He staggered back and I used both feet to kick him in the face. He rolled back across the deck and slid into the carving equipment he planned to use on me. He rolled around, still screaming and cursing a blue streak. I didn’t like the cursing, not because I am prudish, but because he was getting his breath and wits back.
I managed to stand up, which is a lot harder than it sounds when your hands are tied behind your back and the boat is pitching and yawing, or whatever boats do. Vole was on his hands and knees now and started to get up. The odds were still in his favor, so I went over and kicked him in the Adams Apple. He gurgled horribly and rolled on his back, one hand on his throat, the other on his groin. I debated kicking him again somewhere else now that he had run out of hands, but thought my only real chance was to get untied. I made for the cabin. I slammed the door shut and, turning around, managed to get it locked. But I was sure Vole could easily bash his way through. I needed something to cut the rope on my wrists.
I looked around frantically. In one corner, about belt high on a shelf that girdled the cabin, I saw it. The small fisherman’s knife was still standing straight up from the wooden cutting board in which it was embedded. I flung myself backwards on the shelf just as Vole smashed at the door. I did not have time for finesse. I slammed my wrists against the sharp edge of the blade and started sawing up and down. The knife cut into the line, but my forearms were also slashed badly. With my concentration on Vole’s progress with the door, I barely noticed the pain. But I knew it would be intense later. I was just hoping there would be a later. Vole stopped his battering. Maybe the door was stronger than it looked. Or maybe, having spent so much time crafting it, he did not want to break it down. What he did was put his fist through one of the glass panes and started to unlock the door with his hand. His forearm was streaked with blood. Must have hurt like hell. That didn’t seem to bother him, either.
He came through the door just as my bonds came free. He had not seen what I had done, so I backed into a corner and kept my hands behind my back, as if they were still tied. He was still hunched over and his eyes bore into mine.
“Nice try, asshole. But what did it get you? Now, I’m going to gut you like a mackerel.”
Vole walked toward me deliberately, as if he had all the time in the world. He reached toward the cutting board to get the knife that had freed me. He looked confused when he saw it was not there.
“Looking for this, Lenny?” I said.
I brought the arm that was holding the knife from behind my back and whipped it into his side, hoping the blade was long enough to reach his heart.
It wasn’t. And its thin blade broke off inside him. But it bought me some time. Vole twisted away, screaming in agony. I clubbed him on the side of his head and bolted for the door. I did not like my chances in the confined space of the cabin with an outraged maniac who the SEALS thought was too dangerous. Perhaps I could reach one of the big knives that Vole had planned on using on me.
I didn’t get far. Halfway through the door he tackled me and we both went sprawling across the deck. I kicked him and he clubbed me across the neck. Then he grabbed me by the throat and lifted me to the stern, bending me backward toward the water. The idling propeller roared in my ear.
Vole was beyond reason. I could see the end of the broken knife sticking out from under his armpit. He started to strangle me. I pounded both hands against the side of his head. I reached for his eyes. He ducked his head into his chest to protect them. This was not his first rodeo. He knew what he was doing. I started seeing black spots. I was losing.
My hand hit something. It was the huge metal lure attached to the fishing rod sitting in its holder in the rear chair. I felt for the lure. I pulled it down until it came loose from the guide and then slammed its set of three treble hooks into the side of Vole’s head, where they impaled his right ear and cheek. Then I grabbed the line and pulled. Vole screamed and let go of my throat. I vaulted upright, grabbed the loose line and wrapped it around his throat. Then I reached down and grabbed him by the ankles and pitched him over the stern. I heard the drag on the reel click out as his weight pulled line off the spool. Vole was still too close to the boat to suit me, so I climbed up the ladder to the wheel and pushed the throttle forward. The boat surged ahead. I looked back. Vole was screaming and hydroplaning in our wake 20 yards behind. After five minutes the screaming stopped. I put the throttle in neutral and went down to the stern. The boat slowed, but still moved ahead slowly, drifting with the current.
