Found: A Matt Royal Mystery (22 page)

“I Googled it,” said J.D. “The only references I could find were to a German submarine that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during World War II. Katie’s certainly not connected to that.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” I said. “You up for a boat ride?”

“What’ve you got in mind?”

“We could run up the Manatee River to the Twin Dolphin Marina. Pig out on crab cakes at Pier 22.”

“Sounds like a plan,” she said.

And that’s what we did.

The ride back from Pier 22 was pleasant. Tampa Bay was quiet, the water flat, and the sun warm, but the wind kicked up by our passage was cool enough to make us glad we were wearing sweatshirts and jeans. We decided to exit the bay through Passage Key Inlet and run south in the Gulf. I took
Recess
out about a mile offshore, set the autopilot for the sea buoy at Longboat Pass, put my feet on the dash and cruised toward home. J.D. and I sat quietly, enjoying each other’s company without any conversation.

As we cruised south along the length of Anna Maria Island, dark clouds were building to the southeast over the mainland, piling atop each other like so many blocks of spun granite, dark and foreboding. A bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. I pointed toward the storm. “We’ll have some rain. Maybe before we make it home.”

“It’s pretty, isn’t it? Even bad weather has a certain beauty when you live in paradise.”

“Yes, it does, but if that storm hits us before we get home, you won’t think it’s so beautiful. There’s lightning in those clouds.”

“It’s pretty far off,” she said.

“It’s moving fast, coming toward us.” It was one of those rapidly moving thunder cells that we see so often in the summer. They’re rare in the winter, but they do pop up on occasion, and this one looked dangerous.

I disengaged the autopilot and pushed the throttles forward. I angled in closer to the beach and made for the rock jetty that juts off the southernmost tip of Anna Maria Island, defining the northern edge of Longboat Pass. There was a swash channel at the end of the jetty that was deep enough for
Recess
. I would save a lot of time by not having to go all the way to the sea buoy and then back through the marked channel to the bridge.

I took the swash channel at speed and slowed as I passed under the bridge and turned toward the channel that runs between Jewfish Key and Longboat Key. I moved as fast as I could without leaving a wake that would rock the boats at anchor in the lee of the island. I moved toward the dock in back of my house. The storm was moving faster than I’d thought and just as I eased
Recess
into her slip, the rain hit us with such ferocity that I couldn’t see more than a few yards. J.D. jumped off the boat with the lines and was wrapping them around the cleats when thunder boomed close.

“Get down,” I shouted to J.D.

She didn’t hesitate. She fell prone on the dock as I reached for the pistol I’d stowed in the canvas bag I always carry aboard. My Glock 9mm was stowed in a plastic sandwich bag to keep the water out. I stuffed it in the front pocket of my jeans.

I hadn’t heard thunder. I’d heard a gunshot. I don’t know what made me realize that. Maybe it was the absence of lightning just before the noise, or maybe something deeper, a fading memory of enemy soldiers shooting at me.

“What is it?” she asked. Maybe two seconds had elapsed since the shot.

“Somebody’s shooting at us.” I’d taken cover behind the helm seat, knowing that was no protection, but trying to make myself as small as possible.

Another shot. This one took out part of
Recess’s
windshield. J.D. had rolled off the pier and was swimming under the short leg of the T-dock to the seaward side of the boat. She’d be protected and out of danger. I recovered my cell phone from the dash and dialed 911, identified myself, and told the operator someone was shooting at me. I gave her the address, hung up and crawled to the stern, keeping my head below the gunwale. I opened the transom door that was designed for bringing fish aboard and slipped out of my boat shoes, jeans, and sweatshirt. The big outboard engines were between me and the shooter. I held onto my pistol, still in its plastic bag, as I slithered across the small swim platform and into the dark water.

The cold hit me like a blast of snow. J.D. was holding onto the swim platform, protected by the big outboards, already shivering. She had
removed her sweatshirt, jeans, and shoes and placed them in the engine well.

“I’m going to swim around the bow and come up on the other side of the dock,” I said. “Once I get into shallow enough water to stand, I’ll go after the shooter.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“You’re not armed.”

“I’ve got my pistol.”

“Where?”

“It was in my ankle holster.”

