Backwater Tide

by Steven Becker

  “She’s my partner,” I shouted at Traynor. “Both of you put down your weapons.” I glared back and forth at each of them until finally, they backed off. Traynor’s pistol went back into his shoulder holster. Susan’s small revolver went someplace I would rather not describe.

  “The guy went after me,” Slipstream said.

  He was slurring now and I wondered if he had burned through the entire forty dollars in the ten minutes they had been inside. I looked back to where DeWitt had been standing. He was gone. Again.

  The restaurant was elevated enough for me to see out over the parking lot. There was no sign of him there. Looking to either side, I saw the slips adjacent to the restaurant and caught sight of a man and woman running fast toward one of the docks. I took off after them, pushing past the panicked customers.

  DeWitt had the tall, lean body of a runner and he quickly outpaced me. Maria was surprisingly fast. I had been an athlete of sorts in my youth, and had been working hard on the paddleboard with Justine, but between living on an island and spending most of my time in boats. Between the lead they had and my paddler’s legs were no match for his.

  They disappeared behind a building and before I could reach it, I heard the almost simultaneous sound of twin outboards starting. By the time I reached the dock, all I could see was the transom of a large center console speeding down the Intracoastal

  Eighteen

  “How the hell could you let them get away?” Traynor was in Susan’s face. “Headline: Park Service agents lose treasure hunter’s killer."

  As much as I would have liked to see them go at it, I stepped between them, scowled at Traynor, and grabbed Susan’s arm. She fought me, but I could tell it was for show.

  “It was that nimrod’s fault. Where did you find that guy? He touched me inappropriately.”

  “And you made a scene. DeWitt saw it and bolted.”

  She nodded, but the look on her face was nowhere near an apology. “Where is that weasel?”

  The entrance to the restaurant was still clear. The groups that had been waiting for tables were huddled out of harm’s way, gesturing and speculating as to what had happened. Traynor was in Grace’s face; she was on her phone.

  I walked Susan to a bench and asked her to wait, then approached the detectives. “Maybe we ought to clear out of here before someone tips off the press that this was related to Gross’s murder?”

  Grace nodded and, still on the phone, walked down the short flight of stairs to the sidewalk. With a scowl, she looked back at her partner, who followed. I stepped in next to him. “Susan McLeash is a special agent working with me. I expect you to treat her properly.”

  “It was the heat of the moment.” He looked at her, sitting on the bench. “I’ll go play nice.” He moved toward her. I could only see his back, but there must have been something that allowed Susan to let down her guard. Seconds later they were sitting next to each other and chatting like old friends. Maybe she had another purpose after all, I thought, as I turned my attention away from them and walked over to Grace.

  “Got two boats in pursuit,” she said.

  That was the right call. There was nothing for us to do besides wait here to keep a lookout and ensure that they didn’t backtrack and head out to Government Cut or into the bay. One pursuing boat would likely take the river and the other the Intracoastal. I thought about calling my friend Johnny Wells with ICE, but unless I knew they were going international on us, there was not a lot he could do. As long as the search stayed in the Intracoastal, Miami-Dade had jurisdiction. Knowing a few of their captains, I judged they weren’t likely to accept help.

  “Looks like you lost your CI,” Grace said.

  I looked around the parking lot and entrance. Things had returned to normal and she was right—there was no sign of him. I did have an idea, though, and told her I would be right back. Entering the restaurant, I walked past the hostess stand to the bar and immediately saw him sitting there drinking on my money. I walked over and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “That didn’t go so well, huh?” he asked, quickly finishing his drink.

  “I gather that Susan was not impressed?” I didn’t wait for an answer. Grabbing his arm, I escorted him outside. There were two police cruisers parked out front now. The officers were milling around and talking to Grace. With no desire to navigate the personal and political quagmire going on in front of the restaurant, I found Susan and asked her to stay here and watch for the boat while I took Slipstream home. She seemed happy to be sitting with Traynor and agreed.

  “Come on.” I led Slipstream to the truck.

  “Where we going?”

  “Home. I think you’ve had enough for the night.” The combination of the pill and the forty dollars of alcohol was evident. I figured one more pill would put him down for the night, out of my, and harm’s, way.

  “What about DeWitt?”

  “The police have two boats looking for him.”

  “He’s a slippery bastard,” he said, hauling his walking boot into the truck. He sat back and exhaled after the effort, then took the chewed-up cigar out of his mouth and peeled off the end. “Him and Gross’s daughter are up to something.”

  I had to agree with that, but I had no desire to talk about the case with him. Things were percolating in my head. Pieces of the puzzle looked like they should fit together, but didn’t. There was an answer there and I just had to find it. Unfortunately it was too late to fish.

  As I drove, I thought about the metaphorical jigsaw puzzle. Motive appeared easy here: treasure. I supposed if I could actually locate the people involved I could check out their alibis, but one was dead and two were missing. The only ones left available were Slipstream and Gail Gross. I had to admit I was stuck.

