What Lies Beneath: A Florida Action Adventure Novel (Scott Jarvis Private Investigator Book 10)

by Scott Cook

“Uhm… you said I should always do it.”

  She giggled, “What do you really think? Deep down in your most secret of places?”

  I snorted, “A lot of fairly dirty thoughts.”

  She laughed, “Good… but besides that. What’s your gut say?”

  I thought for a moment, “Something Donniker said about the man who hired him. Five foot nine or so. Late sixties… Rick’s contemporary in age… it would mean that this mystery man also must know what Rick knows… or that Rick knows… how to find the treasure.”

  “You think its Sharon’s uncle? I mean Michael Harney?”

  I half-shrugged, “Possible… he’d be about the right age. I’d say it could be Senator Thorne, except that Thorne is taller. At least six feet. He’s also ten years younger… That Donniker guy was about five-nine, so he’d certainly know the difference.”

  “How do Thorne and Davies fit in?”

  “Probably in just the way they told us,” I expounded. “They both want to block the other’s play. I’d guess that they both want to gain some sort of control over the Ten Thousand Islands either just to stop the other or to try and capitalize on it somehow.”

  “But how?” Lisa asked. “I mean… it’s federally protected. Just because the Seminole and Miccosukee are given administrative control over the management of the area doesn’t mean that somebody can go in and open a hotel or a fishing camp or something, right?”

  “Unless they know about the Meraux Treasure,” I suggested.“Which is reasonable. It’s not a secret. I didn’t know about it until Thorne told me… but still… if it’s true, there’s hundreds of millions in gold out in the Ten G’s somewhere. And isn’t it a coincidence that they both need old Rick to nail down their plans?”

  “Hmm…” was all she said.

  “Also…” I began hesitantly. “And I know I’m making a huge leap here… but maybe there’s a possibility we haven’t considered…”

  “What?”

  “Okay… Sharon’s dad leaves her mom when Sharon is twelve,” I began speculatively. “Then a few years later, the mother is murdered. It’s mysterious. No rhyme or reason to it and the cops could never find any motive to attach to any suspect… except for a tiny thread. She’s really Rick’s half-sister.”

  “You don’t think Rick Eagle Feather…”

  “No… no, I don’t,” I continued, taking in a deep breath. “George Nolen was five-foot nine and two hundred or so pounds… he shows up five years ago out of the blue to see Sharon again. Why?”

  “Absolution, I’d guess,” Lisa commented. “He knew he was dying and wanted to square himself. Lot of people do that. In my opinion, it’s kind of shitty. It’s entirely for them and it only hurts those that are left behind.”

  “Yeah… yeah…” I said. “But I met George Nolen. He wasn’t around that long. Off and on. His cancer was slow acting and he told Sharon he wasn’t going to do chemo or radiation. Said he’d rather be healthy for the time he had left… and he seemed pretty healthy. Early sixties, fit and robust… not what you’d expect from somebody with Leukemia…”

  “What are you saying?”

  I sighed, “He left town before he died. Sharon only got word from some hospice facility down in Fort Myers. Sort of mysterious, as was his whole death. Sharon arranged to have him buried under a false name because George had that written into his will. That his past might be an issue and it’d be better to fudge things a little.”

  “That’s weird in and of itself,” Lisa admitted.

  “Yeah… but then somebody digs him up… and he’s not in his grave!” I finally blurted.

  “Wait… wait…” Lisa leaned up on an elbow and looked into my eyes. “You’re not saying… you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”

  “Not exactly… I’m suggesting only the possibility…” I hesitated, not quite wanting to bring myself to utter the words, as they hit home for me in a personal way. “Maybe, just maybe, mind… George Nolen never had cancer and that he didn’t die in Fort Myers.”

  Book Three

  Getting Down to Rock Bottom

  33

  Having no other leads to follow and nothing else that could be done in Southwest Florida, we all went home. Sharon and Juan had to work and there was little or nothing for Lisa and me to do down there that I could think of at the time.

  I’d sent what information I had, all of the seemingly random bits and pieces, to Richard Kelly at ICE when I arrived in my office on Monday morning. He said he’d put his team on it and try and correlate the information and find any documented connections that might serve. He wasn’t sure how long it would take, so I was then relegated to the thing I hate most… waiting.

