Drowning Tides

  “One more thing, Juanita. Since my—my husband,” she faltered, struggling for how to say this. “Since he is a well-known attorney who has sent people to prison, he does have some enemies. So we need to be very watchful that strangers don’t get near Lexi or this boat. He even plans to hire a bodyguard-driver for when you or I take Lexi ashore, just to be extra careful. Can you deal with that?”

  “I dealed with much more than that, Mrs. Claire. Got to be safe—a man on a rooftop or a child on a boat—and I can help you and little Lexi.”

  So that was that. Claire extended her hand and Juanita took it. “I’m sure you will be great with Lexi. So let’s call her in because I told her someone special was coming to meet her. She insisted on watching Bambi on TV until we were ready for her.”

  Claire had tried to talk her out of watching that movie because the young deer’s mother dies, and who needed that right now?

  * * *

  About an hour after they left Juanita with Lexi on the yacht, Nick drove them south on the Tamiami Trail and turned onto San Marco Road. It headed through a maze of mangrove islands where they caught occasional glimpses of people fishing from small boats. Here began what locals called the Ten Thousand Islands, some small, some large, but who could ever count them? They were heading toward the little town—permanent population somewhere around three hundred—called Goodland.

  Nick loved Goodland, where his longtime friend and new client Haze Hazelton lived in the house several generations of his family had occupied, though it had been rebuilt after the hurricane of 1992. The place was night and day to the groomed, glitzy Florida he usually dealt with. Haze’s dad had owned a small motorboat that Nick and his dad had gone out fishing in years ago with the Hazeltons.

  Goodland was like a throwback to the 1950s, the locals claimed, and they were proud of it. The attitude there was “We ain’t changin’,” and they called their bigger neighbor, modern Marco Island, “Mark-up Island” as they saluted it with a raised bottles of beer or their middle fingers. Redneck all the way, a taste of old Florida before all its “petting and prettifying,” as Haze’s dad, now long dead, used to call it.

  Instead of condos and golf courses, Goodland boasted a rec center and houses on stilts or double-wide trailers. Flags flying could be the Confederate Stars and Bars, the skull-and-crossbones pirate flag, or a banner for pro football teams from the Midwest snowbirds.

  Goodland had begun as a fishing village, and it still had plenty of that feel with rowboats or motorboats moored on the canals that ran along most backyards. Haze, a friend and fellow basketball team member from Nick’s high school years, had later taken him to most of the Goodland bars, especially the best-known one, Stan’s Idle Hour, which hosted the Buzzard Lope Festival every year the week before the Super Bowl: outlandish costumes, an imitate-a-buzzard dance contest, great fried mullet and drinks, drinks, drinks.

  Nick smiled as they turned toward the town. As comedian Steve Martin would say, this was “a wild and crazy” place, a quirky escape from modern Florida. But, Nick realized, not an escape for Haze, who could soon be accused of and arrested for murder. Not for Claire, who was already knee-deep, like him, in this murder case.

  “You smiled and then frowned,” Claire told him.

  “And how’s the rest of my body language and tone of voice, Ms. Forensic Psychologist?”

  “Handsome and sexy.”

  “Hey, say something like that tonight, if Lexi doesn’t interrupt us with another nightmare.”

  “I don’t want to think about that. So what should I really know about the Hazeltons that you haven’t told me already? And why would anyone believe they have Ponce de León’s fabled fountain in their backyard? I mean, I read the place was named and clearly drawn on a Spanish map from 1523 as a spot for galleons to find fresh water, and that Ponce and crew put it here, but fresh or good water doesn’t mean it has youth or health properties.”

  “I’ll let Haze do a show-and-tell on all that. We’re almost there.”

  She looked back out the window, as they approached downtown with its several bars and city buildings. There was no police department as Marco Island officials did that duty here. Haze’s house and an RV park were just a short drive beyond.

  Hard to believe, Nick thought, that he had a beautiful new partner and associate—and a wife. He wanted to not only protect her but win her heart.

