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

by Wayne Stinnett

  Harley smiled as the back door opened, and put the car in gear. The new girl, who called herself Marsha Brady, came out. Harley was sure that wasn’t her real name, but she had the same long, straight blond hair as the teen heartthrob from the seventies. Marsha closed the door and, leaning against the back wall, lit a cigarette.

  Jasmine was right, he needed more women. Lots more.

  Sunlight was beginning to stream in through the window as the sun neared the top boughs of the tall pine trees that bordered the property to the west.

  “We’ll need to leave soon,” I said. “Low tide and sunset are coming, both of which make it difficult to get to the island.”

  “You’re sure you’ll have everything we’ll need there?” Morgan asked. We’d been discussing with Deuce how we’d get in and what we might find out.

  I looked at Deuce and he nodded. “And then some. Chyrel can wire Detective Evans and Jesse both. He’s already got an established alias as a coke importer. Give Chyrel a few hours and Devon will have a solid background as a porn star on vacation, hiring Jesse as a bodyguard, and looking to make a few non-union dollars.”

  “Non-union?” Morgan asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s called deflection,” Deuce said. “Move the target’s attention to something else. In this case, the urgency that whoever’s in charge has to keep her appearance off the books because the actors’ union doesn’t like their talent taking side jobs for cash.”

  “A coupla more questions,” Morgan said, as he sat down across from Lawrence, Vince, and Billy. “Who all knows about that theft back in sixty-six?”

  “Just Rafferty and Russo, far as I know,” Vince replied.

  “And you,” Devon added. “If Rafferty never told anyone, how did you find out? And how do you know he never told anyone else?”

  “Well,” Vince started, glancing at Billy, who nodded. “My sister told me. She was pregnant with the second kid, and Wild Bill was going to use his share to start over in the islands. She told me he was just waiting for the heat to blow off.”

  “So Rafferty did tell someone else,” I said. “Whatever happened to the two boys? They’d be in their forties now. Maybe he told them, too.”

  “After my sister died, Rafferty shipped them off to Jersey,” Vince said. “To live with his sister.”

  Just then, the back door opened and my youngest daughter Kim came in, followed by Marty Phillips, still in uniform. I crossed the room to her and gave her a quick hug.

  “Why’s the front door locked?” she asked, as I shook Marty’s hand and led them to the table in the corner. “Marty said there were two unmarked police cars out front. What’s going on?”

  Hearing Kim’s voice, Finn came trotting over; she squatted down to give him a big hug and scratch his ears. He practically melted at her feet, and she rubbed his belly.

  I introduced Kim to the two detectives, then gave her the Reader’s Digest version of Deuce’s new security company.

  “Why are you here, Deputy?” Morgan asked.

  “He’s dating my daughter,” I said. “She’s in her junior year at UF, studying criminal justice.”

  “You’re working with the sheriff’s office now?” Kim asked me.

  “I’ll give you the details on the way to the island,” I said. “We have some equipment to pick up there, and then Detective Evans and I are going to Key West.”

  Kim looked around at the group, her gaze stopping on Deuce before turning back to me. “Is this another mission?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “Lawrence is in trouble. Deuce offered Sheriff Roth the services of his new company, and the sheriff accepted. But we really gotta get going. The tide and sun are both falling fast.”

  “If there are no more questions,” Billy said, rising from his chair, “we’ll be heading back to the rock. Lawrence has to start his rounds.”

  “I think we’re done,” Morgan said. Then he turned to Devon. “I’ll get with Jefferson and Clark when I get down there and let you know what they find out.”

  “Lieutenant Morgan,” Chyrel’s voice called from the laptop. “Please give Deuce your phone number. I’ll patch you into my system in the morning, when we get started.”

  Hearing Chyrel’s voice, Kim leaned toward the laptop. She must have recognized where Chyrel was, because she said, “Hey, Chyrel. Looks like we’re roomies tonight.”

  “Hey, girl! Look forward to seeing you again.”

  Kim walked with Marty to his pickup, as Deuce and I went out to his boat, the James Caird, to check on Julie. “She’s leaving her sweater again,” Deuce said.

