The wind was picking up, buffeting them about. Stallings had to work to keep the patrol boat steady and pointed in the right direction. Manley showered the other boat with light from the Megalite 300 spotlight attached to their stern while Stallings called in the few numbers they had on the boat, saying into the radio, “Alpha-poppa-thirty, this is Stallings, Delta-four, 7-11, come in.”
This was met with the friendly banter of the night dispatch officer, who replied, “Gotcha, Ken. What’s up?”
“ We got a suspicious-looking boat out on the water with obscured markings. We think the numbers are Oreo-Two- Charlie, Niner-Eight-Niner, something, something, Niner, but can’t make out. Going in for a closer look.”
“ What’s your position, Delta-four?”
Stallings offered up their position, even though they were somewhat far afield of their assigned area. As he did so, he also worked the Boston Whaler in an effort to counteract the oncoming wind and the swollen waves, which had become hungry mouths feeding on the bow and spilling over the gunwale. Now they were idling just off the side of the suspect boat, in textbook fashion.
Manley instructed through the horn, “Marine Patrol! Anyone aboard the schooner, come above deck, show yourselves, please, with hands raised behind the neck.”
If anyone showed, Manley would continue to instruct them in the proper and safe steps to take next, telling them to tug at their collars to raise their shirttails and to do a full 360-degree spin to show they had no concealed weapons. Only after protracted contact with the suspect through the bullhorn would Stallings pull in tight against the other boat, and only then would he and Manley board the other vehicle.
Handcuffing suspects on a bobbing boat posed other problems, but before one removed a suspect from a boat and placed him on an FMP boat, he had to be cuffed, hands behind the back.
Manley continued to hail the dimly lit cabin across from them, still getting no response; then he suddenly claimed to have seen a shadow against a window. But the windows were tinted, so Stallings wondered how his partner could see a thing. Stallings had seen nothing, but he trusted Rob’s eyes and instincts as if they were his own, so he gave a blast on the foghorn, the sea tossing them in an increasingly unfriendly manner toward the other boat now, the two boats kissing, buttressing one another at this point, each protected only by the big foam bumper guards Manley had quickly tossed over the side.
“ Everything calm there, Delta-four?” asked the voice over the radio.
Manley shouted over his shoulder, “Back us off a little ways, Ken.”
“ She’s not holding out here, partner,” Stallings told Manley, and then said to dispatch, ‘ ‘No problem. It appears no one’s aboard.” But he wondered even as he reported this to dispatch if it weren’t in error.
So far as Manley was concerned, whoever was on the sleek schooner was either ignoring them or in a drunken stupor. The suspect boat was anchored well in waters off Madeira Beach, where lights from shoreline restaurants twinkled back at them only to fade amid the catlike, encroaching fog. The ship sat out alone, by itself, apart from the hundreds of others anchored here, all as if by design, Stallings thought, a loner…
“ Let’s go easy, Rob,” he cautioned, feeling Manley’s impatience to board the other boat. Stallings could see the black man’s skin itching to move. “We got no probable cause, and we can’t go nosing around on board without something,” Ken reminded his friend of the restraining law.
They were out some distance from most of the anchored ships, most people preferring to sink anchor in a bit shallower depth. This time of year the locals knew that these waters-even the more protected bays-could never be completely trusted. This guy looked like a newcomer to the area. He had all the markings of a visitor save the one the law required: His port of origin was clearly missing-having been painted over perhaps? Or was it below the water- line, as the waves were cresting higher and higher. “Marine Patrol!” Manley bellowed again, but still there was no response from anyone aboard. “Maybe they’ve taken a launch in?” he suggested, but the lone dinghy was lashed to the deck.
“ Let’s try that registration number.”
Manley began the chant. “Oreo-Two-Charlie-Niner, Niner-no damnit, that’s an eight-no, hell! Can’t make it out. Damned if it doesn’t look’s’if it’s been intentionally obscured with paint or something.”
Marine law prohibited their going aboard without knowledge of the owner unless there was probable cause, provocation or impending need. If anyone were aboard, the siren ought to’ve blown out his hearing, and certainly he had to feel the bump and grind of the boats. If a guy were looking out a porthole-and there were several on this starboard side-he’d have to know they were cops, Stallings told himself. From their Stetsons to their 9mm Glock pistols, they were dressed identically to their state trooper counterparts. Besides, their boat was clearly marked.
Stallings brought the Boston Whaler around to the rear of the mystery ship, where they read her name, the Tau Cross. Hadn’t there been talk that authorities in Miami were looking for a boat in which the letter T and a cross might figure prominently in the name of the boat? Didn t the killer sign his bloody notes with a T-cross?
Manley almost whispered, “You see what I see, Ken?”
“ Yeah, I see…”
“ You take that and the obscured numbers and missing port of origin for probable cause in a murder investigation?”
“ Could be… could be…” Stallings knew they had plenty of reason to board the other boat, but a foreboding had overtaken him, a sense not of fear but of a palpable and distressing evil, a darkness, a force not unlike the now encroaching, engulfing fog, and he wondered if they ought not call in backup right this moment, surround the godforsaken suspect boat with numbers. “Maybe we’d best call it in, tell ‘em what we’ve got before we go any further. Get some backup out here, Rob.”
“ Something sure smells here, Ken.”
“ Agreed.”
“ No, I mean something really smells over here, just over the surface of the water.”
Stallings had worked with dogs on boats to search out drowning victims. Dogs could smell decay out over the surface of the water and when they sent up a howl, the divers knew where to search. Had Manley’s nose picked up something similar? Ken could smell nothing but the salt air, and a touch of metallic copper was filling his nostrils, a sure sign of an impending rain, possibly a squall. But he knew, too, that Manley’s instincts and senses were razor- sharp, like those of a hound.
Stallings was about to call it in when he heard his partner say, “Damn, damn… whata we got here?” Stallings looked over to see Manley tugging on a sleek black snake, a quarter-inch nylon rope hanging off the rear of the mystery ship. The rope was obviously weighted down with something.
Manley tugged hand over fist, and suddenly an eyeless, bloated, dead face rushed up at him, making him slip and fall on his elbows and butt, causing him to explode in a litany of curses as the unholy package he’d lifted from the water dropped back into the depths with an easy splash. “Mother-J-fuckin’-Christ-a-minny-damn! Call it in, damn you, Stallings! Call it in now! Get us backup out here. We’ve got a crime scene here! Damnit if it ain’t him; Jesus if it ain’t the freakin’ Night Crawler! Stallings began making the call, saying “Urgent, urgent” to clear the airways as much as possible.
Manley had regained his feet, but not his composure. “Call it in, damnit! Call it in and take us round to the side,” he demanded.
“ All at the same time? I’m doing my damned best.” Only a static-filled radio replied to Stallings’s call. Dispatch had obviously gotten busy with other calls.
Manley announced, “I’m climbing aboard.”
A Florida summer fog continued rolling in as if from nowhere, as if the clouds from heaven had come upon them to mask their doings. It seemed the work of a devil’s lieutenant, Stallings thought. The fog only lightly covered them at the moment, but it was thickening as it moved across their bow and creepily veiled the mysterious death ship, the Tau Cross.