Skull Wave (A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller Book 5) Read online

  Skull Wave

  A Troy Bodean Tropical Thriller #5

  David Berens

  SKULL WAVE

  A Troy Bodean Adventure

  By: David F. Berens

  All Rights Reserved © 2018 by David F. Berens

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Finegan Press 2018

  Contact the Author at:

  http://www.DavidFBerens.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  For the veterans who serve selflessly to give me the freedom and the right to live free and write whatever I want.

  Thank you for your service.

  Contents

  Introduction

  I. I’m On A Boat

  1. Yes, I Am A Pirate

  2. Tuesdays And Thursdays

  3. Practice Your Chops

  4. Jamaica, Mon

  5. Baby, You Can Drive My Carr

  6. Thai One On

  7. Peace and Blessings

  8. The Thrill Is Gone

  9. Now That’s A Knife

  10. Deep Cuts

  11. Butterflies

  12. Strangers In The Night

  13. Oops, I Did It Again

  II. A Knife And A Nudist

  14. Thunder And Lightning

  15. All My Bags Are Packed

  16. Naked Truths

  17. Tastes Like Chicken

  18. I’m On A Boat

  19. Face To Face

  III. Avast Ye Land Lubbers

  20. Tug-Tuggin’ Along

  21. Crash Into Me

  22. Off Into The Sunset

  Also by David Berens

  Introduction

  Wow… it’s been a really long and quite amazing journey. It’s been fun at times and it’s been really difficult at times. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought I’d have five complete, novel-length books in a series published… I’d have thought you were crazy.

  The ride has been more intense than I would have guessed. The series has endured title changes, cover changes, editing updates, and a roller coaster of storylines that has shown that Troy is a character worthy to stand the test of time.

  In this book, SKULL WAVE, I tried to pack in all the best qualities of Troy. The suspense, the crime, the zany cast of characters, and I did my best to flesh out the man himself. And in doing so, I discovered that Troy suffers from PTSD. For those that may not know, he is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan and until now, we haven’t seen any ill effects of that time.

  So, I only want to say that I have no personal experience with this. My family has many veterans of many different wars, but I am not one of them. My uncle served in and survived Vietnam and may very well have suffered from PTSD. I was too young to really understand and talk to him about it before he passed. I wish now that I had.

  I hope I have honored the true extent and seriousness of the issue. And I hope I have portrayed it with at least some semblance of truth. Thank you to all who have and continue to serve this country.

  And finally, will Troy continue? I’m sure he will. This book has some open ended questions when it’s all said and done, so I’m sure he’ll turn up somewhere new… We shall see.

  Enjoy.

  Part I

  I’m On A Boat

  “Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.”

  -William Shakespeare

  1

  Yes, I Am A Pirate

  Troy Clint Bodean woke to the gentle sloshing of waves patting the side of his new sailboat. A fortuitous finding of a stash of cash that had come from a couple of bad guys funded his recent purchase of the 1998 Island Packet 40 foot cutter. She was gorgeous and big! Hell, he had more room here than he’d had back on the houseboat in Key West.

  He stretched out his arms to both sides and couldn’t touch either wall. Sun streamed through the oval windows and the rocking of the waves almost put him back to sleep. He had brought his new boat up to Nags Head preferring to skip right on past South Carolina – too many bad memories there – and had found a fun little fresh fish and seafood restaurant to work in. Just a smidge better’n a dive with a hokey fiberglass shark on the roof, the place did a ton of business.

  Troy caught fish for them and worked as a line cook part time for those customers who – as the menu put it – “didn’t want to do the cookin’.” He knew how to do both those things, and he did them well. As a bonus, the seafood that was about to go out of date was handed over to the employees to do with as they wanted. More often than not, Troy had more to eat than he could handle.

  He sat upright quick remembering that he’d had a shrimp boil with Kimberly and Dana, a couple of the waitresses from last night. He didn’t remember them coming back to his boat, but neither of them was in bed with him, so that was a good sign. He sat up and stretched out the cricks in his neck and his head swam – definitely too many Coronas last night. But the girls were cute, the food was fantastic, and the music was tropical… a fun time was had by all.

  Pulling on his khaki shorts, he grabbed his hat and threw it on his head. His new Ray Ban Wayfarers – the Costas had fallen into the water a few months back – perched on his face nicely and made his grin turn more from McConaughey into Cruise… at least that’s what the girls had told him.

  He tapped his knuckles lightly on the other stateroom door. Nobody answered. Probably still hung over as hell. He decided to leave them be for a bit, maybe catch a few fish and throw back a mimosa or two… or maybe a bloody Mary. As if on cue, his head began to pound. The fridge revealed that his orange juice was out of date and empty to boot. The champagne bottle clinked around on the floor – just as empty. There were two beers sitting sideways in the fridge so he grabbed one and popped the top off.

  “It’ll have to do,” he muttered to himself and took a long gulp.

  When he began to feel slightly more human, he decided to head up on deck and see what the lobster cages had caught. Hauling them in by hand, he was pleased that they felt heavy. A good score would put a little money back in the bank for fuel and bait.

  Hand over hand he pulled the cage up and was happy to see several big guys clicking around the wire mesh. And that’s when everything stopped… or more precisely began to run in slow motion. At the center of the cage, with a lobster climbing on it, was a head… a human head. It had been chewed on for sure, but it looked like it hadn’t been there long. Dragging the cage on board, he got a better look at it and saw that there were – to his horror – two heads in the cage.

  The first was Dana’s… the second was Kimberly’s. Troy dropped the cage and bounded down the stairs to the stateroom. For reasons he didn’t understand, he knocked. He pounded. Nothing. He stepped back and put his foot up. Slamming it into the door, the jamb splintered and it sprung open. Inside the room were two beds covered in huge pools of blood.

