Backwater Bay

by Steven Becker

  “Not after the body had been in the water for so long. If it was fresh, it would be easy. The bruising and clotting around the stomach wounds would have indicated if the propeller strike was pre - or postmortem. With all the blood washed away and the damage to the wound by the water and crabs, it’s virtually impossible.”

  I let that hang in the air, thinking it better to allow him to reach his own conclusion.

  “As long as I have room in the cooler, I’ll play along. See what you can come up with.”

  “Thanks. I owe you for this,” I said. It was as good of an outcome as I could have expected.

  “They say payback is a bitch. In this case it’s going to be Vance. I’ll let you know when I need him out of my hair and you can take the boy fishing.”

  I thanked him despite the promise. When I looked up, Herb’s car was still parked where he had left it. I glanced at my watch and saw it was almost nine o’clock. There was no way to see what was going on in the office and I had a schedule to keep.

  Everything changed when my phone rang again. This time it was Martinez demanding an audience. I pulled out and headed south on South Dixie. It was the slower but more direct route, and I arrived at the Park Service headquarters at 9:40. Just in time to see Susan McLeash pull in ahead of me.

  I cursed my bad luck, but there was nothing I could do now. She was waiting by the truck door when I opened it. When we were side by side, she stood almost as tall as me and damned near as wide.

  “I guess you know the boss is looking for you.”

  I saw the smile on her face and went inside. When I waved at Mariposa, she looked down instead of giving me her standard greeting. With Susan on my heels, I headed upstairs.

  “Freelancing is not acceptable,” he started.

  I sensed Susan behind me and could guess there was a smile on her face.

  “All these people you’re bothering have bosses and unlike you, they file reports and submit time sheets. It seems the Park Service, and by that I mean you, has been making the rounds.”

  “I have enough evidence to make this a homicide.” It was the only thing I could say in my own defense.

  “That old-man coroner went along with you and changed the cause of death?” he asked.

  “Not officially, but he gave me a few days.”

  The ball was rolling now. He decided to get out of its way. “Any leads then?” he asked.

  In an instant he had changed his attitude. Even if Abbey’s death remained accidental, the Park Service had done well in establishing her identity. It might catch a small blurb in the back section of the newspaper. Should the death become a homicide it would land on the front page. I knew Martinez loved the spotlight and he sensed it now. The only problem was we had to clear the case.

  “We have a crime scene and I’m working on several suspects.”

  “Motive?” he asked.

  “Her aunt and uncle, whom she was living with, are having money trouble. In fact the man was at an insurance agency this morning. Then there’s the divorce of her aunt and a million-dollar boat.”

  Not knowing if Martinez was trying to push me out of the investigation, I was hesitant and purposefully kept some names and details out. Susan had sat in the seat beside me and was taking notes. When I finished, he looked at both of us. I thought I was done.

  “Susan will be working with you the rest of the way,” he said.

  I didn’t have to look over to know there was a grin on her face.

  18

  Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. As if to justify inserting Susan into the case, he spent fifteen minutes recounting everything I had done against regulations since starting there. When he was done, I doubted if I would have let myself work without supervision. After being fully dressed down, Martinez reinforced his order that I work with Susan and dismissed us.

  We faced off in the hallway. I looked over at her and saw the smile lines entrenched in her makeup and had to stifle a laugh. There was no way I was going to let her get involved with the people or evidence. My only play was to have her fill an actual need, and do something she was good at. I asked her to follow up on the insurance angle and gave her the agent’s name and address. This got me out of the building and I almost ran to the boat.

  Figuring a shower and change of clothes were not negotiable, I took the boat from the slip and headed out the channel into open water. Susan McLeash. The name played over and over in my mind. Even the windblown air coming off the still water of the bay couldn’t wash it from my conscience. I had been played and I knew it.

  I wouldn’t have put it past Susan to have been watching the GPS in the Park Service truck and the boat. She probably knew every move I had made and would freely use them against me. Call me paranoid, but since I’d been there I’d already had a run-in with a bad cop. Martinez was a known quantity though, riding out his time in his air-conditioned office until he could collect his pension. He knew the game and how to play it, and Susan McLeash was his tool. Her agenda was different.

  The dock at Adams Key came into sight and an image of Martinez sitting in his padded chair watching me on his monitor came to me at the same time. I cut the wheel to starboard.

  It was as clear as the six-foot-deep water that Martinez and McLeash were conspiring to take credit should the investigation reach a successful conclusion. The opposite was also clear: if it failed I would be the one to take the fall. With that in mind, I played back the conversation in Martinez’s office, trying to remember what Susan had written so precisely in her notebook.

  I had left the paper trail to her. I had to throw her a bone and I figured it was better to toss the one that I had no idea what to do with. After fixing her makeup to remove the smile lines, she was probably sitting at her ultra-neat desk in front of her disinfected computer station scanning whatever documents she could get her hands on. I’d given up the names of the players but had left the relationships vague. I wasn’t above accepting help. Maybe she could come up with the motive I was missing.

