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  “Yeah. It did something to his mind as you can imagine. He likes to watch people suffer, but he doesn’t like to see them die. That’s why we don’t think he was the one that shot Mary Kettle or a few other deaths we’ve attributed to him. He was certainly involved and probably directed the hand that shot her. He seems to take great pleasure in the drowning process though, especially women, including the ones he has relationships with. Our profiler says he really does fall in love with some of them. He keeps photos of them before and after death.”

  “He’s never been arrested for anything?” Dan asked.

  “We’ve been really close. Minutes after he left. That’s how we found some of the photos.”

  Levi told Dan that Schemke had been in the system for over a decade, always one step and one alias ahead of the law. He was caught once and was tried and convicted of drug trafficking. He was headed for ADMAX in Florence, Colorado in a transport vehicle. A bad turn of fate put the van he was in on an icy stretch of highway. It slid across two lanes right into the path of a big rig. The driver and two of the inmates were killed. Schemke escaped. He carried the seat he was chained to by ankle irons that had broken loose from the floor of the vehicle. He’s clever and he’s tough. I guess the stuff he went through with his old man hardened him and made him almost immune to suffering himself.”

  “If he doesn’t like to watch them die, then maybe Etta’s still alive,” Dan said thoughtfully.

  “Maybe.”

  Levi told Dan he wanted him to stay in the office, do his business as usual, and the FBI would use the conference room as their command center. He said two of his men were in there now going over all the reports. He left Dan standing at the window looking out at the rocky coast as it disappeared into the fog. The gale that had been forecast was headed in, a little later than expected, preceded by pea soup.

  He thought wherever the poor woman was, she probably had very little time left. He went over and looked at the tide chart for March. High tide had already come and gone the previous day.

  “Are you still alive, Etta?”

  ****

  She awoke to the sound of sand and shell crunching under heavy footsteps. The blanket was wrapped around her, but it was bone-chilling cold. The morning light coming from the entrance of the cave gave her a good view of her surroundings. She saw the silhouette of a large man approaching and smelled a rancid creosote odor that she had smelled from the man who had drugged her at the cottage. She looked at his face as he approached, holding a grocery bag.

  He didn’t even look at her. He squatted down on huge thighs and put the grocery bag on the ground. Then he took some logs from a stack he’d apparently brought in earlier and put a couple of them in the circle of rocks. He took another bottle of water from the grocery bag, along with a granola bar and tossed it in the basket with the fruit. Then he took a rolled-up newspaper and laid it down beside the wicker basket. When the grocery bag was empty, he wadded it up, stuffed it under the logs and lit it on fire.

  That’s when he looked at her and grinned, revealing a gold tooth. His dark eyes were vacant, his greasy black hair hung down the sides of his face under a dirty brown fedora. He grunted when he raised his dense body from the squat. Then he turned away and walked toward the opening of the cave.

  She heard a sound behind her. He was leaning against the stone wall of the cave very close in the shadows.

  “Good morning, Etta. Did you think you weren’t going to live to see another morning? Don’t cry, sweetheart. It’s not time yet.”

  She hated that he could see tears running down her face.

  “Soon, but not yet. Then there won’t be any more suffering. You’ll see. You’ll thank me. They’re all grateful at the end.”

  Chapter 14

  Dan told Chloe he was going out for a while. “I doubt Levi would ever ask for help from any of us. That guy has a bigger ego than the seven demons of Mary Magdelene. But just in case, you can reach me on the radio.”

  Dan had always been cooperative with other agencies, but there was something about Ethan Levi that rubbed him the wrong way. He would certainly cooperate with the man, but he wasn’t going to just sit in his office with Etta in the hands of that lunatic, Schemke. He would do what he could to help find her.

  When he walked out of the station, an icy cold wind hit him in the face. The gale that had been expected was finally here. It was after two o’clock. He thought maybe that worked to his advantage. He figured he’d find some of the fishermen that lived around Mary Kettle at Tully’s.

