Backwater Tide

by Steven Becker

  I knew exactly what the hourly charge for their services was, and multiplied by eight hours each day it was a sizable figure. “It would be better to clear the room and let me have a look around.” It sounded like he had already called Miami-Dade and the clock was ticking.

  It was almost as liberating watching him follow my orders as it had been to make the first call on my new phone. Less than a minute later I found myself alone in Morehead’s office. Viscount was the last one out and asked me to check in with him if I found anything.

  Knowing my ruse could be exposed any second, I went directly to the missing attorney’s desk. Hoping if I gave her enough notice she could finagle her way in here, I texted Justine to tell her about Morehead going missing and that Miami-Dade had already been called. I set the phone down and looked at the computer on his desktop. It was open to the home screen and I scanned the icons, not sure what I was looking for, but when I saw the compass rose icon for a GPS program, I clicked on it.

  Twelve

  The outer office was still a flurry of activity and I nervously waited for Miami-Dade to burst through the door and expose me, but I remained alone. I clicked on the GPS program and waited. There was nothing there except a screen to sync to his device. It did have one listed, though—that was a start if I could find it.

  I knew I didn’t have enough time to work my way through his computer. Instead I opened the Finder screen, hoping there would be a file he’d stored his waypoints in. Scanning the list I found the .KLM extension I was looking for and double-clicked it. An error message told me there was no program to display the contents of the file. Working back to the Finder screen, I found an Excel spreadsheet in his recently opened files that was labeled Gross. That had to be what I was looking for and I double-clicked again.

  There was a commotion in the hallway and I expected the cavalry had arrived. I needed to get out of there quickly, but I wasn’t going without the file. The spreadsheet opened; now I needed a way to download the data. A flash drive would be perfect. Pulling out the top drawers of the desk, I found nothing but promotional pens—not the plastic ones the rest of us got, but ones made of gold and silver. There was no flash drive and I looked back at the computer.

  I heard distinct voices and knew my time was up. There was only one way to get the data—not the most efficient method, but it would work. Pulling out my phone, I took several pictures of the screen before pressing the power button on the back of the desktop unit. I hoped that would cover my tracks.

  The voices were right outside the door and I quickly searched the room for the alternate exit I knew would be there. Daniel J. Viscount had one so I expected his partner would as well. There were two well-disguised doors on the wall to my left, both made to blend into the paneled walls. I guessed one would be a bathroom and the other an exit.

  Door number one confirmed my theory, but it was the wrong one. I grabbed for the handle of the second door, opened it, and slid inside just as I caught sight of two detectives entering the room. It didn’t matter where it led or what it was. I closed the door and waited until my eyes adjusted.

  A single bare bulb lit a narrow hallway lined with roughly finished drywall that was just the fire tape used to satisfy the building code. It led to another door about fifty feet away and to the right. I walked down the corridor and checked the door. It was locked, and I had a brief moment of panic before I saw the deadbolt below the knob. Turning it released the lock, and after cracking it a hair, I saw it opened to the public hallway.

  This corridor was empty and I left the cover of the secret hallway. Looking back, I could see it appeared to be just one in a line of panels. Unless you knew its exact location it didn’t exist. I turned in the direction of the elevators, carefully staying against the wall. Two detectives had already entered the office, but with a high profile attorney missing I expected there would be more on the way. The last thing Miami-Dade wanted was to be sued by the firm for negligence.

  I needed to cross in front of the elevators to reach the stairs. Though it was twenty flights down, the elevators would leave me too exposed. There was no telling who would be standing in the lobby when the doors opened. Just as I passed, I heard the familiar ping that the car had reached this floor and ducked into an alcove.

  The elevator doors opened and I was surprised to see Justine. With an equipment case in each hand, she stood in the hallway looking at the placard across from the elevator doors that showed the directory of the residents’ suites.

  I waited until the doors closed behind her. “Hey,” I whispered, moving out of the alcove slightly.

  She jumped and looked around. I moved out another foot and she saw me.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, looking over her shoulder in the direction of the attorneys’ office before moving toward me.

  I pulled her into the alcove. “Got a tip that Morehead was Gross’s main backer. Thought I’d pay him a visit.”

  “I thought that was your truck down there.”

  If she had seen it, the detectives probably had, too. I could only hope they were the norm for the department and not very good at detecting. “Can you let me know what you find?”

  “Sure thing. Where are you going?”

  “Have to get rid of Gross’s sidekick.”

  She raised her brows.

  “Long story. I’ll call you in a bit.”

  “Might be here a while.”

  I kissed her and waited until I heard the door of the law offices close behind her before moving to the stairwell. Two at a time, I took the stairs to the main level. I was slightly out of breath when I cracked the door to the lobby. I should have asked Justine if any other officers were en route, but luckily the lobby was empty. Checking both directions first, I left the stairway and walked quickly to the exit.

  Slipstream was leaning against the truck chewing on his cigar. His type seem to have an instinct for trouble and he must have sensed my urgency. He limped toward the passenger door and I barely waited until he’d hauled his immobilized leg into the cab before pulling onto the street.

