Bitter Legacy: A Matt Royal Mystery (Matt Royal Mysteries) (13 page)

I put the fixings in the coffee maker, went to get the paper off the front stoop. The police car was disappearing around the corner, headed out of the village. Steve, or somebody, had stayed until dawn.

I went back to the living room to watch the day unfold from the night. I opened the sliding glass door that led to the patio, drank in the light air that blanketed the bay, the scent of the sea tickling my nose. The water was flat, without a ripple, reflecting the pastoral scene of trees that hugged the shore of nearby Jewfish Key. My boat rested in her slip, inviting in her stillness, as if she were beckoning me aboard, needing to run with the dawn, like a good horse in an open pasture, just for the hell of it. I was sorely tempted. But not this morning. Jock would be here soon, and we’d go about the dirty business of ferreting out those who would harm us.

I flopped onto my favorite lounge chair on the patio, read the paper, and sipped at my coffee. A front-page article recounted the deaths on Fruitville Road on Monday. There were few details, and the names of the witnesses, Logan and me, were not printed.

There wasn’t much else to the paper. The usual problems in the Middle East, drought in Africa, floods in Bangladesh, a terrorist cell unearthed
in London. I put it down in disgust. Our little island, so isolated from those problems, was in the paper, right beside the tragedies. Sometimes, real life intrudes into our slice of paradise.

I thought about the treasure Abraham had mentioned in his letter. What could it be? Abraham was not one given to flights of fancy. At least that was my impression during our brief meeting. He was a historian of sorts, having absorbed the oral traditions of his people as he grew up on Andros Island among the descendants of the Black Seminoles who had migrated there eight or nine generations ago. He was serious about his heritage and accepting of his people’s fate. They had once, not so many years before, been known among other Bahamians as the “wild Indians of Andros.” They eked out a living fishing the flats that surrounded the northern end of Andros where their settlement, known as Red Bays, hung precariously to the northwest corner of the island.

When Abraham had been a boy, the settlement enjoyed a modicum of prosperity, brought about by the abundance of sponges in their waters. They harvested the creatures and sold them to American buyers who turned them into bathroom sponges. Then, in the 1930s, a fungal infection attacked the sponges and depleted their numbers to the extent that it was no longer feasible to harvest them. The industry died, and with it the prosperity of the Black Seminoles of Andros.

I knew that Abraham had left the island many years before and worked the fishing boats out of Key West. He was now retired and protected the traditions of his people, trying to pass them down to the newer generation. The young people of Andros, even those who still thought of themselves as Seminoles, had become assimilated into the larger Bahamian culture. They did not speak the ancient language and had little use for the ramblings of an old man who would teach them of a people who, in effect, no longer existed. But Abraham persevered.

Had he come across something that could bring prosperity to his people? It sounded that way from his letter, but what could make them rich? He said he would need legal counsel to perfect their claim. But claim to what?

I would have heard from Bill Lester if Abraham had regained consciousness, and I hadn’t. I’d call the hospital later to see if I could get a
progress report. I suspected the only way I was going to learn what Abraham had found was if he told me. And he’d have to survive a nasty head wound to do that.

I didn’t practice law anymore. I wasn’t sure that Abraham had understood that. I’d told him in our one meeting that if I could ever be of help to him on Longboat Key, to give me a call. I hadn’t meant legal help. In fact, I don’t think I meant much of anything. My comment was more of an expression of gratitude for the help he’d given me. I had not expected to ever see him again, but I would have gladly entertained him and put him up had he come my way. It never occurred to me that Abraham would need legal help, or that he would think I could provide it.

I heard her before I saw her. A powerful go-fast boat coming up the Intracoastal. She came into view rounding the head of Jewfish Key, not slowing for the no wake signs that guarded our lagoon. She turned north, running in close to shore on my side of the water. A shiver went up my spine, a memory of another go-fast with a rifleman tugging at my consciousness. I’d been here before, a little déjà vu, but in another time and place. That day, I’d been jogging on the beach when somebody took a potshot at me. I’d survived.

