Soundkeeper (14 page)

When it ran out of water, the lightweight jon boat skidded across the sticky gray mud for ten yards before it slid to a stop. Even as the propeller chewed into the mud and shells, the driver leapt from the craft and started to run through the mire. He fell several times trying to reach his goal of firm ground that was a long way away.

The engine protested with a scream, and the boat shook and shuddered when Hall slammed his motor into full reverse to keep from grounding. He knew the suspect was as good as caught. There was nowhere for him to go once he reached the mainland. Hall hoped that a man covered from head to toe in marsh mud would be easy to spot. Just as he got on his radio to call the sheriff’s department for assistance, he heard a terrifying noise above him on the bridge and he ducked to avoid whatever was coming.

The screech of skidding tires was capped off by the sound of metal slamming against metal and concrete. Thousands of tiny pieces of glass rained down onto him from the bridge, and he heard someone scream. Hall looked at his suspect, who had also stopped to see what had happened, then swung his boat away from the shore.

Hall immediately radioed for help and requested an ambulance. He tied his boat to one of the bridge supports and hoisted himself up onto a ladder that led up to the top of the bridge. Just as he reached the catwalk his foot slipped on a pile of seagull excrement and he found himself momentarily hanging on by only one hand, twenty feet above the water. He quickly regained his balance, climbed onto the catwalk, and jumped over to the roadway.

Hall saw a tractor-trailer rig on its side and on top of another car. Three other cars had slammed into each other behind the semi. Hall ran toward the wreckage and pushed his way past several other people who had gotten out of their cars to help. The air was thick with diesel fumes, and the concrete was slick with anti-freeze and gasoline. Even when he stood next to the car he could not tell what make it was. It was crushed beyond recognition and so was anyone who was inside.

There were other people hurt as well. Someone was helping the truck driver out of his cab, and a young woman was sitting behind the steering wheel of her station wagon with blood streaming out of a gash on her forehead. Two young men in jeans and t-shirts with telltale Marine Corps high-and-tight haircuts were attending to the bleeding passengers of yet another car.

“There’s a first aid kit down on my boat,” Hall told one of the Marines. He took notice of Hall’s uniform and hopped onto the catwalk and disappeared down the ladder.

“Is anyone critical?” Hall asked the other Marine. His training was starting to kick in. He needed to identify the more severely injured victims for the paramedics when they arrived.

“No sir, not in this car,” the young man answered. “Probably just a broken nose.” Hall noticed the young man had a stainless steel clasp where his left hand should have been.

Hall nodded and checked the third car. The driver had been wearing his seatbelt and was not injured at all. Someone in a nurse’s uniform was using Hall’s first aid kit to help the woman with the bleeding forehead. Now he turned back to the car underneath the truck.

Just as he began to hear sirens approaching, a Coast Guard helicopter circled above him and then landed in the travel lane that had been blocked by the accident. Hall reasoned that they must have heard him call for help on the marine radio and he was glad to see two Coasties carrying medical packs jump out of the chopper and head toward him.

As the adrenaline in his veins began to subside he began to worry more and more about the crushed automobile. Even when the fire department arrived and began to place hydraulic jacks underneath the overturned truck, he knew that whoever was underneath it was dead.

As more of the car became visible, his heart grew heavier and heavier. Hall saw the body of a young woman in the wreckage. One of the jacks slipped and a portion of the truck slammed back onto the car and Hall watched it fall on her for a second time. His blood pressure dropped dramatically. Everything he heard had a hollow ring, and he felt just as he had in the seventh grade when he watched the doctor put some stitches in his brother’s knee. He stumbled to the guardrail, squatted down, and put his head between his knees. In the stillness of the moment he thought he heard the surf pounding in his ears.

“Are you OK?” It was one of the Marines. He shook out a cigarette and offered one to Hall. “The nicotine will help you feel better.”

Hall shook his head. Within a moment the color returned to his face and he stood back up.

“I’m alright.” The Marine walked away without saying anything else.

The fire department lifted the truck off of the car and was beginning to cut apart the roof. Several deputies and state troopers were there taking statements from witnesses and keeping the onlookers back. Hall wished that someone would keep him away.

When the “jaws of life” stopped cutting, Hall watched the rescuers peel back the twisted sheet metal and motion for a paramedic. Hall watched the medic kneel down into the car and stand back up much too quickly. The medic shook his head slowly at the firefighter

Hall approached the car and heard a trooper calling for the county coroner on his radio. The medic who pronounced the victim took a white sheet off of his gurney and was getting ready to drape it over the victim when Hall grabbed his arm.

“Wait just a second,” Hall said

Her face looked too peaceful. If he hadn’t looked below her neck he would have thought that she was merely sleeping. But his eyes were drawn lower, where the enormous weight of the truck had crushed her torso and severed her legs from her body. The blood was so plentiful Hall could smell it in the air.

“Did you know her?’ the medic asked him.

Hall answered so quietly that the man had to ask him again.

“Not really,” Hall whispered. “But I saw her in court the other day.”

After he gathered his first aid kit, he took one last look at the accident scene. All of the cops, the medics, and the firemen were busy treating the victims or cleaning up the debris. He realized he wasn’t needed any longer. He climbed back down the ladder and into his boat, thankful beyond words to be leaving the scene of death. Before he could open his canteen of water his emotions overwhelmed him and he slumped into the helm seat and just sat there for a long time.

After taking a few minutes to compose himself and drink some water, Hall motored over to the marsh grass and nudged his bow into the mud. His brand new rubber boots paid for themselves when he took his first step out of the boat. The mud was so thick that it almost sucked off his boots with every step, and he had to use his arms to help pull his legs up every time he took a step.

