Fallen Hunter (Jesse McDermitt Series) Read online

  2

  Thursday afternoon

  Two Days Earlier

  I’d been working hard for over four months. Working with my hands allows my mind to drift. The first week after my wife was murdered, I blamed myself. So, for the last eight weeks, while working to enlarge my channel and turning basin, I’d been thinking and rethinking the steps I’d taken. I finally came to the realization that sometimes shit just happens. You hear all the time about good things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people. Alex was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. That settled things in my head, but not my heart. In the first week it took me to come to grips with that, I’d finished the channel and basin, and then started on my island. Hurricane Wilma had sure made a mess of it. There was a lot of flotsam blown up onto the southern and western shore and quite a few trees knocked down by the high wind. I bagged all the small stuff that wouldn't burn and dragged the bigger pieces to the barge my friend Rusty had loaned me. It was his barge and backhoe that I’d used to dig the channel. My dog Pescador, helped by carrying and dragging assorted debris to me, from the water. He’s a Portuguese water dog and really big. Equally adept in the water as on shore, it was nothing for him to drag a large tree branch hundreds of yards through the water. Most of what he brought ashore, I piled on the fire in the center of the island.

  Alex and I found Pescador the day after the hurricane. He was stranded on a little island, no more than a sandbar really, just east of my tiny island. He's very intelligent and we were sure that he belonged to someone, but after having him scanned for a microchip, placing ads in all the south Florida papers and entering his picture and description on a Hurricane Wilma lost and found website, nobody had claimed him.

  When the work on the channel and island was nearly complete, I contacted a lumber yard and arranged to have a floating dock built and barged out to me, along with nearly three tons of building material. My first chore was cutting down a tall coconut palm that stood in the middle of a clearing I’d created a couple of years ago, in the hopes of planting a small vegetable garden. The soil proved to be too sandy and the groundwater too salty to grow much of anything. But, I still had hopes of one day maybe bringing in good topsoil and growing my own food. Lately, I’d been thinking of growing enough food for more than just myself.

  The clearing was now a landing zone for helicopters. A friend who helped me take down the men who murdered my wife works for the Department of Homeland Security and they’d offered me a job, of sorts. It involved moving men and materials to places around the Caribbean, aboard my forty-five foot Rampage fishing boat, Gaspar’s Revenge. He was the Team Leader of a new unit within the DHS that would be working to eradicate terrorist threats in the Caribbean Basin. Eradicate, by any means necessary.

  I figured that since I had an LZ, they might also need a dock and living quarters. Using Rusty’s backhoe, I’d attached the auger that was laying on the deck of the barge and ran two deep holes about two hundred feet out from the northern shoreline in eight feet of water. I ran the holes down a good twelve feet through limestone and ancient coral rock, until only five feet of the twenty-five foot long telephone poles stuck out above the high tide. When the floating dock and lumber arrived, I needed only to attach the dock to the pilings and anchor it on shore. I helped the men on the barge carry the lumber ashore and stack it at the northern edge of the clearing.

  The first thing I did was enclose the underside of my house with hardwood siding. The siding came from my friend Rusty Thurman, who owns a bar in Marathon. He had a huge lignum vitae tree come down in the storm and we'd sent it all up to a sawmill in Homestead. I now had four boats docked under the house and the siding would keep prying eyes from seeing them. Along with my forty-five foot Rampage, I had both mine and Alex’s eighteen foot Maverick Mirage flats skiffs, and a twenty foot Grady White center console that my friend Deuce Livingston had given me. It had belonged to his dad, who I’d served with in the Marines. His dad was murdered by the same men who killed my wife.

  Deuce had given me the boat and all his dad’s dive gear to sell for him. Rather than sell it, I’d made him an offer on it myself, intending to expand my charter business. He’d said he’d think it over, but then gave it to Alex and me as a wedding gift. Alex and Julie, Rusty's daughter, were launching it when Alex was abducted. I’d planned to just sink the thing, because of what it represented. However, after the weeks of working and thinking, I’d come to realize that it was just an inanimate object and it too was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, I kept her and painted the name Alex’s Revenge on the stern.

