Backwater Channel Read online

  I took a quick look at the body now that it was out of the water. He was, or had been, a middle-aged man, now with a severely damaged leg. Sid cleared his throat and I pulled my notebook and pen from my pocket prepared to record whatever he said.

  “I’m calling time of death between five and seven pm. It’s a little vague with the body being in the water.” He shined the flashlight on the man’s bare leg. Crabs scurried from the deep ragged wound. “Odd’s on that’s the cause of death. Looks nasty.”

  The gash had torn through the femoral artery and exposed the bone; I expected he had bled out. A morbid thought came to me that if I had not found the body, the local denizens would have been attracted to the blood in the water. I was glad my fish box was empty.

  I’d seen what eighty-degree water did to things. Time of death was an easier and more accurate calculation on land. Water buffered death’s cooling effect and artificially kept the temperature higher for longer. I cursed myself for not noting the exact time when I heard the splash, but I was fishing.

  Sid checked the man’s pockets for ID, but came up empty. The liver probe was the only test that needed to be done on site and the deputy and I wrestled the corpse into a body bag. A few minutes later, I tossed the lines across and we separated.

  My transportation needs had to be thought out ahead of time. In the past, I had made the mistake of relying on the boat, often docking at Dodge Island to get closer to Miami, and having to arrange for land transportation from there. Despite the traffic, taking the boat to headquarters and using my park service truck was a slower, but a better option.

  I watched the Contender get up on plane and head slightly offshore to clear the shallow water around Key Biscayne before it would turn again for the entrance to Government Cut. After the wake had settled, I followed the shoreline to Bayfront Park and entered the channel. It was quiet this time of night, and I pulled into my slip at the park service dock, tied off the center console, and headed for the truck.

  Dead body aside, I was glad I had an excuse to see Justine. As I started towards the truck, I wondered at the sanity of a relationship where you brought your girl a dead body instead of flowers.

  3

  I met Justine at the doors of the Medical Examiner’s office. I could see the excitement on her face, but when I leaned in for a quick kiss, I was denied. Her good mood was about the body, not me. Following her downstairs I got a glimpse of Sid through the glass partition. The body lay in its bag on the stainless steel table in the examining room where Sid hovered over it, going through his pre-game ritual. Justine went directly into the room. She leaned in and pecked Sid on the cheek. I didn’t have those kind of privileges. Tapping the glass, I waited for him to acknowledge me before entering.

  “Go ahead and suit up. You know the drill,” he said, not looking up.

  This was my third time around, and I wasn't sure if I should be happy or worried about how comfortable I was getting with death. I suspected it was easier in a laboratory environment. The stainless steel furniture and tile decor gave the room a clean clinical atmosphere. Though the smell of death still got to me.

  Sid unzipped the body bag and revealed the dead man's face. The fresh stubble still glistened with bay water. His face looked human; the last two bodies I had found had been under long enough for the seawater and foragers to steal their identity, making the faces unrecognizable. The eyes of the recently deceased corpse made me fear for my stomach.

  I waited, watching through my acrylic facemask, which fogged up slightly with each breath. From my previous experience, I knew I had some time. The first step was to do a visual inspection of the body. Sid nodded to Justine who turned on the voice recorder. When the red light went on, he began work.

  “Male, age late thirties to early forties—”

  The shrill ring of my phone echoed off the tile walls. Sid and Justine looked at me as if I had interrupted a sacred ritual and I stepped away from the table. It was the Darth Vader ring tone I had assigned to Martinez. I glanced down at the screen on my way out the door and noticed the time was twelve-thirty. There was no way this was anything but trouble.

  “You’re like a shit magnet, Hunter,” he started.

  I stepped out into the office to avoid interrupting Sid.

  “Do these bodies just find you or do you seek them out?”

  The line went quiet. It was time for me to respond. “I’m at the autopsy now.” I figured he already knew where I was from the park service equipment. GPS trackers in the boat and car as well as software in my phone gave him a steady stream of information. This was his primary form of entertainment after golf. Why watch TV, when you can creep on your agents in real time? His office was equipped with dual large screen monitors that I had seen displaying the tracks of other agents. I could only imagine what his home setup looked like.

  “You’re what? Again, you’re overstepping. The body came out of the cooling canals. That puts it on FP&L land and in Miami-Dade’s jurisdiction. You’re not on my clock.”

  His information confirmed my guess that it was Miami-Dade feeding him the information. I was used to working on my own time, which didn’t bother me because it usually meant Justine was involved. A glance through the window to the autopsy room told me that Sid was not waiting for me. I looked back at the phone knowing that sooner rather than later there would be a face-off with my boss. I figured now was not a good time—the dark of night seldom was. Before I could answer that the body was actually found in the park, my phone beeped. “Hold on.” He started to say something, but ignoring him, I looked down at the screen and saw “blocked caller ID”.

  “I’ll check in first thing tomorrow,” I said, switching calls before he could make the inevitable comment. “Kurt Hunter,” I answered the other call.

  “Agent Hunter, this is Grace Herrera with Miami-Dade. I’m the detective the case was assigned to.” She waived the pleasantries. “Can you meet me and my partner at the Turkey Point plant? We want your take on what you saw.”

