Death Among the Mangroves (15 page)

Troy
nodded. “
Peter Matthiessen
. Think
about that book any time I'm camping out at the Watson Place on the Chatham River.”

“The Everglades is the third-largest national park in the continental U.S., the largest east of the Mississippi,” Groud said. “And among the most remote and least visited. You can't even make a cell phone call from most of it. May to November the mosquitoes can pick you up and fly away with you. The no-see-ums and deerflies can drive a man mad.”

“Hate deerflies,” Troy said. “No-see-ums, mosquitoes, just cover yourself in DEET. Deerflies, they think that only makes you taste spicy.”

“Tell me about it,” Groud said. “I get fishing clients still think Skin-So-Soft actually works. Or they rub themselves with dryer sheets. One hour out and they're begging me for the bug repellant. But you go in, deep in, to the Everglades and you're on your own. Nobody's gonna come get you out. Even some of the trees are poison. And what the gators don't eat, the boa constrictors swallow. We got constrictors that eat gators, and not small ones either. Man coming in striking distance of one of those hasn't got a prayer. And I'm not even talking moccasins, or sharks if you're in the water, or diamondbacks on dry land, what little of it there is. They're everywhere.”

“You sound like a tour guide,” Troy said. “A very scary one. You sure you're good for the Mangrove Bayou business community?”

The mayor grinned. “Sorry. I got a patter I give the clients as we motor out to the fishing spots. Stops them getting out of the boat to go pee in the trees. Are we gonna find that girl by Friday?”

“Probably not. And without some sort of clue as to where to look, probably never.”

Chapter 22

Thursday, December 26

The department cell phone rang at two a.m. Lee mumbled something into a pillow and picked it up and handed it to Troy. Troy was spending the night at her house. It was Milo Binder, who had picked up the tailing duty on Mark Stider.

“They're moving the boat,” Milo said. “I followed them to Snake Key. They're launching it from that little boat ramp by the Guide Club.”

“Who are ‘they'?”

“The kid and his dad. Dad's ride is a Mercedes GL SUV. Got a trailer hitch on it. Oh, and they got a canoe too, put that on top of the boat at the house and I guess they're taking it out too. Why would you need a boat and a canoe?”

“Maybe they need the canoe to get into some place the boat can't go. Soon as they actually leave, get over to the Snake Key boatyard. There's a list of gate codes in the armrest between the seats.” Milo was driving Troy's Subaru Forester.

“I'm sending Bubba too,” Troy said. “Can you launch the police boat? The Subaru has a trailer hitch.”

“Well, I suppose. Never did it before.”

“You have to turn that around to put the two-inch ball up,” Troy said. “Do you know how to do that?”

“Well, I guess so. But not sure about the launching part.”

“Then don't try that.” Troy's Subaru was stick shift and launching a boat on a slanted ramp was a little tricky for a human with only two feet. “Just get the trailer onto the car. Bubba and I will be down there ASAP.”

Troy called Bubba Johns and woke him up. Bubba ran the police boat. “Got an emergency,” he explained. “Does the police boat have AIS on its chart plotter and radar?” AIS, or the Automated Identification System, transmitted a signal from a ship that identified the blip on another ship's radar. Most of the better radar and chart plotter systems sold to yachtsmen also had this capability.

“Yeah. 'Course,' Bubba said. “Nothing but the best when we got that money from the big drug bust.”

At the boatyard, Lee Bell parked her red Corvette and Troy extricated himself from the passenger side. “Christ,” he said, straightening up and arching his back. “I'm pretty sure you crossed over a yellow line back there. Felt it in my butt.”

Bubba was there in a few moments in his pickup. Milo had hooked up the RIB, a 25-foot Rigid Inflatable Boat. “Your car didn't have the hookup for the brakes,” Milo said. “You think you can launch that boat with that little car?”

“Watch me. That car has all-wheel drive and a good engine. It can climb up the side of a building if I want it to.” Troy backed the RIB into the water while Bubba tended lines, then parked his Subaru and the empty trailer. “I want you to follow the Stiders' boat,” he told Bubba. “No lights, it's a dark night. Try not to clue them in to your presence.”