  “Sweater?”

  Deuce grinned. “You sit up there on that damned island, out of touch with civilization, and your senses dull. When a woman wants an excuse to see a man again, she leaves something behind. Gives her a reason to come back.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

  Deuce glanced over my shoulder and I followed his gaze. Devon took a large gym bag from Morgan’s car, then he backed out of his parking spot and his car disappeared through the overhanging trees.

  “Once you two get down to Key West,” Deuce said, with that crooked grin, “she’s going to have to come back here for her car.”

  “She’s just doing her job,” I said, looking on as Devon went to the Revenge and put her bag just inside the salon hatch.

  “I’ll be up there first thing in the morning,” Deuce said, as he stepped aboard the center-cockpit ketch. “Rusty said he’d lend me his boat.”

  As Deuce disappeared down into the aft stateroom of the sailboat, I turned and walked back toward the Revenge. Bender was on the fly bridge, and Kim was closing up the engine room hatch. Tony and Andrew were standing by the fore and aft dock lines, and Devon was waiting in the cockpit.

  “I thought it’d be easier if I just rode with you,” she said, as I approached. “Brought my own Dramamine.”

  “The more the merrier,” I said. “Plenty of room for a few more.”

  Finn and Rusty joined me on the deck of the old barge. “Good luck, both of you,” Rusty said, extending his hand to Devon.

  “I’ll see ya Sunday,” I told my old friend as I stepped up onto the gunwale. He nodded and I jerked a thumb to the cockpit. “You coming, Finn?”

  The dog barked and leapt the gunwale. I called up to the bridge, “Start her up, Kim!”

  The big engines rumbled to life as Finn made a couple of circles around his spot in the cockpit and lay down. I motioned a hand to the ladder. “After you, Detective.”

  As Devon climbed up to the fly bridge, I yelled, “Cast off the bow, reverse the port engine.”

  Like a well-oiled machine, Kim waited until Andrew tossed off the bow line, then engaged the transmission on the port side. The bow slowly pushed away from the barge, as the port engine pulled back against the stern line on the starboard side.

  “Cast off the stern,” I said to Tony, as I climbed up the ladder. “Take us out, Kim.”

  Though Kim only visited every other weekend from college, she’d spent nearly a whole year as my first mate, and could handle the Revenge as well as anyone. She took the port engine out of gear, waited a moment while Tony let go the line, then shifted both engines to forward and spun the wheel.

  Bender was sitting on the forward bench seat, and Devon had taken a seat on the port bench. Kim started to get up from the helm, but I put a hand on her shoulder and sat down next to Devon.

  “You know the way as well as I do,” I told my daughter. “Just keep an eye out for debris in the water. There’s still some junk floating out there that hasn’t found our island yet.”

  Tony and Andrew came up as we idled past the concrete pad by the boat ramp. Andrew squeezed past us and joined Paul. I nodded to Tony to take the second seat. He’d acted as first mate many times, as had just about everyone on Deuce’s team, so he was familiar with all the systems on the Revenge.

  “Hey,” Kim said. “Where’s the Hopper?

 
“Flew her up to Labelle before the storm,” I replied. “If we get time, maybe you’d like to go up with me on Sunday to bring her back.”

  “You have your own plane, too?” Devon asked. “Who are you? Some kind of Bill Gates?”

  “Who’s he?” I asked.

  Kim laughed as she brought the Revenge up on plane and started the wide, sweeping turn toward the Seven Mile Bridge. “You have to excuse my dad,” she said to Devon. “He’s sort of a caveman when it comes to technology.”

  “Technology?” I asked. “I thought we were talking about the Island Hopper.”

  “Gates is the founder of Microsoft,” Devon said. “And now he’s one of the richest men in the world.”

  “Well, I’m nowhere near that,” I said. “But I get it. You see a boat bum with no visible means of support, and he’s got a couple of flashy boats and an airplane, and the cop in you is suspicious.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” Devon said. “But no, I think I’ve gotten to know enough about you to know that you’re not a bad person.”

