Fallen Hero: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 10)

by Wayne Stinnett

  “Wasn’t found in his possession,” Devon replied. “The only way to tie it to him is his confession that the box looked like his, but was stolen.”

  “Seems fishy, him not filing a report.”

  “Fishy, maybe,” Devon said. “Or complacent. Most property crimes don’t get solved.”

  “Let’s let him sit a while longer while you check his background. See if he was being truthful about being robbed in the past. And while you’re on the computer, find out who this Dawn McKenna is.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Go see a judge and try to get a warrant to search his home.”

  “Good luck with that,” Devon said, and left Ben standing in the hallway.

  Just before sunset, with the wind holding at a steady forty-five knots out of the south-southeast, the power went out in the bar. The TV blinked off, and the sudden quiet was marked by the sound of the wind outside. It was still light out, though it was darkening quickly as another squall approached. We’d just been watching it on the radar loop on the Weather Channel. Still, there was more than enough light coming through the windows that surrounded three sides of the Anchor to be able to see easy enough. But it would be dark soon.

  “Arm yourselves, gentlemen,” Rusty said, reaching into a drawer and tossing several boxes of wooden matches onto the bar. He removed the globe from a hurricane lantern mounted to the wall beside his office door and struck a match.

  Chairs and stools scraped. All around the bar, Rusty had identical hurricane lanterns placed between every other window. I picked up one of the dozen or so boxes of matches Rusty had tossed on the bar and went to the nearest table. Striking a match, I picked up the large candle holder sitting in the middle of the table. It was a green cracked-glass globe, wrapped loosely in a coarse, heavy rope. I turned it sideways and put the match inside and lit the candle. From there, I went to a hurricane lamp mounted between the dart boards on the wall, next to the men’s and women’s heads, and lit it.

  More flickering firelight slowly rose inside the bar, as it got darker by the minute outside. More lanterns and candles were lit. The door opened and I glanced over. Outside, I saw a yellow Jeep Cherokee, and a lump suddenly came to my throat.

  The Jeep had belonged to my late wife, Alex. It was on a night just like this, three years ago, that she came back into my life, as Hurricane Wilma approached. Our relationship rekindled, then burned into a white-hot fire. We were married less than a week after her return, and Alex was murdered on our wedding night. I’d given the Jeep to Julie a week or so later.

  Deuce and Julie, followed by two other couples, came inside. They went straight to the bar, then Julie disappeared into the office and Deuce sat near the end of the bar, close to the office door.

  I recognized one of the live-aboard couples that came in with them, but it had been awhile since I’d seen them. Mark, or Mike, and his girlfriend Melodi. I couldn’t remember either of their last names. They took a table in the middle of the room.

  The other couple, I’d never seen before. They stood at the door and looked around for a moment, then moved to the corner table nearest the door and sat down. I walked over to them.

  “Can I get y’all something?” I asked.

  The man, slightly gray and wearing glasses, looked to be about my age. The woman appeared to be a few years younger, with blond hair and slight laugh wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Both were dressed like boaters, and looked capable enough.

  “Are you the owner?” the man asked.

  “No, I don’t even work here. But everyone sort of kicks in when needed.”

  “Any idea how long the power will be out on the docks?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Julie come out of the office with a set of keys on a buoy float. She and Deuce headed out the back door.

  “Probably just a few more seconds,” I said. “The kitchen, reefers, and shore power are on a backup generator. The bar lights aren’t, though. My name’s Jesse.”

  “Hi, Jesse,” the woman said. “I’m Kim and this is my husband, Ed.”

  “Y’all just taking shelter?”

  “We were heading for Boot Key Harbor,” Ed said. “Meeting friends there to cross over to the Berry Islands. When we got in radio range, they told us the mooring field was full and suggested calling you guys. Seems a lot more secure here than swinging on the hook in Sister Creek.”

  I heard the generator start and watched through the windows as a few lights flickered on in some of the boats.

