Hawk Channel Chase (20 page)

“I have a hard time believing it’s really Sam’s,” said Turk. “There’s talk that he destroyed evidence. Evidence of what crime, we don’t know.”

“You got that from Wonsetler?”

“I knew that was you in the parking lot,” he said. “I figured you were rolling low-key. I didn’t want to scream out your name and draw attention.”

“How do they see it?” I said.

“There are people who wonder if Sam’s into human trafficking. They think he might have dropped a boatload of Cubans in the Marquesas last Sunday. Nine new citizens of the USA.”

“Oh, horsecrap,” I said. “We know he’s not a coyote. Someone’s trying to twist his arm, and it’s not the sheriff’s office. They don’t give a shit about refugees unless they’re swiping shirts off clotheslines in Marathon or hitchhiking up US 1. Plus, what idiot would sink his boat with a new motor and the hull numbers intact? Even the dopes who abandon cars along the highway take their tags along.”

“So if Dick Wonsetler is just a messenger,” said Turk, “what’s the message? He sure as hell knew I wouldn’t turn in Sam.”

“And sure as hell Sam knew you can’t really sink a Maverick,” I said.
 

Turk agreed. “Wonsetler asked me about that. I told him it would take 1,000 feet of anchor chain and a V-8 block jammed in the console. But it probably would roll over and dump all the weight.”

“What the fuck is Sam up to?” said Marnie. She leaned forward, focused a cold gaze on me. “I have this horrible feeling that you know what’s going on, Alex. You and I have been friends for a long time and that’s why it’s horrible. You’ve been told to keep it from me. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

“I have
not
been told to…”

“Okay, Alex,
asked
to keep it from me. You can count on one hand the crimes someone might commit in a boat. You get technical, two hands, but you don’t run out of fingers. I managed to adjust to the idea that he isn’t seeing another woman. You were right the other day when you said he wouldn’t do it that way. Now the only thing left to think is that he doesn’t trust me. Why is he not coming home at night? Answer: he’s doing something after dark. Is he afraid I’ll smear his privacy on the front page of the
Citizen
?”

She stopped talking and stared. Her silence challenged me to respond.

What had Sam said when I asked about his boat?

“Hung on a davit in suburbia, where it will stay. Totally out of sight.”

Years ago, when I had needed help sneaking ashore on Summerland to snoop the beach property of a car thief and killer, Sam had been there for me. We started with Sam stashing his boat on the bay side of Cudjoe during daylight hours. Later we had gone to the canal adjacent to Johnny and Laurel Baker’s home on Blue Gill Lane, picked up the boat and run our deal on beginners’ luck.

“There’s another way to look at it,” I said. “It doesn’t impeach trust.”

“What?” said Marnie. “He doesn’t want to stretch his ethics and pitch me a load of bullshit?”

“That’s close,” I said. “If you held back on a story because Sam’s your partner, how would you feel about yourself for the rest of your career? If you knew your reputation was as bogus as a plastic mango, could you go in the restroom at work and look in the mirror every day?”

She sat back slowly, allowed some of her steam to waft away. “What’s with his boat being half-sunk? If evidence is destroyed, evidence of what? If it’s really his boat, did he try to sink it or did someone else? If it’s not his boat, whose is it?”

“Those sound like a reporter’s questions,” said Turk, “rapid-fire style.”

“No offense,” she said.

Turk ignored her sarcasm. “If it’s a stolen boat made to look like Sam’s, the real owner doesn’t matter.”

“If someone other than Sam scuttled the boat, no matter whose it is,” I said, “it’s an attempt to set up Sam for a bust he doesn’t deserve.”

Marnie crunched her beer can to an hourglass shape. “Great logic, Alex, but your phrasing tells me he deserves to be busted for something.”

“Who found it, the Marine Patrol?”

