Fallen Hero: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 10)

by Wayne Stinnett

  Devon explained about the boat that had shown up while we were decompressing. Though she was able to give a pretty good description of the man, she hadn’t gotten the registration number off the side of the boat; by the time she thought to look, the shotgun blast had obliterated it.

  “No signal out here,” Devon said. “If you’ll call it in for me, tell dispatch to inform Lieutenant Morgan that the guy looked like what Doctor Fredric suggested the killer would look like.”

  “It’s a grungy-looking boat,” I said. “At least from the bottom. Odds are the guy’s not much of a boater. The shotgun might have caused fifty dollars of improvements to it.”

  Marty stepped back over to his boat and radioed the incident and description to the sheriff’s dispatcher.

  “Why can’t I get a cell signal?” Devon held her phone up and turned around in a circle, then went to the gunwale and waited until Marty finished talking to the dispatcher. “Also relay to Lieutenant Morgan that we found the murder scene and collected some evidence. I’ll be bringing it in later tonight.”

  While Marty was busy calling that in, and with Tony down in the engine room putting our gear away I asked, “So, we’re not spending the night out here?”

  Devon smiled seductively and leaned closer to me. “Some other time, maybe?”

  “Cualquier momento,” I replied with a wink, flirting back just a little. “Mi barca es tu barca.”

  Some women are a little more aggressive than others. Most of the women I’d known in Devon’s line of work tended to fall into that category. They also tended to back off, if the man was more aggressive.

  Getting serious, I said, “The fastest way to get the evidence to the lab would be to take the Revenge to Key West.”

  “You don’t have anyone to get home to?”

  There was a loaded question, if ever I heard one. Maybe she was serious. “Not a soul,” I replied, as Tony came up from the engine room. “But Tony does.”

  “Tony does what?” Tony asked.

  “Needs a ride from Deputy Phillips,” Devon said. “So you can get home to your wife, and Captain McDermitt can take me and the evidence straight to Key West.”

  Water occasionally splashed through the hole in the side of the boat as Duke sped south toward shore. He’d lost his bearings in the confusion that followed the shotgun blast, and now he didn’t know where he was. All the islands looked the same.

  Mistaking the bigger island of the Content Keys for Sawyer Key, he entered Content Passage, thinking it was Cudjoe Channel. When he approached the other side of the shallow passage, he knew he wasn’t going the right way. Expecting the wide and empty Cudjoe Basin, Duke was surprised to see two large islands ahead.

  Just then, the boat ran aground. The engine kicked up and raced as the boat ground to a stop, sliding partially sideways and leaning over. The sudden stop threw Duke off balance, and he nearly went over the side. The boat’s unexpected appearance frightened a flock of seagulls into flight; they all seemed to laugh at the big human’s antics.

  He quickly shut off the over-revving engine and looked around. There wasn’t much of anything to see, except water and islands. About a mile away to the east, Duke saw a pier extending out to the north from one of the smaller islands. He could barely make out someone on the pier and retrieved his binoculars from the forward fish box, returning the shotgun.

  Training the binos on the pier in the distance, Duke turned the little knob on top, until it came into focus. Two women and a man sat on the pier, looking in his direction. In the water in front of them, Duke could make out two kids splashing around.

  I better get out of here, Duke thought.

  A quick glance over the side revealed a shallow bottom, but further ahead of the boat it seemed to be a little deeper. Duke didn’t know anything about tides, or when the next high tide would be. For all he knew it could be high tide now, but in his mind running aground meant it was low tide. Unfortunately for him, the tide was already near its peak and would be falling very soon.

  Not wanting to get his shirt wet, he pulled it off and tossed it on the foredeck. Then he stepped over the side of the boat and dropped down into the water. It barely reached his knees. Walking straight ahead, he found that it did get deeper, and in just twenty or thirty feet the water was up to his waist.

