Hawk Channel Chase (40 page)

“My main thought,” said Liska, “was they aren’t from the Keys. We know how things work down here. We know how things appear to be strange and aren’t. Or how they look normal when they’re bent all to hell.”

“Let’s hear it for equipment,” said Sam. “We solved fifty riddles in less than four hours, and those bastards got the arrest.”

“Why did you have Detective Lewis bring me here?” I said.

“Purely a matter of convenience, Rutledge. I knew she was running an errand on the island. I asked her to do us the favor.”

“Part two of the story?” I said.

“She figured out that you and Watkins were riding your motorbikes on Cudjoe this afternoon. She wanted to take the Cormier murder case away from Watkins because Beth is your alibi.”

“Talk about conflict of interest,” I said. “Marv Fixler might have been…”

“Don’t even voice the word,” said Liska. “I decided for now to leave the case in the city.”

“For now?”

“I may change my mind if it’s connected to the Hammond murder. Two bodies six days and six car lengths apart. That’s major.”

“You’ve got more to say, I can tell.”

“You want to know?” he said. “You want Sam to hear this?”

“Sam can hear it, too.”

“One of my green-and-whites had to go by Bobbi’s house on Aquamarine, to drop off some paperwork. There was old Marv, out in her yard hosing off his flippers and spear gun and snorkeling gear. Like he was on vacation at his own personal resort. Marv acknowledged the deputy but didn’t recognize him. I guessed he assumed the deputy didn’t know him, either. Two days later the deputy came back for the paperwork and there was Marv, sitting back by the canal bulkhead, wearing his Baghdad T-shirt, drinking a beer.”

“Living there.”

“I offer facts but no opinions,” said Liska.

In the parlance of diplomacy, she had run a multi-level liaison.

We sat for several minutes, listened to the pool filter gurgle. It was the most peaceful moment I’d had in a week. After my ride across town in Bobbi’s SUV, while finding my way up Liska’s dark driveway, I had felt a question park itself in the back of my mind. I had wondered about my decisions, to stop seeing Bobbi and to begin a romance so quickly with Beth.

Liska’s well-intended gossip had eased my dilemma.

Sam Wheeler stared above the treetops into the distant night sky. He tracked the downwind leg of a private jet in the airport landing pattern, but he wasn’t pondering air travel. I knew the gears were still grinding.

“Pretty quiet over there,” I said.

“All the years of forethought,” said Sam, “recruiting each other, gathering their equipment… That gang got caught like a bunch of high-schoolers.”

“Maybe they lost their cool at crunch time,” I said.

“I think it’s a cowboy movie,” he said. “They went that-a-way.”

Liska wasn’t convinced. “You think someone fell for a diversion tactic?”

“They stole an unsellable boat,” said Sam, “a military craft with minimal radar presence. Paint it white, put red cushions aboard, it’s still a weapon. They needed its utility. They wanted to move fast and undetected, which we have to assume they’ve done. When the boat was no longer of use, they gave it back, more or less.”

“Along with…”

“Two Nicaraguan mules, a busted-up stolen boat, and chump change.”

“Two million… chump?” I said.

Sam shifted in his chair, sat up straighter. “Four of them, right? Copeland, Catherman, Fixler, Stinson. But we can’t count out Lisa because she was a co-conspirator before she took dead.”

“Okay.”

“Divide two million by five and run it against the years they’ve been plotting this caper. Not much of a paycheck, eh?” He waited and got no answer. “Also, there’s at least one other stolen boat still out there. We may be the only ones who know that.”

Liska pulled out his phone, keyed a number in the cell’s memory. He identified himself and asked to speak to the duty officer. After a short wait he said, “Sheriff Liska, here, Commander. Trying to avoid a conflict. I scheduled a dawn-light marine training exercise for my boat teams in the Lower Keys, but I understand you fellows had a confrontation a few hours ago. Have your personnel cleared the area?”

Sam glanced at me, flashed an expression of admiration.