I expected to find Vole dead. Instead, I watched in disbelief as he headed back to the boat, by alternating a doggy-paddle with pulling himself hand-over-hand on the line, which he had wrapped around his arm. Never underestimate a Navy SEAL, especially a deranged one. He had ripped the lure from his cheek and ear, or rather from where the ear had been. It was now just a bloody gash. The lure was now embedded in his back. He would soon reach the wire leader, which would make it easier for him.
A fin cut the water behind him, maybe 30 yards out. Then another. Vole saw the sharks, too. They were after more than bait fish. They were following his blood trail.
Vole redoubled his efforts. I sat in the chair watching him, thinking about Anna Dickson. The sharks were now perhaps 15 yards behind him. When he got within five feet of the rear platform he was probably sure he was going to make it. I reached for the gaff. His hands grasped the platform. I stuck the business end of the gaff in his chest, just hard enough to get his attention. He realized he couldn’t climb on the platform unless I let him.
The sharks drew closer. His eyes were white with terror. I reached in my pocket for my iPhone. It was undamaged. God bless you, Steve Jobs, wherever you are. I pressed the app for voice recording.
“Why did you kill Ashleigh Harper and Anna Dickson?”
He spit out blood and water. He looked at me, and then twisted his head to see the fins. I prodded him with the gaff.
“She told me to.”
“Who?”
“Sandy.”
“Sandy Nidus?”
“Yeah.”
“Where are the bodies?”
“I dumped them in the ocean.”
“After you cut them up?”
“Yes!”
I shut off the recording. Vole started to ease his way higher on the platform. Despite his wounds, he had a crafty look in his eyes. He knew that the recording would be worthless, even if it survived. As long as he was around to recant it. Or if I, and it, were at the bottom of the Atlantic.
“Thanks,” I said, and pulled the gaff back.
The relief on Vole’s face was palpable. He started clambering up onto the platform. He probably figured he’d have another go around with me. A vision of Anna Dickson swam into my consciousness. I tried to remember what she looked like before Vole strangled her and cut her up. I pushed the gaff back into Vole’s shoulder and shoved. He screamed and slid back off the platform.
“Dinnertime,” I said, as I reached over and eased the drag on the big fishing reel, just as Vole had taught me.
“No!” he screamed even louder as the line clicked out and he drifted back toward the sharks.
I could see the black tips on their dorsal fins. They were the same kind of sharks that Vole said he hated, just like the one he brutally bludgeoned in front of me. I suppose it was a kind of poetic justice.
The sharks each hit a leg almost simultaneously with sickening grunting sounds. I resisted the impulse to sing “Let It Go” from Frozen as Vole was being gobbled. It didn’t go well with his screams, and I wasn’t sure of the words anyway.
Vole went under but soon surfaced. I could see one shark twisting and rolling behind him. The other had disappeared, probably with a mouthful. Another unearthly scream and the remaining shark also disappeared. What was left of Vole bobbed in the boats wake. He was a lot lighter now and no longer took any line out.
I knew the sharks would soon be back for more of Vole, so I started to reel in what was left of him. It may have be
en the strangest thing I’d ever done. I thought of Quint in Jaws. As he got closer to the boat, I could see he was now very dead. More fins broke water. I had seen enough. I used the gaff to get him onto the platform, and then into the boat over the gunwale. Legless from the hips, he wasn’t that heavy.
The sharks came right up to the boat and bumped it hard. One came half out of the water onto the platform, which was smeared with blood. I whacked it with the gaff and drew more blood. The shark rolled off the platform and disappeared, a red streak streaming from the gaff wound. The other sharks followed it under, smelling its blood. They would surely tear it apart in a feeding frenzy in which Vole had been the appetizer. There is no honor among sharks.
I looked at the top half of Vole. His dead eyes stared at me. I didn’t feel sorry for him, but I still threw up over the side for a full 15 minutes.
CHAPTER 24 - LAW AND ORDER
It was not my first time on that kind of boat and I soon figured out the controls. I turned it around and gunned the engine. I could vaguely make out Bald Head Island in the distance. As I got closer, I headed toward the brightest set of lights, hoping it was the marina. I recalled what Vole said about the tide and did not want to chance running aground off Harper’s house.
