Red Tide, Page 3

  Mitch started to break Ed’s equipment down when she noticed his computer. She cleared her throat and held the console up to him. “Did you see this?”

  Mr. Innocent. “Yes?”

  “Did you pay attention to it?”

  “No.” He’d overshot his maximum time by ten minutes, draining his tank to less than a hundred pounds of air.

  She shook her head. “I’m going to be real pissed if I have to call the Coast Guard out here one day to fly your sorry ass up to Shands.” Her playful tone of voice tempered her words.

  He laughed. “Mitch, you worry too much. I had a grouper shake a shaft and go under a ledge, or I would have been here on time. Forgive me?” He put on a puppy dog face.

  “Sure, yeah, whatever.” Mitch knew the truth. Ed was a cautious diver. Years of experience had shown him what he could and couldn’t safely do. When teaching a class, he was a by-the-book diver. Out of class, however, was another thing entirely.

  * * * *

  The sea breeze died around noon and the mild two-footers smoothed out into glassy rollers that barely nudged the boat. Mitch went to the cockpit to escape the heat of the sun and play with her new GPS. She was about to turn up the FM radio when a burst of static and a hail came from the VHF.

  “Emmerand, Emmerand, this is Jay-Que on one-six, are you out there? Over.” She adjusted the volume down.

  That boat sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

  Sounds like someone’s a little overdue.

  She compared the two GPS units to see how accurate they were.

  “What’s it say?”

  Startled, she turned to find Ed looking over her shoulder at the two machines. He rested his hands on her shoulders and she made no move to shake off their comforting feel.

  “You know how these GPSs are. Sometimes the government frigs with the satellite signals when the military’s using them. It’s pretty close, but not the exact same number.”

  Mitch checked the depth. Fifty feet.

  “Want to go down?” Ed asked her.

  She shrugged. “Not particularly. Not right now.”

  They left it at that and returned to the stern. Jack and Ron still drowned frozen squid with their fishing poles. The spot was productive, and instead of wasting time moving to another one, and risk not catching anything, they decided to stay a little longer. The sea breeze teased them by visiting again for a few minutes, rippling the rollers and taking the edge off the sun’s harsh heat, but it dissipated almost as soon as it started.

  Two hours later, the tide turned and the fish stopped biting. Mitch and Ed conferred and decided to move. Mitch took her place behind the helm, and before she started the engines the VHF crackled to life again.

  “Emmerand, Emmerand, this is Jay-Que on channel one-six, over.”

  She recalled the earlier hail for the same vessel. She swore she’d heard of the boat before.

  “Hey. Ready to go?” Ed stood on the pulpit, waiting for her to start the engines so he could pull anchor. Five minutes later, the anchor was up and stowed, the jug retrieved, and they headed to a spot just five miles away.

  * * * *

  Since the next spot was so close, Mitch idled to it. They were the only boat around, so she took her eyes off the horizon to study the bottom recorder. The depth had dropped to sixty feet and the bottom looked about as interesting as a blank piece of paper.

  “Hey, Mitch,” Ron called to her. “Come here a minute.”

  She looked up to find the men on the bow, staring at something off the starboard side. She shifted the engines into neutral and joined them. They made room for her at the railing and she immediately spied the object of their attention. A rainbow-colored oil sheen approximately ten feet wide coated the surface. In the calm water, it was easy to see it followed the current, drifting from the northwest, the direction they were heading.

  Ed turned to her. “Want to see what it is?”

  Mitch nodded. “Keep me heading in the right direction.”

  She returned to the cockpit and, with Ed’s help, they tracked the slick back to its source. She shifted the engines into neutral and let the Sun Run drift over it. They all moved to the stern and hung over the gunwale to get a better look. Small bubbles occasionally broke the surface, bringing with them the faint but unmistakable odor of diesel fuel.

  Mitch and Ed straightened. “Let’s go ahead and anchor,” he said.

