Don Beverly's
latest Jake McCall adventure/mystery novel:
THE RIPPLE
EFFECT MURDERS,
(now available in ebook format), describing the bloody
trail of dismembered murder victims which McCall and his
DEA counterpart find themselves following from peaceful
Madeira Bay in the Florida Keys to the bisexual
underbelly of Las Vegas.
What
originally appears to be just another drug deal gone bad
involuntarily exposes Jake to the infamous gay and
lesbian lifestyle in Key West, effectively being used by
a socially and politically prominent couple to
camouflage their creative scheme for the importation of
cocaine from Mexico.
Predictably, the drug dealing leads to murder, a lethal
formula which in turn requires that Jake reluctantly
enlist the brain power of a disenfranchised and gay New
York cop, now a wheelchair bound forensic genius living
in Key West.
McCall learns early in his investigation that the
unidentified killer has carried the narcissism of a
sociopathic personality to new levels, "branding" each
of the gruesome serial murders by dissecting corpses
with surgical precision, proudly using only a customized
fisherman's knife designed to fillet large Marlin and
tuna.
After a bloody road trip across Interstate 10 through
Louisiana to attend the Gay Pride Extravaganza in Vegas,
the killer unwittingly kidnaps a female FBI agent and
engages Jake and his team in a high speed chase across
the Nevada desert and back into the glitter of the Vegas
Strip where, to say the least, the game changes to one
unlike anything the city of games has ever seen.
This is truly a story with a spellbinding ending which
"stays in Vegas!"
It's a wild story and
here's a sampling of THE
RIPPLE EFFECT MURDERS
to "whet" your appetite:
Sample Chapters
As
Jake pulled into the Bamboo Marina parking lot he
immediately spotted the Marine Patrol's thirty-one foot
Contender tied to the dock next to where he had earlier
that afternoon left the Sea Chaser. He also noted that
a Border Patrol marked car was parked adjacent to the
dock area where the two boats were located. Since it
was now well after dark he could only see what was
visible from the illumination of the dock lights, but
was able to clearly make out two uniformed men standing
on the dock with a third man wearing civilian clothes.
The three were talking, but turned as they noticed Jake
pull into a parking space next to the Border Patrol
sedan. As he exited his Jeep, the three began walking
toward him. The Marine Patrol officer spoke first,
"You
must be Jake McCall. My name is Herb Clifton. First,
let me apologize again for the inconvenience."
Jake
nodded at the introduction and as the two shook hands,
the officer continued,
"Let
me also introduce you to Vinny Robellini of the Border
Patrol and Tony Dowell, who's been assigned by the DEA
to help figure this thing out."
Jake
shook hands with the other two and as he did so asked,
"What
‘thing’ is it you're tryin' to figure out? I obviously
missed somethin' when I pulled this damn little boat in
from Madeira Bay, so what's the deal? And what does all
this have to do with me, since you guys surely know more
than I do at this point. All I did was make the mistake
of towing this damn boat back to the marina. Just the
fact the DEA is involved tells me somethin'. I've
already heard of Dowell's reputation from my buddy, John
Reed, so there's gotta be more goin' on here than just a
lost boater. What's up?"
When
Dowell heard Jake mention Reed's name he smiled and
stepped forward,
“Good
God, Jake, now I know who you are. You and Reed are
legends in the Miami office since you did the Cuban
mission several months ago. Since then I've worked
another case with Reed and he's a bad dude. I'm just
glad he's on our side, so if you're in his league we'll
have to call you 'sir'."
Jake
laughed at the agent's description of Reed, but noticed
the reference to the Cuban episode had gotten the
attention of the two uniformed men,
"Well,
thanks for the compliment, but I sure as hell don't put
myself in the same 'bad dude' class as John Reed, since
he's one of a kind. I'm just glad to have him as a good
friend. But back to business, what have you guys found
in this boat that I missed?"
Dowell
continued,
"I
gather from what Officer Clifton learned from his
inspection of the boat that you only looked at the
cockpit area and maybe the Igloo cooler, without
bothering to check out the bait well or battery
compartment."
