by Andrew Mayne
I feel a cold finger touch my soul.
What if Stacey came to the canal looking for me?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LURE
Dad is sitting at the bar in the back of the Crab Pot restaurant, talking to a younger man with a watch that cost more than my boat. He’s tan, well coiffed, and wears khakis under a navy Burberry shirt. I can’t remember the name of the watch, but it’s not a Rolex or something you use to impress people who don’t have money. It’s the kind of watch you have to be really into watches or ultrarich to understand how valuable it is.
When Dad told me to meet him here, I should have realized he was working. The bar at the Crab Pot has an “authentic” local vibe, but the locals stopped going here years ago when the yachties started showing up and prices skyrocketed.
Dad’s “business” is talking wealthy people into a charter—if they’re lucky. Or investing in his next treasure hunt if they’re not so fortunate.
Dad looks up and waves me over. “Hey! There’s Sloan!”
I walk over, give Dad a peck on the cheek, and greet his victim with a smile.
“This is Jeff Green. He’s visiting from California. I was just telling him about the Atocha’s stern castle.”
Green shakes my hand. “Your dad says that Mel Fisher didn’t find everything he was looking for.”
Ugh. This again. “The stern castle is where they think the Muzo emeralds were held.”
“Muzo what?” he asks.
“Emeralds, worth over a billion dollars,” Dad interjects.
“Those are the emeralds the Spanish conquered and subjugated the Muzo people for. If anyone finds them, they’ll probably be tied up in court for years,” I reply, harshing Dad’s pitch.
“Did I mention my daughter is working on her PhD in archaeology?” Dad responds.
“Did he also mention that I’m a cop?” I shoot back.
Green smiles, trying to make sense of the exchange. “Interesting. Anyone else in the family in law enforcement?”
“Nope,” I reply. “Pirates all the way back. I hate to interrupt, but I need to borrow my father. He can talk you out of a small fortune later if you like.”
Dad gives me a frustrated look.
“I’ll say this, though,” I add, feeling a little bad. “He’s an honest man. He’ll never try to convince you of something he hasn’t convinced himself of.”
Green nods to my father. “Robert, I’d like to hear more about this later. Specifically, some of the advancements in millimeter radar. That might make uncovering the wreck easier.”
After he leaves for another part of the restaurant, I shake my head in disbelief.
Dad gives me a wry grin. “The best salesman lets them sell to themselves.”
“You should have gone into politics,” I reply.
Dad holds up his hand for the bartender, an older woman named Cassie. “Two Ghost Castles. My daughter is buying.”
“Stacey Miller,” I say to him after the beers are placed in front of us, looking for any reaction.
Dad just blinks. “Who is she?”
I believe him. Not that I was suspicious. “Winston Miller’s little girl. Remember her?”
“The one that used to feed those ugly ducks at the boatyard?”
“Her. Only she’s older now. And dead.”
His eyes narrow for a moment, then he gets it. “The girl in the canal? The one you found?”
“The one who was murdered while I was diving just a few feet away. That was Stacey Miller. I didn’t recognize her because it’s been years.” I add the last part defensively. I haven’t even begun to assess my guilt for not realizing that was her.
From an adult’s perspective, I realize now she was a sad little girl. Her dad kept her in the boatyard almost all the time, and the only friends she had were the people who stopped by. A visit from my brothers and me always got her excited, although she was a bit socially awkward.
“Do they know who did it?” Dad asks.
“No. Or if they do, nobody’s telling me. I have people watching me because they think I might know something.”
Dad thinks about this. “Do you?”
“No!” I say a little too loudly, getting attention from other people in the lounge. “I don’t. The other important question is, why was she there at the canal when I was?”
I look at Dad. He looks at me.
“Okay,” I say, “what do you know about her?”
“Me? I barely remember her. You’re the cop.”
I found a handful of legal encounters on Stacey’s official record: a couple of arrests for possession, one conviction that sounded like a plea bargain down from intent to distribute cocaine, and two DUIs that were dismissed. Out of curiosity I looked up her attorney. It turned out to be an expensive firm in Miami, which means she had someone with money paying her legal bills.
I keep it simple for Dad. “She’s had some troubles, but nothing like this. What about Winston?”
“I haven’t talked to him in a while. Maybe a couple years?”
I didn’t know the man like Dad did, except that he worked on our boats and had a temper and a drinking problem. As a kid you don’t see things as clearly. “Do you have any contact information for him? It looks like he sold the boatyard a while back.”
Dad takes out his phone. “Let me see the number I have for him. Winston was always having financial problems and changing his phone. Don’t get me wrong, Sloan. He’s brilliant. He used to work for the navy before he had the yard. He freelanced for builders up in Newport News.”
“Patching boats?” I reply.
“No. Building them. Specialty craft. Torpedoes. Remotely Operated Vehicles. A lot of secret stuff too. I know he worked with a contractor that did stuff with Naval Special Operations, but his drinking got in the way. Got worse when the wife died. Lost him his security clearance.”
