The Black Palmetto (26 page)

****

Slipstream
cleared the MacArthur Causeway a few minutes before midnight. The beacon on J.T.’s computer indicated that the new boat had passed Miami Beach, going north. It had at least an hour’s head start. While
Slipstream
could cruise at about twenty knots, it appeared that the other boat had gone faster than that. If they kept going, the chances of catching up would be slim. Sam did have an inflatable with an outboard, and it could reach about thirty knots with two riders. That might catch up with Knox, but he didn’t want to use it unless absolutely necessary, because it would mean one of them had to stay back with the boat. More speed, less firepower. Still, it was an option that he might be forced to take if Knox kept traveling at high speed.

They got lucky. The boat stopped, and they caught up with it in about an hour. As they neared, Sam slowed
Slipstream
to a crawl and asked J.T. to take over. He and Simone went out to the bow, where he used the field glasses and spotted the craft tied up at a private dock along the Intracoastal. He couldn’t see anybody on the boat, and swept the glasses to the left. Party lanterns glowed around the back yard of what appeared to be a residence. Several people lounged on a patio next to a pool with lights underneath the water.

“Is he there?” Simone asked.

He handed her the glasses and she put them to her eyes.

“I couldn’t make out the faces of anyone,” Sam said. “Can you?”

“Just barely. A little closer and I might be able to.” After another minute or so, she said, “I don’t see anybody who might be Knox. All those guys are middle-age, or older.”

Sam took the glasses back and scanned the crowd. Sure enough, all of them were too old to be their guy. “Maybe this is the senator’s place and Knox is still on the boat with Lora.”

“Let’s go by slowly,” Simone said, “and check it out.”

As
Slipstream
idled past the boat, a man and a woman, both with gray hair, came out of the salon with glasses of wine in their hands and stepped onto the dock. They glanced at Sam and Simone and waved, headed for the party.

“Looks like a wild goose chase to me,” Simone said.

“Yeah, I wonder if Knox paid that dock master to tell us about this boat.”

“Could be. We could go back and give him some incentive to come clean.”

“Might as well. We don’t have any other leads.”

****

Harpo awoke to a man in his head selling cars. “How much do you think this baby is worth, Bubba?”

“I’d pay, oh, about twenty-two thousand for that car.”

“Would you believe I’m selling it for five thousand off the sticker? Just nineteen-thousand-five-hundred? I must be insane for selling cars at these prices.”

The homeless man tuned them out. He couldn’t imagine ever having that much money, and if somehow he ever did have it, he surely wouldn’t spend it on a car. Maybe buy Twyla and her boy a mobile home with air conditioning.

He heard the whine of a big diesel somewhere in the belly of the craft, and wondered how long he had been asleep. His stomach growled, and he tried to remember when he last ate. Probably the burger Simone bought him before they put him out at the hearse. At least eight hours ago. Surely they had food on this tub, but that would have to wait until his business got finished.

No light shone around the edge of the locker lid. Easing it open a few inches, he chanced a glimpse outside, but it was too dark to see anything. He climbed out and let the lid down. It slipped from his fingers and made a popping sound, so he stood there in the dark, listening to the engine and waiting to see if anyone had heard him. Nobody came running, so he slipped off his shoes and cat-walked down the side of the craft toward the wheelhouse, where he heard a man’s voice talking on the phone.

“You need to get that flash card and kill them all, especially Mackenzie. Otherwise, it’s going to blow up in your face. The end of your big career. Yeah, well, you should have thought of that before you hired that psychiatrist.”

It sounded like he hung up. The guy had been talking about a flash card and killing people. He wondered what kind of card that might be, and why the person on the other end had hired a psychiatrist. Somebody must have been crazy.

He continued his soft shuffle to a porthole close by and peered inside. All lit up in there. The guy they’d called Knox, who had shot him and Alton, sat at the helm, drinking a bottle of beer. He had a towel wrapped around his arm, probably where he’d been shot. Knox picked up the phone and punched in a number.

“Something else. You need to take care of that lawyer in the hospital in Miami I told you about. He’s trouble for sure. No, that’s all I have.” He hung up again and gazed out of the windshield.

