Backwater Bay (Kurt Hunter Mysteries Book 1)

by Steven Becker

  “If that’s what he’s going to put down for the cause of death, I can help find her identity, but that’s about all my boss will go for. We don’t have the budget to be chasing down non-murder, murders.” Justine shrugged.

  I looked at the body, feeling there was something else going on. “Can you give me some time?”

  “I have to list a cause of death, but without an identity, there’s no certificate or official filing. As long as there’s room in the morgue, I can hang on to the young lady as a Jane Doe for a few days.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You might want to hurry though. With the weekend coming up, things start to get lively down here.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “What about the wetsuit?” I asked.

  “Abbey can take it,” Sid said, ending the discussion.

  4

  The empty feeling I had when I left the morgue and walked outside deepened when I realized I had no vehicle. Justine came up beside me.

  “And you need a ride?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I rode over with Sid.”

  She laughed. “I’ve had that experience. If you want to hang out at the lab, I’ll take you back when I get off.”

  That would allow me to check the missing person database and I almost blurted out how convenient that would be. Fortunately, a voice inside my head reminded me that I had blown our previous date by being all about work. “Awesome,” I answered smartly.

  It was close to midnight, and I realized I hadn’t eaten since before finding the body that afternoon. In light of the autopsy, that had probably been a good thing. As I sat in the passenger seat of the Miami-Dade police SUV, my stomach started to grumble and I thought a post-autopsy snack might be in order.

  “Have you eaten?” I asked.

  “So is this like dinner and a movie but with a dead body?”

  I liked her sense of humor. “Maybe. Any ideas?”

  She turned at the next light and pulled into a Denny’s. “Not a lot of choices this late.”

  “Suits me.”

  She parked and we entered the quiet restaurant. This time of night, after the dinner rush and before the bars closed, it was quiet, and we sat across from each other in a booth near the back. I looked over at her and smiled. “You look nice.”

  Her dirty-blond hair was in tightly braided pigtails that sat just below her neckline. She lifted the ends and bounced them. “All day at the hairdresser’s to get this look.”

  We laughed together. It was definitely a post-first-date laugh, one that came easily to both of us. That made me happy, and I watched her over my menu as her eyes darted back and forth across the page. Twice she caught me looking, and finally, I dropped my gaze and studied the menu. We waited in an easy silence for the server to come over for our order. After midnight meant breakfast for me, and I ordered a Grand Slam. Her clock apparently ran differently than mine and she ordered a milkshake.

  We sat there quietly. I didn’t really know where to start. I’d been to her apartment and stayed the night—on her couch. I knew she liked the water; both paddleboarding and diving had come up in our previous meeting. Other than that, we were strangers. Work was our common bond, but I was reluctant to go there.

  “Been out on your board lately?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I try to get out every day. At least my hours are good for that. Have you ever—”

  The server interrupted us with our food before she could finish. The answer was no. I had started to kayak, mostly for the exercise, because it got really boring running around a tiny island. My powerboating experience was also limited, as the recent ding on the Park Service boat proved. Walking streams in the national forest had been my comfort level and I still considered myself a junior boater. I’d never tested the waters off the Northern California coast. They were a whole lot different from Miami. With difficult access, an ever-lurking marine layer, and the Pacific swell, boaters generally had to be hardier there. Feeling the air-conditioning in the restaurant made me remember that August could be the coldest month of the year on the Norcal coast.

  She sipped her milkshake through a straw and I looked up between bites to see her watching me eat. “What?” I asked.

  “It’s okay if we talk about work,” she said.

  I was relieved for the permission but still hesitated, hoping she was sincere. She must have sensed this.

  “So, I find it strange that our Jane Doe was wearing a wetsuit in August.”

  I took another bite, set my fork down, and paused. “I was thinking the same thing. There was no dive equipment either.”

  “I thought about that too. I’m guessing the straps of the buoyancy compensator were cut by the prop when it slashed her belly.”

  I thought about that for a second. “I wonder if the gear is where I found the body?”

  “Good idea. I’m not thinking the fingerprints are going to get us anywhere. The tips were badly eaten. They’re partials at best. Sid said her teeth were pristine. There won’t be much in the way of dental records either.”

  I took another bite and picked up the last piece of bacon. “I still owe you a boat ride. Maybe we could have a look?” I knew I was offering prematurely, especially after catching a lecture from Martinez about taking other people on government property. It had been our first fight.

  “We can sneak out like high school.”

  She said it with a smile and I hoped I was forgiven. “That’d be a good idea. Martinez is not going to be happy about another dead body, especially so soon.”

  “That dude should be thanking you. He was all over the newspapers when you and Mac Travis saved those women and took down that dirty detective.”

  “We took down the dirty detective. I’d be dead without you,” I said. It was the truth. She had smashed Dwayne in the head before he shot me. “I still think he’s hiding something.”

  “Welcome to Miami, Sunshine. It’s not a matter of whether you’ll become corrupt—it’s when.”

  Unfortunately, I was learning this was true too quickly. “Got any forensics double-talk I can run past him and make it sound official?”

