Backwater Flats

by Steven Becker

  Scott and Robinson were now neck-and-neck for the top spot on my list. Ray’s name was still on it, and Susan was all-too-close for comfort. Walking back to the restaurant, I took a seat at the bar with a view of the water and checked out the menu. While I waited for the bartender to take my order, I started playing with the jigsaw puzzle of suspects in my mind. I realized I had never confirmed either Scott’s or Robinson’s whereabouts at the time of the murder. Scott had just gotten off his shift and would have been close by, and Robinson had showed up far faster than I expected him, especially on a Sunday afternoon.

  Susan had let me down, not even managing to get the personnel files from Robinson. I wondered how hard she tried. It was probably fifty-fifty whether it was because Robinson resisted or because she didn’t ask.

  Detective work can be described as ninety-nine percent drudgery and one percent uncontrollable craziness. I’d gotten a little taste of the one percent last night. Today was looking to be routine, or so I thought. Staring at the water, wishing I was on it, I saw a boat approach. It was up on plane, on a collision course with the bridge. The boat was close enough to the piers and running flat out. I was out of my seat, with my phone in hand, ready to help and call 911, when the hull suddenly dropped in the water, rising and falling as the wake ran underneath it.

  At first the waves obscured the hull. Finally, they subsided enough for me to see it was the twin-engine RHIB, and there were two men aboard. The last few days were the most I’d seen the boat used in a year, leading me to believe that Robinson was somehow involved in all this. Running the department all these years without doing any work told me he was smart and shrewd. He had to be in on the scheme to confiscate and sell the lobsters. Martinez was a master at manipulating reports and numbers to get the outcome he wanted; I had to assume Robinson, or any other long-tenured bureaucrat, would be just as adept. With the majority of the tickets being issued for safety violations and few or none being written for short or out-of-season fish, he had to be involved. That didn’t mean he killed Hayward, though. Scott had shown a mean streak, had access to the murder weapon, and the opportunity to kill Hayward. Whether his holier-than-thou attitude was enough for motive was the questionable part.

  The boat’s inertia continued to move it forward, bringing it awfully close to a piling. The driver cut the wheel to port in order to avoid striking the bridge pier. Though the rigid, inflatable hull would likely have withstood the impact, it was low tide now, and the two feet of exposed crustaceans could have easily penetrated the material. Both men’s backs were to me as the guy at the helm accelerated to avoid the collision. Now I could see that Robinson was driving, and when the boat turned again, I was surprised to see the passenger, sitting on the bench, was Scott. Something was wrong with his posture. He seemed stiff, and after a second, I realized he was tied to the seat.

  Scenarios flooded my mind—none good. Before I could react, another boat approached, this time from the mainland side. I knew it from a quarter mile away—the fishermen from last night.

  23

  I wondered why they were meeting here. The boats were deep in the shadows, but the backwater flats of the bay might have been a better place to do whatever they intended to do. As I knew first-hand, bodies that were dumped or had drifted into those narrow, mangrove-covered channels were often unidentifiable after a few weeks. The same back-country predators that would assault a body were present here as well, predominantly crabs, and in addition, bull sharks were known to prowl these waters. Robinson might have thought the bay was too risky a meeting place. He knew I patrolled there, and he had turned most of the fishing guides against him. Here, he would have no reason to think I was sitting a hundred yards away watching them.

  I had an idea what was coming and as the men talked, I tried to stay calm and judge the distance, current, and my ability to cross the span of water. Currents at the bridges during some tidal phases were in excess of four knots; faster than most men can swim. There would be no point in diving in to rescue Scott, fail at the attempt, and need to be saved myself.

  Several brightly colored Styrofoam balls, markers for the blue-crab traps below, were set in the deeper water beyond the rocks. Walking to the rail, I checked the flow of water around the buoys. Once the line was taut, a strong current would show a wake in the direction it flowed. It was pretty calm and only wind waves danced around the buoys, a good sign, but under the surface could be a different story. Moving my attention back to the boats, I saw something being lashed to Scott, likely a weight of some kind. It certainly appeared he was about to be dumped wearing the proverbial concrete shoes. I ran back inside, yelling at the bartender to call 911. Scanning the bar top, my eyes saw a knife he had been cutting fruit with. I reached over the bar top, grabbed it, and ran back outside.

