Backwater Key

by Steven Becker

  I wondered if Pierce and Susan were still out at Boca Chita, or if he’d had enough sense to get out of there before it became a drunken brawl. Hoping she was sober enough to play along I texted her a concerned “hello”, like it was coming from a friend.

  “What’cha doing?” Justine asked.

  “Texting Susan. I want to see if Pierce is still out there.” I explained my theory about his garage.

  She knew Susan as well as I did. At first she had been skeptical, but Susan had proven herself to be a loose cannon over time. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I wrote it like I was a concerned friend thinking she was missing. As long as my contact information doesn’t say ‘special agent Hunter’, she should be okay if someone sees it.” Before I could think of how she had entered me in her phone, it pinged. “Got her.”

  “That’s not always a good thing.”

  “SUP?” I entered.

  “Party on. Wanna bring out some beer?”

  I studied the message for a minute, as if there was a hidden meaning in her response, and decided it was what it was. “Can your friend run you back in for some?” I wanted to know where Pierce was.

  “He’s over in some big pow wow. Been there a while.” Her tone changed. “It’s dark and dirty out here.”

  I guess I had found her threshold, but there was no way I was going to come get her. Showing up in the harbor in a park service boat at this time of night to pick up a biker chick was not a good idea. Something else did occur to me. “Maybe Ray can come out in the morning?” The facilities would certainly need to be serviced and Ray hadn’t been out there since the invasion. “I’ll get back to you.”

  It was late, but I texted Ray anyway. I knew his procedure for work calls, especially when it was Martinez on the line—voicemail. If he didn’t want to be bothered the phone would be off. They also had the benefit of Becky’s phone for personal things. Though I didn’t want to carry around two phones, I thought that might be a good idea for me as well.

  Justine was over at a computer monitor now and after texting Ray, I went and stood by her side. She rubbed back when I pushed my body against hers. Her curves distracted me for a hot second until I caught a glimpse of the screen. She had already identified the manufacturer of the chemical. If it was commercially available the murder had occurred at another time and place. It was as ingenious a murder weapon as any I had heard of. If we hadn’t found the trail in the concrete its occurrence in the corpse would have been ignored as a natural occurrence.

  One of the addresses popped out. It was Pierce’s garage. “Hey, that’s the paint shop.”

  “How’s that gonna go for you?” she asked with a mischievous look on her face.

  “Well, there’re two ways in.” I threw it out there. She ignored the illegal route.

  “Your buddy Grace is working the swing shift this week. I saw her last night. There’s always a judge on call.”

  “Dick Tracy would love to get his hands on Pierce. Maybe it’s worth a shot.” I picked up my phone and texted Grace. While I waited for an answer, I checked my messages, not surprised that there hadn’t been a response from Ray. My phone rang and I saw Grace’s name on the screen. Deciding it was better to include Justine, I pressed the speaker button and placed the phone next to the keyboard.

  “Evening, Agent Hunter.”

  I breathed out, hoping Justine hadn’t caught it. There was friction between the two women. It was clear there was a professional respect, but there was something simmering below the surface. I brought her up to date about finding the chemical trail at Boca Chita and the delivery to Pierce’s shop.

  “Could be a coincidence,” she said.

  “Could be.” I needed her to decide for herself.

  “Or not.”

  “He’s playing undercover biker dude out on the island. There’s not going to be a better time.” The line went quiet for a minute. She had access to the judge on call. There were a limited number available after hours to sign warrants, but unless the searches proved fruitful, you were burning expensive capital with them.

  “Okay, type it up and I’ll find a judge. You better be clear that it’s an FBI agent involved. That’s not something we want to come out later if this turns out to be nothing.”

  I knew it hurt our chances of getting a warrant, but she was right. “I’ll email it to you in a few,” I said, disconnecting and turning to Justine. She relinquished her seat and I logged onto the super secret park service portal. After finding the form, I thought it more and more likely with every keystroke that a judge would sign it. There was also an odds-on chance that the FBI would be notified and Pierce would find out. I closed the window before I finished.

  “No go?” Justine asked.

  “I think I’m going to have a look myself first.”

  “You can’t break in.”

  “No, just a look. Maybe there’s something in the trash?” It was a shot in the dark but all I had. I texted Grace back that I had decided to wait until the morning. The relief was evident in her response. Having a fruitless search on a warrant issued during business hours was a whole lot better for your reputation. I told her I would contact her tomorrow and disconnected.

  I got up to leave and started to say good-bye to Justine. “You going to walk?”

  I hung my head. My truck was at headquarters.

  “You know, having an ace crime scene tech with you might prove helpful.”

  I knew Justine was always ready for adventure. We had found ourselves together in some interesting situations in other cases and she had handled herself well; in one case even saving my life. “I didn’t want to ask.” It was the truth, at least. Putting her in harm’s way was not always my choice, and not something I would ask of her.

  “Glad I did, then,” she said, closing the computer screen. She went to her desk and grabbed a case. “Could be some evidence. Ready?”

  We left the lab and headed out to her car. During the otherwise quiet ride I gave her directions to the alley where the shop was located. We parked a block away behind a dumpster and started to walk toward Pierce’s shop.

