Hawk Channel Chase (39 page)

“The cargo was strictly one-way?” I said. “You never brought anything back?”

Sam looked at Chicken Neck and Marnie, cracked a smile. “The boy’s a thinker,” he said.

“He’ll love this,” said Liska.

“Two things came back on every trip,” said Sam. “Letters for me to stamp and mail from here. They had Keys return addresses, and were going to people who had made it out of Cuba. I also brought back the snap-shut boxes used to transport their heat-sensitive drugs. They have some kind of space age insulation and a rubber seal around their edges Like that waterproof suitcase you used to carry for your cameras. They cost like crazy, and the Cubans had no use for them, so I’d deliver one or two full ones and bring back one or two empties, whatever they handed me.”

“Who would you give them to?” I said.

“I’d put them in a funky Styrofoam cooler in my Bronco, park in the Half Shell lot right after I returned, and go have breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s. I’d come back after eating and drive home. They told me if the container was still there, I should have breakfast the next day, but it was gone all three times.”

“You didn’t connect the fourth time?”

“I waited for someone to arrive, to find out what they knew about my being chased. They never showed up, so I kept it.” He leaned over to a shelf of potted plants and lifted an oblong, hard plastic box. It was maybe sixteen inches long, four inches wide, not even two inches deep.

“It’s empty?”

“Unless you tear it apart, which the sheriff, here, made me do back there.” Sam pointed to a far side of the yard. “He was afraid it might explode, so he wouldn’t stand near me.”

“Okay, drama champ, you survived,” I said. “Was it empty?”

“Once I peeled back the lining, sure as hell.”

“Empty.”

“No,” said Sam. “Sixty thousand dollars.”

I took a moment to digest the news. “You think every box you brought back…”

“My best guess is that I unknowingly smuggled in three hundred grand, minimum.”

“Could those airtight boxes have held more than charity drugs on the trips south?” I said.

Sam shrugged. “I made them show me the pills and vials, just like I made them introduce me to Cliff Brock. I wanted to see my lifeline face-to-face. I have no idea whether they put anything in the linings on my southbound trips.”

“Surely the government wouldn’t kill someone for letting a boat slide through. That’s a bit severe, even for the old administration. Any idea who gave you the phony ‘all-clear?’

“The last thing Cliff said to me was, ‘Something’s funky in the Mansion. Be careful.’ Turned out we both needed to be careful. I had the double-whammy on me. If I survived the chase, I was the perfect murder suspect. If the cops didn’t catch me, the bad boys would shut me up ugly. Triple-whammy.”

No one spoke for a minute or so. The light jazz had ended. We listened to burbles from the pool.

“Had to be a rat in there,” said Marnie.

“I think Cliff suspected one or two of them were doing a similar dodge,” said Sam,” but not for the good of mankind.”

“Speaking of not for good,” I said to Liska, “your ex-employee, Marv Fixler, paid me a visit this morning.”

“Was this in regard to another of my employees whose name, Lewis, shall not be mentioned? Can this wait?”

“He claimed not. He talked about a government go-fast boat that was stolen in Belize. He said it was an ocean-going equivalent of a Stealth bomber.”

“I’ve received a stack of urgent situation reports on that one,” said Liska.

“Fixler said that my snooping and meddling could jeopardize the government’s recovery efforts.”

Liska shook his head. “Hell, you should be proud. That’s what they say to entire civilian law enforcement agencies.”

“He also suggested that Sam might be involved in the boat theft. Or he offered the possibility to see if I’d agree.”

“Okay, let’s work with this,” said Liska. “He left the sheriff’s office before I won the election. I barely knew him, never learned much about him, except social rumors. After he left we received background and reference requests. I heard maybe a year later that he became a security professional. At some point he went to Panama, then to the Middle East. Now he’s back, supposedly working for the government, but there’s no way to verify that. He could be Homeland or Defense Intelligence or a contractor. I happen to know that one day last week he wore a T-shirt that read D
AD
M
ADE
ME
C
RAZY
. Sam tells me that these days, among warriors, ‘Dad’ means ‘Baghdad.’”

