Rising Water: A Jesse McDermitt Novel

Book 15: Caribbean Adventure Series

by Wayne Stinnett

Genres: Action & Adventure; Sea Adventures

Synopsis

When a group of strangers purchase land on Tortola and Norman Island to set up a commune, the locals simply write them off as an odd sort—until one of their bloated bodies washes up on the shore of a nearby resort island. As luck would have it, Jesse McDermitt is visiting a friend on Norman Island after tracking a terrorist submarine from the Windward Islands. The sub was destroyed by locals on the Dutch island of Saba, so Jesse had nothing much else to do. What he wasn’t looking for, was a murderous cult at the center of a drug manufacturing and distribution ring. If a person didn’t succumb to the rules of this cult, they might end up riding the chum sluice. If they do, they might meet Jesse.

Release date: July 1, 2019

Publisher: Down Island Press

Print pages: 360

Sample

Chapter One

Smooth white sand glistened in the hot Caribbean sun. The pristine beach stretched the length of the island’s southern shore, unmarred by civilization. Glittering sand gave way to clear water, which changed in color from gold in the shallows to turquoise and aqua as the water deepened.

A young couple walked along the shoreline, both wearing swimsuits, the man carrying a small cooler. He was tall and fit, with sandy hair and brown eyes. She was nearly as tall, with long hair the color of summer wheat and a blue bikini that matched her eyes.

They’d walked the length of the island’s southern shore and had made love in a hammock on the eastern tip, just a quarter mile from the island of Tortola and the entrance to Soper’s Hole. The couple had found the spot and the hammock the night before, christening it “their spot.”

“I can’t get over how beautiful this place is,” Alicia said to her husband of just three days.

Jerry Snyder took his bride’s hand. The two strolled through the shallow water along the unspoiled beach, simply relishing the sun, the beauty around them, and each other.

“Doesn’t compare to you,” Jerry replied, pulling her close and kissing her.

Little Thatch Island, one of the westernmost of the British Virgin Islands, was privately owned. Jerry’s cousin had gone to college with the owner, and they’d gotten a great deal on their honeymoon stay.

The couple held each other close, their kisses becoming more passionate. The odds of anyone watching them were very slim so they were without inhibition.

There were only a handful of resort homes on the island, which measured half a mile long and a few hundred yards in width. Summer was the slow season, so Jerry and Alicia had it nearly to themselves.

There was only one other couple on the island, also newlyweds. They were staying on the north shore. Jerry and Alicia had met them on the ferry ride over from Tortola. Unlike themselves, the other newlyweds were fair-skinned and Jerry figured they’d spend the whole week indoors, screwing their brains out. That left the rest of the sixty-three-acre island to him and his new wife, both tanned Californians.

Jerry pulled his wife closer, cupping her bottom and pressing her against him. He could feel the heat rising in his groin once more. Alicia slid a hand into his board shorts, gently tugging at him.

Suddenly, she jumped away, pulling her hand free and sidestepping quickly. When she looked down, she screamed. Jerry stared at her; it wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for. 

He started to move toward her. “Are you—” Then something bumped his leg. “What the hell?” He lunged to the side, joining his wife.

When he looked down, Jerry saw what had startled them both and laughed. He first assumed it was a blue trash bag, with a pair of discolored boat fenders sticking out of it.

“What is it?” Alicia asked, backing away.

“Just a bag of garbage,” he replied, smiling and reaching down to grasp the bag’s far side and flip it over.

When it rolled, he recognized the unmistakable form of a woman’s body, the right arm now draped across the torso, but no hand attached.

A mannequin. That was Jerry’s second thought.

Then a crab crawled out of the place where a head would be and scurried across the breasts, dropping into the water.

Jerry involuntarily convulsed as the reality of what lay in the water at his feet finally hit him.

 

* * * * *

 

Jerry and Alicia sat on the sand in the shade of a grove of coconut palms. The Royal Virgin Islands Police had arrived an hour earlier and secured the area, surrounding the beach with yellow crime-scene tape.

Two police boats were beached not far from where the couple had found the decapitated and mutilated body. The police had moved it to the beach to prevent it floating away in the slow, northwesterly-moving current.

Another boat was patrolling The Narrows, a natural channel between Little Thatch and Saint John, less than a mile away to the south.

One of the police officers, who’d earlier identified himself as Detective Sergeant Bryce Lettsome, broke away from the group that had been examining the body. With notepad in hand, he started toward the couple sitting on the white, powdery sand.

Jerry stood and offered a hand to Alicia.

“Thank you for your patience,” the detective said as he came nearer.

“Have you found—the rest of her?” Alicia asked, rising to stand next to Jerry.

“Not yet. Is dere anything you would like to add to your statement?”