  The apartment complex was a flurry of activity. Music blasted from boom boxes and people were gathered around the balcony that ran around Slipstream’s building. Glancing at my watch I saw it was almost nine, and it looked like the party was just getting going. After I pulled up in front of the stairs to his unit, Slipstream gave me a sorry look and I fished the pill bottle out of my pocket. I handed him one and watched as he limped upstairs. As he disappeared into his unit, I wondered if he was becoming more of a liability than an asset.

  Pulling back onto 836, I decided to call it a night and headed south toward headquarters. I texted Justine and got a sad face emoji in reply. It was hard being newlyweds and having two homes, but I had to meet Mac Travis in the morning and in my present mood, I was probably better off alone. I thought about getting up early and fishing for a few hours before meeting Mac. Maybe that would put things in perspective.

  Just before I pulled onto the Turnpike, my phone rang. It sat on the seat next to me and I was able to see the caller ID. I had seen the number before but couldn’t place it. With nothing to lose, I picked up the phone.

  “Agent Hunter, this is Jim DeWitt with the state.”

  He said it like he had done nothing wrong. I let him continue.

  “We need to talk.”

  “You know you ran from the police, not once, but twice, and there is a BOLO out for you and Maria.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m running my own investigation here. We’re stepping on each other’s toes.”

  I wasn’t quite sure how an underwater archeologist was running an investigation, but I was game to find out. “This has to be between us. If the detectives working with me find out about this, there’ll be hell to pay.”

  “The last thing I want to do is talk to the locals.”

  Of course it was. Investigation or not, they would put him in jail first and sort out the details later. “I’m by 836 and the Turnpike. Where do you want to meet?” I was hoping for a public place. He gave me the name of a restaurant and we agreed on thirty minutes.

  I pulled off at the next exit and entered the restaurant’s name into the maps app. It showed it was ten minutes away, leaving me an extra twenty minutes before I had to meet him. Following the directi
ons, I reversed course, but turned onto 836 toward Miami instead of following the Turnpike. I wasn’t going to involve Grace, but I wasn’t going alone either.

  Ten minutes later, I pulled up at the forensics lab and texted Justine. After she agreed to take a break and go with me, I had a moment’s doubt about involving her. We had worked several cases before and I had no worries about her in the field. It was her working for Miami-Dade that had me concerned now, and I hoped this was not going to be a conflict of interest for her.

  When she got in the car, she must have seen the troubled expression on my face. “What’s up?”

  I told her what had happened at the restaurant and got the look I’d expected when I mentioned Susan McLeash’s name. Justine was not a fan—originally, she had doubted me, thinking that I was paranoid about Susan’s behavior, but it hadn’t taken long for her to see the truth.

  “You need to upgrade your team.”

  She was right about that.

  “DeWitt wants to meet. I have reservations about going alone and I can’t bring in Grace. Are you going to get in trouble if you go with me?”

  She thought about it for less time than it took me to ask. “Heck yeah, I’m in.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m officially on break. Let’s go stealth and take my car and leave your work phone and truck here.”

  It was interesting how even someone as dedicated as she was could partition her life. I wished I could do the same. “Now you’re talking.” The freedom from Martinez’s surveillance was still new enough to be novel. I locked the truck and took a last look at the phone left behind on the passenger seat.

  Justine drove to the restaurant and we parked. Checking my new personal phone, I saw we were five minutes early. I didn’t want to blindside DeWitt with Justine, so we agreed that I would wait by the entrance for him and then call for her.

  A moment later, a white SUV pulled in. The parking lot lights were bright enough that I could see him scanning the lot for my truck. He parked and I waited while he locked the SUV and came toward me.

  “Oh, there you are. Didn’t see your truck,” he said.

  “I don’t know about the state, but the feds have trackers in everything.”

  He looked at me like he didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. ”Fine. I’m all for being careful.”

  I could only hope that Miami-Dade wasn’t tracking his SUV right now and were on their way, ready to interrupt our meeting. I thought about asking him to move his vehicle, but with Justine on break our time was limited and I didn’t want to freak him out.

  “I’ve got Justine from the crime lab with me. She’s my wife, actually. You okay with that?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  According to his job description DeWitt was a scientist as well. They would likely find some common ground. That worked for me and I waved to Justine. She met us at the entrance.

  Seated at a booth in the back corner, I waited to speak until the waitress brought our drinks. DeWitt eyed the menu as if he wanted to order something, but this meeting wasn’t going to last that long especially if his eating ritual was anywhere near as complicated as his coffee one.

  “You wanted to talk?”

  “Right. Look, I’ve got no hard feelings, but I am running an autonomous investigation for the state.” He said this as if he was with the FBI, then pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me like a peace offering.

  “What’s this?”

  “A list of Gross’s competitors. You know, the guys that might benefit from his death.”

  It was a transparent attempt to deflect the investigation away from himself. I took the paper, glanced at the names, refolded it, and put it in my pocket.

  “If you want to find them all in one place, Vince Bugarra has an extravaganza planned for tomorrow afternoon on the beach at the Savoy.”

  “And they’re all going to be there?”

  “His parties are not to be missed. You want to see fundraising, bring the family and check it out.”

