Anywhere but Here Page 8

  “King tide. Where have I heard that? King tide.” Somewhere recently she’d heard someone talking about the king tide. What was it?

  She shook her head in frustration and bent down to rub her ankle where it was bruised and raw. That’s when she saw the break in the link.

  About halfway down the chain from the eyebolt she saw a flicker of fading light from the fire. She reached up to feel the link. Where the others were welded together, that one was open… not much, not enough to remove it from the adjoining link, but what if…?

  She reached for the sharp rock that had fallen from the wall. It was flat and the edge was pointed. She hit the link with it, but all that happened was that it was buried in the sand by the force of the rock. She looked around and touched every part of the wall that she could reach. Only one rock moved slightly, but it would come out. She tried holding her leg up against the wall and hitting the chain against the wall, but she couldn’t get enough leverage and gave up.

  She sat with her head in her hands, feeling defeated. Then the fire went out completely, leaving only the embers glowing red. She heard the thunder in the distance. It seemed the storm was passing. She looked toward the cave entrance and saw the grey and back storm clouds had given way to a deep blue, and just above the horizon, once again she saw the moon rising. It was almost full. By the next night it would be. But she probably wouldn’t be alive to see it. Over the last two days, the tide had gotten closer and closer.

  Disheartened and tired, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders, rested her head on her knees and stayed there for several moments. Suddenly, she raised her head.

  “That’s it,” she said, remembering something. “The king tides come on the full moon.”

  She had heard it on the news just a few days ago. King tides that came during winter and early spring raised the tidal waves by 4 or 5 feet, sometimes more.

  “This is the last full moon of the winter.”

  The newswoman, the same one that had been reporting her disappearance, had said this last king tide of winter would most likely bring record-breaking high tides due to global warming. She had less than twenty hours before the high tide the next day, and he would be back again in the morning.

  She frantically began beating on the eyebolt in the rock wall with the sharp rock that had fallen out.

  Chapter 16

  The following morning, Frannie reached across the counter and handed the man the pink box with six cream-filled eclairs.

  “There you go,” she said. “I hope you enjoy them.” He told her they were his wife’s favorites, and it was her birthday. He was going to surprise her with coffee and eclairs in bed.

  She brushed her dark bangs out of her eyes and wiped her hands on her apron. As she watched the man walk out, she felt envious. She’d never been served coffee in bed by anyone except her mother. She lived with six cats and her mother in the dark green bungalow on Howard Street where she’d grown up. She hadn’t always lived there. She moved back fourteen years ago after her husband was killed in a fishing accident.

  “Hey, Frannie, can you turn on the TV?”

  John Deegan was sitting at a table in the corner reading the Post and Courier. On Saturdays and Sundays, Tully didn’t get to the pub early. Deegan was an early riser. During the week, he got up, made himself a piece of toast and coffee and took a brisk five-mile walk. On the weekends he’d forego the walk in lieu of donuts and coffee at Frannie’s.

  She got the remote control from the drawer and turned on the television that was mounted on the wall.

  “Can you turn it to channel four? I think the news is on,” Deegan requested.

  When she switched the channel, she saw a pretty reporter standing in front of the Sheriff’s office. The caption below indicated it was a news conference about a missing woman from Fort Landers. She turned up the volume.

  “We’re here with Sheriff Dan Baker of Fort Landers and Special Agent Ethan Levi of the FBI. Gentlemen?” The reporter turned and the camera zoomed in on Dan standing at a podium.

  Frannie’s heart began to beat faster as she watched the man whom she had been in love with all her life shuffling papers.

  He’s so handsome, she thought.

  Her heart ached because she knew he didn’t feel the same about her. She’d had a crush on Dan Baker since she was twelve years old. Her marriage to Bill Gorman had not been exceptionally happy, but neither was it unhappy. It just was. She and Bill had known each other almost all their lives and had gotten married right out of high school. It was expected of her. It had been how Loretta and Paul Murphy had raised their only child. She had been planning to go to college, but when she began dating Bill, her mother had said it was a waste of money for them to pay for her to go to college.

