A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3) Read online

  “That’s him,” she said, steadying her voice.

  “The Coast Guard and Park Police are already looking for him. Why do you need me?”

  “They’re not getting any-freaking-where,” she said, pissed, and crossed her legs. “I need to do something.”

  “Uh-huh. But why me?”

  “Tony DeFelice gave me your name. He said you’re good luck…in finding missing persons,” she added.

  I thought of my son. Missing now for eight years. He was taken from our home when he was seven. And I’ve spent every moment of my life since then thinking about him, wondering if he was alive or dead, my former wife, Jillie, doing the same thing. It’s why she’s my former, and why I’m a private cop. I left my job, teaching at a small college in Ohio, left my wife, and in reality, left my life. So, don’t talk to me about luck. I’ve had no fucking luck finding Maxie. And no life since then.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward.

  I nodded. “How do you know DeFelice?”

  “I was a reporter for the Miami Herald. I had the crime beat before I went freelance,” and she sat back, crossing her legs again, her foot bouncing like she wanted to run. Tense. I wondered if she ran in her jeans—the pant legs were frayed.

  “Miami Herald?” I paused and stared, thinking. “Didn’t you interview me my first day on the job?” I was trying to picture her. She was younger then—early twenties.

  “That was me. You made a good story. My first Saturday feature, ‘From Prof to Cop.’ It got a lot of response.”

  I had been teaching philosophy at a college in central Ohio when Maxie was kidnapped. After a year of fighting about whose fault it was, I left, worn out by the pressure from the newspapers, from the lack of progress by the local cops, and from my own guilt at not finding him. So, I quit my job and left my home and Jillie. I think she was happy with that. No more staring at each other over morning coffee waiting for the next round of angry accusations. No more early risings, looking out over the front porch at the lawn where Maxie had been playing, no more getting up in the middle of the night after the hundredth nightmare about his disappearance.

  I had a friend in Miami, Tony DeFelice, a detective with the MPD, who said he might have a clue about Maxie’s disappearance—a gang working the Magic City—and why don’t I come down there? So I did. I joined the department and after a year was working homicide. Fast, huh? And when I was off duty, I tried to find my son. So, that’s what that story was all about: “From Prof to Cop.”

  She was nodding, maybe thinking back on it. “I went freelance shortly after that,” she continued. “Now I’m working on a series of articles about Big Oil in south Florida. As a matter of fact, Jack…” and she hesitated. “My father...was helping me. I’m hoping his disappearance didn’t have anything to do with my stories,” she hurried on. Gazing into the distance, she continued, almost confessing, “I upset a lot of people with those articles.”

  “Tell me about your father’s disappearance.” I sat back to listen.

  “Jack—that’s what he wanted me to call him instead of dad—made him feel old, I guess. He was supposed to come to my house for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s been a tradition since my mother died. Charles and I —that’s my brother,” she added, seeing as I was going to ask, “we traded off having the meal. It was my turn.” She looked away. Then, “He never showed...” She hesitated, looking worried, maybe puzzled. Like maybe it was her fault. “I mean, he’s usually late, but…”

  “But he was late, late, I guess,” I said, trying to help. “And you never heard from him after that?”

  “That’s right. Around 11:00 p.m. we gave up. We waited until early Friday morning to call the police.” She was staring into the empty space on my walls. I realized I needed to hang some pictures.

  “Was he planning on going anywhere that day?”

  “Fishing. He always went fishing on Thanksgiving morning. He’s out there early, before the sun rises. It was a tradition for him.”

  “Any idea where he might have gone fishing?”

  “Sure. In the Keys. Maybe the Ten Thousand Islands.” She paused. Then, “But just exactly where he went?” She shrugged. “I have no idea. Jack was a loner. Didn’t share a lot.” Then she looked over at me—as if I might help.

  Of course, I couldn’t. What did I know? So I just nodded—like the cops did when Jillie and I told them about Maxie. They didn’t know anything either.