When he reached the abandoned jon boat he tied a line to it and played out the rope as he walked back to his boat. He hopped onto the bow of his boat butt-first and scooted around the gunwale on his rear end until his feet reached the water and he could wash the mud off of his boots. Then he tied the line from the jon boat to the front of his own boat and shifted into reverse.

For a moment he thought that he would have to call for a salvage boat but once the small aluminum boat started moving he was able to drag it back to the water. He moved the line to the stern of his boat and then started for the municipal dock in Beaufort.

It didn’t take long for him to realize that the trip to Beaufort towing the impounded boat would take over an hour since he had to travel at such a low speed. Hall didn’t want to be on the water towing a boat after dark so he decided to take the impounded vessel to the public boat landing on Pinckney Island and call for a tow truck. He hoped a roll-back wrecker would be able to winch the flat-bottomed boat onto its bed and take it to the county impound lot.

Since the road was still blocked from the accident, it was dark when the wrecker finally arrived. The driver told Hall he had never tried to haul a boat before but as long as he wasn’t responsible for the damages he was willing to try. Once he backed down the boat ramp to the water’s edge and tilted down the truck bed, the jon boat went on without a hitch. The driver smiled at Hall as he strapped down the boat for transport and wondered out loud if this might be a new way for him to make some money. Hall gave him directions to the impound lot and then shoved off for Beaufort in his boat. He would be there quicker than the driver, who agreed to pick him up at the marina.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Hall wished he had worn a jacket for the boat ride to Beaufort. The water was flat and calm, and there was enough light from the newly risen and waxing gibbous moon for him to safely travel as fast as his boat could go. When he reached the town he tied up his boat at the city marina, and a few minutes later the wrecker driver pulled up and Hall rode with him to the impound lot. The parking lot was crowded with cars and trucks and a few old motorcycles. Most of them had been seized under the new DUI laws and were going to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to the school system. A few were abandoned cars that were towed in by the police and were so ramshackle that no one had shown up to claim them.

Hall helped the wrecker driver back into a vacant spot between a badly wrecked police car and a Camaro that was missing its wheels. The driver unchained the jon boat and gently slid the boat onto the ground. Hall was filling out an inventory sheet when a deputy pulled up and got out of her patrol car. She walked over to Hall and asked him where he found the stolen boat.

“A poacher jumped out of it next to the Highway 278 Bridge, across from Pinckney Island,” he answered. He was so busy filling out his paperwork that he didn’t realize what she had said.

“Is this your boat, Mr. Gallers?”

Hall looked up from his writing to see who she was speaking to. An old man wearing a wrinkled face and a white, long sleeved dress shirt that was buttoned up to the top button under his overalls got out of the patrol car and walked with his cane over to the boat. There were no registration numbers on the boat and Hall hadn’t found the serial number yet to run through records. He had a feeling that he didn’t have to now.

“Yes ma’am that’s my boat,” the old man said. He spat a stream of bourbon colored tobacco juice onto the hood of the shoeless old Chevy.

This was not the man he chased a few hours ago. Hall knew what was next. He had a friend in college that had done the same thing after he had gotten drunk and wrecked his car one night.

“I sure do ‘preciate you finding it for me Warden,” the old man said to Hall.

Hall asked the deputy, “What time was the boat reported stolen?”

She too was beginning to understand what was happening.

“Mr. Gallers reported his boat missing at 1815 hours, according to the report.”

Almost an hour after the poacher ditched it in the marsh.

“Say the feller who stole it got away, did ya?” the old man said with a smile.

“I don’t think I mentioned that,” Hall said. “I’ve found that things have a way of catching up with folks in the long run.”

Hall walked away while the old man haggled with the wrecker driver over the fee for hauling his boat. He gave him some cash, and the driver winched the boat back onto this truck. The tow truck driver was beginning to think that the boat hauling business was going to be profitable after all.

From the crime report Hall learned that old Lazarus Gallers lived near Bolon Hall, a stones throw from Hazzard Creek where he had first chased the illegal netters. At least now he knew where to look for them the next time. He thanked the deputy for the information and walked back to the marina, letting the night air cool him off.

From the deck of his patrol boat Hall watched the driver unload the jon boat one more time. Together he and the old man slipped it off of the roll back truck bed and into the water. He waited until the tow truck was gone before he approached the old man.

“Better luck next time,” the old man said. He was feeling brave now that the “real” law was nowhere around. “Them boat thieves can be mighty slippery.”

“Is this your boat?” Hall asked. His serious tone made the old man look aggravated.

“You’re damn straight it is,” he answered.

Hall smiled and took his citation book out of his back pocket.

“You might as well turn that motor off Mr. Gallers. We’re going to be here for a while.”

Hall paid no attention to the old man’s protests as he wrote him tickets for not having a fire extinguisher on board and not having a personal flotation device on his boat. The third citation charged him with not having a visual signaling device which was a requirement in coastal waters. By the time he was finished Hall had written up two-hundred and fifty dollars in fines and penalties.

The old man cursed him openly when he took his tickets and jerked the starter rope on his outboard.

“Where do you think you’re going?’ Hall asked. “You don’t have the proper running lights to travel after sundown.”

Lazarus shut his motor off and spit the plug of tobacco out of his mouth. He tied his boat to the dock and Hall helped him climb out of his boat.

“Some of us been’s fishing ‘round here before there were any regulations ‘bout how to do it,” he said.

“Is the fishing here as good now as it was when you were a kid?” Hall asked.

“Course it ain’t. We used to catch spottails all day with just a white bucktail jig. Trout longer than your arm. Two or three crab pots would keep your freezer full and pay for your gas and oil. It ain’t been like that since before you were born,” the old man said.