Collateral Damage (2 page)

We were drifting slightly in the current as it ran toward Longboat Pass and the Gulf of Mexico. The tide was going out, but in our area of Florida the tidal range is not great and the outgoing tides are gentle. The engines were running in case I had to move quickly to dodge a sandbar or another boat.

It was nearing ten o'clock in the evening. An onshore breeze brought the scent of the Gulf's brine, a pleasant tinge redolent with the hint of the beauty of the ever-changing water that lapped gently on our beaches. The lights of
Dulcimer
, a dinner cruise boat owned by a local restaurant reflected off the dark surface of the bay as she made her way slowly north toward home, full of satisfied diners who'd taken the evening dinner cruise.
Dulcimer
was one hundred-ten-feet-long and twenty-eight feet on the beam. She was big and slow and stately and looked like an old Mississippi
River steamboat. She was powered by diesel engines and the paddle wheel at her stern was just for show. She was about two hundred yards south of us, running the narrow channel to the west of the Sister Keys, chugging along at ten knots or so. As she neared, strains of music floated across the water, a pleasant counterpoint to an almost perfect evening.

The channel that runs north and south along the western edge of the Sister Keys doglegs around a sandbar that has pushed out from the lagoon that separates Longboat Key from Jewfish Key. The captain on a northerly course must turn about thirty degrees to the east and then back to the west. We watched as
Dulcimer
made the turn to the east. She kept coming. No turn back to the west. She was on a collision course with my boat.

I jumped to the helm and pushed the throttles forward, moving swiftly across the bow of the oncoming vessel. I knew there was a sandbar lurking just behind where we'd been fishing, and if the captain didn't get back on course in the next few seconds, he'd be piling up on the bar.

I turned to my left, paralleling the course of the larger boat. The pilot house was dark, but the decks were lighted. I could see people sitting at the tables, walking around with drinks in hand, leaning against the railings of the open upper deck. The music was still playing, an old rendition of “La Vie En Rose.” I wasn't sure if it was Edith Piaf singing, but it sounded like her.

As I passed amidships of
Dulcimer,
she went dark. The lights and the sound quit at the same instant. No lights on the decks, no running lights. Nothing. A ghost ship was slipping by my port side, dark and foreboding. The sounds of surprised guests getting louder as panic set in.

The boat came to a shuddering halt. It had found the sandbar. I heard tables and glassware shifting and breaking. Screams of panic and pain drifted over the water. I'd been reaching for my radio microphone when the lights went out. “Mayday! Mayday! Coast Guard Cortez, Coast Guard Cortez, this is
Recess
.”

The radio jumped to life, a calm female voice at the other end of the ether. “
Recess
, this is United States Coast Guard Cortez. What is your emergency?”

“This is
Recess
. I'm at the northern tip of the Sister Keys. The
Dulcimer
dinner boat just ran hard aground. I can hear screams coming from
the passengers. It looks as if several are in the water. I'll try to pick them up.”

“I'm sending boats,
Reces
s. Stand by on channel sixteen.”

“
Reces
s, standing by sixteen.”

I was shining my spotlight on three heads bobbing in the water. I eased
Recess
toward them, put the engines in idle, and drifted. Logan was at the stern, the transom door open, the ladder down, a boat pole in his hand. He helped bring the waterlogged people aboard, told them to sit down on the cockpit floor. Logan dug into the bag of towels in the cabin and gave one to each of our passengers.

I kept the spotlight moving, but didn't see any more heads. Some of the passengers had apparently gone overboard from the open deck when the boat ran aground. Several of them were standing near the bow, the water up to their knees.

“The Coast Guard is coming,” I called to them. “Stay where you are.”

Less than ten minutes after my radio call to the Coast Guard, I heard sirens whooping in the distance. I looked to the north and saw two boats, blue lights flashing, racing toward us. The Coast Guard station was only a couple of miles north of our position.

I picked up my microphone. “Coast Guard Cortez, this is
Recess
.”