Clarity sometimes comes in a flash, quick and bright and serious. I knew in that moment that somebody in that boat was going to try to kill me. I rolled out of the lounge, wishing for the pistol I’d left on my night-stand. But it wouldn’t have helped. The boat slowed, came off plane, settled in the water, making way slowly. A man rose from the passenger seat, stepped back behind the driver. He lifted a weapon to his shoulder. It took me a moment to recognize it. An RPG. Rocket Propelled Grenade. Enough explosive to take out a helicopter, or my house. He was bringing the launcher into position, pointing at my patio, his face split by a grin, ghoulish in its intensity. The driver was giving me the finger. My senses sharpened, as they once did in jungles filled with the enemy. My eyes bored in on the man with the launcher. His finger was tightening on the trigger mechanism. He was about to blow me to hell.

The man was dressed in scrubs, those blue loose fitting clothes that are ubiquitous in hospitals and doctors’ offices. The shirttail was outside his pants, large pockets on either side, a place for stethoscopes and other tools of the medical trade. A gauze mask hung from his neck, a cloth cap the same color as the clothes covered his hair. He wore glasses, was clean shaven, tall, lanky, and nondescript. A name tag pinned to his shirt identified him as Morgan Thomas, M.D.

He walked with purpose through the lobby, took the elevator to the fourth floor. He ducked his head as he passed the nurse’s station. No one paid any attention to him. Just another doctor visiting patients before office hours, a running start on the day.

It was early and the shift change was taking place. The day shift taking over from the night crew. All the floor staff were gathered at the nurse’s station, going over charts, bringing the day people up to date on what had happened overnight. Soon the lab techs would be coming to the floors, taking blood samples, getting ahead of the kitchen personnel who would bring breakfast.

A nursing assistant came out of a room carrying a bedpan, a towel placed discreetly over it, walked toward the doctor, spoke to him. The doctor nodded, a man preoccupied with his mission, bringing his life-saving skills to patients in need. The halls were quiet. A public address system broke the silence, paging Dr. Bromley. Then, quiet again, the only sound that of footsteps on polished floors.

The doctor approached the room in which Abraham Osceola lay. A Sarasota policeman sat in a chair beside the door. He stood as the doctor approached.

“Good morning,” said the doctor.

“Good morning, sir.”

“I’m here to have a look at the patient.”

“I have to see your ID, sir.”

“ID? I’ve just come from surgery. I don’t carry ID in these clothes. Look at the name tag.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I can’t let you in without some identification.”

The doctor exploded. “I’m his fucking doctor, officer. I’m trying to save his life.”

The policeman looked discomfited, indecisive. He didn’t want to get into trouble for keeping a doctor from his patient. Still, rules are rules, and he’d been ordered by his boss to let no one in without ID, and then only those who were on his list. “I’m sorry, sir. I can only let you in if you have identification. Even if you’re on the list.”

The man in scrubs didn’t know about the list. He’d assumed no doctor would be refused admittance to the patient’s room. “Let me see that list, officer.”

The cop turned to pick up his clipboard. The doctor pulled a blackjack from his oversized pocket and hit the officer behind his right ear. The cop went down, lay still. The doctor looked up and down the hall, ready to flee if anyone came around the corner. He was alone. He reached down and grabbed the officer under the arms. He pulled him into Abraham’s room, dropped him on the floor, shut the door.

The doctor, who wasn’t really a doctor, looked around the room. The curtains were drawn, no lights on. The space was dim, silent except for the noise from monitors placed beside the bed. He had to get in and get out quickly. Somebody would be along any minute. If the cop wasn’t at the door, somebody would come into the room, puzzled, wondering why the officer had been pulled off. Then there would be alarms sounding all over the hospital. He moved quickly, taking a small caliber pistol from his pocket. A silencer was affixed to the barrel of the gun. He would finish this quickly. One shot to the head, between the eyes, and the smart-ass Bahamian would be dead. He’d be out of the room before anybody came. If the alarm were raised, he’d keep moving, get lost in the confusion. Just another tired doctor leaving the hospital for home. The man moved toward the bed, the pistol held in front of him, his finger lightly caressing the trigger.

I was pinned to the deck of my patio, like a fly caught in the stickiness of flypaper. I couldn’t move, couldn’t defend myself, couldn’t ward off the death that was coming for me on a peaceful morning beside a calm bay. I watched the launcher, waiting for the shot, the rocket coming my way, bringing death. I was watching a world in slow motion, the finger still squeezing the trigger on the launcher, the rocket head glinting in the morning sun, ready to launch, a look of readiness about it, a look of evil.