“Like we said, there’s not much we can tell you,” Jerry offered. “We were standing in the water when something bumped against us. At first, I thought it was a trash bag with a couple of boat fenders in it. When I rolled it over, I thought maybe it was a store mannequin, or something.”

“That’s when we noticed the bloody stumps,” Alicia added. “It was ghastly.”

“You said you rolled di body over,” Lettsome said to Jerry. “Why?”

“I thought it was a garbage bag,” he replied. “I was going to drag it to shore and dispose of it.”

“Do you think a boat propeller cut off her head, hands, and feet?” Alicia asked.

“It is too soon to tell,” Lettsome replied. “You heard no commotion last night?”

“We were walking right here,” Alicia said, her voice cracking slightly. “On this beach. We could hear music coming from over on Tortola, and a couple of boats passed by.”

“But nothing unusual,” Jerry added.

“You will be staying here until di end of di week?”

“Two weeks,” Jerry replied, now beginning to worry about having gotten involved. He had to be back at work a week from Monday. He’d been hired by the Newport Beach Police Department just over a year ago. He pointed to his right. “The first house. The one with the red roof. We’re here for two weeks.”

“Thank you,” Lettsome said. “If I have more questions, I will call before I stop by. We have your cell number from when you called dis in.”

The detective turned and ducked under the yellow ribbon, which fluttered in the breeze.

Jerry took his wife’s hand and they turned to walk back to the rental house.

“There’s no way that was done by a boat prop,” Jerry said, his voice low.

Alicia looked over at him. “No?” she asked.

“Think about it, babe. The head, or an arm or a leg, maybe. But the head, both hands, and both feet?”

Alicia stopped dead in her tracks. “You mean—”

Jerry pulled her along. “Without teeth, fingerprints, or footprints, the body isn’t identifiable. That woman was murdered.”

Chapter Two 

The air felt sticky against my skin; it was dense, almost constricting in its closeness. While it wasn’t terribly hot, the humidity was well above ninety percent making the air feel so thick that it seemed as if I’d need a sharp machete to hack my way through it.

The sun was only a few degrees above the eastern horizon, but it already felt intense, searing exposed flesh. That heat combined with the high humidity meant it was going to be another oppressive day. In other words, a typical late-summer day in South Florida. It wasn’t a matter of if it was going to rain, but where and how soon.

From the trees on shore, a staccato of cicada calls rose and fell, the sound moving around the island’s fringing mangroves like an undulating wave. They’d come just about the same day every year, so we were ready and had erected screens over the garden area to keep them out.

A light breeze carried the scent of rain to my nostrils and I turned to face it. The familiar, yet difficult-to-describe odor was there all right; that earthy, musky smell you sense just as the first fat raindrops splatter onto the ground, kicking up dust.

I’d always assumed the smell was steam, from the instantaneous sizzle of hundreds of individual water droplets on sunbaked concrete, asphalt, or sand. But I’ve experienced the odor many times out on the water. The smell was being transported on the wind. I’d since learned that this “rain scent” had nothing to do with the hot ground. At least not directly. It was caused by plants. When it starts to rain after a long dry spell, many plants will secrete tiny bacterial microorganisms.

The breeze was out of the southeast. I couldn’t see any clouds in that direction, but most of my view was blocked. There were only a few puffy white clouds far to the south, down over Big Pine Key, which wasn’t visible from my low dock.

The view of the horizon from my island was quite limited all around. The island itself blocked any view to the north. Half a mile to the west and southwest, two small, unnamed mangrove keys obscured most of the water view that way. Cutoe Key, a mile away across Harbor Channel, stretched out to the south, with Big Spanish Key beyond it. Together, they blocked most of the southern horizon where the clouds had formed. The only clear view from my south dock was to the east across skinny water, and straight up Harbor Channel to the northeast. In that direction, the horizon was three miles away. Up on the deck that surrounded three sides of my house, you could see almost twice as far, even over the tops of some of the smaller keys.

Summer storms had a way of sneaking up on a person in the backcountry of the Middle Florida Keys. It was always a good idea to keep a sharp weather eye.

Finn raised his big yellow head, his black nose twitching. He’d been asleep, soaking up the warm mid-August sun, while I washed down one of my boats. He looked up at me, his head cocked a little off-center. It was his typical curious expression, one he used quite a bit. His bright eyes were asking a question.

“You smell it too?” I asked. 

Finn crossed his forelegs and laid his head on them, his big amber eyes closely watching me. He was in the prime of his life and knew that the rain smell didn’t always mean rain was coming. Finn loved a good summer rain. But during the hot summer months, he spent a lot of time napping; Finn’s high speed was very laid back. When it was this hot, I’d learned to take a page from his book, to work slower and pace myself. His idea of pacing himself was to be comatose. We could learn a lot from our four-legged friends. A dog’s life wasn’t without its appeal.