  Not expecting any action when I walked in the Wetlab, I had left my sidearm and duty belt locked in the truck. Tossing my phone, keys, and wallet with my credentials to the deck by a post, I stripped off my shirt and, tossing it over my stuff, climbed over the rail. The rocks were slime-covered and fairly steep, forcing me to my hands and knees. I reached the water without incident and looked back across to the two boats sitting under the bridge.

  Scott had been transferred to the fishing boat. Once his feet had cleared the gunwales of the RHIB, Robinson spun the wheel and idled to the next pier, where he gunned the twin engines and started back south. Whatever was going to happen next, his hands were clean. I waited, slinking across the rocks to get a better look. From this distance, even if I was seen I didn’t think the fishermen could identify me. I hoped to look like a tourist trying to catch crabs. Once I was in the water, it would be a different story. My best course of action for this instant was inaction.

  The wake from Robinson’s boat had dissipated, leaving only the fishing boat under the bridge. The sun was overhead, leaving the underside of the structure deep in shadows. In the dim light, I thought I saw one of the men strike Scott across the face. His head slumped forward and whatever resistance he had put up came to an end as each man grabbed Scott under an arm and hauled him to his feet. They nodded at each other and rolled the bound man over the gunwale. A crab trap followed, but no buoy floated to the surface. The concrete poured into the trap to hold it to the bottom would be enough to keep Scott below until the crabs and sharks finished him off. A few seconds later, ripples were all that were left of the location as the boat pulled away.

  The second I hit the water I knew I had misjudged the current. The incoming tide had the water moving opposite the wind, counteracting the visible effect on the buoy. It felt like I was going nowhere as I stroked toward the bridge. Moving toward the rocks to get out of the main flow helped and I started making some progress. Working my way along the shore, I reached the pier closest to land in what felt like an hour, but I guessed was less than a minute. Crossing to the center would be more difficult, but fortunately a kayak appeared.

  Waving my hands over my head in the universal signal for distress got the paddler’s attention, but didn’t alter his course. If I didn’t get his help in the next few seconds, Scott would die.

  “Police officer. I need your assistance!” I screamed, taking water into my mouth before the words were fully out. He must have heard something and I saw the bow turn toward me.

  “Dude. You need some help?”

  “Hurry.” I didn’t want to delay the rescue with an explanation. Paddling toward me as we talked, he was now close enough to reach me in a few strokes.

  “Dude. What are you doing out here?”

  “Guy’s in the water over there.” I counted the piers and pointed. “I’ll grab on, just get me over there.”

  Dreadlocked and probably stoned, he was the only option available. As it turned out he was an experienced paddler, and even then, it took all his ability to work the current and position the kayak where I wanted without smashing the boat or myself into one of the piers. I started breathing up, pulling huge breaths all the way into my diaphragm
and letting them out my mouth, preparing to dive. I hoped since the bridge wasn’t built for larger boats to pass under the water wouldn’t be too deep where Scott’s body was dumped.

  Everything was moving in slow motion. Blood pounded in my ears as the clock in my head started ticking louder and louder. At what I estimated was somewhere into minute three, I figured we were on top of the site and released my grip on the kayak. With the depth unknown, I conserved my breath and rotated into a pike position, penetrating the surface as cleanly and effortlessly as possible.

  The current decreased as I dropped what I guessed to be a dozen feet to the bottom, but now the visibility was my immediate concern. Able to see only three feet in front of me, I stood on the ground and spun in a slow circle. Seeing nothing, I expanded the search area.

  The first contraction took me by surprise. I was far from an elite freediver, but had thought myself competent. I wasn’t in the water a full minute before I was forced to surface. There was no time to breathe up. It had to be four minutes since Scott had been thrown over. Diving down again, this time not worried about my form, I frantically swam around the area.

