by Jon Mills
Jack nodded.
“Good man. Mark my words, this is the day that changed your life. Come on, let’s have that beer together, there’s a lot to celebrate.”
Jack returned to the table for a few minutes as the last thing he wanted to do was insult him. A prick like that would have taken offense to it and now that he’d agreed, he probably already thought he owned Jack. Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to nail his supplier but they could certainly take down this asshole and from there the FBI could do the rest. They seemed pretty adept at pinning shit on people regardless of evidence. As Jimmie continued to drone on about how he had bought several properties in Miami, and a place in L.A., Jack had his eyes on the trailer across the lot. The door opened and a man tugged away from the woman who’d answered the door. They exchanged some heated words and then he ambled across the lot looking disheveled.
“I should get going,”
Jack rose up just as the door opened and the other guy stepped in doing up his belt. His shirt was wide open and he had scratch marks down the front of him.
“That girl’s a rough one. Where the hell did you get her from, Jimmie?”
“Anna-Belle.”
Jack remembered the guy from the bar.
“Chris, you know Jack.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He stuck out his grimy hand and Jack glanced at it. “Oh right, probably should take a shower first.” He slapped Jack on the shoulder and walked past him and disappeared out back. Jack’s eyes drifted outside and he saw a dark-haired girl getting pushed out of the trailer and into a station wagon. She looked rough, she was clutching at her clothes that appeared to be torn. Who are you?
Chapter Fifteen
After discovering the island didn’t have one damn fishing store, she asked some locals where she might find a few places of interest. If Thorpe was going to treat her like she was attached to a leash, she was going to make damn sure she took him for a ride.
With Beavis and Butt-Head following her like two shadows she made her way down to Ted’s Smallwood Store and Museum. A checkout lady at the grocery store had told her that it was one of the most historical sites on the island. When asked what it sold, she was vague. “Well it’s not exactly a store, it used to be though, it’s now a museum. Though, whatever you do, don’t mention the name Ray Edmonds, she’ll toss you out.”
She didn’t elaborate and Isabel wasn’t going to pry any further. After dropping off the groceries to get them through the week, she headed down there. It was only a ten-minute walk from the park.
Wearing shades, a light blouse and a pair of shorts, she strolled along, taking in the sights and sounds of Mamie Street. The whole island was as flat as a pancake. Nothing more than palm trees, mangroves and mobile homes with the occasional clapboard house on stilts. A gentle breeze blew in off the ocean and though she understood the gravity of the case they were working on, she couldn’t help feel relaxed. The island had a way of lulling a person into a slow pace. Gravel kicked up beneath her sandals as she got closer to the store that had made a name for itself. Four vehicles were parked out front. A dark SUV with tinted windows, two trucks and a white Honda.
From the moment she approached the red barn-looking structure on stilts she could see what attracted people to the place. Its location at the edge of the island offered spectacular views of the bay, and yet nothing compared to the rich display of antiques and historic artifacts that lined the walls, ceilings, shelves and butted up against the counter. Outside an American flag flew high above it, flapping in the wind. It was like stepping back in time. Beyond the creaky wooden door that held a sign that read: Museum, Isabel took in the sight of wooden rocking chairs, canning machines, gasoline tanks, animal skins, wagon wheels, books, advertising signs, ceramic bowls, soda bottles, ancient glassware, hand tools, canoes, barrels, butter-churning tools and all manner of old dishware.
But it wasn’t that which caught her attention, it was a well-dressed man, close to six feet tall, muscular and red-faced as if he had spent too much time in the sun. He was arguing with a young woman behind the counter. Alongside him were two other men who kept an eye on Isabel and a young couple who were browsing. She wandered along picking up items while eavesdropping on the conversation.
“Like I said, tell your mother we’ll build a new road for her. That is more than a generous offer.”
“To hell with your offer. This place has been here since 1906 and we sure as hell aren’t the ones that should have to redirect our customers. You want a road, build it for yourself but if you touch this one you are in for a fight.”
He chuckled. “You can’t say I haven’t tried to be reasonable. I own these four acres of land and this road cuts right through the middle of it, which makes it my property to do with whatever I like.”
“Speak to her lawyer, I’m done talking with you.”
“Well, I hope she has a good one and deep pockets because you are going to be paying through the nose by the time I’m done with you.”
He passed by Isabel and glanced at her. A quick smile and he continued on his way.
“Asshole,” the woman muttered to herself as the guy left. Isabel was curious. Someone with a property that had been in the family since 1906 was bound to have their finger on the pulse of the island.
“Nice place you got,” Isabel said.
The woman still looked angry but her features gradually softened as she exhaled hard. “Yeah, it is. First time visiting?”
“Yeah, my husband and I are new to the island.”
“Is that so? Well, welcome to Chokoloskee. The name’s Matilda but most folks call me Tilly.”
“Isabel.”
“So what brings you here? Wait. Fishing?”
She nodded.
