Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 138, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 821 & 822, September/October 2011

Vampire Slaver Murdered in Key West by Michael Haskins

Michael Haskins debuted in EQMM’s Department of First Stories in 2007, and since then he has had two novels published; a third is on his publisher’s list for the summer of 2012. All of the novels feature the central character of his stories, Mad Mick Murphy, a sometime reporter who lives on a boat in scenic Key West. In reviewing the second novel, Free Range Institution, Booklist said, “...its generous use of the Key West setting will appeal to readers who like local color.” Such readers also won’t want to miss the up-coming Car Wash Blues (Five Star).

That was the double-decked, 48-point headline of the daily Key West Citizen and probably a few other newspapers in South Florida the following day. It was a little misleading, but it did its job because stories on vampires and murders sell newspapers.

When Monroe County sheriff’s Deputy Harry Sawyer rocked my sailboat, Fenian Bastard, and called my name, it was four in the morning and I didn’t know about the murder. When you live on a boat and someone is trying to wake you that early it usually means you’re sinking so you react fast; good news doesn’t come knocking at four A.M.

I was outside in seconds. “What?” I yelled. It took a minute in the dark to realize it was Harry, because he was out of uniform.

“Mick, you didn’t answer the phone,” he said as if that explained why he was there. “The sheriff wants you on Stock Island.”

Stock Island is the first island across the bridge when leaving Key West. Part of it is city property, but the largest section belongs to the county.

“Me?” I yawned and went below. The good news was my sailboat wasn’t sinking.

Harry followed. “Yeah, he woke me at home and told me to bring you to the old mansion at the end of Fifth Street.” He stood in the hatchway. “Right away.”

“Why?” I fumbled into a pair of cargo shorts, put on yesterday’s T-shirt, and grabbed the sun-faded Boston Red Sox cap that accented my shaggy red hair and beard.

“He hung up before saying.” Harry grinned. “But it sounded urgent.”

Bob Pearlman is the county sheriff. We have met socially, but I found it curious he’d call me out at this hour. My experiences have shown that law enforcement and journalists are as compatible as spaghetti sauce and a white shirt.

“No ideas, Harry?” I walked up the dock with him.

“It’s my day off, Mick, so I’m not even sure what they’re working on,” he said. “Ride with me, maybe something will come over the radio.”

“Do you know her?” Sheriff Pearlman asked as we stood in the living room of the crumbling mansion.

I looked down at the naked body, but my eyes focused on the crude wooden stake driven into the victim’s chest. It was an attention grabber.

“Do you?” he asked again, agitated.

I looked at the woman’s ashen face. I saw her fogged brown eyes, heavily outlined in black, and the fear frozen in her final expression; messy shoulder-length hair, black as crow’s feathers, spread out on the floor alongside her head, and her lips were exaggerated by smudged red gloss. Someone had carefully crossed her arms below the wooden stake. One piercing accented the left side of her nose and multiple studs highlighted her earlobes. An open gash exposed raw flesh on her abdomen. She didn’t remind me of anyone I knew.

“No,” I finally answered. “Should I?”

“She’s one of yours,” Sheriff Pearlman said seriously.

“Mine?” I didn’t know what he meant; did he think I killed her?

“It’s Tracy Cox, the journalist,” he explained coldly.

My name is Liam Murphy but I picked up the moniker Mad Mick Murphy in college because of crazy pranks I got involved in and my Irish heritage. I’m a journalist and live on my sailboat in Key West, Florida.

Knowing we’re both journalists, the sheriff believed Tracy and I traveled in the same circles. We didn’t. She wrote long investigative pieces that were often published as books; I wrote when weekly newsmagazines or a Miami news service called me, otherwise I sailed.

The Tracy Cox I knew of was not into the Gothic look, but the pile of black clothing next to the body hinted otherwise, only the wooden stake wasn’t an accessory.

“Where’d the blood go?” I asked, curious about the lack of it.

“Killed somewhere else and then moved here,” the sheriff said matter-of-factly. “There’s no such thing as vampires, if that’s what you’re thinking, though someone went to a lot of work to make it look otherwise,” he muttered harshly and frowned at me.

I looked down again and went right to the stake, moved to her face, and stared.

“Tracy has dirty-blond hair,” I said. “I met her a long time ago at an award’s dinner. This isn’t her.”

The sheriff smirked. “It’s her. I met her a month ago in Miami and she had the black hair and piercings. The FBI called us rural sheriffs together and she was the guest.”

“Guest for what?” He had piqued my curiosity.

The sheriff led me into the next room as crime-scene people began their work.

“They wanted us yokels to be aware of a theft ring that could be moving to the countryside, maybe the Keys,” he said bitterly. “Tracy Cox told the story. She informed the FBI about it just before publishing her newspaper series and then the group went underground. She thought Florida was ripe for what they did.”

The room might have been the mansion’s library once, but the shelves were empty and dusty and the gray light of dawn accentuated the dirt on the cracked windows.

“Theft of what?” I yawned and wished I were back in bed.

“Body parts,” he said casually.