This might be as good a time as any
, Harpo thought,
while the man is having his beer
.

Chapter Thirty-One

Instead of heading back to Sam’s boat slip, they set course for the marina where Knox had left the Cigarette, which was only a few miles farther south. When they neared the place, Sam’s phone chirped. He didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“This is acting chief of police Lonnie Cates in Iguana Key.”

Simone gave him a questioning look.

“What can I do for you, Chief Cates?”

“I’m trying to locate Lora Diamond. Her boss at the newspaper is in a panic. She called him earlier this evening and told him she was meeting a man in Marathon concerning this murder case we’ve been investigating. Then, before she hung up, she screamed and the connection died. He thinks she might have been abducted by the killer. Would you know anything about that?”

Sam didn’t want to say too much, but he didn’t want to jeopardize Lora’s life, either. Maybe the police could help. “She called me, too, and said the same thing. She had to go, and I couldn’t reach her after that. I wondered if something might have happened to her.”

After a long silence, Sam said, “You still there?”

“Yes, I’m here. I knew you and Lora had been talking a lot with each other.” He sounded like a jealous boyfriend, but seemed to catch himself and continued. “One of our officers did some research on you and said you were with Special Forces in the Navy.”

When Sam didn’t say anything, Cates sighed. “I hate to say it, but with the way Chief Boozler skipped out, we’re assuming he might be our killer. This job got dropped in my lap, and now I’m down a key police officer, too. I guess I’m in a little over my head and just wondered if there’s anything you can do to help us get Lora back.”

Lora had seemed to be in a big hurry when she’d called, but it sounded like she also phoned her boss after that. Sam supposed she wanted to touch base and let him know her status, since she’d been gone for an entire day checking on Charles Ford.

“What do you mean about being down an officer?” Sam asked.

“We tacked up some pictures around town of the type of boat Chief Boozler supposedly bought. This morning, a man called and said he thought he’d seen it in Cudjoe Bay, about twenty miles north of Iguana Key. Dudley Crew took the call and went to check it out. When he didn’t return, and we couldn’t reach him by phone, I sent another officer up there. He reported back that he’d found Dudley’s cruiser parked at a marina, but no Dudley. I can’t imagine any reason why he would’ve been kidnapped, so I presume something worse has happened to him.”

Crew was the one who’d tried to arrest Sam before the FBI guy came to the rescue. He looked like a guy who could handle himself.

“I think it was a bogus phone tip,” he said, “because we got another call about the boat being on Big Pine. I went up there myself and didn’t find anything.”

“Have you notified the FBI?” Sam couldn’t believe he had asked that question.

“No, but I suppose I should.”

Cates probably hadn’t been any more impressed with Special Agent Crease and his sidekick than Sam had been.

“Well, since you aren’t completely sure you have a kidnapping on your hands,” Sam said, “you might want to give it a day before calling them. They tend to take over when they come in.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s kinda what I thought, too,” Cates said.

If a forensics team combed over the Cigarette boat, they might find something that would help them capture Knox, and rescue Lora, if she was still alive.

“We went searching for her,” Sam said, “and tracked the Cigarette boat to a marina close to Miami. When we found it, it was damaged and empty.” He gave Cates the name of the place.

“Really? That’s great news. I’ll call the Miami PD and get them to look into it.” He thanked Sam, a couple of times.

“I’ll keep trying to contact her, and let you know if I get through.”

They hung up as J.T. came into the wheelhouse. Sam relayed the conversation to him and Simone.

“Wonder how many people he’ll kill before this is over,” she said.

“It won’t be over until somebody kills him,” J.T. said. “We need to get whatever information we can out of this marina guy and get out of there if the Miami PD is coming.” He frowned at Sam, never one to tell the police anything.

“Hey, it’ll probably take them an hour to arrive, and we’re about to turn in now.”

Slipstream
idled into the marina, and Sam parked it in an empty slip. J.T. stepped onto the dock and secured the lines. The three of them strode to the office and found a different manager at the desk. This guy resembled a TV wrestler; long hair, tattoos, and muscle bound. The nametag on his pullover shirt identified him as Stan. A bank of security monitors hung from the wall, covering each section of the marina.