“
Recess
, this is United States Coast Guard Cortez.”

“Coast Guard, this is
Recess
. I have three people aboard, no casualties. I'm standing by near the stern of
Dulcimer
. I see your boats approaching.”

“Standby,
Recess.

“Roger, Coast Guard.”

I turned to the people we'd brought aboard. “What happened?”

“I don't know,” said a middle-aged lady, shivering in a towel-draped sundress. “We were on the top deck when the lights went out and the next thing I knew, we were in the water.”

The other woman and the man with them murmured agreement.

I watched as the Coast Guard boats pulled alongside
Dulcimer
. Men in blue uniforms boarded carrying flashlights. I waited, playing with the throttles, keeping
Recess
in the middle of the channel, awaiting orders.

After a few minutes I heard a motor turn over, the sound coming from
Dulcimer
. Then the lights came on and music again played over the water. One of the Coasties had gotten the generator working. The music stopped. The gay evening was over. Time for the work to begin; to find out what happened.

I heard a siren and saw a boat coming from the south, blue lights announcing another law enforcement vessel. It was the Longboat Key Police boat. The cop at the helm recognized my boat and pulled alongside.

“What the hell happened, Matt?”

I told him what I'd seen and that I'd picked up the three passengers from the water.

“I've been listening on the radio,” he said. “I've got ambulances coming to Moore's. We can offload any injured at the docks there.”

“You've got some people in the water up by the bow,” I said. “They're going to start getting cold.”

“I'll go get them. Why don't you get these folks names and take them to Moore's so the paramedics can take a look.”

He went around me and moved slowly into the shallows to pick up the people on the sandbar. I crossed the channel running almost due west, past the southern tip of Jewfish Key and across the lagoon to Moore's Stone Crab Restaurant. I saw a sea of flashing blue lights in the parking lot. I maneuvered into the dock and cut the engines. Logan and I helped our passengers off the boat and turned them over to the paramedics.

“You ready for a drink?” I asked Logan.

“Damn right.”

I picked up the microphone. “Coast Guard Cortez, this is
Recess
.”

“This is United States Coast Guard Cortez.”

“This is
Recess
. I've dropped my three passengers off at Moore's with the paramedics. I'll be inside in case your people need to talk to me.”

“
Recess
, did you get their names?

I gave them to her, told her my cell phone number, signed off, and headed for the bar.

It was late by the time the Coast Guard accident investigator called me. He'd had to drive down from St. Petersburg. He told me that they'd inspected
Dulcimer
and didn't think there was any structural damage. Just a bit of bottom paint scraped off the bow where it ran up on the sandbar. They'd kept the passengers aboard and were going to tow the boat back to its dock at the restaurant. Other than a few scrapes and bruises, there did not seem to be any casualties, except for the captain. He'd apparently had a heart attack or a stroke and died at the helm. The investigator said he'd call me the next day and come by and get a statement.

It was midnight and my friend Debbie the bartender was trying to kick us out. Logan and I had been joined by a few other villagers who were interested in all the commotion out on the waterway. We filled them in on what we knew, and after I talked to the investigator, they all knew as much as I did.

Logan paid our tab and we walked down to the dock and boarded
Recess
. I pulled away from the dock and threaded my way around the sand-bars and idled toward my cottage. We could see the activity over on the Intracoastal where two small towboats were hooking up to the bow of
Dulcimer
. They'd see her home.

“I wonder why they don't just take her home under her own power,” I said.

“Gotta pay the towboat captains anyway. Might as well make them work for their money.”

“Probably makes it easier to justify calling them out in the first place.”

“The bureaucratic mind,” said Logan, “never fails to amaze me.”

I slid
Recess
into her home berth, tied her off, and told Logan I'd wait until morning to wash her down and flush the engines. “I need sleep.”

“Me too,” he said. “I'll check in with you tomorrow.”

Logan went to his car, and I opened the back patio sliding glass door and went in to bed.

