The Law of the Sea : A Legal Thriller

by Dave Gerard

  “Hey, Ashley. It’s Jack Carver. Listen. I’ve got some good news.”

  “Hey, Jack. What’s up?”

  “Badden and Bock made us a settlement offer. They want to settle all claims against the company by your brother’s estate.”

  “Why? I thought they were winning.”

  “I thought so too. But it’s quite a sum.”

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” she said. I repeated the figure again.

  “Did you say two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” she said incredulously.

  “I did,” I said, grinning into the phone. “Kruckemeyer thinks the hearing didn’t go so well for them after all.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “There is no catch. Of course, all of the Estate’s claims against Rockweiller would go away in the settlement.”

  “Who would get the money?”

  “Well, since your father and mother are no longer with us, and David didn’t have any next of kin…I guess you would.”

  There was silence at the end of the line as she tried to process that. “I don’t know what to say,” she said finally. “That’s more money than I make in years.”

  “It’s a lot,” I agreed.

  “Would they have to tell us what happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. The offer doesn’t specify.”

  “Can we find out?”

  “Of course.”

  We talked a little more about the details. I said I would talk to Badden & Bock and let her know what they said.

  “You know, I wasn’t sure about the legal aid clinic,” she confessed to me as we said goodbye. “I didn’t know if anyone would be able to help me. Or if anyone would even care. But you did.”

  I tried to find something to say, but all I could come up with was, “Of course. Just doing my job.”

  “Really, Jack,” she said sincerely. “Until you came along, I couldn’t make those guys give me the time of day. I’m really grateful.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, touched. Something caught in my throat. I cleared it and promised to call her soon. After we hung up, I just stared at the wall for a while, smiling faintly. It’s not often you get to help people like that in my line of work. Corporations are people too, I guess. But somehow, this felt different.

  FOUR

  After the settlement offer, we sent a letter to Badden & Bock, demanding to know what had happened to David Marcum as a condition of any settlement. We asked for a reply within a week. But the week came and went, and there was no answer.

  In the meantime, Ashley suggested we investigate the one lead we had: the return address on the envelope with the coins. She thought that might give us a clue about where her brother had gone, and what he was doing. Oddly enough, the return address was listed as a scuba diving resort in Key West, Florida called Aqua Ray. So I said hell yes, we should investigate.

  I convinced Kruckemeyer that we might learn something useful. Maybe find a witness, or someone who remembered David Marcum. The more we knew, the more leverage we would have in settlement negotiations, I reasoned. This argument appealed to Kruckemeyer, and he signed off. Thus it was that I got an all-expenses paid trip to Key West, to the unending envy of Harder and Vijay. I was also keen to spend more time with Ashley, although I didn’t mention that part.

  Ashley and I flew into Key West in the afternoon. I had always wanted to fly into Miami and then drive the highways that crisscrossed the Florida Keys until they reached Key West, the bleeding edge of the United States, connected to the mainland by a thread of asphalt, a mere ninety miles from communist Cuba, where a Castro still reigned. But it was a longer drive than I thought, and it wasn’t billable. So we flew straight there.

  I watched the beautiful skyline of Miami fly by through the windows. I had been to Miami once. It had felt like a different world. Of blue and white towers by the sea, where everyone was good looking and rich didn’t seem to have to work. Good life if you can get it. We landed in Key West and checked into a hotel. We strolled around the island for a little while, enjoying the sand and the sea air as the afternoon faded into evening.

  Early the next morning, I put on jeans and a casual blue button down with some medium-nice shoes. I didn’t want to roll up to a diving resort in a suit. But I didn’t want to wear shorts and a t-shirt either, since this trip was ostensibly business, and I was (ostensibly) a lawyer. I met Ashley for breakfast around half past seven. She was dressed more casually than I was. She eyed my outfit without comment, leaving me wondering. After breakfast, we called an Uber and headed to the diving resort.