  He was right. When he walked into the pub, he saw the customers standing two-deep at the bar with all the tables full, Tully was working the tables and serving beer as fast as Deegan, who was helping out behind the stick, could pull them.

  When Tully saw Dan walk in, she walked over and said, “Put on an apron and start pouring, son. Murder is good for business.”

  He bent down and kissed her cheek. “Can’t Mom. I’m here on business.”

  “Okay, hon, then get outta my way.” She floated off with a tray of drinks, her chiffon duster floating behind her like angel wings.

  Dan saw Rich Bauman leaning against the window bar talking to another fisherman sitting on a barstool. Though Rich often cried poor, he wasn’t. He had a nice house on Virgin’s Peak that overlooked the harbor and the entire village of Fort Landers. He had been one of the more successful fishermen, so everyone wanted to be his friend. Many of the locals talked to Rich nearly every day to get his take of the fishing conditions. Dan figured he’d be a good place to start.

  As he walked up to the two men, Dan recognized the other man as someone he’d had to arrest a few times. Jim Foster looked at him with a healthy degree of apprehension. Jim wasn’t a hard criminal—he was just bad-tempered and mean.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen,” Dan said, shaking Rich’s hand. “How’s fishing been?”

  “It’s been fine but the perigean tide’s due any day. Between this storm and that tide, we’ll be losin’ a lot of money this next week.

  “I’ll see you later, Bauman,” Jim said as he stood up and started to walk away.

  Dan put his hand around Foster’s rock-hard bicep. “Jim, stick around for a minute.”

  “Unless you got a beef with me, Sheriff, get your hand off my arm.”

  Dan backed away and put up his hand up. “Settle down, Foster. I just need to ask you fellas a couple of questions.”

  Jim scowled at Dan, clenched and unclenched his fists, then finally relaxed and he sat back down on the barstool.

  Jim leaned his elbow on the bar and groused, “I gotta get going. What’s this about?”

  Dan shook his head and said, “Foster, chill out. I swear you are the poster child for anger management. I think you both know it’s about Mary Kettle’s death. We’re trying to find out if any of you saw anything, heard anything... or maybe you talked to someone who did.”

  He didn’t mention the disappearance of Etta Summers. Anything he found out would probably also help in Etta’s case.

  He struck out with Rich, Jim and several others that he talked to. It was only when he went up to the bar and ordered a Coke from Deegan that he got a tidbit of information.

  “I hope Tully’s paying you, Deegan. Don’t let her con you into working for free,” Dan said.

  Deegan laughed and said that he usually got paid in coffee and donuts. “I guess you’ve ruined that though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tully says you pissed off Frannie at The Sweet Stop. She hasn’t brought in any of her extra donuts in the last couple of days. You could string her along just for us, couldn’t you?” Deegan teased.

  In the past three days, he’d been so focused on what had happened to Crazy Mary and Etta that he hadn’t even thought of Frannie.

  He shook his head. “I think it was probably Tully that made her mad. Anyway, Deegan, you’ve got enough money you could buy the whole damned bakery and have as many donuts as you want.”


  “Actually, I went and bought a couple dozen from Frannie this morning and brought ‘em back here. There’s still some left in that box if you want one.” Deegan pointed to the pink cake box at the end of the bar. “I’d much rather deal with alcoholics than sweet-aholics. Thought I was gonna have to punch some guy out that Frannie was waiting on this morning. Of course, he could have cleaned my clock with one exhale. The guy must smoke the cheapest stinkin’ cigars on the market,” Deegan said. “I’ll be right back, Dan. Have a donut.”

  When Deegan walked away to take an order from Tully, Dan thought about the odor he’d smell in Stella’s kitchen when he was taking photos of the scene. He had also picked up a cigar butt under the camellia bush. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time.

  “Deegan, thanks for the Coke. Gotta run.”

  He waved at Tully on his way out and drove directly to The Sweet Spot in the village. Frannie usually closed the bakery at two. By the time he got there, she had already gone. As he got back in the cruiser and started to drive to her house, he remembered something Rich Bauman mentioned.

