The Bakken Blade by Jeff Siebold

Author:Jeff Siebold [Siebold, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781733638708
Publisher: Siebold Group Consulting, LLC
Published: 2019-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

“I’m back,” said Zeke. He was standing in the doorway of the Monroe County Police Information Management room, talking to Susie again. Her blonde hair was still frizzy, and today she wore pink shorts and a t-shirt with “Changes in Latitudes” lettered across the back.

Susie turned in her seat and looked at Zeke. Her lack of expression is a huge contrast with her sharp mind, he thought.

“Pete Blazen let you come back here without him?” she asked. “He must like you.”

With a dose of false modesty, Zeke joked, “What’s not to like?”

“Well, it’s OK with me,” she said.

“Thank you. I flew back down this morning. We’re chasing down a lead on that boat explosion,” said Zeke.

“Your parents’ boat.”

“Yes.”

“Where’d you fly in from?” asked Susie.

“You’re not going to believe it,” said Zeke.

“Try me.”

“Williston, North Dakota,” Zeke said.

“You’re right. I don’t believe you. So, how can I help with the explosion?” asked Susie.

“We picked up a man about an hour before the explosion, I think. He’d run aground and couldn’t get his fishing boat off the reef. I think he threw an anchor out and rode back to the marina with us.”

“You think?” asked Susie.

“I’m pretty sure. But that was a long time ago. I suppose I could be remembering it wrong…”

“Do you remember the name of the boat?” she asked.

“No, not really. It was a workboat, the kind you use for raising and lowering lobster traps, and for serious commercial fishing. Boxy and worn and professional. And it had the winches and pulleys and stuff attached.”

“You’re looking for a single boat in the Keys?” asked Susie. “There’re over 930,000 boats registered in Florida alone.”

“Yeah, I know it’s crazy.”

“Did anyone radio in the location of the boat? Where it had run aground?” she asked.

“That’s something my dad would have done. He was pretty meticulous about that kind of thing,” said Zeke.

“So what was the date of the explosion?” asked Susie. She turned her chair back to her computer terminal, fingers ready, waiting.

It was May 12, 1989,” said Zeke.

“How old were you then?”

“I was eight, almost nine. We lived aboard the West Wind, sailed all around these waters.”

Susie was nodding, but her attention was on the screen in front of her.

“You said it was called in that afternoon?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure.”

“We have access to the Coast Guard radio reports for vessels in our waters. Monroe County, that is. These radio logs would have been scanned into our system with a lot of others. After the Mariel Boat Lift in 1980, the Coast Guard got big on redundancy, and they used our computers and our files to keep duplicate copies of most everything in Monroe County. Let’s see…”

Susie clicked some keys, read her screen and clicked some more.

“How about that,” she said. “Here’s a radio call from the West Wind to the Coast Guard on that day, reporting a fishing boat that ran aground on a sandbar next to the channel that runs under Seven Mile Bridge. That’s not far from Boot Key, either.

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