“Ready?” he asked.
“Yeah, hopefully he’s gone now,” she said eyes scanning the surrounding water. “We need to decide what to do about this. If you’re right and they are dumping bodies into the tanks, we need to get the sheriff involved. I’ll call environmental health in the morning and tell them about the broken pipe.”
“Sounds good. But something is still bothering me.”
“There’s more?”
“Why the land scam - and why now?” Will put out the untied link.
“The market has come back from its low a few years ago and interest in the sustainable thing they are trying to sell is through the roof. Why not now?”
He nodded, turned the engine on and lifted the pole from the suction of the sand. Slowly he turned toward shore and started moving off the flat. Once clear of the shallow water, he pushed down on the throttle and headed for the canal entrance, invisible in the dark. Will went slowly hoping that Cody would be in the bar by the time they pulled in and he could avoid another confrontation. He became more uneasy as they approached the marina. His fears were realized when they pulled within a hundred yards of the dock and heard loud voices. Intoxicated from the beer, their catch, and the chase, the tourists from Cody’s charter were sitting on the dock drinking from red solo cups when Will rounded the corner and headed toward his slip. He looked up at the cleaning hut and saw Matt bent over a pile of fish. Cody was nowhere in sight as he tied off the boat.
“I’m freezing. Can I take a rain check on dinner?”
Will was relieved. Maybe he could sneak her off the dock and be out of here before Cody found out that they were back. “I’ll catch up to you tomorrow. Maybe I can meet you on your break and we can file a police report. We should do that together.”
“That’d be good. I’ll call you.”
She hopped onto the dock. He watched as she walked away, wondering if she would actually call. After everything that happened in the last few hours he wouldn’t blame her is she filed a couple of anonymous reports with the authorities and forgot about him. Maybe that was the best way for him as well. File a report with the police and go to ground until Cody cooled down. He turned away from watching her as Cody walked quickly toward him, a drunken swagger in his step. Cody weaved past Sheryl, feigning to run into her, but kept going, and she took off in a run toward the parking lot. Will watched the lot, relieved when he saw headlights and a car pull out. Satisfied that she was safe, he turned and faced Cody.
“What the hell was that all about? So I found your fishing spot. It’s not like I’m going to steal your numbers or anything.” He had decided on the ride in not to let on that they’d found the tanks. Cody had no way of knowing that they had been on the island. In his current state, he might not even realize that they followed the pipeline to his boat. Will looked at the two men approaching and realized he might have underestimated Cody.
“Dude. If I was worried about you stealing my numbers … shit,” he slurred and moved out of the way as the men approached.
“I gotta smack you again, you’re not gonna get up,” Scarface said. “You’re gonna forget everything you think you might have seen, and lose any interest in that island out there. Understand?”
Will stood speechless, not knowing what to do. Cody must have called them on his way in. Suddenly Matt came up behind the men and interrupted, “Got anything I can do for you? Clean your fish or the boat?”
The men turned to Matt, the heavy one putting an arm around his shoulder and leading him away. Scarface glared at Will again, then turned and followed. Will breathed out thankful that Matt had broken the tension and leaned against the console. He felt something brush against his leg. It was Sheryl’s messenger bag. The last thing he needed was for Cody or Scarface to discover the bag and find the map inside. That could make him the next occupant of the tank. He made motions like he was cleaning the boat and stashed the bag in the locking console below the helm. Looking around for an escape, he noticed an adjacent dock light out, the walkway dark. He moved toward it quietly, staying in the shadows until he reached the parking lot. Once out of sight, he ran to the bicycle, thankful he didn’t need to start an engine, and headed out of the lot.
As he was about to pedal onto the road, a car came barreling toward him. It stopped short, and a head popped out the open window. “Hey, is that you, Will?” Nicole asked.
He pushed the bike toward her, shaking his head. “Not now. I gotta go. Cody’s down there drunk again. Sorry,” he added as he pushed hard on the pedal, moving the bike into the dark, not waiting for a response. He looked back once he was sure he couldn’t be seen and saw Nicole sitting there, head turned toward him. Hoping she’d get the message and move on before he was discovered, he turned and pedaled as fast as the bike would go.
Chapter 12
The men were getting impatient as Will poled the boat toward the flat. He’d gone west today, the opposite direction from Flamingo Key, and the two anglers were drinking their first beers, eager to get their lines in the water when he reached the edge of the hole. This was the first meat charter that Ned had set up for him. Without the GPS numbers most charter captains relied on, he had only his memory. Catch and release fly fishing was more about tide and covering area, and seldom required anchoring and chumming. He was more adept at reading water and drifting with the current. Over the years, though, a few fixed spots had regularly produced food for his table, and he was heading for one now. Cody might have been right when he said that a little piece of him would die every time he ran one of these charters.
“We ‘bout there yet?” one of the men asked with a deep southern drawl.
“Shortly,” Will responded.