  I didn’t really need plans or a building permit for the work I was doing. The purchase of my island six years ago had the stipulation that it be improved and maintained as a fishing camp, within ten years. So, building two bunkhouses would solve that stipulation. I knew in my mind how they should be built and I’d simply turned the picture in my mind into reality. They were simple structures, built on a three foot high pier system. The piers were anchored on concrete footings, which extended five feet down into the limestone. Each building was identical, only twenty feet wide and thirty feet long, but flip-flopped and facing one another. Each one had six bunk beds and could house up to twelve people. Deuce had said his team consisted of about thirty people, but only half were field operatives. I figured my island might be able to be used as a remote training facility. I’d even put up a flag pole, centered between the two bunkhouses, with a concrete and shell base and a large stone grill with a chimney for cooking.

  I’d just finished the flag pole and was fishing for lunch off the pier. Truth is, it would have been easier to let Pescador do the fishing. I’d seen him catch fish by diving into the water many times. But, the weather was nice for January and I wanted to feel that yank on the end of the line. I’d put two nice snapper in the cooler, when I heard the sound of an outboard approaching from the south. I trotted across the island, which isn’t hard since it only covers a little over two acres. I climbed the steps to the deck and got my binoculars from the hook just inside the door. Looking out across the mangroves, I could see two people, a man and a woman, approaching in what looked like my friend Rusty’s skiff.

  I went down to the new dock I’d built on top of the spoils from the dredging. It ran alongside the channel from the house out about fifty feet, nearly to the main channel. My First Mate, Jimmy, and his girlfriend Angie, were tying the skiff to the dock.

  “Wow, dude,” Jimmy said. “You’ve done a lot of work out here.”

  Jimmy was a good First Mate, but also a stoner and he was obviously stoned now. So was Angie by the look of her eyes. Or, she’d been crying. I helped her up from the skiff and turned to Jimmy, saying, “What are you guys doing way out here?”

  “Ang needs to talk to you, man,” he replied.

  “Well, come on up to the deck, then,” I said.

  The two of them followed me up. Jimmy had been here a few times, most recently when he helped bring the boats out and to show me how to run the backhoe. “You completely closed in the docks?” he asked.

  “Yeah, had to,” I said. “A house way out here, with four boats parked beneath it would just invite scrutiny.” I suddenly realized that this was the first time I’d talked to anyone other than Pescador, in almost four months. Since the barge came that delivered the lumber.

  “Have a seat,” I said, pointing toward the built-in wooden table that served as both an outdoor dining table and a workbench. I opened a cooler sitting next to the bench and got out two cold, Jamaican Red Stripe beers and a bottle of water. The water was for Jimmy, who rarely drank alcohol. “What’s on your mind, Angie?” I asked.

  They both were looking out across the clearing, to the two new bunkhouses. “You planning on opening a fish camp or something, Jesse?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah, something like that. Now, what’s the problem Angie?”

  She turned back to look at me and her eyes were moist. No, she wasn’t high, I thou
ght. Something’s weighing heavy on her mind.

  “It’s my dad,” she said. “He’s a shrimper, out of Key West.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve met Carl a couple of times.”

  “The thing is, Jesse, about a month ago he got into smuggling weed. He didn’t want to, but he just wasn’t making ends meet with his boat, what with all the new taxes and regulations. One of his crew suggested it. Said he knew a guy that would pay him good to just hide a few bales in his boat, while he’s out trawling. He decided he’d try it and did it once. You know, just to see what he could make. Well, one thing led to another and he wound up making several runs for the guy. Now, he wants to get out of it, says he can’t justify the risk for the money. The guy threatened him, Jesse. Not just him, mind you. Dad’s a pretty rough guy and can handle himself okay. The guy threatened our family, though. I’m the oldest and I been helping him as much as I can. He and my stepmom have two little kids, my half-brother and half-sister. They’re just little kids, and the guy said that if he didn’t keep running the weed, he might come home from a trawl and find that they all died in a fire.”