  She was quiet for a minute and I wasn’t sure if she was mad about the comment or just thinking. I finished my plate and heard a loud slurp as she sucked the bottom of her glass clean. “Ready?” I asked, picking up the check from the corner of the table.

  “Yep. Back to the grind,” she said, looking at her phone. “I get off at two. How about a little night run out to that secret island of yours?”

  That both excited and terrified me. The thought that she might want to be alone with me on my island brought a shiver up my spine. Thinking about navigating Government Cut and the waters of Biscayne Bay brought me down to earth. In the end, I did what every guy would do and said: “Heck yeah.”

  Back in her office, watching her work, it was difficult to be all business. Attempting to look somewhat professional, I asked if there was a computer that I could use. She set me up at a station in an empty cubicle. I sat there watching her for a few minutes as she put on her headphones and moved to the row of stainless steel tables with different pieces of lab equipment spaced out across them. I could hear the faint sound of Bob Marley, which told me how loud the music was, and her body started to sway to the beat while she set some material on slides and stared into the microscope.

  Looking away, I focused on the computer screen. Justine had logged me in, and I wanted to take advantage of the time and try to establish Jane Doe’s identity. It would be much easier to move on if the crab-eaten face had a name. The problem was, not knowing how long she had been in the water placed her disappearance in an open-ended date range with hundreds of others. It was mid-August now, and just to make the search easier, I entered the month of July for a date range. I knew I was excluding data and justified it by calling this the center target range. Fancy way to say I didn’t know where to start.

  Over a hundred names with small thumbnail pictures appeared on the screen. I knew she
was a Caucasian woman, which took the number to fifty. Apparently women went missing more often than men. The number was still unmanageable. I noticed the pictures looked mostly like mug shots of nefarious characters. Being a trained professional, I studied each picture and eliminated the ones that didn’t look like diver’s, well aware there was no scientific basis for what I was doing. That took the number to twenty.

  Staring at the missing women, I tried to superimpose the face of the woman in the morgue onto theirs. Despite the destruction the crabs had done, the bone structure gave me enough to eliminate a few more. I was feeling really good with a group of ten when Justine came by and popped my bubble. She must have seen I was on Dade County’s website.

  “The water’s all connected. I’d be checking Monroe and Broward Counties too.”

  She was right and an hour later, I had expanded and refined my search using the same criteria. After eliminating everyone I could, there were still a dozen women who I felt could have been a match for Jane Doe. I looked up and saw Justine behind me. Her lab coat and headphones were off.

  “Ready?”

  I had gone as far as I thought I could. “Let’s do it.”

  “You worried about taking me out?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  I looked up and saw the sign for 836. We were almost to the causeway and I realized I hadn’t spoken in a while. “Sorry. Just thinking about those women in the pictures.”

  “Yeah, now you start wondering what each of their stories is.”

  “That and I’m pretty sure one of them is her. There are other ways to go missing. In most cases, if it were foul play, we’d be unlikely to find a body.”

  “Dude, you found it fishing in a swamp. So, we’re back to the accidental death by propeller?” she asked.

  “I don’t have much else,” I said. “That’s our exit coming up.”

  We were at the MacArthur Causeway and she turned off and made a left. “There’s the lung thing,” she said, and must have seen the blank look on my face. “Sid said the lungs looked like they had exploded.”

  “I recall something like that,” I said, trying to remember what he had actually said. “We can check the transcript tomorrow.”

  “He didn’t say it exactly like that, but that’s what he meant.”

  I felt better about missing it. “Keep going straight here.” I pointed past the cruise ships to the south side of Dodge Island. Justine pulled up into a space by the dock and we got out. Something didn’t look right and I ran to the boat. The bow was out of the water and I knelt to ease the pressure from the line that I had tied too tight. I knew it was an outgoing tide when I docked and should have left more slack. Looking around, I saw Justine above me. It was bad enough to have made the rookie mistake, but now she had seen it.

  Fortunately, I had tied the line off correctly and after releasing the bight, I was able to use the leverage of the cleat to ease the boat back into the water. I exhaled and, hoping my relief wasn’t too audible, looked at Justine. She was staring out at the black water, probably deciding whether she could trust my boating skills at night.

  “We’ll take it slow,” I said. One of the first rules of boating I had learned was that if you were going to hit something, hit it slow.

  “No worries,” she said.

  I was both relieved and concerned, thinking I didn’t have many more chances before she gave me up for an idiot. “Welcome aboard,” I said lamely.

  The pier was built for larger vessels and with the tide out, we had to get on our butts and slide down to the boat. Once aboard, I started the engine, thankfully not forgetting to put the kill switch key in, a mistake I had made too frequently. The engine wouldn’t start until I inserted the plastic spacer. With Justine’s help, we released the lines and the boat floated freely. The boating gods must have been watching me because with an offshore breeze and a slack tide we floated into the channel. I pressed the throttle gently, and the boat idled forward.

