Backwater Tide Read online

  Backwater Tide

  A Kurt Hunter Mystery

  Steven Becker

  The White Marlin Press

  Copyright © 2018 by Steven Becker

  http://www.stevenbeckerauthor.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Standard Paperback ISBN# 9781719927161

  One

  Nervous didn’t begin to describe how I felt as I released the tie-downs holding the pair of boards on the rack of Justine’s car. Looking around the half-full parking lot of Bill Baggs State Park only made things worse. Men and women, attempting to identify their competition, took measured glances as they unloaded their equipment. Many people knew each other and though they were familiar with their respective abilities, they kept a careful eye out for new equipment as they greeted each other.

  “Dad, I’m going with Justine to the registration tent. They’re supposed to have some cool swag,” Allie said.

  Not wanting my daughter to see how nervous I was, I was glad she went as I took the top board off. A stiff breeze, another addition to my pre-race nerves, tried to wrestle the twelve-and-a-half-foot standup paddleboard from my grasp. I was finally able to point the nose into the wind, allowing me to set it on the lee side of the car.

  The next board, my new one, was a foot and a half longer at fourteen feet. Knowing what to expect now, I angled it properly before removing it and laying it against Justine’s board. Now, if I could only know what to expect from the race, I could relax.

  After taking the paddles, leashes, and PFDs from the back of the car, I leaned against the hood to wait for Justine and Allie. I found myself trying to guess the ages of the men as they walked by. Unfortunately I was one year shy of racing in the masters division and my peers were all younger. At thirty-nine, I was a virgin to standup paddleboard racing.

  Justine, a much more experienced racer, had been my coach for the last few months. She had wanted me to set a goal for my first race. I knew better than to put the podium on the list and had decided a mid-pack finish would be acceptable. Now, remembering her advice about hydration, I leaned into the car and pulled out one of the water bottles filled with electrolytes. I had just finished it when I saw Justine and Allie coming toward me.

  Watching the duo approach made me smile and helped calm my jitters. Justine had our race bibs and timing chips in hand; Allie was loaded with t-shirts, water bottles, and stickers.

  “You ready for this?” Justine asked, handing me a velcro band with a timing chip attached.

  I nodded and as I wrapped the strap around my ankle, I felt my anxiety rise again—this time about the finish. We had practiced beach starts and finishes; ditching the board at the end of the race and running through the finish line, where a sensor would record my time from the chip in the strap on my ankle, worried me. Often, after a hard paddle, I would stumble and sometimes fall before I got my land legs. There was also the matter of removing the leash. It sounded simple: just pull the velcro strap connecting me to the board off before hopping into the surf, but I had forgotten more than once, and that was just during training. I could see myself losing several places as I fell on the way to the finish line.

  Cars and trucks were streaming into the near-full lot now and I waited while Justine drained a water bottle. “Should we go warm up?”

  “Better do something. You look like you’re gonna throw up,” she said.

  “I’m proud of you no matter what, Dad,” Allie said.

  Allie grabbed the paddles, leashes, PFDs, and two more water bottles. Justine and I each grabbed our boards and followed her to the beach. We stepped onto a wooden bridge that wove through a few sand dunes that had concealed the view of the ocean from the parking lot. After taking a few steps, my worst fear came to fruition. Standing on the tip of the peninsula known as Cape Florida, I now had an unobstructed view of the bay and ocean. The usually calm bay waters were rippled with wind waves; the ocean looked worse. The waves weren’t that big by boating standards—maybe two to three feet—but to someone maneuvering on a fourteen-foot board built to the scale of a toothpick they looked intimidating.

  It was the cross chop that really concerned me. I had gotten comfortable heading into the waves and running downwind, but my balance was not so good when the waves came from the side. For at least a mile of the four-mile short course we had decided was a good start for me, the wind would be on my side. I mentally reviewed the map of the course I’d etched into my brain—not that it needed to be, as I was sure to be following the pack.

  “Everyone else has the same conditions,” Justine said, reading my mind.

  “Sure.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the water.

  “Better get you wet,” she said.

  We reached an open area by the finish line and set up camp. An announcement warned that there would be a mandatory pre-race meeting in fifteen minutes. I could only hope it was going to be a course change.

  “Come on,” Justine said. With her inflatable PFD around her waist, she grabbed her paddle, and with the same hand lifted the board and headed to the water.

  I looked at Allie, who gave me her best reassuring nod, and followed Justine into the surf. Even after a year and a half here I still braced myself, expecting the bite of the cold Pacific. Growing up in Northern California, with it’s sixty-degree water, it had become a conditioned response for me to flinch whenever I first touched it. Even though I knew it was different here, I smiled for the first time when I felt the comforting eighty-degree temperature of Biscayne Bay.

  “Kurt, get wet and warm up!” Justine called.