  “I’m still not sure what you think I can do,” I said. “The Coast Guard and Park Police are already looking for him—and you want me to…?”

  “Look. They think my father either got lost in the Everglades or had an accident. I’ll tell you this,” and her leg was bouncing again, “my father knows those swamps like the Miccosukees who live there. He wouldn’t get lost. An accident maybe. But he’s got a phone—and a radio. What kind of accident would prevent him from calling? I can’t imagine. My worry, something bad happened to him out there and I want you to find him,” she said, pulling away some strands of hair that had fallen across her face. I noticed some scarring on the outside of her left arm. A burn? Oddly enough, it wasn’t disfiguring.

  “Can you start today?” she said, pausing like she was holding her breath.

  “Wow,” I said, “let me see,” pulling out my phone like I was checking my calendar. “Okay, looks like I’m clear.” Actually, my schedule was non-existent.

  “How about now?” she said, sitting forward, hope written in large letters across her face.

  “Now?” Then, “Sure. Why not? I’m good,” I said, holding up my hands.

  “That’s great!” she said, settling back in her chair, relieved. “Now I just need to know your fee,” and she was reaching for her purse.

  I told her and she wrote out a check. It covered a whole week.

  I called Huxter Crow, a Seminole who grew up in the Everglades and is a skilled tracker. I filled him in on Cynthia and asked if he would meet us at the Pilot House Marina. “Noontime,” I added. It was 10:00 a.m.

  “Let’s get your car,” I said, locking the door to the office. There’s nothing in there…yet. No files. A couple of desks, three swivel chairs I picked up from St. Michael’s used store, and a tiny airplane-size bottle of Captain Morgan. The bottle was there for someone who wanted to burgle the place.

  Chapter Two

  What Happened to Jack?

  We headed back the way Cynthia had come, toward the video store and police station.

  “Where did you park?” I said, trying not to look at the sign over the porn shop. “And, by the way, why were you at the police station?” Curious. This was not an Oceanside case.

  “Checking up on you. I’m a reporter, remember?” she said, a smile forming at the edges of her mouth. “So, I talked with a friend of yours, Detective Neumann. He said you’re okay. But I got the feeling he didn’t like you,” she added quickly, looking at me for a reaction.

  I nodded. Sandy Fatso Neumann. I liked his partner even less. Randall Flagg. The guy with the horrible acne. I wondered if he had taken medication for it as a kid.

  “Was Flagg there?” I couldn’t get those pockmarks out of my mind.

  She stared at me like I had read her mind. “You mean the guy with the bad teeth?”

  I had forgotten about the teeth.

  She nodded. “Yeah. But he didn’t say much. He let Neumann talk.”

  That was Flagg all right. “How do you know them?”

  “When I worked homicide with Miami PD. They don’t have a gang unit so we supplied it,” and I thought about Louise Delgado, the detective who headed up that unit and I thought of the grief that Neumann and Flagg had given us on two missing person cases. Cops are territorial and we were in their territory. They piss on every lamppost.

  “You don’t like them,” she said.

  I shrugged. “They’re assholes.” Then quickly, “Don’t quote me.”

  She smiled.

  “Ah, go ahe
ad,” I said. “Quote me.”

  She kept smiling. “Yeah, they’re assholes.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Anyway. Where’d you park?”

  “In the lot behind the station.”

  “You’ll drop me off at mine and I’ll follow you, okay?”

  “What kind of boat was your father driving?” I said, settling into the passenger seat of her Jeep.

  “He has two boats,” she said, forcing the manual gear stick into reverse. “A Grady White 376 Canyon for larger groups, and a Canyon 306 for just a few people or when he wants to go out alone. The 376 is still in dock at the Pilot House Marina in Key Largo. He rents out space there for his ‘fishing fleet’ as he calls it.” She paused as she checked the street for cars. “So, in terms of what he took, the dock-master said he went out on the 306.”

  “Okay. We’ll need a boat. It would help with expenses if we could use your father’s. My boat won’t take us where we need to go.”