Bismarck once said that Providence watched over “fools, drunks and the United States of America”. To that I might add beat-up amateur private-eye sailors, because I found the marina!
Of course, it was pretty dark and I did not know exactly where the late Lenny Vole berthed his boat. So I headed along the piers near Mojo’s Restaurant until I found an open space and then docked. Or at least I tried to dock. I was not feeling too chipper at that point and my reflexes were a bit slow. My arrival, bow first, was more of a crash, and I took out a good chunk of the dock, as well as two previously nice-looking mini-yachts. The collision, which put Vole’s boat part way up on the dock, where it stuck, knocked me flat, and put some bruises on top of my bruises.
The noise was incredible and when I finally regained my feet I could see lights coming on all over the marina area and some people coming out of Mojo’s. The area would soon be swarming with people, including cops. I did not feel up to explaining what happened, especially with Vole now sitting legless in a fishing chair dripping gore all over the deck. So, I hopped onto the dock and ran past some of the people standing wide-eyed in front of Mojo’s to a line of golf carts. All the carts had keys in them. It was nice to be in a community where everyone trusted each other, although after this night that might change.
I jumped in a cart that had a mahogany dashboard with a bobble-head Jesus. I took that as a good sign. I needed all the help I could get. I heard angry shouts. I floored the cart, in a manner of speaking, racing away at an undignified 12 miles an hour. If I managed not to fall out again, I probably could get to Ashleigh Harper’s house before anyone could catch me.
***
The house was dark, and there was no one on the first floor. With Vole dead, I was not too worried, but I still wished I had my gun, which had been taken when I was unconscious. A light came on in one of the rooms when I reached the second floor.
“Leonard, is that you?”
It was Sandy Nidus, sounding sultry. I grunted an acknowledgment and walked toward the room.
“Have you cleaned yourself up?”
Another grunt. I was getting good at nonverbal communication.
“Then come to bed. You can take care of Bessie later. I’m horny.”
Apparently the thought of killing me got her all worked up. I took it as a compliment.
She was lying in bed, naked. Her eyes were closed and she was stroking herself.
“Lenny couldn’t make it,” I said, in an almost normal voice. “But don’t stop on my account.”
Her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright.
“You!”
“The one and only.”
She didn’t ask where Vole was. She could tell from my battered condition that he and I probably didn’t leave on the best of terms.
“You killed him.”
It was a statement of fact.
“Well, I had some help, but yes, I did. I’m beginning to feel bad about it, considering what poor Lenny is missing.”
Sandy Nidus stood up and started walking toward me. Even in my debilitated condition, she was something to see. I tried to maintain eye contact, but my gaze drifted from her large, white breasts to her lush pubic thatch.
She came up to me and ground her breasts and groin into me. I could smell her musk, or whatever a woman in heat exudes. She had really been priming her pump for Vole. But that did not prevent her from now throwing him over the side. For Vole, it was the second time in a couple of hours, although this time it was figurative. He had a bad day in anyone’s book.
“There is no reason any of this has to go further than this bedroom,” Sandy purred, and increased her grinding. It was all I could do not to fall over. “I want you. Fuck me, now. Hard. I’ll show you things you’ve never imagined.”
“I have an excellent imagination,” I said. “But what about Lenny?”
My voice was a little hoarse. Maybe after all that time on the water I was catching a cold.
“I’m sure you can take care of that. It’s a big ocean.” Her hand slithered down toward my belt. “I’ve been waiting for someone like you, Alton. Someone who could free me from him.” Her hand began moving in circles. “It’s obvious that Leonard Vole is not half the man you are.”
“Hell, Sandy,” I said, thinking of what was left of Vole on the boat, “he’s not half the man he used to be.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. She smiled at me and parted her lips. I eased her back toward the bed.
“I like it doggie style,” she said.
“I like to do it with humans,” I replied. “And you don’t make the cut.”