Liska listened a minute then said, “We won’t be launching until five a.m. I’ll check back again before we roll.”

He clicked off and we stared at him.

He raised his hands, an I-dunno salute. “The boat that crashed in Sugarloaf Creek came up on the radar several times as two blips. A bit later they noticed a smaller boat heading north out of Kemp Channel. When it didn’t try to run north into Florida Bay, they decided it was local. They think it looped east to the north side of Big Pine. Whatever, it fell off the radar.”

“Two targets and two hits,” I said. “The feds have gone home to celebrate their victory.”

“Smaller boat, like a reduced radar image?” said Sam. “Anyone feel like a boat ride?”

“I feel like shit,” I said.

“Rutledge,” said Liska. “Did you really get hit by a car?”

27

“I saw an odd channel marker in Sugarloaf Creek this morning.”

“You didn’t move it, did you?” said Sam.

“I left it alone,” I said. “Turk said he’d been through that creek a few times, and he had never seen a stake.”

“It’s a mystery to me,” said Sam.

He sounded insincere.

“As a senior member of local law enforcement, I didn’t hear this conversation,” said Liska. “Let’s not mention it again.”

We motored slowly in the canal behind Johnny Baker’s home on Cudjoe Key, the waterway illuminated by the outside lights of homes to either side. Open water would be less friendly until the sun came up. The new moon had worked to our benefit on Turk’s boat that morning. This time, in shallower waters, darkness gave points to the other team. They also had a head start.

This was not vigilante action. Liska had called out three of his two-man boat teams, each equipped with semi-automatic weapons and infrared viewing scopes. The skiff launching from the Drost Road ramp, on Cudjoe, had made it to Niles Channel before we were out of Key West. Two units out of Big Pine were instructed to search Pine Channel, Coupon Bight and the Content Keys. They were looking for performance boats that appeared out of place or abandoned, and told not to use spotlights.

We had driven past Catherman’s place on Scabbard Road to assure ourselves that the Fountain and the Skater I’d seen earlier now were gone. From there to
Fancy Fool
, on the hooks at Johnny Baker’s place, was less than three minutes. Our time from Liska’s home to being underway was forty minutes flat. Not that we were hurried. The real chance that our opponents could have full-automatic weapons and night scopes prompted us to caution. We had one pair of daytime binoculars and two pistols among us.

Liska sat on the bow, talking to his crews on a hand-held VHF radio. To thwart eavesdropping, they used a digitally scrambled, police-only channel.

“What’s your guess, Alex?” said Sam.

“Take it one step at a time,” I said. “Idle over to the top end of Knockemdown, let our eyes adjust to the dark. Take a look at that man-made channel through Tarpon Belly, then go up the east side of Sawyer Key. They could be north of Sawyer, waiting until dawn to pretend they’re out fishing.”

“I like staying east,” he said. “Too many lobster trap floats to the west. If I snag a pull rope and foul my prop, we’ll be useless.”

Liska half-overheard us. “Let’s work our way out toward Sawyer Key,” he said.

“Aye,” said Sam. “Splendid concept.”

“If you think about it,” I said, “Catherman lives five miles from here. If he ever went boating, he would have visited Tarpon Belly. He would have seen that odd canal cut through its center.”

“The alleged shrimp farm of 1973,” said Sam.

“The worst-kept secret in pot smuggling,” said Liska. “You think Catherman believes, like everyone who finds that canal, that he’s the first one ever to see it?”

“Great way to vanish off the radar,” I said. “Do we know he’s not the one they took to the hospital?”

“I just got the word,”
 
said Liska. “Cormier died before they got him there. Head injuries. Skull versus vegetation.”

Knockemdown Key failed its name. Sam shut down his motor well south of the oblong island and let the northbound current take us inshore. We couldn’t see a thing. No lurking bad guys, no pale boat hulls in the mangrove overhang. We didn’t hear birds or fish. Worse, we couldn’t tell if someone was watching us.

