?”
“If I did, Mister McDermitt, I’d have gone and got back what rightfully belongs to my boy.”
I looked up at her. She stood on the porch, feet firmly planted, hands on her hips. She was a little taller than most women, probably close to five-nine. It looked like she was nearly full term, and probably weighed over one-seventy. The extra weight of the baby didn’t seem to slow her in any way. I imagine she was every bit as tough as she sounded, and the look on her face was one of total resolve. Someone had taken something from this woman. How her husband came across it and why he hid it in the post didn’t matter to her. Right or wrong, her husband was dead and she had a son to raise.
I mounted the steps and stood in front of her on the porch, studying her face. “What did your husband do in the Army?”
She turned and went back inside the house. I followed her and we sat at the table again. I noticed a note pad with two columns of numbers scrawled across the top page. There were notes next to each number in the second column—a materials list. The other column had no notes, but the sum at the bottom was less than the sum of the materials list. An income list? If so, Amy Huggins was s
inking all she had into the house and wouldn’t have enough to finish.
“Dan was an engineer,” she said. “He was in South America to survey several possible locations for a new Army base.”
“The US doesn’t have any bases in Latin America, from any branch of the military.”
“Plans are in the works,” she said. “Nothing super-secret, it’s public knowledge, but you know the military. They don’t care if you find out something on your own, but they’re not gonna make a public announcement or anything.”
“I’m going to ask you something,” I said, “and I hope you won’t be upset. But is there any chance your husband had any kind of illegal dealings down there?”
Amy smiled. “I was hoping you’d ask that. You strike me as an ethical guy. You don’t want to be involved in anything nefarious?”
“I won’t be.”
“You’d have liked Dan, and I think he’d have looked up to you. God knows he didn’t have much of a male role model growing up. No, Mister McDermitt, there is absolutely zero chance that my husband stole whatever was in that post. He was a swapper.”
“A swapper?”
“This land? It’s two acres, all high ground. Higher than anything on Big Pine. And we have fresh water. This land and all the materials that went into this house, Dan bartered for.”
“From a paperclip to a new home?”
She laughed. “Something like that. He’d done it all his life, trading this toy for that, a fishing reel for a bike, an old car he fixed up for a boat. In the Army, he continued his bartering. Sometimes he’d trade for something he had absolutely no use for, but knew someone who did. It drove me nuts, before we got married. He always had his eyes open for a deal. Then I learned the method to his madness, and his ultimate goal: this house and our family.”
“You knew him a long time?”
“Since we were kids,” Amy replied, a wistful look on her face. “We grew up on Tavernier. He was a year ahead of me, from kindergarten to graduation. We started dating in junior high, and it’s been just me and Dan against the world ever since. Goofy, huh?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “Sounds pretty romantic.” Then, steering the conversation back to the topic at hand, I nodded toward the open doorway. “So, whatever was in that post? He came by it through trading?”
“He once traded a really decent car for an old yacht. Then started over with one of his old fishing rods, trading up until he had something worth enough that he could sell, and use that money to fix up the yacht. Then he sold the yacht, too. That’s how he bought the land. An old car, and a fishing reel.”
I laughed. “I think I would have liked him, Amy. I know my buddy Rusty would have enjoyed bartering with him.”
“Julie’s dad? Yeah, Mister Thurman was a regular trader with Dan.”
Around here, it’s like four degrees of Rusty Thurman. He knew everyone and everything that went on, and everyone liked him.
“If I agree to find this guy for you,” I said, getting serious, “I’ll need you to trust me.”
“Trust is earned, Mister McDermitt, and I barely know you.”
“Well, let’s start with you calling me Jesse. I live just up in the Contents, so we’re nearly neighbors. There is something you can do to let me earn your trust.”
“What’s that?” Amy asked warily.
“I can find the guy; that probably won’t be much trouble. But to get back what he took, I’ll need bait. Will you let me take the emerald for a few days? I first have to find out exactly where it came from, if that’s possible.”
“I looked online,” she said. “An emerald that size is pretty rare, but it’s worth just enough to pay for finishing my house.”
“Do you know Pam Lamarre over at Keys Bank?”
“Sure, everyone knows her.”
I took my phone out of my pocket and called the bank. After a moment, I was connected to Pam. We exchanged pleasantries, then she asked what she could help me with.
“I’m with Amy Huggins, Pam. Can I put you on speaker?” She agreed, and I pushed the speaker button. “Pam, I want to borrow something from Missus Huggins, and I’d like you to send a courier to her place on No Name with a cashier’s check, for collateral. Can you do that right away?”
“Not a problem, Jesse,” Pam’s voice came through the tiny speaker. “I can be there myself in about fifteen minutes. A check in what amount?”
Looking at Amy, I asked, “What did your search say that emerald is worth?”
Her eyes were wide, and she gulped. “Over twenty thousand.”
“Make it twenty thousand, Pam.”