  “You know,” she said, “the roots of the mangroves look like claws grabbing the water and the bottom of the bay. I still don’t see how a body could be wedged into them, like they say Stirling’s body was. I’m glad we’re going out to look at the place his corpse was discovered. Someone had to more or less stick him there—and they must have wanted him to be found.”

  “Unless,” he said, “they expected the sharks that breed in this Ten Thousand Island area to make the body disappear.”

  “Sharks! Do we really want to go out there? But then, I guess you and I are used to sharks of another kind lately.”

  “Here we are,” he said, turning in under a large house on stilts that had two new-looking pickup trucks parked there. “Get ready to go to work, sweetheart. We’ll try divide and conquer—me with Haze and you with Maggie, if she’s not out marching for the endangered owls on Marco.”

  But as if they’d been watching for their arrival, Nick saw the Hazeltons, both in black jeans and boots, thud down the wooden stairs to greet them.

  * * *

  Jace absolutely loved the private jet he’d be flying for Paul Kilcorse. It was as good as laying eyes and hands on a gorgeous woman. He’d take orders about where to fly this big baby, but he had no intention of doing anything illegal. If Kilcorse-Ames, on his own, could get Nick Markwood out of Claire’s and Lexi’s lives without really hurting him, he could go for that. Not that he couldn’t get Claire back on his own, of course, but that would take time and he didn’t want her starting a family with Markwood. Jace owed the lawyer for helping to save Lexi, but he didn’t owe him Lexi. He had to toe the line with Kilcorse-Ames for now, but he had no intention of hurting even Markwood, if it came to that—just maybe getting him out of his former family’s life.

  He sat and spun in one of the high-backed white leather swivel seats in the jet’s cabin. Eight of these chairs could be locked in place to surround a mahogany conference table. Carpet, a fancy galley, a great private bathroom and a double bed in back. The flight deck equipment was not only first-class but cutting-edge. He’d have to do his homework on a couple of features. He hadn’t met the pilot who had flown it here. It was almost as if the jet had brought itself in.

  He went forward to sit in the pilot’s seat again and stared out the curved, tinted window into the dimly lighted hangar. He hadn’t expected the plane to be delivered so quickly, hadn’t envisioned it would be so beautiful. But he’d have to get used to the fact he was dealing with the devil. And the devil knew just what to tempt people with. In his case, a generous salary, a career in the pilot’s seat and his family back—well, maybe in the future.

  That reminded him he was going to find out where the new family was living. He’d asked Claire but she’d fudged about it, said they would be moving around for safety. But he had a right to see his daughter, and Markwood—a lawyer, no less—had to know about visitation rights. It worried him that Darcy claimed she didn’t even know for sure where they were, because Darcy and Claire used to know everything about each other. Still, he had figured out that Darcy knew very little about what Nick and Claire were facing on this local murder case too—and who was pulling the strings behind it all.

  Jace jumped when someone knocked on the plane’s metal exterior behind him. He went out into the cabin and saw a tall blond guy in a gray suit and striped tie had stuck his head through the door to the stairs. It sure wasn’t the mechanic who had been looking it over.

  “Can I help you?” Jace asked, go
ing to the open door and wondering if the pilot who’d flown it in had come back.

  “If you’re Jason Britten. I’m a reporter and just noticed this plane. Can I ask if it’s private or commercial? The airport office won’t say.”

  “Corporate. That’s all I can tell you. But how did you know my name?”

  “The office manager said to ask you. Gave your name as the pilot.”

  “You’re a reporter for what—for whom?”

  “Actually,” he said smiling and extending his hand, which Jace shook reluctantly, “for Uncle Sam. The government keeps an eye on new, long-range planes in South Florida, and the skilled pilots who fly them.”

  “Because?”

  “Because a lot of illegal drugs flow in from South America through here. Because Cuban airspace is still tricky. Just precautions. It’s always smart to prepare for trouble before it crashes in.”

  Jace frowned at this guy’s word choice. Bad luck to so much as think the word crash. “You’re saying you’re a reporter for the US government?”

