Fallen Hunter (Jesse McDermitt Series)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “I didn’t expect you this early,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “No, no,” I replied. “I was on the bridge, having coffee, but I wasn’t even dressed yet.”

  “You drink coffee in your birthday suit?”

  “Well, sometimes, yeah,” I said. “But I had my skivvies on, just now.”

  “Your skivvies?”

  “Marine slang for boxer shorts,” I said. Then to change the subject, I asked, “Would you like some coffee?”

  “What should I do about my bike? I didn’t even think about that, when I left. Guess I should have taken a cab.”

  “Bring it over to the dock. Nobody will bother it, inside the gate. You don’t have a car?”

  I walked her bike to the storage box at the foot of my slip, then helped her step over the transom. “No,” she said. “I sold it when I moved down here. Seemed wasteful to have a car on an island that’s less than six square miles. Your boat is beautiful.”

  We went into the galley and I poured us both a cup of coffee. I showed her around the galley and salon area, then we went up to the bridge. She asked all kinds of questions about my boat, which I was happy to oblige. Then she asked about my time in the Corps, which I’m a little reluctant to talk about. She sensed that and steered the conversation back to my boat, asking, “So, where are you going to take me?”

  “I thought that since you’ve never been on a boat, you might like to see Fort Jefferson.”

  “Where’s that?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s an old Fort, built right after we bought Florida from Spain to protect the shipping lanes to the Caribbean. It’s about eighty miles west of here.”

  “Eighty miles? I thought Key West was the last island in the Keys.”

  “Last one you can get to by car,” I said. “There’s quite a few others between here and the Dry Tortugas.”

  “How long will it take to get there?”

  “Not long,” I said. “Unless we get caught by a lot of traffic lights.”

  She looked at me for a second, then punched me on the shoulder. “I almost fell for that.”

  I rubbed the place where she’d punched me and said, “You ready to go?”

  She nodded enthusiastically, so I turned around and started the engines, which settled into a throaty rumble. “I’ll be right back. Gotta cast off the lines.”

  I climbed down to the cockpit, vaulted over the transom to the dock and untied the mooring lines. A minute later, I was back on the bridge. The sun was just starting to purple the eastern sky, so I switched the bridge lights from white to red, to allow my eyesight to adjust. I turned on the radar, sonar, UHF radio, and running lights. I turned on the GPS and entered Fort Jefferson, which I’d saved before going to bed last night.

  I bumped the engines in gear and eased forward until the stern was near the end of the dock, then I reversed the starboard engine to allow the big boat to turn tightly between the two docks. Once we were clear and headed south toward the channel I switched on the big spotlight on the roof of the bridge. It was already facing forward, barely illuminating the pulpit on the bow, but casting a long beam of light out on the water. It easily picked up the markers going all the way out to the main channel. A few minutes later, we were past the last marker and in the open ocean, with barely a swell rolling under the keel.

  “Hold on,” I said and pushed both throttles about half way. The bow came up as the Revenge gathered speed, finally coming back down as she got up on plane. It’s a great feeling, when a boat goes from cutting through the water, to skimming over its surface. I never get tired of it.

  I started a long, slow turn to the west and looked over at Tina in the second seat. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat. “How fast are we going?” she asked.

  Looking at the knot meter and running the calculation in my head, I said, “About twenty-five miles per hour.” Not wanting to frighten her, I added, “I can slow down if you want.”

  She looked over at me and said, “Can you go faster?”

  I checked the radar and there was absolutely nothing ahead of us. So, I pushed the throttles further, but not all the way to the stops. The Revenge was built for the drug trade and her big eighteen liter engines pushed the boat beyond its cruising speed of twenty-six knots and I settled her to about forty knots. Faster than I liked to run to save fuel, but the lady wanted speed.

  “Is forty-five fast enough?” I asked.

  “Really? We’re going that fast? It doesn’t seem like it.”

  “Because we’re sitting about as high as the roof of a house,” I said. “I could use another cup of coffee. Take the helm for me. Would you like some more?”

  “You want me to drive? I might hit someone.”

  I stood up and looked all around. “There’s nobody to hit. I could turn on the auto pilot, if you’d rather not.”

  She slid over into the first seat and said, “What do I do?”

  I pointed to the GPS and said, “See the line, here? If you stray too far away from it, an arrow will point you back. Or, just check the compass now and then and keep us on a course of about 265 degrees. Third option, and my favorite, just pick a cloud up in front of us and head toward it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I left her at the helm and climbed down to the galley and poured us both another cup. I took my time getting back up topside, to let her get a feel for it. When I did, I took the second seat, checked the compass and handed her the mug.

  “This is great!” she exclaimed. “Nothing like my friends have told me.”

  “Your friends don’t like boats?”

  “Well,” she said, “I don’t think any of them have been in a boat like this. It’s a frigging yacht.”

  “No, just a work boat. Even a small yacht would cost ten times what this one did.”

  I sat back and watched her enjoying the feel of the big boat under her control. She had her raven hair pulled back in a ponytail and was wearing a loose fitting red blouse, cut off blue jeans and flip flops.

