The Water Keeper(71)

Pompano gave way to Fort Lauderdale, which put Miami off the bow. I’d now come some three hundred miles since my island. Seen a good bit of water beneath the hull. My problem was simple: I had no idea what vessel they were on or where they were going. Every boat was a possibility, and there were ten thousand boats. Fingers’ box hung above my head. Staring down. I missed him.

Motoring under the Rickenbacker Causeway en route to Biscayne Bay, Clay stood from his perch on the beanbag and shuffled back toward me. He asked, “You got a minute, Mr. Murphy?”

We were idling at little more than six hundred rpm’s. Ellie was asleep on the back bench with her head on Summer’s lap. I stood. “Yes, sir.”

“Late at night, when the party died down and I was cleaning up my bar, these two fellows would order drinks, stand within whisper distance, and talk in muffled tones. One foreign. One not. I didn’t understand much. Caught bits and pieces. They thought I was hard of hearing. Harmless.” He laughed. “Maybe I’m not as hard as they think. They’d talk around me as they sipped their drinks, and they’d point at a chart showing the southern end of Florida. Down ’bout where we are now. Kept using phrases like ‘picking the coconuts’ and ‘walking on water to the loading dock.’ That make any sense to you?”

I shook my head. “No, sir.”

“Last thing I remember them saying was something about ‘fruit in the grove,’ ‘walking on water,’ and then ‘spending one last night with Mel and his turtles’ before they cashed in their chips.”

I let the words settle. “None of it rings a bell at the moment.”

He looked bothered as he glanced at Summer. “She’s a tough momma. But she may have tougher coming. They’re bad men.” He paused. “And I seen bad.”

I watched Summer hug herself against the wind. “Yes, sir.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Sorry I’m not more help.” Then he returned to his beanbag.

I studied the chart. The University of Miami sat just a mile or so to the west. So did Coconut Grove. A common hangout for girls from the University of Miami. Maybe that had something to do with it. Walking on water? Not sure. But we would soon be in spitting distance of Stiltsville. The remains of a group of vacation homes built by the most optimistic people on the planet out on the shallow shelf in Biscayne Bay. Most of the forty or so homes had been blown away in hurricanes. Maybe six or seven remained. That wouldn’t be a bad place to hide if you wanted to do it in plain sight.

And Mel and his turtles. Mel Fisher found the Atocha—the richest underwater shipwreck treasure ever—near the Dry Tortugas. Tortuga is the Spanish word for turtle, and the Dry Tortugas is the name of a Civil War fort on a small island some sixty miles west of Key West.

While I knew a little more, I still didn’t know much.

Biscayne Bay opened before us. The wind from the Atlantic had churned the water to whitecaps. I tried skirting the edge as close as possible to get a break from the wind, but it was no good. She beat us up pretty good. We gassed up at the Black Point Marina, used the bathrooms, and I tried to cheer up the troops for the remainder of the trip across the bay. Conditions were ugly and worsening. If I could come out of the marina and drive due east-southeast toward Elliott Key, I could come in under the windward side of the key where the waters would be calmer. But getting there would beat most of our teeth out of our heads. Moving due south along the western edge of the bay was asking for more of the same, only longer. My hope was to get to the Card Sound Bridge and inside the cover of Key Largo, where we could dock for the night at a hotel on the water. After today’s beating, they’d need a good night’s sleep in a bed.

I chose Elliott Key. We’d pay for it for the first hour, but getting there would be worth it. When we exited the safety of the channel and were back out in open water, Gunner hopped up onto Clay’s lap and the two held each other. Summer and Ellie crouched behind me, bracing themselves between the back bench and the seat of my center console.

Me? I held on while the waves broke over the gunnels. I put her up on plane, tried to find a rhythm to the waves with the least amount of water in the boat, and adjusted the tabs. I tried everything I knew, but it was little help. We were getting soaked. Between spray and waves breaking over the bow, I turned on the bilge pump and watched as the ankle-deep water drained out the scuppers. While Gone Fiction could handle it, I wasn’t too sure about us. Crossing the bay, one thing became apparent: we were the only boat on the water.

Two hours later, we approached Elliott Key. Once inside her shadow, she broke the wind and the water calmed. Almost to glass. Gunner walked around, sniffed my ankle, looked up at me, and then returned to Clay. I think that was his way of telling me I was crazy.

Elliott Key is a national park. Nice cove marina. People camp here for days at a time. Atlantic on one side. Bay on the other. It’s idyllic. Right now, the place was empty as the waters and wind from the Atlantic beat the shoreline and campsites. Save one boat.

A nice boat. Forty-plus feet. Five Mercury engines. Two thousand horsepower total. She was a seventy-plus-mile-an-hour boat made to run the islands and back in about the time it takes to eat a sandwich. A million dollars or better. Black hull. Black windows. Black matching engines.

She said, “Don’t mess with me.” So of course I did.

I tied up behind her and let the troops and Gunner stretch their legs while I made myself look busy. Nobody moved up top, but I heard the faint noise of a stereo beneath. Walking along the boardwalk to the bathroom, I passed her from stern to bow. She was spotless. New. Well maintained. Somebody’s pride. She also had no name and no significant markings. Nothing to set her apart other than the all black.