  “Okay, here’s what I found on the Florida State websites,” Lisa said as she walked into my inner office on Tuesday just before lunch. “There are two environmental organizations lobbying for an oversight contract on the Ten Thousand Islands Preserve. They’re applying to the state legislature as well as the federal government.”

  She laid two sheets of paper on my blotter. I picked them up and scanned them over, “Hmm… the 10K Preservation Society… the Florida Bay Basin Conservation Authority… interesting. It seems the 10K group is being backed by and has Congresswoman Davies on their board of directors. The other one has Senator Thorne on theirs. Naturally…”

  “Recognize any of the other names?” She asked, taking one of the client chairs.

  “No… you?”

  She shook her head, “No. Quite a few Native Americans, though. I also see that both the Seminole and Miccosukee councils are listed as officers in each group. Both 501c3 non-profits.”

  I sighed and laid the printouts down on the desk, “Yeah… nothing we didn’t already know. Anything else going on?”

  She grinned, “Well, I did receive a call a few minutes ago. Central Florida Casualty wants me to do a little research for them. Cross-checking some data and observations from a couple of their adjusters. Needs the sharp eye of an MBA to sift through the BS, I guess.”

  “Sounds thrilling.”

  Lisa chuckled, “Sometimes it’s nice to have a boring case. I’ve got an appointment with Mrs. Something or other after lunch.”

  I leaned back in Seniority Swivelina and sighed, “I’m feeling restless. What say we walk over to Vic’s and get in a workout?”

  Vic’s Gym was a semi-modern, semi-old school workout facility over on Jefferson Avenue. While Vic’s did feature the latest in workout machines, treadmills, spinners and so forth, it also provided a large free weights area, mixed martial arts room and boxing center complete with sparring ring. Vic’s was a favorite for cops, fire fighters and ironically… local criminals to get fit.

  The owner of the gym, Vic Matzano, was a lean Italian man in his mid-fifties with a wrestler’s body and rugged good looks that belied his age. He was friendly and catered to everyone, making him popular and a staple in downtown Orlando.

  “Well, lookie what the cat dragged in,” Vic shouted halfway across the gym in his understated New York accent. “Who’s the ugly guy with Lisa?”

  Vic was also a wise-ass… like so many of my friends.

  “I found him wandering around looking lost and took pity on him,” Lisa stated with a grin and a jab to my ribs.

  Vic chuffed, “Sweetheart, everybody who sees the two of you together already knows that you’re taking pity on him.”

  “Why do I come here again?” I cranked.

  “Cuz my rates are cheap, my gear good and I put up with your bullshit,” Vic stated.

  “My bullshit?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Boys, boys… play nice,” Lisa chided. “I’m gonna get changed and hit the weights, baby.”

  Vic and I watched her walk away and I got a wink from the older man, “You’re a lucky guy, paisan. So what’s your pleasure today?”

  “Think I’ll hit the weights, too,” I said. “Then maybe see if anybody wants to spar with me. Practice a few throws and
who knows, might even hit the speed bag.”

  “How’s things?” Vic asked when I came out of the men’s locker room in my old sweat stained togs.

  I picked up two forty-five-pound dumbbells and began doing hammer curls, “Okay, Victor… what have you heard?”

  “You know… the voices bounce off the walls in here…” Vic said mysteriously. He liked the idea that both the good and bad guys used his gym. He liked feeling as if he were at the nexus of some sort of a crime web and that all things flowed through him.

  It was harmless and often bore fruit, so I humored him, “Oh yeah? What bounced off lately?”

  “Lotta guys talkin’ about Big Daddy goin’ down,” Vic said conspiratorially. “Word is that you went over to his house and took him out one night last week.”

  “Not exactly,” I huffed. The weights were beginning to get heavy. “I went over there, but it wasn’t me who put him in a body bag.”

  “Yeah… some little Japanese girl was over there,” Vic whispered. “Some kind of Memoirs of a Geisha deal or something? It’s said she’s the one put a blade in his chest.”