Jake
interrupted,
"You're absolutely right! I took a quick look at the
cockpit, checked the cooler, hooked up a tow line and
here we are. I had no reason to look in all the nooks
and crannies and wasn't interested. All I wanted to do
was get rid of the damn thing, eat some stone crabs at
Sloppy's and get home to my Australian Shepherd in
Okeechobee."
"O.K.", said Dowell,
"Here's what we've learned since Clifton took over and
then got the Border Patrol and my agency involved. Tony
checked out the owner of the boat and learned it's not
titled in an individual name but rather some bogus
corporate-sounding outfit which isn't even registered
with the Secretary of State's Office in Tallahassee as a
Florida corporation. We've traced ownership of the boat
since it was manufactured back in 2001. It originally
was shipped with a truckload of new boats to a dealer in
Hypoluxo and didn't sell for almost a year. Then it was
bought by a local guy named Berman who kept it for
several years, then traded it in on a bigger used Mako
at the same dealership. It again sat at the dealership
for over six months until they decided to have a used
boat auction and blow out a bunch of old inventory,
which they did in March, 2006, the same week as the
annual Palm Beach Boat Show. The boat was bought by a
local named DiNardo who we were actually able to track
down and talk to about an hour ago. Nice guy and
cooperative, but knew nothing except he owned the boat
until a few months back, kept it in meticulous condition
and always under cover, but decided to sell it when his
kids left home. Said he advertised it in the Boat
Trader and sold it two weeks later to some guy with a
heavy accent. But, of course, accents aren’t unusual in
South Florida. Said the guy didn't haggle over the
price, paid him in cash, hooked up the boat and left.
He signed the title, gave it to the buyer and never
heard another peep outta him. Has no idea what his name
was, got no phone number and obviously never saw a
check. So we ran the title transfer and came up with an
address in West Palm Beach which turned out to be a
vacant lot on North Olive Avenue and again, an owner
which is likewise fictitious. Now it gets better!
Clifton, since you initially inspected the boat, how
'bout tellin' Mr. McCall what you found, then we'll all
take another look at it."
Clifton pulled a small note pad from his shirt pocket,
"Sure,
let me just start at the beginning. Dispatch called
within a few minutes of Mr. McCall's report that he had
towed the boat in from Madeira Bay and was leaving it
here in Key Largo at the Bamboo Marina. I was out on
the Atlantic side and about seven or eight miles
southeast when I got the call. I was helping some kids
get their outboard started after they ran outta gas but
left pretty quick and was here in less than thirty
minutes. When I first looked at the boat I reacted just
like Mr. McCall. Just looked like a typical day trip
gone bad when the boat got away and left somebody on the
beach with no way home.
Then I
lifted the hatch cover off the bait well and almost had
a damn stroke. It was crammed full of cocaine. After
that I pulled the hatch cover off the battery
compartment. Same story! Next I opened the two little
doors under the console and that compartment was also
full. Not a very sophisticated effort to hide the
stuff, if you ask me, and frankly, based on what I've
seen, the last boat you'd ever expect to be carryin'
this kinda' load. Maybe that's the whole point, at
least until the boat driver decided to vanish.
But we
can agree on one thing. He sure as hell didn't leave a
boatload of coke to go down a pretty sand beach lookin'
for seashells! So, Mr. McCall, now you know why we
asked you to make a u-turn and why we need to get back
up to Madeira Bay first thing in the morning and learn
what we can."
