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

by Scott Cook

  Epilogue

  There was quite a mess to clean up. We had two skiffs and a pontoon to worry about. There were also a few bodies, both living and dead, to worry about.

  George Nolen was under arrest. I was very glad of that. I wasn’t sure we could prove that he’d murdered Sharon’s mother, but there were enough other charges to put him away until his natural death. I preferred that to outright killing him, as much immediate satisfaction as that might have given me or Sharon. Let him live and suffer the consequences of his mistakes.

  Jim was dead. A thirty-ought-six round from Rick’s rifle had ended his uselessness. His wife, Trina, had been winged by her own friends, but was in no real danger. Of the five men who’d come on the pontoon, four were in good health and the fifth had been taken out by Lisa. Six criminals to be jailed and two bodies. Not a terrible butcher’s bill. Of course, when you counted all of the bodies over the course of this case… well, it was pretty messy.

  The six crooks were cuffed and loaded into the Huey. Wayne and Keisha volunteered to drive the pontoon back to Rick’s office… Nolen had stolen it from there the night before, apparently. The Carolina Skiff was registered to Jim and Trina, so Commander Turner volunteered to drive it back to Everglades City along with Wayne where it’d be turned over to the Collier County Sheriff’s department. That left Lisa, Sharon, Rick and me to deal with the Maverick. Sharon asked to ride in the helo back to town so that she could drive up to Lee Memorial and check on Juan. Rick suggested that Lisa go with them. It’d be a tight fit in the now overcrowded Bell UH-1, but he said he wanted to speak with me alone.

  “You two boys gonna be okay?” Sharon asked us.

  “We’ll be fine, honey,” Rick drawled in his best uncle tone. “Me and Scott here are old watermen… you go and see to your beaux. I’ll come and see the both of you later today. Are you gonna be all right?”

  Sharon hugged him tight and sighed, “Christ, Uncle Rick… it’s all so overwhelming. I don’t think it’s all sunk in yet. But I think I’ll be okay in time.”

  “I know you will, little Panther,” He said affectionately and kissed her forehead.

  Lisa gave me a quick hug and the party broke up rather quickly. Soon the sounds of helo blades and boat engines vanished, their sound swallowed by the ancient landscape that thrived all around us. There was certainly a sense of loneliness afterward.

  Rick and I walked down to the Maverick and pulled a couple of waters out of the cooler we’d brought. He sat on the gunwale and downed half of his before adjusting his Stetson and turning to me.

  “You’re somethin’ else, son,” he finally said, actually tipping his hat to me. “I couldn’t have done all this without you. I knew you’d be the only one who could put all the pieces together.”

  I sighed, “I wish we could’ve accomplished all this without so much death… and for Sharon to be held hostage by a bomb… and for her to learn so much crazy shit about her family in such a short time.”

  Rick sighed too, “Yep… a real kick in the ass. A shame… but Sharon’s the one we need to worry about. I think she’ll be okay, though. She’s got all of you. Lisa and Wayne and Juan, of course. And you most of all. Plus she’s got me. I’ve always tried to be there for her and I will be. From now on, I’m gonna make more of an effort to spend time with her.”

  “Good to hear,” I said. “Personally, I’d like that. You’re a fascinating man, Rick Eagle Feather. I’m glad to have known you this little bit and hope to get to know you better… the real kick in the ass about all this… it was for nothing.”

  Rick stared at me for a long moment. There was no expression on his face and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking until a slow smile began to spread and he actually winked at me.

  “What” I prodded, a little off-center.

  “You ever see the City Slicker movies?” he finally asked with a wry grin.

  “The ones with Billy Crystal and Jack Palance?” I asked.

  “Yeah, those… well, remember in the second one, Curly’s twin brother Duke comes to Mitch and gets him and his brother and Daniel Stern to go on a treasure hunt?”

  I nodded, “Yeah, and they were followed the whole way and it turned out just to be a tourist adventure thing, right?”

  Rick was beaming now, “Yeah… but right at the end, Jack Palance shows up in Mitch’s Vegas hotel room and says that he intended to screw Mitch out of the treasure… and that there really was a treasure.”