  “I report to the US government. FBI Agent Rod Patterson,” he said, taking a leather wallet out of his coat pocket and flipping it open to show his badge.

  Jace studied it overlong, his mind racing. Despite the authentic-looking ID, was what this guy said legit, or was he tracking Kilcorse-Ames somehow—or was he sent by him to keep an eye on things? There were as many gaps in what he’d said so far as that space between his two front teeth.

  “Well,” Jace said, handing his badge back, “it’s good to know Uncle Sam is on the ball. Can I contact you if I see something suspicious?”

  “Please,” he said and extended his card to Jace as if he’d produced it from the palm of his hand like a rabbit from a hat. “Anything strange at all you see or hear. That’s how we operate, anything strange at all.”

  He turned and looked down to the right and left, then peered under the stairs. With his hand on the railing and carefully looking down on the steps as he went, he descended and disappeared under the belly of the plane toward the hangar door.

  Man, Jace thought, fingering the card that just referred to Patterson as an aviation magazine reporter, he’d also have to learn to hang on and watch his step.

  11

  Claire and Haze’s wife, Maggie, stood back a bit as Nick and Haze shook hands, then Haze grabbed Nick’s shoulders in a bear hug. Claire read it as more desperate than friendly, but he quickly loosed Nick and stood back.

  “Nick, so glad you’re here. This thing is way out of hand, big-time media showing up, the police ready to swoop in after they hauled me in and grilled both of us for hours already. Thanks for coming back to represent me, maybe defend me if it gets to that. And really sorry to break up your getaway honeymoon...”

  Haze looked over Nick’s shoulder and nodded at Claire. Maggie hugged Nick too, then walked around the men to give Claire a welcoming hug before Claire shook hands with Haze.

  “The mixed blessing and curse of wrong place, wrong time strikes again,” Maggie said, with her hands on her hips in an almost defiant pose. “Protecting something precious like our well water, like the owls—something’s going to get in the way. Mark Stirling and his stupid newspaper did, but Haze didn’t hurt him. How dare he call it The Burrowing Owl when he didn’t defend even my little critters like he should! But sorry to start in like this. Come on up, you two. Coffee and doughnuts await.”

  Claire quick-studied this couple. They were both fairly tall and lithe. Haze was actually sinewy, very tanned, and it was hard to tell his age, except she knew he’d been a high school classmate of Nick’s, so he must be about thirty-nine. The bangs of his sandy-colored hair brushed the top of his round glasses, which were evidently the kind that tinted darker in even the wan sunlight under their house. He reminded her of the folk singer John Denver—and who could believe he was a murderer?

  Maggie was also very tanned but with sharp blue eyes and flyaway, shoulder-length hair that looked bleached more by the sun than dyed by a salon. The T-shirt she wore demanded Save Our Owls! and sported a picture of a darling little bird guarding a hole in the ground from which its mate and two babies peeked out. Claire had read about the burrowing owl species but had never seen the colonies in this area.

  “Before we go in,” Nick said, glancing out toward the backyard along the canal, “Claire’s interested in the well. I tried to tell her it’s not a babbling brook kind of thing anymore.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” Haze said, pointing at a whitish outbuilding. “We’ll head over to the old tabby cistern house that covers the well. I have the only key to it. When the Ames High scientists want more seed water, they have to come to me. I keep the key in a safe place, so be right back.”

  “Seed water?” Claire asked Maggie as Haze dashed up the stairs above their heads.

  “That’s what the Fresh Dew and Youth Do reps call it. Their scientists mix it with other ingredients, of course, but it’s the major component in each product—the magic elixir.”

  “Do you believe it has youth-giving properties?” Claire questioned.

  “Looking at me, you mean? Ha! I’m out in the sun or getting reflection off the water, organizing protests or keeping an eye on the owls. Wait till you see them—the best colony nearby is, unfortunately, over on Marco. Though I’m not a good advertisement for Youth products, sure, I believe in our water. Wait till you get a load of the models hired for the TV and print ad campaigns.”