  I wondered how they knew what had happened already and remembered the deputy’s in the other boat. I told Herrera that I was at the ME’s office right now and would get down to Turkey Point as soon as I could. Through the glass partition I saw Sid about to make the Y-shaped incision and was almost thankful for the excuse to miss the rest of the autopsy. Still, I couldn't turn away when he winked at Justine, and with a flourish like a conductor signaling the first bars of a symphony, made the first cut. I turned away. Having your girlfriend see you lose your lunch is never a good thing.

  “I’ll have a security guard meet you at the gate. He’ll bring you to the site.” Herrera hung up.

  I turned to go back to the door of the exam room when I saw Justine put her phone in her pocket and head toward me.

  “Gotta go to the site,” she said, tearing off the robe.

  “Me too. Miami-Dade asked me to show them what I witnessed.”

  “I need to take the crime scene van. You have your truck. I’ll meet you there.”

  I wondered if I should ask her to breakfast out at my place across the bay and decided against it. We were already walking a tightrope of what was professionally appropriate. I didn’t want to add to it. Right now, I was a witness, and she had her job to do.

  “Okay. I’ll meet you there.”

  She glanced back at the exam room, leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “This is so exciting!”

  I let that go, knowing that it wasn’t me that she was so jazzed about and headed up the stairs and out the front doors. The air was thick, a surprisingly humid night for this time of year. I had been through the summer and fall now, both of which would have been classified as summer anywhere else. Now it was early winter and we had seen our first few cold fronts. It was pretty nice this time of the year, although, once every ten days or so, the humidity returned which usually meant a front was coming. They often came through quickly and violently, bringing squall-like conditions. Once the line of storms passed
the weather turned to what could only be described as outstanding, at least until the next one pushed through as the cycle of South Florida weather continued.

  With that in mind, I looked up at the sky while I got in my truck. The first line of stratus clouds illuminated by the moon told me a storm was coming. I started out of the parking lot and headed toward the 836. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the flash of brake lights on the on ramp. Miami is one of the true metropolitan cities in the US and there was still quite a bit of traffic even at this hour. Fortunately, the delay was due to some construction and short-lived. While I waited, I entered the plant’s location into my phone. Following Siri’s directions, forty minutes later, I reached the entrance to the Turkey Point power plant.

  The Miami-Dade forensic van was already there, idling by the side of the road. I looked around, surprised to see there was no gate or guard for a nuclear facility. A pair of headlights appeared to be coming toward us. I pulled next to Justine’s van and waited. As the vehicle approached, I could see right away that its headlights were too narrow for a standard car or truck. A uniformed security guard driving an off-road utility vehicle passed us and swung a quick U-turn. He waved to us and we followed him into the compound.

  From the Palm Drive entrance we went through a parking lot, past a well-lit industrial building and turned right onto SW 360th street. On the right, invisible in the darkness, were the cooling canals. Running perpendicular to the road, the ten-square-mile grid was laid out with hundred-foot-wide canals separated by earthen berms that looked to be about fifty feet in width. An outer canal running around the perimeter enclosed the entire system. We turned onto a crushed coral road. The UTV the security officer was driving handled the uneven surface better than my small two-wheel drive pickup and after five bone-jarring minutes, we made a sharp right turn and I found myself looking at the spot where I had started fishing earlier.

  Another hard quarter mile later, we stopped near a canal close to the area where I thought I had heard the vehicle earlier. There was already a Miami-Dade cruiser pulled over to the side of the road. Its headlights illuminated two officers looking down at the gravel, scanning its surface with high-power flashlights. Justine drove the crime scene van towards them and stopped so that her headlights added to the cruiser’s light. I parked well behind them and walked the rest of the way.

  A gust of wind caught me by surprise and I looked up at the moonlit sky. To the north the line of ominous looking clouds I had seen earlier was getting closer; the front was coming at us fast. I approached the two officers, leaving Justine to do her own thing.

  “Officer Herrera?” I asked.

  One of the pair looked up and I saw a very attractive woman. Another gust blew, and I wondered if the gods were causing trouble when Justine looked up and saw me staring at the Miami-Dade detective.

  “Call me Grace,” she said.

  Justine was still staring at us. I don’t know why I felt so self-conscious, I had no reason to expect any kind of reaction from her. This was strictly business, though I realized I was still looking at Grace. Her partner continued to scan the ground illuminated by the headlights, not really caring about my demise. “Kurt,” I said, moving toward her and shaking her hand.

  “I’ll need a statement,” she said.

  The wind kicked up again and we both looked at the sky. The line of clouds was even closer now, and in the flash of the first lightning strike I could see her face clearly. It only reaffirmed my previous opinion. In response, the slow, low rumble of thunder sounded like the throaty roar of an animal about to attack. “Maybe we better process the site first. This storm's gonna be here pretty quick.” As if to confirm this, another gust hit us, this time stronger and colder.

  “Looks nasty. Maybe you’re right. While we’re here though, I need you to show me where you were and where you heard the vehicle.”