  After cruising through several yellow lights, I started to relax when a glance in the rearview mirror revealed that no one was following me. I looked over to check my phone, hoping for a return call from the state archeologist, but the screen was blank. Before I put it down, I flipped the setting from silent to vibrate and set it between my legs.

  I had a moment of indecision, realizing that I had exhausted my leads. Gross’s sister had been a dead end, clearly interested in what his estate would yield her, but that was about all. I suspected his daughter had more of an interest in her dad, but it was on her to call me. Martinez hadn’t produced the warrant to search Gross’s house and with Slipstream nodding off next to me and Morehead missing, my attention turned to the picture I had taken from Morehead’s monitor.

  My computer was at Adams Key, probably an hour and a half away judging from the sway of the palm trees beside the road. If they were moving like this inland, I expected the seas were running two to four feet. It would be a long, wet, bumpy ride out to the island and the action seemed to be here.

  Looking over at my sleeping partner, I wondered if he had a computer. “Hey.” I waited for a second and when there was no response I pushed his shoulder.

  Slipstream jumped and looked around as if he wasn’t sure where he was. I waited until he acclimated himself, thinking that I would have to space out his meds a little more. “You awake?”

  “Just resting my eyes. In my line of work you learn to sleep with one eye open, you know.”

  He might not have been lying, because the cigar had not left its perch in his mouth. “Right.” I stopped before the sarcastic comment on the tip of my tongue left my mouth. “You have a computer at home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Internet?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Think we could use it? I got some waypoints off Morehead’s computer.”

  That perked him up an
d I wondered if it would be a mistake to let him see them. I had thought about going through the painfully tedious process of entering the numbers into my phone, but a computer would be much faster and a full-size monitor would give me the big picture.

  “Like where Gross was when he was killed?” he asked.

  “Won’t know until we can plot them.”

  “I’m in,” he said, giving me his address.

  Slipstream lived in a two-story complex by the airport that looked like it had been built by the Army in the sixties. He directed me around back when he saw a heavyset man with a wife-beater shirt sitting in a lawn chair out front.

  “Park over here.” He directed me to an empty spot by the dumpster.

  The lot was surprisingly full for a weekday afternoon, and I suspected that the day the welfare checks were delivered was a party around here. Slipstream led me up the stairs to a door badly in need of paint. A window air conditioner was chugging along, spitting condensation on the walkway. I stepped around the puddle and passed an old set of aluminum jalousie windows that were cracked open, or more likely stuck in that position.

  Slipstream pulled out a key, opened the door, and peered cautiously inside. He might have deemed it safe, but on entering I had to disagree. Partially empty food containers were scattered on the counters and an overflowing ashtray occupied the coffee table. Hoping that I would acclimate quickly, I started to breathe.

  “Here you go.” He moved to a small desk against a wall by the TV.

  I took out my phone and sat in the chair. Slipstream hovered over me as I opened the photo app and found the best picture of the half dozen I had taken. He moved closer until he was almost touching me. Under a different set of circumstances I would have pushed him away, but even with the cigar he smelled better than the apartment.

  After waiting for the screen to come to life, I spotted the icon for Navionics, a GPS program. I felt Slipstream move away as the screen opened and a map of the Miami offshore area opened. The first thing I noticed were dozens of pins, marking existing waypoints.

  “Those are all mine,” Slipstream said, moving farther away.

  Fisherman, divers, and, I suspected, salvors guarded their numbers—they were their livelihood. From Slipstream’s reaction, he had probably stolen them. Ignoring him, I started entering the coordinates in reverse order. My guess was that Morehead had added to the bottom of the list as he went rather than going through the trouble of adding rows to the top of the sheet.

  It was tedious work, with Slipstream pacing behind me. Each waypoint was comprised of two numbers made up of nine digits each. After entering a set, I double-checked it against my photo. Several had typos, which I had to go back and correct. Slowly, after plotting the last five waypoints, a picture began to form. I heard a groan behind me at about the same time as I noticed that the points overlapped—all except for the last two.

  The last number was closest to the park, but its location was still several miles from where I had found the drifting boat with Gross’s body. Moving back from there, I could plot a path back to Government Cut, where he had probably started his days.

  “Any of these look familiar?” I asked Slipstream. If he had them on his computer he had been there. “The last two are the ones I’m interested in,” I said, hoping it would put him at ease. “I’m not judging.”

  He seemed to relax and took a position behind me. “First few are our old holes we checked several times. The last ones, though…” He paused. “Nope, don’t recall ever being on ‘em specifically. Lately we been spending a lot of time towing a magnetometer all over that area.”

  “Anything turn up?”

  “Gross was secretive about that. He’d stay by the helm and have me work the deck. If he saw something he would mark it and check it later.”

  “Any idea what he was looking for?”

  “Nope. He’s always been a research guy. Most of the stuff he finds is because of all the studying he’s done. Guy could even read the old-time Spanish. We wouldn’t have been out there if he didn’t know what he was looking for, but hell if he told me.”