  “You’re welcome to hang out inside,” I said, as the sound of rain began pounding on the steel roof. At the same time, the monotone voice on Rusty’s portable VHF radio began to recite the current conditions at Key West. “Everyone here is a local or live-aboard.”

  “Anything we can do to help?” Kim asked.

  Looking around, I saw that everyone had returned to their seats, taking the power outage in typical Conch fashion: ordering another beer.

  “I think everything’s under control. The kitchen will be open until the bar closes at midnight and the bar was stocked for the storm yesterday.”

  Rusty approached the table, weaving his considerable girth through several other tables with ease. “I’m the owner of the joint,” he said, extending a hand to Ed. “Name’s Rusty Thurman. Y’all must be Leap of Faith?”

  Ed stood and took Rusty’s hand. “Ed and Kim Robinson.”

  Rusty handed each of them a menu. “Around here, supper’s on the house for first-time live-aboards. Hogfish and grouper are fresh today.”

  “That’s very generous,” Kim said. “Thanks.”

  I left Rusty to get their order and went back to where Billy sat at the bar, still nursing his second beer of the evening. In the distance, I heard the low roll of thunder out over Vaca Key Bight as Deuce came back inside.

  “Where’s Jules?” I asked him.

  “Not feeling well,” he replied, taking the stool next to me. “That thing with the stage shook her up. We were in the vee-berth when it happened.”

  “That’s her momma-bear instinct growing stronger,” I told him. “Women are fiercely protective of their babies. Things that she wouldn’t consider risky before will be a non-starter now.”

  “She went in the house. Said we’d be sleeping ashore tonight.”

  “You might as well put the Whitby up for sale, dude,” Jimmy said, as he stocked the cooler under the bar with beer. “Might as well start looking for a mortgage provider and a minivan, too.”

  Deuce ignored him and turned to me. “I had Chyrel check, and right now your friend hasn’t been charged. But he’s being held as a person of interest. They can hold him without charging him for twenty-four hours, then they have to release him or apply to the court to hold him without charges as a murder suspect. They can only do that for a total of up to ninety-six hours. How sure are you about this guy?”

  “Do you mean would he kill someone if he had to?” I asked. Deuce nodded. “Yeah, but only in self-defense or defending someone else. There’s no way he’s the type that could plan out and execute a murder. And zero chance that he’s involved in drugs. That, I’m a hundred percent sure about. As sure as I am about you.”

  The door opened and we both looked toward it. Marty Phillips, the young deputy sheriff who had been dating Kim for the past year, stood in the doorway, his uniform soaked from the rain. I couldn’t help but notice Ed Robinson’s furtive glance when he saw the uniform.

  Marty came straight over to the bar, where Deuce and I sat. “Whew, glad this day is done,” he said. “The sheriff ordered the boats in, and I was put in a cruiser with a road deputy for the rest of the day. Craziness out there.”

  “You saved me a quarter,” I told Marty. “I was just about to call you.” His puzzled expression told me the reference to a pay phone went right over his young head. “You know anything about the two murders?”

  “How do you know anything?” Marty replied. Then he looked at Deuce. “Never mind,” he sai
d.

  Marty grabbed an empty stool next to me and placed it behind our two stools. Deuce and I both turned away from the bar to face him. “I responded to both of them,” he replied. “But it sounds like you probably know as much as I do.”

  “Where did it happen?” Deuce asked.

  “They’re working on that,” Marty replied, as Rusty joined Jimmy behind the bar. “The first body was found in the water by fishermen out about a half mile past Snipe Key. The second was on a boat that drifted aground on north Knockemdown just about sunset.”

  I glanced at Rusty and he looked up toward the ceiling. I could almost hear the wind, waves, and tides moving through his mind. Rusty is the great-grandson of Conchs, and at least half of what flows through his veins is seawater.

  “The bodies found about four hours apart?” Rusty asked.

  “Yeah,” Marty replied, leaning in closer to the bar. “How’d you know that?”

