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  “I don’t know, it looks kind of quaint to me,” Muñoz said with a shrug, turning her head as if trying to see the boat from a different angle to make sure. “I bet kids wouldn’t know the difference. Probably a hit for families.”

  “And with drug dealers trying to stay under the radar,” Holm chuckled under his breath so that the man, who had noticed us by then and was waving us down to him, wouldn’t hear.

  “That is true,” Muñoz agreed with a nod. “It’s certainly under the radar.”

  “That’s for sure,” I laughed, holding out my hand as we approached the man. “Hello, I’m Agent Ethan Marston, and these are my colleagues Robbie Holm and Sylvia Muñoz from MBLIS. How are you this afternoon?”

  “Embel-what?” the guy asked, predictably.

  “We’re a federal agency that deals with border and customs issues on the water,” I explained, still holding out my hand to him since he hadn’t taken it yet. “It stands for Military Border Liaison and Investigative Services.”

  “Military…” the guy said, his mouth hanging open slightly as he considered my hand. Then, realizing himself, he shook his head to clear it and reached out his own hand in kind. “Sorry about that. Chad Salzburg, nice to meet you all. You’ll have to forgive me. I just got back from Key West and Military whatever it is you said sounds all fancy.”

  He shook each of our hands in turn.

  “I don’t know about fancy,” Holm chuckled. “But we appreciate the compliment.”

  “Well, federal agent is enough to make my head turn,” the guy, Chad, laughed. “What brings you down to my tiny corner of Little Torch? Looking for a ferry ride? ‘Cause I’m not going out again for at least a week.”

  “Is that so?” I asked, placing my hands on my hips and leaning back to take a look out across the water. “Why so long?”

  This little cove of a beach was much smaller than Penny’s and even calmer than hers was. I doubted any waves ever came around here, which was probably why none of the cocaine packets had drifted into shore there.

  “Ah, business’s been down the last couple of days,” Chad said with a sigh. “Plus, I’m not as young as I used to be. I like to take a break every now and again, rest up these old bones.”

  I looked the guy up and down. He was probably in his late fifties or early sixties, so not too old, but not too young, either. He was wearing a sweaty old t-shirt with a couple of little holes under the arms and jeans wet from the ocean water that was no doubt sloshing into his small ferry.

  He seemed good-natured enough, with laughter lines around his eyes and a discernible tan from all the days in the hot southern sun.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “We actually came to ask you a few questions. Is that all right?”

  “Shoot,” Chad said without blinking, though he seemed a little surprised at this request. “Wait, one of my passengers didn’t get mixed up in some funny business, did they?” He narrowed his eyes on this question as if afraid of the answer. “Now that would be bad for business.”

  “I imagine it might be,” I said carefully. “Which is why it’s important that you answer our questions honestly and to the best of your ability. We want to clear this up as quickly as possible.”

  I worried that out of concern for his business, no matter how small, the man might not exactly be forthcoming with us. But this line seemed to scare him a little too much, his eyes widening and his mouth dropping open a bit, and Muñoz rushed to undo the damage. I was getting used to having her around.

  “You’re not in any trouble, Chad,” she assured him quickly. “We just need to know if you think there’s a reason your business has suffered recently. Or any other changes you’ve noticed in the number of people coming to Little Torch lately, or the kind of customer you’ve been getting.”

  “Right, okay,” Chad said, giving a relieved laugh and patting his belly, which just barely stuck out over the edge of his belt. “Well, now that you mention it, business has been kind of weird lately.”

  “Weird?” Holm repeated, raising his eyebrows at the man. “Weird how?”

  “Well, I used to get maybe thirty, forty customers a week,” Chad said with a shrug. “Was like that for a while. Enough to keep me afloat in retirement, but not so much that the work felt like work, you know?”

  “I know what you mean,” Holm said with a nod. “What did you do before you retired?”

