Riptide

Riptide is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to any person, living or dead, is merely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

For Uncle Jim

Thank you for believing in me

T
he sky over Apalachicola Bay, in the Florida panhandle, had just gone from orange to pink, and then blue. Here and there, small, wooden oyster skiffs dotted the shallow waters, punctuating the start of the long oystering day.

Further out, larger shrimp boats, their nets spreading like pterodactyl wings, were coming to the end of their day. One of those boats belonged to Axel Blackwell, whose twenty-seventh cigarette was dangling from his lips as he watched his crewmen, Daryl and Petey, swing the second shrimp net over to hover above the deck.

Axel was tired and irritated. They’d been out since seven the night before, trying to harvest enough shrimp to pay the two crewmen, pay Axel, and still have money to pay for the fuel they’d need tomorrow night.

Shrimping was all Axel did and all he’d ever wanted to do. His father had made his living with this same boat for forty-five years, and his father’s father had died doing it, due to an unfortunate mixture of fuel leak and chain smoking.

Axel had come out to the bay straight from high school, and he was going to eke a living from it until either they drained the Gulf or the oil companies did it in for good.

He weighed the net with his eyes as Daryl moved in to untie the rope at the bottom that held it shut. This was a good load. As long as there were some nice big ones in there among all the peewees, they’d do all right.

Daryl, big as a truck and blacker than good dirt, yanked the knot loose and stepped back as the load poured out in a rush, spreading out somewhat before piling up in a heap at the center. Petey, small, wiry, and gray in the beard, hopped over a writhing sea trout as it slid right at him.

They all stared at the three hundred or so pounds of sea life and seaweed.

“Oh, my sweet dear Jesus,” Daryl said quietly.

Petey leaned over the side and threw up into the bay.

The tip of Axel’s cigarette flared up as he inhaled, then he let a finger of smoke escape his clenched lips.

“Crap,” he said. “We might want to get that crab off that foot there.”

Maggie Redmond’s long, dark hair whipped around her face as she ran the Sheriff department’s speedboat at full throttle across the bay. She turned around and looked at Wyatt Hamilton, her boss and the Sheriff of Franklin County, who was standing just behind her, holding onto the starboard rail.

“Hey!” she called. He looked over at her. “Steer for a second, would you?”

Wyatt stepped over and took the wheel, and Maggie dug a ponytail holder out of her jeans pocket and restrained her hair. She was short to begin with, but standing next to Wyatt, who was six-feet four, she always felt like she needed to stand up just a little straighter and display her holster a little more prominently.

Maggie took the wheel again, and Wyatt remained standing next to her.

“You know Axel Blackwell?” he yelled over the engine.

“Yeah, we went to high school together,” she yelled back.

“Straight shooter?”

Maggie couldn’t help laughing just a bit. “Yeah, you could say that.”

They were silent for a few minutes, as they passed St. George Island to the left, which sat five miles or so off the mainland. Hwy 300, or the causeway, or the bridge, depending on who was talking, connected St. George Island to the mainland like a suspended shoestring.

Maggie turned away from the sight of the bridge and focused on the water. Last week, a damaged but courageous young girl had floated off of the bridge in her pale yellow dress, having decided that dying was better than living the only life she’d been allowed to live.

After a few minutes, Maggie pointed out to the west.

“There’s it is,” she yelled.

It took them just a few more minutes to reach Axel’s boat, the
Ocean’s Bounty
, which had dropped anchor before Axel called Maggie.

Axel leaned over the port side as Maggie cut the engine and coasted over, then he grabbed the line Wyatt tossed at him. Maggie dropped a couple of bright orange bumpers into the water to keep the boats from scraping each other.

Maggie reached over to the bench seat and picked up her red crime scene case, a tool box really, and stepped up on the bench.

Wyatt stood aside and let Axel hand Maggie aboard first, then he grabbed Axel’s hand and did the same. Maggie and Wyatt both stopped in the middle of the deck and looked at the pile in front of them. Wyatt sighed, then looked at Maggie and waggled his eyebrows.

“Hey, Maggie.” Axel leaned back against the helm, drinking from an aluminum travel mug. “How’s it going?”

Maggie looked over at him and smiled. Axel had always been her favorite among her ex-husband David’s friends. They’d grown up together, and if she hadn’t loved David since fifth grade, she probably would have gone for Axel, though that would have been a mistake. He was a looker, in that rough, slightly scruffy way that some men were, but he wasn’t exactly marriage material, as his two former wives would attest.

“Not much, Axel, what’s going on with you?” she asked, setting her case down beside her.

His green eyes squinted under his beanie as he grinned. He pointed at the pile of shrimp with his hand. “We got an extra foot in our last load.”

Wyatt and Maggie, both with their hands on their hips, stared down at the pile of several hundred shrimp and one human foot that laid on the deck.

“Well then,” Wyatt said after a minute.

Maggie looked at Axel. “Where are the guys?”

“Below,” he said, taking off his beanie and running a hand through his brown hair before slapping the hat back on. “Daryl’s still discussing the situation with Jesus, and I got tired of watching Petey throw up his shredded wheat.”

Maggie nodded as she looked at the foot. It was actually most of a calf as well as a foot. Most of the flesh from the calf had been nibbled away by the sea life, leaving just the tibia and fibula bones to represent a former leg. The foot itself, however, was mostly intact. In fact, it still wore a man’s Docksider and a brown sock, which, without any flesh to hang onto, had crumpled around the bottom of the ankle. According to the shoe, they had a right foot on their hands.

“Did you guys touch it or anything?” Wyatt asked.

“Well, I tried to roll his sock up for him, but it didn’t take.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Maggie said, trying not to smile.

Axel nodded in agreement as he lit another cigarette. “Yeah, but my kids seem to like me.”

Maggie pulled a pair of blue latex gloves out of her case and started snapping them on. “Is this all that’s here? I mean, did you sift through the rest?”

“We kicked it around a little. There’s nothing else in there that’s not supposed to be.”

Maggie reached over and lifted the leg up a little by the end of the fibula. “Well, he wasn’t eaten by a shark,” she said, lifting the foot a little higher as Wyatt leaned over to look.

“It’s been cut,” he said.

Maggie turned the foot to get a look from the other side. “Yeah.”

Axel whistled around his cigarette. “You sure it’s a guy?”

“Yeah, look at the shoe.” Maggie turned the leg upside down to look at the sole. “Size 10.”

“I haven’t seen any missing persons reports come in lately, have you?” Wyatt asked.

Maggie broke her neck looking up at him. “Uh-uh.”

“If his DNA’s not in CODIS, we might have a little trouble identifying this guy,” Wyatt added.

“Yeah,” Maggie laid the foot back down.