by GC Smith
“Not yet.” Capers's pale eyes narrowed. “You cheated me twice. Texas was your last chance. My play now.
“We're going topside. You first. I'll be behind you with 'baby sister'. You make a wrong move, she's dead. “Clasp your hands behind your neck and move. Slow and easy.”
Donal pushed himself from the chair. He looked at the Caper's blood soaked shirt and then at Capers's steady gun hand, calculating that his bullet hadn’t caused damage that he had hoped for. That calculation dictated caution. Hands clasped as Capers had ordered, Donal mounted the steps. He walked through the cabin and past Mike's inert body out onto the deck.
Faulkner stood in the Cigarette, rifle ready.
Capers paused, still inside the cabin. “Tell Faulkner to drop the rifle and join us.”
Donal obeyed, shouting, “Be careful, he's got a gun on Miss Chatrian.”
Capers pushed Claudia out onto the deck and watched as Faulkner jumped from the Cigarette to the Hatteras's transom platform. Faulkner mounted the transom boarding ladder. As he reached out for the transom gate Capers raised the automatic, said, “prick,” and shot Faulkner in the face.
Faulkner's body fell into the water and Capers swung the automatic's muzzle toward Donal's chest.
“Capers,” came a weak shout; a bullet simultaneously whistled past Capers's left ear. Capers whirled toward the cabin door well.
Mike lay partly through the door, his upper torso on the deck. He had passed out again, his strength spent from the crawl forward and the effort he expended firing Donal's gun.
Capers lowered the barrel of his gun toward Mike and Donal tackled Capers mid-body. Together they went down onto the deck a tangle of arms and legs. Capers still held the gun.
Claudia, survival instinct revived, kicked at Capers's gun hand, missing.
Capers scrambled to his feet. With both hands, Donal grabbed Capers's ankles and yanked, sprawling the psychopath forward onto the deck. Capers loosened his grip on the pistol as he fell and it flipped over the side into the sea.
Donal hitched his body forward, up over Capers's torso.
Capers twisted and, as he pulled away, kicked Donal on the right cheekbone. He staggered upright, backing from Donal.
Donal attempted to regain his feet and Capers kicked him full in the face, sprawling him backward. Donal bounced off the rail and fell to the deck, instinctively rolling away from Capers's kicks.
Capers crouched, teeth bared, as Donal hauled himself to his feet.
Donal hesitated momentarily and as Capers launched himself toward the detective he moved aside and snatched a stainless steel gaff from the clip on the boat's starboard gunnel. He faced Capers, gaff in hand. Capers moved in low and Donal feinted left, then side stepped right, allowing Capers to pass. He smashed Capers on the side of his head and jerked back on the gaff's handle. The hook lodged under Capers' clavicle and Donal yanked with both hands, cutting through flesh, imbedding the barb in Capers's pectoral muscle.
Capers staggered, face blank, and fell toward the doorway where Mike lay.
Donal moved in and stomped on Capers's hand that was curling around the butt of the gun that Mike had dropped, Donal's gun. Capers's fingers opened and Donal reached down and picked the gun up from the deck. He staggered back and lowered the barrel toward Capers.
Covering Capers, Donal said to Claudia. “Get aboard the Cigarette. Radio for help.” Behind him he could hear her clamber down the metal ladder.
Donal stood unsteadily over Capers. “On your feet,” he said, his words coming in gasps.
Capers stared up at Donal. “I can't. Something's wrong. I can't move.”
Donal, weak from the beating he had taken, edged back to the rail and supported himself against it. He looked down at Capers and then at Mike.
Capers followed his gaze and grinned through blood caked lips, “He's dead. I would have killed her too, --‘baby sister', she stole. You ...
Fury burnt through Donal's exhaustion, momentarily energizing him. He stepped forward and stomped on Capers's throat, his hundred and eighty pounds crushed Capers's thorax, cutting off the psychopath's words. Blood ran from between Capers's lips.
Donal watched Capers's struggle for air, then looked up as smoke curled from a hatchway. An electrical fire, apparently started by one of the bullets Donal had exchanged with Capers during the chase, was spreading; fingers of flame beginning to snap at the teak deck.
Donal moved to Mike, pulled him from the cabin doorway, and dragged him toward the transom. Cramp stabbed pain through his left thigh and he felt his knees giving way as he raised Mike over the transom and down into the Cigarette. Hutchkins, despite his wound, was able to help bring Mike aboard the Cigarette. He lay Mike on a padded transom well bolster and Claudia moved to Mike's side oblivious of her bared breasts.
Hutchkins stared.
The thought that the Cigarette boat's owner would be able to dine out forever on the story of the half naked movie star flashed through Donal's mind. Not to mention everything else that had happened since they boarded the Cigarette. Hutchkins would have himself a nutcase story to sell to the tabloids.