I never knew this side of him. I just knew that he was the guy you took your boat to, told him how much money you had to spend, and let him figure a way to make it work. He was clever, I’ll give him that. His boatyard was filled with random junk you’d never expect to see. There were old RVs he’d buy for cheap to salvage the septic systems . . . even airplane parts.
I took Winston’s cleverness for granted when I was a kid. I thought all boatbuilders were that resourceful.
Dad sends me Winston’s contact information, and I save it to my phone.
“Did Stacey stay in the business?” I ask.
“I think she may have worked around the office, but she never got into the mechanical side, if that’s what you’re asking. I think she hated boats.” He shakes his head. “Sad. Just sad.”
I dial Winston’s number. A moment later I get a mailbox-full message.
“Anything?” asks Dad.
“No. Let me try texting.”
A second after I get a notice that my message can’t be sent through.
It looks like he’s off the grid. Did this happen before or after Stacey was found dead?
“Nothing,” I tell my father. “Know anybody who would have talked to Winston recently?”
Dad stares down at his beer and starts to peel away the label. “Nope.”
Nope is Dad’s tell for when he’s lying.
“Nope? Or no?”
Dad grimaces. “I haven’t talked to him . . .”
“Pop. This is a serious situation. Talk.” I put just enough edge into my voice.
He reluctantly answers, “Karl.”
“Uncle Karl? Were they . . . ?” My words trail off at the suggestion that Winston may have been involved with my uncle in some kind of trafficking activity.
Karl’s currently serving a three-year sentence for a parole violation. The first time out, he seemed clean, but he started working boat charters that took him outside his probation area. His first probation officer let that slide as long as Karl took him on the occasional charter. It was a great scheme until he ran into a coast guard inspection that happened to inc
lude a DEA agent on board who ran my uncle’s record and realized that he was about ten miles farther out than he was officially allowed.
Things have been pretty rough for Karl ever since.
I was hoping to avoid this, but it seems I have no choice. I send a text message to a friend in the US Marshals Service.
“Who are you texting?”
“I’m seeing if I can go talk to Uncle Karl,” I reply.
“That takes weeks to arrange. Why not just call him?”
“He has a harder time lying to me face-to-face.” A message bubble appears on my phone. “I can get in to see him at FCI tomorrow,” I tell Dad.
“Sometimes I forget that you really are a cop,” he says.
“Hopefully Uncle Karl forgets that too.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HARDTACK
The Federal Correctional Institution in Miami is a minimum-security prison intended for nonviolent offenders with a low probability of attempting to escape—which means it resembles something between the prisons we see on television and an inner-city high school. Its alumni include Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and boy-band producer Lou Pearlman, who served time for a Ponzi scheme.
The part that movies generally fail to get about prisons is their antiseptic, bureaucratic feel. The jails and prisons I’ve visited have felt more like college admissions offices than gritty, ironclad, Gothic castles. Maybe it’s different up north. But down here they remind me of public schools with cots.
Ben Simmons, the US marshal who helped arrange the visit, ushers Uncle Karl into an office. I could have gone through the warden, but it’s easier to keep the conversation private this way.
“I’ll be outside answering calls,” Simmons explains. “If you need anything, let me know.” He leaves the door open a crack to be safe.
“What’s up, Catfish?” Uncle Karl greets me with a warm hug.
Man, he’s lost weight. He still has his dark tan, but his eyes seem strangely sunken. Either he’s having a health problem, or he’s using something. I decide to shelve that conversation for another day.
He’s uncuffed, as is typical around here. I motion for him to have a seat. “You have enough in your account?”
Prisoners are allowed to buy extra food and snacks with a prison account.
“I’m good,” he replies. “Someone’s been looking after that.”
That someone is me. I check his balance periodically to make sure he has enough. I haven’t told him, and I’m not sure if he suspects. Despite my anger toward the man, I can’t forget he’s the one who’d bring me cookies when I was sick and stick up for me when my brothers teased me too much.
“Stacey Miller,” I say flatly.
The look on his face says a lot. He knows she’s dead, but what else does he know?
“When was the last time you talked to her?” I ask.
“Is this an official visit? Is Lauderdale Shores part of some kind of interagency narcotics group now?” he jokes at my department’s expense.
“It’s a personal matter. I pulled her body out of the water two days ago.”
His face goes pale. “I didn’t know you still do that kind of thing.”
“I do. But this one was more freelance.”
“Freelance?”
I don’t elaborate. “What do you know about her?”
“Nothing. I never talked to her much,” he replies.
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“I haven’t talked to her in at least a couple years. Why?”
I ignore his question. “What about her dad? What can you tell me about Winston Miller?”
“He worked on our boats. You remember. He had some trouble a couple years ago. We lost touch.”
“Dad says you still talk to him,” I reply.
“Not since . . . Not for years.”
“Not since when?”
“Not since I went to jail the first time. I lost touch with everyone. Nobody wants to talk to a con.”
I roll my eyes. “Enough of the pity-party bullshit.”
“When did you become such a hard-ass?”
“I’m a McPherson. It’s in the DNA. But apparently it skips a generation.”
“Touché.”
