Fallen Pride (Jesse McDermitt Series)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Do you have a ladder so I can get in it?” she asked.

  We said goodbye to Deuce and Rusty on the dock and I couldn’t help feeling the two of them were dodging breakfast on purpose to try to get Jackie and me together. The two of us walked around to the far side of the property where The Beast was parked. She didn’t need a ladder, though it was a bit of a climb.

  After a late breakfast, we talked over coffee for an hour and then I drove Jackie back to the Anchor. She had some patients she needed to check on and headed back down to Boca Chica Naval Hospital. I walked down to the Revenge and saw that Pescador was in his usual spot in a corner of the cockpit. He lifted his head and looked at me expectantly. I pulled a bag from my pocket and tossed him half a T-bone. He caught it in the air and held it, while he looked at me, waiting.

  “Go ahead,” I said. He sat down and started tearing big chunks off the bone and swallowing them whole. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a little while.” I walked to the bar and went inside. Deuce and Rusty were eating an early lunch.

  “Not hungry, eh, Deuce?”

  “Well, it was real early when I had breakfast.”

  “How’d it go with the Doc?” Rusty asked.

  I straddled a chair at the table. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

  “Hey, it was her idea, man,” Rusty said. “You need to move on that, she ain’t gonna wait forever.”

  “How’d it go at the bank?”

  Rusty swallowed a bite of his fish sandwich before answering. “Everything’s all set. As soon as the deposit’s made, Pam’ll send a cashier’s check to Mister McCormick by courier and make the transfers to yours and Rusty’s accounts.”

  “I still don’t like it, me getting a double share,” Deuce said. “It’s not right.”

  “Sure it is. Look, me and Jesse knew your old man when you were just a kid. I can’t count how many times he said he wanted you, and every Livingston after you, to get a college education. You got no say here, son.”

  So, we agreed to split it five ways, $300,000 each to me, Jackson McCormick, Rusty, Deuce, and the last share to Russ. His share would go into a trust fund for the education of his future grandchildren. Deuce tried to protest again, but neither Rusty, nor I would have it any other way.

  Deuce rolled his eyes and said, “Damn stubborn Jarheads. What are you guys going to do with the money?”

  Rusty thought for a minute and said, “I think I’m going to use half of it to spruce things up around here. Then maybe I’ll fly to the Philippines and find me one of those mail order brides.”

  Deuce grinned and looked at me. “What about you, Jesse?”

  “It’s going into the same trust that I put Alex’s money into. I met with a lawyer last month and had a will made up. If anything happens to me, $5 million goes to that school she started out in Oregon, with her friend Cindy Saturday as the executor. The rest stays local.”

  We spent the rest of the day drinking beer and listening to Dan play on the back deck, then turned in early. Tomorrow was going to be a hectic day.

  Chapter 4: The Old Home Town Looks The Same

  Conner and Bradbury arrived the next morning, much as they did the previous day. Except for the armored car. The big truck had to pull forward and back up three times to get turned around. The two men had all the paperwork and Bradbury had two cashier’s checks, one for $500,000 and one for $1.5 million. Rusty signed all the paperwork, Bradbury gave the smaller check, which covered the taxes, to Conner who had more paperwork for Rusty to sign. Then Bradbury handed another check for $1.5 million to Rusty. The armored car was loaded and the suits left.

  We had to meet David Williams at the airport at 1100, so we started packing. Williams used to be the Engineer on a shrimp trawler out of Key West. For a couple weeks I was helping a friend who owned the boat, by the name of Carl Trent. He and several others in Key West were being threatened into running drugs for a big time Cuban smuggler. After the smuggler retired to Gitmo, along with a terrorist named Syed Qazi Al Fayyad, Trent sold his shrimping business and came to work for me, as caretaker of my island. Williams came to work for me also, along with Trent’s First Mate, Bob “Doc” Talbot, a former Navy Corpsman. Both of them were on kind of a part time basis. Williams was a pilot and his son was recently transferred to Camp Lejeune, so he’d volunteered to fly me, Rusty and Deuce up there for Julie’s graduation.