  I kept the speed down and with the help of the chart plotter we cleared the last marker and were soon in open water. The route from there was anything but easy, but the electronics were my friend, and although my boating skills were just south of bad, I wasn’t technically challenged. Marine electronics were much easier to navigate by than the hand-held GPS I had used in the backcountry. Glancing up occasionally to check for other boats or obstructions, I steered by the screen, following the colors and contours until we were in open water. My confidence was building and I nudged the lever forward until we were up on plane. It was exhilarating, running at night, and I looked over at Justine to see her smiling.

  5

  Biscayne Bay was not without its hazards. The shoals and obstructions were well marked during daylight hours, but few were lit at night. With only a sliver of a crescent moon, the water was ink black, barely showing the reflection of the channel markers. I had learned the bay, but even with the chart plotter to guide me, I felt safer in the deeper water on the outside of the barrier islands. The wind was down and we had a smooth ride past the lights of Key Biscayne. It was dark for a while and we could barely make out the fuzzy line of the Ragged Keys to starboard, but then the lighthouse on Boca Chita Key put me back on familiar ground. The landmark light was just visible over the low landmass.

  Sands and Elliott Keys followed and I slowed, looking for the flashing red light that marked the entrance to Caesar Creek. Seeing it ahead, I steered to seaward, wanting to line up the boat for a straight shot at the channel and not ground trying to cut the corner like I had seen so many do. Once I was past the light, I handed Justine a spotlight and at just over idle speed entered the Caesar Creek channel that led to Adams Key. She panned the light across the water, catching the red and green markers that guided us home.

  I had made it through the cut and saw the lights mounted to the concrete dock of Adams Key. My relief was short-lived—it was time to dock. With no wind, I just had to deal with the current, which, with the outgoing tide, would push the boat away from the dock. I’d done this before and knew if I took my time, I could get it right. Stopping in the channel about fifty feet out, I tied on the fenders to the port-side cleats. I breathed deeply and steered past the dock, turned around, and came back into the current. This would allow me to use the motor to place the bow where I wanted it. Coming in with the current pushing behind me would have been more difficult. Boats have no brakes, only reverse, which I had yet to master.

  Easing the throttle, I nosed the bow to a piling with a cleat at its base and called to Justine to grab the line and tie us off. You can tell when someone has done this before, and it was apparent she had, which made me feel even more incompetent. Once the line was tied to the cleat, I dropped the engine into neutral and gently pulled the throttle back to reverse allowing the engine to pull us back.

  “Well done,” she said.

  I was tying the stern line and had my back to her, which was a good thing. If she had seen my childish grin at such a meager accomplishment, her estimation of me would surely have been lowered. Adding a spring line, I double-checked the ropes and stepped up to the dock. Before I could offer her a quick tour, I heard a door slam and Zero came bounding toward us barking as if he had never seen a person before.

  Becky followed, and before I had even shown my first visitor my house, she was about to meet my neighbor. Zero smelled the fresh blood of a newcomer and ran to Justine. I wasn’t sure how she would react and held my breath as he hurtled toward her. There was nothing I could do about their meeting. After prowling the trails and streams of Plumas National Forest, I had a strange apprehension of dogs. Many hikers insisted on walking dogs off leash. Some were better trained than others and most were fine, but the approaching hiker had no idea what was going through the dog’s head. Their reactions ranged from affectionate to mad. The worst was when an unleashed dog approached one on a leash.

  My worries faded when she crouched down and embraced him. After licking her face, Zero tucked his rear end into her body and pres
ented his butt. She laughed and he absorbed the attention. I feared I had lost my drinking buddy until he suddenly realized I was standing there and came over.

  “Don’t y’all mind the dog,” Becky said, coming toward us.

  I could see by the look on her face that she was enjoying this and guessed that her fellow conspirator, Mariposa, the receptionist for the headquarters building, would be extending a dinner invitation to us in the morning. The coconut telegraph would be burning up tonight.

  “Becky, this is Justine.”

  The women nodded to each other.

  “Nice to meet you,” Justine said, returning her attention to Zero, who had resumed pushing his butt against her leg.

  “Damned dog’s an embarrassment. He seems to like you though,” Becky said.

  For the first time in history, I thanked the mosquitoes for finding us. I slapped my neck. “Bugs are bad. We’re gonna head in,” I said. After saying quick goodbyes and dodging the swarms of bugs, we made it to the house.

  “Make yourself at home. I’ll take the couch,” I said. This had been our sleeping arrangement when I had stayed in her apartment. “I’ve got a couple of beers and some chips if you like.”

  “I’m good, and we need to get an early start in the morning so I can get to work by five.” She came over and pecked my cheek.

  The sparks were there, but before I could react, she’d gone into the bedroom and shut the door. She didn’t slam it but closed it gently. I felt foolish judging her intentions based on how the door was closed, but when the light came on I smiled seeing the large gap where it was slightly ajar. Not that I was going to do anything about it, but it was a positive sign.

  I lay down on the couch trying to find sleep, but it eluded me. With Justine in the next room and the faceless woman etched in my brain, I tossed and turned for what felt like hours.