  “Get married to a hardworking, good man and have babies,” Loretta Murphy had said and so she did, not because she was in love with Bill, but it was a way for her to get out of her parents’ house.

  Bill was hardworking and he was a good man. They did have babies, two of them. That’s all they ever had in common.

  Poor Bill, she thought. It wasn’t fair to you.

  Frannie had never really dated anyone else, unless asking Danny Baker to the Sadie Hawkins Dance constituted a date. Thinking back, she was surprised she had gotten up the nerve to ask him and even more surprised that he actually accepted.

  “… I’ve contacted one of our local fishermen who is familiar with this stretch of coast. We’ll be going out this morning to check out the piers and inlets and anything that looks suspicious. Etta Summers, also known as Stella Brown, is in grave danger. If any of you have any information, if you’ve seen anyone suspicious, any strangers in town that may have been involved in the murder of Mary Kettle or the kidnapping of Etta Summers, please notify us immediately. Now I’ll turn this over to Special Agent Levi.”

  Dan stepped away from the podium.

  Maybe he really has been busy. Maybe he wasn’t blowing me off, Frannie thought.

  Deegan folded his newspaper and brought his cup and plate to the counter. Frannie looked up, drawn from her thoughts and asked if he wanted more coffee.

  “No. Gotta run, Frannie.” Deegan laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter.

  She rang up his bill and turned around. Deegan was gone. She turned the television off and took the dishes back to the kitchen. When she came out, she smelled the familiar rancid stench of cigar smoke mixed with body odor. She looked up to see the large, unkempt man in the dirty brown hat standing at the counter. He’d been there for the last four mornings.

  ****

  “Morning, Chloe. Is the chief in?” Deegan asked the dispatcher.

  Chloe wore her copper penny red hair in a beehive that added about six inches to her height. At six feet one inch, she was an imposing woman without the added elevation of the beehive and spiked heels. She stood up and swished and swayed back to Dan’s office.

  In just a moment, Dan came out wearing an olive green slicker over his uniform. He walked quickly to the counter.

  “Deegan, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time this morning. I’m going out with Bauman to search for Stella,” Dan said.

  Deegan nodded, “Yeah, I know, Danny. Let me go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “I know every inch of this coastline. I stopped at my house and picked up these nautical maps, but even with those, I probably scoured these beaches and caves a hundred times in my youth.”

  Dan thought for a moment and told Chloe to go get Deegan some raingear from the equipment room.

  Within an hour, they were pulling out of the harbor on Seas the Day with Rich Bauman at the helm.

  The storm had passed, but it was cold with a north wind in their faces. Tully had packed thermoses of got coffee and put a bottle of Jameson’s to the provisions.

  ****

  Etta was standing in waist-high water, but she was grateful for that. The water had once been over her head. She had struggled to tread water with the weight of the he
avy chain trying to drag her under until she got a toehold on one of the larger rocks at the bottom of the big pile. It raised her up enough so that her head was above water. The tide would be at its lowest in another two hours. She hoped to be able to continue working on the eyebolt. She had beat it with the rocks she’d knocked loose all night until the water was so high that she couldn’t. Her hands were raw, and she was shaking with the cold. She didn’t know how much longer she could last.

  Chapter 17

  Rich Bauman had state of the art technology onboard Seas the Day, which included an underwater camera that connected via black box to a multifunction display. He’d earned his success. He’d begun as a boy, watching his dad set nets for squid in the sixties. From there he learned every aspect of life on the sea. He was an extreme saver and went without even the minimum of conveniences until he had enough money to buy his own boat. By the time he was thirty, he had a fleet of three boats. His personal life suffered, and he almost lost his marriage, but finally at sixty-two, he sold two of the boats and settled into a somewhat normal pace.

  “How far down can that thing see?” Dan asked about the camera.