“It’s wet. It might not even fire.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

“Stay here,” I said. “I called 911. The cops should be here soon.”

“Yeah, and they’ll all see me cowering here in the water while my manly rescuer is taking on the bad guy. That’s not going to happen.”

Sometimes, loving a cop is hard work. I looked at her for a moment and then began to breaststroke toward the bow, holding the pistol in my right hand. I heard her right behind me, but knew I’d better keep my mouth shut and keep swimming.

Recess
was tied port side to the short leg of my T-dock. My plan was to swim around the bow and under the dock’s short leg and then ease myself toward the beach until I could stand. I wanted to move toward shore with just my head showing. The dark clouds and hard rain obscured the daylight and turned mid-afternoon into dusk.

As I reached the shallows and my feet touched bottom, I felt J.D. at my side. God, she was tough. The gunfire had stopped after the first two shots. Maybe the shooter was waiting for one of us to show ourselves. Maybe he was gone. No luck. Another shot rang out. I heard it plunk into the
Recess’s
fiberglass hull. He didn’t know where we were.

I duck walked toward the shore, keeping my head just above the surface. J.D. was right behind me, her pistol in hand. The bottom rose as we neared shore, and we were crawling on all fours and then on our stomachs. The rain was still falling hard and lightning blasted the sky, thunder rumbling right behind it. I could see the house, looming like a silhouette through the pelting rain. A man stepped around the corner, holding a rifle,
and let loose another round, just as a bolt of lightning flashed nearby, illuminating the shooter and giving me a pretty good look at him. He was a stranger, a man I’d never seen before. The round hit my boat. Another hole in the fiberglass. This guy was really starting to piss me off.

I pulled my pistol out of the plastic bag and held it out of the water. We waited. The man stepped around the corner again, and I let go with three quick shots. He bounced back behind the corner of the house. He popped back out firing the rifle, answering me with three shots in quick succession. The rounds hit the water near us, sending us scurrying beneath the dock.

“My gun is useless,” said J.D. “How much ammo do you have?”

“A full clip. Seventeen rounds plus the one that was in the chamber. I’ve got fifteen left.”

“He can sit up there for hours with that rifle and hold us off.”

“The cops are on their way,” I said. “He can’t stick around for long.”

The man sprayed the dock with automatic fire, kicking up splinters and making little plopping sounds as the rounds hit the water all around us.

“He’s got an M-16,” I said. “Stay here.” I crawled out the other side of the dock and onto the grass of my backyard. I fired three quick rounds in the direction of the house and then made a run for it. I wasn’t going to wait while the son of a bitch picked us off.

I saw him stick his head around the corner. I fired again and dropped to the grass. I heard sirens nearby, probably the cops turning off Gulf of Mexico Drive. The man appeared again, fired at me, missed. Then quiet. I heard a car crank in the distance and then the fading sound of an engine. I called to J.D. “I think he’s gone, but let’s stay where we are until we’re sure.”

“No sweat,” she said, her voice quiet and close.

I was startled. She was about three feet behind me, lying in the grass. “I thought I told you to stay put,” I said.

“Yeah. Like I’m going to pay attention to some dumb civilian.”

I laughed, the tension broken. “You sound just like Doug McAllister. You cops are all alike.”

I saw a man coming around the corner of my house, a gun in his hand. A cop. “Matt,” the cop called. “The shooter’s gone.”

Steve Carey walked toward us. The storm was moving on and the rain was diminishing, the sky lightening perceptibly. J.D. was standing next to me, wearing only her bra and panties.

“You realize you don’t have any clothes on,” I said.

“Yeah. We probably look a little silly.”

I laughed again, partly with relief at having survived and partly at the absurdity of us standing in my backyard in our underwear, shivering and holding guns. “You know you can see through that flimsy stuff you’re wearing.”

She looked a bit embarrassed, a faint smile playing on her lips. “I can’t do anything about that now.”

Steve was smiling as he walked up. He pulled off his windbreaker as he approached. “You’re a bit out of uniform, Detective,” he said as he handed her his jacket.

“I better not ever hear another word about this,” J.D. said. “Not ever.”