  “I’ve seen them on social media ads,” Claire said. “I swear, they’re probably all in their twenties, tops, so no wonder they look young.”

  Maggie rushed on, “See that massive, flourishing old rubber tree over there, next to the shed? The ancient artesian well runs under there, and that’s it—the so-called fountain. That tree’s hundreds of years old. The 1992 hurricane stripped it down and knocked it flat, but it picked itself up and regrew to look like that with its roots in the well water. Oh, yeah, you keep your skin out of the sun and drink and wash in that water, you’ll be looking great for years. You just ask old Ada Cypress, lives over there, wears big palmetto hats all the time outside, but she washes in the diluted well water that spills out onto her grass when it rains. I swear, she’s ageless.”

  She pointed out Ada’s house on stilts not far away, but Haze came back with the key and they all walked to the shed. Claire definitely had Ada on her list to interview, though the old woman had evidently refused to talk to the newspaper or TV reporters. Claire had seen her mentioned but not quoted in the articles she’d scanned. She made a mental note of the jerky flow of information Maggie kept throwing at them. Too much? Camouflage for guilt or just nervousness over her husband’s plight?

  Haze unlocked a brass lock that needed one of those old skeleton-type keys. As he opened the door, cool, clammy air wafted at them. “This old place is built of a conglomerate of rock and shell,” he said. “See shells sticking in the walls? It’s old-fashioned, Florida concrete called tabby. We got to go down a spiral staircase that leads to the lower level where the water is these days. Early white settlers, Seminole and ancient Calusa Indians before that, drank the water here, even before the Spaniards found it. Word is that kept the Native Americans healthy for years, ’fore something got them, living on the frontier like that, though the Calusa got wiped out by the diseases the Spaniards brought here. This water’s not medicine, not if you’re sick from something else other than old age.”

  Claire noted that Haze seemed to think aging was a disease, which surely was not the case. Or was that some of his marketing psychology? She’d have to look into that.

  As if she’d read Claire’s mind, Maggie said, “Mark Stirling claimed the power of the water was all hype and marketing—a scam. Sure, there’s a huge industry today in hang-on-to or get-back-your-youth products, but he should have given our water a chance. He should have tested it over
time.”

  Gripping the top handrail and blocking their way, Haze added, “Wish something could have cured or stopped the bullet someone put in his brain. Sure, neither of us like—liked—him, and I admitted that to the police, Nick. But the guy had a lot of enemies, ’cause he was the slash-and-burn, take-no-prisoners type. But I didn’t shoot him and don’t know who did.”

  Nick said, “If you only had a stronger alibi for where you were then, it would nip all this in the bud—not that Maggie’s saying you were at home counts for nothing. But we’ll find a way to prove you’re innocent and that this water has some health properties.”

  “Some health properties?” Haze challenged. “Especially if there’s a trial, it needs to come out loud and clear that our water has strong health and youth-giving properties. I know it’s not good to speak ill of the dead, but we have to discredit Mark Stirling because he tried to discredit us! I’m sure you understand that.”

  In the dim light, Nick flashed a look at Claire, then turned away. Not only was Nick’s friend’s attitude a motive for murder, but his demands dovetailed with Clayton Ames’s orders to Nick. So had Ames threatened Haze too, or had Haze figured that tactic out for himself?

  “Watch your step going down,” Maggie told them and gestured for Haze to quiet down and lead the way.

  As they descended, the metal steps clattered. The place had only two louvered windows high up, like a barn, so it was dim in here, but Haze had taken an electric lantern hooked over the top handrail and switched it on.

  Some rust from the handrail came off in Claire’s hand. The metal under their feet swayed a bit, but neither Haze nor Maggie so much as flinched.

  “The PR guys from Ames High said to keep it like this, no repairs or modernization,” Haze explained. “But we had debts and found plenty of use for the money that didn’t include this. They filmed here to show their investors how authentic this fountain is. Sure, it wasn’t underground like this when old Ponce de León found it, and it’s partly diluted now from groundwater and canal seepage, but it still has the power.”