  I listened to her politely, not seeing where I fit in. A lot of commercial fishermen have done the same thing. Hell, if it weren’t for my inheritance seven years ago from my grandpa, I might have been tempted.

  “So, why are you telling me all this?” I asked.

  Jimmy answered, “Carl needs help, man. He doesn’t have any family left here, besides Angie and the little kids. He respects you, man. I think you might be able to help him out, somehow.”

  “He respects me?” I asked. “We’ve barely nodded to one another over a beer at the Anchor. He doesn’t even know me.”

  “Jesse,” Angie said, “you could probably count the number of close friends you have on your fingers, but everyone knows you and knows you’re a stand-up guy. Can you at least talk to him?” Her eyes started to well with tears.

  “Does he know you came out here to see me?” I asked.

  Jimmy started to fidget on the bench, a sure sign that he was nervous about something. “Not exactly, man,” he said. “Truth is, Carl’s a proud dude and will probably try to handle this himself. I’m, er, that is, we’re worried he might get himself hurt, or worse.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go talk to him. Maybe we can come up with a way to get him off the hook with this guy without anyone getting hurt.”

  Angie hugged me around the neck and said, “Oh, thank you Jesse. You have no idea what this means to me.”

  “I can’t promise anything, Angie. He might not even cop to what he’s doing. And if he does, we might not be able to come up with an answer. I’ll go talk to him. Where’s he live?”

  She got a piece of paper and a pen from her purse and wrote down an address on Stock Island, the last island before Key West. I knew that most of the people that lived there were working stiffs. A lot of trailer parks. She said he’d be home for a couple days, before going back out. I agreed that I’d go down there tomorrow and asked Angie if there was a dock near his house. She gave me the name of a marina, just a couple blocks from his house. We talked about other things for a few more minutes, then Jimmy said they had to get back because Angie had to work. Once they left, I walked back and sat down on the bench. Pescador looked up at me, expectantly.

  “What do you think, Pescador?” I said. He looked across the clearing, toward the bunkhouses and the dock beyond and barked once, then looked back up at me.

  “I agree. Let’s go catch some more.”

  3

  Friday morning

  Civil War History

  I woke up the next morning, well before sunrise. As usual, Pescador was awake and laying on his old poncho liner when I walked into the living room. I walked over to the door and opened it. He waited until I nodded at him, then he was off like a shot, bounding down the steps at the back of the house to relieve himself on a banyan tree. I did likewise over the side of the deck. I went back inside and put on a pair of cargo shorts, a denim shirt and topsiders. Then grabbed my 'go bag' from the closet by the door. It's a small duffle that held all kinds of things that a boater might need if stranded, including a small case that held my Sig Sauer P226 nine millimeter semiautomatic pistols, and three magazines loaded with Parabellums.

  I wanted to stop by Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge to get a breakfast sandwich and catch up on the coconut telegraph with some fishing guides that were always there early in the morning. I’d been away from civilization long enough. After that, I planned to run on the outside, following the reef line down to Stock Island in the Grady White.

  I locked up the house and carried the bag down to the docks, along with a cooler full of ice, bottled water, and beer. I put them on the boat and untied her, then opened the door behind the Grady White and the skiffs. It was a tight squeeze getting all four boats under the house. The Revenge was nestled in the west side, with its own door. Alex's skiff was docked crossways in the back of the east side, with my skiff and the Grady in front of it. I whistled loudly and stepped aboard the Grady, starting the big Mercury 300 horse engine. The engine used to be on Alex’s skiff. She’d wanted more power for tournament fishing. It was way more than I would ever think of having on a flats skiff. It was only slightly bigger than recommended for the Grady. The engine raced for a second, then settled into a nice quiet burble.