  At 1100 we were at Key West Seaplane Adventures, at the Key West airport, where Williams kept his vintage 1953 de Havilland Beaver. We were only planning to stay overnight and fly back the next day, so everyone was traveling light. Williams was already there when we walked out onto the ramp, performing his preflight check.

  “Hey guys, beautiful day for flying.” Nodding toward my dog he added, “Pescador going with us?”

  “Thought we could drop him at the island so he could play with the kids for a couple of days.”

  Handshakes and greetings were made and we stowed our gear in the back of the plane. “Ride up front, Jesse,” Williams said. “You can spell me on the controls, if I get tired. I’ve already done the preflight.”

  “Don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, climbing up into the co-pilot’s seat.

  Minutes later, we were all aboard, strapped in and ready to go. “I filed a flight plan from here to Jacksonville, Florida. We can refuel there and make it to Jacksonville, North Carolina well before sunset.”

  He reached down beside his sear and wobbled the fuel primer then toggled the master switch, turning on the batteries, lights, and gauges. I’d flown in all kinds of airplanes and even had some flight time in helicopters, but an antique with a big radial engine was a new experience.

  Talking more to himself than anyone else he said, “Lights on, batteries good, gauges working.” He pushed the far right of three levers full forward and moved the left lever back and forth a few times, returning it to the original position. Then he checked a large switch making sure it was off and continued, “Mixture rich, magnetos off.” He slid the little side window open and yelled out, “Clear propellers!”

  He pushed a button on the dash and the starter began winding up, slowly turning the big engine over. It sounded more like a big wood chipper, with a centrifugal flywheel, whining louder and louder.

  “Shouldn’t the magnetos be on?” I asked.

  “Walking the props,” he said. “In these old radial engines oil builds up in the lower cylinders when she sits for a while. Counting twelve props ensures that all nine cylinders go through four revolutions to pump the oil out.”

  He went through the procedure again with the magnetos turned on. The engine caught on the first revolution, a bunch of blue smoke blew out and at first the engine only seemed to be running on one or two cylinders. After a moment it leveled out to a nice smooth idle.

  After five minutes at high idle, he picked up the mic and said, “Key West ground, this is Beaver one three eight five, holding at the passenger terminal, ready to taxi. Requesting a VFR departure to the northeast.”

  We were all wearing headsets, to allow us to talk over the loud engine through the intercom, but we could also hear the answer from the ground controller over them. “Beaver one three eight five, Key West ground. Squawk zero six niner four, cleared VFR at 9500 feet. Taxi via Bravo, hold short runway nine.”

  Williams repeated and confirmed the instructions and said, “Key West ground, Beaver one three eight five with request.” The controller said to go ahead. “Be advised, slight change to our flight plan. We’ll make a water landing in the Content Keys to discharge one canine passenger.”

  “Key West ground, roger. Upon landing, give Carl and the family my best.”

  I looked questioningly at Williams. He toggled the intercom switch, shrugged and said, “It’s a small island.”

  Williams taxied the plane to the west end of the single runway and set the brakes. Then he pushed the throttle forward and the airplane shuddered against the brakes.

  Throttling back, he switched t
he radio frequency and said, “Beaver one three eight five is holding short of runway 9 at Bravo”. A new voice came over the radio, “Beaver one three eight five, Key West Tower, roger. Traffic niner miles inbound is a Cessna. Runway niner, wind 120 at 8, cleared for takeoff, report clear to the northeast. Have a safe flight.”

  He again repeated and confirmed the instructions then released the brakes before pushing the throttle forward again. We pulled onto the runway and turned into the wind as he pulled the flaps lever back. We slowly accelerated down the runway and at 65 knots, lifted off the ground only half way down the runway. He climbed to 1500 feet, reported he was clear of the field and headed northeast toward my island home.

  We were only going to be there for half an hour. I’d been away for over a week and Trent was busy building a little house for his family. He was also building an aquaculture system to raise crawfish and vegetables and I wanted to check on his progress. We’d originally planned to raise tilapia and catfish, but changed our minds to crawfish. He has a friend in Belize that raises fresh water shrimp and he wanted to mimic his system as much as we could. Besides, I love Cajun crawfish.

