When Mike was finally called into the sheriff’s office, he immediately noticed a change in the man’s demeanor. He usually remained stoic in a crisis. Sheriff Jock was the kind of field general who could lead his department through the worst of hurricanes or the rowdiest of Key West gatherings. He’d even provided Mike and the other detectives the support they needed while they pursued their serial killer.
Today, the sheriff seemed harried. Almost nervous. He was being hit from all sides with questions and demands from his staff. His secretary, the undersheriff, and two office personnel stood in a semicircle around his office, awaiting instructions. They parted slightly to allow Mike a path to approach the sheriff’s desk.
With a deep breath, Mike put on his politician’s hat and mentally put up his guard. Let the chess match begin.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Saturday, November 9
Aboard the Cymopoleia
Gulf of Mexico
The nightmare had mercifully ended. At least this chapter in the story. The Cymopoleia gently rocked back and forth as the remnants of the hurricane gradually moved toward the north, taking the energy of the atmosphere with it. It wasn’t the lack of turbulent air or thrashing water that struck Lacey as odd. It was the glimpse of sunshine.
She’d sent Tucker below deck into the forward cabin to sleep. Ordered was more like it. He’d fought the storm all night and managed to rescue her from certain death. As daybreak came, Lacey expected to see what had become the norm—a thick layer of grayish, sooty clouds blocking out the sky. This morning was different.
“Tucker! Tucker! We have sun. I see it!”
Lacey pulled back on the throttle and allowed the bow to dip down toward the water. She called out his name again before racing out of the wheelhouse onto the aft deck. The brightness of the orb hiding behind the thinning clouds forced her to shade her eyes with her right hand.
Tucker rushed up the steps into the wheelhouse and out the back to join his mother. He squinted, partly because he had been sleeping in the dark cabin and due to the unusual brightness of the sky.
“Mom, do you think it’s over?”
Lacey closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the sun to allow her skin to soak in its muted radiance. It was warmer than normal, a welcome change from the conditions brought on by nuclear winter.
“I don’t know, son. It may just be temporary.”
“’Cause of the hurricane?”
“That was one heckuva storm,” she replied. “I’ve been through some bad ones before but never, of course, on the water. That storm was powerful, though. It could be that whatever this crap is that’s mixed into the atmosphere got pulled up the coast with the hurricane.”
Tucker’s shoulders drooped. His body language immediately reflected the conclusion he’d reached. “It’s just gonna come back.”
Lacey grimaced and wrapped her arm around her son’s shoulder. “Yeah, probably. But it does prove this smog isn’t invincible. Eventually, it seems like hurricanes and upper-level winds will cause it to dissipate.”
Tucker shielded his eyes and took in the moment before the opportunity was lost. “Who knows how long it will take. Eventually, there’ll be enough hurricanes and storms to push the bad air off to wherever pollution goes, right?”
Lacey could only guess what the answer was, but she had no problem giving her son some semblance of hope. “Right, skipper!” she said as she hugged her son.
At this moment, they were alive, and nothing stood in the way of their trip home. Riding out the storm had resulted in them being pushed way off course. She’d already done some mental calculations and determined they had just enough fuel to make it to the Keys. She understood how race teams felt when they did their calculations. Many pit bosses were gamblers by nature and would rather go for the win than refuel only to finish a couple of laps down. The closest point of land to their position was to backtrack toward Everglades City or even Naples. As far as she was concerned, that wasn’t an option.
She turned the helm over to Tucker with instructions to sail directly toward Driftwood Key. She was gonna go below, redress her bandages from the beating she’d taken when she flew overboard, and fix them something to eat. They would calculate their fuel levels in an hour and adjust their course for a closer point in the Keys if necessary.
As far as Lacey was concerned, if the Cymopoleia quit on them near the finish line, they’d gladly swim to shore. It was a gamble worth taking.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Saturday, November 9
Key West
“Mike Albright, come over here,” the sheriff instructed as Mike approached. “You need to be congratulated for a couple of reasons.”
Mike was surprised by the sheriff’s friendliness. His tone of voice was far from what Mike had expected considering the chaotic nature of the meeting with his staff. He was also confused as to why he’d made reference to a couple of reasons.
“Just doin’ my job, Sheriff,” he said, a phrase he’d repeated many times since he’d killed the two gunmen.
Sheriff Jock leaned onto his desk and extended his right hand to Mike, who gladly took it. The handshake seemed heartfelt.
“Detective, you saved a lot of lives in that hospital. Those drug runners have a rap sheet a mile long and were on the FBI’s most wanted. Apparently, they’d been holing up in a vacation rental house near Hemingway’s. The homeowner had returned from Georgia and confronted the three. There was a shoot-out resulting in the owner’s death. The leader of the trio, the guy on the table full of holes, decided it was a good idea to storm the hospital to get treatment. You showed him otherwise. Well done.”
An aide had entered the sheriff’s office and handed him a clipboard full of documents. He signed multiple pages without reading them. Apparently, despite the collapse of normalcy, the government hadn’t lost its love of a paper trail. This might make his job more complicated.
“Thanks, Sheriff. Um, I take it the ringleader of the bunch survived.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s the downside. I don’t want the scumbag in my jail. Hopefully, he won’t need any medical attention while he’s locked up. I’m sure the hospital will be a little slow to respond, if you know what I mean.”
Mike glanced around the room at the disinterested aides. None of them had left, so he assumed his time with the sheriff was drawing short.
“Well, there is something I’d like to—”
The sheriff cut him off. “Also, Detective, there’s something that just came in that only a handful of detectives are privy to. The guy who stabbed you, Patrick Hollister, is your serial killer.”
“What did you learn?”
“I picked a couple of guys who were available to toss his home and the bank branches where he worked. You have no idea what we found at their location on Simonton. He’s a demented jackass who needed to fry in Old Sparky at Starke.”
For seventy-five years, the electric chair had been the sole means of execution in Florida until the Florida State Legislature signed lethal injection into law. After 2000, prisoners awaiting execution had the choice of lethal injection or the electric chair. None of them had chosen Old Sparky, the nickname for the device located at the Florida State Prison outside Starke in Northeast Florida.
“I saved the state a lot of money,” quipped Mike.
“And burial expense,” added the sheriff. “I understand your family threw him into the water. The nasty SOB is fish chum. It’s better than he deserves.”