  She was already past the small soupy shore break. I had gotten a lot of advice from her as we had trained together, and I’d snuck some off the internet as well. Getting wet was big, and I lay the board flat on the water and started through the waves to deeper water. When it reached chest deep, I ducked my head under before mounting the board. One of my fears immediately dissipated as I went to my knees. If you started out dry, a part of your brain wanted to stay that way. Getting wet right off the bat lessened my worries about falling.

  That was a good thing because just as I started to stand a larger wave caught me by surprise and swept me off the board.

  “You know how to brace,” Justine called out as she effortlessly walked to the back of her board and spun it one hundred eighty degrees. “Come on. Let’s do some sprints.”

  Hydrate, get wet, and sprint was her warmup strategy. It had seemed counterintuitive at first to do a series of all-out sprints before a race, but we had done this in practice and as with her other advice it worked. The PA system blared another announcement that was lost on the wind, and I glanced down at my wrist to see if the fifteen minutes had elapsed. My watch was gone by design, however, another Justine recommendation. She blasted by me on her way to the beach and I followed. We left our boards above the water line and headed to the meeting.

  My heart leapt when it was announced that the course had been changed. I could see from looking around that I wasn’t the only one relieved. After a short safety briefing we were given ten minutes to get to the start line. Now that the clock was ticking, my brain had an immediate goal and it stopped the you’re going to fail messages it had been sending since last night. Following Justine, I took another drink, gra
bbed our paddles and boards, and headed for the water. The second time out was much easier and I found myself in a group of paddlers, who I thought might be on my level, working their way to the start. Justine and I had decided to separate at this point. She was with the other top-tier racers doing the eight-mile course. The last thing I needed was her worrying about me. I glanced over and watched the nearby paddlers moving back and forth, trying to scope out the best line to start the race.

  Then the horn blared, catching me off guard, and I had to catch myself and remember my plan. Paddle your plan had also been beaten into my head and I paused for a few seconds and let the frontrunners go before starting out at a moderate pace. Justine had warned me not to worry about the start. The elite racers and a large group of wannabes would go out fast. The water behind them would be churned up and hard to paddle. Staying clear of the pack turned out to be good advice as I watched bodies tumbling off their boards taking out the paddlers behind them as they went down. I breathed and smiled as I pushed by them. Justine had assured me that if I stayed with the plan I would pass the wannabes that went out too fast. Four miles would take close to an hour at my level so I had time and restrained myself, trying not to worry that I was in the back of the pack.

  Justine was nowhere in sight as we rounded the point of Cape Florida. It was here that the course had changed and instead of the cross-chop I had feared, the calm water was only disturbed by the wakes of the boards in front of me. Originally the course had been designed to make a turn to the open Atlantic here, but because of the conditions the race organizers had changed it to go into the protected bay. We were getting close to the halfway mark and I was feeling strong, passing some of the wannabes as Justine had predicted. I was in the middle of the pack and moving up quickly. With each stroke I could feel my paddle grab water and propel me forward. I was close to the elusive zone.

  Once past the point we left the protected water, and I felt the wind now that we were on the ocean side of the island. Stiltsville, a water-bound community of ramshackle buildings, lay ahead. The seven houses were at the northern extreme of Biscayne National Park, where I was based as a special agent. What was left of the original thirty structures, famous for their past guests (including presidents), then their being popularized by TV shows and movies, was the bane of the park. Nothing good happened here.

  I turned my focus to the piling that jutted out of the water a quarter-mile ahead, which marked the turn back to the finish line. Instead of focusing on my approach and technique to make the hundred-eighty-degree turn, however, my attention turned to a boat that appeared to be brushing against the twelve-foot-high tower there. Several jet skis and chase boats were assigned to the race, but this didn’t appear to be one of them.

  The leaders worked their way around the marker, ignoring the boat, intent on the finish. The group I was in tightened as the racers prepared for the turn and I slid behind another board, using the wake to draft to an outside position. The angle was critical and when I reached forty-five degrees to the marker I started to stroke hard on my right, then cross over to my left and use the paddle as a rudder.

  The board reacted and I passed several people before something in my brain changed gears. Even from here I could smell something was wrong, and I pulled off to the side and coasted to a stop at the stern of the boat. Maybe the single-minded intensity that had overcome me until now had allowed the other racers to miss it, but I had been around dead bodies before, and the second we turned upwind, I could tell there was one aboard the boat.

  Two

  The twelve-foot-tall lighted tower marked the beginning of the shoals surrounding Biscayne Channel as well as the northernmost point of the park. The drifting boat was just to the south, placing it inside the boundary. That made it my business. As my board slammed against the starboard side of the abandoned boat, I looked back at the racers rounding the tower. Several whom I had passed were turning the corner, ready to head for the finish. A strange feeling passed through me, a strange remorse, that felt like I had quit and let myself down. In response, I told myself I had been doing well and found whatever groove I had. Ignoring the drifting boat was not an option. I took one last look at the racers and turned my attention to the boat.