  The wind was out of the east, as usual in early summer. We came in low over the tiny island just northwest of mine and settled into the shallow channel north of my home. We turned and came back to the long pier on the north end of the island. As we approached, I saw Trent coming between the two small buildings, which I’d added last winter, and out onto the pier.

  Deuce opened the port side door and stepped out onto the pontoon. As we neared the end of the pier, Williams cut the power and Deuce stepped off onto it, holding the wing strut and easing the bird against the rubber fenders. He quickly tied the pontoon off to two cleats on the pier and the rest of us climbed out.

  Pescador took off down the pier at a full run, shooting past Trent and only stopped to lift his leg on a mangrove at the water line. Then he took off again, looking for the kids.

  “Welcome home, Jesse. I thought you guys were going up to North Carolina today.” Then nodding to Deuce he added, “Good to see you again, Deuce.”

  “I thought Pescador might like to see the kids while we’re gone. And I wanted to see how things were coming along here, too.”

  “Hey Carl,” Rusty said as he struggled through the small hatch. Rusty’s not very tall, only about 5’-6”, but a portly, albeit solid, 300 pounds.

  “Come on,” Trent said, “I’ve got quite a bit done this past week.”

  “I need to make a call,” Williams said.

  “Best place is up on the front deck of the main house,” I said. “Really about the only place you can get a cell signal.”

  The five of us walked toward shore, where Trent’s wife, Charlie, was waiting. Williams said hi and kept on going across the clearing toward the main house. The rest of us talked for a moment at the end of the pier and then walked to the west side of the island, where Trent was building his little house. He had gotten a lot of work done. When I left to go treasure hunting, he’d only had the concrete piers poured. Since there wasn’t anyone currently staying in the bunkhouses, they’d remained living in the western one, while working on the aquaculture system. Two weeks ago, we had as done as much on it as we could, while waiting for the generator and pumps to be delivered and I had helped him dig the holes for the piers and pour the concrete footings for their house.

  Since then, he’d built the raised floor, framed the walls, built the trusses, decked the roof and looked to be in the process of hanging the exterior siding. Opening the door Charlie proudly said, “Come on in.”

  We stepped inside and she flipped a switch next to the door and an overhead light came on. “The generator came in two days ago,” Trent said. “I poured a mounting pad on the east side of the pier among the banyan trees. It’s mounted about eight feet off the ground. Between here and the bunkhouses, I built a small shed among the gumbo limbos. That’s where the batteries are. The main house is still on solar and wind with its own batteries, but the bunkhouses, this house, and the pumps will run off of 30 deep cycle 12 volt marine batteries. The generator will come on automatically if the voltage drops below 11 volts, but you can’t hear it unless you’re real close to it.”

  “Damn, you have been busy,” Rusty said. “I didn’t see any wires, though.”

  “Everything’s underground, in two inch PVC conduit.”

  “You missed your true calling, Trent,” I said as I looked more closely at the details of the structure.

  “Thanks, Jesse. I really don’t know much about carpentry, though. I just looked at what you’d done on the bunkhouses and did about the same. Should have it livable in another week. So long as the storms hold off.”

  It wasn’t a big house. I guessed it to be about the size of the bunkhouses, maybe 30 feet square. The front faced the interior of the island and consisted of a single room, with plumbing for a small kitchen at one side. To the rear were two small bedrooms and plumbing for a head between them. I could see that he’d framed two large openings at the back of the bedrooms and walked toward the one on the left.

  “A deck?” I asked. “With French doors?” They looked out over a beautiful view of the only real beach on the island, with coconut palms on both sides and the sandbar just beyond it. The decking was already complete with full width steps down to the sand. There were four rustic looking, handmade rockers already there, two of them very small.

  “Yeah,” Charlie said. “The view at sunset is beautiful.”

  “Looks real homey,” Rusty said.

  “It certainly is,” she sighed.

