Deadly Catch (2 page)

“It’s a body.”

There was another pause, longer this time. “Mac, I’m putting you on hold for a minute, okay? Don’t hang up.”

I’d finished my beer and was well into my second when Kate came back on the line. “Mac?”

“I’m here.”

“I contacted Fish and Wildlife. They should have a boat there in a half hour or so. They said to stay put and don’t touch anything.”

I almost laughed out loud. “Tell ’em not to worry.”

I switched on my portable radio and tried to pass the time watching a small flock of terns diving on a school of minnows while waiting for Fish and Wildlife to show up. But the music and bird watching weren’t much help, and I’d damned near polished off a six-pack when I spotted a boat approaching from the mainland. This one was heading straight for me. Earlier, I’d seen a couple of others heading southwest, probably for fishing spots of their own. I’d been tempted to flag them down. I could’ve used the company but decided against it. Not much sense in screwing up their day with my troubles.

I took a quick glance over my shoulder again. The crabs had returned, and if I hadn’t known what was out there, I wouldn’t have a clue. I thought about the fried soft-shell crabs I’d had for dinner a few nights ago and felt my gut twist. Thank god for the wind change.

I turned my head and stared northeast at the approaching boat. I could barely make out the throaty hum of the outboard now. I finished my beer, crushed the can, and tossed it in the ice chest. I decided against popping another one. I didn’t need a DUI or whatever the hell they call it for being inebriated on the water. But that was small potatoes compared to what was lying up in that grass.

I fished a roll of breath mints from my pocket and popped a couple in my mouth. It was warm now, and I’d dried out. Everything was back in place except for my shoes and sanity. How the hell could this be happening? I was on vacation, for christsake, a month out of the Marine Corps and looking forward to a long R&R before deciding what to do with the rest of my life. And now this. For the first time since my discharge I felt a twinge of regret that I hadn’t re-upped for one more hitch with the Corps. Twenty-four years had been enough, I’d thought, but now I wasn’t so sure.

When the boat was about fifty yards away I heard the motor throttle back. The bow dipped and swayed with the drop in power, then the boat straightened and approached at a no-wake speed. I recognized the Fish and Wildlife emblem on the hull. I returned the officer’s wave and watched as he slid the gear handle into neutral. A second later he switched off the motor, his boat maybe ten yards astern and drifting closer.

“Morning,” he called, leaving the steering station and stepping toward the bow. “Are you Mr. McClellan?”

“Yes, sir,” I said to a trim, dark-haired officer I judged to be eight or ten years my junior—my formality a product of ingrained military habit I’d yet to shake. The gray and green uniform and nine-millimeter pistol strapped to his waist didn’t help matters.

He stood just back of the bow, took off his cap, and wiped his forehead with the back of a hand. “Kate at Gillman’s says we’ve got some trouble here.”

“Yeah, I’d say so.” I pointed behind me. “There’s a body about thirty yards back there.”

His boat drifted alongside mine. I grabbed hold of the bow and watched as he squinted in the general direction I’d pointed. “The crabs?”

“Yeah,” I said, damned impressed with his eye for detail. I’d never noticed the crabs before they’d bolted, nearly scaring the life out of me.

“Okay then,” he said, still staring ahead, “climb aboard. “Let’s go take a look.”

“Call me Mac,” I said, after he’d identified himself as Officer Dave Reilly, Florida Fish and Wildlife. I sat on the starboard bow of the twenty-foot Mako while Dave stood portside and used a long pole he’d grabbed from a rack to push us toward the target. Damned if I wanted any part of messing with that body. I’d seen more than enough already. As a First Sergeant in the Marines with a sleeve full of lifer stripes, I’d been used to ordering shave-tail lieutenants around. But I was a civilian now and more than happy to let Officer Reilly handle things from here on out.

“Tell me again exactly what you saw,” Dave said, when we were about halfway to the corpse.

I repeated how I’d made my cast, how I thought I’d hooked a big speck, realized I was hung up, and then what I’d found when I tried to retrieve my lure.

“And you’re positive it’s a body, not some fish or animal.”

I exhaled sharply. First Kate, now this guy. “Look, I fought in Desert Storm and did two combat tours during Iraqi Freedom. I’ve seen more dead than I care to remember. I’m positive.”

Dave nodded, kept his eyes focused ahead and pushed on. “Sorry, Mac. It’s just that I’ve been in on a few too many drowning recoveries and I’m not looking forward to this.”

“Join the crowd,” I said, as the wind shifted and the stench hit us full in the face.

Dave coughed, almost gagged. “God.”

My gut flipped in agreement. “Yeah, it’s a ripe one.”

He stopped the boat, then eased the pole toward the body until the scavengers scattered. From my perch on the bow I could make out both legs and the buttocks of a body, badly swollen and partially eaten. The upper half was entangled and covered by the grass, though patches of bleached-white flesh showed through here and there.

Dave coughed and spit, then started poling fast toward the beach. Only when we were well past and upwind of the body did he slow down. “I’ll call this in when we get ashore. There’s nothing we can do back there. Headquarters will send out a team and the medical examiner, if he’s available. This is outside St. George’s jurisdiction, so the county’s got to be called in on this, too.”

I assumed he meant the Palmetto County Sheriff’s Department whose headquarters was in Parkersville, the county seat, about six miles by land west of St. George. “What about my boat?”

Dave glanced my way. “I’ll get you back to your boat, but they’ll have to search the area and recover the body first,” he said, poling through a channel that cut through the grass flats twenty yards from shore. “And they’re going to want to question you, of course. That body was naked. I doubt it’s a routine drowning.”

