An Intriguing Excerpt from my new cozy mystery Flotsam &
Jetsam: the Amelia Island Affair:
Three corpses strewn across the sand. Who are
they and how did they get to the shore of Amelia Island? Two State Park rangers
must find the answers, while contending with a mysterious cabal and mutual
affection.
Excerpt: Cocaine
She clambered
over the side and started examining the bow. “Nothing here.”
“Check the stern.
I’m going below.”
Ellie
systematically searched the stern, lifting up seat cushions soaked from the
rain and opening storage lockers. A rope sat in a jumbled heap by the cockpit
wall. Under a small fold-out table, she noticed a red stain and bent down. It
was dry. She scraped her fingernail in it and brought it to her nose. “Blood. I
found blood, Simon!”
“A lot?”
“Puddle about six
inches in diameter.”
“That’s nothing.
I found a lot of blood. Oh, and a
body.”
Before Ellie
could make it to the gangway, Simon came up, his phone to his ear. “Yes, we’re
at the Panther Point Marina. Boat named…” He raised an eyebrow at Ellie who
dutifully looked over the side.
“Mercy Louise.”
“Mercy Louise. What? Oh, I’d say quite a
while. Yes, we’ll wait here.”
Ellie tried to
peer past him. “Who is it?”
“I’m guessing
it’s Captain Goodwine.”
“How did he die?”
“Can’t tell.
Don’t want to disturb the crime scene. Better wait.”
Two hours later,
Virgil and Iggy carried a stretcher out to an ambulance. A detective came up
from the cabin.
Simon held up a
hand. “So? What does the forensics guy say, Zack?”
“He died from
loss of blood.”
“And how did he
lose this blood?”
“When a sharp
object, maybe a Bowie knife, passed through his right side. Bled out.”
“Any sign of the
knife?” When Zack shook his head, he asked, “Did he die right away?”
“Don’t think so.
From the trail of blood stains, he was probably stabbed up on deck, then
stumbled down into the galley.”
“But…” Ellie
seemed puzzled. “If he was at sea when he died, how did he manage to get back
here?”
Zack gave her an
odd look. “What makes you think he was at sea?”
Before she could
answer, a chubby man in a T-shirt marked Nassau County CSI rounded the
wheelhouse, stuffing a small brown envelope into his tote bag.
“Any trace of the
murder weapon?”
“Not yet.” He
yelled down the gangway. “Steve? Find anything below?”
A disembodied
voice called, “Blood. Looks like several sets of fingerprints…”
“What about the
hold?”
“Opening it
now…Wait a minute. Oh, yum.” A head topped by fiery red hair and freckles that
clashed with his grim expression popped up in the hatch. He lifted a fist, in
it a square package wrapped in cloth and tied with string. Simon could make out
the words Cane Sugar, Product of Costa
Rica.
“That the only
one?”
“I’ll wager we
had a bumper crop of sugar cane recently.”
Ellie pushed past
Simon. “What is it?”
“Cocaine, ma’am.
Lots and lots of it.”
 |
| The Mercy Louise |
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