  She returned to the cockpit and repositioned them while Ed threw the hook. He gave her the signal to reverse the engines. She did, and a moment later she heard a flurry of exclamations from the men on the bow. She cut the engines and rushed forward to join them.

  “What happened?”

  Ron turned to her. “When the anchor caught, whatever it is down there must have shifted. A whole bunch of bubbles and more fuel came up.”

  “I’ll go down and check it out.” Ed turned to go aft when Mitch put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “No, you won’t. You’ve still got a couple of hours of surface time until you can dive.”

  “It’ll be dark by then.”

  “Ed, please don’t do this. I’ll go down.”

  “You don’t know what’s down there.”

  “Ed, I can dive by myself, you know.”

  “I know, but you don’t know what’s down there.”

  “For chrissake, Ed, we do recovery for a living. Don’t go all father figure on me now.”

  They locked eyes for a minute before he finally sighed in resignation. “I’ll set up your gear.”

  “Thank you. I guess I’d better call the Coasties first. See if they have a report of a wreck at this location.”

  She had no idea how prophetic those words would be.

  * * * *

  When they left Aripeka, their course heading was approximately three hundred degrees, placing them closer to the Yankeetown station than Clearwater/St. Pete. Mitch hailed them on the VHF.

  “Coast Guard station Yankeetown, Coast Guard station Yankeetown, this is the Sun Run hailing on channel one-six, over.”

  A brief pause prefaced their reply. “Vessel hailing Coast Guard station Yankeetown, this is Coast Guard station Yankeetown on channel one-six. Captain, please switch and answer channel twenty-two, alpha; channel twenty-two, alpha, over.”

  She acknowledged the male voice, changed channels, then hailed again.

  “Vessel Sun Run, this is Coast Guard station Yankeetown. How may we help you today, Captain?”

  She explained who they were, the situation with the fuel slick, then read off the lat/long coordinates. He repeated them back to her and told her to stand by. About three minutes passed.

  “Vessel Sun Run, this is Coast Guard station Yankeetown, over.”

  “Yankeetown, this is the Sun Run, over.”

  “Roger, Captain. Ah, it would seem we have no reports of any vessels going down at those coordinates. We have a report of a wreck about five miles east of your location. Do you have a confirmed fix on your position, over?”

  Mitch glanced first at the dash-mounted, then the handheld GPS. They were now reading identical numbers. “Roger, Yankeetown. I’m running two GPSs, and they both say the same thing, over.”

  “Affirmative, Captain. Did you say you are a commercial vessel, over?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re sending a diver down right now to check it out. Do you want a report, over?”

  “Yes, ma’am. If you find the source of that slick we may need to alert a cleanup crew to proceed to your location. This is Coast Guard station Yankeetown, clear channel twenty-two alpha, monitoring channel one-six, out.”

  Mitch cleared the channel and reset the radio to sixteen. She turned to Ed. “Well, I guess we’re committed now.”

  He smiled. “I guess you are.”

  She playfully punched him in the arm.

  * * * *

  Ed watched her preparations. It only took ten minutes for her to suit up, which was both good and bad. It allowed him less time to watch he
r in her bikini before she covered up with the oversized sweatshirt she dove in during the warm summer months. She loaded her powerhead and screwed it onto the holder on the end of her speargun, an action Ed noted.

  “Are we a little nervous?” His playful tone of voice belied the worry on his face.

  She shrugged. “Be prepared, that’s what you taught me.”

  Jack and Ron watched from the other side of the stern. They were staying out of the way until they could drop their hooks back in the water.

  “What exactly does that thing do anyway?” Jack asked, indicating the powerhead.

  Mitch had pulled her mask down over her face, so Ed answered for her. “It’s like a bang-stick. It just screws onto the end of the shaft. The safety’s on right now. To fire it, she screws the base down and jams it against whatever she’s shooting at. It takes a .223 shell. Easy to get, not too expensive, and packs a good enough wallop. We both use the same shell so we don’t have to scrounge around for the right size rounds.”