  “We?” she said, surprised, taking her eyes off the street. “I was hoping I could…”

  “I’ll need you,” I said. “You must know some of his favorite fishing spots.”

  “Great,” she said, her smile spreading like the sun just rising. “I need to stop by my father’s house. I could meet you at the marina.”

  “I’ll follow you,” I said. “Maybe we’ll find something you missed.”

  “I already went over the whole house looking for anything...whatever...but I didn’t find a thing,” Cynthia said, shaking her head.

  “I’m sure. But…”

  “You think...?”

  “Who knows. Funny how small things turn into big ones,” I replied. “You mentioned Jack might have been working on your story?”

  “He said he was going to help me. I told him no, but...”

  “He still might have…?”

  She nodded. Looking sad, maybe like she did this thing to him.

  “Jack have anyone didn’t like him?”

  She did a double-take.

  “Enemies?” Like it was a crazy question. “None that I can think of, other than...” She paused as she pulled against the curb underneath my office window.

  “Other than what?”

  “You know, other than the trouble my articles might have gotten him into if he was nosing in their business. But besides that, no. I can’t think of a thing. I mean, he’s a fishing captain for God’s sake. How do you get into trouble doing that?” she exclaimed, throwing up her hands.

  A massive shadow was building in the street and creeping up the side of the building as clouds rolled over the hill behind the police station, burying the sun.

  Chapter Three

  What Dreams May Come

  Cynthia’s Jeep was just ahead of me as we hit the bridge that crosses Florida Bay. Coming off that bridge into the Keys is like descending into a whole new world. It’s 113 islands of coral and limestone linked by forty-two bridges and surrounded by the deep blues and greens of the waters of Florida Bay (on the continental side of the United States) and by the Florida Straits (on the Caribbean side). And somewhere in that chain of islands, Jack Hayward got lost and all I had to do was search those islands, the whole southern end of the Everglades, the waters surrounding them, and the Florida Straits to see if I could find him. And, so far, the Coast Guard and the National Forest Rangers had not been successful. And I’m the guy that’s supposed to be so lucky—in finding missing persons, that is—the guy who hasn’t even found his own son. Wow! One lucky guy.

  And my mind drifted into memories of dreams. I have them nightly now. Nightmares are what they really are:

  The screen door slammed after him as he ran across our porch, down the wooden steps that front our house, an old colonial, and into the yard, freshly green from the recent rains. He threw a baseball into the air and caught it—he always did that—then he ran in circles as he tossed the ball, scuffed from falling into the dirt, watching it into his mitt, laughing each time he threw it into the sky, a little higher each time, and he would do this until I would come home—Jillie would tell me—and then we would play catch. But he would have to practice in the meantime.

  I was watching him now as the ball sailed higher and higher, floating into a cloud and then dropping out of the white, Maxie losing it momentarily, then reaching for it when it appeared once again, and missing it.

  It hit the ground and rolled toward the road, slowly at first—and I held my breath—but, as he chased it, the ball caught the edge of an incline and continued its descent more rapidly, Maxie after it quickly, laughing at the ball as though it were something living, playing hide-and-seek, his hair blowing in the wind like the wheat in the nearby field, the mid-morning sun bright on his face, and he took the incline quickly—I tried to stop him—and hurtled down after the ball until it came to rest in a ditch bordering the road, settling in some mud and stones at the very bottom of the incline, where he reached for it, rubbing the ball against his pants to wipe it clean of the grime from the ditch, but a man stooped down, and said, “Let me help you with that”—and I tried to warn him!—and Maxie looked up at him, a stranger with an odd voice, not at all like the voice of Anthony who owns the antique shop on Main Street nor like mine, nor like anyone he had ever heard. The man took the ball from him and said, “Let’s go to my car and get a rag and clean this ball up for you, eh?” And he took the boy’s hand before he could answer and led him to a black car, opened the door, and said, “Now let’s see if we can find that rag, shall we?”

