Deadly Catch (13 page)

That evening Kate greeted me at the door and surprised me with a kiss. I handed her the bottle of merlot I’d bought to go with our steaks, and Kate poured the wine while I fired up her gas grill. We spent a pleasant hour chatting on the deck while my famous grilled potatoes, roasted onions, and the rib-eyes cooked to perfection. By the time we sat down to eat, the aroma had my mouth watering.

I waited until we’d finished our feast before talking business. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and poured Kate another glass of merlot. We carried our drinks back outside to the deck and sat together on the cedar glider.

Sara Gillman had no knowledge of any relationship between the Harpers and Barfields, other than the fact the families didn’t get along for some reason. Maddie and Brett had been in love since middle school and, despite their families’ differences and Marilyn Harper’s objection, had managed to maintain their relationship all those years.

“All I remember about Brett and Maddie’s favorite camping spot is that it’s near a lake somewhere in the Grand Gator Bay Wilderness Area in the national forest,” Kate said. “It’s about forty miles from here. Sara went camping with them a couple of times. She remembers they followed a service road for several miles to a dead end. They parked Brett’s truck there and used four-wheelers they trailered for a couple of miles and then hiked the rest of the way. It’s pretty rugged country from what I’ve heard. Sara said they waded through waist-high water in a couple of places along the trail, which she didn’t care for at all. She’s real afraid of snakes.”

“Join the crowd,” I said, having never been much of a herpetology fan myself. “You think Sara might remember what service road it was if we showed her a map?”

Kate shrugged. “She might, but what’s so dang important about finding their camping spot?”

I swigged my beer. “I know you’re not going to like this, but I believe Brett was involved with drugs—marijuana in particular.”

Kate shook her head. “Uh-uh, Mac, no way.”

“I’m not saying Maddie knew anything about it, but think about this: Brett had two prior arrests for possession. I find Maddie’s body near where a bale of pot washed ashore, and then somebody plants a bag of the same stuff on my boat and calls the cops. You don’t find that to be a little too coincidental?”

Kate took a sip of wine and stared out into the dark. Fireflies blinked on and off across the yard. “It doesn’t prove anything,” she said after a minute. “I knew Brett well enough to know he wouldn’t have done anything to put Maddie in danger.”

“Then what about the honeymoon story they concocted and made Sara swear to keep secret?” I took another swallow. “They cook up a story about eloping and hiking on the Appalachian Trail when they’re supposedly heading for Disney World and the Keys. Then Maddie’s body winds up in the bay and Brett’s truck is found in some ravine in north Georgia. What kind of sense does that make? And just where
is
Mr. Do No Harm?”

Kate didn’t answer. She went inside and brought back the bottle of merlot and another beer. “You’re right. None of it makes any sense,” she said, pouring the wine. “I wish it did.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m not supposed to tell anybody this, but I need somebody to cover my back, and you’re the only person I can trust right now.”

I hesitated. Kate’s brow wrinkled as she took another sip of wine. “What?”

“I know for a fact Maddie’s body was dumped in the bay. She didn’t die there. And don’t ask, because I can’t tell you anything more about it.”

To say Kate looked shocked would be the understatement of the year. She opened her mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out. I hadn’t exactly broken my word to the sheriff. I didn’t tell Kate the particulars about Maddie’s autopsy, only that her body had been moved after her death.

“There’s another thing I haven’t told you.” I tilted the bottle and drained my beer. Kate was all ears. “Brett’s runabout went missing a while back. Maddie’s body is dumped in the bay. Brett is nowhere to be found. Looks to me like someone wanted it to appear that they both drowned in a boating accident.”

Kate closed her eyes for a moment and massaged the bridge of her nose. “Then why did Brett’s truck wind up in Georgia? If somebody wanted people to believe he and Maddie drowned in the bay, why on earth move his truck hundreds of miles north of here?”

It was a good question. I wracked my brain for a minute. “Maybe whoever did this was trying to cover both ends of a dead-end trail. They knew Maddie and Brett left letters for their families about eloping and going to the mountains. But somehow they learned the letters were just a smokescreen to cover Maddie and Brett’s real intention of heading to south Florida.

“Whatever Brett was planning went wrong. Whatever happened, Maddie got caught up in it, wound up dead, and her body dumped in the bay. Then someone stole Brett’s runabout so that if her body ever turned up, it would look like a boating accident.”

I opened the other beer and downed a couple of swallows. “Then somebody drove Brett’s truck to Georgia, torched it, and pushed it into the ravine to make it look like Brett—or Brett
and
Maddie—had crashed and wandered off injured into the mountain wilderness. Voilà; two scenarios of how they met their fate, both false.”

Kate scooted closer, laid her head on my shoulder, and sighed. “I’m more confused than ever.”

So was I. There were still a lot of pieces missing from the puzzle I was trying to force together, and maybe those pieces wouldn’t fit even if I found them. Brett Barfield might be the key link. Where was he? Had he learned his lesson from the two priors, or had he been up to no good all along?

And what about Lamar? I certainly didn’t have him pegged before as being involved in this mess. Marilyn Harper hated the Barfields with a vengeance; that much was obvious. What was the connection between Lamar and Marilyn Pickron Harper, if any?