“You know there ain’t no fish on these flats. I been looking and ain’t seen nothing but grass for ten minutes.”
“Just about there,” Will ignored the comment as he pulled the pole from the water, lifted it high, and set it into the socket to anchor the boat. The water was clear enough to see the bottom from the poling platform and a smile crossed his face as it reminded him of Sheryl’s eyes. A jagged edge of grey fell into a darker abyss, indicating depth. Any kind of hole or ledge in the desert of turtle grass and sand held fish. This time of year, as the water cooled, the larger game fish, groupers and snapper, came into the flats and parked themselves in holes and under ledges, where they waited to ambush prey. They’d find fish here, he was sure of it.
The morning had started early. Having to gear up for meat fishing meant entirely different gear. He had pulled all but one of the fly rods he normally used from the built-in rod holders under the gunwales of the boat, and replaced them with spinning rods, freshly installed line shining in the light. A quick inventory had revealed that he needed a stop at the bait store to pick up leader, hooks, and sinkers. The woman at the counter was surprised when he asked for four dozen shrimp.
The pole stuck in the water acted as an anchor. A standard anchor was not much use in these shallow waters. There were power sticks for anchors and electric trolling motors that replaced the pole but the pole was simple and he preferred simple. He had anchored up current of the hole, and now set a chum bag from the stern of the boat. His position would allow the chum slick to drift over the ten-foot-wide hole, tempting the fish to start feeding. Spinning rods were handed to the anglers, shrimp nestled on the hooks. The anglers followed his directions and cast toward the hole, allowing the small split-shot sinkers to submerge the bait. Then they waited.
He mechanically unhooked fish and rebated hooks as the anglers worked quickly toward their limit. They quickly fell into a routine and he started to think about last night. Sheryl - her eyes, her body as her wet clothes clung to it, as well as her personality had captivated him and he couldn’t stop thinking about her. A quick look assured him the anglers were all good and he picked up his phone and went to the recent call screen. He copied her number into the message app and texted her.
***
Sheryl glanced around the waiting room
. Concentrating on the customer in front of her was impossible when she expected Braken and Scarface to enter at any time. She was sure he was the same man that had come into the building department the other day asking for the Flamingo Key file. What if he came in and asked again?The chances that anyone would ask for the missing files were remote, but still weighed on her mind, the messenger bag with the file was somewhere on Will’s boat.
Tapping her pen on the desk, she tried to guide the couple in front of her through the tenuous procedure for a permit. Thankfully, she did this many times a day, and could operate on auto-pilot. They were just wrapping up when her phone buzzed with a text. Her heart started racing, and she grabbed the phone.
Can you meet later? On a charter now. The sender was Will, and she smiled. After too many cocky, arrogant men, she kind of liked his cool, laid-back style. He had handled what could have turned out to be a deadly situation last night with confidence - something she really liked in a man. It felt like they had known each other longer than a day after sharing the experience. She answered, Need my bag - it’s got the file. Yes, let me know when you get back. Relieved that he had contacted her she turned back to the application and couple in front of her.
***
Matt sat in front of the monitor in the school library, a group gathered around him. His YouTube account stared back at them, the reflection in the screen showed his jaw drop and the startled look on his face. He had overheard his mom and Will talking the other night, and, unable to sleep, had started researching Flamingo Key. Although not in the conservation club at school, he had strong feelings about the preservation of the Keys. He did his best to hide his disgust for his father’s meat fishing business, especially when he brought in undersized fish. Like many teenagers brought up in the Keys, he knew fishing was a way of life, and conservation rather than preservation was the more practical way to save the fishery.
Then there was his grandfather. He knew his mom put up with him because she needed the work, but he was seriously creepy. His permanent distaste for the man was cemented by the offhand comments he overheard from strangers, not intended for his ears, about that man being his grandfather. Often embarrassed he wished he was not related to him. A favorite fantasy was that one of the nylon leisure suits he wore would auto-ignite from the sun. Now that would be a cool YouTube video.
Will had taken him to fish Flamingo Key before, taught him to tie his own flies there, and how to fish them. He couldn’t see himself fishing that same flat with the artist’s rendering of a village on the island. Green, sustainable or not, he had decided that Flamingo Key should stay as it was, and his tool was the Internet. It had only taken a few hours to put together a video, cutting and pasting the images from the web site, showing the way the island was now, and what was proposed, and with an artistic flair, he showed fish dancing on the pristine water surrounding the island with a time lapse of the development; one by one, the fish keeled over and disappeared. A few keywords and social media posts later, and the video started getting hits.
Now, a day and a half later, it was in seven figures. Over a million hits and growing.
***
Braken stared at the video playing on the screen of his computer.
“One of my people saw this. Look at this shit, over a million views already. This Internet is crazy,” Pagliano said.
“And, not good for business,” Braken responded. “We need to get this thing removed.”
“It’s not so easy. I’ve got a hacker buddy I know working on it, but it may take some time. We’ve got to either break into the account of whoever posted this or find them and have them take it off for us. I’m more for the personal option, myself.”