“Good question,” said Turk. “Wonsetler didn’t say. All I know is they found it south of Saddlebunch, and that’s anywhere from Geiger Key out to Pelican Shoal over to American Shoal and back up to Sugarloaf Creek. That’s thirty square miles of long-term parking, but more important, it’s Hawk Channel. That makes it a hazard to navigation, so they must have towed it to shore.”

“How did they find it with just the platform and engine cover sticking up?”

“Better question, unless someone saw it being sunk. Which, after dark, is not a reasonable assumption.”

“Unless it had a GPS transmitter aboard,” I said. “Maybe Sam found out it was there.”

Turk shrugged.

I looked at Marnie. Her questions told me she was keeping a tight grasp on her grief, her bewilderment. The most telling detail of her state of mind was that she hadn’t asked me about the Jerry Hammond case. She had no way to know that I had spent the morning in his home. But there was always the chance that, as a neighbor, I might have heard a rumor, a hint of motive, a tale of comings and goings. I never had known her to put private life, convenience, or personal safety ahead of her profession.

“What makes you so sure that the boat isn’t Sam’s?”

“He wouldn’t let it happen,” said Turk. “It’s too easy for a boat handler like Sam to make
Fancy Fool
invisible.”

“So if he got jumped mid-stream or, say, on Sugarloaf, he might hide his skiff on…”

“Oh, maybe Cudjoe,” said Turk.

We understood each other. I had my suspicions, and he knew or had figured out where Sam had stashed his boat. “Let’s take my truck,” he said. “It’s a nice day for a drive.”

Marnie came out of her reverie, picked up on our tone. “Am I being taken for another ride?”

“This time,” said Turk, “it’s only forty-six miles, round-trip.”

“And if we don’t find what you think we might find?” she said.

Turk chuckled. “It’s a nice day for a boat ride, too.”

“Hell,” said Marnie. “Are we going to criss-cross thirty square miles?”

“I wasn’t the only captain he talked to,” said Turk. “Maybe Dick Wonsetler let slip a detail or two to one of the others. We can try to piece it together. Enough to go looking. Maybe find a buoy.”

She wasn’t pleased. “Sam could tell us where it is with one phone call.”

“My phone isn’t ringing,” I said. “You never know what we might learn. The boat’s location could be a clue for us all. It might tell us something about the other team—if one exists. It might help prove that Sam’s in the clear.”

“In that case, count me in,” said Marnie. “And not as a reporter.” She pointed toward the lane. “Here comes your fairy godmother.”

I hadn’t heard Bobbi Lewis’s county vehicle stop in front of the house. She held a phone to her ear, and didn’t get out of the Explorer.

Turk said, “I hope she isn’t following up for Wonsetler.”

“Why don’t you two go on ahead?” I said. “I’ll ride my motorcycle, catch up with you.”

“It won’t take three of us to check those davits,” said Turk. “It’s on Blue Gill, right? I’ll call if we decide to take the boat ride.”

I asked for his number, punched it in, pressed my call button. A moment later his cell rang. I hung up. “We’ve got each other memorized,” I said.

Turk grinned and stood. “Forget all you know.”

“Marnie, when you’ve got computer problems,” I said, “is there anyone in this town you trust for repairs?”

“Your friend,” she said. “Duffy Lee Hall.”

“My darkroom guy?”

“Ex-darkroom, since he got digitized out of a job. He’s been doing Macs and PCs for, I don’t know, at least a year. When all his photo processing competitors went out of business, he saw the writing on the wall.”

“How could I not have known?” I said.

“You stopped shooting film and nothing went wrong with your computer?”

Turk and Marnie walked past the Explorer on their way out to Fleming Street. I watched Bobbi wiggle her fingers at them, but she made no effort to roll down her window to speak. Marnie looked back at the porch, let her disgusted expression convey her opinion of Lewis’s rudeness.

“I owe you for a three-course fiasco last night.” Lewis opened the screen door. She held out a hundred-dollar bill. “This might not be enough,” she said. “I need to use your facilities.”