  It was at that moment that Duke remembered he still had his cellphone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he tried to turn it on, but got nothing. Muttering expletives, he marched back to the boat. If he had to, he’d lift it and carry it to deeper water.

  First, Duke tried pulling the boat using one of the dock lines. Looping the end around his right hand, he spread his feet wide, his left foot toward the boat, and pulled with all his might. It didn’t budge.

  Realizing that the heavy end would be where the engine was, Duke went to the back of the boat. “Maybe I won’t have to carry the whole thing,” he muttered, rolling his head from side to side and flexing his muscles.

  Duke pushed the button on the side of the engine and the hydraulic system made a gurgling and grinding noise, but eventually raised the lower unit out of the water so it wouldn’t drag the bottom. Duke didn’t know a lot of things, and another of the things he didn’t know was that things weighed less in the water than out of it. By raising the engine, he made the boat heavier.

  One thing Duke did know was that when he put his shoulder against something, it usually moved. He squatted down low, grabbing the lower unit of the engine with his left hand and the transom with the other. In an explosive burst of strength, he planted his left shoulder against the spot where the hot water came out and heaved. He burned his shoulder and neck on the hot aluminum cowling.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Duke yelled, dancing around in the knee-deep water.

  A few of the black-headed gulls that had been frightened by the sudden grounding had returned. Hearing his shouts, some spread their wings, ready to take flight if need be. All of them laughed raucously at him. One of the gulls, between fits of laughter, seemed to call his given name over and over, as if mocking him. “Marion! Marion! Hehe, hehehehehehehe! Heee-heeeeeee!”

  This angered Duke. He did his Incredible Hulk pose, flexing his powerful shoulder and arm muscles. He roared back at the gulls, his muscles bulging and rippling with the strain. As adrenaline coursed through his veins, he grabbed the lower unit again, threw his shoulder against the engine’s hot lower cowling, and pushed with everything he had. The heated aluminum seared the tender flesh where his bulging neck met his massive left shoulder. The pain caused him to bellow like an enraged bull, and he pushed harder. The huge muscles in his back and arms strained against the more than one thousand pounds of boat.

  Suddenly, the suction effect of the sand released its hold on the boat, and it moved forward a few inches. Duke roared again, lunging forward and digging his feet deeper in the soft sand. The boat began to move and the giant power-lifter growled with a guttural animal-like noise, pushing even harder, until the boat was free of the sand and floating once more.

  With a final grunt and a huge shove, he pushed the boat into deeper water, then scrambled aboard. His shoulder felt like it was on fire, and when he touched it his fingers came away wet and sticky with blood and burned flesh.

  “That bitch is gonna pay for this,” Duke muttered, pushing the button on the throttle to lower the engine. It was then that a cloud of mosquitoes located the heat source and swarmed down on him.

  The prop was barely in the water when Duke started the engine and put it in forward, slapping at the bugs biting him. The prop shot a geyser of water into the air behind him as he raced the engine, but the boat began to move into deeper water.

  Looking over the side, Duke saw that the water depth was probably okay and lowered the engine enough to stop the big rooster-tail. He throttled up slowly, to keep from dragging the prop on the bottom.

  Duke turned and looked back at the gulls on the sandbar. He raised his fist and extended his middle finger to them as the boat sl
owly came up on plane. He kept the engine trimmed high in case there was another sandbar. The mosquitoes were quickly left behind.

  Keeping the setting sun to his right, he continued south, picking his way blindly through the shallow water. Off to the right, he saw two channel markers close together, one red and the other green. They’d always been on his left, coming back in, so he knew he was close to where he was supposed to be. The markers weren’t in the channel he usually used, so he ignored them and continued straight ahead, knowing that he’d encounter the highway sooner or later.

  The boat grounded again, and once more Duke had to get out and push. At least this time he’d been going considerably slower, and he could push it off the sand without burning himself.

  Mosquitoes swarmed in again as he climbed into the boat. The sun was completely gone now, but he could see light in the distance, and idled the boat that way. Using a flashlight he’d found in a storage bin, he shined it in front of the boat like a headlight.