I pushed her hard and she sprawled across the bed. I turned to leave. Bessie Magruder was obviously still alive. The sooner I got her to the cops, the better. Without her, I’d have a hard time explaining the bloody scene down at the docks by Mojo’s, even with my iPhone recording.
“You rotten son of a bitch,” Nidus screamed.
I heard a drawer open. When I turned, she was frantically rummaging through the drawer.
“Is this what you are looking for, dearie?”
We both looked toward the door. Bessie Magruder was standing there, holding my gun.
“Shoot him,” Nidus screamed. “He will expose us.”
Bessie walked over to me.
“You’ll put a good word in for me, won’t you?”
“You bet.”
“What are you doing, you crazy old bitch! We could still get away with it.”
Bessie handed me the gun.
“I figure they were gonna use it on me and then blame you. It was their only way out, what with everything going into the crapper.”
“Smart thinking,” I said, in wonderment.
“Hey. I was on Law and Order. I picked up some things.”
We heard the front door open, and then someone running up the stairs. Bentley, the Police Chief, burst into the room.
“Hi, Fred,” I said. “How’s your golf game? Make any putts lately?”
He gaped at us. The scene was surreal. A bedraggled man holding a gun on a naked woman, with what he would have assumed was one of the world’s most-famous authors standing next to him.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Sandy and Vole murdered the real Ashleigh Harper and a college girl named Anna Dickson.”
“He’s lying, Fred,” Nidus said. “You know me. This maniac killed Vole and was going to kill me. Thank God, you are here.”
It was desperate, but just enough to confuse Bentley for a moment.
“I’m not Ashleigh Harper,” Bessie said, “just so you know.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my iPhone. I hit play and raised the volume. Vole’
s confession came through loud and clear.
“Sandy, I’m afraid neither you nor Vole has a leg to stand on,” I said. “Legally, or otherwise.”
Bentley stared back and forth at the three of us. I handed him my gun. He looked at Nidus.
“Sandy, put on some clothes, for Crissakes. We’ll sort this out at the station.” He turned to me. “I knew you were trouble.”
“Just do me a favor chief. When this is all over, tell Charlie and Jim that she is a natural redhead.”
CHAPTER 25 - HOME COOKING
“How did you get out of this one?” Arman Rahm asked me. He looked over at Maks Kalugin, who just shook his head.
A week had passed since I returned from North Carolina. I had just spent the better part of a vodka-lubricated hour regaling them with my experiences on quiet little Bald Head Island. We were in the office at the rear of Deep Gulag, the “gentleman’s club” the Rahm family owned in the South Beach section of Staten Island. The door was closed and we could barely hear the pulsating music coming from the stage-and-pole area where naked young women were slithering before sweaty-browed men. “Dancing” in a Rahm club was a great gig, as that kind of gig went. Arman offered the best wages and tip-sharing in the city, health insurance and, I was stunned to learn, tuition-assistance to those who wanted it. There was a strict “no-touch” rule and patrons who got out of line were quickly squelched by an assortment of beefy bouncers the size of side-by-side refrigerators.
“Well, the whole scene was a bit much for the local cops,” I said.
“You don’t say,” Arman said wryly. “It sounds like Iwo Jima.”
“Yeah, they are more used to the occasional golf cart collision or shark bite. Murders and legless corpses tend to excite them. Not to mention the local Chamber of Commerce. I think those folks wanted to string me up. But the local chief of police knew me and was willing to listen to what I had to say, no matter how unbelievable it sounded. He had to detain me, of course, what with all the damage I had done to the marina and some rich-men’s yachts. Some people were more concerned about that then all the dead bodies. In the end, he called for reinforcements from the mainland. By the next day Bald Head Island was awash with Southport cops and, thank God, North Carolina State Troopers. They were pros, and we soon got things sorted out, especially after I called Mike Sullivan and Cormac. They flew Vocci down to run interference for me.”
TURTLE DOVE (Alton Rhode Mysteries Book 7) Page 14