  “The perigean tides due,” he repeated to himself. “Dammit!”

  He slammed on his brake and made a U-turn. The benefit of driving a cruiser was that you could pull any number of traffic violations and not one car would honk at you, and no one would flip you off. He headed back to the harbor.

  As he pulled in the parking lot of the harbormaster, he remembered looking at the tidal chart in his office and seeing the graph with its increasing wave chart.

  Inside Harbormaster Joe Feller’s office, Dan paced back and forth waiting for Joe to get off the radio.

  “Come in, Pelican, do you read?” Joe said into the microphone.

  Joe held his hand to the headset and leaned into the mic. “We have a code yellow. Repeat Pelican, a code yellow. Do you copy?”

  Dan was thinking some fisherman decided to push the envelope and was now stuck out on choppy seas.

  “The troller Easy Rider has lost power. Echo. Anchor. Sierra. Yankee. Copy Pelican? Easy Rider.”

  Joe listened.

  “Three men onboard. She’s two miles due east of Trident Harbor. Repeat no power. Acknowledge Pelican.”

  “We copy, Joe. We have Easy Rider in our sites.” The voice came from the radio.

  “Good job, Pelican. Keep me posted. Over and Out.”

  Joe got up from the radio and walked to the counter. “How’s it goin’, Dan? I hear you had some trouble in Hellville.”

  Hellville was what the locals called the row of cabins and trailers that most people wanted to have torn down. Some of the inhabitants were only there for three months at most. But for some, it was all they could afford year ‘round. The man who owned the property, Larry Scott, was a slumlord.

  “Yeah, Crazy Mary got herself a nice new piece of jewelry in the form of a garrote. Say, Joe, can you tell me something about the perigean tides?” Dan asked.

  “King tides? They’re extremely high tides that occur two or three times a year. It happens when the moon is closest to the earth in orbit,” Joe explained.

  Dan shook his head impatiently. “Yeah, Joe, I know what it is, but can you tell me when it’s due to hit next?”

  Joe walked over to the nautical calendar on the bulletin board. Dan walked around the counter to follow him.

  Joe ran his finger down the vertical chart and stopped on March ninth. “Pretty soon. Actually, they’ll be in the next twenty-four to seventy-two hours. Rising more each day until the moon is at max gibbous.”

  Dan turned around and headed for the door. “Thanks, Joe.”

  Joe stared at the door, curious only momentarily until the radio static overtook his interest.

  “Pelican to harbormaster. Come in, Joe.”

  “Go ahead, Pelican,” Joe answered as he pushed the communication button.

  “Easy Rider secured. All onboard are safe. We’re towing her in.”

  “Roger that, Pelican. Good job.”

  Chapter 15

  Except for Friday and Saturday, the two hours between five and seven were Tully’s slowest because it was dinner time. A few diehards hung around and made a meal out of peanuts and pretzels soaked in beer or whiskey, but mostly her customers were hardworking guys who needed real food to keep them going. Dan wandered back in at five-fifteen, carrying his laptop and looking worn out.

  “Good,” she said when she saw her stepson. “I was afraid you were going to work all night again.

  “I probably will. The FBI have taken over my conference room and my office. I thought I could probably get more done here than there. Margie took over for Chloe on the phones about an hour ago. She’ll call me on the radio if anything comes up,” Dan said, putting his laptop on the bar.

  “Coffee? I just made a fresh pot for myself,” Tully turned to the back bar where a hot plate held a decanter full of strong coffee.

  He didn’t answer, already focused on his screen. She poured them both a cup and put the glass sugar dispenser and a spoon next to his. He absentmindedly poured sugar in the cup, stirred it, and drank about half the cup before he took his eyes from the laptop.

  “Mom, who knows this coast better than anyone?” he asked.

  “Probably Rich, why?”

  He told her about how the other wives of Carl Schemke died, how he would chain them up and they would drown at high tide.