Braken looked away from the screen. “I can’t watch it anymore. You know what’s going to happen if one of those do-gooder groups gets a hold of this? They’ll start a protest or something, right out there. Alert the media and all that. Then somebody’s going to take a nature hike out there and discover the tanks - we’re done. It won’t take them long to put our names to it and we’ll be in jail. We can’t allow that to happen.” He picked up his phone. “I’m going to set up some security out there. Make sure no one sets foot on that sand pile.”
“Good idea. I’ll keep working my end.”
Braken pushed a button on the phone. “Nicole, could you come in here?”
She entered a minute later, steering to the opposite side of the desk from the leering Pagliano.
“We get any inquiries on the Flamingo Key site?” Braken asked.
“Got a couple the other day,” she said.
He looked over at Pagliano staring at her, watching her face as she focussed on the screen. “What do you have Matt’s YouTube page up for?”
They both stared at her. Pagliano was about to rise, but Braken held a hand out. “What did you say?”
“That’s Matt’s page you’re looking at. MattyB97, that’s his username.”
“Don’t you monitor what your son does?” Pagliano yelled. This is a direct attack on our business venture!”
Braken looked at Nicole, deciding on a softer approach. “You have any idea what Matt’s done? Here, look at this.” He faced the screen toward her and pushed play, then watched her face as the video played. “You need to get him to pull this, or whatever they do.”
She wasn’t sure what they were so upset about. “I’ll talk to him after school. I don’t see what the big deal is, though. It’s kind of funny.”
Braken sat back in his chair and looked at his partner. Pagliano would show no quarter to his family. The best way to protect Matt was to be hard on Nicole. She wouldn’t understand but it didn’t matter. “This can have serious repercussions on our business, Nicole, and that means your job. Do I make myself clear? It needs to go now. Not after school. Go find him and take care of it,” he said looking at Pagliano for approval.
Red-faced, she left the room. “Well that was a lucky break. I’m going to keep an eye on her just in case.” Pagliano said as he got up.
“Yeah, well just an eye. Lay off her, she’s family.”
Chapter 13
Pagliano followed Nicole from the office to the high school. He wasn’t so much following her as just keeping an eye on her. Never one to skimp on homework, he’d accumulated enough information on everyone associated with Braken and his family to know everywhere she and Matt went. He and Braken had been involved in several deals since the early 1990’s but if his partners weren’t from his neighborhood in Jersey, he didn’t trust them. He stayed at least a block or two back and slowed further as she approached the high school. She must have texted the kid to let him know she was coming, because he was standing outside the school, pacing back and forth. He knew the look of someone who knew he was in trouble, and smirked.
He watched as Matt got into the car. They sat there, the discussion clearly getting more agitated as the minutes passed. Joey knew from personal experience how obstinate teenage boys could be, and wasn’t surprised when Matt got out of the car and slammed the door. Before he could walk away, though, Nicole got out and went toward him. She tried to grab him, but he easily shrugged her off. They stood there arguing, and Joey knew from Matt’s body language that he was not going to give in. He needed to add his presence to the situation, both to calm things down and to enforce his will.
He parked behind Nicole, leaving the engine running and door open as he got out and went toward them. Both turned in recognition, and Nicole’s maternal instincts must have overridden her anger, because she moved to protect Matt. He almost laughed at the gesture.
Too bad it was the tropics, or he would have had a gun in his jacket pocket. He wouldn’t even need to draw it, just show the outline of cold steel behind the cloth of the jacket, but in eighty degrees you looked pretty stupid wearing a jacket. And drawing the small 22 caliber from its holster against his calf would be too visible to any onlookers. Instead, he casually walked toward them, both hands in his pants pockets, trying not to appear threatening.
“Maybe we should take a ride, you know, the three of us,” he said to Nicole.
She shied away and Matt puffed up like only a teenage boy can do. “What do you want with us?”
“That’d be none of your business, junior. We just need to have a talk, is all. Make sure you all have your priorities straight.”
“And what if we refuse?” she asked.
“You won’t. Nobody ever does - and you know it.” he said as he put a hand on her shoulder.
She pushed back setting him slightly off balance, “Run!”
Matt took the opportunity and ran towards the protection of the school.
“Damn kid,” He pushed her, “Now, let’s take a walk back to my car, nice and quiet. Nobody gets hurt.” She went to the passenger side, but he motioned for her to drive.
Joey looked at the school and then at Nicole. Matt may be gone, but he still had plenty of leverage. He watched the rise and fall of her low cut blouse, her breath coming in big gulps and started to get excited.
***
“Sheryl, got a minute?”
She looked up anxiously as her boss hovered over her. “Sure. You’re place or mine?” she countered with their usual line. Usually she got a grin, but his face remained neutral.
“Let’s go back to my office. There’s something you need to see.”
Bonefish Blues Page 7