“I wonder how long he’d been out there?” Fife asked, rhetorically.
“No more than three or four days without water,” I replied, studying the canvas closer. “Check this out.”
He leaned over the boat and I showed him a label sewn into the edge of the canvas cover.
Fife looked over at me. “Ray’s Custom Canvas?”
“I know a place called that up in Fort Myers,” I said.
“That’s a hundred miles away.”
“More than that,” I said, as my mind calculated the currents. “A hundred and thirty to Fort Myers Beach.”
“But a boat can’t get this far without some means of propulsion.”
“The Loop Current,” I said. “It flows into the Gulf between the Yucatan and Cuba, then curves around to flow south along the Florida coast before it joins the Gulf Stream in the Straits.”
“But that’s still a long way,” Fife offered, bending low and checking the boat’s exterior hull.
“It flows at about three knots,” I said, looking south across the new bridge, to where the two mighty currents converged. “If a boat drifting off Fort Myers was caught in the Loop, it could be right out there in less than three days, allowing for twice daily tide changes that slow the current. Less if the Loop Current moved farther north.”
“It moves?” Fife asked, obviously curious.
“At times, it barely flows into the Gulf before turning east,” I replied. “Other times, it brushes the coast of Louisiana, the Panhandle, and the west coast. I never looked into why; maybe it has to do with how much flow is coming out of the Mississippi River.”
“You sound like a cop,” Fife said. “Or a scientist. What do you do for a living, Mr. McDermitt?”
I grinned at him. “I live,” I replied. “And call me Jesse. Everyone around here does.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I live?”
“I’m retired military. And I own a fishing and diving charter business. Savannah and I live on a private island I bought twenty years ago. We don’t work for a living. We live for a living.”
It was something my old friend, Tank had told me. He’d come to the Keys just before my and Savannah’s wedding and stayed on. He’d told me then that he was dying of cancer and he just wanted to live for a living.
“I’m pretty sure the boat was made in Cuba,” Fife said. “I’ve seen more than my share, not always with living passengers.”
“A Cuban boat,” I began, thinking out loud, “with an American kid on board, covered by a tarp made in Florida? One of these things doesn’t match the other two.”
“You sound like my lieutenant.”
“Then he’s a smart man,” I said. “Always look for patterns and just because one thing doesn’t fit, doesn’t mean it’s not a part of the pattern. Just like the Loop Current. It changes location and anything floating on it is affected by the tides and wind. But its existence is a constant and the changes are anomalies.”
“You sure you’re not a cop?” he asked, peering closely at the transom board.
“I also own part of a security firm up island,” I replied. “And over the years I’ve done some ‘consulting’ with federal and local law enforcement.”
He bent over and examined the inboard side of the transom. “Hey, look at this.”
I went back to where he was standing.
“It looks like a word is sort of carved or etched in the wood,” he said, holding his smart phone up and trying to shield the sun to take a picture.
Leaning over, I picked up the canvas. When I held it up, it reflected some of the sun’s light sideways across the transom, giving the markings more definition.
“Alberto Mar?” Fife asked, snapping several pictures.
The wood was soft and it looked like the name had been scratched into it with a small knife or something.
“Can you radio the ambulance?” I asked. “And see if the boy has a pocketknife?”
He pressed the button on his lapel mic and asked his dispatcher to contact the ambulance and find out. Then he continued to examine the little boat, scanning every part of it in turn.
A few minutes later, the dispatcher said that yes, the boy had a small, antique-looking, folding knife in his pants pocket.
“So, the kid’s name’s Alberto Mar,” Fife said, rubbing his chin. “Ties in with his appearance. Not so much with his very American accent.”
“Mar means sea in Spanish,” I said. “Could be more to it that he didn’t finish. Martinez, Marina, Martin… Probably a lot more.”
Fife scribbled on his notepad again.
“I’d go with the notion that he’s from the Fort Myers area,” I offered. “Like you said, boats like this have drifted ashore many times. Maybe this one ended up on Florida’s west coast somehow.”
Fife nodded his agreement. “That makes more sense than an American-made tarp and an American kid ending up in Cuba and drifting back.”
“What should I do with the boat?” Brian asked.
“Let’s get it up on the sand,” Fife replied. “At least until we find out who the kid is and where he and this boat came from.”
Brian pointed to three other men, ordering them into the water. Together, the six of us easily lifted the boat over the rocks and carried it up onto the beach.
“Can I give you a lift to the hospital?” Fife asked. “I’m going there anyway.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “It doesn’t look like there’s anything more to learn here.”
We went up the ramp to where his cruiser was parked, the engine idling. There was a large K-9 stencil on the rear fender, and I could see a dog in the back of the patrol car.
Fife unlocked the car and opened the passenger door. “Major gets less excited if I hold the door for someone,” Fife explained.
I got in. Barely. The passenger seat had been slid forward about as far as it would go and there was a plethora of gadgets situated within easy reach of the driver’s seat, but they encroached on the passenger side.
The dog looked at me, his ears up and alert to my every move. He
