The Black Palmetto (12 page)

Edison had a strange expression on his face. Boozler had seen it before, recently, when the powder had puffed out of the Bible.

“I’ve just been thinking, about the SEAL connection you mentioned, and I wonder if he might be here for something other than what he told you.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I don’t know, but maybe we could sweat it out of him if you brought him in.”

The chief wondered what Edison was hiding, and if it was something he himself should worry about.

“We’re trying to find him now. I’ll let you know when we pick him up.”

****

Sam and Simone rode out of the driveway onto the state road that followed the Gulf coastline of Iguana Key. The area turned out to be more developed than Sam had thought. Most of the houses along the road were as opulent as Ford's, but some were basic dwellings that appeared to have been there for fifty years or more.

Moving about thirty miles per hour into the sun, they scanned the driveways for Spanner's vehicle, and paid special attention to the undeveloped wooded and marshy areas between the homes for any unusual colors or reflections that might indicate a ditched automobile. After an hour or so of searching, they reached a bend in the highway and what appeared to be an abandoned marina. The old place seemed to signal a dead end of the coastal area, the road then heading back toward town. Sam turned the car around in the empty, weed-choked lot. A dock house sat at the head of several empty boat slips, and a faded tin sign nailed to its front wall read
Captain Short's Marina
. An aged cruiser about forty feet long lay berthed against the dock at the far end of the marina. Painted white, except for a sea-blue stripe around the top edge of the hull, it appeared as though it been well maintained. Maybe Captain Short's home. A shiver ran across the back of Sam's neck, but he wasn't sure why. Just a boat.

They headed back up the highway, the sun now at their backs. Though moving faster than before, they continued to scan the landscape.

As they crossed a bridge over a creek, Simone, said, “Stop. I saw a reflection over there through the scrub.” She pointed toward the Gulf side to a spot through marsh grass and palmetto. He eased the car to the shoulder. They got out and crossed the road.

Something glinted through the reeds, maybe thirty feet into the undergrowth. Could be glass or the bright trim of a car. Twin tire tracks led down the slope, getting progressively deeper into the marsh.

They trampled through reeds for several feet until the soil turned spongy. Water glistened ahead, and about twenty feet beyond that Sam got a closer look at what they had seen from the road: the rear edge of a car roof. The creek fed into the large pool around the vehicle, and floating weeds covered much of the surface.

“I'll probably need a light to see anything down there,” he said.

He hurried back to the car and got a diving light from the trunk. As an afterthought, he stretched on a pair of latex gloves, and went back and shed his clothes, down to his underwear.

“Watch out for snakes,” Simone said.

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Thanks, I never would've thought about that.”

“Yeah, well, you're the diver, not me.”

The mud bank descended after a couple of feet, dropping him up to his neck in the weeds. After filling his lungs, he flipped on the light, submerged, and swam down through the underwater jungle. The driver’s window had been partially lowered, probably so the car would sink faster. He peered inside through the greenish water at the front seats. No body. A quick scan of the rear seat revealed the same there. Shining the light back in the front, he spotted keys in the ignition and a large rock by the accelerator pedal. The engine had run wide open until the car hit the water and sank. He opened the door and pulled himself over the seat to the glove box, which hung open. Nothing remained inside it. A Florida map and an owner's manual floated in the water above it. A tire gauge, two ballpoint pens, and a gadget that included several miniature tools in one, lay on the seat. Someone had raked out the contents of the glove box searching for something. Sam's lungs felt as if on fire, and he surfaced for a quick breath. Returning, he found the trunk lid release and popped it.

He made his way around the rear bumper, which sat a few feet beyond the drop-off, and saw that the license plate had been removed. An unzipped overnight bag lay inside the trunk, clothing and toilet articles strewn around it. Though his lungs began to ache, he examined the bag, using the light and found no identification of any kind. Something slippery brushed against his leg and he jerked and bumped it with his knee. It came to life and wriggled against him as if electrically charged. A pain shot through his leg from a fin or a tooth, and a tail slapped him as the creature sped away.