“Body parts?” I was no longer sleepy.

“Got your attention, did I?” he said coarsely.

“Yeah.” And he told me the sordid story.

After-hour Gothic clubs in the big cities, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and the like, had cliques of vampire wannabes and some of them were true believers in the messages that TV programs and cult movies profited from. The clubs didn’t advertise, or have signs outside; they didn’t need to, word-of-mouth filled them, especially on weekends.

For the past year, bodies of young men and women had been showing up in these cities, minus a kidney, liver, heart, or even eyes. Attending Gothic clubs and being young were two items that connected the victims. Missing body parts was another.

Tracy Cox went undercover and began a series about New York clubs where vampire devotees with surgically implanted dental fangs role-played and actually drank each other’s blood. And, she discovered a mesmerizing older vampire disciple. After her story appeared in the paper the club closed, the disciple vanished, and one tabloid called her the vampire slayer. The title stuck.

“What do you want from me?” I looked back into the room and Tracy’s body was covered with a tarp, waiting on the medical examiner.

“People talk to you,” the sheriff said slowly. “See what you hear about a Gothic club starting up. I don’t want to find kids stuck in the mangroves missing body parts.”

I only knew one Gothic kid and it was a presumption on my part because when I saw him at the marina he always dressed in black, had a pale complexion, piercings, and if I caught him in daylight it was as we passed coming and going in the early morning. He had changed in the last few months, losing most piercings, and actually hung around the dock some afternoons.

“Alex!” I called out his name when I spotted him in the shade of his houseboat’s overhang. “What are you reading?”

“A book.” He smiled and gulped from his coffee cup.

“You got a minute?”

“Sure, come aboard.” He closed the book.

“You going to school?” I saw a textbook as I sat down.

“City College,” he said. “Time to get educated.”

You don’t ask personal questions of boat people. You know what they want you to know, so I knew little about Alex. He looked young, possibly not even twenty-one. He’d bought the houseboat two years ago and moved in. He was quiet and kept to himself. On occasion, he showed up at one of our infamous dock parties, where the food was homemade and liquor flowed for hours. Sometimes he drank and ate, sometimes he shared a joint, and other times he walked on without stopping.

“You choose a major?” I tried to sound interested.

“Maybe biology,” he lied.

I have a built-in BS detector and returned his smile without saying anything. “If I tell you the truth, you won’t laugh?” He leaned toward me. “Or tell anyone else on the dock?”

“If it’s funny, I’m gonna laugh,” I said. “But whatever it is, it’s between us.”

“Police science,” he muttered and sat up straight. “I signed up for the police academy and filled out the papers to be a city cop.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“What if nobody on the dock will talk to me when they see the uniform?” He frowned. He was young enough to care what others thought.

“Or everyone will feel safer knowing a cop lives at the marina,” I said.

He smiled his reply.

“I’m wondering if you can help me,” I said after an uneasy moment of silence.

“With what?” He sat back to be more comfortable or distance himself from my request, I’m not sure which.

“Is there a Goth club in town?” I tried to say without too much of a silly grin.

“There’s a new hangout on the water,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”

“I’d like you to go there with me.”

He must have thought it was funny, because he burst out laughing.

“Yeah,” he tried to say as he gulped air, “you’d fit right in, just like I would at the yacht club.”

He had a point, and when he stopped laughing I told him, in a roundabout way, about the murder of Tracy Cox and how it was thought to be related to her series on Gothic clubs.

“I read a few of her stories online,” he said, more in control now. “Did you know her?”

“Yeah,” I lied and was glad he didn’t have his own BS detector. “I want to look into what happened and maybe finish her series.”

“Mick, with red hair, a beard, and a tan a tourist would kill for...” He hesitated, probably wondering if saying the word kill was in bad taste. When I didn’t reply he went on, “You’d draw more attention to yourself than a centerfold shoot on Duval Street.”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted, realizing he was also young enough to look at Playboy and not read the articles. “Where is this place?”

He got us coffee and told me about an old yacht that had anchored off Christmas Tree Island in Key West Harbor about two months ago and hosted Gothic-themed parties.

“After midnight, there’s a shuttle boat that picks you up at the Simonton Street Pier,” he said. “I’ve gone a couple of times, but, like I said, I’m moving in another direction now.”

“How does the boat know who to pick up?”

He gave me a quizzical look and shook his head. “It wouldn’t pick you up, that’s for sure. If you look like you belong, you can get in the boat.”

“And you look the part?”

“A hell of a lot more than you do.”

“Do you know who owns the yacht?”

“An older guy, older than you.” He finished his coffee. “I don’t mean anything negative, it’s just that everyone there is young, high school or college age. But this guy is creepy, like he believes he’s Dracula.”

“What do you mean?” He had my full attention.

“He’s whiter than me, has fangs, and speaks with a Spanish accent,” he said. “I dated an English girl back home who wasn’t that pale. He makes his rounds of the party a few times and then disappears below deck. Maybe he keeps his coffin there.” He laughed.

“Who runs the party, then?”

