Deadly Catch (14 page)

I kicked off my deck shoes and stripped down to my swim trunks, then grabbed my snorkeling gear from the duffle bag. If Brett Barfield’s runabout was on the bottom somewhere in The Stumps I intended to find it. The one thing I’d forgotten was a diver-down flag. It was too late to worry about that now. I hoped Dave Reilly or one of his fellow F and W officers wasn’t patrolling in the vicinity.

Early in my Corps career I’d spent a tour in a Recon unit. It had been a decade or more since I’d been SCUBA diving, but I remembered enough of my training to do a little snorkeling and free-diving. I spit into the mask and rinsed it, pulled on the fins, and slipped over the gunnels into the warm water. I cleared the snorkel and eased my way into The Stumps.

Visibility was fair to good, and I could make out the murky bottom, which I estimated to be somewhere around fifteen to twenty feet down. The bottom rose toward shore in a gentle incline. The dead forest was a beautiful but eerie sight. Schools of silvery minnows and small fish darted about, and I spied several speckled trout and a couple of redfish lurking among the ghostly stand of trees. A couple of times I thought I might’ve found what I was looking for, but each time a quick dive showed it to be downed timber instead.

I worked east to west in a zigzag pattern, trying to cover as much of the area as possible. After a while I glanced at my watch. I’d been at it for twenty minutes with no luck, but I pressed on. I was about three-quarters of the way through The Stumps in twelve or fifteen feet of water when I spotted it: a boat, lying on its side wedged between two large trees.

Adrenalin kicked in, and I took a few seconds to calm myself. Taking several deep breaths to oxygenate my lungs, I dove. Halfway down I felt pressure building in my ears; I pinched my nostrils and blew to equalize them. I swam down to the boat and grabbed hold of the gunnels. I looked it over and estimated it to be a seventeen to twenty footer. I pulled myself hand over hand toward the stern; the outboard was a one-fifteen horsepower Mercury. My lungs were beginning to beg, so I headed to the surface.

I pulled off the mask, gasping for air. I took a good look around, but no other boats were in sight. I rested a minute, spit, and rinsed the mask again, and dove for another look.

This time I swam to the bow. The port side had been bashed in, and there was a sizable hole in the hull about three feet back. From what I could see there was no reason to believe that the damage couldn’t have been caused by the boat crashing into The Stumps at a fast clip. I maneuvered to where I could see the boat’s interior. There was no sign of a trapped body or life jackets or other gear. I pulled up a bench cover and checked the live-well. It was empty. My air running out, I looked for the registration number on the bow, but the numbers were unreadable due to the damage. The starboard side was resting on the bottom, and I tried but couldn’t get to it. By now my lungs were screaming, so I surfaced.

Back aboard my boat, I opened a beer and rested for a few minutes. Then I grabbed my cell phone and punched in Bo Pickron’s personal number.

“What kind of boat does Brett Barfield own?” I asked when the sheriff answered my call.

“An Angler, eighteen-footer I think. Why?”

“What kind of motor?”

“I’m not sure. Are we playing Twenty Questions, McClellan?”

“You told me Clayton Barfield reported it missing,” I said. “I assume you have a record of it.”

“Of course I’ve got a record,” he said, his voice rising. “Give me a minute.”

Somehow the agitation in Bocephus’s voice pleased me. I sat on the bow with my feet dangling in the water, drinking my beer while I waited for the sheriff to shuffle through whatever filing system he kept. The sun felt good on my back.

“McClellan?”

“Go.”

“It’s an older eighteen-foot Angler with a one-fifteen horsepower Mercury outboard. And I’ll ask you again—what’s this about?”

I drained my beer before answering. “I’m anchored at The Stumps. Brett Barfield’s boat is lying on the bottom.”

Pickron told me to get to his office ASAP and not to breathe a word to anyone about what I’d discovered. He’d be waiting for me. I pulled anchor and headed for the mainland. It was a quarter till two when I strolled past his smiling secretary and into his office.

Pickron was sitting at his desk going through a stack of paperwork. “Just what the hell is going on here?” he said, motioning for me to take a seat. “You show up in town and find my niece’s body, which we know was placed in the bay
after
she died. Now you conveniently happen across Barfield’s missing boat. What gives?”

I leaned forward and shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess. Maybe I ought to start playing the lottery.”

The sheriff popped up out of his chair and pointed at me. “Don’t screw with me, McClellan! I got a good mind to throw your ass in the slammer.”

“On what charge?” I said, resisting the urge to grab his finger and snap it like a stick. “Look, you asked me to look around and see what I could find out. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’ve got a couple of leads and I’m checking them out.”

