“After that dust up in Puerto Rico? How could he be bored?”
“You know those Ranger types,” he said.
“Thanks. I’ll give him a call.”
Ending that call, I searched for DJ’s number and hit the Call button.
“Jesse McDermitt,” he said. “I was just talking to your partner yesterday.”
“I know. He told me you were in the States. You busy for the next couple of days?”
“Nothing I can’t get out of,” he said, his voice dropping an octave.
“Can you meet me across the state in Fort Myers tomorrow?”
“Where and when?”
“There’s a place called Landings Marina on the east side of the Caloosahatchee River, just south of the Cape Coral bridge. We’ll arrive there by ten hundred. Don’t you even want to ask what for?”
“Why bother?” he said, his tone flippant. “If you’re involved, it definitely won’t be boring.”
I ended the call and put my phone back in my pocket.
“Who is DJ Martin?” Savannah asked.
“A one-legged pirate,” I replied with a half grin. “Tony and Paul are both in, too.”
“A one-legged—never mind, I’ll find out tomorrow. How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“How do you get people to do things,” she began, “without them even knowing what you want them to do? Billy, last night, and Tank and this DJ just now?”
“DJ’s a door-kicker, too,” I said. “He lost a leg in Afghanistan, but that barely slows him down. The world of spec-ops is pretty small.”
“That still doesn’t explain why someone would volunteer to put themselves in harm’s way without even knowing what they were up against.”
“What can I say?” I offered a grin. “I’m just a likable guy.”
She laughed. “Okay, Mr. Nice-Guy, why don’t you go pull some traps? And take one of these pests with you.”
“Come on, Finn,” I said, rising from the table. “The admiral wants stone crab claws for lunch.”
He rose and trotted after me.
Woden sat waiting for his command.
“Bleibe und bewachen, Woden.”
The big Rottweiler rose from where the two had settled on the rug and positioned himself between the door and where Savannah sat at the table. He’d remain on alert and move to keep himself between her and the door until I returned.
The traps out in the channel had been in the water for just a couple of days, so Finn and I headed across the clearing and out onto the floating pier on the north side of the island. I had four crab traps that’d been soaking there for three whole days. There were four more tied to the north pier, but they’d only been in the water for a little over a day.
As I pulled up the first trap, Finn started barking in anticipation.
“Calm down,” I told him.
Clam season had closed just a few weeks earlier. Finn would usually catch a few in the shallows between the main island and the little one just a few yards off the northern shore while I pulled the traps.
Hefting the trap to the pier, I saw that it had a couple of crabs with at least two big claws between them.
Pulling the remaining three traps, I quickly removed the legal-sized claws and put them in a small bucket before letting the crabs go back into the water. Crabs regenerate lost appendages when they molt, which they do up to twice a year for juveniles and at least once for adults.
As I carried the bucket back to the house, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that it was Detective Andersen.
“McDermitt,” I answered.
“Detective Andersen here,” he said. “Alberto Mar is being discharged now. I’m outside waiting for him and have a boat at the dock.”
“We’ll be waiting,” I said. “He’ll have fun here.”
I ended the call as I hurried up the steps.
“How many did you get?” Savannah asked as I came through the door.
I retrieved a colander from a cabinet. “Over a dozen. But I only checked the four traps on the north pier. Andersen and Alberto will be on their way soon.”
She looked up. “Now?”
“Andersen’s waiting for him to be wheeled out,” I replied, dumping the claws into the colander. “I better go check the traps on the south pier and see if we have some more.”
“Jesse, wait.”
I stopped at the door and turned around.
“He won’t have any clothes.”
“Hmm, yeah, that’s a problem. But not an insurmountable one. I can call Chyrel and have her run to the Kmart this afternoon.”
“Do that, and then check the other traps,” she said. “We’ll ask the detective to stay for lunch, also.”
I called Chyrel’s cell as I started down the steps. When I explained what the problem was, she was eager to help and asked what size he was.
“I don’t know. The doctor figured he was about six or eight, but he looks on the small side.”
“In comparison to Deuce’s kids or your grandson?”
“Yeah! He’s about as big as Trey. Can you call Julie and ask her what size clothes he wears?”
She agreed and promised to buy sizes both larger and smaller, just in case. We ended the call, and I stuffed the phone back into my pocket.
Finn sat by the end of the pier and cocked his head, watching me pull up the first trap.
“You know there’s some in there, don’t you?” I said. “Don’t worry, you and Woden will get a little, too.”
We ate a lot of seafood on our island, and both piers had cleaning stations. The fish waste was just dumped into the water and attracted all sorts of marine life. We caught quite a few lobsters, stone crabs, and even a few blue crabs in our traps. But the season for blue crabs was only two weeks in early fall.
After pulling up the fourth trap and breaking off three more claws, I rebaited each one and dropped them back in the water. When I turned to head back up to the house, Finn barked an alert.
He was standing at the end of the pier and looking off to the east toward Mac Travis’s island. His ears were up, or at least as up