My cell phone rang, waking me from a troubling dream of soldiers falling off boats into subtropical waters. Daylight was creeping through my windows overlooking the bay. I looked at my watch. A few minutes after six. I rolled over and picked up the phone.

“Matt,” a soft voice said “this is J.D. May I come by with the Coast Guard investigator and talk to you?”

“Sure. When?” I was puzzled as to why she was calling me so early.

“Now. There's been a bad turn on the
Dulcimer
grounding.”

I sat up in bed, a little surprised. It had seemed pretty routine last night.

“Give me ten minutes to jump in the shower and put some coffee on.”

“We'll be there in fifteen,” she said, and hung up.

J. D. Duncan was my friend and Longboat Key's only detective. She'd spent fifteen years on the Miami-Dade police force, ten as a detective, and the last few as assistant homicide commander. When her mom died and left her a condo unit on the key, she'd decided to leave the stress of Miami and join us in paradise. She'd gotten the job with the Longboat Key Police Department a few months before and had quickly become part of our island community.

I took a quick shower, put on a clean T-shirt and cargo shorts, and set the coffee dripping. My doorbell rang. I opened the front door to find J.D. standing next to a tall man in civilian clothes whom she introduced as Chief Warrant Officer Jacobi. The Coast Guard accident investigator.

The dectective was in her late thirties, stood five feet seven inches tall, and wore her dark hair just short of shoulder length. Her green eyes could stare down a criminal or crinkle in happiness. She had a smile that made you just want to get up and dance, a straight nose, laugh wrinkles bordering her eyes, and a complexion that could only have been the result of good genes and skin care products. She was slender, small waisted and long legged with full breasts that could not quite hide beneath her clothes.

I invited them in and poured coffee for each. We sat in the living room. Jacobi was a couple inches taller than I and weighed thirty pounds less. He wore civilian clothes, was about forty years old, had a head full of brown hair with some gray starting to show at the temples. His nose was a bit small for his angular face and his chin had that tucked in look that you get with a large overbite. A chipped left upper incisor would have given him an odd smile. He seemed to be a serious man and I doubt that he smiled much.

“We've got two murder victims on
Dulcimer
,” J.D. said.

That brought me upright. “Murder victims?”

“Yes,” said Jacobi, his voice rumbling in the deep register I'd heard on the phone. “They were both knifed and thrown overboard.”

“What's going on?” I asked, trying to get my head around this new piece of information.

“Did you see anything that looked out of the ordinary?” he asked.

“You mean other than a hundred-ten-foot boat running hard aground and throwing passengers into the water?”

“You know what I mean,” he said.

“If you're asking if I saw any bodies, the answer is no.”

Jacobi looked hard at me for a moment. I suspected he had practiced that stare in the mirror, the better to intimidate witnesses. I wasn't impressed. I looked back passively, waiting for another question. He broke eye contact, looked over at J.D., shrugged.

“One of the victims was the husband of the woman you fished out of the water,” J.D. said.

“What do you know about them?” I asked.

“The husband was a fifty-two-year-old lawyer from Jacksonville named Peter Garrison,” said J.D. “The other victim was a twenty-five-year-old woman from Charlotte, North Carolina.”

“When did you find them?”

J.D. took a sip of her coffee. “A few hours ago. When the Coast Guard got
Dulcimer
back to the dock, we let the passengers off. No reason to hold them. The paramedics brought the woman you picked up,” she paused, looked at her notes, “Mrs. Betty Garrison, from Moore's over to
Dulcimer's
berth. She couldn't find her husband. It seems she'd gone to the
upper deck to have a cigarette and left her husband in the dining area on the second deck. She was leaning on the rail and when the boat hit the sandbar, she was tossed into the water.”

“Where were the bodies?” I asked.

“Washed up on Sister Keys, right near where
Dulcimer
went aground.”

“Who's the young woman?” I asked.

Jacobi broke in. “According to her driver's license, she is Katherine Brewster, single, lived with her parents. I had to break the news to them about thirty minutes ago.”