“Everyone is here to fish, that or drink beer and sunbathe.” The dark-haired woman glanced back towards the open door. Isabel followed her gaze. A lone dog sat nearby. A white Lab. His ear perked for a second as if he had heard something unusual.
“So the place used to be a store?”
“A trading post. My mother’s grandfather opened it back in the 1900s, she turned it into a nonprofit museum in 1989.” She began reorganizing a few signs, and then continued on. “Yeah my great-grandfather was the first man in this area to trade with Indians. A lot of folks used to meet, socialize, gamble, trade and gossip in here.” She gazed around with a look of nostalgia in her eyes. Isabel could tell the place meant a lot to her. “If these walls could speak.” She sighed “Anyway, it stayed in the family for two generations and was put on the National Register of Historic Places. There was a short period when it was closed in the eighties but then my mother took it over and turned it into a museum. A lot of work but it’s a pillar here in the community. I don’t think my mother would be the same without it.”
Isabel nodded and picked up a small burlap bag that had the words “Matanzas Sugar Estates” on the front. She placed it back down and continued looking at old photos of the place.
“So what’s the deal with the suit you were talking to?”
“Oh him. Ray Edmonds. Developer. Guy’s got more money than sense. At one time you could only get to this store by boat. Literally, you had to access it by way of the dock. Anyway back in the 1900s they created a road.”
“The causeway?”
“Oh no, that didn’t exist back in those days. That was created later. No, Chokoloskee was a single island. Hell, this place was home to hermits, farmers, fugitives, bootleggers, you name it.”
“Even drug smugglers?”
Her eyebrows shot up and she nodded. “Oh yeah, and let me tell you, some of those folks are still in business today.”
Her eyes shot back to the door as Carson and Moore made their way inside. Carson looked like a pasty white chicken wearing a Hawaiian shirt, black shorts and Jesus sandals. She wasn’t sure what looked worse, his glaring white legs or the fact that both of them were wearing socks and sandals. She grimaced at the sight. Who needed birth control when there were guys
dressed like that? They browsed around trying not to look suspicious but it was painfully obvious that they were eavesdropping.
“You were saying?” Isabel prompted the woman.
“Um. Oh right, yeah, criminals. Chokoloskee was full of them. In fact the one that is most famously remembered is Edgar Watson. He was an outlaw and sugar cane plantation owner who used to kill his workers rather than pay them. Anyway, back in those days it seems a group decided to take matters into their own hands and kill him.”
“That’s one of hell of a workers’ union meeting.”
The woman laughed. “Oh they weren’t workers. Just residents. Seemed he pissed off a whole lot of people.”
“Like Ray Edmonds.”
She snorted. “Yeah. Now if we could only get away with snuffing his light out, I would be first in line.”
“So what’s the deal with him?”
“A big shot developer moved in back in 2010, decided to dig up a portion of the road. You know… the one you drove up. Anyway. We have been trying to go through the courts to get them to sort it out as that one little act forced my mother to close the store for six months as no one could get to it. Now the county and her are fighting to get the road declared as public and sue him in the process.”
“So you won?”
“Oh god no, we are still dealing with that lunatic. They were forced to fix the road but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a pain in the ass every chance he gets. He says he wants to build a new road, so he can start redirecting traffic. That road has been there for over 100 years. And this asshole breezes into town and thinks he’s just going to dig up the place so he can build more condominiums. Well that’s not happening.”
Isabel shook her head. “Sounds stressful.”
“It is. But this place is worth it,” she said looking around. “My mother and father have put their heart and soul into Ted’s Smallwood Store. Anyway, enough about that, you said you had just moved here?”
“Down at Marina Park.”
“Well be sure to avoid Atomic Charley’s.”
Isabel chuckled thinking about the other night. She didn’t mention it to her but she was starting to think they should have listened to the old-timer in the golf cart. Both of them could have died, and for what? Another notch on the belt of the FBI?
“Did you ever hear anything much about those young girls who were found murdered in Everglades?”
“Oh, those poor souls, they got caught up with the wrong crowd. The papers say it was an overdose but I know that’s not true.”
Once again the FBI had been spinning stories. The police knew full well those girls had been murdered, overdose or not. Three women dumped in the same location with needles in their arms, at different times, was no overdose. CCTV had caught some of them on camera mixing with the underbelly of Miami, that’s what had got the bureau sniffing around Chokoloskee. The DEA was working overtime to figure out where the new flow of dope was coming from and it had led them right back to this island, a place that had been infamous in the eighties with all manner of drug deals going on. The entire island had been raided back then with three hundred arrests. However, they couldn’t do that now and risk losing the supplier. So, they were taking a tactical approach.
Isabel glanced over at Carson who dropped an antique china doll, then swept its broken pieces under the table and looked around to see if anyone saw him. They weren’t exactly tactical, more like tactless. She shook her head.
“What about the families? Did you know them?”
“Oh yeah, well at least one of them I knew well. Kelly Bryan. Sweet girl. To think that she lost her daughter who wasn’t much younger than myself. Makes you wonder what this world is coming to.”