  She looked up, ready to go. “Let’s do it.”

  Ed reached around her and checked one final time to make sure her air was on. He patted her on the shoulder and, softly, so Jack and Ron couldn’t hear, he said, “Be careful, okay? Take a look, make sure our anchor’s not hung up on whatever it is, and get your butt back up here. Promise?”

  She let her eyes linger on his a moment longer than she probably should have, finally breaking the contact and nodding. “Okay.”

  Chapter Three

  “Hey, let’s try here. We haven’t been here yet.” Twelve-year-old Bobby Jenkins was out early on that Saturday morning hunting aluminum cans with his best friend, Jimmy Suarez. With plastic garbage bags tied to their bikes, each one carried a sharp stick to grab the cans out of places they either couldn’t reach or didn’t want to put their hands. After crushing and recycling the cans they found, they split the money.

  “How much you think we’re gonna have for Disney?” Jimmy asked.

  Bobby shook his head. “I dunno.” Jimmy had managed to talk both sets of parents into matching the money they made.

  They pulled into the vacant parcel of land and worked their way in. “We hit the lotto!” Jimmy squealed as they picked through the various debris littering the ground.

  As they made their way toward the water, Jimmy spotted the large box. “Hey, let’s check that out.”

  “What if some bum’s living in it?” Bobby asked.

  “Aw, look at this place. If some bum were in it, do you think there’d be any cans? He’d have ’em cashed in a heartbeat. Besides, it’s too far from town to just walk, and a bus don’t run by here.” Smaller than Bobby, but more spunky and adventurous, Jimmy was the leader.

  Bobby stuck his nose in the air. “You smell that?”

  They paused and looked at each other, then back at the box.

  The boys readied their sticks as they cautiously approached the box, listening for any signs of life as they walked around it and peered inside. They both screamed and ran for their bikes, their interest in cans suddenly forgotten as they pedaled toward the 7-Eleven they had passed about two miles back.

  Inside the box, flies buzzed around the dead woman’s face, lighting on her lips and crawling in and out of her open mouth.

  * * * *

  Major Kenny Schoenborn of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office didn’t look forward to the task ahead. His churning stomach reminded him of the breakfast burrito he ate at seven that morning, two hours earlier.

  He pulled off Causeway and parked near the Medical Examiner’s van. From the air-conditioned comfort of his car, he studied the crime scene.

  He finally left the cool sanctuary of the car and walked over to the checkpoint.

  “Good morning, Major Schoenborn.” The deputy, whose name tag read, “Reese,” handed him a clipboard with the check-in sheet and a pen.

  Kenny signed in and returned the clipboard. “Anyone give you trouble about signing in?”

  Reese shook his head. “No, sir. Not a one.”

  “Good.” Kenny walked over to the table the crime scene technicians were using as their base of operations under a picnic tent. The moist, rocky sand crunched with each step he took. A narrow stand of mangrove trees blocked his view of Tampa Bay. Through them, he heard the engines of a tug pushing a barge to the nearby docks. Diesel and gas fumes from the highway behind him mixed with the smell of damp salt air from the bay.

  A second line of yellow police tape surrounded the actual crime scene. Inside, two technicians photographed and measured the victim. Detective George Peters looked up from a group of techs and waved his friend over.

  “Morning, Kenny.”

  “Whatcha got, George?”

  “Denise Stanley, white female, twenty-five. Killed sometime late last night or early this morning. Three priors for solicitation with intent. Looks like Romeo’s at work again.” Someone in the HCSO had dubbed the UNSUB—unknown subject—Romeo, a fact they’d managed to keep from the press so far.

  “She would make number three,” Kenny said.

  “At least,” George agreed.

  “Evidence?”

  “We lucked out. It rained yesterday afternoon. The first deputy on the scene immediately set up a secure perimeter. We have some tire tracks and a footprint. The lab guys are trying to get a decent cast, but you know how it is with this hard-packed stuff,” George motioned at the ground, then a grim smile touched his lips. “Oh, and another thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Boiled peanut shells.”