Hearing footfalls on the steps going up to the deck, I turned and saw Jimmy heading down. 

“Hey, Jesse. I heard the engines. You taking her out, man?”

“Thought about it,” I replied. “Maybe after I go down and clean the bottom.”

He looked down at the green slime along the boat’s waterline. “Dunno how that stuff grows so fast when she’s inside all the time.”

“Reflected light,” I said. “There isn’t much on the inboard side. One day, I’ll put some steel caisson sections around the bottom of the boathouse.”

Jimmy sat cross-legged next to Finn, scratching the thick fur around the dog’s neck and ears. “She hasn’t been out on the blue in a while, man.”

He was right. Gaspar’s Revenge had been my primary fishing vessel for many years. She was a forty-five-foot convertible, built by Rampage Yachts and the perfect offshore fishing machine for me. But my new job had kept me away a lot lately. After submersible training, I’d worked aboard Ambrosia as chief mate to get the required sea service time to qualify for my Master Unlimited papers, which would allow me to command just about any commercial vessel. I still had another six months to go there. During that time, we’d crossed oceans and hemispheres. Ostensibly, we gathered research data, mostly for ocean engineering projects. On occasion it’d been a little more than that.

Jimmy was the caretaker on my little island and had been for a long time. He was also first mate aboard the Revenge, whenever we chartered, which hadn’t been often in the last year. He had his own place on the west side of the island and kept busy working on the garden and aquaculture system. We raised vegetables for our own consumption, as well as catfish and freshwater Louisiana crayfish, which Jimmy sold to a few restaurants up and down the Keys that had Cajun-style food on their menus, turning a very healthy profit. It was nearly impossible to get fresh crayfish and bayou flathead catfish in the Keys. Jimmy, and Carl before him, had cornered the market.

Carl Trent and I had built the house Jimmy now lives in. He and his wife, Charlie, had been the caretakers for many years, until they moved back to Alabama.

Turning, I gazed back at the clouds building to the south. “Probably raining down on Big Pine. Maybe over in Marathon, too.”

“Could smell it from over on the porch, man. It won’t last long. Want some help down there with the scrubbing?”

“Thanks. Come on down when you’re ready.”

Sitting on the edge of the dock, I strapped a bulky twenty-pound weight belt around my waist, situatied the heavy weight at my back, and then pulled my mask on. I slipped into the warm water behind the Revenge. It was only six feet deep, so all I needed was a mask, snorkel, and scrub brush. The brush had very soft bristles and a short handle; perfect for cleaning the algal growth off the underside of the boat.

Standing on the sandy bottom, only the top of my head and snorkel were visible above water. I took a deep breath and submerged, positioning myself under the hull. With the weight on my back, I could lie on the bottom with the boat’s keel only about two feet above me. The weight gave me the much-needed negative buoyancy, to allow me to move the scrub brush, instead of the scrub brush moving me.

Underwater, you could really see what a boat was. Everything built above the waterline stripe was for looks and convenience. Everything below that was hydro-mechanical. It was the shape of the hull that determined how the boat worked with the water.

The Revenge was a semi-displacement hull vessel, with prop tunnels for the massive twin propellers. With her powerful engines, she could nearly climb up on top of the water, slicing across the surface with her deep V hull, displacing far less than half her weight. My sailboat, on the other hand, had a full displacement hull. Salty Dog’s hull cut through the water, so her top speed was limited, and based completely on her length at the waterline. While moving, she displaced just as much water as she did at anchor. A true planing hull, like my Maverick flats skiff, had a nearly flat bottom. On plane, it skimmed across the surface, displacing only a few gallons of water to keep its 1500 pounds afloat.

I moved methodically, pushing the brush against the hull in long strokes. Small fish darted out from under the pier, catching little pieces that fell away from the hull. Jimmy dropped under the boat off the port side, just after I’d surfaced to take my third breath. We worked quickly and soon had all the growth removed. Bottom cleaning was a necessary part of the maintenance on a boat, and I had a few of them to keep clean. Jimmy and I had had lots of practice.

“That didn’t take long to grow back,” Jimmy said, as we levered ourselves up onto the dock and climbed up. “I just cleaned it a month ago.”

I looked off to the south. The clouds were darkening, looking more menacing. “Days are already getting shorter. Soon, we won’t have to do this for a few months.”

Looking past me, Jimmy saw the approaching storm. “No boat ride today,” he said, obviously disappointed.

“Yeah, we’ll be moving her back inside.”

 “No hurry, hermano. That squall won’t get here for twenty minutes, if at all.”

He helped me to back Gaspar’s Revenge under the house again and get her tied up. Then we went up to the deck to watch the approaching weather.

“We haven’t had a charter in a while,” Jimmy remarked. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t need the extra money just now, but it’s fun sometimes.”