“Did Kelly ever say anything?”
Tilly frowned. “Are you a cop?”
Isabel swallowed hard. “No, um, just curious. I mean, we are thinking of having kids and well I would hate to think they are going to grow up in an area that’s unsafe. Best to know what we are facing, right?”
“Right.” She nodded. “I dunno. She said her daughter would go missing for days on end. She thinks she had a drug problem. To be honest I try to stay out of other people’s business, even though they seem to like to share it. We have enough on our plate with Edmonds.”
“Of course. Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Oh don’t worry. I would probably be full of questions moving into a new place. You should come by again sometime and meet my mother and father. They’ll tell you a few hair-raising stories for sure. They’ve seen it all in their time. You know, through the eighties and up until today.”
“They off for the day?”
“Yeah, my turn to keep an eye on the place.”
“Nice chatting,” Isabel said as she walked away. As she passed by Agent Moore he chuckled to himself. She gave him a jab and he lost his balance and fell back onto a barrel.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there,” she said before placing her aviator glasses on her face and grinning as she left the old hut.
As she made her way back, she noticed that the black SUV was idling. She cast a glance and the window came down.
“Hey there,” a voice called out. She cupped her eyes to block out the glare of the sun and saw that it was Ray Edmonds. He got out of the car and crossed the street looking both ways. She didn’t know why he did it. There was no traffic. Perhaps force of habit.
She stiffened up as he got close.
“Ray Edmonds, you are?”
“Late, sorry,” she said walking on. He obviously couldn’t take no for an answer. He soon fell in line with her as she ambled up the gravel path.
“You’re new around here, right? You visiting?”
“No, my husband and I just moved here.” She placed lots of emphasis on the word husband, hoping he would catch a hint. He didn’t.
She picked up her pace.
“I see you were getting acquainted with the owners of the store. You might not want to spend too much time there. They’re very fickle about roads and whatnot.”
“Yeah I heard. I would imagine a man of your wealth could do without a road.”
“If you give an inch, people take a mile.”
He grabbed a hold of her arm but she pulled herself away and shot back a stern look to make it clear that she wasn’t going to be shoved around the way he did with others.
He chuckled. “They said you were feisty. I like that. You must be the other half the Mitchell brothers were talking about.”
“Who?”
“Oh come on, hasn’t your old man spoken to you yet?”
His breath smelled like cigar smoke, and coffee. Except it was a sickening version. She didn’t like the way he looked her up and down as if she was a slab of meat. If he was associated with the Mitchell brothers, then perhaps that would explain why they were flying under the radar. These weren’t just amateurs who were operating in a stealth-like fashion. They had big dollars behind them and with only three hundred people on the island, how hard would it have been to keep some of the locals quiet?
She came to a halt and looked at him with a serious expression. “About what?”
“Becoming a driver.”
Her eyebrows shot up. This was news to her. What the hell was Jack playing at? Their job was surveillance, gathering intel, not drug distribution. She gnawed on her bottom lip and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
“You are Isabel, yes?”
Reluctantly she nodded.
“Well, welcome to the island.”
Chapter Sixteen
In a drug-induced haze, Karla lay on the bed staring absently at the flowered wallpaper pattern. How many days had she been here? She’d lost complete track of time and reality itself. She gazed around the small room they’d stuck her in. Was the door locked? It didn’t matter. They didn’t need to secure her as they had something much more powerful holding her there.
The memory of events that had led to being there was foggy.
Nothing more than fleeting memories.
What had they pumped her with?
She recalled meeting Ray, snorting coke, but she didn’t remember all these poke marks in her arms. She turned her wrist and studied each one. The dark puncture wounds stung when she touched them. Karla groaned again. Her entire body ached from having slept with three men that day. The last one was the worst. She reached up and touched the cut lip. Wincing in pain, she watched as another tear dripped onto the pillow. She’d wanted to run, but they were constantly watching her. Besides, even if she could get away, where would she go? By now her landlady would have closed on her apartment. There would be someone else living there. But that wasn’t the worst of it. It was coming back to her now. It was the craving, the need for that next fix. She remembered. They made her go without it just until the point that her flesh felt like it was crawling, then they would stick that needle in her arm and she would drift off into a world of colors.
Karla tried to get up. Where was she? She didn’t even recall them bringing her in. Her time had been spent moving in and out of consciousness. She would see the faces of men on top of her grunting as they forced themselves on her. The blackouts at least gave her some relief from the trauma.
What was going on? She could barely make sense of it.
Her mind was fucked up by the drugs. She caught sight of her small frame in the mirror. What were these clothes? she thought, pulling at a flimsy flamingo pink top and white thong. Her legs and feet were bare. Beyond the confines of the room she could hear voices. Low. She staggered over to the door and tugged on it, the door opened and she found herself in a narrow passage. Ahead of her was a kitchen off to the left, and a living room at the far end. It was a trailer. Not too big but more than enough room for two people.
