Murder at the Canaveral Diner (A Florida Murder Mystery Novel)

by Jay Heavner

  It was just another normal sweltering day in the last week of August as Speedy worked his backhoe excavator through the Florida swamp a dozen miles from Kennedy Space Center, but this would be no ordinary day for Speedy. He had been building roads for an upscale housing development. Much of the swampy area was to be left natural, and only the higher areas in the thousand acres would be developed. The tricky part was connecting the helter-skelter high and dry areas locally called hammocks with roads for access through the mucky wetlands. The typical summer rains had been late in coming and the year, up until two weeks ago, had been unusually hot and dry, but the skies had opened up, and the rains had come in deluges lately.

  Now with water back in the marshlands, Vanderjack had an easier time deciding where the road layout in the development would be, but the swamp, overflowing from the rains, had also produced a dangerous prob- lem. He had to be careful with the big machine. Even with its tank-like tracks, it could still disappear into the black waters if the land under it was not firm enough to hold its weight. He was having a particularly difficult time finding solid footing between two oak and pine covered island ham- mocks.

  Rarely did he see anyone as he worked his way through the swampland though he often had the creepy feeling he was being watched. He sometimes spoke out loud just to hear the comforting sound of a human voice, even if it was only his own. He appreciated having a boss that trusted him completely to do the right thing. Some he remembered had been jerks watching his every move. Vanderjack had first met his present employer while clearing a lot in the front of the new development. A man pulled up in an old pickup truck and had watched him work for two hours. Curiosity had gotten the best of Speedy who turned off his land clearing machine and went over to speak with the man in the truck.

  After the standard greetings and sizing up the other and his intentions, the man commented that he noted Vanderjack was being very careful not to damage any trees or natural vegetation than was absolutely necessary with the bulky machine. Speedy had told him he had been instructed to do so by the lot owner and that he liked to leave things as native Florida as he could. At that point, the man identified himself as Jim Crane, owner and developer of the Windover project and offered him a job doing road and site development. He needed a conscientious man like Speedy, and so he was hired. That was two years ago, and Speedy was happy to have one construction job so long and for a man who was a great boss, but today he was using every bit of skill he had to find a place for the new road in the quagmire.

  He dropped a full bucket of the watery muck on the emerging roadbed after extending the bucket as far as he could reach to a mound of peat barely sticking out of the black water and pulling it down through the swamp. Vanderjack could tell it dropped off rapidly and was deep. He would have to be careful, or he could lose his machine and possibly his life if he made the wrong move. His cigar was burned down to nothing, so he stopped, threw it in the swamp, and lite another one. He took a long drag on it and looked off toward the muck he had just pulled up. Some- thing caught his eye. He turned off his machine, climbed down over the muddy track, and walked the short distance to the oozing pile. What’s a big, round rock doing in this Florida swamp? He’d seen rocks similar to this in his native Michigan. Glaciers made round rocks, but there had never been any glaciers in Florida. Curious, he picked up the wet object and spun it around in his hands.

  Muck flowed from three holes of the rock, but this was no ordinary rock. It was a skull, a human skull. He gasped and nearly choked as the acidic cigar fumes filled his lungs. He coughed, stepped back, slipped in the muck and almost fell.

  The flesh had long since gone from it. He looked around the muck pile and found another skull of similar condition. He picked the second one up and now had two empty faces staring at him. Were there any more? Still holding the two skulls, he walked around the pile. What he saw next brought terror to his heart. A small, slightly decomposed human hand lay in the dirt. He dropped the two skulls and said something like, “Oh, sugar,” only maybe stronger. Only he knows for sure.

  What had he stumbled onto? He had to tell his boss and probably the local law. Someone needed to know of this. What had he found?