  “At least I’m not seeing any security cameras,” she said.

  “I think the people in here want their privacy. Pierce has some covering his unit, though.” The alley was sparsely lit. The shadows made it seem like there might be danger around every corner and I felt Justine brush up against me. We stayed close as we approached the roll-up door. To my surprise a light shone from underneath the worn weather stripping.

  “What now?”

  We had to make this look casual and I did the only thing that I could think of: I knocked on the steel door. I heard something move inside and jumped back when the door started to roll up. Worn boots were the first thing I saw, and as the door opened I could also see oil-stained jeans. Several seconds later the vest and finally the head of the man were revealed.

  “Pierce here?” I asked.

  “Little late for a visit?” He eyed my uniform.

  “I was getting worried. Haven’t heard from him in a while.”

  “He’s hanging out on that island.”

  I moved forward slightly, but he mirrored my move, blocking the entrance. There was a faint smell coming from the shop, maybe paint. We were so close and I struggled to find a way in.

  “You have a bathroom I can use?” Justine asked.

  That broke the tension and I silently thanked her. The man stepped aside and motioned to the back corner where I had changed the other night. “Kurt Hunter,” I introduced myself. I figured Pierce would get a full report anyway and could confirm my identity from the cameras.

  “Bolo,” the man said, again shuffling to the side to deny me entrance.

  The door to the bathroom closed. He might not let me in, but if I could distract him for a few minutes, maybe Justine could spot something. I looked over at the Indian bike I had seen the other night.

  “That your Indian?”

  His look changed.
“You know bikes?”

  “Made in Gilroy, California. That looks like one from the seventies. My old man had one.”

  His body language changed. I took a chance and moved toward the bike. This time he didn’t stop me. “Mind?”

  “No, have a look.” He moved to the side.

  I went to the bike and knelt down to examine the engine. He leaned over and started to explain the modifications he had made. I’m not a gearhead, but at least I was familiar enough with the engine to know what he was talking about. When you find someone who is passionate about something it is usually easy to put them at ease and draw them out. From the corner of my eye, I could see the bathroom door open and Justine enter the workshop. She must have seen what I was doing and moved toward a storage rack loaded with chemicals.

  I asked every question I could think of until finally I felt Justine by my side. From her look, I knew she had found something.

  21

  There was no need to tell him that I worked for the park service; I was in uniform. I assumed he and Pierce were business partners, but I had no idea if he knew that Pierce led a double life. I had gotten more than I had hoped for and thanked him for his time. Pierce would know I had been here from the camera pointed at the door. I had tried to scan the shop space for others and not seen any. That didn’t mean they were not there and I hoped there was no video of Justine checking out the chemicals. Otherwise it would look like an innocent visit—unless you were a crooked FBI agent.

  We walked quickly through the dark alley and were quiet until we reached the car. Once we had pulled through the alley and onto the main street, I was about to burst. “Did you find anything?”

  Justine held up her phone. “Bingo. That’s the stuff.” I glanced at picture of the bottle she had taken while trying to keep one eye on the road. The bottle was about the size of a pint of alcohol.

  “So, for the custom work they do, it could be normal?” I asked.

  “That’d be over my pay grade. We went looking for it and found it.” She put her head down and started searching for something on her phone while I drove us back to her apartment.

  Originally, I had been excited to find the chemical there, but now as Justine rattled off the specs from a website she was looking at, it didn’t seem all that unusual for it to be in a custom paint shop, and I started second-guessing myself. Negative thoughts are never good, and I realized how tired I was. I also knew how my brain worked and if I left it alone and got some sleep some of this might make sense in the morning.

  “I don’t know if I’m beating the wrong bushes here,” I said as we pulled into her parking spot. It sounded a lot like whining because it was.

  “How about a glass of wine and we’ll recap.”

  I really wanted something with a little more punch, like the Appleton 21 rum that Mariposa let her husband have when guests were over. We walked up the two flights of stairs to her apartment and I stood back while Justine opened the door. I trudged over to the couch and waited while she opened a bottle of red. Sometimes, out of nowhere, things hit me in the head like a roundhouse punch; others take small jabs to get my attention. When Justine handed me the glass it was like a haymaker hitting a glass jaw.

  “I’m sorry,” I started. It struck me that me and my bad attitude were sitting on her couch sucking down her wine. It didn’t stop me, though, and I finished the first glass in two gulps.

  “What for?”

  “I’ll be better about stuff.” We had come too far over the past year for me to screw it up with work. I was sitting here with a girl that had and would do anything for me, and my daughter. I had wanted to tell her I loved her for a while and rehearsed the words in my head while she refilled my glass.

  “You want to talk about it or go to bed?” she asked.

  I had an image of saying the words and having her fall into my arms. I would sweep her up and take her to bed and the world would be right. Unfortunately I think I dreamt it because I felt a tug on my shirt and realized I had fallen asleep. Slowly I got up and dragged myself to her bed swearing that tomorrow I would start paying less attention to work and more to what mattered.