  I considered what she’d said. Being a cop, she’d naturally be curious and could probably find out on her own.

  “He inherited a bunch,” Kim said, as if reading my mind. “And he found some treasure. But dad spends most of it helping others. The boats and the plane are just tools to do the job.”

  “How do you fish from a plane?” Devon asked, as we went under the high arch of the bridge.

  “It’s an amphibian,” Kim said. “Wait till you see her—a cherry red 1953 deHavilland Beaver.”

  “You fly, too?” Devon asked.

  “Whenever I can,” Kim replied. “Which isn’t often, with me up in Gainesville and Island Hopper down here. You’re staying on the island tonight?”

  “Yes,” I answered for Devon, before anything got awkward. “She can bunk with you and Chyrel, or stay here on the boat.”

  Kim gave me a look and then glanced at Devon, who was gazing out over the bow. Kim looked back at me with a question in her eyes. I pretended not to notice, and asked her how her studies were going.

  Kim rolled her eyes at me. “What?” I asked.

  “How are your studies going, young lady?” she said, mimicking me and laughing. She eased the throttles a little. “School’s just fine, Dad. Marty asked me to move in with him.”

  “No!” I said, flatly. “That’s just not gonna happen.”

  “Dad, I’m nineteen. I’ll be starting my senior year in January, and I’ll have my degree by this time next year. I don’t need, nor am I asking for, your permission.”

  “No daughter of mine—”

  “Relax,” Kim said, “I told him no.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course,” Kim replied. “He’s gotta marry me first.”

  I don’t remember much of the ride back to the island after that. The idea that my youngest might soon be married was a little overwhelming. Both she and my other daughter, Eve, had only been back in my life for a couple of years now. Eve was already married and a mom, which made me a grandfather. Deuce’s getting out of the spy-versus-spy thing seemed like pretty good timing. I was getting too old to be carting his spooks all over El Caribe.

  As we idled up my little channel, Kim pushed the button on the key fob. The door to the dock area under the west side of my house slowly started to swing open. She reversed the starboard engine and used the throttles to turn the big boat around in the relatively small turning basin.

  “And now I’m not so sure anymore,” Devon said, looking at the dock area under the house. Only the Cigarette was visible, since it and the Revenge take up the whole western half of the dock area.

  “That one was confiscated,” Andrew said, as he and Tony started down the ladder. “We use it for training mostly. Same with the big one on the other side.”

  Kim stood up at the wheel and faced aft, as the Revenge came about. Using just the throttles, she backed the Revenge into the tight hole, with very little help from Tony and Andrew.

  Devon looked over the top of the Cigarette to the other boats. “And those?”

  “The big one’s Cazador,” I said. “Technically, it and the Cigarette are owned by the government. We use Cazador for small fishing parties that don’t want to pay the big bucks for Gaspar’s Revenge. Beyond that are my and Kim’s skiffs, my caretakers’ boat, and my utility boat. The brown one is Knot-L8. That’s with the letter L and the number eight. Carl and I built that one for fun.”

  “You do like your toys, don’t you?” Devon said as we climbed down, leaving Kim to handle the shutdown.

  I stepped over the gunwale and opened the small door to the pier. Finn shot through the door—off to look for the kids, I was sure. “Like I said, you can sleep in the bunkhouse with Chyrel and Kim, there’s plenty of room. Tony, Paul, and Andrew will be staying in the other bunkhouse. Or, if you need air conditioning, you’re welcome to stay aboard. We’ll be hooked up to shore power.”

  “You have electricity way out here?” she asked, looking all around the dock area.

  “Everything’s connected to the battery shack on the other side of the island. Those batteries, as well as the ones on all the boats down here, are charged by a generator. The same generator also powers the pumps and other higher voltage needs, on demand.”

  “Hot water?”

  “The Revenge has a water heater and there’s a rain cistern above my house. The water in it stays pretty warm from the sun.”

  She seemed to come to a decision and stepped over onto the narrow dock next to me. “I’ll stay on the boat, if you don’t mind.”

