Fallen Angel: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 9) (14 page)

“Cross?” Sheena asked. “Congressman Nick Cross?”

“Nobody told you that?” I asked, turning up the volume on the VHF.

“I was told it was a political figure,” she replied. “But a United States congressman?”

Taking the mic, I turned to her and studied her face. “A dirtbag’s a dirtbag, Sheena. Doesn’t matter what his job is. Did they at least tell you what he’s suspected of?”

“Conspiracy to commit murder,” she replied.

“Yeah, his own daughter and mother-in-law.” Before she could say anything, I keyed the mic and spoke into it. “Downtown Marina, this is
M/V Gaspar’s Revenge
.”

A woman’s voice answered back immediately. “
Gaspar’s Revenge
, this is Downtown Marina. Go to channel seventy-two, Captain.”

I switched channels and hailed the woman again. When she answered, I told her I needed fuel and asked directions to the fuel dock.

“The fuel dock is outboard at the center of the tee dock, Captain. You can’t miss it. We have a falling tide. Please dock on your port side.”

“Roger that, Downtown Marina. I could use some help at the dock with the lines.”

“Ten-four, Captain. The Dockmaster will be there in just a moment.”

I thanked her, switched back to channel sixteen, and turned to Sheena. “All you’ll have to do is toss the bowline to the guy on the dock. It’s coiled up there on the foredeck. Once he has it secured, the wind and current will push us toward the dock and I’ll jump down and tie off the stern line.”

“The girl and the older woman I met at the house before you came in? Is that the daughter and mother-in-law?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Swell guy, huh?”

Nearing the mooring field, I brought the
Revenge
down off plane and idled toward the marina. A slight man in a blue work shirt was standing to the right of the fuel pumps. I assumed he was the Dockmaster and pointed the bow about twenty feet to the right of the pumps.

Sheena climbed down, and I watched as she attempted to step up onto the side deck in her tight skirt. Finally, she just hiked it up, exposing most of her thighs, then stepped quickly up onto the gunwale in bare feet. She’d left her jacket and holster in the salon. As she made her way across the foredeck, the wind caught at her blouse and skirt, tightly outlining her body.

“Be careful,” I called down. “There are sharks in the water.”

“Oh, please,” she shouted back. “Sharks aren’t in rivers.”

“This isn’t fresh water. More like a large bay with lots of islands in it.”

I crept the
Revenge
slowly forward, a little above an idle, still ten feet from the dock. When we were positioned alongside the fuel dock, I dropped the throttles to slow idle, barely moving against the current, and let it push us toward the floating dock.

Still five or six feet away, Sheena tossed the line to the Dockmaster, but missed him by several feet. The line fell to the dock and he quickly grabbed it, looping the end through the dock cleat and hauling the line in as the current continued to drift the boat toward him. Once he had it secured, I cut the engines and scrambled down to the cockpit. I quickly tied off the stern line and stepped over to the dock.

“Thanks,” I said. “My passenger isn’t a boater. Name’s Jesse McDermitt.”

The man extended his hand. “Michael Bradley, Captain. That sure is a beauty. How much fuel will you need?”

“About four hundred gallons,” I replied, fishing my wallet out of my back pocket and handing him my debit card.

Bradley looked at it a moment. “State Bank of the Florida Keys?” he asked. “You sure are a long way from home.”

“Do you have a ship’s store here?” I asked as Sheena awkwardly slid over the gunwale in her skirt. “My friend could use some proper footwear.”

“Sure,” Bradley replied. “Straight across from the end of the dock. Tee shirts and shorts, too.”

“Pet supplies?”

“Food bowls and a few kinds of dog and cat food. Not much selection, though.”

“Here,” I said to Sheena, handing her a hundred-dollar bill. “Get me two big bowls and some dry dog food, and get yourself something to wear. You look really out of place.”

She snatched the bill from my hand and slipped her pumps on her feet. Without a word, she turned and stalked off toward the end of the pier.

Making small talk with Bradley while the pump groaned monotonously, I looked toward the boardwalk, where the takedown would take place. The city had installed a number of swings, each one wide enough for four people. The uprights supporting them were grown over with some kind of climbing ivy. There wasn’t anyone on the long dock, which I remembered being where river cruise ships would tie up sometimes.