She walked out carrying the photo of the Charger that Beth Watkins had left sitting on the kitchen counter. “Why are you taking pictures of Marv Fixler?”

“I don’t know Marv,” I said. “I like the car. I’m thinking of buying one.”

“You best keep your distance, Alex. Matter of fact, keep your distance from both of us. I never thought of you as a stalker, but I can revise my opinion as fast as a phone call.”

“If I could find someone worth stalking, I might give it a try. Is he the reason you’ve been tied up lately? Or should I say the liaison that’s kept you so busy?”

She thought for a moment, slowly hardened her eyes and tensed like a deputy prepping for conflict. She finally blew air outward and said, “Do not push.” She twirled the photo toward the porch table. It missed, but she wasn’t there to see it land face-down on the floor.

I watched her march back to the white SUV with its roof bar, its departmental green and gold paint scheme. My lover had acted and looked like a stranger.

 
My ex-lover, apparently.

13

“Alex.”

In the peace of my screened porch, the bark of a drill sergeant. A summoning with indignation, impatience and belittlement. As a teenager-in-training, Maria Rolley had mastered her own intonation, the accusatory one-word command.

“That’s not what you used to say when you knocked on my door.”

“Can you drive me to get the DVD?”

“Let’s take our bikes,” I said.

“That’s not the point.”

“The point, I believe, is that your mother doesn’t want you to go alone. It has nothing to do with how we get there. Since they’re bike riders, the boys probably will be impressed by yours.”

“Cool. What did I say when I knocked on your door?”

“Once upon a time…”

“Give it a break, Alex,” she said. “Make it prime-time with no big lead-up.”

“Tough audience.”

“Every one of my friends is chatty beyond belief, Alex. I go insane.”

“I taught you to read,” I said.

“I know. You picked me up from day care when mom was at work. My favorite book was
The Case of Og the Missing Frog
which I memorized when you read it out loud. So after a few days, when you turned the pages, I said the words. You thought I knew how to read, but I didn’t.”

“You wouldn’t sit down to read before you had your dish of dry cereal.”

“Cinnamon Life, right? I still like it.”

“One day your mother let you walk down the lane to visit me. I heard a knock at the door and stepped onto the porch. You looked up at me and said, ‘Life.’ That was your entire greeting.”

“Sounds like a short haiku.”

“That’s close and very good,” I said. “It was a Zen moment.”

Maria, emotion-free: “Cool. Can we go?”

I saw Jason Dudak’s road-worn Honda parked on Elizabeth Street, the Marion County tags, a S
ONIC
Y
OUTH
decal on a side window I hadn’t noticed before.

“But that’s not the house number,” said Maria, reading my mind. “It’s got to be… There’s Russ.”

It was a tall, unrestored Conch house on the west side of the street. Russell Hernandez sat low on the outdoor stairway to a second-floor apartment. He was cleaning mud off his shoes. We walked our bikes into the yard and the boy held out his arms to give Maria a friendly hug. She backed away, turned to me. “He’s gross all sweaty.”

“I’ve been mowing lawns since 6:45 this morning,” he said, “I’m lucky the EPA doesn’t track me down as a public menace. I may last another week if I make it through tomorrow. I should be renting out sailboards, selling two-piece bathing suits. Dirt work is not my calling.”

“Did Jason find it?” said Maria. “The DVD in his trunk?”

He gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “Visitors coming up,” he shouted.

No answer for an awkward ten seconds. Why the warning?

“Umm, umm… okay,” said Jason. “Who is it?”

“Princess and her escort.”

As I ascended the wood stairs, I felt a twinge of déjà vu.

Fifteen years ago, I had dated a woman who lived in this apartment. I knew the two-room layout, the found-object decor, and I feared that nothing had changed. Or maybe I hoped it was all the same. It had been a fine relationship until she left for dentistry school. A dose of nostalgia.