  “Then you can take the master stateroom,” I said, joining Tony and Andrew to help tie up and connect shore power and water lines.

  “What can I do to help?” Devon asked.

  “I could use some help in the engine room,” Kim said, climbing down from the fly bridge.

  “Um, sure,” Devon replied.

  Kim took maintenance seriously. She always checked fluid levels before starting and after shut-down. Not something she’d need help with. I gave my daughter a warning look, before she disappeared through the engine room hatch.

  Once everything was secure, I went aboard and carried Devon’s gym bag to my stateroom. It was a different color than the one she’d had before, I noticed, and a bit larger. Devon and Kim were talking in the cockpit when I returned.

  “I put your bag in the forward stateroom,” I said. “Supper will be right after sunset. I’m not sure what Charlie has on the menu, but it will likely be seafood.”

  “Are we going out on the pier, Dad?” Kim asked.

  “Probably oughta hurry,” I replied. Then to Devon, I added, “Everyone stops whatever they’re doing at sunset out here.”

  A few minutes later, the three of us walked between the bunkhouses and saw that everyone else was already seated on the pier, ready for the dance Mother Ocean and Sol put on for us every evening. We quietly walked out past the others and sat down on the pier.

  “Will there be a green flash?” Devon asked.

  “Not this evening,” I replied, watching Carl Junior, Patty, and Finn splashing in the shallows. “Humidity’s too low.”

  The kids were tanned, like their parents, their hair colored a light yellow by days in the sun. When I was Carl Junior’s age, my tan was so deep I was darker than Billy.

  A battery of low clouds obscured the sun, but I knew it would reappear just below them before sinking into the shallows to the west. As Sol emerged, it seemed to ignite the clouds, lighting the undersides. The flames spread out as the sun got lower and touched the far horizon, just off Raccoon Key.

  Devon nudged me and pointed toward the foot of the pier. The kids were sitting in the water with Finn between them, all three watching the display in silence.

  The air had been scrubbed free of moisture by the passing hurricane, and for the next few days it would be cooler, with low humidity levels. This made for a great view of the setting sun, but without the visual effects.
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  Slowly, the giant red-orange orb slipped quietly below the horizon and disappeared. At places like Mallory Square, this would have brought on a chorus of cheers and clapping. Here on my island, the event is measured in silence, each observer nestled into their own thoughts on the day.

  The kids were the first to recover. They resumed splashing water at Finn, who tried to grab it in his mouth. Chyrel and Kim rose and headed toward shore, saying they had some unpacking to do. A moment later, Charlie and Carl followed them to finish dinner. We were having lobster on the grill.

  When the men all rose as one and left for the bunkhouse, that left me and Devon alone on the pier. “I like your daughter,” Devon said. “She’s straight to the point, like her dad.”

  “What’d she say?” I asked, suspiciously.

  “That you don’t have a good track record with women.”

  I chortled. I couldn’t help it. “Sorry about that.”

  “It’s cool. I asked her what she meant by that and she said you have some pretty deep scars is all.”

  “Ancient history,” I replied, looking off toward the darkening sky. “Two divorces and then widowed.”

  “She told me. She said it was before she found you, three years ago.”

  “I’ve dated some since then,” I lied. The reality is that my life over the last three years has been a string of one-night stands. A few relationships that showed promise just never developed, one girlfriend I scared off, another one got shot, and the latest didn’t think it necessary to end things before sleeping with someone else.

  We talked for a while longer, until the sound of Charlie banging on an iron skillet brought us to our feet. A driftwood fire was already going in the pit when Devon and I walked toward the others at the big outdoor tables. “Yep, a regular hippie commune,” she said.

  “I’m gonna whip your ass,” I whispered, with a grin.

  “Promises, promises.”

  After locking up the club, Harley got in his car and drove to the warehouse on the south side of Stock Island. Pulling up to the gate of the decrepit old building, he got out to unlock it. Duke’s Jeep was parked by the front door of the mostly featureless building, set back off the road among several others, each surrounded by a high security fence.