  I finished my third set and moved to a rack of pre-weighted straight bars. I picked up a hundred and fifty pounder and began doing front and back military presses, “Yeah… all true… pretty weird… that all?”

  He grinned, “Nah… one of these local thugs, I forget which, was running his mouth about how he was gonna cash in on the vacuum. Said he heard that this girl was in custody but vanished and nobody has heard a thing about it since.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Wayne told me,” I grunted.

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” Vic muttered, leaning in close. “I also heard from Tony G… you know him?”

  “Not sure… drug pusher or pimp or something, right?” I groaned.

  “Yeah… anyways, Tony G tells me that he thinks this Japanese girl is gunnin’ for you. Says she’s an assassin and wants to take you out so you can’t identify her or somethin’… better keep your eyes open, huh?”

  I set the bar down and took a minute to catch my breath, “Always do, Vic. Anything else?”

  “No,” he shrugged elaborately. “Just figured I’d give you the dope. You didn’t hear it from me, though.”

  “Course not, Vic,” I said, hefting the barbell again for another set. “Everybody knows you’re the soul of discretion.”

  “Exactly,” he said, backhanded me on the back and moved off into the sea of voices, clanking metal and top forty music that was the audible backdrop of the gym.

  After my upper body workout, I headed for the boxing room. I’m not quite sure why, but something caught my eye as I strolled past the cardio gear. There was a slim blonde woman on an exercise bike who seemed to be looking at me. When I diverted my eyes for a quick peek, she’d tilted a water bottle up and I couldn’t see her face.

  I smiled to myself, thinking that I was either being paranoid or egotistical. I had walked in her line of sight, after all. At best she might have given me a casual once over and at worst I was imagining things. I had gotten an odd feeling about her… yet I had to chalk it up to paranoia brought on by recent events.

  After a few rounds with the speed bag, Lisa joined me and we finished up. We showered and changed back into our clothes and headed over to the Relax Grille at Lake Eola for lunch. After that, we went back to the office and Lisa left for her appointment.

  I took the time to dig a little deeper into the two organizations set up by Thorne and Davies. They both had websites and they both said about the same thing. Each organization was concerned about Everglades’ restoration, maintaining and improving environmental conditions for the Glades, the Ten Thousand Islands and Florida Bay. Davies pet project was a bit more focused on the environment, with articles indicating that the Native American population in the area should be set up in a stewardship position, as they knew the land and had a claim to it.

  Thorne’s group, the Florida Bay Basin Conservation Authority, or FBBCA, was focused on the environment too, although their aim seemed more to allow the Seminole, Miccosukee and especially the remaining Calusa people to be placed in a stewardship position over the Glades, Ten G’s and the Bay. Several articles cited arguments that not only could restoration and protection be a focus, but the peoples of the area could also work in concert with the land to provide greater income streams for themselves and other local people.

  Both groups also had connections to smaller organizations. The 10KPS was attached to quite a few liberal causes such as assisting the fishing communities in Southwest Florida, scholarship programs for underprivileged teens, minority outreach programs and so forth. The FBBCA had ties to several big-name churches in Florida, the NRA, agricultural groups and other conservative lobbyists. Not really a surprise, considering the politicians behind each group and their particular associations.

  Then I found something very interesting. When I went to the about pages of each website, I found a list of board members complete with bios and photos. I was shocked to find that Tanner Donniker, criminal mastermind and all-around bad guy, was a board member of both groups! Apparently, he held a master’s in environmental engineering and specialized in wetland ecology. He owned a small private research lab called BioSight based in Naples and that company’s website stated that they were currently engaged in a long-term study on the Ten Thousand Islands that focused on complete ecological survivability of the complex Everglades ecosystem. This included water quality, particulate runoff studies, mangrove health in both large and small systems, the impact of invasive species of flora and fauna as well as the impact of human activity, both present and potential.

  “Well, isn’t that interesting…” I muttered, leaning back in my chair and looking over at Ferny. She was the only one in the room, after all.

  Ferny the fern had nothing particularly profound to say, yet she empathized with me. She no doubt found it enormously suspicious that the same guy and his company was attached to two politically opposed groups, both of whom were lobbying for management of the Everglades and associated areas.