  In the meantime, I would do the unexpected—my job. Justine was likely asleep until at least noon. Even if I were to scrape the boat bottom and bring her the evidence, she wouldn’t be able to analyze it until she went into work at five. With no message from her last night, I had to assume she hadn’t had time to analyze the zinc plate either.

  My schedule had me south today and I cruised past Totten Key at twenty knots. There was a narrow cut to the Atlantic at Old Rhodes Key that I decided to check out. It was one of those deep channels to nowhere between Old Rhodes and Swan Key that suddenly and without an explanation ended in two feet of water just a hundred yards from deep water. The real pass was a quarter mile south between Swan and Broad Keys. After checking the old channel, I idled over to the marked cut. It wasn’t one of the main passes in the park. Narrow, with shallow flats adjacent to it on both sides, it was dangerous if you didn’t know the water. I’d already helped more than one boater off the sandbars there.

  It was quiet today, and I had stopped in mid channel by Broad Creek when I saw a half dozen fins slice through the still water. My heart leapt and I almost reached for the rod I had stashed inside the console. Coming to my senses, I filed the spot away for another day, noting the stage of the tide that had brought the fish in. This would be where I would take Vance when that debt came due. Resuming my patrol, I idled through to the Atlantic side and stopped. Surprised to see only a few boats fishing or lobstering the patch reefs, I had just turned to the north to complete my loop when I saw the shrimper.

  She was heading in, just to the south of my position. A commercial fishing boat moving in this direction into the south bay was unusual and set off alarms. Using the mangrove shoreline for cover, I watched the boat approach. It appeared headed for a narrow pass frequented by some of the flats guides. The area was a maze of narrow creeks running between the Atlantic and bay. I’d heard about this being a smugglers’ haven and proceeded carefully.

  Removing my gun belt from th
e console, I put it around my waist with one hand while I steered with the other. When I checked the gauges, everything looked normal. I spun the wheel and headed back to the bay. I was out of sight of the shrimper and used the speed and shallow draft of the center-console to my advantage. I made it to the bay side first and turned toward Angelfish Creek, where the shrimper had disappeared. I wasn’t surprised after fifteen minutes that it hadn’t emerged yet. Even if I had radar, the landmass the boat was hidden in would still conceal it. It was a perfect hideout. There was nothing I could do except pursue.

  Before I did this, I pulled my phone out of the cargo pocket on my shorts and was about to press Martinez’s number to call in my position, and request backup, when I saw I had no service. I’d been down this far several times and knew I was in the No-Man’s-Land between the towers of North Key Largo and Homestead.

  Picking up the microphone clipped to the dashboard, I turned up the volume on the VHF and called in on channel 16. Mariposa answered and seconds later, after switching to channel 17, I had Martinez on the line.

  If there was another lecture coming, I didn’t get it. He knew enough to hold his tongue on the open channel and we talked in obtuse terms. Any smuggler would have his VHF on scan mode and could easily hear our conversation. With the aid of his tracker, we didn’t have to disclose my location and in a few minutes backup was on the way.

  This was ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—territory. My role was to monitor the situation until they could get there. Fortunately, with their assets, I didn’t have to wait long. Within a half hour, I heard the thump-thump of a helicopter and the engines of one of their go-fast boats. Several minutes after I heard it, the boat pulled next to me. The fenders of the Interceptor 39 barely reached the gunwales of my boat and we bobbed together uneasily for a few minutes until the captain called down for me to anchor my boat and board.

  I dropped the Power-Pole and crossed to the larger boat. It was almost twice the size of mine and was loaded with weapons and electronics. The only thing missing was a mounted fifty-caliber gun. I felt naked after seeing the four men aboard, dressed in their bulletproof vests with assault rifles clipped to a sling.

  “Johnny Wells,” the captain said, extending his hand.

  I took it and introduced myself to him and his men. “How do you want to handle this?” They gathered around and I quickly laid out the situation.

  The helicopter had pulled off so as not to alert the shrimper. The captain called them back for a quick pass. A few minutes later, the chopper confirmed the shrimper was sitting in one of the creeks and they had seen bales on the deck.

  “We’re gonna need to work together on this,” Johnny said.

  I glanced at my watch, already paranoid about being out of cell range with Susan McLeash on the loose. “What can I do?”

  “This hog draws too much water for the creeks. We need you and your boat to get in there.”

  I wasn’t sure how Martinez was going to take this. Repairing bullet holes in the Park Service boat was not going to complement his budget. I looked at the radio. It was the only way to reach him and I couldn’t think of any way to discreetly convey what the ICE agents were asking. All eyes were on me as I vacillated. I knew helping was the right thing to do, even if it was my ego that made the decision.

  “Right on. Let’s go get ’em,” I said. Several minutes later one of the men Johnny had assigned to stay aboard the Interceptor maneuvered the larger boat next to mine, and Johnny and another agent climbed across the gunwales with me. They must have seen me looking enviously at their bulletproof vests. Johnny asked one of the men to toss one over. I caught it and slid it over my head.

  The larger boat pulled away.

  “There are at least six creeks in there,” Johnny said, pointing to the maze of mangroves in front of us. “It looks like they all run to both the bay and ocean sides. I’m going to station the Interceptor on the outside and we’ll cover the shallower water on the inside with your boat. Then I’ll call back the chopper to chase them out.”