A rifle cracked. Close by. The man with the launcher went over backward, blood creating a Rorschach-like blot in the middle of his chest, staining the white T-shirt he wore under a black leather jacket. The launcher went over the side of the boat.

Another crack. The boat driver had begun to turn, to look for the trouble behind him, to figure out why his buddy had fallen. The bullet caught him in the neck. A look of surprise spread over his face, blood spurted rhythmically, an arterial flow that would kill him in less than a minute. He had reflexively pulled the wheel of the boat to his right when he heard the first shot. The second shot, the one that killed him, was a second later, and the man had no time to correct his course.

I watched the blood spurt from the driver’s neck wound. He flopped over against the throttle assembly, his face now devoid of any expression, his mouth slack, eyes closed. He was dead, not a condition he had contemplated that day.

I looked behind me. Logan was standing in the open doorway to the patio, the M-1 still at his shoulder, a wisp of smoke escaping the barrel of the weapon. He took it from his shoulder, cradled it in his arms, looked at me and said, “pissants.”

Only a few seconds had elapsed since I first saw the go-fast approaching. The M-1 was a weapon I’d bought at a gun show. I’d take it to the range and fire it sometimes, zero it in, shoot at the targets, get the kick in the shoulder and remember another time when I’d gone nowhere without an M-16. The M-1 was the weapon of the Cold War, replaced as the war in Vietnam cranked up by the M-14, which was soon replaced by the M-16, the weapon I’d carried at the end of the war.

I’d kept the old rifle in the closet of my guest room, standing in the corner, the clips on the shelf. On Saturday, after Bill Lester told me somebody had tried to kill Logan, I had inserted the clip with eight .30-caliber rounds. One of the rounds automatically chambered. The weapon was ready to fire. I engaged the safety and left the rifle in the closet.

“Logan,” I said, my voice shaking with the nervous aftermath of a near death experience. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“I was bringing the rifle out to the patio. I saw it in the closet this morning and was going to ask you if I could use it at the range the next time we go. It’s in pristine condition. I saw the go-fast, the idiot with the launcher, and did what they taught me to do in the infantry.”

“You saved my life, old friend.”

“Man, this is getting to be a habit.” He laughed.

The boat was still moving slowly toward Jewfish Key. Suddenly it came to a stop. The bow had found the large sandbar that lurks off the northwestern tip of the island. The twin props were straining to push the boat farther, but it wasn’t moving. It was hard aground.

I went inside to call the police. I told the dispatcher what had happened, and in a few minutes I heard the wail of a police siren, getting louder as the cruiser neared my house. I went around front to meet the officer: Steve Carey, looking tired, haggard after a long night sitting in his car.

“I was just checking out, on my way home to get some sleep. What the hell happened?”

I told him as we walked around to the back of the house. The go-fast was still straining to push over the sandbar. It wasn’t going anywhere.

“I’ve got the boat cop on his way,” said Steve. “And I alerted the chief.”

“The rifle that Logan shot them with is in my living room. If you need it.”

“The lab guys will probably want to take a look at it. How’s Logan holding up?”

“He’s okay. He just killed two men, so he’s not exactly ecstatic, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. Had to do it.”

We walked through the patio door. “Hey Logan,” said Steve. “You okay?”

“I will be.”

“From what Matt says, you did the right thing. That RPG would’ve taken out this house and maybe a couple of others. You saved some lives today.”

“Yeah. And I also took a couple.”

“Had to be done,” said Steve.

“I know. I’ll be okay.”

Steve’s radio announced that the boat cop was coming around Jewfish and would be at our location in a couple of minutes. The chief was on his way.

We went back to the patio and watched the police boat idle up to the go-fast. A rigid-hull inflatable from the Coast Guard station at Cortez arrived at the same moment, coming from the north, skirting the sandbar. There were four Coastguardsmen aboard, weapons at the ready. They pulled in next to the police boat, looked at the bodies, and put their weapons away. The officer talked to the Coastie in charge and then gunned his boat toward my dock. The three of us went to meet him.