  Grace waved to Justine who walked toward us carrying a bright flashlight and a camera. When she reached us I started toward the other officer.

  “Looks like a UTV from the tires,” he said. “Tracks are a little narrow for anything else.”

  “That’s about the spot. I guess it could have been a UTV. I only heard the vehicle so I’m not sure.” I started looking on my own for the tracks.

  “Pretty sure, probably—huh?” he mimicked me. “I bet if it was a fish you park service boys could give a positive ID.”

  I was about to introduce myself, but pulled back. As if she knew her partner all too well, Grace intervened.

  “Where were you fishing?”

  I pointed out the spot where I had anchored and explained how I had waded by the mangrove-studded shoreline.

  “Catch anything?” her partner asked.

  I let that one go. This guy was trouble and I knew better than to engage him. “Miami mean” was what I called it. One of the first things I had noticed after moving here was that the east-coast attitudes were more sarcastic and harder to read. The wind blew again, laced with the first raindrops of the coming storm. Justine looked at me and we both turned toward the northern sky.

  “This is all going to have to wait. We’re going to lose this scene in about ten minutes.” She started taking pictures of the general location and the tire tracks. “Can you guys fan out and see if there is any physical evidence we might lose because of the storm?”

  I was grateful for the reprieve and pulled the Maglite from my belt. It was a smaller version of the foot-long lights the two police officers carried but still plenty bright. I walked toward the outside edge of the bank adjacent to the bay. Looking back at the group, I noticed a few scrubby trees. Thinking back, l thought the vehicle I had heard would have been near them and close to where I stood. Panning the banks, I saw the water was a few feet below the high-tide line. This was about the tidal range and I guessed any evidence would likely be beyond the reef by now.

  I turned my attention to the crushed gravel road. Sweeping the light back and forth I saw some similar tire tracks, then I thought I saw something and moved toward it. The first fat drop of rain hit the back of my neck as I leaned over to inspect the area; something had happened here. I was about to take a picture with my phone when I saw a light approach.

  “I’m going to need that statement," Herrera said. "Why don’t you come down to the station.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a request or a command. We were only a mile or so from Bayfront Park and my boat. It had been a long day and I was getting anxious about the storm. Crossing the five miles of bay water to my home on Adams Key was generally an easy run in the protected bay waters. I had been out in twenty-plus mile per hour winds, it was already blowing close to that, and I feared there was worse to come.

  “Can we go to the park service headquarters building?”

  “Yeah. I think we’re about wrapped up here. We can follow you.”

  Her partner said something, which I’m sure was aimed at demeaning me, but his words were lost in the thunder. The drizzle turned to rain and we all looked at each other knowing what was coming: it wouldn’t be long before this would evolve into a full-fledged squall. I made it back to my truck before the sky opened and sat wondering, as I watched the rain pound against the windshield, where I was going to sleep tonight. I could wait out the storm at the headquarters building, but there was no telling how long the squalls were going to last. As if reading my mind, my phone vibrated in my hand. I pulled it out to find Justine's name on the screen. Realizing I hadn't said anything to her before we ran to our vehicles, I looked around and saw her sitting in her van just twenty feet from me. She made a face and I thanked the heavens for distracting her from Grace Herrera.

  “Why don’t you come up.”

  There was no deliberation. "I have to give Miami-Dade a statement first," I said and graciously accepted her invitation. There would be a warm bed to sleep in tonight. I looked at my watch. She would be off in an hour. I pulled onto the gravel embankment and waited until I saw headlights behind me before retracing the r
oad. Then I remembered the tire tracks and the picture I had failed to take. Just as I was about to turn around, the rain increased. In seconds, the downpour had filled the potholes; any evidence would be gone by now.

  Rationalizing that it wasn’t my case anyway, I started driving along the rough road. Straining to see through the downpour and fogged windshield, I hit several water-filled potholes making for a much bumpier ride going back. The Miami-Dade cruiser’s headlights bounced around wildly in my rearview mirror giving me at least some satisfaction that Grace’s partner was taking the same beating.

  Under normal conditions with the dead-straight roads and no traffic, the drive would take about ten minutes; less if you pushed it. In this weather, it took closer to twenty. We reached the turnoff, parked in the lot, and made a run for the headquarters building, reaching it just as the brunt of the storm hit.

  Martinez had seen fit to issue me a key, saying I had survived my probationary period. I wasn’t sure if there was some actual trust building between us, or if we had only reached a wary peace. My hands were slick with rain and I fumbled with the key as I tried to unlock the commercial style glass doors. Trying to ignore the grunts from Grace's partner, I finally succeeded and we went inside. I also had a key to my own vehicle and I pocketed the three keys; my house, truck, and office wondering what the size of a person’s key ring said about their life.

  The three of us stood in the lobby shaking off the rain as I searched the walls for a light switch. “How about we just sit here,” I said, motioning to the couch and chairs set up as a waiting area in the lobby.

  “Sure,” Grace said, sitting on the couch.

  The other detective took the chair. “Got any coffee?”

  “Fresh out,” I said, not about to embarrass myself further by trying to find and make some. “What can I help you with?”