  I wasn’t sure if Slipstream was being truthful or not and for the moment didn’t care as I zoomed into the last set of coordinates. Fortunately the Google satellite had shot the area on a clear day. The shallow reefs were visible, and the marker was placed right between one and what looked like a drop-off for the reef. The overlay was a NOAA chart showing exactly what the depths were. I had a good idea that this might be the perfect place for a wreck. Certainly something worth checking.

  The outer reef, lying about five miles offshore, ran from the Marquesas, below Key West through Key Biscayne. Over the years hundreds if not thousands of ships had wandered or been driven onto the coral heads that lurked just below the surface.

  “Ain’t where I would have placed it, but Gill was a whole lot smarter than me.”

  He might have been a whole lot smarter, but his helper had stolen his numbers. Now, I had another one to watch.

  Thirteen

  I would have preferred to go fishing. But, being newly married and staying in Miami, I decided to go with the flow, which meant a paddleboard workout with Justine. I should have bet her that she couldn’t go a week without a paddle. Still disappointed with the DNF result of my first race, it took forever to warm up, and then I struggled with everything, especially getting my head into it. This was where fishing was different for me. The methodical effort of hunting and casting, especially with a fly rod, reached some inner part of my brain that solved things for me without my thinking about them. Watching Justine, just ahead of me, looking like she was effortlessly paddling into the rising sun, I felt she could enter the same flow state from paddling.

  For me, staying upright and keeping up with her was all my brain could handle. I was still at the point where I had to think about every stroke; Justine had muscle memory for that built through the years and miles. Not that it was all bad; it just didn’t solve my problems.

  In the park, the water itself is spectacular but safe. Things changed above Key Biscayne, where the brilliant colors of the flats ended. Off the beaches of South Florida the water depth dropped quickly—to a hundred feet or more within a mile of the beach. Instead of the patch reefs of the bay, there were three distinct reef systems running parallel to the shore, the first as close as a hundred yards. The deeper water was darker and the currents swifter than the better protected bay, making it both dangerous and exciting.

  I’d had enough and yelled over to Justine, “I’m going to check my phone.” I carried my board above the high water mark. It took a few steps to regain my land legs and I went to where Justine’s car was parked at one of the diagonal spaces running along A1A. Later on these would be packed, but this early in the morning the beach was quiet: walkers, shell collectors, metal detectors, a few fishermen wading in the surf, and us. This would not be the scene later, when boom boxes would break the stillness and the masses would cover every square inch of sand with colored blankets, umbrellas, and tents.

  Usually we would load first, but I was hoping for a return call from Mac Travis and Justine was still on the water. I knew getting him on the phone was hit or miss and had left a message last night. After leaving Slipstream with two pills, enough to immobilize him and hopefully keep him out of trouble, I had left his apartment.

  I had a dead body, a missing backer, and a handful of GPS numbers. Of those, the last two numbers were interesting. I had made sure to delete them from Slipstream’s computer before leaving. It was those coordinates that I wanted to talk to Mac about.

  My phone showed a missed call and a voicemail. Both the area code and number were unfamiliar. Leaning back against the hood of the car, I watched as Justine paddled out into the small breakers. She’d turn and watch the sets come in behind her then start to paddle, usually catching a small runner and a free ride to the beach where she would deftly spin the board just before it hit sand. It took a second for the voicemail to load and I held the
phone to my ear.

  Finally, the state archeologist had returned my call. He was available this morning between nine and ten. The message asked me to text back, letting him know where it would be convenient to meet. I looked at the display and saw it was already eight, barely enough time to get back, shower, and meet him. I pecked out a quick text confirming that I was available and left the name of a coffee shop around the corner from Justine’s apartment.

  Justine was coming out of the water, and ignoring my fatigued muscles I quickly loaded both boards, strapped them to the rails on the car, and headed home. “The state guy finally called back,” I told Justine to explain my rush.

  “Cool, anything from Mac?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You going to give him the thing we found?”

  I didn’t think I had any choice. It appeared to be a relic of some value. ”I think I have to.”

  She must have sensed my dismay at losing the piece. Once the state had it we weren’t getting it back, but if DeWitt found out that I hadn’t disclosed it he could have my job.

  “I’m almost done with the evidence and fingerprints from the boat. Maybe that’ll turn something up.”

  I wasn’t counting on it. The marine environment wiped evidence faster than Mr. Kaplan, the cleaner from The Blacklist. “Hope so.”

  “You hanging with your buddy again today?”

  “Yeah, can’t live with him; can’t live without him.” It was an odd pairing, but Slipstream was a person of interest, though I had nothing besides the potentially “liberated” GPS numbers on his computer. He would probably find trouble and possibly jeopardize the investigation if I let him out on his own.

  She laughed. “I’ll take Miami-Dade’s finest for company over that creep.”

  We disagreed on that point, but it did steer my mind back to the missing attorney. He was tied to my case, possibly a witness to whatever had happened to Gross if he hadn’t suffered the same fate. Gross was my case, but Morehead was Miami-Dade’s. I could only hope the lead investigators would work with me. I made a mental note to call Grace again.