Mangrove Bayou Read Online Free PDF Page A

needed time.
    “Whatever, honey-bunny. Maybe you need to run take a look at it.”
    “I’ll do that.” John rose from his chair and headed for the door. They lived on Airport Road just a short distance east of the Osprey Yacht Club where he had the boat docked. He wasn’t too worried; the boat had excellent bilge pumps. Still, on a boat, splashing water was not something you looked at the next morning.
    Tats Michaels waited in the darkness in the forward cabin aboard the boat. He had parked his pickup truck up the road and, wearing his black wetsuit, had swum around the yacht club fence. Katie had lowered the swim ladder for him to climb aboard. He had laid his trap in the engine space and Katie had handed him the electric drill.
    “Did you use gloves, like I tole you?” he had asked. She nodded. He was wearing his wetsuit neoprene gloves himself.
    He had plugged the drill into a convenient outlet and then hid it under a folded towel. “Good girl. Now go get him.”
    “OK, honey-bunny. Might be a half-hour or so. You be patient, now.”
    “I know what I’m doing. This is my part of the job, remember.”
    She kissed him. He felt her rear end, which was not so effective with quarter-inch-thick neoprene gloves. “Soon. Soon we can be together all the time.”
    She giggled. “You’re my guy. Always have been. Always will be.”
    “Always,” Tats had said. “I like the sound of that. Go get him.”
    It was a half-hour before he felt the boat rock slightly and heard the door open from the deck to the main salon. He waited. He heard footsteps going aft. When he heard the hatch cover being lifted to the engine space under the aft cabin, he crept out of the front cabin and moved silently aft too, his wet suit “booties” making no sound on the carpet covering the salon deck.
    John Barrymore was in the engine space, in salt water up to his knees. He had found the leak and stopped that and now was trying to figure out why the bilge pump in the engine space wasn’t working. He was leaning on the big diesel engine when he heard a splash beside him and looked down. He felt a paralyzing shock shoot through his body and his world turned to blackness.

Chapter 7
    Monday, July 22
    Troy was doing paperwork in his office and listening to the morning news on the small television set on top of one of the filing cabinets. A major low-pressure area had formed in the western Caribbean and was slowly headed their way. Forecasters thought it might strengthen into a tropical storm.
    June Dundee looked in the open office door that he rarely closed. She didn’t usually work Mondays, but she had asked for the previous Saturday off and Troy had filled in for her. She said nothing, just looked at him. He had already learned that this was her way of interrupting him. He laid aside the monthly expense report and looked up and to his left. “Yes?”
    “Got a customer.” June was wearing her sweater vest again today, against the chill in the building. The officers, in their long-sleeve uniforms, liked it cold. It occurred to Troy that once they switched to the new lighter-weight uniforms he had ordered for them, maybe he could turn up the air conditioner a little. That would make both June and Mortimer Potem, the town manager, happy. And if Potem was happy, Lester Groud, the mayor, was happy.
    June motioned to someone in the hallway and then came in and stood by the file cabinets to Troy’s left. June glanced at the television. “You know,” she said, “you can call up the damn weather on your computer any time you want. And they have better information.”
    “I’m old-fashioned,” Troy said. He clicked a remote to shut off the television.
    “I’ll say.” She looked at his desk. “You’re the only guy I know uses a fountain pen. Might be the only person in town who owns a fountain pen.”
    “I like my fountain pen.”
    A small woman, mid-twenties, slightly pudgy, white with minimal tan, brown hair shoulder-length, came into