  “Aw, shit.” Kenny rubbed a large hand across his forehead. That clinched it. Their boy was apparently fond of boiled peanuts, and shells were found near both of the other victims as well as in their stomach contents. “She’s like the others?” George’s grim face was all the confirmation Kenny needed.

  “No robbery, but she did have sex. No sign of struggle. Killed either during or immediately after sex.” George looked over at the group of technicians. “She had the baggie of coke and a fairly new hundred dollar bill in her purse like the others, too.”

  Kenny listened to the rest of George’s update. “I need you to get some stuff organized for me,” he said, then motioned George to follow him back to his car.

  “I want a meeting this afternoon. You, me, crime lab guys, ME, shrink.”

  George took notes while he listened.

  “And call the Feds. See what you can do about getting me a ViCAP profile this afternoon.”

  “Right.”

  Kenny closed his eyes, trying to remember if anything had slipped his mind. “Three o’clock, main conference room. Oh, and see if you can get any more details from FDLE on those other killings.”

  “Okay, Kenny.”

  They said their good-byes and George rejoined the group inside the restricted area.

  Kenny climbed back into his car and started it, cranking the air up to maximum. He’d been with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office for five years. Before that, he spent fifteen years in south Florida, the last seven with the Dade/Metro homicide department in Miami. While there, he completed the FBI training course for law enforcement at Quantico. He’d also been the officer in charge of the Tamiami Trail Strangler case, which was brought to a successful prosecution. Kenny left south Florida to get away from the rising crime. Unfortunately, Tampa was slowly but surely beginning to catch up with its southern sister.

  The pit of his stomach felt like a lead ice cube, and he sat there for a moment before driving away. He didn’t want this. This was his fourth serial killer, the second such investigation he’d overseen.

  He drove to the station and went up to his office, closing the door behind him. Stretching out on the cheap vinyl sofa, he let his eyes wander. On the walls hung several awards for meritorious duty, thank-you letters, a letter from the former governor. There were a few pictures of him with some of his buddies from Metro/Dade, pictures of Taco, his German Shepherd, him on various trips.

  He
closed his eyes and let his mind wander.

  * * * *

  “Okay, gentlemen. And lady,” he added for the benefit of Karen Stoffer, who he knew didn’t give a damn about political correctness anyway. “What do we know about this guy?”

  Karen spoke up. “Some beige or tan carpet fibers on her shoes, results still pending, possibly a Porsche. The UNSUB’s shoe prints are Bally, indicating money. Tire tracks are Pirelli, expensive, could fit a sports car, possibly a Porsche as well, also indicating money.”

  “Good. Is he giving them the dope?”

  George consulted his notes. “The lab results on the first two showed they could be from the same source. We’ll have to wait for test results on the new bag.”

  “So is he a doper? Or is that his hook, to get them to let their guard down?”

  “We haven’t been able to get a lead on the bills yet. He’s probably getting them from secondary sources, maybe businesses. We’re working that angle now,” George said.

  The psychiatrist, Alex Bates, spoke up. “He’s methodical, careful, leaves little in the way of physical evidence. This indicates he plans his moves. He isn’t overcome by bloodlust. He probably appears to be a normal person.”

  “He likes boiled peanuts,” George added.

  Kenny nodded. “Yes, found shells by Denise Stanley, and the last two victims had them in their stomachs, as well as shells at the location. Autopsy will probably show Stanley ate some, too.” He thought for a moment. “What would that tend to indicate?”

  “We’re looking for Jimmy Carter?” George joked.

  The comic relief was welcomed. Even Kenny cracked a smile.

  “Funny, George.” Kenny chuckled. “But seriously, folks, what would it indicate?”

  He received confused looks from around the table, so he continued. “Possibly a native Southerner? If so, that may say something for his demeanor. If he is a native Southerner, possibly from this area? We know he’s methodical, so picking his dump sites might go along with that, which might indicate a local familiarity with the region.”