  I looked at Trent and said, “I’m glad y’all like it here. Miss the open ocean much?”

  “Not a bit. Truth is I’d been thinking ‘bout getting off the blue for several years.”

  “How’s the aquaculture system coming?”

  “Just waiting on the pumps. I finished plumbing the tanks last week, just after you left. Pumps are supposed to arrive at the Rusty Anchor tomorrow. I’ll pick them up tomorrow evening, when we make a run into town for groceries.”

  “Looks like you have a handle on everything. We need to get back in the air if we’re going to make North Carolina by dark. Anything you need?”

  “Well, I wanted to finish the roofing, but there’s not enough corrugated tin left.”

  “Order what you need from Home Depot and tell them to deliver it to the Anchor. I already added you to my account there. While you’re there, Charlie can pick out fixtures and appliances for the head and galley.” Turning to Charlie I added, “And think big. Remember, there’ll be times when we’ll need to feed a lot of people here. The grill works for cooking some things, but a big oven for baking would be great. And don’t let him get chintzy on things. A nice big tub, water heater, the whole bit. The new water maker will be delivered here by barge in a week. After that, no more water rationing.”

  “A hot bath,” she said smiling and then kissed me on the cheek. “You sure know how to spoil a lady.”

  “We’ll be back tomorrow, but I’ll probably stay on Marathon until the next day.”

  We walked back to the pier and found Williams already at the plane. He seemed anxious and fidgety. I assumed he just wanted to get back into the air. As we were saying goodbye to the Trent’s their two kids, Carl Junior and Patty came running up with Pescador. They were each carrying small buckets, each one half full of clams. I told Pescador to stay with the kids and we boarded the plane.

  We taxied away from the pier, headed west, turned into the wind, lowered the flaps and pushed the throttle forward. Seconds later, we bounced lightly on the water once and became airborne.

  “I could get used to that,” I said. “From a boat to a plane.”

  Williams nodded, but didn’t say anything. We crossed the southeast corner of the Gulf of Mexico, glistening below us, in less than thirty minutes. Below and to port was Marco Island, the playground of rich Florida transplants. To starboard lay the vast expanse of the Everglades. Furth
er ahead and to starboard was the clear blue waters of Lake Okeechobee. Deuce and Rusty were talking in the back about bass fishing in the Lake Okeechobee, but Williams was intent on flying, seemingly lost in thought.

  Forty-five minutes later, we crossed Highway 70, north of Lake Okeechobee and Williams still hadn’t contacted Orlando air traffic control. I didn’t know a lot about flying, but if it was anything like driving in the Orlando area, we were headed into a lot of traffic.

  I tapped Williams on the shoulder. “You okay?”

  He seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was in and said, “Yeah, um, I’m fine. Just things on my mind, sorry.”

  “It’s just that we’re well past Lake Okeechobee. Looks like Lake Wales coming up.”

  “Oh shit,” he muttered and reached up to change the channel on the radio. Grabbing the mic off the dash he spoke into it, “Orlando Control, this is Beaver one three eight five.”

  The response was immediate, “Beaver one three eight five, Orlando Control. Descend to 7500 feet, turn left to 350 degrees.”

  Williams banked the plane sharply, added throttle and pulled back on the yoke. In modern private planes there are two separate wheels, each mounted to the dash. In this plane each wheel is mounted to a Y shaped yoke that is mounted to the floor. We leveled off at 7500 feet at the correct heading.

  “Something bothering you, David?” I asked.

  “It’s my kid, my oldest. Remember I told you I had two Marine sons, Jared and Luke. The oldest lives in Key West now. He got out about a year ago and moved down here. He was in and out of trouble, both in the Corps and since then. Took a job at the Blue Heaven when he got here. I’ve been trying to get hold of him, but he hasn’t answered the phone in a couple of weeks. I stopped by his place a couple of times, once he told me to go away through the door and the second time he wouldn’t even come to the door. I don’t know if he’s drinking, on drugs, or what. He just hasn’t been the same since he came back from his third tour in Iraq and got out.”