  “You’re right, Ferny,” I said. “That’s suspicious enough, yet we both know that Donniker is also behind Rick Eagle Feather’s kidnapping. He’s also the guy who hired Doctor Pak to steal that jar. Then he hires some local guys up here to plant it on Virginia Chandler’s land. There must be a connection to her competitor, too… the one that had Ted Blake steal that information from Chandler Homes. Not sure how or why, maybe just one of those things… you know what I still don’t get?”

  Ferny waited.

  “I don’t get why Big Daddy would send two dudes over to Sharon’s and shoot her place up,” I commented. “What’s that got to do with anything? And who killed Proust and why? I guess the why is easy enough to figure out… he must have known too much. But who helped him? Did Proust dig up those graves or did he just get paid to look the other way? And what about Deac and Troy, those two knuckleheads who planted the jar at the development site? At least one of them tried to brace Lisa at the library… what’s the connection there?”

  Ferny had nothing definite to add.

  “Yeah…” I sort of replied. “I think you’re right, Ferny… maybe Big Daddy hired those two goons. Yet they did mention an attractive older woman… Maybe he also dealt with Davies and Proust. Maybe Big Daddy is the contact point up here… and Donniker down there in Collier County… perhaps each of our politicians is responsible for them… but that’s still kind of weird, isn’t it?”

  Ferny agreed that was weird.

  “Think about it,” I went on, swiveling and rubbing my chin for maximum imaginative output. “They tie together. All the activity up here and down there go together… so maybe Donniker isn’t the only common element between the two Glades admin lobbies. Maybe Thorne and Davies aren’t working in opposition… but in tandem? Hmmm… the key is Rick. Everybody seems interested in him. Then there’s my theory… no, not a theory… a vague gut feeling is more like it… that George Nolen is
wrapped up in this. That maybe he’s not as dead as we thought. That’s kind of crazy, though, isn’t it?”

  Ferny wasn’t so quick to agree.

  “Yeah… yeah… not like this would be the first time somebody faked their death, would it?” I pondered. “Okay… then there’s the plaque from a sunken boat with a couple of numbers on the back. Then on the note, two seven-digit numbers… Twenty-six and thirty-seven on the back of the plaque… I wonder…”

  I opened up iSailor on my phone. It was a GPS navigation app that supplemented a chart plotter. I scrolled down through the charts until I reached an area between twenty-six- and twenty-seven-degrees north latitude. Although that could be anywhere around the globe, I did find it telling that this latitude was between Fort Myers and Marco Island.

  “As if Rick had noted the latitude of where he’d found that plaque?” I asked thin air. “Is that where his dad’s boat went down? If so, what longitude then?

  I closed iSailor and opened the notes app. In it, I’d written down the two numbers on the note that I had no doubt came from Rick Eagle Feather. He was trying to tell me something. Maybe more than that, he was giving me vital information he didn’t want to fall into anyone’s hands. He hoped that I’d be able to figure it out… and I hoped he was right.

  The two numbers were not GPS coordinates. They had the wrong number of digits and had no decimals. Yet there was something strangely familiar about them. Something that nagged the back of my mind.

  “2,737,241,” I read them aloud, “and 8,182,171… what the hell do they mean? And why together?”

  I pondered that for a moment. They sure did seem like navigation coordinates. Certainly not GPS, though. I tried entering them into several GPS websites and got weird answers that didn’t seem to gel. Then I began to think about Rick and his father.

  William Eagle Feather’s boat went down one night off Fort Myers in the late 1950’s. Since Bill was the only one aboard, there were no survivors. Yet his son had the dedication plaque from the boat… which meant that he’d found it sometime later. Found the wreck, dove on it and recovered the plaque at the very least. The 26 and the 37 on the back might be the latitude of the wreck. That’d make sense… but without a corresponding longitude, you might trawl along that parallel forever and never find the boat. Even if you hugged that latitude exactly, you could still be hundreds of feet north or south of the actual wreck and never come across it even with sophisticated sonar equipment. And yet… and yet… Rick must have wanted to find the boat again. Must be a reason he kept the plaque hidden… and those other two numbers…