  The bottom was littered with debris. A good deal looked like old piers from the bridge’s renovation. All the straight lines did make it easier to discern something that wasn’t. Plenty of fish cruised the area and I thought I saw the shadow of something large in the darkness. I was just about to surface when I noticed movement near the bottom. Whatever it was appeared jerky and restrained, whereas fish were fluid and graceful. It had to be Scott.

  I could feel my heart rate accelerate and knew I was past the point of rational decision-making. If I’d been able to reason, I would have immediately surfaced, breathed up, and descended with a line that I could tie onto Scott. Instead, I pulled through the water until I reached him and tried to do it myself. Scott was in full panic mode, making rescue even more difficult. Running on fumes, I had nowhere near the air or energy to haul him to the surface.

  Using the fruit knife from the Wetlab, I cut the trap-line and I pulled as hard as I could, but Scott’s dead weight was too much for me. Without being able to bring him to the surface alone, I sprung from the bottom. Gulping for air, I called for a line. My opinion of the dreadlocked stoner immediately improved when he reached back and pulled a tow rope from one of the compartments in his kayak. Holding the free end of the line, he tossed the bag to me. Taking a huge gulp of air, I grabbed the bag and descended, careful not to hinder the line as it released.

  Scott was on his side and, unsure if I could lift him and snake the line under him, I pulled the remainder of the rope from the bag and tied the bitter end to the restraints around his wrists.

  Before ascending I gave three hard tugs on the line, hoping the man above would start taking in slack while I made my way to the surface. Finally, my head broke through and I grasped for air.

  “Dude, climb on and help. Got a big one here.”

  Still sucking huge gulps of air into my lungs, I slid onto the kayak. The kayaker had already taken the slack out of the line, but needed help to raise the body. Trying not to think of Scott as dead weight, I slid onto the kayak and kneeled next to the paddler. Again he surprised me as his wiry muscles contracted. We pulled the line together. At first only the kayak moved, but when the line came vertical, with our combined effort we felt Scott’s body rise through the water column. When directly underneath us, his weight started to pull the kayak under, forcing us to shift to the far gunwale. Finally, Scott’s head broke through the surface.

  “Dude, don’t look like he’s alive.”

  Ignoring him, I pulled Scott’s upper body onto the bow. Fortunately, it was a sit-on-top model with a wide deck and supposedly unsinkable. I had to differ with the last description, when with our combined weight water started pouring onto the deck. Sliding off, I directed the kayaker to bring Scott to the pier.

  Following in the kayak’s wake, I rode the current back to the pier and started climbing the rocks. Hearing a siren’s wail, I looked toward the bar. Hopefully the first responders had arrived. The kayak bumped against my leg, and I turned back to Scott. Grabbing the handle built into the nose of the kayak, I hauled it onto a rock, ignoring the stoner’s complaints about scratching it. Once it was partially out of the water, I grabbed Scott in a fireman’s carry and hauled him onto land.

  Just as I reached the level surface of the pier, a group of uniformed men and women appeared. Waving them over, I stepped back to let the professionals work, and, breathless, collapsed onto the ground. One of the paramedics started to administer CPR while another placed an Ambu bag over Scott’s mouth and nose. Hoping I had been in time, there was nothing I could do but sit back and watch.

  “Dude, mind if I scram out of here? All these uniforms give me the willies.” The kayaker scanned the growing crowd of paramedics, police, and firemen.

  “No worries.” He was an innocent passerby who ended up helping. I didn’t see any need to include him any further. “Appreciate your help.” I rose and shook his hand. He was clearly awkward with the traditional handshake, but I wasn’t getting into the man-hug thing with him. Turning, he walked back to the pier, climbed over the railing into his kayak, and started paddling into the bay. With the current in his favor, he was soon just a dot on the water.