  “Ah, I was a salesman up in Tampa,” the man said, waving a hand dismissively as if he didn’t want to think about that at all. “Made a fair amount of money and nothing else. Enough to retire early if I did something like this on the side.”

  “Seems like a lot of people do that around here, from what we’ve heard,” I said, squinting and stepping aside as the sun moved into my eyes.

  “Oh, yeah, I’d say at least half of us are like that,” Chad chuckled. “And the other half don’t have to do anything on the side since they’re rolling in so much dough.”

  “I can imagine,” I laughed. “So you were saying that business has been weird lately? How so?”

  “Well, as I said, it used to be pretty steady, slow and steady, about thirty to fifty a week,” Chad reiterated, shifting himself along with the sun, mercifully blocking it out of my eyes with his broad shoulders. “Then it started to go up quite a bit. I got a new kind of customer coming on all the time.”

  “A new kind of customer?” Muñoz repeated, and I detected more than a hint of excitement in her tone. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, normally it’s just tourists wanting to see the other islands. I’ll take ‘em around each one and then drop ‘em off where they came from on my second run-through,” the guy explained. “Easy as pie. I’d get the occasional camper from one of those islands, too, but lately, I’ve been getting way more of those, so business’s shot up a ton lately. Hence the need for a bit of a break.”

  “The campers, where did they come from?” Holm asked. “Not this island, surely.”

  “Well, more of ‘em than before,” Chad said with a shrug. “To and from. They all came from Key West that I could tell. I think there are a couple of campgrounds over there, though I can’t say I’ve ever checked ‘em out myself. I’m a fan of indoor plumbing, to be honest.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Muñoz chuckled. “So you said business has gone down the past week or so? What do you attribute that to, do you think?”

  “Well, it’s kind of the strangest thing, now that you mention it,” Chad said, scratching the thin layer of gray-blonde hair atop his head. “It’s like they—all those campers, I mean, from Key West—appeared out of thin air a couple of months ago and then disappeared just as fast. So I guess you could say business is less slow now, and more back to normal. But that’s as good an excuse as any to take a break. God knows I need it. I’m starting to get burnt out, and I’ve made enough the last couple of months to be able to take a break.”

  He picked at the skin on his arm to illustrate, and I chuckled when I saw that it had a rubbery quality to it that I knew well from my own days out on the sea.

  “I know what you mean,” I told him. “Sounds like you’ve earned that break. So these campers, where on Key West would you pick them up?”

  “Oh, right on the main dock along with all the others,” Chad said with another shrug. “Nothing special. They mixed up in some funny business?” He narrowed his eyes at this, his concern returning.

  “If they are, so long as you answer our questions, it won’t concern you,” I assured him, and he seemed to relax again at this.

  “Did you think it was strange?” Muñoz asked. “Seeing so many of them all of a sudden, I mean?”

  “I guess so,” Chad said with a half-grin. “But who am I to question good business when I get it?”

  “Fair enough,” Holm chuckled. “Did you ever talk to them?”

  “Now that was the strangest thing,” Chad said, pointing at Holm as if my partner had just reminded him of something. “A lot of ‘em didn�
�t seem to speak much English. Some of them did, mind you, and they all seemed to be traveling together. But a lot of ‘em spoke Spanish, or some other language I don’t know much about. Call me uncultured, but I couldn’t tell.”

  “That’s okay,” Muñoz said, exchanging a knowing look with me. This was all starting to sound a lot like what Penny and Nick had already told us, and the three stories all pieced together created a much broader, though still incomplete, picture of what was going on here.

  “So, did you ever try to talk to the Americans?” I asked.

  “Oh, a couple of times,” Chad said, scrunching his brows up as he thought about this. “They weren’t great conversationalists, to be honest. They didn’t seem all that interested in the tour, which was fine since it freed up more of my time to talk to the kids and their families. They usually love it, seeing if they can spot all the different islands and sea creatures.”