“Two hot babes.” Alex smiled. “There’s a couple of dudes off in the shadows and I think they’re security, but I don’t know for sure.”

“I need to get on board and snoop around.” I ran my fingers across my beard. “Maybe dye my hair.”

“And bleach your skin, look like Michael Jackson.” He shook his head and laughed. “Look, if it’s that important to you, I can put a few studs back in my ears and do your snooping.”

I guess he really did want to be a cop. Goth to cop, go figure.

“Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll go tonight.” He was getting excited.

I didn’t like sending someone to do my legwork, but he had a point about me standing out. There was no way I would fit into the Gothic scene. My presence could make them suspicious and possibly they’d disappear again. Or, maybe they had other ways of dealing with snooping journalists.

I tried to get a look at the yacht Alex mentioned from the Glass Bottom Boat dock at the end of Duval Street. The Sunset Pier at the Ocean Key Resort blocked my view, but I did see the yacht’s outline. I cut through the resort and found a good viewing spot at Mallory Square.

My guess about the anchored yacht, which had to be a hundred feet long, with a wooden hull, was that it was once beautiful. It had a large, open aft deck, and inside there was sure to be a roomy salon with staterooms below, a galley and crew’s quarters, too; an engine room in the lower aft section, an enclosed bridge above the salon.

Today, the yacht fit in with the background of Christmas Tree Island and its desolate pine trees and landscape. Across the channel, Sunset Key and its million-dollar homes sparkled in comparison. Once, the old ship might have belonged with expensive island homes, but now it bobbed in Key West Harbor, while Jet Ski riders zipped past, as if it were a forgotten stepchild. The yacht anchored far enough offshore to keep it from city jurisdiction.

“The gates of hell,” came from a voice behind me. I turned to see Padre Thomas Collins.

Padre Thomas is an Irish-born Jesuit missionary who walked away from his mission in Guatemala when the angels he sees and talks to told him to. Soon afterward, the right-wing junta’s soldiers massacred most of the villagers and Padre Thomas still suffers from survivor’s guilt all these years later. He’s of medium height, thin as a rail, and slowly losing his hair. He gets around town on an old bicycle and chain-smokes cigarettes. He’s sixty if he’s a day. Or maybe guilt has aged him.

“Padre Thomas,” I greeted him and waited for his explanation.

“I thought I’d find you here,” he wheezed and lit a new cigarette. “What are you going to do?”

It’s scary how often he knows what I’m doing before I do. “About what?” I said without conviction.

Padre Thomas pointed to the yacht.

I smiled. “Beautiful old boat. Why’d you call it the gates of hell?” I turned away and looked back at the water.

“Because the devil lives there.” He sighed callously. He wasn’t joking.

“Lucifer or one of his fallen angels?” I tried not to laugh.

Padre Thomas moved up next to me. “Evil resides on that boat,” he whispered.

I looked at the old yacht and wondered about its history. Who had sailed on her, partied, laughed? When had the gaiety of past lives turned into the gates of hell?

I didn’t say what I was thinking. Instead, I put my arm around his bony shoulders and turned him away. “People are looking into it, Padre,” I said. “People who can do something about it, unlike you and me.”

We headed toward the Hog’s Breath Saloon for happy hour.

“It’s in your hands, Mick,” he said without a trace of a smile. “And time is running out.”

My phone rang at five A.M. the next morning.

“Meet me at Harpoon’s in a half-hour,” Alex said when I answered.

“Alex? What time is it?” I muttered, half-awake.

He laughed. “The time vampires go back into their coffins. Bring some paper and pencils, too. Half an hour, Mick.” He hung up.

I dressed hurriedly, again, and drove my old white Jeep to Harpoon Harry’s. At the early hour I didn’t have a problem parking, but it irked me to put so many quarters into the meter.

Ron, the owner, smiled as I came in. Alex sat at a table in the back.

“Con leche, Ron,” I said as I passed, and knew he’d make the Cuban cafe con leche I drink. It’s espresso with steamed milk and too much sugar. I’m addicted to it.

Alex looked wide-awake and sipped regular coffee.

“You ain’t gonna believe this,” Alex said with a grin. “Did you bring the paper and pencils?”

I put the rolled-up paper and two mechanical pencils on the table.

We ordered breakfast and while we waited Alex began drawing.

“Things are getting weird out there,” he said. The studs were still in his ear.

“How?” I sipped my con leche.

“The babes I told you about,” he looked up at me and smiled. “They wanted to suck my blood. I saw them sucking on a guy’s neck, a girl’s arm, and another girl’s neck, more than once.” He finished one sheet and began on another. “Also, get this, they were asking everyone onboard if they’d donate blood for The Master. Yeah, that’s what they called the old guy, The Master.”

“Donate blood?” I was waking up quickly. “How?”

“Just like in the doctor’s office, Mick.” He looked up. “You know, needle in the arm and a big tube to fill.”

“Did they have any takers?”

Our breakfast came and Alex moved his drawings aside and we ate.

“More than I thought they’d get,” he said with a mouthful of egg and toast. “If you give, you get to go below.”

“For what? What’s the attraction down below?”