  Martinez didn’t get that memo, and per his usual had gotten my location through my phone and was ready with a wake-up call. I grabbed the phone off the nightstand and swept my foot across the bed. Justine was gone. I was starting the day with no balls and two strikes.

  “What happened to my report?” Martinez was wide-awake and on his game. It had been two days since the news coverage of the drug bust and the news cycle in his head was telling him he needed more. “Susan filed hers.”

  I almost blurted out something I would regret. “I’ll be there in an hour,” I said and disconnected. I got out of bed and peeked behind Justine’s blackout shades. The sky was an ominous grey laced with shades of charcoal and the palm fronds were moving. I looked up at the Australian pines, whose tips reached high into the sky, and saw them swaying back and forth. Like a pilot could tell wind speed and direction from looking at a windsock, the pines told me the seas would be kicking up from the east. It would be a wet run until I reached the shelter of the barrier islands.

  After dressing and drinking the cup of coffee Justine had left for me, I pulled out my phone and paused before my finger hit the Uber app. Shaking my head like I deserved what I got, I pressed it. After leaving Justine a note, I went downstairs and waited in her empty parking space for the ride.

  I was relieved when the car pulled up with all its parts intact, and the ride to Dodge Island was uneventful. The boat was as I’d left it as well, and I hopped aboard with the forward line in hand. The tide kicked the bow out and I started the engine and released the stern. Minutes later, I was away from the pier and moving south. I steered behind Fisher Island to sneak a look at the water outside Government Cut. Even from a half-mile away, I could easily make out the small bumps on the horizon that would turn into four-foot seas. Choosing the slower inside route, I cut back behind the island to stay in the lee of Virginia Key and Key Biscayne.

  There were some short exposed areas, but I was more or less dry when I passed Cape Florida and hit open water. It all hit then; the charcoal clouds that had been laced through the grey sky had come together and formed a solid dark line. Whitecaps were breaking over the shoals at Stiltsville, taking some of the punch out of the seas, but soon I hit the long exposed section leading up to Boca Chita Key. I felt the first drops of water and reached into the console for my slicker. At first I had felt strange wearing rain gear in the eighty-plus-degree weather here. Out west, the summers were dry and clear. When we did get precipitation it was usually during the winter months and you were already dressed for it. It had surprised me at first, but after scoffing the idea several times, I learned that even with the warm rain and mild temperatures you could still get cold.

  The rain started beating down harder and I pressed down on the throttle after several cracks of thunder sounded close enough by to rattle whatever the seas weren’t already jarring loose on the boat. I hoped Justine had made it in before the storm. She had said she wanted to ride some bumps and I could only imagine what the waves that were slamming against the center console could do to a lightweight paddleboard. Her race board was fourteen feet long, but was like a large toothpick.

  I gritted my teeth and took my punishment. At least having to steer every wave forced me to concentrate on the seas ahead and not on my shambles of a case. I could soon see the lighthouse in the distance and decided to check out the harbor. It was an excuse to get out of the weather and update my report. When I got close enough to see the line of boats streaming out of the harbor, I looked up at the skies. Whatever the higher power was that kept our planet spinning, be it physics or God, it had more power than the U.S. Congress.

  The bikers were leaving en masse and I decided to wait until the traffic slowed before entering. If they were going on their own, there was no point in antagonizing them. After twenty minutes or so, I watched the last of the stragglers
leave and started toward the entrance.

  There were still several boats scattered along the seawall; about a dozen by my quick count. They might have been the smarter ones, because as soon as I tied off to the seawall the storm seemed to break and the skies cleared. Two more boats had departed while I was securing the center console and I could see several more making preparations. The few that remained were some of the nicer boats with cabins that had provided shelter for the occupants. They also likely were more experienced boaters and knew how quickly this could blow over. I gazed out past the harbor mouth. The seas had already subsided.

  Martinez might be waiting, but I’m sure he knew where I was by the tracker in the boat and on my phone. I could easily explain the detour as park business, which it was, in a way. My main goal was to make sure Susan wasn’t still out here. I had set her up for this; it was the least I could do.

  I walked past the small area I had chipped the concrete from. Martinez would be happy there would be no repair necessary as it looked like several other areas that had suffered some minor spalling. Our timing had been good. Twenty-four hours later and the evidence would have been washed away.

  It only took a few minutes to walk the rest of the island. Abandoned tents and debris were scattered around the clearings and blown into the mangroves. It would take a few trips to haul off the trash, but there looked to be no lasting damage. In a week there would be no sign this had ever happened.

  I took some quick pictures for Martinez that would hopefully justify putting Ray back on the payroll to clean up the mess. He would probably have downloaded them from the Cloud by the time I got there. Heading back to the boat I saw the last of the bikers leave and a strange quiet settled onto the island.

  The sun had started to appear intermittently and I hopped aboard. Martinez had already been waiting an hour. I was closer to home than headquarters and I thought about going back to Adams Key. I could file a report from there. I was tired. The fishing would probably be off today after the storm passed, but the couch might be okay for a couple of hours. The lack of sleep had worn me down mentally from the case. I needed a break.