  Chad grinned at this memory, and I decided that I liked this guy. He seemed to have his priorities straight.

  “Did you ever see them more than once?” I asked. “Or was it different campers each time?”

  “Oh, I don’t know that I could tell you, sorry,” the man said, shaking his head and giving a small laugh. “I can’t say I paid them that much attention. I was just glad to take their fares, though not so glad to wipe up the mud they almost always dragged onto my ship. They did come to and from Little Torch, though. About half and half, I’d say. I always thought that was kind of strange. Where would you camp here, on a resort island?”

  “Alright, thank you for all your help,” I said, holding out my hand to him again and slipping him a copy of my business card. “If you think of anything else, give me a call, okay? And otherwise, enjoy your vacation.”

  “I will,” Chad said, peering down at my card as we walked back to my car.

  24

  Ethan

  We spent the rest of the day checking out the other locations on Nick’s list, but we never ran across any of these mysterious campers. We did get to know the island a bit better, though, and I reckoned that by dinner time, I’d seen every corner of it there was to see that wasn’t private property.

  Finally, we reconvened in Holm’s hotel room before we were to split up so I could go to dinner with Penny and see if she knew where we could get a ship for our evening stakeout of the cave.

  “What are we thinking?” Holm asked, plopping down on his bed as Muñoz took a seat at the windowsill, and I leaned against the wall.

  “Well, our best shot is still this stakeout tonight if we can get ourselves a ship, I’d say,” I said. “If anything, Penny can loan us hers.”

  “You know how to sail a sailboat?” Muñoz asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

  “I think I can manage,” I chuckled, though it was a worry of mine that I was a little too rusty for something like that. Maybe Penny would have to come with us after all, and I had to admit that a small part of me was hoping that would be the case.

  “I don’t know, didn’t that ferry guy say something about all these campers coming from Key West?” Holm asked from where he was now, snacking on a granola bar from the backpack beside his bed.

  “Aren’t we about to eat dinner?” Muñoz asked, turning her arched eyebrow on him now.

  “So?” he asked with a shrug, a few crumbs dribbling out of his mouth and onto the pillowcase.

  “Is this how you two always operate on your missions?” she sighed, looking over at me.

  “I guess so,” I chuckled, shaking my head at Holm.

  “I figured as much,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “What were you saying about Key West, Holm?” I asked him when he was finished eating.

  “Oh, yeah, couldn’t we check that out? See if we can find the right campground?” he asked, crumpling up the wrapper and tossing it into the small trash can at his bedside. He’d practically inhaled the thing. I was still stuffed from lunch, on the other hand.

  “Yeah, we could do that,” I said. “I hope we find these guys and have something more concrete by then, though. Key West is a big island. Bigger than this one, at least.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should go straight to Key West…” Muñoz said, sounding unsure even as she said it, crossing her arms and looking down at the carpet in worry. “There’s no guarantee that they come across the cave tonight or that they’re even still looking for the missing cocaine after all this time. And Key West is a solid-ish lead to go off of, at least.”

  “I don’t know how solid it is,” I sighed, glancing over at her. “As I said, it’s a big island. And it’s a bit of a trek over there, so I would want to dedicate a whole day to it if we went. We already have a plan for tonight, and I think we should stick to it.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Muñoz relented. “I would just hate to lose any more time on some wild goose chase when we could be tracking down another lead, one that could get us to him sooner.”

  “I know…” I murmured, allowing my thoughts briefly to wander to all the possible places that Birn might be, dead or alive. I shook my head to push these thoughts away, knowing that they weren’t helpful. But Muñoz wasn’t wrong, either. We were short on time. Birn could be short on time.

  “Well, I vote with Marston,” Holm said after a period of silence had elapsed.

  “Of course you do,” Muñoz said, rolling her eyes, but the corners of her mouth were turning upward again, showing that she was just poking fun at us.