“Hell if I know, I ain’t givin’ blood, even though the babes are hot.” He smiled and stuffed the remaining egg into his mouth. “I stay away from anything that involves a needle, especially if it’s used more than once.”

He slid the first sheet of paper to me — it was the floor plan of the yacht — and continued to work on a second sheet.

“There’s a go-fast boat on the starboard side.” He kept drawing and didn’t look up. “You can’t see it from land. The measurements on that are a guess, I paced off the lengths,” he said about the footage figures on the paper I held. “You ain’t gonna believe this,” he said again and handed the second drawing to me.

Alex had drawn a headshot of The Master, sardonic smile showing fangs, and he looked a lot like Hollywood’s image of Dracula.

I stood with Sheriff Pearlman and Key West Police Chief Richard Dowley at the railing on the deck of the Sunset Tiki Bar, sweating in the bright sun, and we had a good view of Christmas Tree Island and the yacht. They held copies of Alex’s two drawings.

The yacht was anchored far enough offshore to be in county waters, so the city police could do nothing. The sheriff didn’t have the manpower to patrol the waters surrounding the Florida Keys, he depended on the state marine patrol to do that, and the Coast Guard.

They talked about the need for warrants and the evidence necessary to get a warrant. Richard could have the nightshift patrol the parking lot of the Simonton Pier to see who went there. Chances were good that someone would show up with an outstanding warrant, eventually, and then they would have a person to question about the yacht. Maybe even get enough for a warrant on suspicion of drug use or underage drinking. Maybe.

We talked about having Captain Fitton of the Coast Guard look into the yacht’s history, see if it was certified, had a legal holding tank and safety equipment; the Coast Guard could board her to check on these things. We tossed around a lot of options.

The sheriff thanked me for what I had done and promised to keep me appraised on his investigation. I didn’t believe him, but he didn’t seem bothered by that. Richard knew me better than Sheriff Pearlman did. Richard turned for a second time as he and the sheriff left the tiki bar and his puckered brow told me he was concerned. I should have been, too.

As a journalist, I have rules to go by. Get the story right and present it honestly. The rule for getting the story is simple: Anything goes. I don’t have the restrictions law enforcement does, but I don’t have their backup either. I was alone.

After breakfast with Alex, I had this nagging question about The Master’s Spanish accent. I read Tracy’s articles online that night and she speculated that the disciple was Puerto Rican. In New York that made sense, but in South Florida, the accent would make him Cuban.

I had a hunch, and old-time journalists did legwork because of their hunches. What I needed to find out wasn’t in recorded files, so it wouldn’t show up on Google.

As I left the tiki bar, I called a waterfront character I was acquainted with and offered to buy him a drink. He’d given me background material for stories before, but this time I was hoping for more.

Bob Pierce had to be in his late fifties. He was born and raised in the Keys and worked his way through college with the proceeds he made smuggling square grouper and powerboat racing. He stayed below the radar and that kept him out of jail, even when the Feds made the local Bubba Bust in the ’80s for drug smuggling.

“They’re the last remnants of old Key West,” Bob drawled as he looked at the shrimp-boat fleet from the seawall of Safe Harbour on Stock Island.

“So I hear.”

“The older I get, the less I like change,” he sighed.

We were on our second bottle of beer and left the bar for the privacy of the seawall.

“I’ve got a hunch about something and I thought maybe you’d be the guy to check with,” I said and swallowed beer.

Bob looked suspiciously at me and smiled, but said nothing.

I unfolded the portrait Alex had done and handed it to him. His smile grew.

“Dracula?” He almost laughed.

“Forget the fangs.” I finished my beer. “Look familiar?”

“Wouldn’t know him from Adam.” He handed me back the drawing. “Who is he?” “That’s what I want to know.”

“You wearing a wire?” He trusted no one, it was a way of life for him.

“You know better.”

“That’s not a no.” He finished his beer and walked to the bar. He returned with two beers, our third so far. “Yes or no.” He held the beer out to me.

“No,” I said and took the bottle. “This is personal. Could lead to a story.”

“Let me tell you a story.” He took a long gulp from the bottle. “There’s this captain who brings in refugees from Cuba. First he did it because a girl he knew wanted her family here, then because someone offered him money for a relative, and soon it was a lot of money for a lot of relatives.”

Bob leaned against a palm tree and drank. This was his story, so I let him tell it his way, but we both knew he was the captain.

“One day he was approached by someone who offered him a lot of money.” He smiled. “Notice how it always involves lots of money?”

“I noticed.”

“There was one rule, the captain could only bring back the people, no extra cargo. The money was good, so the captain said okay. He showed up at Marina Hemingway on a certain day, went to a certain bar—”

“And met a certain people,” I cut him off. “We getting to the point?”

“If you’re in a hurry, Mick, you should’ve come yesterday and we’d be done by now.” He grinned. “Can I go on?”

I nodded.

“Anyway, since you’re buying I’ll cut to the chase.” He finished his beer. “The people were at the bar like he was told they would be; they went to the marina with the captain, passed through security, and were in Summerland Key a few hours later. You know how hard it is for a Cuban with a suitcase to get into Marina Hemingway, not to mention on a boat?”