  With one hand on a cleat, I reached my other down to my ankle and unfastened the velcro tab of the leash connecting me to the board. Keeping it in hand, I slipped the end under the cleat and secured it, attaching the board to the boat.

  About forty feet overall and from the look of her a converted sportfisher, the boat was clearly a work vessel now. There was no tall superstructure common to these kinds of vessels, just a flybridge covered by a blue Bimini top. Two large winches were affixed to the rear deck. One, set slightly forward on the starboard side, had a small boom that was secured to a fitting on the gunwale. The other was set closer to the transom. Its cable ran to two huge pipes bent at ninety-degree angles. Called mailboxes or blowers, they were used by salvors to channel the force of the propellers to the bottom to clear sand from wrecks. Between them, I could just make out the name: Reale. Named after a Spanish coin and outfitted as she was, this was clearly more than a standard salvage vessel.

  Standing on my board, I was eye level to the main deck and a quick glance revealed nothing. I called out and as I expected received no response. The smell of death hung over the boat and I hoped that between that and its being adrift I had just cause to board.

  With my paddle in hand, I climbed over the gunwale and stood on deck. A set of dive gear lay off to one side with a collection bag, like the ones used to bag lobsters, next to it. Scattered pieces of black material were on the deck next to the bag. Carefully, I skirted the area and made my way to the cabin.

  The smell almost drove me from the companionway. Using my sweaty shirt as a mask, I moved forward and stepped into the cabin. The shades were drawn over the small windows, making it hard to see, but something was down there and I knew what it was. Slowly, I stepped all the way inside and waited for my eyes to adjust. It didn’t take long to make out the shape of a body on the V-berth. It lay face down on the bunk like it was asleep, but I guessed otherwise.

  Reaching for the neck, I placed my hand by the carotid artery to check for a pulse. Cold dead skin greeted my touch and I pressed harder, hoping in vain that the man was alive. Finally, I pulled my hand away and stood back, leaning against the small sink on the other side of the cabin.

  There was not a lot to think about at this point. I had been here before and knew what the protocol was. With my phone in Allie’s care back on the beach, I went back up the steps to the cockpit and breathed in deeply before reaching for the microphone. Clicking the VHF on, I checked that it was on channel 16 and hailed the Coast Guard. They were the logical first responders and I had seen one of their vessels in the area working the race.

  The dispatcher directed me to channel 19. I turned the dial and waited. A few seconds later her voice came through the speakers and asked what my emergency was. After giving her the details and our position from the GPS, I was advised to stand by.

  If I’d had my phone, I would have called the medical examiner’s office and started to document the site, but clad only in boardshorts and a Dri-Fit shirt, I had nothing to do but look around and wait. I moved to the transom, wanting to get as far upwind as possible from the smell. Sitting on the gunwale, I looked out to sea, wondering where the boat had come from. There were nothing but white-capped waves out there and I turned back to the bay to see where the boat was heading.

  The water is all encompassing here, covering the spectrum of shades from a brilliant white to dark indigo and everything in between. If you know how to look, the variances tell a story. In this case they warned of shallow water and possibly a shoal ahead. The north wind was pushing us toward several patches of boat-killing brown water to the south of the channel. Moving forward, I stepped up on the top deck and made my way around the cabin to the bow. My plan was to set the anchor and secure the boat, but when I reached the
windlass, I saw the white line already extended into the water. Leaning over, I pulled on it, not surprised when I met no resistance. About fifty feet of line lay on the deck when I reached the end.

  The tendrils had unraveled, making it hard to see whether the line had snagged on something underwater or purposely been cut. I went with the latter explanation for now and set it aside for further examination. With no anchor to hold our position, I climbed back around to the helm and found the key still in the ignition. It was turned to off, indicating that the boat had been shut down manually.

  The twin diesels started easily, belching a small black cloud from the exhaust. While they idled, I went to the stern and hauled my board onto the large back deck. Returning to the wheelhouse, I scanned the waters, set the throttle in reverse and backed the stern around, swinging the bow to open water. A boat was bearing down on my position, and I pushed the lever forward and steered in its direction. As the gap between us closed, I could see it was the Coast Guard vessel I had seen earlier.

  Within minutes, our two boats were side by side.

  “You say you have a dead body aboard?” the captain called from the helm.

  “Yes, my name is Kurt Hunter, special agent with the National Parks Service.”

  He left the vessel in command of one of the crew and came to meet me across the gunwale. “I guess it’s your report then. How can we assist?”

  I explained about finding the boat adrift while I was racing, which explained my attire and lack of phone. “If I can borrow a phone, I’ll call the medical examiner.”

  The captain handed me his phone. I wondered if I should check in with Martinez, my boss. His idea of the job description for special agent in charge was to observe through technology. In other words, he spied on his employees. Realizing that I had no phone and that I wasn’t on the park service boat or truck gave me a strange sense of freedom from the three monitors that sat prominently on his desk. I decided I liked being invisible and would email him later rather than ruin his golf game.