Donal stood for an instant grasping the rail of the 'Royalty'. His breathing steadied and he moved down the ladder to the swim platform and from there into the cockpit of Hutchkins' boat. He cast the line off from the Hatteras’s cleat and kicked over the Cigarette's engines just as flames erupted through the deck of the bigger boat. He fended off, threw Hutchkins' boat into reverse, backed, then turned away from the burning yacht.
Across 300 hundred yards of sea, Donal looked back to the 'Royalty'. Capers had gained his feet. He stood amid the flames, clothing and hair afire, mouth gaping in silent scream.
Donal slowed the Cigarette and reached for the rifle. He propped the firearm atop the frame of the Cigarette boat's windscreen. He targeted Capers, holding him in the scope's cross hairs.
Hutchkins shouted, “Pull the trigger. Damn it, man, shoot the mother fucker.”
Donal lifted his head from the telescopic sight and opened the rifle's bolt, ejecting the unspent cartridge. “Let him burn.” He shoved the Cigarette's throttles forward and moved the boat well away into open water. Then he slowed, and watched as the 'Royalty', now a massive sheet of flame, exploded. Micah Capers vanished, consumed within the fireball, gone to hell where he belonged.
EPILOUGE
Moultrie Bay, SC
October 25
The previous day, when Donal brought the Cigarette boat back to her Hilton Head berth, A.J. Hook had been on the dock, waiting. Donal told Hook the whole story including the fact that the information he had obtained from Jeremy McMichaels along with the package on Micah Capers that Jack Faulkner had provided was enough to finish Brad Ellerby as head of the SLED special agent division. Together, Donal and Hook went through Micah Capers apartment above the marina store. They found a diary kept by Joan Capers that covered the period of her adolescence until her death. Dated entries tied up a lot of loose ends in South Carolina and in other Southern States. The entries detailed the diamond thefts and the murders committed by Joan Wiley acting alone and by she and Capers acting as a team. Other entries detailed descriptions of murders committed by Micah Capers as told by him to Joan.
The diary also described the incestuous relationship between Joan Wiley and her father, John Bertram Wiley, South Carolina's current Industrial Commissioner.
Donal would cash some chips owed by South Carolina resort owners he had helped and who were also movers and shakers in State political circles. A meeting would be arranged for the following week with the Governor and the Chief of the SC State Law Enforcement Directorate. By the end of that meeting neither Brad Ellerby nor John Bertram Wiley would have jobs.
A.J. Hook accompanied the doctor who attended Mike on an ambulance ride back to Moultrie Bay. Also, Claudia --who now knew the complete story of her psychotic half-brother Capers and the reasons why the man had tried to kill her-- returned to her Moultrie Bay home.
&nb
sp; Donal stayed on the island for one more day to square the details of what had transpired with the Sheriff's Hilton Head division. That done, he learned, over the phone, that the chief surgeon at Moultrie Bay Memorial Hospital had told Hook that Mike would live, but his legs, which had taken the brunt of Capers's bullets were severely damaged. His condition was guarded but hopeful, the doctor believed that in time and with extensive therapy Mike would walk.
Then Donal called Tony Androlini and told him that it was over, that Marie's murderer was avenged.
Now, driving north to Moultrie Bay, Donal picked up the cell-phone and called home. The phone went unanswered.
He massaged his temples, trying to deal with his anxiety about Mike. And to deal with the anger that stemmed from the evasive lies told by Faulkner and Ellerby and all that those lies had cost.
Don't brood, Donal thought. What's done is done. Capers is dead. It's time to forget. Time now to deal with my own life.
Donal looked at the brilliant sun flashes on the October water of the Broad River. His tires hummed over the steel mesh of the bridge that spanned the line between staid Moultrie County and Beaufort County with its glitzy resort island. He stepped on the accelerator feeling the rush of speed push his bulk into the Jaguar's seatback, hoping, but not certain, that Victoria would be there at his house when he arrived.
[30]
About the Author
Gerard C. Smith (GC)
[email protected]
I’m a southerner. I write novels, short stories, flash fiction, poetry. Sometimes I play with dialect, either Cajun or Gullah-Geechee ways of speaking. Sometimes I try Redneck lingo. My work can be found in: Gator Springs Gazette, F F Magazine, Iguanaland, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Naked Humorists, The GLUT, Flask Fiction Magazine, N.O.L.A. Spleen, NFG Magazine, Cellar Door, The Beat, Dispatches Magazine, Beaufort Gazette, Coyote's Den, Southern Hum, Lamoille Lamentations , Quiction, The Landing, The Haunted Poet, Flavor a Deux, The Binnacle, Stymie Magazine, Bannock Street Books. I have two novels, WHITE LIGHTNING --Murder In the world of stock car racing and THE CARBON STEEL CARESS, A Lowcountry P.I. novel. A third novel, IN GOOD FAITH, (also a P.I. story) still needs some work.
Century Oak Press