Chapter twenty-five

The sun was nearly straight overhead by the time they docked at Southern Village. The small inland development offered transient docking for boaters and long-term docking for residents of the upscale homes that dotted the well-tended marina. A bank of small shops and eateries sought to entice waterway travelers, though the position of the development just north of the Oak Island bridge afforded some protection from buffeting winds.

Sam and Molly had little trouble finding a spot to dock Hullabaloo in the middle of the day. With the last line fast, they wandered the storefronts until they found the South Bay Coffeehouse. A cup of coffee and a pastry later, they motored back to the north a few hundred yards to the small creek and town docks of Southport.

Molly found a tight but adequate slip on the main boardwalk nearest Restaurant Row and backed in, stern to the docks. Sam quickly lassoed lines around the pilings and loosely fastened them to the boat’s cleats.

Once Sam stepped off the boat in the direction of Johnson’s, he was swallowed up by a ground swell of people heading to lunch. After the group passed a small, bright yellow fish house, the swell lessened its pace; next, the tourist pack passed a battered blue fish house and restaurant, and the group shrunk more; finally, the remaining pedestrians descended upon Provision’s, leaving only Sam to walk the remaining short distance to Johnson’s in the mid-day heat.

Entering a perfectly square room decorated with fishing nets and crab pot markers, Sam was slammed with the smell of fish and saltwater.

A man standing with his back to Sam behind a raised Formica counter hosed down a long metal slab of a table, his long, silver hair flowing like a river down his back. The remains of the freshly cut fish swirled toward an open grate to the river below. A lone tabby cat, mangy but friendly, wound her way in between and around Sam’s legs, hoping for attention or a handout. Offering neither, Sam moved toward the counter and waited for the long-haired man in high boots and rubber elbow-length gloves to acknowledge him.

Unnoticed, Sam looked around. On his right was a bank of shelves with seafood accouterments like tins of bright yellow cans of Old Bay seasoning and fishing poles. To his left was a small office with its door partially closed. The riverfront side of the fish house was open to docks lined with beat-up shrimp boats…and one gleaming white mega-yacht whose motor was running. The stern nearly jutted in through the open loading bay of the fish house. Sam recognized the name on her stern immediately: Sabrina. That’s the yacht from my old marina, he thought. He expected to hear yelling, but he was disappointed.

“What can I help you with today?” the rubber-clad man yelled over the rush of water without turning around.

“Actually, I was wondering what I could help you with.” Sam held his breath as the water stream stopped, and the man turned around to face him. “I’ve been told to come see a Mr. Walters.”

“Walters? Don’t know nobody by that name. Sure you got the right place?” The man put down the hose, his weather-worn face showing his years in the sun. He picked up a long fillet knife from the metal table and flung it into a nearby sink. Slowly, he approached the counter. He looked as mangy as the cat.

Sam saw what was left of rotting teeth when the guy smiled, and a stench came from his person that Sam was only too happy to be away from at that moment.

“Sorry; I must be mistaken. I was told that Johnson’s was the place, and Walters was the man.” Sam leaned away from the counter.

“Let me call around for you, uh, what’d you say your name was, son?” Toothless picked up the handset of a phone on the counter.

“No problem; I guess I got the wrong place. Don’t go to any trouble, man.”

But Sam’s weak excuse didn’t slow Toothless’ dialing or calling out to another man who sat with his back to the door of the dark office.

As he entered the room with his ear engulfed by a Bluetooth phone earpiece, Andy Keller smiled and walked quickly toward Sam. “I told you you were worrying over nothing. Seems the pigeon’s come to roost. Yes, here. I will bring him to you, and you can do what you like.”

Andy walked around the end of the counter and thrust out his hand to Sam as if wanting to shake.

“Sam, good to see you. I heard you got suspended. Does that mean you are in the market for a new job?”

Stunned, Sam stumbled over his words as he pieced them together. “Andy, why? Why did you do that to Lee?”

“Business, Sam. It’s all about business. My friend here would like to show you around the place.”

Sam backed up, but his path was blocked by Toothless, who swiftly bolted the steel door to the fish house’s main entrance. He crossed his thick arms and smiled a grotesque grin, the stench filling Sam’s nostrils as the man moved closer.

“Look, ah, if I’ve come at a bad time,” said Sam, feeling Andy right behind him, “I can call first the next time I visit.” Sam jabbed his elbow hard into Andy’s breastbone and ducked out of the way when Toothless dove for him, tumbling Andy to the slippery floor. Sam slid over the wet counter and out the back door facing the river dock where Sabrina stood idling.