Bubba looked at the chart plotter which he had turned on. “If they got an AIS transmitter, they turned it off. But look at the radar. They're heading straight out the river channel into the Gulf.”

“Damn,” Troy said. “Thought they'd be leading us into the islands, maybe to where the girl's body is.” He thought a moment. “Tell you what. I'll go with Bubba. Milo, leave the Subaru here. Lee can take you home.”

Bubba eased the boat away from the boatyard pier and they slowly followed the Stiders out the Collier River channel. They were both glad to be wearing sweaters and windbreakers and those were barely enough. At least in December it rarely rained. Bubba had turned the chart plotter's backlight to Night mode so they didn't have that white glare in their eyes, and be visible from a mile off too. Troy used the binoculars but could see nothing ahead. Apparently the Stiders were running without lights too. Troy couldn't recall what phase the moon was in but it was not above the horizon and the night sky showed only stars. Troy had always enjoyed being out in the Gulf of Mexico at night. Usually even in summer the daytime storms settled down and the sea was calmer, just the stars wheeling overhead, the gentle action of the waves, the night around you like a warm blanket, the occasional flashing marker buoy light in the far distance to remind you that there were people who cared enough about you to light the way.

“They got a radar and use it, we're not going be a secret much longer,” Bubba said.

“No radar. I've seen the boat. Open boat. No hardtop.”

“I don't think they have the AIS system,” Bubba said. “Or they got it turned off. I turned ours off too, so's not to show up on their chart plotter.”

In the darkness Troy could more sense than see the islands covered with mangrove trees sliding past on either side of the channel. Bubba was using the lighted channel markers to steer by.

“Doesn't matter, so long as we have them on radar.” Troy pointed up at the radar antenna mounted on the hardtop above their heads. “Not like there's a big crowd out here tonight.”

In a few moments they were clear of the islands and in the open Gulf of Mexico. Troy recalled how, just months earlier, he had paddled his canoe out here one night and seriously thought of going on towards Mexico until the next storm he encountered killed him. That would at least end the nightmares that had plagued Troy for years, nightmares about killing a man in Tampa and then a boy some time later. Troy realized that Bubba had said something. “I'm sorry, thinking of something else,” he said.

“I asked if you want us to catch up to them or do we just follow them until one of us runs out of gas.”

“Bubba, I don't know. I didn't even have anyone watching the boat, specifically. I was focused on the kid's car. Let's see what they do. I mean, they're heading for Brownsville, Texas right now. That can't be the plan.”

They passed the sea buoy, actually here a marker made of a few telephone poles driven into the sand and angled in to support a single white light. Locals called it “the spider.” The boat lifted as they hit a gentle swell.

“This really is quite a boat,” Troy said, looking around.

“Drug money,” Bubba said. “Weren't for drugs, half the police departments in Florida would be driving old jon boats with British Seagull outboards.”

“I actually remember British Seagulls,” Troy said. “Not much for speed, but hell for loud. They were maybe five horsepower, but with a gearbox that could turn a big prop set for push rather than speed. One of those could push this boat at maybe two knots.”

“Well, we got twin Honda one-fifties on here,” Bubba said. “Can hit fifty knots easy, and twins are better, in case you hang one on an oyster bar and need to limp on home. More speed if we need it but that's scary. Les Groud wanted to put on two-fifties. I told him we would just kill ourselves. We put the rest of the money into new trucks instead.”

“They've stopped,” Troy said, looking at the radar. Bubba began to pull back on his own throttles but Troy stopped him. “Take us off to one side. Get us away from the river channel and the spider.” Bubba eased the boat back into gear and crept off a mile to one side. He put the boat into idle and they sat and watched the radar for half an hour, bobbing gently in small waves that had traveled far to greet them.

“The boat just picked up speed,” Bubba said. He was looking at the radar screen. “Heading straight out. And there's something, something small, behind the boat.”