We hadn’t seen Duffy Lee Hall poke his head out the sliding glass door. “Speaking of which, Sheriff,” he said, “I’ve put Ricky Stinson in Baghdad at the same time as Copeland Cormier.”

“Tell us more,” said Liska.

“Richard M. Stinson ran a construction company called Rampant Eagle, LLC, licensed out of Fall River, Massachusetts. Near as I can tell, he had a state department contract to build latrines and chapels.”

“Poetic,” said Sam. “That’s the military I learned to love.”

“Duffy Lee, run another search for me,” said Liska. “See if Belize has a Coast Guard or the equivalent. Look for mention of a high-tech boat missing or stolen from that country.”

“We’ve sifted the shit down to basics,” I said. “Boats, bucks and Iraq. Whatever they’re doing, they’ve invested a lot of time and money, a lot of forethought.”

“And they’ve killed people to cover it up,” said Sam.

Liska nodded. “Killed them on my turf. Keep going with this, Rutledge.”

“Okay,” I said. “Where’s the easiest money these days? You run cocaine, you have to work with the Mexican Mafia, whichever family hasn’t been decapitated this month. You run heroin, you have to be cousin to someone in the Middle East or the Far East. Why screw around with something you have to resell? Why not bring in dirty money and spend it clean?”

Marnie leaned forward. “I thought crime gangs were desperate to get cash offshore.”

“The risks are different these days,” I said. “When Noriega tumbled, the dope profits in his banks went up in smoke, so to say. The ultra-secret banks in Europe and the usual offshore havens have succumbed to pressure from Interpol and the banking system. They’re giving up names to stay afloat.”

“Let’s go back inside,” said Liska. “Let’s shuffle three-by-fives and draw more arrows.”

“Could I ask one question before we move?” I said. “What are we going to do with all this speculation? What if we come up with a credible scenario? We’re not a bunch of swashbucklers or snoops with next-generation tech toys. And you said yourself, Sheriff, you don’t like working with the feds. We’re going to be like the dog that caught the car it was chasing. How will we act on it?”

“We’ll know the truth,” said Sam Wheeler. “After that, we’ll follow our noses.”

“Well put,” said Sheriff Liska. “Alex, thank you for asking.”

“More on Rampant Eagle,” said Duffy Lee. “I found a link to a
Vanity Fair
article about billions of impounded Iraqi dollars that disappeared when we sent the money back there for reconstruction. Cash was being tossed around like beach balls, and the period in question matches the time-in-country of both Cormier and Stinson. And get this. It also matches the time when troops from Nicaragua were sent home. Then, right about the time the money dried up, the Dominican Republic withdrew its troops, flew them out.”

“And you placed Cormier in both those countries doing his so-called volunteer work?”

“Where he could reconnect with one or two bad colonels.”

“If Fixler was in Iraq back then,” said Liska, “we’ve got a trifecta. Anything on that go-fast boat stolen in Belize?”

“Nothing official, but I found an unclassified blog on it,” said Duffy Lee. “The boat was a Keeltec Yachts triple-inboard equipped with a constant-transmit GPS and a disconnect alarm. Someone was able to duplicate the signal, install a substitute ignition and engine management system and make off with the boat. They left behind the old system hooked to a solar-charged twelve-volt battery. Anyone monitoring its GPS transmitter would think the craft was at the dock, right where it was supposed to be. The blogger also said that a non-military boat with a compatible ignition was stolen in Naples, Florida, four months ago. That boat’s electronics came from the same company. It was a customized Fountain.”

“Who was the blogger?” said Marnie.

“No way to tell,” said Duffy Lee. “Anonymous and truly weird. He signed in as ‘slut-virgin.’”

Lisa Cormier must have sensed an ill wind blowing. She wanted an ally, not a lover. If I had taken the bait, I could have wound up dead in my shed.