  Turning my attention back to Scott, I watched the group around him working like a well-oiled machine. There was nothing I could do. Scott was unresponsive. I figured it was about ten minutes since he had gone in the water, but the responders’ pace never slowed. Suddenly, the medic by his head jumped back to avoid the spew of seawater coming from Scott’s mouth. Several minutes later, a wave of relief fell over me as I watched him sit up and start to breathe on his own.

  I had to admit a little satisfaction. For once I’d pulled a live body from the water instead of a dead one.

  24

  The rescue vehicles blocking the entrance to the Wetlab had delayed the lunch hour. The action was over and the first responders were packing up to leave, although many still lingered. Not wanting some Miami-Dade patrol officer in the middle of my case, I figured I should stick around to the end. With no background details, the officers who were on-site were treating it as a straight-up rescue. I was the only witness to the actual crime and I intended to keep it that way—at least until Grace Herrera walked in.

  For a man, the cheap business suits worn by male detectives were easy “fashion”—maybe not comfortable—but easy. For a woman, an ill-fitting, cheap suit was much harder to pull off. Columbo fostered the stereotypical image of a rumpled, wrinkled detective, and on men it worked. Some female detectives abided by this code, too.

  Grace didn’t. Her high heels clicked on the concrete floor as she approached. As I watched her coming toward me, “glamorous” was the word that came to mind.

  Pulling off her larger-than-life sunglasses, she stared me down. It was an intense look honed through years of being a good-looking woman in a man’s world.

  “Hunter. It seems you’re always around when something out-of-the-ordinary happens.”

  “At your service.” She was the kind of woman you wanted to flirt with. Making her smile felt good.

  Our heads turned as the stretcher with Scott’s protesting body strapped to it passed by.

  He saw me and said, “I‘m fine. I don’t need this. Hunter, tell them to let me go home.”

  “You really should get a full evaluation. Maybe a CT scan or something.” Scott spending some quality time in the hospital might be a good thing. He’d likely be safe there without me having to call in favors and assign a duty to watch him. Attempted murder of any law enforcement officer, whether they were well-liked or not, always rallied the troops.

  “Can I at least make a phone call?” he asked.

  I gave Grace the “got a minute?” look and she nodded. Walking over to Scott, I handed him my phone. He stopped complaining for a second, but my real motive was to see who he called.

  Before he made
his call he turned back to me. “Water?”

  I was starting to feel like his man Friday, but realized something. I might miss his call, but my phone would record the number he dialed. After getting the bartender’s attention and asking for a glass of water, he dumped some ice in the glass, filled it from the bar gun, and handed it to me. Before I walked away, I noticed a black plastic caddy with napkins and straws. Grabbing two straws, I stuck them in the drink and walked back outside.

  “Here you go.” I handed Scott the glass, hoping he would use the straws. I hadn’t done a study on men and straw usage, but even before straws had become the latest environmental travesty, I never used one. Scott’s position on the gurney forced him to, and after finishing the water, I took the glass back, making sure to slide the straws into my pocket. Justine would scold me about their care, but I had his DNA.

  Back at the gurney, Scott finished his call and handed the phone back.

  “Jackson Memorial?” I asked the paramedic.

  He nodded and pushed the gurney toward the waiting ambulance.

  “I saw that,” Grace said. “Slick move. Want to fill me in?”

  With the ambulance gone and the restaurant open, things started to return to normal—including my appetite. “Got time for lunch?”

  She looked around. “Yeah, I’m already screwed standing here talking to you. Might as well get a meal out of it.”

  I was surprised it had taken so long, but as the last of the first responders were packing up, the media moved in. Three vans, each representing a different network, pulled up in quick succession. The last fire truck must have spotted them before me and hightailed it out of the parking lot.

  The media’s playing field had changed with the proliferation of smartphones. Once upon a time, in the not-so-distant past, there were liaisons from each department responsible for dealing with the media. Back then things were more professional. Video was edited and polished before airing in its allocated time slot on the news. Now, it was a race between those same liaisons posting on their department’s social media channels, the raw, unedited footage that people wanted. In addition to that any bystander with a phone could have their video go viral.