“Consider it done,” Pam replied. “Is there anything else?”
“No, that’s all,” I said. “Thanks.”
She said goodbye and I ended the call.
“This way,” I offered to Amy, “if I lose the emerald, you’re not out anything.”
“One thing, Mister—I mean, Jesse. How much are you going to charge me for doing this?”
“If I don’t find him, or if he doesn’t have whatever was in that post—or I don’t get it back—you owe me nothing and I return the emerald. We’ll consider the twenty thousand a long-term investment, so you can finish your house. Pay me next month, or over a twenty-year period. It doesn’t matter. I invest in good people.”
“And if you do, and he does?”
“I give you what I find along with that one emerald, you liquidate them and pay me back the twenty grand. Then you make a small donation to a college fund I set up for kids of local watermen and veterans. Oh, and you buy me a beer at the Rusty Anchor. In the meantime, use the money to finish your home for your baby.”
Shadows were stretching across the canal ahead as I piloted the Grady into the channel toward the Rusty Anchor. I slowed and entered the canal, looking longingly at my plane, Island Hopper. Her red skin practically glowed in the dappled sunlight coming through the mangroves across the canal. Maybe Devon would agree to go flying tomorrow.
I tied off in front of the Rusty Tiki, a floating bar Rusty had built on a skiff’s hull. He’d hired a guy to operate the only floating Tiki bar taxi in the Middle Keys, and it seemed to be working pretty well.
Finn ran to his favorite gumbo-limbo tree and hiked his leg on it. Then he took off around the corner of the bar toward the deck and the large, open yard beyond.
There weren’t many cars in the lot, and when I entered there were only a few men at a table by a window. They each looked up and nodded. I nodded back, then went to the bar and took my usual seat. I didn’t know the men personally, but recognized them as locals.
Leaning over the bar, I opened the cooler and felt around until I found the familiar stubby bottle. Rusty came out of the office, talking to Sam Romano, his new Tiki taxi driver. I used one of the openers laying on the bar to pop the top on my first beer of the day.
“Hey, Sam,” I said, tipping my bottle toward the man. He was bald, mostly by choice. Having a receding hairline, he’d opted for the shaved look, resulting in a well-tanned skull. He sported a small, neatly trimmed goatee.
“Hi, Jesse,” Sam replied. “How’ve you been?”
“Never mind how he’s been.” Rusty handed Sam a case full of liquor bottles from behind the bar. “He don’t never change. Those fellas at the table need a lift out to Carlton’s yacht in the harbor. He’s having a party and folks will be coming and going from Dockside all evening.”
“All this for Mister Carlton?”
“Yeah,” Rusty said, walking him around the bar. “He’s gonna pay you in cash, four hundred. Plus another four to run folks back and forth. Bring me back six bills and you keep the rest, plus any tips. Okay?”
Sam grinned and nodded, then greeted the men at the table, telling them they could board at any time. Rusty had told me that Sam was making at least a hundred a night in tips, so he was gonna have a good day today.
“I got her going again,” Rusty said, returning to his place behind the bar. Rather than bu
y a new motor for his skiff, he’d been working on the old one for two weeks.
He was picking up a conversation that we’d started days ago, when I came down to pick up some new reels I’d ordered. That’s the way things are in the Keys. You might not see someone for days, or even weeks, but you pick up right where you left off, as if you’d just gone to the head.
“What was the problem?” I asked, taking a pull from the sweating bottle.
“Weirdest thing,” he said, opening a beer for himself and clinking the neck of mine with it. “It had a tiny little burn spot on the head gasket between the bottom cylinder and the water jacket. If the motor just happened to stop with that piston startin’ a down stroke before the intake valve opens, it would suck water in. Elsewise, it ran great. Over time, seawater corroded the compression ring, and it started getting water in the crankcase.”
“The time you spent fixing it, you could have just bought a new engine.”
“What’s the fun in that?”
“Speaking of fun,” I said, “earlier today, a Grumman Widgeon flew over the Contents. Any idea who owns it?”
“A Widgeon? I’ve only ever seen one. Jimmy Buffett owned it and flew down from Palm Beach sometimes.”
“Maybe it was him.”
“Nope, Buffett sold it just last week.”
I took a long pull on the ice-cold Red Stripe. “Must’ve sold it to someone who lives down here. Can’t be many of those left in the world.”
“What I heard,” Rusty said, “he sold it up in New York.”
“How do you learn these things?” I asked.
“I hear stuff,” Rusty replied with a wink. “And the innerweb.”
“What do you know about emeralds?” I asked in a low voice, as I reached into my pants pocket and unwrapped the handkerchief.
Rusty took one look at the emerald, and his eyes grew wide. He quickly flipped the edge of the cloth over the stone. “About as much as you, I guess. Where’d that come from?”
“So far, all I know is that it came out of the ground.”
“They all come outta the ground, ya blockhead.”
Rising Storm: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 11) Page 3