  Duke grounded the boat twice more in the shallows next to Raccoon Key, though he had no idea what it was called. Had he bothered to stop and look around, he might have found the bleached bones of another steroid abusing gym-rat.

  Finally, the flashlight illuminated a green marker ahead and to the left. Duke angled the boat toward the marker and entered Niles Channel. It was several hours past sunset when he idled toward the bridge, watching the cars pass over it.

  Knowing he couldn’t return the boat to the marina with a hole in it, he brought it up onto a small beach surrounded by mangroves, right at the foot of the bridge. He didn’t know what bridge it was, but he was pretty sure he was east of where he wanted to be.

  Putting his shirt back on, Duke got out of the boat, slapping away mosquitoes, and trudged up the steep incline toward the road. It was a Thursday night, so traffic heading toward Key West was pretty light, but he stuck his thumb out anyway. All he needed was a ride to the marina, where he could get his Jeep.

  Several cars drove past in a group and one honked, but none of them stopped. Duke turned and started to walk. As he approached an overhead streetlight, he looked down at himself. His black jeans had mostly dried out. He could never find regular shirts or even tee-shirts that fit. A size 5X fit across his shoulders, but they always ballooned out at his narrow waist. So Duke wore only tank tops.

  Maybe they just didn’t see me, he thought. Duke hadn’t hitchhiked since he was a kid in high school. He remembered another kid telling him that when you hitched at night you should stand under a light. Hearing another car coming, Duke hurried through the cone of light so that it fell on his face when he turned and held out his thumb. The car was alone on the road and slowed down.

  Duke smiled and did his best to look harmless. The car pulled to the edge of the pavement and came to a stop next to him. It was a throwback to the sixties, a red Ford Falcon.

  “Where you headed?” the driver asked. He had curly brown hair, a big mustache, and wore one of those fruit-juicy kind of tropical shirts, all bright colors and flowers.

  A pretty woman sat in the passenger seat, wearing a tee-shirt over a bikini. She opened the door and got out, tilting the seat back forward. Her bikini bottom was a thong and left nothing at all to Duke’s imagination.

  “Would you mind wedging my purple beach ball behind the other seat?” she asked. The top of her head didn’t even reach Duke’s chin.

  “Thanks,” Duke said, stepping into the backseat and jamming the ball behind the driver’s seat, so the wind wouldn’t blow it out of the car. “I’m going to Stock Island, but if you ain’t going that far I’d appreciate a ride to Sugarloaf Marina. That’s where my car is.”

  As Duke sat down in the little backseat, the woman started to put the seat back and the man stopped her. “Slide it forward first, babe. He needs a bit more leg room than you.”

  She adjusted the seat, giving Duke as much room as possible, but it was still cramped. At least they had the top down.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked as he pulled back into the middle of the southbound lane and accelerated smoothly through the gears.

  “My friends call me Duke.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Duke. We’re going all the way to Key West, heck we might even jump this sucker to Havana. Sort of a party weekend. Be happy to drop you at Stock Island. Or on Sugarloaf, if you want to get your car.”

  After Tony and Marty left, I took Devon up to the foredeck, Finn following behind us. I showed her how to lock the anchor in place. Then I went up to the bridge, started the engines, and engaged the windlass. A couple of minutes later, she joined me on the bridge and Finn curled up in the corner of the cockpit by the transom door.

  I brought the Revenge up to twenty-five knots, engaging in one of my favorite diversions: chasing the sun with a pretty girl beside me.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” Devon said, sitting on the port bench and looking out over the water. It had calmed considerably since morning.

  “No need to sit over there,” I said, jerking my thumb at the second seat. “You don’t have to crane your neck from over here. Just maintain three points of contact when moving around.”

  As Devon squeezed between the aft bridge rail and my seat, two of the points of contact she maintained were on either side of the back of my head. The contact was warm, soft, and inviting.