Could there be more than one “Mare” in a town this size?

I was at the Parkersville Public Library the next morning when they opened the doors at ten sharp. I walked over to the reference librarian’s desk and asked the lady where I could find the Parkersville High School yearbooks. I followed her directions and was soon gathering several volumes of the
Panthers’ Pride
from the seventies. It was a guess, but I figured the Harpers, Clayton Barfield, and Lamar Randall to be somewhere in their mid-forties to early fifties.

After a couple of dead ends, I found George Harper and Clayton Barfield listed with the sophomore class in one volume and with the juniors the following year, but there was no trace of the Pickron sisters or Lamar Randall in either. I hit pay dirt with the next volume, George and Clayton’s senior year. The pretty Pickron sisters, identical twins Marilyn and Mynta, were voted co-sweethearts of the sophomore class. They belonged to several organizations, including the junior varsity cheerleading squad. Lamar was a fellow-member of the sophomore class. I was hoping to find a connection between Lamar and Marilyn, but after a thorough search through the entire volume I came up empty. His mug shot was there in alphabetical order among the other gawky bottom-dwellers, but that was it.

I searched through the next two volumes but failed to turn up any evidence of a romantic link between the future Mrs. George Harper and Lamar Randall. His high school career was unremarkable at best, while Marilyn Pickron and sister Mynta had shined. Maybe Lamar harbored a crush for Marilyn during middle or even grammar school. At least I’d learned that some of the principals in Maddie’s case had attended school together for a few years.

I left the library and drove to Redmond’s Sporting Goods. I remembered they carried a fine supply of nautical charts and topographic maps of the Panhandle area. I told the clerk what I was looking for and chose a detailed roadmap of the entire Apalachicola National Forest and a topo map of the Grand Gator Bay Wilderness Area.

“If you’re planning on hiking in that area this time of year,” the clerk said, “I’d advise you to invest in a good pair of snake boots.”

I declined his offer to sell me a two-hundred-dollar pair of boots, hoping my Marine Corps-issue combat boots would suffice. I did buy a machete, thinking it might come in handy sometime during my little trek through the swamps, a bottle of bug juice, and a two-man tent that weighed less than four pounds.

I drove back to St. George and stopped by the marina, hoping to catch Kate in time for her lunch hour. Luck was with me. We walked across the street to a sandwich shop that overlooked the canal. I ordered a couple of grilled grouper sandwiches and iced teas, and we carried them to the outside deck.

I pulled the roadmap of the forest from my cargo pocket and handed it to Kate. “If you get a chance would you show this to Sara when she comes in today?”

Kate wiped her fingers with a napkin and unfolded the map. She nodded. “She should be able to find the road they took from this.”

I swallowed a bite of my sandwich and took a swig of tea. “Try not to let anybody see you, especially Lamar.”

Her eyebrows arched. “Lamar? Why Lamar?”

“It’s just a hunch. I’ll tell you about it later. For now, just trust me, okay?”

Back at the marina I asked Kate to help me pick out a decent mask, set of fins, and a snorkel. “What on earth are you planning to do with this?” she said while bagging my purchases.

I grinned. “Nothing, on earth.”

That evening Kate called around seven. “Sara recognized the roads they took to get to Grand Gator and the service road that dead-ended where they parked,” she said. “I’ve already highlighted them on your map. She thinks she knows which trail they took with the four-wheelers, but she’s not a hundred percent on that.”

“Good. Did anybody see you?”

“No. Lamar left early this afternoon. Gary and Linda were in Parkersville for a couple of hours. There were some customers browsing around, but they weren’t paying any attention to us.”

“Thanks, Kate. What’s the marine forecast for tomorrow? I was thinking about taking the boat out.”

“It’s good; winds out of the southwest less than five, seas one to two feet. Going fishing?”

“Yeah, you could call it that.”

I loaded my gear and left the marina just after daylight, headed for The Stumps. It was my gut talking again. I recalled the tale of Brer Rabbit imploring Brer Fox to “please don’t throw me in the briar patch.” Maybe that was what the call had been about the morning I’d fished The Stumps: “
Stay out of the water.
” Reverse psychology—maybe somebody
wanted
me to explore The Stumps. If so, I intended to find out why.

As much as I liked Lamar Randall and hated my suspicion, I was beginning to think he might somehow be involved in this mess. He’d been the one to suggest I fish the grass flats behind the Trade Winds and then sent me to The Stumps on my next angling excursion where I’d received the strange “Jaws” theme phone call. It seemed too obvious, but after seeing Marilyn Harper’s nickname tattooed across his fingers, it finally dawned on me that one-plus-one just might equal two.

I eased back on the throttle and got as close to The Stumps as I dared before shutting off the motor. A few stoic pelicans perched atop silver-gray stumps ignored me as I dropped the anchor and stood near the bow to give the dead forest a quick survey. There was no sign of a fuel slick, but I remembered seeing one the morning I fished here. At the time I didn’t pay it much mind; such slicks aren’t uncommon around popular fishing spots, especially where an oil/gas mixture might wash into an area like this and coat the dead stumps.