  “Wind was out of the northeast yesterday, from the storm. Blew about 15 knots all afternoon. Tide was ebbing, too, currents snaking through the backcountry at two knots. A body in the water will move with the current. Add a north wind to a southerly current and the boat will drift through the shallows faster than the body. I’d bet the body in the water got separated from the boat about three yesterday afternoon.”

  “I was fishing Cudjoe Basin yesterday afternoon,” I said. “Heard a gunshot off to the northwest. It sounded like it was a good five miles away.”

  “You sure it was a gunshot?” Marty asked, but before I could answer he said, “Never mind again. I keep forgetting who you guys are. What time, exactly, did you hear the gunshot? This’ll be important in determining exactly where it happened, and maybe the why.”

  “Afternoon is all I can tell you,” I said. “I’d guess about fifteen hundred.”

  “What time was the body in the water found?” Rusty asked.

  “Not much later,” Marty replied. “about four-thirty or five.”

  “Jesse don’t wear a watch, so this is just a guess based on his guess of the time he heard the shot, but a good place to start looking would be about four miles north-northwest of where the body was found. That’ll be where it and the boat got separated and probably where the murders happened.”

  “What do you know about Lawrence Lovett being a suspect?” I asked Marty.

  “I know Lieutenant Morgan has a person of interest in custody. No idea who it is, though.”

  “Morgan?” I asked. The name was familiar.

  “Ben Morgan,” Marty said. “Head detective in major crimes.”

  Ah, I thought. The balding detective that responded when Stockwell and I shot up some drug dealers in Key West last year.

  “What’s out there?” Deuce asked. “Five miles north-northwest of where you were fishing?”

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Just some shallows. It’s part of the Wildlife Refuge.”

  “Great White Heron?” Deuce asked, arching an eyebrow. “That’s a national refuge, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Marty said. “We patrol it, along with Fish and Wildlife, but it’s actually under the jurisdiction of the federal government.”

  “We should cancel the pickup,” Duke Rafferty muttered, nervously pacing the dock.

  Harley tossed a canvas bag onto the foredeck of his twenty-five-foot Seapro center console. “Just get on the boat, Marion.”

  The big man stopped his pacing and glowered at his older brother.

  “Sorry. Duke. It’s just that these are the kinda guys who take punctuality real serious.”

  “There’s a hurricane out there, Harley.”

  The elder Rafferty brother dropped onto the deck of the boat as it rocked in the choppy water. The dock was in a little canal behind Harley’s house on Raccoon Key, just off Stock Island. “It’s way down on the other side of eastern Cuba. Now get in.”

  Duke hesitated.

  “Duke, look at me.”

  The heavily-muscled man looked at his brother.

  Harley knew Duke wasn’t totally stupid. “The hurricane is three hundred miles away and it’s moving at fifteen miles per hour. How long will it take for the storm to get here?”

  Duke’s brow furrowed in thought for a moment, then he stepped down into the boat, grinning sheepishly. “It won’t be here until tomorrow about lunch time.”

  Most would have counted the answer wrong, but Harley just tousled his little brother’s hair. Technically, Duke was right, since the brothers usually didn’t rise until early afternoon and ate lunch when most people were enjoying happy hour.

  Harley started the twin Mercury outboards, then switched on the running lights and forward spotlights. The two quickly untied the boat from the dock and shoved off. Harley knew the seas outside the canal would be rough, but he also knew that the guy he bought coke from would be a lot rougher if they missed the drop.

  As he steered the boat toward the opening to the Gulf, Harley turned on the chart plotter and entered the GPS numbers his contact had given him. The plotter displayed the course in a matter of seconds and Harley was glad to see that it was only two miles north, on Calda Bank.

  “Hang on!” Harley shouted to his brother, as he pushed the throttles halfway, bringing the boat up on plane at the canal entrance.

  Once they were outside the protection offered in the canal, it got rough really fast. Harley adjusted the boat’s trim, raised the bow slightly, and throttled back to barely stay on plane. For the next fifteen minutes, the two men held tightly to the T-top rails as the boat was tossed left and right from one wave to another.