“Impossible, I would’ve said.”

“Me too.” He walked to the bar and came back with our fourth beer. “Anyway, at Summerland Key, this captain is met by someone in a van, gets paid the second half of the fee, and all is well with the world as he heads back to Key West.”

“A good story, but what does it have to do with him?” I shook the folded paper.

“This captain made the trip a few more times for the person in question and it was always the same. Then, one day, this person offers him the full-boatload fee to pick up one passenger.” He leaned back against the palm tree again. “Lots of money for very little work.”

“And?”

“Well, if Dracula’s face was a little thinner, with a moustache instead of fangs, that could be him in your drawing,” he said without losing his smile.

“How many years ago?”

“Two, maybe a little more.”

“What did the captain think of all this?”

He laughed. “Now you want the whole story. The captain is fluent in Spanish but the Cubans don’t know that, so they talk freely among themselves. Basically, the person has brought them over, paid their fees, and in return they’ve agreed to give him a kidney when he can match them as a donor. Gotta be a doctor.”

Hunches sometimes pay off, I thought to myself.

“Any recent trips?” I said.

“Not for a year.” He finished the beer. “Not for the doctor, anyway.”

“Does the captain know how to get in touch with the doctor?” I was excited because I just about had the bastard.

“No name,” he said. “But this captain has a pornographic memory.”

“Photographic,” I corrected him.

“No.” He grinned and tore the label off the bottle. “Pornographic, everything is dirty to him.” He laughed. “He took the plate number of the van, call it curiosity or self-preservation, because the person knew him, but the captain didn’t know squat about the person. Turns out the van is registered to a small hospital in the middle of the state.”

“You gonna make me beg?”

“No, I’m going to make you buy lunch.” He turned and walked toward the bar.

I got what I needed from Bob during lunch, the hospital’s name, address, and phone number. I hadn’t felt this excited about a story in a long time. I could use Google to find out more, including the names of hospital staff. Somehow, somewhere the hospital was connected to the Gothic yacht, I knew it. I just had to find the connection.

I should have called Richard or Sheriff Pearlman, but I didn’t. I went back to Fenian Bastard, Googled the hospital, and printed out pages of information on it, including a list of its medical staff. Focusing on the medical staff was a long shot, but so was going to see Bob, and I was parlaying my hunches. In the big city you would’ve called the small hospital a clinic, but not in the Everglades.

Padre Thomas found me eating a fish sandwich for dinner at Schooner Wharf Bar. I was alone in the bar’s mezzanine poolroom, going over the information about the hospital, when he walked in.

“Time is running out, Mick,” he said as greeting.

“Time for what, Padre?”

“To stop the evil.” He sat down and lit a cigarette. “To beat the devil.”

“It’s a slow process,” I said and shook the paperwork at him. “But it is moving forward.”

“Are those Tracy’s notes?” He exhaled smoke through his nose.

“No,” I said. “How would I get Tracy’s notes?”

“I thought you went to her house.”

His words surprised me. “You know where she stayed?”

“Yes.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “I contacted her when she first arrived.”

The day was full of surprises and all of them good.

“How...” I didn’t finish because his look told me I knew how, even if I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t like to admit belief in his angels, but sometimes there was no other explanation. “Is it in Old Town?”

“A couple of blocks down from the cemetery.” He lit another cigarette.

“She was watching the cemetery?” I left money for my dinner under the ashtray.

“No,” he groaned. “She wasn’t interested in the dead, she cared about the living. You don’t believe in vampires, do you?”

We walked to my Jeep. “I believe in everything, Padre,” I said. “Sometimes, even your angels.”

Tracy’s rental house was on Angela Street, across from the Key West Cemetery, as Padre Thomas said. It was an old two-bedroom, one-bath cigar cottage like so many others on the island that were constructed by ship builders for cigar-factory rollers at the turn of the twentieth century. Some have withstood the tropical sun, hurricanes, and termites for more than one hundred years.

I used a credit card to slip the front-door lock. Most people in the neighborhood didn’t bother with modern door locks.

The living room furniture looked as old as the house. The second bedroom was Tracy’s office and thick wooden planks served as her desk. Her laptop was still on and the screensaver flashed a selection of photos, some of Tracy smiling, without a stake in her chest, and others of children who must have been her nieces and nephews.

“What are we looking for?” Padre Thomas asked from the doorway.

I sat at the table and hit the Shift button. The screen came to life but I was disappointed because it held only a few file folders. I opened the folder that was labeled Vampire, but it was her series from New York.

“We’ve gotta find her USB storage drive.” I looked around the table. Other than reference books, it was clean.

“Would she have had it with her? In a purse?” Padre Thomas stayed in the doorway.

“I don’t know, but she’d have a backup or two,” I said, because I always kept backups, especially when I was away from home. “Somewhere in the house. If she was being cautious, she hid it.”

The only thing in the office closet was an opened carton of computer paper.