  “It’s a long shot, but maybe she’s still alive. There’s a king tide due this week, sometime around the full moon. It’s almost full,” he said.

  “Yes, I know, the perigean tides. They happen only two or three times a year. It’s all about gravity. As the moon pulls on the earth, the ocean bulges toward it. The moon will be full at one forty-eight tomorrow afternoon,” she said.

  He looked at her and smiled. “How do you know that?”

  “Hon, I own a pub. It’s a well-known fact that people go bucknutty on a full moon, especially when you put a little liquor into the mix. I need to be prepared when a pool stick is likely to go flying across the room.”

  He smiled, “Yeah, and you got that woo woo stuff going on, too.”

  He thought about all the crystals and new age paraphernalia she had lying around. He teased her about smudging with sage every morning when she got to the pub. Her response was that it cleared out evil spirits and that the only spirits she wanted around were of the alcohol variety.

  “I need to go up to Rich Bauman’s house,” he said.

  She shrugged, “Stick around. This is Thursday. He always takes his wife to dinner at the Trident when he’s not out in the boat on Thursdays. After dinner they usually stop by for a drink about nine or so.”

  Dan closed his laptop and told her he’d be back later. She stopped him and handed him a sack.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s my dinner. A turkey sandwich from the Gravy Boat. Take it. I’ll order another one. I know you won’t stop anywhere to eat.”

  He thanked her and left the pub.

  ****

  That afternoon, Etta had watched the tide as it rolled in through the cave entrance, sure that soon the cold Atlantic would wash over her. It hadn’t reached her that afternoon, but it wasn’t more than three feet away before it began to recede.

  She wasn’t hungry but she was feeling weak. She hadn’t eaten since the soup she had tried to eat in the cottage two days ago. She knew she should try and keep up her strength, but why? She was going to die anyway.

  She began to look around the cave. She saw the high-water line was several feet above her, but if the tide didn’t rise enough to drown her, he’d kill her anyway. She began to think of everything that had happened in her life.

  She and her sister had been so close when they were young. The looked so much alike that their mother had had a hard time telling them apart. They wanted to dress alike, but she had made them wear different clothes each day. Then they would trick her by switching clothes, one pretending to be the other. She cut Etta’s hair short
and left Ella’s long, and then Ella cut her own hair to look like Etta.

  It was only when they began to enter puberty and their personalities became more pronounced. The more Ella emerged to be independent and extroverted, the more Etta receded into herself. Etta wanted to be more like her sister, but it just wasn’t who she was. When Ella married, Etta did as well. The only difference was that Ella chose well and Etta did not.

  She wished so desperately that she could have another chance at life. I’ll do better, she prayed. I’ll make better choices. Just give me a chance. Get me out of here, anywhere but here.

  She yelled and heard her voice echo back to her. “I won’t die! No, not this way, not this way… this way.”

  She reached into the basket and took out an apple. She ate part of the apple and the granola bar, all the while thinking and trying to move her foot enough to get it out of the ankle iron. It was bloody and raw where it had begun to cut into her skin.

  She felt hopeless and leaned back on the rocks. She felt something move. It startled her and she crawled forward. As she did a large, sharp rock fell out onto the blanket. She exhaled, glad that it wasn’t something alive the sat back again and ate the rest of the apple, tossing the core into the pile of rocks.

  She watched the storm moving across the ocean. The thunder reverberated inside the walls of the cave and the wind picked up, finding its way into the cave and scattering the embers of the fire. There was plenty of wood stacked on the other side of the fire, but she couldn’t reach it. She was warm enough for now, but when the sun went down, she’d be so cold again.

  The fire dwindled down to just a small flame. She used the empty water bottle again to try and pull one of the small logs back into the hot coals. The wood was too damp and wouldn’t catch. She reached for the newspaper that had been rolled up and tossed next to the basket and started to wad it up to put under the log, but something caught her eye.

  She smoothed out the paper and strained to see in the waning light.

  “King Tide” was written in the heading.