Avenged in the Keys

by Rief, Matthew

  Out of earshot from the other patrons, Ange brought me up to speed on the info she’d received from Jane while the waiter brought us our drinks.

  “They identified the man who tried to kill Harper as Patrick Skinner,” she said.

  “Rap sheet?”

  Ange’s eyes grew big. “Oh yeah. He’d been in and out of prison for the past ten years. Drug dealing, breaking and entering, the works. But recently he’d gotten mixed up with a unique crowd.”

  The waiter slipped in and planted our drinks—lemonade for me and iced tea for Ange. I’d considered a beer, but it was still pretty early, even on island time, and I wanted to have all of my wits about me.

  We ordered, then Ange continued.

  “Turns out this guy Patrick joined the Aryan Order. And he’s been running with them for a while now.”

  I’d heard of the Aryan Order. Though I didn’t know much about the group, only what I’d learned by glancing at the occasional news article, I knew that they were an organized white supremacist group that operated primarily in Florida.

  “The group is led by this man,” Ange said, showing me a mug shot of a hard-faced middle-aged guy with short, thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and a swastika tattoo on his neck. “His name’s Deacon Lynch.” She slid her thumb down the screen, then showed me another image. “And this is one of his accomplices, Jake Shaw.”

  It didn’t take a second glance to recognize the guy. He was the same Jake who’d trespassed on our boat. The one whom I’d taught a lesson and relieved of his weapons, striking a powerful blow to his ego.

  I’d had a gut feeling early on that this whole situation went deeper than it appeared. I just hadn’t expected it to be this deep.

  I spotted the waiter coming our way with a tray of food, then told Ange that we should probably table the conversation until we were back on the Baia.

  We attacked our food. Being so hungry, we ordered the seafood sampler, and I also got my blackened grouper sandwich. I’d ordered the popular item every time I’d visited the restaurant, so it was a bit of a tradition. The sampler came with fried and steamed shrimp, fish fingers, conch fritters, and crab cakes with sides of mac and cheese and spicy fries. By the time we’d cleared the plates, we were both more than satisfied.

  “Any update on the intrepid treasure hunters?” Ange asked, polishing off her iced tea and leaning back in her high chair.

  All of the white supremacist talk and delicious food had made me forget about the tracking device. I pulled my phone out and brought up the tracking program. After waiting for it to load, I saw the blue indicator dot in the middle of the GPS. It wasn’t in Jones Lagoon.

  “Looks like they’re on the move,” I said, watching as the tracking beacon traced across lower Biscayne Bay, heading northwest.

  Within minutes, the boat settled into an inlet just north of the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant, then stopped beside a building and row of docks.

  The waiter cleared our table and brought us our check. As we paid, a man in white shorts, a blue polo shirt, and boat shoes walked right beside us and looked out over the channel. It was a nice, peaceful waterway flanked by shrubs and filled with birds and the occasional manatee.

  When the guy turned around, he strode by our table, then froze right beside me.

  “Best take your money elsewhere,” he said.

  At first, we thought he was talking to someone else. Then we glanced at him and saw that he was peering at us through a pair of designer sunglasses.

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  He pointed at the screen of my phone that was resting on the table. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be nosy. I caught a glimpse of what you’re looking at and figured you were real estate investors.”

  I leaned forward, saw that my phone was still displaying the GPS and the dot indicating where the two guys had scurried off to.

  “Why do you say we should take our money elsewhere?” Ange said.

  The man chuckled. “That marina’s a dump. Guy who owns it has been trying to pawn it off for a while now. Can’t make ends meet. But it’s no surprise, he never maintains it and scams the few people who moor there. Just wanted to give you a fair warning. The place is a money sinkhole.”

  Before we could say anything else, he turned and migrated back toward his group at the other end of the dining area. I pocketed my phone and trapped a ten-dollar bill under the pepper shaker, then we slid off and trekked back to the Baia.

  Once in the saloon, we brought out the laptop and did some research on Deacon Lynch and the Aryan Order. The man had a website set up for his white supremacist group, a dark page with red text that my antivirus software warned me about prior to visiting it. It was profane, and evil, and twisted. Nothing but propaganda and disturbing racist articles. Lynch had a blog set up where he discussed the problems that nonwhite races created for America and for the world.

  On the website header, he called them the self-proclaimed protectors of the white race. And under the About Us section, he wrote that the organization’s mission was to instigate a race war targeting African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities.

  We also found links to Lynch’s YouTube channel. We’d read that most of his videos had been taken down due to his breaking the website’s terms of service agreement, but they were all still accessible via the Aryan Order’s website.

  The videos contained things like target practice where they shot up jugs of water while they laughed and pretended that they were blowing up heads. Graphic images and evil language that have no place in the United States, or anywhere where freedom and tolerance reign supreme.

  The Aryan Order’s compound had been raided six months earlier for illegal paramilitary training and for shooting up houses, after a long investigation. According to an article, the place was ringed with barbed wire and guarded by pit bulls and had scattered firing positions. The place had been set up as a refuge for white supremacists.