“How did you know where to find the boat?”

“It was just a hunch, Sheriff, nothing more,” I said, deciding against telling him about the phone call I’d received at The Stumps. “I was fishing The Stumps a few weeks ago and noticed an oil slick. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but after you told me Barfield’s boat went missing, I got to thinking about it. So I bought some snorkeling gear and went snooping. End of story.”

The next morning Fish and Wildlife and the Palmetto County Dive & Rescue team scoured the area in and around The Stumps for several hours. When they finished, a salvage crew attached air bags and brought the boat to the surface and towed it to the mainland, where it was immediately impounded.

That evening the local television channel headlined the story. A sunken pleasure boat, tentatively thought to belong to Brett Aaron Barfield, twenty-one, had been located just off Five-Mile Island in an area popularly known as The Stumps. Speculation was that young Barfield, missing since early May, had perished in a boating accident along with his girlfriend, Madison Lynn Harper, whose body was recovered several weeks prior behind the Trade Winds Lodge.

There was no word about who made the discovery, which was fine with me. I’d taken enough heat when I’d found Maddie’s body; I sure as hell didn’t need the notoriety that would follow if the public knew I’d also found Brett’s boat. I had enough enemies around these parts already.

For the time being, Bo Pickron was treating me as if I had the plague. All I got from him was that Clayton Barfield had positively identified his son’s boat late that afternoon and that the boat’s numbers matched the Florida registration. If any evidence had been found on the boat that might shed some light on the case, Pickron wasn’t in any mood to share it with me or the media. For all intents and purposes the incident was a tragic accident and Brett Barfield was presumed drowned, body not recovered.

A little after seven that night headlights shined through the windows as a vehicle pulled into my campsite. A car door opened and closed. I peeked through the drawn blinds and saw Kate hustling toward the steps. I opened the door before she was close enough to knock.

“Did you see the news?” she said, rushing inside and dropping her purse on the dinette table.

“Hello to you, too,” I said.

“Stop it, Mac, this isn’t funny. They found Brett’s boat this morning.”

“Well, actually, I found it yesterday. Dive & Rescue did their thing this morning.”

Kate stopped like she’d been frozen in place. “
You
found it? Is that what the snorkeling gear was . . . but how did you know where to look?”

While I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge, I told her about the phone call I’d received the morning I’d fished The Stumps, and how I’d traced it to the pay phone at Jim and Jan’s Laundromat. We sat at the table and I handed Kate a beer. “What do you know about Lamar’s family?”

“I met his wife, Debra, at the Gillman’s last Christmas party. She drops by the marina now and then. She’s a nurse at Parkersville Memorial, works night shifts mostly, I think. Why? You don’t believe Lamar’s mixed up in this, do you?”

“Kids?” I said, ignoring her question.

Kate sipped her beer. “They have three, two boys in middle school and a daughter in high school. I think Lamar has an older son from a previous marriage, but he doesn’t live around here.”

“Any around Sara’s age?”

Kate nodded. “Tonya goes to school with Sara. They’re friends, but not particularly close that I know of. She’s a year behind Sara.” She pursed her lips. “No more questions until you tell me what this is about.”

“Fair enough.” I reached across the table and placed a hand on Kate’s. “The day I found Maddie’s body it was Lamar who suggested I fish behind the Trade Winds. A couple of days later, he suggested I fish The Stumps.”

“What does that prove?” Kate said, shifting in her chair. “Both those places are hot spots for speckled trout, and that’s what you were after, isn’t it? If I remember correctly, you’re the one who kept badgering Lamar for suggestions about where to fish. Why on earth would he send you there if he was mixed up with Maddie and Brett?”

“I don’t know, maybe reverse psychology.” I recounted the story of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox from the old Disney movie. “I’m not accusing Lamar of anything at this point, but it sure is one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Kate frowned and fidgeted in her chair, but didn’t answer.

“And here’s something else to chew on,” I said. “You ever notice that tattoo he has scrawled on the fingers of his right hand?”

She nodded.

“Did you ever ask him about it, who ‘Mare’ is?”

“Of course not. Why on earth would I do that? It’s none of my dang business.”

I took a swig of beer and fought back a belch. “It might be more your business than you think,” I said, searching Kate’s eyes. “‘Mare’ is Marilyn Harper.”

I called Bo Pickron’s cell phone at eight Monday morning and got his voice mail. Guess he didn’t like the sound of my ring tone. I hung up without leaving a message and dialed the sheriff’s office. His secretary put me on hold, and I waited a good five minutes before Pickron came on the line.