  “Really, though, we won’t have enough time to look through Key West,” Holm said, jumping right over the joke to explain his position. “And the Coast Guard’s going to want to clear those drugs up at some point. They don’t want them just floating around for anyone to find. If we’re going to stake out the cave, tonight’s the night to do it.”

  “That’s true,” Muñoz relented, nodding slowly. “Okay, then, we can stick with the original plan. But I don’t have to like it. And for the record, I wouldn’t like it either way since I’d be worrying the other one was the right choice.”

  “I get what you mean,” I said with a low, humorless laugh, my thoughts drifting back to Birn once more before I managed to push them away. “I wish I was comfortable splitting up, but after what’s already happened… Well, suffice it to say that I think we should stick together as much as possible. I don’t even love the idea of splitting up for dinner, but I suppose none of us are going to be kidnapped in the middle of a restaurant.”

  Just as I said that, I remembered that very thing happening to me not too long ago, but the likelihood of it happening again was… very small, I supposed.

  “I don’t like it either,” Muñoz agreed, her tone dark. “But it is what it is. And anyway, who would we be to keep you from your… extracurricular activities?”

  She shot me a mischievous grin, and Holm chortled right along with her.

  “Har, har, har,” I joked, rolling my eyes. “She’s an important witness. And she can probably hook us up with a boat and give us tips for our stakeout. It’s far from extracurricular.”

  “Sure, man, whatever you say,” Holm chuckled, and it was his turn to roll his eyes now.

  I knew better than to argue the point any further.

  “So what will you guys do while I’m meeting with Penny?” I asked, looking around at them. “You should eat first.”

  “I thought we could grab dinner downstairs again, maybe talk to a couple of the waitstaff there and see if they’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary,” Muñoz suggested, glancing over at Holm for confirmation of this plan.

  “Sure thing,” he nodded. “Though I doubt many people notice much of anything around here, from what I’ve heard so far.”

  “Yeah, they’re not the most observant group, are they?” Muñoz sighed, shaking her head. “It would’ve been nice if that ferry guy had tried to talk to the police about what he saw or whatever. But he didn’t seem to question all the new business at all.”

  “Would you?” Holm asked with a shru
g. “Probably seemed like looking a gift horse in the mouth to him. Besides, it’s the Keys. There are other islands all around here, with all kinds of people on them. He probably didn’t question that they weren’t native English speakers.”

  “Penny did,” I pointed out. “But then again, she’s law enforcement. Or military, at least. But the bartender did, too.”

  “I think the bartender probably would look a gift horse in the mouth,” Holm chuckled, his shoulders shaking along with the movement. “He seems the type to, anyway.”

  “Well, remember where that saying comes from in the first place,” Muñoz pointed out. “The Trojans probably wished they looked that horse in the mouth. It’s not the worst policy in the world.”

  “True,” Holm relented with another chuckle. “But the chief of police is probably sick of hearing his wild stories, chasing geese all over the place. It seemed like it, anyway. Kind of like the boy who cried wolf.”

  “That is a danger,” I laughed. “Although it does seem a bit off to me that none of the policemen took it seriously. But then again, why would they? At least until that kid overdosed, it doesn’t seem like they’ve had much to write home about for years now.”

  “Yeah, they get a fair amount of drug traffic from the other islands nearby, just like a lot of the Keys do,” Muñoz said with a shrug. “But Little Torch is so small that they just pass it all off to bigger departments or agencies like us. It’s mostly in the water, anyway, so the police department wouldn’t run into it much. Just the Coast Guard.”

  “Is that what they said when you talked to them?” I asked her, remembering that Muñoz had been in contact with the Coast Guard about the cocaine floating around the ocean around the island since the night before.

  “Yeah, they said as much,” Muñoz said, rolling her eyes. “Said that there’s a fair amount of pirating in these waters. The remote location lends itself to that. But what’s the local police going to do about that when it doesn’t even come into shore? At least not until now.”