Sam thrust to the surface and gulped in air, his heart pounding. His leg ached where the creature had cut him. Maybe a barracuda or a garfish. Either could have done him a lot of harm. Getting his breathing under control, he decided he'd seen enough. He closed the trunk and got out of the water. Using a stick, he stirred away his footprints in the mud as best he could.

“Hey, you're bleeding,” Simone said, concern in her eyes.

Blood oozed from a superficial cut on his upper leg.

“Yeah, something scraped me. It's nothing.” He put on his dry clothes and shoes.

Back behind the wheel, he said, “Whoever ditched that car might be close by, unless he had a helper to drive him back.”

“Are you thinking about that boat we saw back there?”

“Yeah, it could be our guy.”

They went back to the marina, but the cruiser had disappeared.

Sam got out and hurried to the dock, but couldn't see the boat in either direction. Getting back in, he sighed. “I should have paid more attention. At least got the hull number.”

“You didn't know. Besides, it could have been somebody just stopping for a break.”

“I think I knew something wasn't right about it.”

“Forget it. It's no big deal.”

Sam started the car, drove out onto the highway headed back, and took out his phone.

“Who're you calling?” Simone asked.

“Lora Diamond.”

She turned and peered out her window.

“She's our only link to what the police have,” Sam said. “We need to keep her in the loop.”

“I didn't say anything.”

Lora answered. He told her about the sunken car and described its location.

“You think it belongs to the guy you were looking for? Spanner?”

“Probably. I can't imagine any other reason someone would have ditched a car like that. Probably did it on high tide and thought it wouldn't be found.”

“Could you see the license plate?”

She didn’t need to know he’d already examined the vehicle. That could cause him some trouble with the police.

“No. The bumper was underwater.”

He left out the part about the cruiser. It could have been a coincidence that the boat had left the marina in the short span of time between their two visits, but Sam didn't think so

“Get whatever you can out of the story. Just keep me out of it.”

“Okay. I'll go out there before it gets dark and scope it out.”

When he hung up, Simone said, “Too bad we didn't find anything connecting Spanner.”

“That's okay. I'm pretty sure it's his vehicle. The way it looked down there, someone had done a search, probably for the information about the Black Palmetto. If that person had found it, Spanner's body would've also been down there. So the fact that it isn't tells me he's still alive.”

“Maybe. But that's one conjecture on top of another. It could be that some thief just wanted to get rid of a hot car.”

Sam supposed he had wanted it to be Spanner's vehicle. That alone surely didn't make it true, and he really hadn't found any concrete evidence. “Yeah, you're right. We need to keep an open mind.”

Still, he knew it had to be Spanner's car, and they were onto something.

Chapter Fourteen

Sam took a quick shower and put on fresh clothes. When he entered the living room, J.T. sat in one of the leather chairs, his computer and a beer on the coffee table in front of him.

“I got the pics on the two guys,” J.T. said.

“Let's take a look.”

Simone entered the room. “Where'd you get the beer?”

“The lawyer has about a case of it in the fridge,” J.T. said as he oriented the computer so Sam could see it from the sofa.

Simone got two beers and handed one to Sam. They took a seat and studied the images of Marlon Knox and Leonard Ousley. Knox looked about eighteen-years-old, with longish blond hair and glasses. The image had come from a Miami Police Department drug arrest about seven years before. The charges were later dropped.

“What about the mental institution Whitehall had on his list for this guy?” Sam asked. “You find anything on that?”

“Windhaven? No, that place is a ghost. They don't have a website, or even a phone listing, which probably means it's very exclusive and expensive.”

“So this kid came from a wealthy family. That might explain the charges getting dropped on his drug arrest. Did you search for a birth certificate?”

“Yeah, didn’t find one. Somebody got it expunged. Same for the other guy. Ousley.”

“Huh.”

Ousley looked older, but not by much, and meaner. He had short brown hair, dark eyes, and a smirk on his clean-shaven face. J.T. had gotten the photo from the state prison in Starke, Florida where the convict lived on death row until the government program picked him up.