  I laughed, “Yeah, he thumps a big ass gold brick on the table and…”

  Rick grinned all the way across his face, reached behind his back and pulled something out that must’ve been lodged in his belt. He set the thing on the casting deck of the Maverick with a resounding great thump.

  “It’s got friends…” he said in that weird Jack Palance voice and then laughed his ass off.

  “Is that… what I think it is?” I asked, staring at the brilliant yellow rock that glittered under the partly cloudy sky and feeling the blood drain from my cheeks.

  “A ten-pound bar of gold, son,” Rick said. “A hundred and sixty ounces. Worth just over three hundred grand.”

  “Jesus Christ…” I said in awe, lightly running a finger across the smooth surface. “So… so what… there really is a treasure? Pierre Meraux really did take a Spanish treasure ship?”

  Rick was still smiling from ear to ear, “You bet your ass! And seeing as how it was your great times something granny that chased him and forced him to bury it… and seeing as how you risked so much to help an old man you didn’t even know… and seeing as how you lost your own boat in the process… well… I’m gonna share it with you.”

  My mouth went as dry as a cotton field, “Wha… what?”

  “Not all of it, mind,” Rick pointed out. “There’s a reason I’ve kept it secret all these years. It’s a great stash but it represents a great deal of power, too. In the wrong hands it could give the finder enormous power to control these lands… and that shouldn’t be.”

  “Except in the right hands, Rick,” I stated. “Hands of people who have honored and preserved South Florida for millennia. I’ve got an idea about that, if you’re interested to hear it.”

  He cocked his head, “That so? Well, I’d like to hear… but in the meantime, I think I owe you a bit of a fee.”

  I laughed, “Let me have that hunk of bullion sitting here on deck and that’d be far more than I deserve, ha-ha-HA!”

  Rick clapped me on the shoulder, “Nonsense. That feller is just the down payment… one thing, though… I need to blindfold you for the trip.”

  I looked at him questioningly and frowned.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” He reassured me. “It’s just… this has been a secret for a very long time. Call it plausible deniability.”

  I agreed and after a twenty minute or so ride in the Maverick, Rick led me up to the top of a steep hill on a small island. The hill was too steep and uniform to be anything other than a Calusa shell mound. At the top was a granddaddy of a banyan tree so vast that its canopy and trunks almost seemed like a forest. Near the center Rick brushed away a pile of stones and a few seemingly random logs to reveal a wooden door about three feet on a side. Together we lifted it to expose a space beneath far larger than the trap door. In the cache, neatly arranged, were an assortment of chests and boxes. Rick grinned and opened a few, revealing gold coins as shiny as the day they were minted. Some boxes held gold bars that were the siblings of the one he’d showed me. Others held piles of silver coins and yet others were filled with silver bars.

  “My god…” I breathed in disbelief.

  Rick chuckled, “Quite a haul. Well, here… this is a good start.”

  He withdrew three more ten-pound bars and handed them to me. They were amazingly heavy for their size. I gazed at him stupidly, not believing this was really happening.

  “It’s true, son,” Rick said. “I want you to have these, as a start. And I’m gonna throw in that Maverick, too. She’s
a great boat and you sailor boys can always use a good runabout for back country work, huh?”

  I kept staring and he laughed and clapped me on the shoulder, “My pleasure, son… I can put you in touch with a guy who’ll melt it down for you. After his fee, you’re looking at about one point one million. Give Uncle Sam his due… you’ll still have three-quarters of a mil left. Now take the skiff and these little hunks of metal and… buy yourself a nice boat, huh?”

  The big meeting was held the next day aboard Colonel Warner Grayson’s private Gulfstream 700. He landed in Naples and I was surprised to find that when Rick Eagle Feather and I boarded the plane and made our way into the conference section, Colonel Grayson and Commander Turner were already seated with Marsha Davies and Maxwell Thorne at the table.

  “Thank you for coming gentlemen,” Colonel Grayson said in his refined accent that carried a touch of southern charm.