  “There’s a little more there,” I said pointing at the throttles, “if you want it.”

  She looked over at me, smiling and then shoved the throttles to the stops. The big boat surged forward, reaching its top speed of forty-five knots in just a few seconds. She slowly turned the wheel to the right, then back to the left.

  “How fast is this?” She asked.

  I pointed to the digital knot meter on the GPS and said, “Multiply by one point one five. About fifty-two miles per hour. You’re really enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” she said. “And you do this for a living?”

  Pulling back on the throttles, I dropped our speed to about twenty-eight knots, just slightly above the best cruising speed and said, “Not often, lately. Truth is, this week was the first time the Revenge’s been out in four months. We can’t run wide open like that for long. Even at this speed, we’re burning about seventy-five gallons an hour.”

  “Wow! That’s a lot of gas. You don’t work much?”

  “We live on an island. No bills at all, except my cell phone and I've thought about throwing it overboard quite a few times. My dog and I eat fish and lobster, mostly. Crab, on occasion. We have enough canned vegetables to last a year. I work when I need to and then retire for a little while.”

  “You have a dog? And he likes fish?”

  “He’s a better fisherman than me,” I said. “His name’s Pescador. Right now, he’s entertaining friends at our house for the week.”

  “Pescador? Is that Spanish?”

  “It means fisherman,” I said. “We better switch seats, the approach to Fort Jefferson is coming up.”

  We switched seats and as she wriggled between me and the helm, she brushed against me and I could smell her hair. It didn’t smell like perfume, just that kind of clean girl smell I like. The close proximity caused a stirring in me. Fort Jefferson was just coming into view and I
said, “It’s the biggest brick structure in the western hemisphere, or so I’ve been told.”

  As we approached the ancient structure, I slowed, the stern lifted and the Revenge came down off plane. She stood up for a better view, placing one hand on my right shoulder and the other on the corner of the helm for balance, as we were now wallowing in the small rollers, gently rocking side to side as they went by under the keel.

  “It’s huge,” she said. “What was it built for, way out here in the ocean?”

  “I don’t know all the history,” I said. “But I heard that it was a place for the Navy to station one or two ships of the line, to protect the shipping lanes. If bad weather came up, the inner harbor could provide a safe haven for four or five ships. Later, the Union used it to keep Confederate prisoners. Many never left.”

  “It’s not used for anything today?”

  “No, it’s a National Park now. Sometimes a wayward sailor will hole up here, to get away from a tropical storm.”

  We slowly idled around the east side of Bush Key, then circled the north side of the Fort and around to the west side, following the same channel that seventeenth century mariners had used into the little harbor. The docks were all empty, not a soul in sight. Looked like we had the island to ourselves, at least for now.

  As I pulled up to one of the docks, I said, “This is going to be a little tricky. Think you can handle the helm if we drift away from the dock before I can get a line on one of the davits?”

  “I can try,” she said. “Just tell me what to do.”

  “Sit here,” I said. “You won’t need to steer. If anything, I’ll call up for you to shift either the right or left engine into forward or reverse.”

  “Sounds easy enough,” she said. I checked again and we hadn’t drifted, so I quickly climbed down the ladder and grabbed a fish gaff from the port side of the cockpit. I was able to hook one of the davits and pulling the stern in close, I got a line on it. Hustling to the bow, the boat had started to drift a little too far for me to reach the pier with the gaff, so I called up to Tina, “Put the right engine in forward and the left one in reverse.”

  She did and the bow slowly swung toward the dock. I called up to her again and told her to put both in neutral. Then reaching out with the gaff, I hooked another davit and pulled the bow in and got a line on it. We were now secure.

  “Okay,” I said, “Shut both engines off.” It was suddenly very quiet, the only sound being the swish of the small waves breaking on the southern shore and an occasional gull, wheeling and crying overhead.

  As I climbed back up to the bridge, Tina looked all around, then said, “Kind of spooky, but beautiful.”

  Looking at her, I said, “Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing.” She looked over at me and realizing I was talking about her, she punched me on the shoulder.

  “Spooky?” she asked.

  I laughed. Something I hadn’t done a lot of in the last few months. “Yeah,” I said. “You seem an open book, but there’s still a mysteriousness I can’t quite put a finger on.”

  “That’d be from my dad’s side. He was French Creole, born and raised in southern Louisiana. His family had been there for many generations.”

  “And he left there for Nebraska?” I asked. “That’s quite a change in scenery.”

  “His ancestors were fishermen, but he wanted to farm. He joined the Army, fought in Korea and when he got out, he never went back to Louisiana. Headed straight for the heartland and bought a farm. That’s where he met mom.”

  “A Cajun girl from Nebraska,” I said. “Spooky.”

  She looked around again, then said, “Shall we go ashore?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I put together a little picnic lunch for later. But I have to catch the main course first. Let’s go.”

  I climbed back down the ladder to the cockpit, then helped her down the last few steps, lifting her easily off the ladder and setting her gently on the deck. I checked my phone and sure enough, no signal.