The bedroom was as sparse as the living room. An unmade bed, a small nightstand and bureau. I went through everything as thoroughly as I could, but found no flash drive. Padre Thomas searched the tiny kitchen and I heard him moving pots and pans around.

I found nothing under the sofa pillows in the living room. A stack of paperback books, a few magazines, and a beer-can cigarette lighter were on the coffee table. I checked each book, thinking she might have hollowed out one and hid items in it. I was wrong.

Padre Thomas picked up the lighter and snapped it continuously to light his cigarette. It didn’t ignite.

“Who keeps a lighter that doesn’t work,” he grumbled and shook it. “It must need lighter fluid.” He opened it. “It’s dry,” he said. “No wonder it won’t light.” He lit his cigarette with a match.

I took the lighter, pulled the stuffing out of the bottom, and found her small USB storage drive hidden inside. “Got it,” I said and almost laughed.

“What do you think is on it?” Padre Thomas asked and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Let’s find out.” We went to her office and used the laptop.

Tracy had been the ultimate note taker. All pages were dated. Some were no more than a thought, while others were a page or two. Names, dates, contact information, the wherefore and the whys of the information. The most helpful were her personal thoughts on the information, or who gave it to her. I was impressed.

I had the link she was looking for, the hospital. She had gone undercover to find out who pulled The Master’s strings. She wanted to know what he did with the body parts, who they went to and why. She considered the possibility that it was a cannibalistic ritual, but had her doubts.

“Padre, what do you think of all this?” I asked when I closed down the laptop and put the flash drive in my pocket.

“She was closing in on the devil, Mick,” he hissed and lit a cigarette. “He killed her.”

“It’s more than one man, Padre, it’s a whole group of them,” I said and stood. “I don’t think it’s cannibalism. There’s no money in that.”

“That leaves what?” he asked as we left the house.

“There’s money to be made in supplying body parts, if you can find a donor who’s a good match to the recipient.” It wasn’t my idea. Tracy had considered it too.

I took Padre Thomas home.

On the boat, I went through the files on Tracy’s flash drive again and printed out a few that piqued my interest. I lit a cigar and went out on deck to read them. I reread them after my cigar was gone, but my conclusion remained the same. It was a lot of guesswork on my part, on Tracy’s too, but reading between the lines of what she’d written, adding my own hunches to hers, it was bad no matter how I looked at it.

The cops would say there wasn’t enough evidence for a warrant. No warrant, no search. I didn’t need a warrant, I needed a way onto the yacht so I could turn speculation into fact.

“What are you doing up at the witching hour?” Alex asked from the dock.

I hadn’t been paying attention to anything going on around me. “Trying to make sense out of someone’s notes,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“I was downtown listening to Clint Bullard. I walked, so it took awhile,” he said. “Anything happening on the other thing?”

“Not officially” I told him. “But I’m still working on it.”

“Need help?” There was a slight hint of excitement in his voice.

He came onboard. I told him about my need to get onto the yacht and asked if he could think of a way. I told him I needed to get below, unseen.

“There’s an aft hatch to the engine room,” he said. “There has to be an entrance from the engine room to the lower section, wouldn’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I mused. “There has to be more than one way in and out.”

“The hatch is behind storage lockers,” he said. “I noticed it when I was pacing off the deck. I didn’t see a lock on it, but I wasn’t really looking for one. It could be locked from below.”

“How well is it lit and what goes on out there?”

“Most of the light comes from the salon windows, but there is an anchor light,” he said. “I don’t think they encourage anyone to be outside.”

“That’s a good thing.” I smiled.

A white light at the aft section of any anchored boat is a maritime safety requirement and without one authorities can board and ticket you. The yacht was in compliance.

My boarding plan was simple. The difficult part would begin when I got on deck. Alex was excited about helping, but I didn’t share that excitement, though I needed him in place in case things went wrong. A late-night call to my friend Burt found him downtown and willing to help with the skiff.

Alex took the shuttle boat at Simonton Pier and knew to signal when it was safe for me to board.

It went like clockwork. At one-thirty, the sky was cloudy and the Gulf side of the yacht was dark. Alex signaled, a wave of his arms, and Burt dropped me off. I brought my Glock, a small laser flashlight, and a pry bar for the engine-room hatch. I dressed all in black, T-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes, and watch cap that I pulled over my red hair. I quietly climbed the ladder from the yacht’s tethered go-fast to the deck.

Alex smoked a cigarette on the aft deck and I heard him talking loudly to someone. I hugged the salon’s outside wall and waited for Alex and his friend to go inside. I crawled to the storage lockers and sat on the deck next to the engine-room hatch. The anchor light shined from a short pole and gave enough illumination for me to work. The hatch was locked from inside, just like the hatches on Fenian Bastard. Music escaped the salon and thankfully it was punk rock so it was more noise than comfortable listening music. Prying the hatch loose was easy because of its age, but it did make a loud popping sound as the two screw locks below gave way. Of course, at that hour the sound carried.