  It made sense. The only problem I could see with his plan was what the smugglers were doing in there in the first place. Chances were, if they had continued along the barrier islands and turned inland near Key Biscayne, they’d be home by now. “Why are they holed up in there?” I asked.

  “They usually wait until dark. Then several of these bad boys”—he nodded at the go-fast boat—“will run out and off-load the shrimper. Split the load and split the risk.”

  I had to assume these men knew their business. A quick look at the sky confirmed it was only noonish. There was plenty of time before we would have company. Johnny knew we’d have the advantage if we acted now. With both boats in place, he called in the chopper.

  A few minutes later the helicopter was in sight. The water vibrated as it descended and made a sweep of the cluster of islands. They were low enough that I could see the focused look on the man behind the machine gun in the open door. They passed us and dropped another few feet. Suddenly they seemed to hang in the air and I heard a voice over a loudspeaker. The chopper was too far away to make out what was being said, but I had a good idea.

  Johnny tapped me on the shoulder and nodded forward. It was time to move. At idle speed, I crept into Angelfish Creek and entered the smaller creek at Linderman Key. I saw the tower of the shrimper and was starting to head toward it when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “He’ll make a move. Best not to get cornered in there,” Johnny said.

  I stopped and let the current take us into the mangroves. The ICE agents held us in place by grabbing branches and together we waited. It was quiet now that the helicopter had moved off and hovered about a quarter mile from us waiting for orders. The shrimper must have sensed their chance and decided to make a run for it. The engine started, emitting a cloud of black smoke, and the center-console swayed in the wake pushed ahead of the larger boat as they came toward us.

  The bow came in sight and the ICE agents raised their weapons. Feeling secure in the bulletproof vest, I remained at the wheel waiting for the boat to make its move. Johnny reached for the microphone. I saw his intent and switched from VHF to the hailer. He called out for the boat to stop and the crew to assemble on the bow with their hands up.

  There was some confusion on the shrimper and time started to slip by. I thought if they were going to surrender they would have already. Looking over at Johnny, I got the sense that he felt this too. He picked up the microphone again and called in the helicopter.

  The chopper came toward us. A stream of bullets pierced the water alongside the hull of the shrimper. Looking up at the chopper circling overhead I saw a smile cross the face of the man behind the gun. There was movement on the shrimper again. A group of eight men huddled in the bow with their hands up. I felt the thrill of victory, but looking at the agents on board, I thought that might have been premature.

  Johnny, still with the microphone in his hand, brought it up and gave direction to the crew. A few minutes later, they were following us out of the creek and through the pass into deeper water. The Interceptor circled several times and the shrimper dropped anchor.

  The agents handled the transfer efficiently, and quickly had the crew of the shrimper aboard the Interceptor and two of their men on the shrimper. Johnny thanked me and handed me his card. An hour after it had started, I was left alone.

  I was feeling good, like I had actually accomplished something, when the markers for Caesar Creek came into sight. Turning to starboard and deeper water, I cruised far enough to catch the green #1 marker and cut the wheel hard to port. Following the channel in, I was starting to think about my next move when my phone dinged. And dinged again. And another half-dozen times until I realized I had been out of reception for the last few hours. Whatever I had gained in helping ICE bust the shrimper was lost being out of the loop on my own investigation.

  I glanced at the messages and looked at my watch; it was almost two. Several were from Justine, letting
me know that she was up and wanted to talk. There was nothing from Susan McLeash.

  19

  I texted Martinez a picture of the ICE agents aboard the shrimper with the Park Service boat in the foreground. Johnny had taken it from the Interceptor and sent it to me as a thank-you. The phone rang seconds later. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that good publicity greased the grooves for politically minded bureaucrats. Martinez took the bait like a snapper after a shrimp.

  “That’s some actual work you did there this morning. I just got the report from the ICE agent in charge that you were very helpful,” he said.

  “Just in the right place at the right time,” I said, knowing it was pretty much the truth. I had done nothing but make a call.

  “Anyway. There was a couple hundred thousand worth of weed and coke on the shrimper—big enough to make the news.”

  That was why he was so happy. I didn’t figure I would play prominently, or even at all, in the reports, but that was okay. Anonymity was my friend, especially after my run-in with the cartel that ran the pot grow. “Glad it worked out.” I paused, ready to press my advantage. “I haven’t heard from Susan yet.” The line was silent for a minute. I heard the squeak of his chair and guessed he had turned to face his dual monitors.

  “Give me a few minutes and I’ll see what I can find out.”

  I thanked him and looked out at the water. Still without the shower and change of clothes I had promised myself, I coasted up to the concrete dock at Adams Key and tied off the boat. Zero was tuned in as usual and came bounding toward me with Becky following.

  “Must be gettin’ the hang of it. Only the damned dog heard you.”

  I could hear the baby crying.

  “Woke Jamie up though.”

  I knew what she wanted. “I’ll take Zero for a while. Probably only be here for an hour or so though.”

  “That hour of peace’ll get you a free lunch. Just about to fry up some snapper that Ray brought in yesterday.”