  “Seventy-five feet around and down. The trouble with king tides though is that they churn up the silt from the bottom. Makes it hard to see anything. That’s why most of us don’t fish during king tides.”

  “No wonder you catch more fish than Simon Peter. Anyone ever tell you you’re cheatin’?” Deegan asked.

  He was notorious for his Bible analogies. A good Irish Catholic boy, Deegan had been groomed for the priesthood, but a tryst with an older woman when he was nineteen convinced him he wouldn’t be good at a life of celibacy. He went on to have a long and happy marriage that had produced six kids.

  Bauman laughed. “No such thing as cheatin’ in fishing, except maybe depth charges. A man’s gotta make a living, Deeg. We might get lucky today. I don’t think the tide’s supposed to roll in until later this afternoon. Looks pretty clear down there.”

  “Yeah, we might get lucky and let’s hope to God Etta Summers gets lucky,” Dan said.

  When they’d first begun the search, Deegan asked why they were focusing on the piers. Dan explained that it was possible that Stella had been chained to one of the piers awaiting her fate like some of Schemke’s other victims.

  After learning the history of the man, Deegan said, “Holy moly, this guy’s a serial killer.”

  “Yeah, that and a drug and human trafficker, as well as a master of disguises. The FBI is desperate to find the kingpin in the trafficking ring, but they don’t think it could be him. I guess he seems too sick to be focused on anything but his hobby of seducing and then killing women. Levi told me they think he’s just a worker bee in the trafficking, but he’s definitely a dangerous one.”

  “How many has he killed?” Bauman asked.

  “Not sure about the collateral damage in the trafficking business, but Levi said five wives and a dozen other girlfriends. He married the wives under different aliases. So far, Etta Summers, is the only survivor… that anyone knows about and if, in fact, she is still alive, which is looking less likely all the time,” Dan said.

  “Jesus wept!” Rich bellowed. “What kind of sick bastard chains a woman to a pier and lets her drown?”

  Sick is an understatement, Dan thought. Even Schemke’s tragic childhood wasn’t reason enough for a man to be that evil. Nothing could excuse him.

  “So, the sonovabitch kills ‘em, but he doesn’t want to watch them die?” Deegan asked.

  “Just the ones he’s been in a relationship with. He seems to have no problem putting a bullet in anyone else’s head. Levi seems to think he has an accomplice do that work for him though,” Dan said, thinking of the photos Stella had shown him.

  Three hours later, at low tide, the men on Seas the Day had examined every dock and pier five miles north and south of Fort Landers. Deegan said beyond that, the coastal terrain was almost inaccessible for several miles. “I guess we struck out,” Deegan said.

  Dan thought of something Deegan had said in the station. “Deegan, you said something about caves? Would it be possible for Schemke to tie her up in a cave and wait for the high tide to do his dirty work for him?”

  “Yeah, sure. We used to camp out in ‘em sometimes when we were kids. There’s a couple o’ big ones around here,” Deegan said. “You think maybe…?”

  “It’s worth a shot. Can you lead us to them?”

  “Yeah, but it might be hard getting to them right now. A couple of them were completely under water during king tides,” Deegan said. “Isn’t that supposed to peak today?”

  “Yes, but we have to try,” Dan said.

  By the time they had searched three of the caves Deegan was talking about, the tide was rolling back in. The day was clear enough and the morning sun high enough for good light outside, but without the spotlight on the boat they wouldn’t have been able to see inside the caves.

  “Man, Bauman, you ought to go into the search and rescue business,” Deegan said.

  “Let’s hope this is rescue and not recovery,” Dan said.

  When they came up empty after searching all the caves, Dan beat his hand on the cockpit dash. “I’m out of options. That poor woman’s dead.”

  “Yeah, she’s probably fish bait by now,” Bauman said.

  Deegan’s bushy grey eyebrows wove together in thought.

  “Wait, Rich. Before you turn this thing around…”

  “What is it, Deeg?” Bauman asked.