“What happened to the guy who was here a couple of hours ago?” Simone asked Stan.

“He called and asked if somebody could relieve him early. His shift doesn’t normally end until 5:00 a.m. You looking for a slip for the night?”

It sounded like the last manager might have come into some money and wanted to go spend it.

“You have any boats missing?” she asked.

Stan stood up from the desk. “Not that I know of. What’s this about?”

“I’ll tell you what it’s about,” Sam said. “A drug dealer came into this place a couple of hours ago, and your co-worker let him steal a boat.”

Stan’s eyes narrowed as he clenched his fists. Veins stood out on his forearms. “You don’t look like cops.”

Sam’s patience was fraying by the minute. After going without any significant sleep for more than twenty-four hours, he didn’t have time for this. He pulled his 9mm and pointed it at the guy.

“We don’t have time for chitchat, Stan. Take a look at those security monitors and tell us which boat got stolen.”

The dock man’s eyes widened. He frowned at the gun for a few moments, and then turned to the monitors.

“Two of the yachts are missing.” He picked up a log on the desk. “The Carsons signed out a little after 10:00 p.m., but the McCabes are in Canada for the whole summer.”

The Carsons must have been the couple they’d followed up to Lauderdale.

“What’s the McCabes’ boat number?” Sam asked.

Stan sat down at his computer and clicked some keys. A picture of the yacht popped up. It was a sixty-footer, with the boat number clearly visible on the bow. The number also appeared in the corner of the screen, along with a GPS transponder code.

“Print that screen,” J.T. said.

Stan complied and handed it to him.

Sam put the gun in his holster and peered over J.T.’s shoulder at the printout. To Stan he said, “We’re with the DEA. Sorry about the gun, but we’re pushed for time. A drug dealer paid your co-worker to let him steal that yacht, and now we have to find it or an innocent woman will die. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“Is Roger in a lot of trouble over this?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Stan smiled as they went out the door.

****

Harpo twisted the lever on the door, eased it open, and stepped inside the semi-dark salon. It was like a plush living room, furniture and all. The helm was to his left at the far end of the room, raised about a foot above the salon level. Knox sat there, facing the instrument panel, his reflection in the windshield. That meant he might also see reflections from the salon, so Harpo got down on his hands and knees. The homeless man crawled along the bulkhead toward the step leading up to the wheelhouse. When he neared the corner of the room, Knox turned around, as if he’d seen or heard something, so Harpo ducked down behind a chair for a few seconds. When he peeked again, Knox had turned back around.

Loosening the slipknot on his wrist, he slid the machete out of his sleeve. The boat’s engine suddenly slowed to an idle, and Harpo felt the propellers reverse.
Must be slowing down to moor the boat
, he thought. A minute or two passed as the boat’s propellers went forward and then reverse, until the hull bumped against a dock. Expecting Knox to come out, Harpo made himself as small as he could behind the chair.

Knox descended the steps, just a few feet from Harpo, and strode through the salon to the door leading to the deck outside. Probably going out to tie up. The homeless man knew he couldn’t stay there, because Knox would surely be looking his way when he came back inside. He saw a door on the far side of the room, maybe a closet, so he stood, tiptoed over and opened it. Inside, he found a tiny room containing some type of equipment. The mechanism hummed like an air conditioner. Though the free space was limited, he sat down in the corner, pulled his legs in, and closed the door.

****

“I couldn’t find the GPS for the yacht,” J.T. said as Sam got
Slipstream
underway again.

“What do you mean? I thought we had the code for it?”

Shrugging, J.T. said, “We do, but it doesn’t show up on the tracker. Knox must’ve ripped it out.”

Simone got beers from the fridge and brought them into the wheelhouse. “Why don’t we chill for a few minutes and think about this? There has to be a way for us to find this guy. We have a picture of the boat he has, and he probably won’t paint over the numbers tonight.”

Sam took a long pull on the beer and set it down. “Can you check on Benetti’s location?” he asked J.T.

“Sure, I’ve been watching him off and on. The last time I looked, he’d made his way to South Miami.” He brought up the monitor program. “He’s still there, probably in for the night at a hotel or motel.”