Liska twisted around, took bearings on headlights on US 1 to the south and a radio tower’s flashing red light to the west. “We could practically drift to Tarpon Belly, the way the current’s pushing.”

“I like that,” said Sam. “If anyone is on that island, the forty minutes it takes would be worth the surprise factor. It’s just, if we’re a hundred yards off our mark, we’ll have to crank the engine to get close. Adios surprise.”

“I’m all for doing a fly-by at dawn,” said Liska. “One pass would cover all of these islands.”

“Tarpon Belly’s inside the no-fly zone around Fat Albert,” I said. “You’re talking a couple days’ paperwork—beforehand.”

Liska grunted. “Your thought patterns remind me of a kid playing with a light switch.”

“If we really want to find them,” I said, “we could call and ask. I’ve got Catherman’s cell number in my phone.”

“What’ll you ask him to do?” said the sheriff. “Shoot up a flare?”

“Maybe just strike up a chat, bend the conversation,” I said. “If he doesn’t hang up on me.”

“Nothing to lose but your dime,” said Sam. “I love technology when it’s somebody else’s.”

I called but got no answer. It went to voice mail. I said, “Top o’ the morn, Bob,” and closed my phone.

We drifted, whispered among ourselves for twenty minutes.

“Wish I’d brought my jacket,” said the sheriff. “The coldest it gets is just before dawn.”

“It’s October in the Keys, Sheriff,” said Sam. “We’re not freezing our butts in Minneapolis. Or sitting in a Seattle rainstorm.”

“Point taken.”

My cell phone buzzed.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Liska. He keyed his radio, spoke quietly to his teams.

Catherman said, “Is that you just north of the blimp?”

I looked at Tarpon Belly, six hundred yards distant. “That’s us, Bob. My friend Sam Wheeler and I are night fishing. What have you got, infrared binoculars?”

“Wheeler’s a son of a bitch,” said Catherman. “He knows who killed my daughter.”

“Is that why you hired me to find her?”

“That was two-thirds of it. I guess I won’t make you rich, after all. I was going to own every house on Dredgers Lane.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “You’re helping to make Fixler rich. How can you partner with him?”

“He’s got my back.”

“He saw your daughter naked,” I said. “Every square inch.”

“Where do you get that shit?”

“Working on your nickel. Sally had a secret boyfriend named Cliff Brock. Cormier’s inside guy at the Mansion.”

“Horseshit,” said Catherman.

“She got her co-workers to cover shifts a couple times a week while she went boating with Brock. You never questioned her suntan after all those long hours inside Colding’s Grocery?”

Silence.

“Fixler was there one time. He went out on the water with Sally and Cliff and the one from Colding’s that he was screwing. They all took off their suits and got it on.”

“Crock.”

“Hey, I got it directly from that second young girl. Maybe that’s how he was able to approach Cliff and your daughter on the water on another day. He knew he could shoot them with no witnesses. He told his girl a phony name she didn’t believe but she didn’t care. He said it was Constant Johnson.”

Catherman said, “No fucking way.” I heard him cough and sob. Then he said, “That was always your joke, Marvin. Mister Constant Johnson.”

Fixler’s voice came back, distant, argumentative, adamant.

I heard the gunshot through the phone. I also heard it through my other ear. Sam and the sheriff turned to look at Tarpon Belly.

“Strife,” said Sam.

“Catherman shot Fixler,” I said. “That’s my guess.”

“Drops the prosecution budget,” said Liska.

We sat for a moment, pondering what happened. Then a quick burst of gunfire from one weapon echoed across the flat water. Had Catherman shot Stinson, too? Ten seconds later the gunfire came more focused, with no echo, straight at us.

“We’re out of range,” said Sam, cool to the point of boredom.

Liska spoke into his hand-held in a measured, forceful voice. He asked his teams to hold back and wait for daylight. “They’ve got a Fountain, but they’re not moving,” he said. “We don’t need to occupy Tarpon Belly. Post two teams at Kemp Channel bridge and send one north of Sawyer. Watch yourselves. We’re outgunned.”