I waited to see if anyone would investigate the noise. They didn’t. I raised the hatch, dropped the pry bar overboard, and climbed below. I needed the flashlight to find my way through the dark engine room. A door led to the yacht’s bright, carpeted hallway and staterooms.

There were two doors on either side of the hallway and one at the end. Noise of people gathered in the salon and the recorded music could be heard by the stairway to the salon, but it was muted.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but knew I’d recognize it when I found it. Searching for the unknown is like that. There wouldn’t be a problem getting a search warrant once I delivered the proof. Of course, I didn’t know proof of what. Tracy had suspicions and so did I. We came up with our suspicions from two different directions; she had what I was missing and I had what she needed, so something was here.

I tried the door closest to the engine room, on the right. It was a small stateroom with double berths. I tried the door across the hall. It was dark inside. I searched the wall for a switch and turned the lights on.

And found all the evidence the police would need.

In the middle of the large room, there was a gurney with an unconscious young man covered to his shoulders by a sheet. I pulled my Glock and closed the door. This had been two staterooms but they’d been gutted to make one large hospital-style room, with metal storage cabinets, ceiling lights, IV stands, and portable trays. The kid was hooked up to a heart monitor that quietly beeped and an IV. At least he was still alive.

He looked like he was sleeping, but I guessed it was IV induced. His blood pressure was 120 over 80 and his heart rate was 65. I thought the numbers were good and removed the IV needle. He didn’t yelp when the tape pulled at the hair on his arm. The heart monitor caused a problem because an alarm would be set off if the heartbeat stopped. If someone, somewhere was monitoring it, things would go to hell very quickly. I left it alone for the time being.

The thought made me nervous and I searched the ceiling and walls for possible security cameras, but found none.

I slapped his face. He didn’t wake or show he even felt it. His black clothing lay neatly folded on a chair. There was no wallet in his pants. A few dollars and some change was all. I turned on the bathroom light and shut off the overhead light so the glow wouldn’t show under the door.

When Richard answered my call, I knew I’d awakened him. It was after two A.M. and he was home sleeping. I told him where I was and what I had. He was angry and then he was concerned because he couldn’t send city cops. He hung up after assuring me he was calling Sheriff Pearlman and Captain Fitton at the Coast Guard right away.

I cracked the door and checked the hallway. Nothing. I went back and slapped the boy again, twice. He didn’t even flinch. I couldn’t carry him up through the hatch and overboard. He was too big. I could hide him in the engine room and that would keep him away from The Master and his two goons, briefly.

The center door to the bow area was locked. The other door was unlocked and the room was dark. Light from the hallway illuminated a stateroom with a single bed, a TV, and a small stereo. The main suite, I guessed, and closed the door.

I figured to grab the kid’s clothes and carry him fireman style to the engine room, hide him there in the dark, and sneak on deck to wait for the Coast Guard. I went into the room and turned on the lights.

“And who are you?”

The Master, or Dracula, or whoever he was supposed to be, stood next to the gurney and startled me. Tall, thin, dressed totally in black, and when he spoke I saw his fangs. Unbelievable.

The Glock was in my hand. I did it automatically, without thinking. I had him. I looked around for something to tie him up with.

“You’re here to save him?” He pointed to the unconscious boy and laughed quietly. It was not a funny laugh.

“Move away from the boy.” I pointed the gun at him, but he didn’t seem to notice or care, if he did. “Now.”

He backed up two steps and smiled, his play-actor fangs glittering in his mouth.

“How do you expect to get him out?” he said harshly. “My men upstairs will stop you. All those fools upstairs will help them, you cannot escape.”

“The three of us can stay here and wait for the Coast Guard.” I locked the door. “Then I don’t have to do anything but turn you over.”

“They are coming?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve called.”

“That’s too bad.” He grinned and stared at me with hard eyes. “Now so many will die by fire, including the boy and you.”

“Just stay still and no one has to die,” I said, thinking I was in charge because I had the gun.

“My staff monitors this room and they have their orders for such a situation.” He smiled cruelly; it was almost a cackle and it unnerved me. “Do you think you can kill me? Do you think I need this body? It can no longer serve me.” He walked around the gurney toward me. “Smell that?”

“I don’t smell anything. Stay still,” I warned him. “I will shoot.”

“No doubt,” he smirked. “You and the others will burn to death.”

He kept coming. I shot past him as a warning, but he kept coming.

“You’ll need to shoot better than that.” He snorted and showed his fangs.

I shot him in the heart twice. He smiled.

“I will see you soon,” he said clearly and then fell to the floor, dead.

I opened the door to see if anyone was coming and I smelled the smoke and heard the cries of panic from the salon. I pulled the heart-monitor wrap off the kid’s arm, lifted him over my shoulder, and rushed upstairs, the Glock in my hand. If the goons were there, I would shoot them too. Kids were coming down the stairs and I forced some of them back with the gun.

“They’ve locked us in, Mick,” Alex said as he headed toward the stairway. “I figured you were below.” His voice wasn’t panicked. “Burt out there?”

“Yeah, and the Coast Guard’s on its way,” I told him. The kid was getting heavy. “Where are his people?”