  Pescador bounded down the steps and leaped aboard, as I put the boat in gear. I slowly idled out from under the house and once I was clear, I used the key fob that started the electric motor that pulled the door closed. Everything in my house is run off of ten deep cycle marine batteries, kept charged by a solar panel and wind turbine. Another button on the fob released the catch and the door opened by a large tension spring. As we idled through the tunnel created by the mangroves, I looked back at the house, as I always do. I’d built the place myself over two years ago with Alex in mind, even though she was 3000 miles away at the time. We’d only been friends, and occasional workout and swimming partners the first time she was here. That changed really fast when she came back. We were married within a week. I guess the turmoil of Hurricane Wilma speeded things along. Looking back at the house, I suddenly felt very lonely.

  I’d been alone before, many times. In fact, I’d been alone most of my life. Deployments to the Middle East, Grenada, Panama, Japan, and several other places, had cost me two prior marriages. I’d never really felt lonely, though. Not like this. There was still a huge hole in my heart that would probably never heal. The big dog up on the bow was now my constant companion. The man who’d killed my wife nearly killed me with a switchblade hidden in his shirt sleeve. He missed my heart by less than an inch, the doctor said. Pescador had leaped past me and tore the man’s throat right out of his neck. The dog had saved my life and best of all, he loved to fish as much as I did. Good thing, too. Because we ate fish for just about every meal. Right now, I wanted a ham and egg sandwich.

  Once I cleared my channel, I headed east toward Big Spanish Key, then into Big Spanish Channel and south into Bogie Channel. That would take me along the eastern side of Big Pine Key all the way down to the lodge. I knew the water really well and wasn’t worried about anything, except an early morning boater. The channels are well marked and I’d mounted a powerful spotlight to the bow, to light the way. I’m pretty sure that Pescador would alert me to anything before I could see it, anyway. The first sign of civilization was the bridge from Big Pine to No Name Key. We crossed under it and never saw a car on it. Of course, it was still well before sunrise and most of the folks on No Name live according to the sun, not the clock. Ten minutes later, we slowed as we neared the Old Seven Mile Bridge. The channel into Big Pine Key Fishing Lodge runs west between the old bridge and the new one, then turns south right where the bridges make landfall, then west again into the canal.

  I tied up at the gas dock and went ahead and topped off the tanks, before walking up to the ship’s store to eat and get my big Marine Recon coffee mug filled. I told
Pescador to wait by the door while I went inside to get us both a breakfast sandwich and fill my mug. I also bought a boaters guide book for the Florida Keys, that had GPS coordinates for lots of marinas. I walked outside and around the corner where the store had a couple of large picnic tables under an awning. I sat down with a couple fishermen I'd seen around and unwrapped both sandwiches. Putting one on the boards of the dock, Pescador wolfed it down in two bites, as I enjoyed mine.

  “You’re McDermitt, right?” one of the men asked.

  “Yeah, how ya doing? Don’t recall your name.”

  “Not surprised,” he said, “we never really met. You own that big ole Rampage, right? She here?”

  “Yeah, Gaspar’s Revenge,” I replied. “But no, just out and about in my Grady today. How’s the fishing been?”

  “About the same as always,” the other man replied. “Name’s Jackson and this here’s Willy T. We heard about what happened to you up in Miami. Damn shame. Really sorry for your loss.”

  “Thanks,” I said, but really hoped he’d change the subject. He did. We talked about fishing for a few minutes, while I enjoyed my sandwich and coffee. Willy T was a flats guide and Jackson was First Mate on a charter dive boat. The discussion turned to diving, which I was familiar with, then of course, turned to treasure.

  “Either of you ever hear about a wreck up in Fort Pierce called the Lynx?” I asked, just being conversational.

  “Sure have,” said Jackson. “She was supposed to have a French passenger aboard when the Yankee’s sunk her. Man by the name of Douzaine Lingots Dior. Story is he was negotiating with a light Colonel by the name of Abner McCormick, to provide funds for the southern cause. His body was never found. Ya know, you’re the second person to ask me about that wreck, in the last six months.”

  “Douzaine Lingots Dior?” I said. My French really sucked, I thought. Too bad Deuce wasn't here. I’m pretty sure Dior meant, though. I didn't think it was actually a name, at all.