  Aqua Ray wasn’t really a resort, actually. It was more of a local spot. People went there to live the Key West lifestyle. Lots of sun, lots of water, little money. I had read reviews of the place online. Most of them were bad, with tourists complaining about the poor service, run-down facilities, and contemptuous treatment by the locals. But the “most helpful” review gave it five stars and said: “this is the original Key West dive shop. If you don’t live here, don’t come here. Each and every one-star review warms my heart because the more of them there are, the less of you I see. F$&K TOURISTS.” It was signed SeaLubber65.

  After we arrived, we walked through a thick cluster of palm trees and under a faded wooden sign. On the left, there was a dive counter, with rows of well-used scuba tanks and wetsuits behind it. On the right, there was a bar, and a couple of old guys were sitting around drinking beer and smoking. The sign above the bar said “Krueger’s.”

  We got some looks as we walked up to the bar. Interest for Ashley, disinterest for me. The bartender was a whale of a man with a big old belly and badly dyed blond hair. He had a handlebar mustache and looked like Hulk Hogan gone to fat. He was shirtless, and his body was deeply tanned and tattooed all over. I guessed he was one of the true locals. He stared at me as I walked up to the bar.

  “Good morning,” I began. “I’m hoping you can help me. I’m looking for information about someone named David Marcum.” He grunted at me and continued to polish a glass he was working on. “I’m an attorney,” I persisted. “I’m representing the estate. If you could just—”

  “Fuck off,” he said, turning away from me. One of the guys at the bar snickered. He was thin, with long hair and sunglasses. He was obviously stoned.

  Ashley gave me a look and walked up to the bar. She put on a winsome smile and called out to the bartender again. “Excuse me, sir,” she said warmly. “Hi. I’m sorry about that. Do you think we can get a couple of beers? One for this gentleman too,” she said, pointing to the stoner. Ashley nudged me and I put some bills on the table. She coaxed the bartender back and he grudgingly poured us the drinks.

  Ashley said she was sorry to bother him, and this wasn’t official or anything, but she was David Marcum’s sister, and he had passed away recently, and we needed help finding out what happened. She explained that he had listed a return address here and was hoping someone knew him.

  “Holy hell. Dave’s dead?” said the bartender with a start. He turned to the thin man sitting at the bar. “Did you know that, Jared?”

  “Nope,” said Jared.

  “Shit,” the bartender said. “What happened? He get into an accident or something?”

  “That’s the thing,” Ashley said. “We don’t know. We really have no idea. I’ve been trying to find out.” I heard the frustration spill through in her voice.

  “I’m sorry,” the bartender said sincerely. “I really am. The name’s Trevor Thompson. I was a friend of your brother’s.” He stretched out his hand and Ashley shook it. He shook my hand too, albeit reluctantly. “Sit down,” he said. “You’re his sister. I can see it. What can I tell you? How can I help?”

  We sat down and told him that David had gone missing some time ago, although w
e left out details like the gold coins and the connection to Rockweiller Industries. We asked what David had been doing at Aqua Ray, and whether Trevor knew anything about his disappearance.

  “Anything you could tell us about David would be helpful,” I said.

  Trevor nodded. “Dave came out here maybe a year ago,” he said, remembering. “He walked right up to that counter there and said he wanted to go diving.” Trevor jerked a thumb toward the scuba equipment. “Jared here was working the counter, and he told Dave there was a Speedo in the back he could sell him. We all laughed about that, and I even spat out my beer. You remember that, Jared?”

  Jared nodded evenly, and Trevor continued. “We all expected him to tuck his tail between his legs and ask for another. But Dave, that sassy little bastard, he says ‘I’m here to scuba dive, but I’ll whip your sorry ass at skin diving any day of the week.’ So we go oh-ho, and they get to doing it, and then next thing you know he takes Jared in a free-dive competition, eighty feet deep with no gear or mask. You have to be good and also crazy to do a thing like that. Kid had lead in his balls.”