  “Will we get to Key West before dark?” she asked, finally settling in beside me.

  I’d already entered Key West Bight into the GPS and reached over to tap the bottom of the display. “At this speed, Mister Garmin says we’ll arrive in Old Town about half an hour after dark. How are you feeling?”

  As if she’d suddenly remembered her sea-sickness, her eyes widened. The setting sun on her face accentuated the brown-orange glow of her eyes. “I hadn’t even thought about it. The last pill I took was hours ago.”

  “You have your sea legs now,” I said with a sideways grin. “When we get to the dock, you might experience some dizziness on land for a little while.”

  “That’s a real thing? Sea legs?”

  “One of the reasons I put you to work looking for stuff in the water. It helps to train your brain that the boat’s moving and you’re in it.”

  “I’m suddenly starved,” Devon said. “Beer and a steak after we drop things off at the lab? My treat.”

  Beer and a steak? I thought, glancing at the gun still in its holster on the front of her hip. If she could get over the seasickness, Devon just might be the perfect woman.

  “There’s beer down in the fridge,” I offered.

  “But you’re driving.”

  Switching on the autopilot, I rose from my seat. “I won’t tell the cops if you don’t.”

  Devon grabbed the wheel. “Are you nuts?”

  “It’s on autopilot. Nothing to worry about.”

  “What if there’s a boat? You stay. I’ll get us a beer.”

  I sat back down at the helm, but left the autopilot on. “There’s a small cooler in the cabinet under the sink.”

  Devon carefully moved around behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder instead of the seat back, as her breasts again brushed the back of my head. I could still feel the warmth of her touch after she’d disappeared down the ladder.

  A few minutes later, I was about to get up and see what was keeping her when I heard the hatch open and close again. I went to the rail and reached down to take the cooler. Devon also handed up a small bowl of sliced fruit.

  “I couldn’t find any munchies,” she said, climbing up the ladder and moving behind me. “You’re one of those nutrition nuts aren’t you.”

  I laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. I like a steak as well as the next guy, but never been a big fan of chips and snacks.”

  “Well, the fruit can only hold me over for so long,” she said, dropping into her seat and popping a chunk of pineapple into her mouth. “Is this as fast as your boat goes?”

  Never one to ignore a challenge, I pushed the throttles to
the stops. The whine of the super-chargers kicked in, as the Revenge surged ahead, reaching its top speed of fifty-four knots in a matter of seconds.

  I leaned over closer to Devon, to be heard over the screaming engines. “We’ll miss the sunset at this speed.”

  She had a death-grip on the arm rests of her chair. “Let’s not miss the sunset,” she nearly shouted.

  I slowed the Revenge to thirty knots, figuring that at that speed we’d near the channel just about the time the sun reached the horizon. Devon relaxed and opened the cooler. I let her try to twist the top off the first Red Stripe she took out, then pointed to the bottle opener mounted to the side of the dash. She opened it and handed it to me, then opened one for herself and closed the cooler.

  “What’s in the evidence bag marked ‘Grass’?”

  I looked over at Devon as she took a long pull on the cold beer. “I remembered Doc Fredric saying that he found sand and microscopic plant life in Jennifer Marshall’s lungs. Plants grow in sand, so I collected some from the spot where Tony and I think she was murdered.”

  “Smart move doing that. You know about plant DNA?”

  “I don’t know about any kind of DNA,” I replied. “I just figured Doc might be able to identify the same kind of plant from the sample. Maybe it’ll help prove the girl was there.”

  Devon turned her seat toward me, pressing her knee lightly against my thigh. “The lab can do better than that,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Plant DNA is the same as animal, unique to each individual organism. Since plants don’t move around to reproduce like we do, they share some of the same DNA strands with other plants in the same general area. If there’s any microscopic plant life in the sample, the lab can positively identify whether the location it was collected from is the same spot where the plant life entered her lungs. That’ll put the victim at the survey site when she died.”