  Grayson’s salt and pepper hair and dark brown skin was a contrast to Bryan Turner’s blue-eyed blonde appearance. Where one man was just over fifty and broad in the beam, the other was a few years older than me with a trim athlete’s body and a bit of a baby face. In contrast to them, the two politicians looked as if they’d just swallowed something bitter and more than a little stinky.

  “Oh, it’s our pleasure to attend, Colonel,” I replied, shaking his hand. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Richard Eagle Feather. One of the confirmed Calusa and something of a community leader among the Seminole, Miccosukee and the Calusa.”

  “A pleasure, Mr. Eagle Feather,” Grayson said, clasping Rick’s forearm in the traditional Indian greeting style. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Rick replied, taking a seat. “Always glad to meet a fellow Marine.”

  “What’s the meaning of all of this?” Marsha Davies snapped. Her patience had obviously been worn quite thin of late.

  For his part, Thorne at least maintained the illusion of control. Although his gaze slid over to meet mine momentarily.

  “Let me lay the cards on the table,” Grayson said, folding his hands and resting them atop a sheaf of papers. “Between the testimonies of the people arrested yesterday, the group found by Collier County deputies the other day off Alligator Alley and due in no small part to the statements of these two gents as well as Lieutenant Nolen, Officer Juan Fuente and Miss Lisa Gonzalez… there’s enough evidence to link the two of you to some very unsavory activities and some very heavy indictments.”

  “You can’t prove—“ Davies tried to bluster.

  “Congresswoman,” I put in. “Both Lieutenant Sharon Nolen and Lisa Gonzalez can place you at Mr. Eagle Feather’s cabin two nights ago. In the presence of George Nolen, Michael Harney and those two dead gangster drug dealers and who knows what else fellows. Even now, ICE is uncovering a considerable paper trail, isn’t’ that right, Colonel?”

  “Indeed it is, Commander,” Grayson confirmed.

  “Inadmissible in court,” Thorne put forward blandly.

  Turner chuffed, “Technically correct, Senator. At least in most courts. The court of public opinion, however… is another story. You’re both tied to murders, kidnappings and multiple conspiracies … it doesn’t look good. It looks rather terrible, honestly.”

  “Then why are we here?” Davies asked, her anger cracking and a little fear dribbling out.

  “Because based on all the testimony and my personal feelings on the matter,” Grayson continued. “I don’t believe the two of you were truly behind anything quite so heinous. You certainly wanted to find that treasure and try to use it to make a land grab for your own reasons… but I’m willing to take a leap of faith and assume you weren’t behind or directly aware of the violence that came about.”

  ICE was extending a huge olive branch and I think that everybody in the cabin knew it was at least partly bullshit. Davies’ and Thorne’s involvement was hardly innocent. At best it was gray, at worst they gave Nolen the go ahead to use whatever means were necessary.

  Interestingly, Grayson said as much before saying: “However, based in no small part on Lieutenant Commander Jarvis’ suggestion, I’m willing to let that go in exchange for a favor. I’m going to give the two of you exactly what you wanted… just not in the way you wanted it.”

  Thorne and Davies looked at each other and then back at Grayson. Then they looked at me questioningly.

  “You both wanted to set up dummy organizations to privately manage the Ten Thousand Islands Wildlife Preserve and surrounding ecosystems,” I explained. “To place key Seminole, Miccosukee and Calusa community leaders into board positions in order to legitimize the organizations as well as tap into special privileges granted the indigenous peoples of South Florida by both the state and federal governments.”

  “Then your plan would be to use the treasure to secretly fund the group and utilize this capital power as well as the built-in political leverage to eventually gain certain rights and privileges over the area for your own long-term goals,” Turner said.