  Unfortunately, Lynch and a handful of his members had been tipped off to the raid. Only a few stragglers were on site when the police barged in, and most of the firearms, ammunitions, and homemade explosives had already been cleared out. The group had vanished since the raid, and no one knew where Lynch and his followers had run off to.

  After half an hour of researching, I leaned back into the cushion.

  “A white supremacist group looking for a Civil War treasure hidden in the ocean by the confederates,” I said, shaking my head. “Only in Florida.”

  FOURTEEN

  Scarlett Dodge lay in a hammock in her backyard. She held an open book in her left hand and let her right dangle to the grass below. Atticus bolted right up to her and dropped a slobber-covered tennis ball. Without looking, she snatched it up and threw it across the yard. The teenager had been playing fetch with the energetic Lab for the past half hour, and the dog showed little signs of fatigue.

  Isaac Rubio, Jack’s nephew, sat at an umbrella-shaded table beside her. He had a textbook open and was taking diligent notes. Jack had gone downtown to the marina for an hour and Harper was upstairs, finishing up a few stories.

  Isaac stopped writing, leaned back, and stretched. Sharpening his pencil, he glanced over at Scarlett and asked her what she was reading.

  “A book on the history of Key West,” she said.

  “That on the high school reading list?”

  “No. We’re supposed to be reading Gatsby, but I finished it.”

  Besides, she thought, I have my own green light. And it isn’t a spoiled, classless rich girl either.

  Ever since she’d heard the story and its believed connection with the murder of Harper’s uncle, all she could think about was the Key West Avengers and the treasure they’d supposedly hidden.

  She looked over at the open book in front of Isaac. “What about you?”

  “Euclid’s Elements.”

  She chuckled. “Don’t you ever read anything interesting?”

  He shot her a dramatic, icy look—as if she’d just cursed
in church.

  “Euclid was one of the most influential minds in history. He was instrumental in the development of logic and modern science. He wrote these pages over twenty-three-hundred years ago, and yet they weren’t surpassed until the 1800s.”

  Scarlett just stared at him. Then she turned her attention to the other book on the table. “I’m sure it’s a real page turner,” she said. “What else you got?”

  Isaac sighed and shook his head. “It’s for my environmental science class. We’re having a guest speaker lecture tomorrow at the college about coastline erosion, and we’re supposed to have intelligent questions prepared for him.”

  “That sounds slightly more interesting.” She gave a fake yawn. “Real edge-of-your-seat stuff.”

  “It’s actually pretty cool.” He set Euclid aside for the time being, showing proper respect by being careful with the book, then cracked open the environmental science textbook. “These pictures were taken just fifty years apart.”

  He stepped over and showed Scarlett the page. The pictures were of the same coastline, but Scarlett was amazed at how much it’d changed in such a short period of time.

  “This guy, Professor Ashwood,” Isaac continued, “he created a program that he can use to show how shorelines used to look based on weather data and charts over the years. He can even predict future changes with an impressive level of accuracy.”

  Scarlett stared out over the water. Just like Gatsby staring across the bay, she saw her desires as she focused across the narrow channel. After all her parents had done for her, she wanted to help them in any way she could. To prove that she too could discover buried treasure, just like they did.

  But what if they’re looking in the wrong place? She thought. What if time and elements shifted the landscape, tossing things around? Belt buckle over here, treasure chest over there. Scattered far apart.

  “Hey, you all right?” Isaac asked.

  Scarlett blinked, snapping out of her thoughts. “Better than all right. And I think I can help you with at least one intelligent question tomorrow.”

  FIFTEEN

  After half an hour of research, we decided to check out the marina that the two guys in the skiff had run off to. A wave of dark clouds had rolled in from the east, providing a welcome relief from the scorching tropical sun. By the time we followed the boat’s tracker into a cove near Homestead Bayfront Park in the southwestern part of Biscayne Bay, the heavens opened up. In the blink of an eye, thunder roared, and thick sheets of rain splattered against the deck and ocean around us.

  A common saying in the Keys is that if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes and it’ll change. True to the archipelago’s typical form, the rain stopped and the sun came back out just as we finished tying off, the downpour having lasted just ten minutes.

  We locked up the Baia, then paid for a day slip at the Herbert Hoover Marina. Our destination, Teddy’s Marina, was just down the waterfront. The place was located deeper into the channel, beside a nearly empty pothole-covered parking lot with a few vehicles that looked like they hadn’t moved in years.

  Steam rose off the planks and the concrete path as we approached Teddy’s. The guy back at Alabama Jack’s had been right. The place was a dump. Old docks with missing planks, junk and garbage scattered everywhere. And there appeared to be nearly as many boats sunk beside the docks as there were moored. The few owners brave or stupid enough to tie their boats off had derelict crafts in serious need of repair. One, a monohull sailboat, didn’t even have a mast. Or a helm. And its deck was covered in a tattered blue tarp.

  Marina seemed like far too glamorous a word. Junkyard was more accurate.

  Avoiding the occasional protruding rusty nail in the wooden path, and weaving between piles of smelly fishing nets and broken crab pots, we made our way toward what looked like the entrance. The worn wooden door fit snug in the jamb, so I had to persuade it a little with my shoulder. It squeaked on its hinges as I swung it open.