  “Before we go ashore, I need to check something,” I said. “Come inside and we’ll get a cooler with some drinks, while I do that.”

  In the salon, I got a small cooler and filled it with ice, several bottles of water and as an afterthought, the bottle of Beaujolais Julie had opened the night before and two wine glasses. Then I opened my laptop on the settee and powered it up.

  “There’s no cell signal out here. You won’t get the internet,” she said.

  “I have a satellite link,” I said. “I’m expecting an important message. If you’ll take that cooler to the dock, I’ll be right there.”

  I had one email, but it wasn’t from Deuce. I opened it and saw that it was from the lawyer. He wrote that he was a probate attorney and needed my signature on some documents concerning Alex’s estate. No idea what that was about, but it was going to have to wait.

  I closed the laptop, plugged the headphone jack into the boat’s stereo speaker system and picking up my fly rod case I headed out to where Tina waited on the dock. The sun was high now and it was warmer, already over eighty, as we walked to the small sandy beach. “I’d like to get some sun,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  Do I mind watching a beautiful woman undress? Is she wearing a bathing suit under her clothes? These thoughts swirled through my mind, but all I could manage to say as she started unbuttoning her blouse was, “Um, no, go right ahead.”

  She shrugged off her blouse, folding it and putting it in an oversized handbag. She was wearing a bathing suit, thankfully. Not much of one, though. She unbuttoned her shorts and wiggled out of them, completely unaware of what her actions were doing to me. Folding the shorts and putting them in the bag also, she arched her back, spreading her arms wide and looked up so that the sun shone full on her face. Maybe she was aware, I thought, as we walked along the sand.

  “What’s in the case?” she asked.

  “This?” I said, lifting the fly rod case. “It’s how we’re going to catch lunch.”

  “Can you catch lobster with it?”

  Laughing, I replied, “Lobster, she says. So, you want lobster, Miss La Mons?”

  “You mean, you really can catch lobster with it?”

  “Not with this,” I replied, with a chuckle. “But, if the lady wants lobster, lobster it is. Let’s carry this stuff over to the sandbar and I’ll run back to the boat and get my mask and fins.”

  We walked along the sandy beach to the narrow sandbar that separates the fort from Bush Key. On the north side of the sandbar, we spread out a blanket and set the cooler in the sand next to it. There wasn’t a breath of wind on the water. The small bay on the north side of the sandbar was flat and reflected the puffy white clouds in the distance, like a polished mirror.

  “Hard to believe such a beautiful place exists so close to Key West and I never even heard of it,” she said.

  “Key West is close to a lot of small, uninhabited islands like this,” I said. “Several years ago, the state tried to sell a lot of the smaller ones, but not a lot of people were interested. That’s when I bought mine.”

  “You own a whole island?” she asked incredulously.

  “It’s really tiny,” I said. “A few acres at high tide. Make yourself at home and I’ll be right back.”

  I ran back to the boat, hoping that I could make good on my promise. While they are plentiful and currently in season, I’d never dived this harbor and had no idea what I’d find. Climbing back aboard the Revenge, I opened the hatch to the salon, raised the settee bench seat top and grabbed my mask, fins, heavy gloves, and a weight belt I use for skin diving. The water was only twelve to fifteen feet, so I didn’t need anything more than that. I strapped a dive knife to the inside of the left calf, feeling lucky. I'd need it, if I caught a lobster.

  I trotted back to the sandbar and Tina was lying on the small blanket, with a rolled up towel under her head. I stopped short and looked her over, more closely. Her skin was coppery brown. She apparently spent her days in the sun, befor
e work. The tiny bikini she had on was lime green, making her skin look all the more dark. Her flat belly and narrow waist gave her an athletic quality. I’m usually attracted to taller women, but, none the less, I was drawn to her. She turned her head then and noticed me staring.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. Then grinned and added, “Just admiring the beauty.”

  “Oh, come on, Jesse. Go get me a lobster!”

  “You wish is my command,” I said, as I pulled off my tee-shirt and waded into the harbor. It wasn't ideal for skin diving, maybe seventy degrees. In waist deep water, I put on my mask, fins, belt, and gloves, then disappeared below the surface. I followed the bottom, heading straight out away from shore. It dropped off quickly and when I reached the turtle grass covered bottom, I turned to the left and followed the coral ledge. There were a lot of reef fish. Blennies, wrasses, even a couple of spot fin butterfly fish, swimming in a pair, as they usually do. Further ahead, I saw a large queen angelfish and right next to it, sticking out of an undercut part of the coral, was what I was looking for. Two long, spiny antenna poked out from under the ledge.

  Normally, I can hold my breath for about a minute and a half. Two minutes with good preparation. I'd been down nearly a minute, when I found the lobster. Approaching his hiding place from the side, I quickly thrust my hand in and under it. It never had a chance, but tried desperately to grab my hand and push me off its belly. Once I had a firm grip around the base of its tail, I could tell it was a big one, probably five or six pounds. More than enough for the two of us. Pushing away from the reef with my left hand, I pulled the lobster out from its lair and headed back up along the ledge, angling to the left.