“Canoe, most likely,” Troy said. “Take us wide around the canoe, follow the boat. Don't lose it.”

That was easier said than done. At its height above the water the radar had a range of about four miles. The Stider boat had twin outboards—Troy had seen them on the boat at the Stider's house and couldn't recall their size, but they were substantial. Once clear of the canoe and able to open the throttles without the Stiders hearing, Bubba had to push to keep the blip on his radar screen. Their shallow-vee fiberglass bottom let them plane but at the cost of comfort. Even in the low swell the RIB bounced and they had to hang on as they sped through the darkness.

Troy was wondering who would run out of gas first when Bubba spoke. “She's stopped.” In another few minutes they pulled up alongside the Stiders' boat. The sea was calm, with only the gentle swell. There was no one in the boat and it was sinking, the stern under water with the weight of its twin engines, the sides barely awash now, the bow high still.

“Bored holes in it and set the autopilot to take her out to sea,” Bubba said. “She ran until the engines went under and shorted out the electronic ignitions. Old insurance trick.”

“Boats today have built-in floatation,” Troy said.

“That's true, Chief. Boat shouldn't sink anyway but they usually load 'em up with cement blocks or sandbags.” Bubba came alongside and reached across to hold the side of the sinking boat. “Not gonna tie off to her. Don't want her taking us down too.”

Troy pulled his holster and pistol off his belt and laid that and his wallet on the RIB's center console. He jumped across to the sinking boat. He was in knee-deep water. He bent to feel. “It's sandbags,” he said. “Bubba, see that chart plotter on the center console? I want that. Get the chainsaw and cut the damn thing off the boat.” He held the two boats together while Bubba opened a storage bin and got out the chainsaw that they used for getting through mangrove branches in narrow channels.

“Not tying off. We don't need to have to swim for it,” Bubba said. “I'll hold on, you cut.” Bubba handed the chainsaw to Troy. Troy fired it up and in just a minute had cut into the console, through fiberglass and wiring, and separated out the chart plotter. He handed that and the chainsaw across to Bubba. He tried to toss out some sandbags but the boat quietly sank beneath him. Bubba leaned over and pulled him up and over the side of the RIB. Troy was grateful for the inflatable collar around the boat. Being hauled aboard a sailboat, he knew from experience, usually involved a lot of bruises.

“Mark this spot,” Troy said. “Maybe I can get someone out here who can pick that boat back up. How deep is it here?”

Bubba pressed the MOB button on the RIB's chart plottter. That was intended to instantly record the position of a man overboard so that the boat could be brought back to the exact location. They could get the latitude and longitude coordinates off it later. Bubba looked at the fathometer. “It's about forty feet. Easy dive. Pull out the sandbags and she'll likely come back up. Drop the engines—which we could do with tools—and the hull would pop up like a cork. Why you want that chart plotter so bad?”

“I'm not sure. But it's the brains of the boat, and its memory too. I want the hull because there's likely to be blood traces in it. Barbara Gillispie's DNA.”

“Why would you even think that?”

“That boat, with two big outboards, is pushing, and maybe more than, eighty thousand dollars,” Troy said. “The judge and his kid didn't sink it for the insurance. There has to be something on board they don't want us to find. I'm cold and wet. Take us home.”

Bubba pushed in the throttles and headed east, at a more moderate speed, toward the state of Florida and the sea buoy marking the Collier River entrance. “You want we should stop and pick up the guys in the canoe?” he asked. “Bet they're feeling a mite…
peaked
…by now.”

“They should be nearly back to their car. No, stay back from them. Let's keep our little secret as our little secret.”

Chapter 23

Thursday, December 26

Troy did his morning run, from the Sea Grape Inn on the beach, through town and out Barron Road on the causeway across Oyster Bay to Government Key and then back to the police station. He lifted weights, took a shower, and was starched and pressed in his “longs” at his desk at eight a.m. and watching the morning activity at the boat ramp when Juan Valdez walked in with a grin on his face.