  The place looked just as bad on the inside, and it was hot. All of the marina’s “amenities” were located in one big room and were on full display as we entered. There were coin-operated washers and dryers in one corner, torn-up couches and chairs in another, and a small bar with a few scattered tables to our left. A radio in the corner played a staticky rendition of “Redneck Yacht Club.”

  An appropriate soundtrack.

  The four curious pairs of eyes scattered across the dingy room were locked on Ange and me as we strode across the dirty floor, then plopped down at the end of the bar. None of them belonged to either of the two guys we’d seen back at Jones Lagoon. But one of the pairs of eyes belonged to a guy who looked to be in his early twenties. He wore dirty shorts and a black T-shirt. His dark curly hair was a mess, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a month.

  He’d been sitting and looking at his phone when we’d entered, but he stood and moved toward our position the moment Ange and I sat down.

  “Can I help you two with something?” He eyed us both, and the way he looked at Ange nearly made me throw him across the room.

  “You the bartender?” Ange asked.

  The young guy grinned, showing off his yellow teeth.

  “I’m everything around here,” he said.

  He grabbed two beers from beneath the counter, popped them open, and handed one to Ange. He drank the other, ignoring me.

  I laughed inside but did my best to keep a straight face with the little punk.

  “So, you’re Teddy?” I said.

  He glared at me. “Old Teddy’s on vacation. I’m Casper and I’m in charge while he’s away.”

  “Vacation, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ange took a sip of the beer, then spat it back into the bottle. She glanced at me, then whispered that it was terrible.

  The young guy eyed us both suspiciously.

  “So, you’re the one to talk to about a slip, then,” I said. “Do you have an office we could talk in?”

  I relished the idea of him leading us into an adjoining room, then bashing him against the wall and asking him where we could find two bald guys in tank tops who’d recently showed up to his marina.

  He paused a beat. “We’re all filled up. You’ll have to find a slip someplace else.”

  “You don’t look full,” I said.

  The man cracked a mirror-shattering smile. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  I shook my head. “Stale beer. No AC. Terrible service. Can’t think of anything else.”

  For a second, I thought the guy was going to try and punch me. His right hand squeezed into a fist and everything. Then the side door slammed open, and a familiar face stepped into the room. It was the scrawny bald guy from back in Jones Lagoon. He was wearing sunglasses indoors and had a cellphone in his right hand.

  “Phone call,” he said, eyeing my new friend.

  The man snarled. I raised the warm bottle of beer off the counter and grinned at him as he turned and stormed off. The two exited through the side door, banging it shut behind them. Something told me that it wasn’t Teddy on the phone.

  I whispered to Ange that it was time to go.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked a husky woman who was walking past us.

  She cackled. “You don’t want to know,” she said in a deep Southern drawl.

  Ange and I slipped out the way we’d come in. All eyes were still boring into us as we strode out into the humid early-afternoon air. With the breeze, it still felt better than in the office. We moved side by side toward the water, then I froze and peeked to the left.

  “I know that look,” Ange said.

  “You mind standing by for a few minutes?”

  “Gonna go kick the hornet’s nest?”

  “Hopefully just get info.” I shrugged. “But maybe. I’ve been known to kick a nest from time to time.”

  Ange laughed as I turned and stepped off the pathway. I crept around to the other side of the building, carefully av
oiding piles of junk and debris. I came upon a small storage shed and an upside-down boat with a dinner-plate-sized gash in its hull.

  Even passing twenty feet away from the bathroom, I had to cover my nose. The nasty aroma was so rank that it made low tide smell like the perfume section at a department store. Beside the bathroom were the showers, which were just as gross, the walls covered in grime.

  Quietly, I heaved myself up onto the shed, then paused and listened. Up on the second floor, I could hear voices coming from a cracked-open window. I looked around, then climbed up, careful not to slip on the wet surfaces.

  I got my footing on the lower section of roof, then rose up and peeked through the window. Casper and Skinny were standing in the middle of a room with a red shag carpet, old torn-up furniture, and a deep television. There was a fan humming and rotating in the corner, but I was still able to catch what they were saying.

  “We ran into a little trouble, Deke,” Shorty said into a phone. “Not us, but Jake. He call you yet?”

  Deke? It didn’t take a stretch to assume that this was their head honcho himself. Deacon Lynch.

  Casper bit his lip and shook his head as he listened.

  “No,” a voice barked through the speaker. “That loose cannon hasn’t called me since this morning.”

  “Well, apparently they had a run-in with a local,” Skinny continued.

  “What do you mean, they had a run-in?”

  “Jake said he was suspicious about a boat in a channel south of where we were searching. He said that a guy and his friends showed up and got in their faces. Then Jake scared them off.”

  Scared us off? I thought with a grin. I think somebody remembered it wrong.

  “If he scared them off,” Lynch said, “how are they a problem?”

  “Jake said they might come back,” Skinny explained. “Said they were trouble. Said they were in the area on account of the murder.”

  Lynch paused. I could hear the guy fuming through the small speaker.

  “But they weren’t cops,” Skinny said. “Just locals. Friends of the guy who got killed, probably.”