“I will.”
CHAPTER
31
On Sunday afternoon Holly, Jackson and Ham took Chet Marley’s whaler out into the river. Ham unscrewed the top on the urn that contained Chet’s remains and, as Holly drove slowly south from the dock, scattered the ashes on the river. Nobody said anything for a while, and Ham sat with his face in his hands for a couple of minutes. Finally he looked up.
“Well, that’s done,” Ham said, taking the wheel from Holly. “Let’s do some sightseeing.” He put the throttle forward and they sped down the river, making almost no wake, past sailboats and motor yachts—every kind of pleasure craft.
Holly looked up and was alarmed to see a business jet descending at a sharp angle, flying unbelievably low. It disappeared behind a stand of tall pines, and she tensed, waiting for the explosion and fireball. She had seen a jet fighter crash once, and she didn’t want to repeat the experience. To her surprise, nothing happened.
“That was pretty scary,” Ham said, reducing speed.
“It’s the Palmetto Gardens airfield,” Holly said. “I had forgotten about it. I was waiting for the crash.”
“Me, too,” Ham said. “That was a pretty good-sized jet.”
“They can apparently take anything short of a 747.”
“That’s got to be the entrance to their marina,” Jackson said, pointing at an inlet. “There’s no marker for it, but it can’t be anything else, given the location of the airport.”
“Let’s have a look at it,” Holly said. “Turn in there, Ham, and go slow.”
Ham throttled back nearly to idle and turned into the inlet.
“Water looks pretty deep here,” Jackson said.
Holly pointed to a group of masts rising above the low trees. “Got some pretty big boats in here, huh?”
“One of them has a satellite dish,” Ham said, pointing. “Probably a satphone. When we’re around this bend, we ought to be able to see the marina.”
As they were starting around the bend in the inlet, another boat suddenly appeared, going in the opposite direction. It was an open boat of about twenty-five feet, and a large spotlight was mounted on a thick mast next to a couple of radio antennae and a radar housing. A loudspeaker blasted across the water.
“Stop,” a metallic voice said.
Ham took the whaler out of gear and drifted. The larger boat came alongside, carrying two uniformed security guards. They were both wearing sidearms, and the one who wasn’t driving was carrying an assault rifle.
“This is private property,” the rifle bearer said, looking them over. “Turn your boat around.” He wasn’t actually pointing the weapon at them, but he appeared to be ready to do so.
“Sorry,” Ham called out. “What is this place?”
“I told you, pal, it’s private property,” the man replied. “Now turn that thing around or I’ll sink it for you.”
“Isn’t this part of the intracoastal waterway?” Jackson asked. “Isn’t this a public right of way?”
The man put down the assault rifle, picked up a boat hook, extended it to its full length and used it to hook the bow cleat on the whaler. “Okay,” he said to his companion. The man gunned the engine, spinning the whaler around, nearly dumping its occupants overboard.
Ham put the engine into forward gear to ease the strain on the cleat, but they were being towed at a good ten knots, and water from the bigger boat’s wake was coming over the bows of the whaler in rhythmic waves, soaking its three passengers. When they were back in the river, the guard released the whaler, and the boat’s driver spun his craft around and headed back into the inlet at high speed, creating a wake that nearly swamped the whaler.
“You son of a bitch!” Ham yelled.
Holly was bailing water out of the whaler. “You think maybe we’re not welcome in there?”
“Could be,” Jackson said.
“I’d like to go back in there with a shotgun,” Ham said.
“Now, Ham, don’t come over all military on me,” Holly said. “They just overreacted to our presence.”
Ham headed back toward Egret Island at high speed, the wind drying their clothes. When they were alongside the dock, he leapt out and headed for the house, Holly chasing him.
“What are you doing?” she yelled after him.
“I’m going to call Barney Noble and tell him what I think of his son-of-a-bitch security guards!” he yelled over his shoulder.
She caught up with him as he was lifting the phone. “Ham, don’t do that, please.”
“And why the hell not?”
“I don’t want Barney to think we were snooping around Palmetto Gardens.”
“Well, that’s what we were doing, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but I don’t want Barney to know it. I’m interested in that place, but I’ve got to move carefully. I’ve got an interview with the city council coming up, and I don’t want any complaints lodged.”
Ham slammed down the phone. “Well, shit.”
“Why don’t you have a beer and get your blood pressure down, Ham? I don’t want you stroking out on me.”
Ham went into the kitchen, found a bottle of bourbon and poured himself a double over ice. “You want one?” he asked Holly and Jackson, who had caught up with them.
“It’s a little early for me,” Holly said. “A little early for you, too, come to that.”
“That place is like a goddamned foreign military base, right here on American soil,” Ham said. He tossed back half the bourbon. “And it burns my ass.”
“Ham, I’m going to look into it, all right? But I don’t want to lose my job while I’m at it.”
“I don’t know why you’re so goddamned worried about your job,” Ham said. “You’re retired military; you’ve got a pension.” He sank the rest of the bourbon but didn’t pour another.
“I like my job,” Holly said, “and I haven’t gotten to the time of my life when all I want to do is fish and play golf.”
Ham was becoming calmer, now. “Yeah, I guess I can understand that.”
“Also, I’d like to find out who killed Chet Marley and Hank Doherty, and my chances are a lot better if I’m running the police department.”
“I’m sorry, Holly,” he said, putting an arm around her. “I’m just not used to being pushed around.”
“I don’t know why not,” Holly said, laughing. “That’s all the army did for the past thirty years, was push you around.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, sweetie,” Ham said, “I did a lot of pushing myself.”
“Yeah, I guess you did, Ham.”
“I’m going to watch the game,” he said. “Anybody want to join me?”
“Not me,” Holly said. “I’m going to sit out back for a while and watch the boats go by.”
“I’ll join you,” Jackson said.
“You don’t want to watch the game with me?” Ham asked.
“She’s prettier than you are,” Jackson said, nodding at Holly. “I’d rather watch her.” He took her hand and led her outside.
They took off their shoes, sat down on the dock and let their feet dangle in the water.
“Well,” Jackson said, “that’s my introduction to Palmetto Gardens, and I didn’t like it much.”
“Yeah, those folks have got way too much security. Barney Noble says the members feel better with the overkill, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. The members are supposed to be corporate CEO types, not banana republic dictators.”
“That airplane had a foreign registration number,” Jackson said.
“What country?”
“I don’t know, and I can’t remember the letters, but all U.S. aircraft have registration numbers starting with N.”