Murder Key (22 page)

             
I turned in the seat. “You okay back there?”

             
“Yeah. Close call. Logan hasn’t lost his touch.”

             
I was still feeling the adrenalin rush, antsy as hell, but relieved. “Do you know where we are?” I asked Logan.

             
“Yeah. This thing has a GPS system just like in my car. Sure could’ve used this in Nam.”

             
“Well, where the hell are we?”

             
“We were in the labor camp. We’ll be over the courthouse in a minute. You want me to put this thing down?”

             
“No, let’s swing out and try to contact McClintoc. What time is it?”

             
“Seven o’clock. Unless we’ve lost a day, we haven’t been gone long,” Logan said.

             
“No, they were going to kill us,” I said. “They wouldn’t have taken a chance by leaving us alive for a full day. It’s still Thursday.”

             
“Hey,” said Jock from the back seat. “Guess what I found? Now I know how they move the drugs from the labor camp.”

             
“How?” I
asked
.

             
“I’ve got a box full of it on the floor back here. At least I’ve got a box full of white powder. It’s probably coke.”

             
I turned back to Logan. “
Can you radio McClintoc?”

             
Logan handed me a phone. “I can do better than that,” he said.
“
The pilot left his cell.”

             
I didn’t know McClintoc’s phone number and I had no idea how to contact BLOC in Miami. I took the phone and called the Longboat Key Police Department. I identified myself and asked the dispatcher to patch me through to Bill Lester.

             
“Matt, where are you?” Lester said whe
n he answered. “We’ve got the cav
a
l
ry scouring the woods around the camp.”

             
“I don’t want to talk on the radio, Bill. Give me your cell phone number and I’ll call you right back.”

             
When I got the chief on the phone, I explained what had happened. He told me a Customs Service SWAT team was about to raid the labor camp. They were going in without a warrant, because three citizens, us, were believed to be held there against their will. They’d waited until the busses took the laborers out for the day’s work. They didn’t want to kill any more people than they had to.

             
I said, “I don’t think you’re going to find the ringleaders there. We left some dead people, and there were a few guards still shooting at us when we pulled out. We’ve got the cocaine.

They’d loaded it into the chopper and were going to drop us in the Gulf on the way to wherever the drugs were going.”

             
“I’m on the
state road, headed for Merrit C
ounty. I can be at the sheriff’s office in about five minutes. Can Logan land that thing anywhere near the courthouse?”

             
“There’s a McDonald’s next to the courthouse. Have the sheriff clear the lot and we can put down there. We ought to have some firepower standing by in case the bad guys are tracking us somehow.”

             
“I’ll see to it. Give us about ten minutes.” He hung up.

             
“Logan, can you find the courthouse?” I asked.

             
“Didn’t I hear you say that once about a lawyer? That he wasn’t smart enough to find the courthouse, let alone try a case?” Logan was still high on adrenalin, or maybe just the sheer joy of being in control of a helicopter again.

             
I gave him my stoniest look. “Can you?” I said.

             
“You find it, and I’ll land this thing.”

             
“Fair enough.”

             
I could see a road below us, but I had no reference points that would tell me which road it was or which direction it ran. I was straining to see in front of us, hoping to catch a glimpse of the county seat, or a church steeple, anything to give me some perspective.

             
Logan chuckled. “Hey, Sherlock,” he said. “Look at the GPS in the dash. It gives you highway numbers and everything.”

             
I slapped my forehead, which only reminded me that my head still hurt. I could tell we were about five miles north of the courthouse. I told Logan that we needed about ten minutes
m
ore and then we’d head south. By then, the sheriff would have cleared us a landing zone in the McDonald’s parking lot.

             
Logan swung the chopper toward the east in a sharp banking turn. We a
p
proached Lake Okeechobee, and our pilot went down on the deck, skimming just above the water. Birds began to rise from the surface, frightened by the noise of the jet engines powering our ride. Logan was having the time of his life.

             
Finally, as we approached the Port Myakka lock on the east side of the lake, Logan took us back up and set a course for the county seat. We had seen a demo
n
stration of an extraordinary flying skill, undiminished by the passing of years.

             
We came in low over the town, and I could see the
twi
n
kling
blue lights of a police cruiser parked on the road next to the McDonald’s. The cars had been moved out
of the
parking
lot
. Customers were
standing by the
vehicles
, munching on their breakfast and sipping their coffee. A team of fatigue-clad figures, about five-strong, was placed around the perimeter of the lot, their rifles at port arms.