“Don’t know,” he said, as young men and women trampled over each other and banged on the glass doors looking for escape. “Figure they did this?”

I grabbed a kid and stopped him. “Look for a fire extinguisher,” I yelled.

He pushed away and went to the door. Flames jumped on the aft deck and smoke began to come into the salon from the bow section.

“Take him,” I said to Alex and gave him the unconscious boy.

Alex carried him as I had. I pushed my way to the doors, shot at the glass and it shattered, offering an escape from the salon. Heat forced its way in and pushed us back.

“Get out,” I yelled and shot into the air. “Overboard, quickly.” I pushed people through the opening.

Flames swiftly spread along the deck as the kids ran. Alex came up and looked at the flames that had almost engulfed the whole aft.

“Burt’s gotta be out there, run and jump,” I told him.

“When you do,” he said.

“Save him.” I slapped the kid on Alex’s shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Alex looked at me and I could see his doubt, but he pulled the sheet over the kid’s head and ran toward the right side of the boat and through the flames. I willed the deck to hold him and looked back inside.

Smoke filled the salon and I heard frightened kids crying for help, but couldn’t see them. Heat came in with a boiling force that kept the thick smoke building up inside. I was on my knees listening to those calling out. My eyes watered and it was difficult to breathe. Reluctantly, I crawled away from the smoky salon and toward the flames, knowing the safety of water was close.

The yacht was no longer the gates to hell, it was hell.

My whole body was heated to where I wanted to cry out and tear away my clothing. I stood in the last small spot on the deck that wasn’t burning and found myself surrounded by an inferno. Flames rushed across the top deck and the bridge was nothing but a sparkling blaze. The storage lockers were an unseen hazard in front of me, hidden behind the dancing flames. I had either side to run to but in the crackling sound of the flames, I heard sections of deck give way, too. I took short breaths because there was no air to draw from, only burning heat. I couldn’t wait, I ran left through the fire, the way I’d come in, and stumbled over the side rail and knew I’d singed my beard as I tumbled into the water trying not to hear the cries from the salon.

“Took you long enough,” Burt yelled as he and Alex pulled me onto the skiff that was already overloaded with frightened kids.

The fire department’s boat poured water on the smoldering yacht and other boats slowly cruised the surrounding water looking for survivors.

A few days later I stood smoking a cigar on the boardwalk outside Schooner Wharf and looked toward Christmas Tree Island. The smoldering shell of the yacht had been towed to the Coast Guard base. Chief Richard Dowley and Padre Thomas were with me. Six kids had died in the salon and two drowned. Counting The Master, nine died because of the fire. Of course, The Master was dead before the fire.

“No idea who he was,” Richard said slowly. “No return on the fingerprints. But we got records off his computer. The FBI is investigating the Everglades clinic.”

“What about the two goons and the babes?” I swallowed beer from the bottle I held and wondered if the sheriff would keep me in the loop, like he promised. “Did they start the fire and leave?”

“We’re not sure, but the go-fast was gone when the fire department arrived.” He sighed. “We assume they got away in the boat because all the bodies have been identified, they were students. If he didn’t start it, because he was with you, then his people did, like he told you. Maybe we’ll never know the truth.”

“What’s on the computer?” I finished the beer and didn’t tell Richard The Master seemed to know I was going to kill him. It was too early in the day for the beer and cigar, but I enjoyed them anyway.

“Nothing we could have used against him.” Richard laughed at the irony. “He had no reason to panic.”

“What was on it?” I asked again. There had to be something if the FBI was interested in the clinic.

“He was using the kids’ blood to check their compatibility for body-part donations, filing away their blood types and other information for later,” Richard said seriously. He held an empty coffee cup. “Nothing illegal about it. You can donate your kidney.”

“It was more than that,” I said.

“I believe you, but we can’t prove it, yet.”

“What about the boy I found?”

“He remembers nothing. He was upstairs with the babes and then he woke up naked in the water,” Richard grunted. “He’s gone home.”

I finished my beer. Padre Thomas finished his and took our empties into the bar.

“Mick, you saved lives,” Richard said when the Padre was gone. “We know it, you know it, even if the kids don’t. You did good.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled unhappily. “Wish I could see those files, compare them with Tracy’s notes.”

“Coast Guard is leading the investigation right now,” he said. “Fitton and Pearlman, you need to talk to them. They’ll want to talk to you soon enough to find out more about the shooting. Clear you.”

He gave me his coffee cup, slapped me on the shoulder, and walked away.

Padre Thomas handed me a cold beer. He looked concerned and I had thought he’d be glad this was over.

“Why so glum, Padre?” The cold beer tasted too good for the hour. I dragged on the cigar.

“The devil said he’d see you soon,” he answered me. “That scares me.”

“I killed him, he won’t be seeing anyone this side of hell.”

“You can’t kill the devil, Mick,” he said with a sour look. “He should just move on, be annoyed at you, and become someone else’s problem, but he said he’d see you soon.”

“And you believe him?” I took another drag on the cigar, rolled the cold beer bottle in my hand, and didn’t want him to answer.