“Not since . . . ?” I repeat his words back to him.
“What?”
“You said, ‘Not since,’ then fed me some bullshit about you losing touch because of prison. But that’s not what you meant to say.”
He shrugs. “Who knows why he stopped talking to me?”
It’s more of a delaying tactic than a response.
“Did he stop? I remember the trial. The odd part was where they said you built the compartments on the boat for hauling cocaine. I remember thinking to myself how impressed I was that you kept that mechanical side of you so well hidden. But charts and currents were your thing, not fiberglass and epoxy.”
Uncle Karl remains silent. His eyes flick to the open door, where Marshal Simmons waits on the other side.
“So, Winston made the compartments.” I say it as a statement, not a question.
Uncle Karl doesn’t say anything, which tells me enough.
“Did he do it for other people?”
Karl is clearly uneasy. I’ve touched a nerve. He’s probably wondering if I’m wearing a wire for some kind of sting.
“I’m just asking questions,” I explain. “I’m your niece. Not the police.”
“In a US marshal’s office,” he says in a lowered voice. “With the door open.”
I turn to the door and shout, “Hey, Simmons, my uncle just told me he plans to escape and join ISIS.”
“Tell him to wear sunscreen,” he replies from the other side.
“He doesn’t care about a case from more than a decade ago. Nobody does.”
“Tell that to the judge that sent me here.”
“Tell that to the dumb ass that keeps violating parole.”
Anger flashes across his face. “It’s not easy being treated like a convict. Especially for something that half the people around you are guilty of.”
I lose my temper. “It’s not easy being the niece of a convict and getting treated like one even though you never did the things you say everybody else did.”
“Yeah, well, you certainly benefited from it,” he mumbles.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He glowers at me but stays silent.
“What are you trying to say?” Is he claiming his ill-gotten gains supported Dad and us?
I feel gut punched as I realize that . . . of course . . . Karl wasn’t smuggling for the first time when he got caught. Shit. How naive can I be?
The investors he helped find for the family business . . . the shares he bought. Damn.
Dad may not have known, but he probably suspected. Goddamn it.
Focus, Sloan. Worry about the past later. Right now we stay focused.
“Winston. Tell me about him.”
Karl looks off to the side, ignoring me. “I’ll talk to my niece. But not the cop.”
“You asshole. Fine. What do you want to talk about?”
“Did you come in here and treat me like family and tell me how Jackie was doing or did you just treat me like a suspect?”
Not a hint of humor or tenderness. He’s seriously angry. Well, screw him and his self-pity.
“Jackie? My daughter, your grandniece, is staying with her father because I’m too scared to let her come home after whoever murdered Stacey Miller stole my driver’s license. She’s great. Thanks for asking. I’ll tell her she can come home once I figure out why the daughter of her uncle’s drug-smuggling partner was killed a few feet away from her mom. Then it’ll all be great. We’ll bake you a fucking cake.”
Uncle Karl’s eye twitches for a second, then he drops his head into his hands. I brace myself for his temper and a barrage of grief.
Instead he quietly says, “I’m so fucking stupid. I’m so, so fucking stupid.”
“What do you know?”
He inhales and sits up, wiping his eyes. “I don’t know why anyone would be after you. I swear.”
“What about Stacey? Is there a reason she would have come looking for me?”
Karl thinks about this. “She probably knew you were a cop.”
“She probably knew a lot of cops,” I reply.
“Yeah, but I think she looked up to you.”
“Me? She hardly even knew me.”
“You don’t know how people see you from afar. I talked about you. Believe it or not, I was proud of you. I even put your academy graduation photo on my cell wall.”
“That must have gone over well.”
“You’d be surprised. Guys congratulated me.” He wipes his eyes. “Don’t get mad. But I told them you were my daughter.”
“What?” I’m not mad, but I thought Karl would’ve been embarrassed to have a cop daughter.
“You’re your mom and dad’s kid through and through, but I like to think some of the good stuff came from Uncle Karl. It . . . it makes me feel like one percent less of an asshole. Maybe Stacey heard me talking about you. I did it a lot.” He shrugs, then says, “Maybe . . . Oh, I don’t know.”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe she got into trouble and figured she could go to you because of that.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Uncle Karl glances at the door and lowers his voice. “The Mendez money.”
Mendez is the name of a cartel that’s been making the news in the last year or so, since the feds arrested a South Florida attorney trying to lock down their money.
Jason Bonaventure. That’s the attorney they arrested. That’s who Cardiff was talking about with Solar.
As I recall, the charges were dropped, and Bonaventure filed a huge lawsuit. His Palm Beach island estate was all over the news because the feds were digging holes and trying to search for records or something.
“What about the Mendez money?” I ask.
“It’s missing. Over half a billion dollars. You might remember, the feds were trying really hard to find it. A week ago, one of Bonaventure’s attorneys serving time in here got a visit from some lawyer from Colombia.”
“And?”
Karl shrugs. “I don’t know. It was a big deal to some of the folks in here. They say there are more cartel captains in Miami right now than in South America. Something’s up.”