Both photos were several years old, but maybe somebody in town would still recognize one of them.

“Did you notice the name of the officer who arrested the Knox kid?” Simone asked Sam.

Turning back to the computer, Sam said, “No, who?”

She pointed at the screen. “Richard Boozler, Miami PD.”

“Huh, that's weird. What do you think it means?”

Simone shrugged. “It isn't a coincidence, that's for sure. Miami has millions of people, and these two names popping up together…what are the odds?”

J.T. chuckled. “Too high.”

“Yeah,” Simone said, “This kid has an influential father or mother who talked Boozler into dropping the charges.”

“When was he at Windhaven?” Sam asked.

J.T. brought up the e-mail from the doctor. “According to what Whitehall sent us, Knox entered Windhaven about two years later, and the Palmetto picked him up a few months after that. He would've been about twenty at the time.”

“Well,” Sam said, “he must've killed somebody, or the government wouldn't have been interested in him. Boozler probably got him out of that, too. That would explain how our local cop could go from an officer position in Miami to chief of police in Iguana Key, in seven years. I wish we knew what the kid did.”

Simone spoke up. “Miami probably had tons of serious crimes committed during the month he entered that mental facility. There wouldn't be any easy way to narrow them down.”

“He didn't pop up on any other arrests,” J.T. said.

“It would have to be something that would cause the guy to track Boozler here after the Black Palmetto collapsed and risk getting caught.”

J.T. leaned back in his chair, his eyes aglow. Sam watched the gears click inside the mercenary's head.

“That would be cash,” J.T. said. “A lot of it.”

“Yes, or maybe a big drug score, which could be turned into cash. Maybe Boozler got paid off for keeping the Knox kid out of jail, but he might also have ended up with whatever it was the kid killed somebody for. We need to find a big drug bust. One where the money or the drugs went missing.”

“You might have put your finger on what happened,” J.T. said, “but how does any of that help you find Spanner and what he stole from the research lab?”

Simone spoke up. “If we find the assassin, we'll find Spanner.”

Sam pointed at her with his index finger, his thumb up, like an imaginary gun. “That's right. All this is connected. I'm convinced of it.” Remembering his first conversation with Lora that morning, Sam said, “The reporter mentioned something about a parole officer coming to town. He wanted to examine the body of a man who was murdered here a couple of months ago. I don't think he got a chance, because it got blown to bits on the bridge over Blackwater Sound. I'll bet his missing parolee served time for whatever happened back then, and he got out of prison and came here to settle up with our guy.”

“Why don't you ring up Lora,” Simone said, “and see if you can get something useful out of her.”

“Can you send these photos on e-mail?” Sam asked J.T.

“Sure. I just need to know where.”

Sam called the reporter and asked for her e-mail address.

“What've you come up with?”

“I'm going to send you photos of two guys. See if you recognize either of them.”

“Okay. You think one of them is the killer?”

“Could be.”

“How would you have a picture of the guy?”

“It's just an idea. I'll tell you more if you recognize one of them.”

Silence.

He asked if she knew the name of the ex-con the parole officer had been after.

“No, but I can ask Lonnie.”

“Yeah, let me know.” He didn't want to place too much emphasis on it because she would launch into a lot of questions he didn't want to answer. “You find the sunken car yet?”

“Yep, I'm here now, waiting for the police to show up. Send the photos, and I'll check them out.”

****

Sam called Jackson Craft, a confidence man he'd known for years. Jack had a long history of fleecing crooks, and had never been fingered as the bad guy, at least not by anyone who remained alive to tell about it.

“Samuel, how's it going?”

“Not bad, Jack. I wondered if I could ask a favor.”

“Anytime, my friend. Just name it.”

Jack sounded chummy, but he could bare his fangs when things turned sour, and Sam had seen that side more times than he could count. Though never sure whether or not he considered Jack a friend, they had helped each other from time to time in tough situations. Unlike J.T., though, he had all the money he would ever need. He ran his elaborate schemes only because he liked the life, and because he could.