Randy White - Deceived

Still restless, I closed the book, then returned to the deck in hopes of more comfort from the stars. Nearby, a school of mullet spooked; a family of dolphins sliced the moonlight, their blowholes ploof ing like snorkels. Then, from the mound behind my childhood home, came the baritone boom-boom-boom of a great horned owl, who watched from the high shadows of an oak.

I stood, a silly attempt to feel the owl’s resonance on my face. When I did, for an instant-a single blink of my eyelids-I imagined the silhouette of a man standing near the tree. A large man with wide, familiar shoulders. One blink of the eyes later, though, the man was gone… or the illusion I had just experienced.

You’re upset and you’re lovesick, I reminded myself.

After watching the trees for another ten minutes, I went to bed.

With so many prime fishing spots between Sanibel Island and Punta Gorda, I’d had no need to make the tricky turns and cuts required to find the Helmses’ property by water until Joel Ransler arrived the next morning. He was ten minutes late and dressed for fishing but also carrying a briefcase in one hand, a small cooler in the other.

The first thing I asked was if there was any news from the medical examiner about Rosanna Helms.

“Heart attack,” he said, giving me a close look after he had stepped aboard my skiff. We talked about the woman awhile before he added, “You look tired. Up late?” Then offered a look of concern to assure me it wasn’t an insult.

“You’re the one who’s been investigating a murder,” I replied. Rather than mentioning I had read about the victim, the elderly man named Clayton Edwards, I asked, “Anything unusual?”

“I’m in an ugly line of work,” Joel said, “nothing I haven’t seen before. But on a morning like this”-his eyes were taking in a lucent April sky; the bay, which was glassy-“I’d rather talk about you. Tired or not, Hannah, you look incredible. And a perfect day to be on the water, huh?”

The special prosecutor sounded so cheerful and caring, I felt a twinge of guilt. I hadn’t slept much, it was true, and part of my wakeful night had been spent wondering why Joel hadn’t come right out and told me the truth about Dwight Helms. It had provided me with a solid reason not to trust the man.

I wasn’t going to admit I’d seen the crime scene photos either. Ransler was my client. If he wanted to discuss the subject, that was up to him. Did he have that kind of honesty in him? Even if he did, why should I care?

“It’s supposed to be calm all morning,” I replied. “Do you want to fish first? I found a school of reds off Hemp Key-that’s on the way.”

No, the special prosecutor wanted to go straight to Deer Stop Bay, which was linked by tidal creeks to the cove where the late Dwight Helms had built his dock during the peak of the pot-hauling trade. It was also where Helms had been chased down by a person or persons unknown who, after wounding him badly, had finally finished the job. All night long, awake and in my dreams, those photos had hounded me and forced me to imagine the terrible sequence of events. To murder a human being was bad enough, but the way Mr. Helms had died was hideous.

Pretending to enjoy the twenty-minute boat ride to the old dock wasn’t easy. Even when my full attention was required by shoal water and oyster bars, I remained subdued. Maybe Ransler sensed it, because he complimented me when I dropped the skiff off plane, saying, “Even with a chart, most people couldn’t have found this place. A couple of deputies tried over the weekend but radioed in it was too shallow.”

“It is too shallow,” I replied, nudging the throttle back, “unless you know where the deep water is.” Which might have sounded smug, so I added, “The channel isn’t marked. Local fishermen always tear down the markers if someone tries.”

“The deputies said their boat was too big.”

“Oh?”

“A twenty-four-foot Grady White, I think. Bigger than this boat.”

I didn’t want to sound critical, but I also wasn’t going to lie. “Back when they were hauling pot, I heard they ran small shrimp boats in here. A thirty-footer wouldn’t have a problem if the tide’s right and if the mangroves were trimmed-but maybe this place is harder to find from Sematee County.”

Joel had a nice easy way of laughing that made it hard not to like him. “The marine division should follow my lead and hire you,” he said. “They ran aground, that’s exactly what happened-who knows where-and it took the guys something like three hours to get back.” Then he did a slow circle with his eyes, seeing walls of green all around-mangroves fifty feet tall on the shoreward side. To the west, mangrove ledges trimmed by hurricanes, where pelicans and white wading birds were perched, warming themselves in sunlight. Shards of limestone rock, too, that pierced the shallows like teeth; sometimes a limestone outcropping that angled from tree roots into the water.

“This is Deer Stop Bay?” he asked.

“No, that was the first bay we came through. I don’t think this place has a name.”

“Prehistoric,” the man responded, his voice softer.

“How long have you lived in Florida?” I asked, because he behaved like a person who was experiencing something for the first time.

“I was born right here in Sematee County,” he answered and grinned at my surprise before explaining, “but I grew up in the Midwest. I spent spring breaks here when I was going to Valparaiso, then moved down after law school. That was four years ago, almost five.” His eyes returned to a shoal area of limestone and water. “Are those oysters or rocks?”

I told him what he was seeing, then explained, “A geologist told me a limestone ridge angles northwest from the mainland but doesn’t break the surface often. Not wide, either, where it branches off. A section runs across Pine Island. There’s another off Sulfur Wells. I know spots in only six or eight feet of water where you can catch grouper because of the rock ledges. Spiny lobster, too-I used to dive for them when I was a girl.”

It was the sort of thing fishing guides are expected to say, and my client liked it, but his eyes were busy. “I don’t see the dock-am I missing something?”

“Around that point,” I said, “unless I got us lost, too.”

Joel took it as a joke and made one of his own by hinting he wouldn’t mind being stranded alone in a boat with me. Or maybe he wasn’t joking, because he nudged the little cooler he’d brought and said, “I made a thermos of margaritas-you’ve earned a drink. Or we can be proper about it and wait until noon.”

I smiled but was thinking, Don’t let him get too familiar. Which is why I answered, “I don’t drink when I’m working, but clients can make themselves at home.” Then nodded as we rounded the point and asked, “Is it the way you pictured it?”

The loading platform Dwight Helms had built was supported by a double span of sixteen-foot stringers on telephone pole pilings that had been jettied deep. The planking was thick enough to hold a pickup truck or two plus a metal derrick. The derrick was still there but leaning badly because the wood had rotted. The diesel engine next to it appeared to be frozen in brown rust.

“Quite an operation,” Joel said, and moved forward. Because he was wearing shorts and a blue polo, he looked like a tennis player from where I stood, with his long tan legs and golden body hair. He placed his hands on the casting platform while he studied the dock, then said, “It looked smaller from the satellite photos.”