“Some of them are,” I agreed.

“Those Miami guys keep emailing. The photographers.”

“Peter Simpson?” I asked. “He’s wanting a night dive?”

“No, man, noon. A shallow reef with pretty models again.”

How many years had it been since the grenade attack against me and the Revenge? It had resulted in one of Peter’s models, a young woman named Annette, getting killed. It’d happened out on G Marker, south of Big Pine. The attackers had been trying to lure me into the open by dropping grenades on sensitive reefs. When that didn’t work, they’d tried a more direct approach, attacking my divers. The small, gold ring in my left ear commemorated that loss.

Early mariners were less afraid of drowning than of not being properly buried, so they wore gold rings in their ears to pay for a funeral if their bodies washed ashore. My first mate on that dive, Travis Stockwell, also wore a gold earring like mine—they’d been given to us by the dead girl’s father. At one time, Travis had worked for Homeland Security and had been Deuce Livingston’s immediate boss. Now he was head of security for Armstrong Research. I called both men my friends and had worked with Deuce’s team of highly trained snake-eaters a few times.

For quite a while now, we hadn’t chartered more than once a month or so. That was about all I could handle. Owning a charter boat that didn’t charter was a waste. And a boat like Gaspar’s Revenge, which could take you far offshore, needed a regular workout.

“Ask Peter if he and Tom would be interested in diving the Tortugas next week. You can pick the day.”

“For real?” he asked, suddenly excited. “That’s way the hell out there.”

“They can meet us at the fuel dock in Key West Bight before sunrise and we’ll get them back in time for a late supper at Turtle Kraals.”

“You’re on, dude! I know they’ll go for that. How much?”

“The regular full day rate plus fifty percent,” I replied. “It’ll take more than half a tank to get out there and back. You and I can hang out in the city when we get back, if you want. Haven’t done that in a while, either.”

“Tres amigos loose on Cayo Hueso, Finn!” Jimmy reached down and held his hand out. Finn obligingly slapped it with his paw—his own version of a high-five.

 “But right now, I think I’m gonna steal a page from Finn’s book, and relax a while,” I told him.

When I stepped inside, though my house wasn’t air-conditioned, it felt noticeably cooler. Finn went straight to his big, shaggy rug in the middle of the room. It was four feet round and made of a heavy cotton fiber at least an inch thick. He made almost three complete revolutions around his bed before dropping his hindquarters and then his chest onto the center with a heavy thud.

My home only had two rooms; three if you counted the head. The front room included a small galley set up in the corner with propane appliances and a small table for two. A large workbench was mounted beneath a window on the north-facing wall, which overlooked the island’s interior. The guts of an outboard’s carburetor were scattered across the workbench’s surface, waiting on a part. Against the wall that separated the front room from my bedroom was a smaller workbench. It had a dozen small drawers and a large, lighted magnifier for working on fishing reels or lures. Next to it was a ladderwell and deck hatch that led down to the boathouse below.

I sat down in one of two recliners next to the south-facing window and picked up a book I’d been reading on the natural history of the Florida Keys and South Florida.

The rain started as soon as I opened the book—just a few heavy drops at first. The scent returned, stronger than before. The plants on my island were reacting to the rain, rejoicing in it. Although we saw at least one rainstorm a day during this time of year, this was the first rain to reach my island in a couple of weeks. In the next few days, I would’ve had to pump water up to the cistern from the Revenge’s onboard water tank.

My 1000-square-foot metal roof drained into gutters, which fed into a single small holding tank below the large cistern. From there, rainwater was pumped up to the cistern. Its open top added another thirty-four square feet of rain-catching surface area. The cistern could hold over 1500 gallons of water to supply the whole island, including the aquaculture garden. We used fresh water sparingly.

It was rare that I had to pump water during the rainy season. But after December, it was a monthly occurrence, taking two whole days. Gaspar’s Revenge only had a 100-gallon water tank and it took the reverse-osmosis water-maker an hour to fill it. Working on nothing else, Jimmy and I could fill the cistern in two eight-hour days. But we rarely had eight uninterrupted hours. Living off the grid on an island was hard work. But it only took two inches of rain, running off the roof and into the holding tank, to nearly fill the cistern. A spill gate allowed excess rainwater to drain down to the boathouse, where it flowed back into the sea.

The smell of the rain reminded me of when I was a kid, growing up in Fort Myers. It was a simpler time then. When it rained, I’d join my friends racing Popsicle stick rafts along the curbs on our street. The kid with the fastest raft had to be careful, though. Many a stick raft had disappeared down the storm drain on the corner. The same rain scent also reminded me of a later time during high school, walking with my girlfriend at a lake near where I lived, when a sudden storm drenched us as we ran back to my car. I soon fell asleep and dreamed of being a kid again.