  Nineteen

  We left the restaurant and went our separate ways. I wondered if, by telling me about the party and giving me the list of names, he was trying to muddy the waters. What I needed to do was to figure out why.

  I still planned to head to Adams Key and explained my reasons to Justine on the way back to the lab. She was in the middle of her shift and would be working until midnight. Mac and I planned to meet at seven. I knew she wanted to come along, but it would be a logistical nightmare. Instead we made plans to attend the party together.

  My phone rang about ten minutes after I’d dropped her off.

  “If you’re still around, you should come down here,” Justine said.

  “I’m close. Be there in ten.” I made a U turn at the next intersection and headed back toward the crime lab, wondering what she was so excited about.

  She met me at the security door just inside the entrance to the lab. It had taken some time for both of us to get comfortable with the new facility. Working the swing shift, Justine had staked out the old lab as her domain after the day shift had moved into the new one. We had enjoyed some of our formative moments in that lab and I think we both missed it.

  Things were different in the new lab. For one thing, we seldom had privacy, and as we walked past the smoked glass floor-to-ceiling windows I could see lights still on at several workstations. Justine had been resistant—or maybe stubborn—but when she’d gotten a look at the new equipment lined up on gleaming stainless steel tables, she knew her forensics firepower had been upgraded from peashooter to bazooka. That had made the move to the new lab easier to accept.

  The glass door opened automatically when she swiped her card. We entered the lab and I followed her to her workstation. “They finally let me process the garage at Gross’s house. After the crowd thinned out, I got into his office, too.”

  There were two distinct piles on the table, one, I guessed, from each area. “Anything you can share about Morehead’s murder?” It was Miami-Dade’s case—I had to ask.

  “Pretty straightforward. Blunt force trauma to the head.”

  “I don’t remember any sign of a struggle. Any weapon?”

  “Nothing was out of place. He must have known and trusted the murderer to turn his back on him.”

  The garage had been where Gross processed his finds. It looked like a meeting had taken place where Gross had been showing his backer what he had found. She must have read my mind.

  “Looks like Gross, at least until I can run the prints. Hopefully there’s something conclusive there, because the DNA is going to get the back burner with the prime suspect also dead.”

  “What about a time of death? It would have to be before Gross was killed.”

  “Sid thought it was at least a day earlier.”

  When things fell that neatly into place, I tended to worry. She hadn’t called me down here to show me this; there had to be more.

  “So,” she paused, letting the tension build. “The more interesting items were in his office.” She pulled one of the piles toward us. A folded chart caught my eye, but she pushed that away and placed several bank statements sealed in plastic bags in front of me.

  “Unless he has a pile of Spanish gold buried somewhere, he was in trouble.” It only took a few minutes to see the declining balances in his accounts over the last several months. There were three bank accounts that showed a combined net worth of less than a thousand dollars. “Looks like he barely had gas money. I don’t remember any artifacts around the house either.”

  “For the setup he had in the garage, there was surprisingly little material in process.”

  I had my doubts about Gross being the killer. It made sense that he had used the lure of gold to get Morehead to come over, then killed him. His financial situation could have turned on a dime if he didn’t need to split the money with his backer. But, the body still lying there a day later pointed to someone else who was trying to implicate Gros
s. “So, we have a broke treasure hunter who apparently wasn’t killed for his treasure, and a dead backer who hadn’t gotten a return on his investment.” I wondered again about the state paperwork and if it jived with what we had found. I didn’t expect those records would be forthcoming; aside from giving me Bugarra’s party list, DeWitt was hardly cooperating. Dealing with the state bureaucracy was not in my wheelhouse and Martinez was apparently all talk. In the morning, I would ask Mariposa if she could charm her way through the state’s defenses.

  Justine had moved to a piece of equipment that I couldn’t even begin to guess what its purpose was, and looked anxious to get back to work. I snuck a goodnight kiss and left the building.

  The ride back to headquarters was a blur; nothing made sense. There had to be something else. I could only hope that tomorrow, between the rendezvous with Mac and the fundraiser, would prove more productive.

  Even the ride across the bay couldn’t set my mind straight. Usually, no matter where my head was, the feeling of the boat getting up on plane and gliding across the water put a smile on my face, but not tonight. There was a fair breeze blowing directly in my face, and I had to work the throttle to avoid slamming the bow into the oncoming waves. Wet and tired, I reached Adams Key, where Gross’s boat was still tied off to the dock.

  The concrete dock had been built to accommodate Ray’s and my Park Service boats, as well as a handful of craft that used it to access the day-use area to the west of our houses. I tied off in front of the converted sportfisher and headed up to my house. Thankfully, Zero missed my entrance—or maybe he sensed that I was alone.

  Stocking a kitchen on an island is problematic, usually requiring a trip that meant transiting the bay and driving another eight miles to the closest grocery store. There was little in the pantry and only fish, eggs, and beer in the refrigerator. Neither of the foodstuffs sounded good, so I grabbed a beer and headed to the bathroom to shower off the spray from the ride over.