Weighing his options, Sam quickly surmised that the dock surrounding the fish house merged with the outside dining area of Provision’s, separated only by a waist-high railing. The fat man on Sabrina saw him as he emerged from the coolness of his pilothouse, phone attached to his ear, and mouth poised to yell. Hearing a commotion from inside the fish house, with metal scraping metal on the door, Sam jumped over Provision’s railing and dashed through the crowded tables toward the main door. He was hedging that they wouldn’t run after him the same way, but he didn’t slow down to look. Within seconds, he yanked off Hullabaloo’s lines from their posts and scrambled over the aft rail.

“This doesn’t look good!” Molly cried as she fended off one of the pilings before racing to the pilothouse.

“Get us out of here!” Sam watched as the Mutt-and-Jeff team ran from Johnson’s and stretched for Hullabaloo’s transom just a second too late. Sam jumped up the short steps to the pilothouse where Molly was watching the depth sounder and working her way out of the slip.

“No-wake zone!” she called out.

“Now’s not the time to worry about boating etiquette, Mol. Get going.”

“Not me, you idiot, him!” Molly was pointing to the mega-yacht that was flooring it around a short bend, smack in front of Molly.

“Shit; it’s Sabrina!”

“More friends of yours?” Molly sounded annoyed as she maneuvered to the creek’s far side. The depth sounder’s alarm screeched, so she veered back toward the mega-yacht.

“What are the chances?” she muttered as she pushed Hullabaloo’s throttle forward as hard as she could and headed right for Sabrina’s middle portside.

“CQR, don’t fail me now!” she screamed as she rammed the fiberglass yacht with the heavy anchor before Sam could utter a sound. Just as quickly, she revved her engines in reverse, pulled out of the sinking mega-yacht, and thrust the throttle forward as fast as she could.

“They sure don’t make them like they used to,” Molly laughed as she steered her boat past the mess and raced to the middle of the channel while the fat man aboard Sabrina yelled obscenities and struggled to keep his footing on his sinking yacht.

“That’s the guy I clocked the night we met! But that’s not the same boat I delivered!” Molly yelled over the engines. “Do you know him?”

“He keeps his boat at the marina where I used to be.”

“If he’s involved, do you think he was keeping an eye on Lee?” Molly questioned.

“Maybe,” relaxed Sam. “But what was he doing on Bald Head when you delivered a new boat to him? Checking on his territory?”

Hullabaloo sped up in the waterway as Molly weighed her options.

“I don’t know. But we got to get some distance between us and them before I can think that one through. We could hide in one of the back bays between here and Wilmington, or we could make time out in the ocean if we headed out toward Bald Head and passed around the shoals.” She chose to stay inside and veered north.

“It was a dirty job,” Sam whispered.

Molly turned slowly to look at him. “A cop?”

“Yeah. One of Carolina Beach’s finest. He was there. In Johnson’s, like he was waiting on me. Shit. I can’t believe they killed Lee in the name of ‘business’. That’s what he said, just before I hit him.”

“Dude, I am sorry. May a thousand—”

“Don’t, Mol. Just don’t.”

“Sorry.” Molly checked her ancient chart for anchorages and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, it’s that old game of cat and mouse. But it seems we have a cat on our trail who’s more of a rat.” She waited to see Sam crack a slight smile. “Here. Once we get to this area near Masonboro Island, we’ll have a lot of options to hide.” She traced her finger on top of Snow’s Cut. She pointed to a narrow, shallow patch of powder blue on the chart bordered by the larger Masonboro and dots of smaller islands. “There are hundreds of back bays along in here that are too shallow for most. I can get us in and out quickly, and we’ll just wait and see who passes.”

“They’ll be searching.”

“Let ’em. I know these waters better than most. And if we need to, we can run through Masonboro Inlet to open water. I can take care of myself.” She lifted her hands from the wheel for a second and moved away toward the long bench seat in the pilothouse where Sam had been sitting.

Sam jumped instinctively to take the wheel, and he watched amazed as Molly uncovered two rifles and methodically checked each one over before loading it. “I have lots of stuff stashed aboard, just in case.” She also pulled out two bottles of tepid water and tossed one to Sam.

As the afternoon’s sun heated up the pilothouse, Sam checked religiously for any signs of a following ship. He relinquished the helm to Molly and took binoculars to the aft deck. He marveled at the speed with which they passed Sunny Point Military Base. He checked the ferry as it made its way across the river to Fort Fisher, and he kept a sharp eye for any boat that seemed to follow their wake. He went below to rummage for something to eat. Feeling the boat slowing, Sam leaped back topside to see Molly steer the boat under the high bridge at Snow’s Cut and into Myrtle Grove Sound. Molly continued north toward a narrow passage amid a thick stand of trees just south of Masonboro Island. Thinking she was running aground, Sam sprang forward to take the wheel, only to see a small tranquil bay emerge like an oasis.