  Jared nodded again, acknowledging this fact. “After that,” Trevor continued, “Dave stayed here, and they gave him a diving instructor job. Everyone liked him, the tourists and the locals both, and this ain’t an easy crowd to please.” Trevor nodded in the general direction of the dive counter. “He did some guided dives. Spent time hanging out with the local yokels. Chased women. Did some treasure hunting. Just lived that easy Key West life.”

  “Treasure hunting?” I interjected.

  “Yeah. Some of these guys like to dive and search for old treasure. You know, gold in wrecks and that sort of thing. It’s like a pastime.”

  “They ever find anything?”

  “Sometimes. We’ve all pulled a few coins from the seabed. Silver, copper, a few gold. Jared found one the other day, actually. I’m keeping it for him as collateral on his bar tab.” Trevor reached behind the counter and slapped down a gold coin on the bar. He grinned at Jared, who flipped him off.

  But Ashley and I didn’t even notice. We were staring fixedly at the dirty gold coin that Thompson had put down on the bar. It looked just like the gold coins that Marcum had had. Ashley and I exchanged glances. I realized that my mouth was hanging open and closed it.

  “Where did you find that?” I asked Jared. Jared shrugged silently. Trevor spoke for him. “He found it diving, probably. They’re worth a hell of a lot once you polish them up.”

  “David had some of those in his possession when he died,” I said, deciding to tell him that much. “He had a couple dozen, actually. They looked just like that.”

  Thompson raised his eyebrows at this. “Couple dozen, huh? Bastard was holding out on us. That’s a lot. I’ve almost never seen anyone find more than a couple, and I’ve been here a long time. Everybody hears stories about treasure, it sounds romantic, they think they’re going to be the next Mel Fisher. But it ain’t so easy.”

  “Mel Fisher?” I queried.

  “You never heard of Mel Fisher?” Thompson chuckled and poured himself a beer from the tap. “He’s a legend in these parts. Him and his crew found a wreck, back the seventies. The Atocha. Spanish galleon. Biggest find of all time, and him just a Florida treasure hunter. He spent years looking for it, never gave up. His son died one day, out in a dive accident, but he kept going.”

  “Today’s going to be the day,” Jared intoned softly.

  “That’s right,” said Trevor. “That was his motto. Today’s going to be the day. Every day. And one day, it was.”

  “Amen, brother,” said Jared with a blissful smile. “A hundred million dollars of treasure, right here on the coast.”

  “A hundred million dollars, huh?” I said, amused. I looked at Ashley, who had the same reaction. She suppressed a smile.

  “Oh yeah,” said Trevor, oblivious. “But after that, the government tried to take it from him. They tried to say it was theirs because the water was Florida property.”

  “Fucking deep state,” hissed Jared.

  “Fisher fought for ten years,” continued Trevor, “with lawyers, and eventually, the judges sided with him. You can probably go read the case, what with you being a lawyer and all. See for yourself. Yeah, people here, they all dream of being Mel Fisher.”

  “The man,” Jared said.

  “Right,” I said. “What about people here? Any finds?”

  “A few here and there. This guy Baker found a whole chest once, years back. Rotted, totally buried in the sand. The current must have pulled it up close to the surface, and he hit it with a metal detector. Got a whole load of silver for his trouble. That was a sweet day.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Looked just like that,” he said, pointing at the gold coin.

  “Did they have any markings on them?”

  “That depends. Ones I’ve seen, they’ll have Roman numerals, or Spanish, or some faces on them sometimes. Most of the gold here is from the Spanish ships, see, that used to go between America and Europe.

  “What about more serious finds?”

  Trevor shook his head. “The shoreline has been searched to hell and back. The serious finds are all offshore. You need boats, equipment. Money. The guys here aren’t serious guys.”

  “What about David?” I asked. “Did he ever find anything?”