             
Jock finally stirred in the back seat. “Don’t crash this thing,” he said.

             
“Looks like a hot LZ,” said Logan. “We’re going in fast.”

             
“Shitfire,” said Jock.

             
“Just kidding,” said Logan. “I’
ll put her down nice and easy.”

             
And that’s what he did.

             
Kyle and Jimbo Merryman came running over as I opened my door. Logan was busy shutting down the big machine.

             
“Hey, Loot,” Jimbo said over
the dying whine of the turbo, “l
ooks like a chopper jock pulled your ass out of the fire again.”

             
I laughed. “Wasn’t the same without you, Top.”

             
Kyle winked at me. “Appreciate the helicopter, fellows. It w
as used in a crime in my county
and now it belongs to me.”

             
McClintoc strode up. “Not so fast, Sheriff. This is a federal task force. We get the chopper.”

             
Bill Lester had driven up and gotten out of his car.
“Whoa. We started this thing. It belongs to Longboat Key,” he said.

             
Logan came around the front of the aircraft. “Like a bunch of
piranha
going after a hog in the river,” he said, shaking his head.

             
Kyle laughed. “I got a feeling this will get sorted out later,” he said. “Do you want the drugs, Agent McClintoc?”

             
“Yeah,” said McClintoc. “I’ll have one of my people inventory it and put it in an evidence locker.”

             
McClintoc’s phone rang, and he walked off to the side, talking quietly into it. We stood silently, letting the adrenalin subside. Logan was still a little giddy from the flight, but I only knew that because he couldn’t stop grinning.

             
I was trying to blot out the image of a dying man whose throat I’d just sliced open. I looked at my hands, and was startled to see the blood stains still there. I wiped them on my pants, but it didn’t help. I’d wash as soon as I could, but I thought those stains would likely stay for a lifetime.

             
I poked Logan lightly on the arm. “Good flying, buddy,” I said. “You saved our bacon.”

             
“Man, I’d forgotten the thrill of taking one of those babies up. Bad guys shooting at you, pulling out of a hot LZ. Just like the old days. Straight up and fast.”

             
Jimbo laughed. “I always s
aid you chopper jocks were nuts.
”

             
McClintoc re-joined us. “That was the SWAT commander
.
They’ve got the camp cleared and about twenty men under arrest. There are a few women and some small children left. All the others are in the fields. Border Patrol will round them up and decide what to do with them.”

             
I said, “What about the van and the boat?”

             
McClintoc shrugged. “The van and the boat and the pickup pulling it are at the camp
.
”

             
Jock
asked
, “Did you find Emilio?”

             
“He’s apparently in the fields somewhere. Border Patrol will find him. They know he’s one of ours.”

             
I told them about Byron Hewett. “Did your guys find him?”

             
“No,” said McClintoc. “I’m willing to bet that Byron Hewett is an alias, too. The big guys must have left right after they got you and Jock. Probably figured we were closing in. Didn’t want the drugs to be found on them if they got stopped, so they arranged for the chopper.”

             
Jock was frowning. “Don’t tell me the pilot was just some slob who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

             
“No,” said McClintoc. “Our guys identified the body from his driver’s license. He’s been running drugs for years, and Miami-Dade PD thinks he’s good for at least three murders. Did some state time up at Raiford on drug charges, but we haven’t been able to pin anything on him in years. Nobody’s going to miss him.”

             
Jock looked relieved. “Okay,” he said quietly.

             
I knew his ghosts were hovering nearby, whispering to him of remorse and regret. Eventually, because of those fears, he’d hesitate to act when he needed to,
and that would prove fatal. But
his icy performance at the labor camp was done without equivocation, and it had saved our lives. He still had time to get out alive. I’d talk to him, soon.

             
I was bone tired. I hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, and the knock-out drugs were still circulating in my body.

Murder Key

THIRTY-FIVE

             
I came awake with a start, my body jerking. I smelled frying bacon and fresh coffee. I didn’t know where I was for a moment, and then I remembered. I was in Jimbo Merryman’s guest room
.
Jock was next door.

             
I looked at the clock on the bedside table.
It was after five
. The afternoon sun was creeping through the drawn drapes. I’d been asleep for most of the day. I got out of bed, slipped into my jeans and a shirt that smelled like Sasquatch had slept in it, and headed toward the kitchen.

             
Jock, Jimbo and Emilio were sitting at the table, talking quietly.

“Ah,” said Jimbo, “here comes the sack rat.”