As
Dowell had promised, the three men were all loaded in
the gray Marine Patrol Tahoe and headed back to the
Bamboo Marina where Clifton had left his Contender the
previous night when he, Dowell and Robellini had loaded
the drug laden Sea Chaser and hauled it away to be
locked up and more fully examined. Two more DEA agents
had come down from Miami to photograph the boat as the
cocaine packets were unloaded and the boat disassembled,
a process which had lasted well into the night and early
morning hours. In addition to removal of the taped
packets from the bait well, battery hatch and console
cabinet, more packets were found stashed in the
compartment under the front seat and even in the anchor
locker in the bow. After the agents had thoroughly
cleaned and inspected the readily accessible areas, they
began to remove the deck plates which were attached with
stainless steel screws to the underlying stringers, all
of which were wrapped in fiberglass and provided the
support structure for the cockpit floor, elevated from a
few inches in the bow to almost a foot of open bilge
space in the stern. Dowell explained this detailed
investigation process to Jake as they drove,
"Now
to the good part! Based on the volume of coke which had
been jammed into every corner of the boat, we know it
had been used as a commuter to offload from some sort of
mother boat sitting out in the Gulf. But the so-called
mother ship program has been sorta' abandoned 'cause the
shrimpers are pretty well monitored these days and the
current satellite imagery can easily pick up anything
that big electronically. Any boat that size has to have
a reason to be there and with today’s chase boats that
can run over a hundred miles per hour the druggies have
to use the same type boats to bring the stuff over from
Mexico, which is what they do now.
So,
logically, the inconspicuous little boat was bought to
complete the delivery cycle since the Sea Chaser is
fairly fast, stable in a moderate chop and can carry a
big load out of sight. Adding two and two, the delivery
boat came in from Mexico, met the Sea Chaser at some
predetermined GPS waypoint, packed it full of coke and
sent it to a delivery spot somewhere in the area where
you were fishing, since it doesn't fit the prototype for
a drug boat at all. A Cigarette, Yellowfin or Fountain
would immediately attract attention, but not this dinky
little thing which could be bought for a few thousand
dollars and deliver millions of dollars worth of coke
per trip.
But
that's not the whole story yet. I told you we pulled up
the floor deck panels, right? Lo and behold, these guys
had already done the same thing and stashed in the bilge
enough AK-47s to start a small war. Not a huge surprise
since this is the weapon of choice for the druggies. The
weird part is they were apparently bringing these guns
into the U.S. where they're already easy to find and the
bilge space could've been used to store more coke, worth
a hell of a lot more than the guns. So the reason for
the guns being there was different and we've got to
figure out why. Not to complicate what seems to be the
obvious, but this stuff may not have been headed into
the Keys at all. Maybe it was headed up toward
Everglades City and after the boat got loose it just
went where the tide took it. For the time being though,
my money is still on the Keys as the destination.
Remember, it appears things began to go haywire when the
guy driving the Sea Chaser pulled up on the beach for
some reason, maybe just to go to the bathroom or take a
nap after being up all day and night. Bottom line is,
somehow the boat and driver got separated and you found
the boat. Now we have to find the driver which may have
already happened. Before we met you for breakfast, I
got a call from the office. After midnight last night
two guys from Tavernier were up in the mangroves back
out toward Cape Sable checking their crab traps. They
saw a dead man floating along with the tide and called
the Sheriff's office, who sent their boat out to pick up
the body. Only thing is, it turned out to be only part
of a body. The guy had been dismembered just like those
girls down south everybody thought Joe G. had done. But
Joe G.'s in jail and this is the first murder of this
type we've encountered since he went to jail several
years ago. Now that the plot thickens, we need your
help more than when it was just a drug deal gone bad.
We need for you to take us to precisely where you
first saw the boat and explain what the tide was doing.
At least we'll get some idea of where to start looking
for what is now a crime scene."
As
Jake heard the story unfold he began to think back on
the previous day's fishing trip,
"I've
told you guys I'll do what I can but this latest little
wrinkle puts a whole different spin on things.
Obviously somebody got in a pissin' contest about the
boatload of drugs. Secondly, 'stead of a single boat
driver there had to be two. Third, for whatever reason
they both somehow got separated from the boat and
lastly, the murder didn't happen on the Sea Chaser since
it was clean as a pin. So maybe the two stopped off on
the beach to avoid bein' seen travellin’ back to the
Keys in the daylight and that's when and where they got
in an argument or maybe one just got greedy and decided
to take all the money himself since the hard part was
over.
