Bonefish Blues (8 page)

There was one asset he had that could make that much money — his boat. He hated to compromise his morals and run meat fishing charters; his reputation was based on catch and release fly fishing, not meat fishing, where the anglers were given every opportunity short of dynamite to load the boat up with fish. But faced with the option of losing the house, he would do whatever was necessary. Might as well start now, he thought and went down and hopped on the old beach cruiser; at least start saving some gas money.

The noontime sun beat down on him as the beach cruiser glided down the bike path. He pedaled with resolve, soon dripping with sweat; the heat and humidity acting like a steam bath, pushing the alcohol through his pours. Gravel crunched under the tires as he skidded into the marina parking lot. Soaked but feeling better, hoping he didn’t smell like alcohol, he walked into the office and started to shiver as the cool air hit him.

Ned sat behind the counter, reading a newspaper when he walked in. “Would you look at what the cat drug in. Think I got you a charter. Cody offered, but I told the guy you’d call him and set something up — the wind was blowing too much today. He’ll be back tomorrow.” Will took the offered piece of paper with a phone number and stuck it in his pocket.

“Thanks. That’s just what I wanted to talk to you about. I’m in a bit of a jam. I need some quick cash, and the only way I can see getting my hands on it is to do some meat charters for a while.” 

Ned looked over his reading glasses, staring at him. “I can set some up for you, but Cody’s going to have a cow.”

“I’ll just have to deal with him. Did he go out today?”

“No, his charter cancelled because of the weather. I think he’s down by his boat.”

Will swallowed hard as he left the conditioned air and walked down the dock. Cody was sitting on the transom, spooling line onto a reel, when he walked up. “Hey, I need to talk to you. Seems like I’m short on cash and …”

“Shit, you want to talk to me?” Cody got up and raised his voice. “Stay away from my family and I’ll talk to you. Right now, all I got to tell you is to get the hell out of my face.”

Will automatically backed away, “I got no interest in Nicole.”

Cody jumped up and hopped on the dock. “Don’t you walk away from me. Didn’t look like that last night,” he paused. “See, we’re about to get back together you know…”

Will’s phone rang, interrupting Cody. He turned away and glanced at the phone’s caller ID.
Restricted number
showed in the display. Anything to avoid a confrontation with Cody, though, so he answered.

“Hi, Will? This is Sheryl from the building department.” 

He started walking away, looking over his shoulder to see if Cody was following. But the other man just stood his ground, scowling. “Hey,” he muttered.

“Can you talk?” 

“Hold on.” He looked over his shoulder again and dropped his eyes when they met Cody’s glare. “Did you find out anything?” There was a pause on the line, and he felt like he was frozen in time, waiting for her to speak. Cody was coming towards him probably paranoid enough to think it was Nicole on the other end. Quickly he said, “If you’d rather get together, we could talk about it later. Maybe get some dinner or something?” He couldn’t believe the words had come that easily. 

“In person would be better. You have a boat?”

“Yeah, a twenty-one-foot flats boat. What do you have in mind?” he relaxed as he looked back and saw Cody leaning against the dock, phone to his ear. He was probably calling Nicole, Will thought, just to make sure she wasn’t talking to him. 

“We should take a ride out to Flamingo. There’s a hand-drawn map in this file that needs to be verified.”

“Sounds like a treasure hunt,” he said. 

“Not in the way you’re thinking. Bring some dive gear if you have it and pick me up at 4:45. I get off at 4:30. That’ll give me time to get home and change. I’ll text you the address.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.” He disconnected and looked back at Cody.

He was approaching again and Will tensed. Cody started to walk right by him, tossing his usual glare, but nothing threatening. Hoping the situation was diffused and feeling good after talking to Sheryl he blurted, “By the way, just thought I’d let you know that I’m taking some meat charters now.” Relieved that he’d confronted him, he waited for a response.

“You? That’s a good one. Ain’t no skin off my back.” Cody laughed, “Those guys need someone to drink with and tell jokes to. That ain’t you, boyo. You’ll die a little inside every day.” He started to walk away. “Gotta go. Got a date with Nicole tonight.”

Will watched him walk away glad that Sheryl had called, glad that he was going to see her and glad that he had taken his vows last night and sworn off Nicole. The turmoil in his head was starting to clear.

Chapter 10

Again, her eyes were the first thing he saw as she walked toward him. If her pupils were fish he would have sworn he was looking into water. He stood motionless as she closed the gap. She was dressed in a tank top, shorts, and flip flops, with a messenger bag over her shoulder. 

“Ready?” he stuttered.

“Yeah, let’s go before it gets dark,” she said.

They walked to the boat in silence. Once aboard, he started the engine and tossed the lines onto the dock. Seconds later, the boat was idling out of the canal. As soon as they reached open water, he pushed down on the throttle and the boat quickly planed out. The light boat skimmed across the waves, barely touching some, caressing the tops of others. Will was thankful the seas were down. Earlier today, the ride would have taken more than twice as long as the fifteen minutes it took them to reach Flamingo Key. The boat settled after the wake lifted the hull, passing underneath, before dispersing its energy onto the beach. 

Sheryl had directed him toward the west side of the island, and Will looked around, not familiar with this area. He usually fished the east side, where mangroves lined the shore, offering protection to the fish. Palm trees were visible over the requisite mangroves set back by a small beach.

She took the bag from her shoulder and removed a folder. “This is really interesting,” she said as she pulled out a sheet of paper and pointed to a clearing visible in the aerial photo. “It’s probably overgrown now, but this Key was partially developed back in the ‘80s. There are a lot of abandoned projects started without permits and abandoned when they instituted ROGO in 1992. Too much trouble and expense, the Rate of Growth Ordinance shut down all building for a while, especially the homesteaders. Now there is some, but the number of permits is limited by the ordinance.”