Steve laughed, threw a sloppy salute her way, and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

J.D. laughed too. “It
is
kind of funny, though.”

Another cop came around the corner of the house. “All clear,” he said. “Whoever was here is long gone.”

“Okay,” said Steve. He looked toward J.D. and me. “How many shots were fired?”

“A lot. I didn’t have time to count them,” I said.

“What kind of weapon?”

“Rifle,” J.D. said.

“I agree,” I said. “Probably an M-16.”

“Could you tell where the fire was coming from?”

“Not at first,” said J.D. “I thought the first shot was thunder.”

“He was at the corner of the house,” I said, pointing.

“Did you get a look at him?”

“Yeah. I didn’t recognize him, but I’ll know him if I see him again.”

Steve turned back to the other cop, pointed toward where I thought the shots had come from. “See if you can find any brass over in that area.”

“I’m freezing,” said J.D. “Let’s get inside.”

• • •

J.D. disappeared into the bedroom, mumbling that she needed a hot shower. I was left standing in my undershorts dripping bay water on my carpet. I told Steve to have a seat and I went to put on dry clothes. When I came back into the living room, Chief Bill Lester was sitting and talking to Steve. “I heard you were trying to get my star detective killed,” the chief said to me.

“I don’t know what’s going on, Bill,” I said. “Who the hell takes a shot at us in the middle of a Sunday afternoon?”

“I don’t think it’s just some crazy,” said Bill. “I wonder if the Mafia guy is behind this.”

“I think it’s time to have a chat with him,” I said.

“We don’t have any real basis to do that,” said Bill. “Even if we could find him.”

“The guy who tried to beat me up said Bonino sent him.”

“That’s not really enough to go after him,” said Bill. “And we have no idea where Bonino lives. He has an office downtown, but Sarasota P.D. tells me he’s never there. He’s never been arrested, and the police don’t even know what he looks like. He’s a ghost. And the guy who tried to beat you up, DeLuca, isn’t talking.”

“Is he still in the hospital?”

“Yes. Under guard. He’s going to be there for at least another week.”

“What about Caster?”

“He’s not saying anything either,” said Bill. “I called Detective Sims as soon as I heard about King’s murder and asked that he put Caster in isolation. I wouldn’t want whoever killed King to get to Caster in lockup.”

“I wonder if we can put some kind of pressure on Caster to get him talking. Maybe tell him the reason he’s in isolation is that we have good intelligence that somebody has put a contract on him.”

“That might work. I’ll talk to Sims.”

J.D. came into the living room wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She was barefoot, her hair wrapped in a towel. She handed Steve his wind-breaker, smiled, and said, “Thanks, Steve. You’re a gentleman.”

“Don’t feel like you’ve got to dress up for us,” said Bill.

She stuck her tongue out at him and took a seat next to me on the sofa.

“How can a guy like Bonino stay off everybody’s radar?” I asked.

“I don’t know. The intelligence guys at all the police agencies in the area have been trying to figure that out. We first started hearing about Bonino about five years ago. The word on the street was that he was taking over and consolidating a number of illegal businesses that had been run by low-level gangs. A lot of the gang members began to disappear, and the agencies let the whole thing slide. The idea was that if Bonino was cleaning up our streets, more power to him.

“The problem began when Bonino infiltrated some legitimate businesses and over a period of a couple of years took them over. The owners quietly disengaged, sold their interest, and moved out of town. One of the legitimate owners talked to an FBI agent a couple of years ago and told him that the Bonino people just showed up one day with pictures of his house, his wife, his car, and one of his sons being delivered to a middle school by a school bus. The owner was offered a price for his business and told that his family might be better off if he accepted the offer and moved to California.”

“Was the offer fair?” I asked.

Bill chuckled. “It was for about fifty percent of the fair value of the business. The owner took the money and left town.”

“What kind of business was it?” I asked.

“A large used car dealership.”

“Why would the Mafia want a used car dealership?” I asked.

“It’s a great way to launder money. Comes in dirty, goes out clean. The dealer has no legal obligation to ask the buyer where he got the money. Of course, the car buyer was always somebody who worked for Bonino, but the title would be issued in the name of somebody with no ties to the dealership. The cars were recycled through dealerships all over the country.”