  “Yeah, that’s the part you aren’t getting,” I added. “Since there’s no Meraux treasure to speak of. All that was ever found were a few gold bars and coins. Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Grayson smiled thinly, “So what is going to happen is that you both will jointly create the kind of group you were going to start… or have already started. You can merge the ones you have now. You will place Native American community leaders in board positions, with Mr. Eagle Feather acting as President. He’ll oversee the organization and with the two of you helping to lobby for and fund the group, it’ll work for the betterment of the Everglades, Ten Thousand Islands, Florida Bay and both native peoples and locals who make their living in or near the area. You’ll both privately endow the group, become its greatest proponents in both the House and Senate as well as Florida legislature… in short, you’ll do everything in your power to actually carry out the things you both told Scott and Lisa you wanted. A story will be leaked to the press about a conspiracy to find a fictitious treasure, which was proven to be a myth. The story will applaud the diligence of both a local Democrat and Republican to preserve one of Florida’s, the Nation’s and even the world’s most treasured natural resources. Certain specific areas of land in the Ten Thousand Islands will be put in direct possession of Mr. Eagle Feather and his family as well as the organization, with a strict moratorium on illegal activity. In exchange for all of this, for starters… you will not be indicted or your names dragged through the mud. Are we agreed?”

  The politicians sat quietly for a moment, chewing on all that Grayson had said. For her part, Davies looked mad enough to gnaw barbed wire. Thorne looked only mildly pensive. We waited.

  “Well, Marsha?” Thorne asked. “It seems reasonable to me. Why don’t we work together?”

  Davies chuckled bitterly, “All you’ve ever wanted to do was make yourself richer, Max. Why would I want to help you?”

  “Because this is your chance to do what you’ve always campaigned on,” Thorne said without rancor.

  “He’s right,” Grayson added. “And frankly, Ms. Davies… I’m not giving you much of a choice. You either cooperate or your career is ruined and you will likely go to prison.”

  “Blackmail,” She spat. “Dirty goddamned blackmail is all this is!”

  “Is it?” I asked. “You’re getting away Scott free… hey, you like that?”

  There were a few chuckles and a quick jab in the ribs from Rick.

  I went on: “Scott free. On top of that, you get to help the disadvantaged to prosper while helping to preserve a complex ecology. This has Congresswoman Marsha Davies written all over it. It’s about time you put your money where your mouth is, Marsha. Also, I overheard a conversation between Deac and Troy one night. While I can’t prove it, I’m sure they were referring to you… which means that you were more active in all this than we’re acknowledging. So yeah, call it blackmail if you want. I’m fine with that.”

  She glared at me for a long m
oment and then her face seemed to relax and she even allowed herself a tiny smirk, “Well… all things considered… I suppose I must agree.”

  “That’s the spirit!” I said, clapping my hands together. “Well, I’ll leave you all to the details. I’m tired and need to get back to my life, such as it is, for a time.”

  “Oh, Scott,” Grayson said, handing me a small, folded piece of paper. “You may want this. I think you’ll find it useful. Mr. Eagle Feather, would you mind staying for a while? We haven’t heard your thoughts on any of this.”

  “Certainly,” Rick said, clasping my forearm. “Scott and I discussed it and I think it’s a fine idea.”

  I ducked into the cockpit and said hello and goodbye to the pilot, Neil Travis. He’d helped talk me through landing an old DC3 conversion during the Shade incident.

  After stepping down onto the tarmac, I unfolded the paper Grayson had given me. It was a short note that read:

  Here’s a safe place to store one point two million dollars, Scott. Don’t worry about the tax man… he won’t bother you on this one

  - Warner.

  At the bottom of the page was the name of a bank in Grand Cayman and an account number. I grinned, pocketed the note and headed back to Lisa’s GLC, pondering just what kind of boat I might like to purchase.

  “So what are you about to feed us here, blue eyed devil?” Wayne teased as our server set down two identical plates on either side of the umbrella pole at our table.

  “Something new we just came up with,” Gina, our server, replied cheerfully. “It’s called a taste of the Everglades.”

  “Exactly,” I replied, indicating the colorful and beautifully plated appetizers. “Sautéed alligator bites, barbequed venison fingers, grilled corn and seared wild boar. Everything made with Everglades seasonings… and a special homemade BBQ sauce the chef just received.”

  “Gee, I wonder where they got the idea from?” Sharon asked with a wry grin as she reached for a grilled and seasoned half ear of corn.