  Thompson thought about that for a minute. “I’ll tell you, he found something once. There’s this wreck we all dive sometimes, the USS Cargoland. Done it a million times. Dave got curious about it, and he looked up the ship in a book. You remember that, Jared?” Jared nodded.

  “He went to the library and looked it up in a book. A book!” Thompson shook his head, as if amazed that someone would read. “He found a register, an inventory of the ship. And the layout. He looked it up, measured it against the wreck, and found something that we all missed. A hidden compartment. There was something in there, buried behind an aft door, just under the sand. Nothing too valuable, mind you. More of a keepsake. But it was something. You could tell he had the mind for that sort of thing.”

  “Yeah,” said Jared the stoner. “He was sharp.”

  Thompson went on, “Dave also did some contract work as a diver. We all pick up small jobs here and there, repair, salvage, that sort of thing. He was quick and good at it, so it wasn’t hard for him to get work.”

  “Did he ever work for a company called Rockweiller Industries?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” said Thompson, scratching his head. “Rockweiller’s an oil company, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could be. Oil companies hire commercial divers to install rigs, fix underwater pipelines, that sort of thing. ROV’s took a lot of the market, but there’s still things you need a man to do.”

  “ROV’s?” I interjected.

  “Remotely Operated Vehicles,” Thompson said. “They’re like underwater drones. You operate them from the surface. But you can’t send a machine to do a man’s work, can you Jared?”

  Jared shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “Damn right. Anyway, commercial diving can be dangerous, but it’s good work if you can get it. Dave was a good diver. I wouldn’t be surprised if he worked for a company like Rockweiller, but I just don’t know.”

  After we’d finished talking to Thompson, we paid our tab and prepared to leave. But before that, Thompson offered to take us on a scuba dive, compliments of the house. It was the least he could do for Dave’s sister, he said. I was hesitant, and asked whether we didn’t need a license to do that. Thompson said yes, but we could do an exploratory dive where he’d teach us the basics and take us underwater for thirty minutes or so. I was reluctant. As a lawyer, you’re trained to think about the downsides of every situation. It’s not a positive state of mind, really.

  But then Ashley told me to stop being a puss
y, which sent Thompson and Jared into howls of laughter. It took me aback. It was a joke, but her tone of voice was crude, even cruel. I thought about her brother, and wondered for a moment what was beneath her winsome smile. But after that, I had to do it. Some people say they never give into peer pressure, but I’m not so pure as all that.

  So Trevor took us down to the beach and showed us how to put on masks, fins, and a scuba tank, and breathe through the regulator that supplied us with air. Ashley looked stunning in a dark bikini, and I saw a few more tattoos across her back and shoulders while I pretended not to look. After about a half hour of practice with the equipment, Trevor said we were ready to go, ignoring my protestations about needing more practice.

  The dive was fantastic. One of the great experiences of my life. The clear blue waters of Key West had some of the best diving anywhere. We saw schools of brightly colored fish, sea urchins, and reefs filled with every kind of plant and animal life. Everything was vivid, as if my eyes had been supercharged into a brilliant HDR display. Ashley and I swam around excitedly, pointing things out to each other, talking with bad hand signs and trying to not to laugh. For all of his bluster, Trevor proved a watchful guide. He led us slowly to some of the best sights while keeping a close eye on us to make sure we were alright.

  I experienced a feeling of serenity underwater. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank, or floating weightlessly through space. Everything was enveloped in a deep quiet. The only sounds I heard were the bubbles flowing steadily out of my regulator. I floated around, enjoying the moment. The pressure of the water around me seemed to free me from the pressures and cares of the world above.

  After a time, we splashed back to the surface. Ashley and I yelled happily at each other. We implored Trevor to take us on one more dive, and he agreed, beaming to see how much we liked it. This time, we went out on a small dive boat, to what Trevor said was one of his favorite spots. It turned out to be a wall of coral that you could float down and enjoy at your leisure, almost like the side of a cliff, but underwater. The coral was fantastic, and we swam around and up and down, gazing at it.