Looking all around, my eyes always searching for a hide, I found a number of possible locations where a shooter would have a good view. The old swing bridge was manned, a small glass house built into the cage of the swinging part of the bridge. That was the highest point around. Downriver about half a mile, the ever-popular sandbar was just beginning to appear. Tomorrow’s low tide would be almost an hour later, so that was a possibility. A couple of the restaurants on Bay Street had open-air seating on second-floor decks as well.

Before Sheena returned, the Dockmaster finished filling the main tanks and brought me a receipt to sign. “Where are y’all heading?”

“We’re here a couple of days,” I replied. “Going over to Lady’s Island Marina right now, to see a friend at Butler Marine.”

I stuffed the receipt and credit card into my wallet as I noticed Sheena striding toward me on the dock. She wore a bright yellow bikini top, narrow-waisted khaki cargo pants, sunglasses, and boat shoes. She carried a canvas bag on her shoulder that looked like it was stuffed to the gunwales. As did the bikini top.

She only slowed to hand me the bag before stepping down into the cockpit and climbing to the bridge. “Cast off the lines when you’re ready,” she called down to me.

“Looks like you got your hands full, Captain,” the Dockmaster said, grinning conspiratorially. “I’ll get your bowline.”

Stepping aboard, I dropped Sheena’s bag in the fighting chair and untied the stern line, then quickly climbed to the bridge. At the helm, I eased the boat forward against the current, taking the tension off the bowline. The Dockmaster quickly untied the line and expertly tossed it onto the wide foredeck, giving the bow a shove away from the dock.

“How far is it to where we’re going from here?” Sheena asked as I reversed the starboard engine and swung the bow out further until it crossed the direction of the current flow. Once the moving water caught the hull, I shifted both engines to forward and the
Revenge
moved slowly away from the dock diagonally, not really making any headway against the current.

“Just under the swing bridge,” I replied, pointing with my chin and bumping the throttles up a little. “Then about a mile up Factory Creek. I don’t suppose there was any change, was there?”

“Change?” Sheena said with a laugh. “You only gave me a hundred. The dog food and bowls were almost that much. Why is everything so expensive here?”

“Prices in marinas are always higher,” I replied. “They have a captive audience.” Glancing over at her, I noticed for the first time that her skin had a deep, radiant tan. The yellow bikini top accentuated it. “You clean up pretty good. Wear that to the bust and Cross might not even notice the guns pointed at him.”

“Too much skin?”

“Not from where I’m sitting,” I replied with a lecherous grin. “Best Benjamin I’ve blown in a long time.”

A few minutes later, we idled under the swing bridge and I turned the
Revenge
to the right, following the deeper water close to the bridge. I swung wide around the marker showing the entrance to Factory Creek. Idling slowly up the creek, we passed several sailboats swinging on mooring balls. Beyond them a number of powerboats were gathered around a dock at a boat ramp, some launching and some recovering.

An antique-looking red powerboat was tied up to the wrong side of the dock. Like most docks in the area, it was aluminum and rested on floats. A number of pilings on the up-creek side kept it in place with welded brackets and rollers around the pilings. Not a good place to tie off. The engine cover, aft the red boat’s cockpit, was raised, and a man was leaning down into the engine bay. A woman slouched against the seat back, arms crossed, shouting a steady stream of obscenities at the man, at the boat, the creek, and everyone around them.

I grinned, remembering back to earlier times, when Pap and I would sit on the docks and watch the comings and goings of boaters. Pap called it Dockside Follies. He could point out the people who were boating novices even before they’d launched their boat. We’d seen our share of mishaps and calamities.

Reaching for the mic, I contacted Lady’s Island Marina and got a short-term dock assignment and directions. A few minutes later, we were tied off and I shut down the engines.

“The boat dealership is just across the street,” I told Sheena. “You’re welcome to come along.”

Walking through the parking lot, Sheena asked, “Why are you adopting a dog so far from where you live? They don’t have dog pounds down there?”