  As they neared the pickup point, Harley saw the lights from another boat approaching from the northeast and turned toward it. He recognized the old trawler, its deck awash in bright spotlights, the rigging swaying back and forth in the heavy seas. It had once been used to catch shrimp, and still had all the nets and equipment aboard—but the nets hadn’t touched the water in a couple of years, and the shrimp holds were loaded with cocaine or marijuana these days.

  “Put the fenders over,” Harley told his brother.

  Duke quickly moved over to the gunwale, keeping one hand on the T-top frame. He tossed the fenders, already tied to the cleats on the gunwale, over the side. Harley maneuvered the smaller boat alongside the old trawler, which had come to a complete stop.

  “Hurry up and tie off,” Joaquin, the skipper of the old boat, shouted over the north wind. “You’re my last drop and then I’m getting off this damned ocean.”

  Even with the fenders in place the two boats banged against each other several times in the dark. Harley heard a crunching sound and hoped it was the old wood of the trawler, not his fiberglass. The crewmen on the other boat caught the lines Duke tossed and quickly lashed the two boats together.

  Harley moved around the port side of the center console and up to the bow, where he opened the two huge fish boxes. Duke positioned himself with his back wedged against the T-top’s starboard cross member, his feet spread far apart against the inside of the hull, bracing himself against the tossing waves. One by one, the crew on the trawler dropped twenty individual packages down to Duke, each weighing twenty-five pounds and wrapped tightly in heavy plastic.

  Duke had no trouble catching the heavy packages and tossing them gently to Harley, who more or less tried to deflect the packages to the right spot in the fish boxes. In minutes, the boxes were full and the crew on the trawler untied the lines, separating the two boats.

  “The boss will make the pickup himself tonight,” Joaquin shouted from the wheelhouse.

  “Why not Milton?” Harley shouted, as Joaquin ducked back into the wheelhouse and engaged the bigger boat’s transmission. Harley’s words fell on deaf ears, as the shrimp trawler slowly chugged away, turning back to the northeast.

  Putting his own boat in gear, Harley throttled up and tried to trim the boat again. With five hundred pounds of blow up in the forward fish boxes, the center console was sluggish in the heavy seas. But the twin Merc one-fifteen
s slowly brought the bow up. Both Harley and Duke quickly became drenched from the salt spray as the bow-heavy boat crashed down over each wave. The huge splashes from the bow were picked up by the north wind quartering their stern, blowing the white water right into the boat over the gunwale. It quickly drained out through the scuppers, but it was miserable ride.

  It took twenty harrowing minutes to get back to the relative safety of the canal, and it was pouring rain when they got there. Harley and Duke quickly tied the boat up to the dock behind Harley’s house and ran up to the storage area below the back deck. Harley was always careful, and never unloaded as soon as he got home. Better to check if anyone was hanging around or watching the place first.

  “Let’s check the yard and then get cleaned up,” Harley said. “We’ll unload after midnight, move the product into the lab, and go see how things are going at the bar.”

  Duke walked around one side of the house and Harley went the other way. They met in front and, neither having seen anything suspicious, went up the steps to the main floor.

  “Why you suppose the boss is making the pickup tonight?” Duke asked, when they reached the door.

  “I don’t know,” Harley replied, suddenly exhausted. “I just don’t know.”

  An hour later, the rain quit and the two men went down the back steps. Harley unlocked the large storage area under the house, went inside, and came out with a small pull cart, like fishermen use to unload their catch.

  Harley’s house was built on stilts, like most of the homes on Raccoon Key. Beneath the house, a twenty by twenty-foot area encompassing nine of the concrete piers had been closed in. Originally built as a two-car garage, it had been remodeled into a small one-bedroom apartment by the previous owner. When Harley bought the place, he’d stripped the apartment’s interior bare, leaving only the exterior walls and the bathroom in the corner. He’d sealed it up and turned it into a lab of sorts, complete with its own air conditioning system. The temperature inside was kept very low to keep the humidity down. This way, the bricks of coke they opened, cut, and repackaged wouldn’t get damp.