  Then he asked Maxie to look in the back seat to see if he could find it because his eyesight wasn’t that good any more. And Maxie did, felt a shove, and fell forward into the seat, the car door slamming at the same time as his mother called out, “Maxie…Maxie, where are you?” And I tried to call out, too. But the car was already moving quickly ahead, too late for him to see the door of our house opening as he looked out the back window of the car. But I could see him. I could see the fear rising in his eyes and choking him. I could see him look into the front seat where a second man was rising up and reaching for him, while Maxie was trying to call out… for me. And I reached for him again, and called him, but fear must have closed his ears.

  And I watched helplessly as they passed Anthony’s Antique Shop.

  Chapter Four

  Jack’s House

  I shook my head violently to drive out the memory of the nightmare, one I was having almost nightly these days. Getting to bed at 4:00 a.m. to avoid them. Hoping to be so tired that my mind was as dark as deep space. Because if I tried to turn in earlier, I would spend hours watching the red numbers on the clock on my dresser move so ponderously that I wanted to pick a fight with them. I had no idea, none at all, where those damn dreams came from, nor if they offered any clues about my missing son. Or if I was indeed dreaming about my son. Maybe just some boy burned in my imagination from my constant obsession about the kidnapping.

  We had picked up US 1 just north of Florida City and took it south to the bridge that crosses Florida Bay. Once we hit the bridge, we passed Long Sound on the right, then Little Blackwater Sound, before we came to the first large piece of land that constitutes the Keys. We passed over Lake Surprise—I always wondered how it got that name—and finally descended into the Keys proper and the beginning of Key Largo where US 1 is more commonly termed the Overseas Highway. Here the road makes a sharp turn to the right heading west-southwest toward Key West, forming what is one of the longest, if not longest, ocean highway in the world: 127 miles of road and bridges, the longest span being the seven-mile bridge built by Henry Flagler, the railroad tycoon, in 1938.

  We wouldn’t cross that bridge. We would stop in Key Largo, and I would think of Bogart and Bacall as we passed the Caribbean Club that claimed to be the site where Key Largo was shot. Who knows? Maybe it was. Maybe not. At any rate, it’s a fun place to drink and it’s just a short distance from the point where you leave the bridge and enter the Keys.

  Cynthia turned left off the
highway at Transylvania Avenue and headed for the ocean side of the Keys. The avenue dead-ends at Shoreland Drive that looks out over the Atlantic. She turned left at Shoreland and pulled into an old Florida ranch, sitting on the right. The house was situated sideways on the lot, the front entrance facing the neighbor’s house. The back yard sloped to a dock where a small motorboat rested on davits.

  “It’s Jack’s runabout,” Cynthia said as she looked out at the boat, then turned and opened the door. It was unlocked. “Nobody locks up around here,” she said, noticing my surprise. “Neighbor carries a shotgun. Would shoot anybody who tries to get in. It’s one of the reasons Jack built here. It’s remote.”

  “Nice neighbor,” I said, looking around to see if I spotted him aiming at us.

  The entry way was to the far left of the house where there was a small living room facing the door. To the right was the kitchen, separated from the living room by a waist high bar and several stools. A good place to drink and watch the large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall in the corner of the living room.

  “Jack is a big Marlins fan,” she said. I was thinking of a beer and looked towards the fridge. “It’s Jack,” she said. “He eats peanut butter sandwiches—that is, unless I make him something. Which is all the time since Mom died.”

  A corridor ran off the kitchen to the right, past several rooms, and emptied into a fireplace.

  “That’s his den,” she said, as she watched me stare down the long, narrow hallway at the room with the fireplace. It made me feel claustrophobic. I felt like I was elbowing my way past doorways and must have shown it.

  “Jack liked it that way,” she said. “Narrow and dark.”

  Some model boats lined the mantel above the fireplace. “Your dad collect those or did he make them?”

  “He made them. He also made wood models,” and she pointed out a menagerie of finely carved, intricately painted miniature animals resting on a table situated under a window that faced the road. I had noticed that the dining room table in the living room held some more.