“Yeah, so I noticed,” I said, wondering if Officer Reilly had ever heard of skinny dipping. I’d sobered up quickly, but right then I could’ve used another beer or two. “What’ll they want with me? I’ve already told you everything I know.”

I lurched forward as the boat scraped bottom. Dave dropped the pole, grabbed a coiled anchor line, swung it like a grappling hook, and tossed it onto the beach. He turned to me, hands resting on hips.

“As far as I know, there haven’t been any reports of missing persons around here for a while.” He pointed toward the body. “An unclothed floater that’s been in the water for several days, I’d estimate, and you found the body, Mac. Until we know better, my guess is the sheriff will treat this as a crime scene.”

“So, what’s that got to do with me?”

“Kate said you’ve been in the area for the past week. Knowing Sheriff Pickron, I’d say there’s a good chance he’ll find that an interesting coincidence.”

The natives of Palmetto County differ as to how Five-Mile Island got its name. It lies roughly five miles off the coast of the Florida Panhandle. It also happens to be approximately five miles long. Take your pick. Running east to west, it forms a natural barrier that protects the fishing-turned-artsy-village of St. George, and the bay’s rich oyster and scallop beds many of the locals still depend upon for their livelihood. The pork chop–shaped island is about a hundred yards wide at its eastern juncture where it joins a bridge and causeway leading to the mainland. It widens gradually as you travel west, the last two-mile stretch being Five-Mile Island State Park, a beautiful area of wide sugar-white beaches and towering dunes on the Gulf of Mexico. Inland, bent, and weathered stands of scrub oak give way to native longleaf pines that, a mile later, surrender to small dunes and a narrow beach that skirts the fertile waters of St. George Bay.

There are a hundred or so seasonal or full-time residences strung out from the causeway to the park entrance, a convenience store/gas station, a couple of mom-and-pop motels, and the Trade Winds Lodge. The Trade Winds is the gem of the island, consisting of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century two-story wooden hotel overlooking the gulf, a dozen rental cabins along the bay, a gift shop, and a decent restaurant. I’d stayed at the lodge a couple of nights when I first arrived in the area, but when I decided to hang around a while and try my luck fishing, I’d rented a camping space at Gulf Pines Campground in St. George. Twenty-five bucks a night beat a hundred-fifty all day long, despite the sacrifice in comfort. Besides, my twenty-two-foot Grey Wolf camping trailer was plenty swanky for me. I’d spent too many nights in foxholes to complain about any lack of luxury.

After the Fish and Wildlife team showed up to secure the scene, Dave and I waited inside the restaurant with a couple of Cokes escaping the noon heat. Twenty minutes later Sheriff Pickron pulled into the parking lot in a white, unmarked Jeep SUV. Two green-and-white county squad cars quickly followed, along with a utility van marked Palmetto County Dive & Rescue. Through the window I saw the sheriff climb out of the SUV, point to the bay, and mouth orders to several deputies. They scrambled to gather dive gear and other equipment from the van, and then disappeared down the path leading to the cabins.

Pickron was all brawn, built like an NFL linebacker. He nearly filled the doorway when he stepped inside the restaurant. He took off his sunglasses and glanced around, then headed for our table. On his way over I heard a couple of patrons greet him as “Bo,” or the more formal “Sheriff Bo.” Our waitress, a thirty-something, bottled-blonde looker, was all smiles as she intercepted him with a friendly pat on the shoulder, and then hurried away with his order.

“Reilly,” Pickron said, nodding as he pulled out the chair next to Dave.

“Sheriff,” Dave said, “this is Mac McClellan. He found the body.”

I reached across the table and we shook hands as the waitress brought a sweating glass of iced tea and set it down with a couple of napkins.

“Y’all need anything else, just holler,” she said and sashayed off to another table.

The sheriff took the slice of lemon from the rim of his glass and squeezed it into the tea, then stirred it with a meaty finger, ignoring the teaspoon inside the glass. “So McClellan, what brings you to our little piece of paradise?” His deep voice struck me as hovering somewhere between unfriendly and bullying.

“A buddy I served with in the Marines used to brag about the fishing here,” I said, a little irked by his brusqueness. “I retired a few weeks back. I’ve got some time on my hands, so I decided to come down and check it out.”

What might pass for a grin crept across the sheriff’s bulldoggish face. He swiped a hand across his buzz-cut hair. “Gyrene, huh? I was Army, myself. Chopper pilot. Ever hear of Somalia?” From his tone I was leaning toward bullying.

“Yeah.
Black Hawk Down
and all that. Not one of our finest hours,” I said, now a little beyond irked.

His grin faded into a frown. He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a small notebook and pen. “That friend of yours, I’d like his name and current residence in case I need to check out your story.”

“Staff Sergeant Jeffrey Sanderson, Arlington National Cemetery,” I said, looking the sheriff square in the eye. “But I doubt you’ll get much out of him.”

Sheriff Pickron flushed and his jaw tightened. He grabbed his glass of tea and downed it in a few gulps. “I got an investigation to oversee,” he said, sliding his chair back and standing. He turned and eyeballed me. “You mind if we take a look at your boat?”

I hesitated, rolling the cool glass between my palms.

“I can get a warrant,” Pickron said, almost a snarl.

“Go ahead; I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“You stay put until I say otherwise,” he said, meaning me, then turned and strode out the door.

“That wasn’t very wise,” Dave said after the sheriff stormed out of the restaurant. “Bo Pickron’s considered a hero around these parts. He won the Distinguished Flying Cross in Somalia. Getting on his bad side won’t sit well with folks in this county.”