  “Why do you think he’s got her within five miles of Fort Landers? I mean, if I was a serial killer, I’d probably try to get far enough from town so it wouldn’t be as easy to be found. Don’t you think?” Deegan asked.

  Chapter 18

  The water had begun to rise again. In one way, she was thankful. He wouldn’t be walking in so casually, bringing her the tease of a little fire, a trifle of food, all just to prolong her misery. She’d be dead soon. She had tried for hours to loosen the eyebolt from the rock, but it hadn’t budged. Now the water was nearly up to her shoulders again. She put her head against the rock wall, almost wishing it was already over.

  “Hello, Etta.”

  Her breath caught in her throat when she turned around and saw him rising out of the water about twenty feet from her in scuba gear. As he got closer, she saw the look in his eyes. It was almost salacious as he approached her. He smiled—that smile that had once mesmerized her and captured her heart. It broke her to know she had been so vulnerable. She backed up until she was against the rock wall.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said as he put his hands on her shoulders. “You see, I couldn’t bear to watch you die, but now things have changed. They’re getting too close, so I must do it myself.”

  He started pushing her down. She fought him and grabbed onto the chain, trying to stay above the surface.

  “You’re a monster,” she cried.

  “Don’t fight it, Etta. Oh, you’ll hold your breath as long as you can, but just before you lose consciousness, you’ll panic and take a deep breath of nothing but water. Then you’ll have peace.”

  He pushed harder but she had more strength than he thought. He was struggling and gritting his teeth as he said, “I didn’t want it to be this way, Etta. I don’t have a choice.” She held her breath when he held her head under, her arms flailing.

  After a moment, a bubble rose to the surface. Her last breath? Then she went limp. He let go of her and she floated to the top, still holding the chain to the ankle iron. He put the scuba mask back on and slowly walked toward the cave’s entrance then disappeared into the deep.

  ****

  It was late in the afternoon when Dan returned to the pub to give Tully an update. They had gone twelve miles south of Fort Landers in Seas the Day to a place where Deegan had said there was a network of caves linked together by tunnels and passageways. They found the main cave. It was totally under water. He said the other caves were further back and deeper. It was l
ikely that they were all filled with water, and there was no way to access them except over a narrow dirt road. It was too dark to try and find it now.

  “If she was in any of them, there’s no chance she would have survived this afternoon,” Dan told Tully.

  “That poor woman,” she said. “You look like hell.”

  He’d gone home to shower and make himself a sandwich, but he hadn’t shaved, and his red eyes looked like he’d been on a bender.

  “Thanks. I feel worse than that.”

  She asked if he was going to go home and get some rest. He said he would but first he wanted to head over to Frannie’s house where he would follow up on the lead about the cigar-smoking guy at the bakery.

  “Well, don’t let her talk you into staying. You need some rest,” Tully warned.

  He smiled at her. “What do you have against Frannie, Mom?”

  “Nothing. She’s just not good enough for you.”

  He waved at her as he walked out the door and said, “You say that about every woman.”

  When he had left, she said, “Well, it’s true.”

  Tully could not have loved Dan more if he’d been her biological son, but Tully was never able to have children. Dan was so young when she’d married his dad. She’d watched him grow up, cared for him through illness, stayed up night’s worrying about him through his teenage years. She fretted about his safety when he was hired on as a Deputy Sheriff and was about as proud as any mother could have been when he was elected Sheriff. Tully was Dan’s mom in every sense of the word, even though she had never officially adopted him.

  Dan parked on the street in front of Loretta Murphy’s house. As he was walking up to the porch, he saw Ida Mae peek through her curtains. He waved at her and she quickly shut the curtains. In all that had happened next door to her, it was a wonder she hadn’t seen or heard anything.

  He knocked on Loretta’s door and heard someone walking across the hardwood floor. Loretta had all of the carpets removed from the house because of Frannie’s asthma. She kept the house as clean as any he’d seen, but even so, when you walked inside, you could smell the litter box. Dan didn’t know how Frannie could stand it.