             
I found a cup and poured it full of coffee. “Emilio,” I said, “I’m damn glad to see you.”

             
He shook his head, a smile playing over his lips.
“And I’m damned glad to be here
.
Every time Jock shows up, something bad happens to me.”

             
“Any news?” I
asked
.

             
Jimbo spoke up. “I just talked to Kyle. The Coast Guard boarded the trawler a couple of hours ago. They’ve got the crew in custody and they’re taking the boat to the St. Pete Coast Guard Station. Nothing else on the others. Hewett, or whatever his name is, has disappeared.”

             
“Where’s Logan?” I
aske
d.

             
“Headed for Longboat,
” said Jimbo. “He and the chief
spent the day sleeping in a hotel room in Port Charlotte
, and then headed home. McClint
oc left for Miami with the drugs. The helicopter was stolen in Orlando, and the owner sent a pilot down today to pick it up.”

             
“What are your plans?” I asked Emilio.

             
“I’m headed to Miami too, as soon as the agency gets a chopper here to pick me up. I’ll spend some time with the task force guys getting debriefed, and then back to D.C.”
             

             
I joined them at the table. “
Tell us about your cruise. Hard to beat a few days at sea.”

             
“Lousy food, bad accommodations,” he said. “I wouldn’t recommend it for a honeymoon.”

             
Emilio had gone back to Tlapa and met with Sergio Arguilles. The old immigrant handler was distressed to hear that some of the people he was sending to Veracruz were ending up as virtual slaves in Florida. Emilio didn’t tell him that Mendez was dead.

             
“I only started dealing with Mendez
about a year ago,” the old man had
told Emilio. “The man I had worked with for years died, and Mendez took over. Now, somebody else has replaced Mendez.”

             
Emilio told him that the authorities in Sarasota had ident
i
fied the two dead men found with Pepe. Arguilles had sent them to Mendez, and he felt a personal responsibility for their death. He was willing to help Emilio put the smugglers out of business.

             
Emilio boarded the mini-bus in Tlapa with three other young men. There was an air of excitement among the group, which grew to twelve as the bus stopped in two other villages along the way to Veracruz. They were going to America, and for the first time in their lives, they were experiencing a feeling of something like hope.

             
The group arrived in Veracruz late at night and was taken directly to the dock where the
Princess Sarah
was moored. They were each given a bunk in the hold of the small ship, and told not to come topside during the
day
and only with express permission from the captain at night.

             
The bunks were stacked three high in four tiers on either side of the hold. There was a small table in the middle, between the bunks, that was used for card games and eating. The food was mostly fish and a few potatoes, but there was plenty of it.

             
The immigrants were told that if the boat was boarded, they should go quietly with the Coast Guard. If they didn’t say anything about the men who brought them this far, they’d get a free ride on the next trip. A money-back guarantee.

             
The crew consisted of the captain, a mate and the cook who doubled as a deck hand. They were pleasant enough, and didn’t abuse the passengers in any way. There was no hint that drugs might be aboard, until the night the men were loaded into the go-fast boat off Longboat Key.

             
Emilio told us that all twelve immigrants were put into the one boat, and then a duffel bag was handed over by the trawler’s captain. It was taken by a man with a rifle and stowed in the stern of the go-fast. If Emilio hadn’t known about the drug smuggling, he would not have picked up on the transfer as anything but innocent.
Just a bag of gear or clothes.

             
Once in the house on Longboat Key, the immigrants were given bottled water and a sandwich and loaded into the van driven by the blonde woman. Emilio had removed the tracker beacon from his scrotum when he relieved himself in the house. He attached it to the underside of the back seat in the van when he boarded.

             
“There was no water for showers on the boat,” he said, “so we pretty much stank when we got there. I didn’t mind that so much, but that damn beacon taped to my balls was about the worst thing I’ve ever been through.”

             
The men were told by the blonde woman, in passable Spanish, that they were going to their new home and would be introduced to the labor boss the next morning. They’d be put to work in the fields, and would have to remit part of their salary each week to the labor boss to pay for room and board and their passage on the
Princess Sarah.
She did not tell them that they would be held as slaves, or that the payments to the boss would never be enough to pay off the debt, which rose incrementally with the interest tacked on each day.

             
They were driven to one of the barracks in the labor camp and told to get a shower and settle in and get some sleep. The building was one story
and
held fifty single beds, twenty-five to a side. There was a locker beside each bed for personal belongings. A bathroom took up one end of the building, with a large shower stall and several lavatories and
toilet
s.