“Wow.”

“Look sharp,” Molly pointed to the depth sounder. “It’s shallow in here, but I know there’s a spot further in. We just have to pick our way slowly.”

“What if we have to get out in a hurry?”

“No worries. There’s a cut just around that bend that shoots us to another bay, and I can work through these smaller passages back to the sound until we reach the inlet.”

Molly kept the engines slow and nudged first to port, then to starboard, until she found the unmarked and ever-changing channel. “Good thing we’ve hit it on the rising tide. Otherwise….” Her voice trailed off as she found the place she wanted to drop anchor. “This is it. Unless they got a small Whaler, they won’t make it in here anytime soon. Be a dear and drop anchor, please.”

Sam obeyed and headed toward the bow. Once the anchor was secure by Molly’s hand signs, he returned to the pilothouse.

“You didn’t see anybody, did you?” Molly was noting their position on the giant chart.

“No. I suspect the scene you created kept them locked in for a bit. But Andy’s going to call somebody; you can bet on it. They’ll be looking soon. And now that your boat’s known, we should probably get going.”

“Where?”

“To the station. I need to know who else is in on it.”

“You are kidding, right? You’ve got no idea whose pulling the strings and you want to march right in and have a chat with who? Your Chief? I thought you said your vehicles were bugged. No, dude, if you go in, you are on your own. I’m staying put.” Molly stretched her legs on the bunk for emphasis.

“Suit yourself,” Sam glared. “I’m taking the dinghy back to Carolina Beach. I’ll come back for you when it’s all over.”

Sam purposefully walked out of the pilothouse and lowered the dinghy and oars to the muddy thin water below.

Within six pulls of the oars, Sam hit a sandbar. “How’d she do that?” he whispered as he got out of the dinghy and pulled it across the narrow bar. Once seated in the dinghy again, he found his rhythm and started to make progress. It would be a long row to town, a long time to think through his options. Sam rowed behind one of many bends in the neon green marsh-lined waterway that was off limits to boaters, working his way south, wishing for something of substance to eat.

Wrrrrrrrzzzzz. The buzz of a small boat’s engine jerked Sam’s attention away from his empty stomach. Listening hard, he heard the sound speed up, then slow down before the explosion came, ripping silence and splintering wood in an instant. Rowing frantically back toward Hullabaloo, Sam’s adrenaline rose as quickly as the neon green of the marsh gave way to glowing yellows.

The air thick with ash and diesel, Sam watched in horror as a black tower of smoke rose from Hullabaloo’s stern. Pausing only for a second to listen for the small craft’s racing engine, Sam rowed as quickly as he could to the smoking, sinking wreck. He hit the sandbar again, this time yanking the dinghy onto the rise of wet sand and swimming as fast as he could toward Hullabaloo.

Fire leapt from the stern, making it too hot to climb aboard. The boat was listing to port, her wooden hull groaning under her own weight as she slid little by little into the waters. Sam made a quick lap along the starboard side, calling frantically for Molly.

No reply.

As the lower rail of the starboard-side life rails hit the water, Sam half-swam aboard. Through the pilothouse window, he saw Molly slumped over on the floor with water up to her mouth. Sam quickly pulled his way toward the pilothouse door, and with mighty effort, he yanked the door open. Inside, a swirling mess of mud, water, and sand hastily claimed every nook and neat place that had been the pilothouse. Sam lunged for Molly and hoisted her over his shoulder. He grabbed the flimsy water-soiled chart in his other hand and made his way back through the pilothouse door just as more water raced past. Now scrambling, now wading, now swimming, Sam found a foothold on the rail again and pushed clear of the sinking boat, pulling hard, sidestroke after sidestroke, carrying Molly up on his hip, until he was waist deep at the sandbar’s edge. Sam laid Molly down quickly, then checked for signs of life before starting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“Breathe!” he screamed at her.

“Dude…” she faintly replied, pulling his face toward hers. “My boat. Is she…?”

The question went unanswered as Sam held Molly upright so she could see for herself. Without a word, they watched the last of the flames shoot up and then sputter as murky water claimed Hullabaloo. Sam held Molly tight, from the first tear to the following surge of anger.

As the pale purple sky streaked orange and reached overhead, Molly stood tall. She gently picked up her soaked chart, pushed the dinghy off the sandbar, and gingerly climbed in. “It’s time to go.”

Sam took his place at the oars. Without looking at Molly, he rowed through the marsh and maritime forest of Masonboro Island.