“That report you found of the Fountain stolen in Naples,” I said. “Was there any mention of a performance hot-rod, a Skater?”

Duffy Lee nodded. “All told, Alex, three gone at once. A Skater and two Fountains. It doesn’t paint a good picture of Catherman, the former nautical repo man. He probably had the dockside skill to pull and replace a complex electrical system.”

“So there are four players,” said Marnie. “Four that we know of, and one of them killed Sally Catherman. One of them, maybe the same bastard but not necessarily, killed Lisa Cormier.”

“The feds are searching for a stolen boat,” I said, “and it means more to them than solving two murders. This is far bigger than the boat.”

Sam tapped on the corkboard. “But not bigger than this chart.”

“Keep at it, Duffy Lee,” said Liska. He motioned the rest of us into the kitchen.

“I think we just proved the value of teamwork,” said Liska. “We’ve got Sam’s Cuba trips; Alex’s investigations; one, maybe two moles in the Mansion; cash in the lining of that sealed box; Duffy Lee’s electronic sleuthing; and Marnie’s summary. For right now, I’ll buy Alex’s suggestion that dope smugglers don’t spend much time on strategy. Human smugglers, coyotes, barely plan past reaching the beach. But I think these dudes are smart. So here’s our major presumption. They got their mitts on a shitload of money in the war zone, moved it to Third-World countries, and intend to bring it ashore in Monroe County.”

“Where we have plenty of money to go around,” said Sam.

We laughed for a moment, and half-proud, looked around the room, catching glee in each other’s eyes.

Sam added, “Plus everyone in the Keys stole theirs legally.”

Duffy Lee walked into the kitchen, handed a computer print-out to the sheriff. “So much for scenario,” he said. “We’re less than spectators. Whatever was going to happen already did.”

We all looked at him, stupefied.

“This just popped up on a Miami TV station web page,” he said. “A boat chase in Hawk Channel ended an hour ago. It reads like a three-ring circus.”

Liska studied the printed page, pulled out his cell and, punching in a number, walked out to the yard.

“I just want to think that those pharmaceuticals helped one or two sick people down there,” said Sam.

Marnie rapped her knuckles softly on the back of his hand. He grabbed her hand for a moment then let go.

Liska returned. “The feds tracked their Keeltec Coastal Pursuit out of Varadero, Cuba. It went slowly for the first two hours. They thought it was a fishing punt with a small outboard headed for the Marquesas. Then it kicked up speed, veered northeast and met a local boat twelve miles south of Big Pine Shoal. They spent fifteen minutes together—plenty of time for a transfer. By the time the Marine and Border Patrols launched their boats, the go-fast was screaming east toward Cay Sal Bank and the other craft went west toward Boca Chica. They caught the Keeltec with two Nicaraguans and two million bucks aboard.”

“That explains some of the bad boys’ urgency,” said Marnie.

“It sure as hell deflates ours,” added Sam.

“The other boat was chased into the mangroves,” said Liska. “It failed to navigate properly. They’re choppering some guy to the hospital in Marathon.”

26

“How did this happen again?” I said. “How the hell did I get neck-deep in your occupation?”

“Someone should have warned you.”

“You did,” I said. “I didn’t listen.”

“No need to apologize,” said Liska. “We need citizen volunteers to run interference for us. It notches down our peril and you break rules that we can’t break.”

“I didn’t apologize. I just whined.”

Duffy Lee and Marnie had gone home to bed. Liska, Sam and I sat at the glass-top table, passing around the news print-out and alternating shots of Haitian rum and sips of Beck’s Light, the only brand the sheriff had left in the fridge, but fine with me.

“For all the times you shamed me,” he said, “picked up sticks I had dropped, I finally got to this moment where I’m sitting on my ass, drinking beer, doing my job about as well as I’ve ever done it.”

I wasn’t convinced. “How could any of us, me, Sam, or you with your badge, have been of assistance to the Homeland people? We don’t have the training, knowledge, background or weapons. We were going to get in their way. They proved tonight that they’d trample us to reach their target.”