             
“They got us up at dawn,” said Emilio, “even though we’d only had two hours sleep. They told us we’d have to work off our passage before we could leave the camp. One of the men who came over with me told them that his family had paid Arguilles. This big Mexican guy holding a baseball bat told us that there were some other charges for the boat, and we’d have to work that off.”

             
Emilio talked to some of the other workers as they were waiting to leave. He was told that some of the men had been held for a year or more. They had to buy their food and clothing from a store in the camp, and the cost was deducted from their pay, as was the rent for the bunkhouse. Most of them were charged more than they made, and the interest was building at a high rate. Many of them had decided they would not get out of the camp alive.

             
They were t
aken in an old blue school bus
to the fields about five miles from the camp and put to work harvesting a late crop of tomatoes. They were there when the Border Patrol found them.

             
Emilio laughed. “I’
ve never seen a bunch of Mexicans so glad to see the U.S. Border Patrol
.
They were free, and knew they’d be deported to Mexico. They also know they’ll be back in Florida within a few weeks.”

             
Kyle poured himself another cup of coffee. “What do you think happened to the man Arguilles had been dealing with before Mendez came into the picture?” he asked.

             
Emilio said, “I think Mendez showed up at the same time the drug shipments started. Until the
n, they were probably just ship
ping illegals into Sarasota.
I think Mendez
killed A
r
guelles’ contact in Veracruz, but we’ll never know for sure.”

             
“Kyle,” I said, “what do we know about the house on Longboat where the drugs were coming in?”

             
“Bill Lester called about that a little while ago. Turns out it’s owned by an elderly couple who live in Traverse City, Michigan, and they only use it during the winter months. They leased it to some guy, who probably doesn’t exist, for the months of April through December. The renter paid the whole thing up front and in cash.”

             
I drank some more coffee. “I guess that about wraps it up,” I said, “but I still don’t know who’s trying to kill me.”

             
Jock finally stirred. “Wilkerson or Hewett or whatever his name is, is the one who knows,” he said. “He’s on the run. The feds will get him sooner or later. I think it’s over as far as you’re concerned.”

             
“Then,
let’s go home.”

* * * * *

             
Sheriff Kyle Merryman had one of his deputies drive Jock and me to Longboat Key. I called Log
an to see about dinner, but he
said he was too tired to move.

             
We decided that eating in would make more sense than going out for dinner. I ordered a pizza, and we sat in the living room eating it and discussing our adventure. As we called it a night, it occurred to me that it had been exactly three weeks since Diaz had tried to kill me in Tiny’s.

* * * * *

             
Jock left on Saturday morning, headed back to Houston. I dropped him at the airport and swung back by Lynches for lunch with Logan.

             
We re-hashed the events of the past few days. I hadn’t told him about Anne, so I recounted what I’d begun to think of as the “great dumping.” Logan was symp
a
thetic, but not much concerned.

             
Most of November had slipped by without my noticing. There was a little chill in the morning air, hinting at the colder days to come. Thanksgiving was less than a week away, and Logan was planning his annual feast. He always invited the singles and older couples who had no family in the area. He’d have The Market cater it, and there’d be more food than we could eat. I always went, and I always felt a little more like a member of our island family after the event.

             
Logan was headed home for a n
ap, still tired from his ordeal.
I was antsy, a withdrawal symptom from the flood of adrenalin that had suffused my body for several d
ays. I went to Mar Vista for a
beer, looking for a little conversation with the regulars. I found more than I expected.

             
Cracker Dix was at the bar. An expatriate Englishman who had lived on our key for years, he was a popular figure on the North End. He was bald and wore a closely trimmed beard. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt advertising a pub in Dorset. His voice still carried the accents of his homeland. “Matt,” he said, “somebody’s looking for you.”

             
“Who?”

             
“Don’t know. He was around at lunchtime asking if you ever came in here.”

             
“Can you describe him?”

             
“Hispanic guy. About five-eight and wiry. Had a crew-cut. Know him?”

             
“I don’t think so, Cracker. If you see him again, give me a call. He may not be friendly.”

             
“I’ve seen him hanging around for the past couple of days. He shows up at odd times, both here and at some of the other places on the North End.”

             
I didn’t like the sound of that. Somebody was stalking me.

             
Cracker said, “I heard about all the crap coming down on you. I didn’t even tell the guy I knew you. You sure must have pissed somebody off.”