If any
of my theory makes sense I think I know exactly where we
need to start lookin'. We used to go there and camp out
as kids. The beach is wide and you have to wind in
through the mangrove heads to find the place. Only the
locals know about it and hardly anybody goes there
anymore. I've always heard the Cuban fishermen used to
camp there way back in the 1800's and we even found
pieces of ole' shacks which the hurricanes had torn all
to hell. Why not start there and work our way back
since any tide action from the Gulf side woulda' taken
the boat due south and I never could've seen it. Also,
anything this side of East Cape all the way around to
the canal is only knee deep or less at low tide, so
maybe these guys got trapped by the outgoin' tide when
they stopped or even just ran aground as the tide was
goin' out. Either way, they weren't gonna physically
pick up a boat load of drugs and move it anywhere.
Maybe that's what started a fight when the one drivin'
the boat got it stuck and one thing led to another. I'm
sure we're not dealin' here with a couple of rocket
scientists."
By the
time Jake had completed laying out his ideas of where to
start looking for the crime scene the group was at the
marina. Without much further discussion except to agree
on Jake's plan, they were aboard the Contender and
headed under the bridge and northwest toward Madeira Bay
and the strip of beach along the southern tip of the
peninsula Jake had described. Clifton knew the area
well and with the speed of the Contender and with two or
three pointers from Jake they were soon in shallow water
and following the narrow channel along the shoreline.
Fortunately, the tide was dead high, giving them a
window of time to explore without getting in the same
tidal trap which had most likely caught the two
druggies. In less than another thirty minutes of
careful navigating, Clifton had eased the bow of the
Contender into the shallow water which lapped up against
the stretch of beach Jake was searching for. Clifton
shut off the three big Mercury 250-horsepower outboards
which had already been trimmed up as far as possible
with the jack plate without causing cavitation,
"Whatever we're doing here, let's work fast, since when
the tide turns up in these shallows the water will leave
here faster than we can keep up. If that happens, we're
stuck for another twelve hours."
Jake
was already barefoot and wading toward the beach,
followed by Dowell and Robellini. Clifton threw out an
anchor and was right behind. When they got to the
beach, Jake said,
"Let's
split up. Tony and I'll go right and you two go left.
This whole stretch is only about a mile long so if
anything's here we'll know pretty quick."
The
men split up as Jake suggested and walked away in
different directions along the firm sandy edge of the
beach right above the water line. As Jake had forecast,
each team had come to the end of the beach in less than
fifteen minutes and all were back at the Contender in
half an hour with no findings to report. Since they
were all now hot and sweaty from the walk, not much was
said until everyone was back on board the Contender and
Clifton began backing away in the shallow water. Jake
looked around and pointed back east,
"Tony,
I've only got one more spot where these guys may have
holed up for the night. Let's get back outta these
mangroves, get in some deeper water and run back east
toward the East Cape Canal until you see a big patch of
white sand in front of a little stand of Australian Pine
scrub trees. If nothin's there, I give up."
They
all scanned the shoreline for the spot Jake had
described and almost as soon as they cleared the line of
mangroves and got into deeper water, there it was. But
it was at least a half mile northeast and separated by
another several hundred yards of knee deep water.
Clifton slowed to an idle and again trimmed the engines
up out of the sand,
"This
time I think I better stay with the boat while you three
check out the beach. I don't want it to get stuck or
float away. Both are bad options."
As
soon as the engines were put in neutral, Jake and the
other two jumped back in the shallow water and began
wading to shore. Dowell got to the beach first,
"There's a pile of somethin' up there by those little
trees. May just be some driftwood and stuff but looks
like a piece of cloth hangin' off one end."
The
three trotted toward what now appeared to be a pile of
debris, but as Dowell got closer, he called back,
"Good
God! It's a piece of human body. This has to be what
we're lookin' for. You two look around while I go back
to the boat for my camera and cell phone so we can call
in the Sheriff's helicopter."