I had to think about that a second. Why was I agreeing to take care of this dog? It wasn’t out of loneliness. I live on a small island, well away from any roads, but I’m hardly a hermit. My island’s caretakers, Carl and Charlie Trent, also live on the island with their two kids, and Chyrel was a semipermanent resident as well. My daughters, Eve and Kim, visit at least every other weekend. Kim’s in college in Gainesville, and Eve lives in Miami with her family. Toss in the occasional visits from members of Deuce’s team, and my little island is easily overrun. Up until about six weeks ago, Linda was a visitor every weekend too.

Has it been six weeks already?
I asked myself.

“The dog matches my personality,” I finally replied as we crossed the road to the dealership. I couldn’t help notice the tops of Sheena’s breasts bouncing as we picked up our pace across the highway.

“You mean he’s growly, blunt, and to the point?”

I grinned at her as we walked through the parking lot. “I’m not growly,” I growled jokingly. “I’m told that the dog’s a waterman. We tend to be cliquish.”

A couple of used boats were parked at the front of the parking lot, one of them catching my eye. It was an older Grady-White, a little smaller than the twenty-footer I’d given to Carl and Charlie. They’d needed something solid and reliable to ferry the kids to the dock on Big Pine Key to catch the school bus. This Grady looked to be in pretty good shape.

Holding the door for Sheena, I followed her through, taking off my sunglasses. At the service desk, I asked the woman where we could find Lindsay Spencer. She pointed around to the side of the showroom. “First office on the left,” she said.

When I entered the office, the first thing I noticed was the yellow lab snoozing beside the desk. He sat up immediately, ears high and alert, with his head cocked at an angle. He seemed to be studying me, a quizzical, playful look in his bright amber-colored eyes. There was just the slightest sparkle of salt on his coat, as if he’d been swimming not long ago and dried in the sun.

“Can I help you?” a young woman asked, looking up from her computer.

“If you’re Lindsay,” I replied. “I’m Jesse McDermitt. This is my friend Sheena Mason.”

She rose quickly and extended her hand. “Yes, I’m Lindsay. I’m so happy to meet you, Jesse. Celia has told me quite a bit about you and where you live.”

The two women shook hands, and Lindsay invited us to sit in the two chairs in front of her desk. The dog rose and came toward me, studying my face before sitting down within arm’s reach. I held my hand out and let him get a noseful, then scratched his neck behind his ear. It was obvious he wasn’t quite fully grown. He still had that sort of clumsy and ungainly appearance large-breed puppies have for the first year. As I ran my hand down his flank, it was equally obvious that he was already a powerful animal. Glancing down at his paws, I knew he’d grow into a very large dog. They were nearly as big as my fists.

“Finn likes you,” Lindsay said. “I’ve found him to be a pretty good judge of character.”

“Most dogs are,” I replied. “Some inner sense they have seems to give them the ability to know good people from bad, I think. So, you’re moving and can’t take him with you?”

“I’ve been offered a partial scholarship and internship at a naval engineering school in England. I’ll be working and attending classes ten to twelve hours a day, six days a week, sharing an apartment, or flat, as they say, with another student.”

“That doesn’t leave a lot of time for an active dog.”

“No,” Lindsay replied, sitting back down. “And Finn is very active. Celia told me how close you’d become with her dog when he was lost. She also said you live on a private island. What’s it like?”

“He wasn’t a difficult dog to care for,” I said. “My island’s not very big, maybe two acres at low tide. The island’s caretakers also live there with their two kids. Is Finn good with little kids?”

“Oh, yeah,” she replied smiling. “He tends to wear my niece and nephew out when they visit. They’d take him, but dogs aren’t permitted in their apartment building. Are there clams where you live? Finn loves clams.”

Pointing to a framed picture on Lindsay’s desk, Sheena said, “I can see that.” In the picture, a slightly younger Finn had his big paws up on a dock somewhere, a clam in his mouth.

“There’s plenty of clams all around my island, and the water between it and several other islands is ankle-deep at low tide. I assume he likes the water and boats?”

Lindsay scrolled through her cell phone and showed me a picture of Finn sitting on the casting deck of a small boat, the bow spray flying out to either side. He was sitting up straight and facing forward, his ears raised in an unnatural position, lifted by the wind.

We talked for several minutes more, mostly about what life for Finn would be like on my island. I’d already decided that he wouldn’t accompany me on anything dangerous, so I saw no need in telling the young woman about what I sometimes do.