He took the offered papers. There was nothing visible on the arial photo except the clearing and several paths. The second page was folded in half. When he opened the larger page, it revealed a hand-drawn site plan, which showed the island mostly cleared, with a dock running through the mangroves on the east side and a cluster of small buildings connected by paths that looked wide enough for a golf cart. Two lines were drawn toward the mainland; one marked sewer and the other water. The date was 1988. There was another, older page, also hand drawn, that showed a septic tank and water cistern in a much smaller clearing, with only a single building shown.

“Looks like someone started to permit this as a compound or something, and then bailed on it. They had permits for the septic and water tanks, and apparently finished that, because there was a final inspection.” She removed a permit card and handed it to him. “Later, someone else saw a loophole and permitted the upgrade to city sewer and water, without the building even permitted, thinking it would be easier to get a building permit with a sewer in place. At that time, there were so many applications coming in that all they looked for was a permitted septic system before issuing a sewer connection. No one noticed that the house had never been built.”

“And then it dropped off the radar until a couple days ago?”

“With all the budget cuts we’ve had, there is no one to check on expired permits, especially the ones out here.”

They both turned as a boat pulled up a quarter mile away and dropped anchor. Will squinted at the boat outlined in the setting sun, thinking it looked familiar, and could hear the voices as they pulled out fishing poles and started to fish. Someone screamed as they hooked up right away. Unusual, he thought; usually you had to set up a chum bag and wait a while for the fish to find you. Another scream indicated one of the other anglers was hooked up as well. He shook his head and focused on Sheryl.

“Want to go have a look?”

“I would. Some of these Keys have some interesting stories to be told.” 

He idled the boat closer to the beach, raising the engine as he went. The bow touched sand just as the propeller cleared the water. The engine off, he went forward and grabbed the anchor line, pulling about twenty feet out. He tossed the anchor onto the beach, pulled the line tight, and looped it around a cleat.

“Unusual way to anchor.”

“It’s slack tide, and we won’t be long. I imagine the mosquitos will eat us alive before we get too far.”

She reached into her bag and brought out some repellent, which she quickly rubbed into her exposed skin. 

“Thanks,” he took the tube. Both covered in mosquito repellent, they eased over the low gunwale and waded the calf-deep water toward shore. The mosquitos swarmed, but kept their distance as they approached the mangroves. Will went first, clearing a path and holding back branches for Sheryl. He followed what appeared to have at one time been a trail. The ground cover had not grown back as aggressively as the mangroves slapping at their bodies. They reached the center of the island and entered the clearing. 

He looked around. “Look there’s footprints. Strange, they look fresh. It rained a couple of days ago. Funny, I’ve never seen anyone come out here; it’s all mangroves at high tide and sand bars extend way out at low tide.”

She followed him as he moved to the two concrete tank lids, both a foot higher than the sand. “And here’re the tanks.”

“Wow! That stinks,” he said as they approached. 

“That’s weird. They should be full of clean water so they don’t pop out of the ground when it rains. There’s something wrong here.”

The image of the large bag on Braken’s boat popped into Will’s head, and he looked down and followed the footsteps. It looked like there were two sets with the distinct image next to them that the bag would have made being dragged through the sand . He emerged on the beach the Grady-White had been stranded on yesterday. They went back to one of the tanks, and saw a crowbar to the side of the lid. 

“This isn’t good. Maybe we ought to go back.”

“No way. This was my idea.” She picked up the crowbar and started to pry at the tank lid.

“You sure?” He watched her struggle, finally going over and offering help. She surrendered the bar and he went to work on the lid, walking the crowbar around the opening, the lid rising an inch or two each turn. She came toward him to help as the bottom of the lid became visible, and he handed her the crowbar to hold the heavy lid up while he bent over and flipped it over. 

The stench was overpowering, and he looked into the black void, suspicious of what it was. He went for the tank lid and wrestled it back in place. They quickly moved to the edge of the clearing, upwind of the tanks. “This is bad. Do you think?” He stopped.

“What?” she asked.

“I had a run-in with Braken and Scarface here the other day. They had one of those fish bags the tournament fishermen use to keep their catch hydrated. It was big enough to hold a man.” They looked at each other, “I’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here.” 

They made their way along the path to the beach, where Will picked up the anchor and carried it back to the boat. Sheryl followed and dove into the water, trying to release the stench from her pores. Back on the boat, they looked at each other, not sure what to do or say. 

“Sorry, no towels,” was all Will could come up with. 

“It’s all right, let’s get out of here.” She started to shiver. “That was creepy.”

The boat idled away from the island. “There’s a rain jacket in the side compartment. Grab that while I check something out.” He watched her as she bent over to get the jacket, wet clothes clinging to her body. 

He looked away as she rose. “See them,” He pointed to the fishing boat that was still anchored off the point. It was still loud, rods bent over and fish going in the box. There’s no reason for them to be there, no structure just flat bottom, and they’re catching fish. It’s almost like something is bringing them to that spot. Can I see the map again?” The puzzle was coming together in his mind. Intrigued about Cody’s fishing spot he overcame his usual timidness and focussed on his theory.

“Sure, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Just a hunch,” he took the hand drawn map and oriented it. “See, it shows a pipeline coming through there from the water tanks. That was going to be the pipeline feeding the island from the mainland. Let’s check it out.”

“I don’t know Will. I think I’ve seen enough. Maybe we should just go to the police with this, get cleaned up and then get some dinner.”