  “Dangit.” Troy muttered. “Here we go again.”

  2

  Tuesdays And Thursdays

  Troy tried to recall how many times he’d been handcuffed, dragged from his home – or boat on some occasions – and thrown into a jail cell. Some of his days in Vegas and Louisiana were a bit hazy, but he could remember the odd instance her
e and there through the years. He tried desperately to shake off the blackout from last night and remember what the hell had happened, but it was hidden in margarita slush.

  He could remember most of the shrimp boil from down at the Austin Fish Company where he worked on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Kim and Dana had made a batch of shrimp with the wrong seasoning, so it had to be done all over again. Pounds and pounds of Cajun shrimp would be thrown out without even gettin’ cooked and the girls would foot the bill for screwing it up. Troy thought that was a crime, so he’d paid the tab, bought the shrimp, and offered the girls a meal after work if they could bring the beer. They’d laughed and giggled all the way to the Seaside Six Pack and back. Not long after that, the evening had started to glow. Troy boiled up the shrimp in the closed shop’s kitchen. Then they’d all sat underneath the scraggly palms out back at the picnic table, peeling shrimp, dippin’ ‘em into cocktail sauce, crackin’ open beers, and singin’ Bob Marley tunes until well after dark.

  And that’s pretty much where it all went black. Troy assumed he’d gone to the boat after that to sleep it off…and obviously the girls had come with him. Waking up to find the empty, blood-soaked beds would’ve been bad enough, but then to find their heads in the lobster cage. He shivered at the thought. What the hell had happened?

  The door to the cell opened and the officer who’d brought him down here cuffed him again, ushered him out. The island station wasn’t very big and Troy guessed there might’ve been four officers working including Darla at the front counter.

  “Hey, Troy,” she called and waved at him.

  “Darla,” he said as he nodded and realized his cowboy hat wasn’t on his head.

  Had they taken it from him or had he left it on the boat? He had no idea. As the officer led him down the hall toward one of the offices, he asked him about it.

  “Did I come in wearin’ a cowboy hat?”

  “Don’t remember no hat, buddy.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Troy hoped it was somewhere on the boat. Then he wondered if that was a ludicrous thought. He might never leave this jail again. The officer stopped them at the last door and knocked.

  “Y’all come on in,” a slow South-Carolinian drawl called from behind the frosted glass.

  The door read: Samuel F. DeFur in gold leaf, bold type letters. The officer opened the door, led Troy in, un-cuffed him, and directed him to sit in a chair across from a man sitting behind a slate gray steel desk. The surface of the desk was neatly organized into piles of manila folders, yellow pads, and loose sheets of paper. They were stacked meticulously. What the man didn’t have was a computer, a stapler, or a cup with various types of pens and pencils in it. He was holding a black Ticonderoga pencil in his left hand, the only writing instrument Troy could see anywhere in the office. The man’s right hand was on the yellow pad, tracing lines of notes written on it. His lips moved as he read silently. Every so often, he’d mumble something incoherent, make a small notation, and then continue on. Troy waited for what seemed like ten minutes before Sam looked up at him.

  “Well, well, well,” the detective said in Morgan Freeman’s voice. “Mista Bodean. What have we got here?”

  Troy took a deep breath. “Sir, I know what this must look like, but I didn’t have anything to do with those poor girls getting’—“

  “I see you served in Afghanistan, Mista Bodean.”

  “Sir, yes sir.” Troy felt himself inclined to answer that way, but he wasn’t sure why.

  “Army?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Admirable.”

  Troy shrugged his shoulders and said, “I suppose so, sir. I was just doin’ my duty.”

  His knee ached with the memory and he rubbed it with his hand.

  “Wounded?” Sam asked him.

  “Yes, sir. I.E.D.”

  “Ya know, I’ve heard a lotta stories ‘bout wounded soldiers comin’ back with them PTSD’s and goin’ off the rails. Maybe doin’ somethin’ grizzly, like killin’ them girls. Zat what happened here, Mista Bodean?”

  “Sir, no sir.”

  Sam was quiet for a long moment. He stared into Troy’s eyes. The man’s face was wrinkled and black in contrast with his stark white hair and eyebrows. His expression was hard as a rock. Troy felt like he was being searched down to his very soul under the man’s gaze. After a while, the detective leaned back in his chair…it didn’t creak at all. Troy imagined the man treating it regularly with WD-40 or maybe gun oil.

  Sam jerked a thumb toward the wall behind him.

  Without looking back, he asked, “You see them two girls there?”

  Troy nodded.

  “Them’s my babies.” He pulled his hand down and clasped his fingers together in front of him. “Oh, sure, one just turned seventeen and the other is almost fifteen, but they will always be daddy’s babies.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Sam slid a couple of photographs out of a folder and began laying them neatly in front of Troy. He could see they were pictures of Kim and Dana’s heads lying on a stainless steel table. He gulped.

  “Forensics, as best they can tell, what with the water and all, puts the time of these girl’s murder at somewhere around midnight…give or take an hour.”

  Troy opened his mouth and then shut it. He had nothing to say about that. Hell, he couldn’t remember midnight. What if I did have some sort of PTSD? What if I’ve finally snapped? No, it didn’t sit right with him.

  “These poor girls, as you know, have had their heads whacked clean off their bodies.” Sam tapped on of the photos. “Coroner says they came off in one stroke, Mista Bodean, one quick, clean stroke. Now, I don’t know about you, but I ain’t seen that before.”

  In fact, Troy had seen a couple of beheadings in Afghanistan, but it was always messy. Decapitation was a difficult thing to pull off at best, sometimes requiring up to ten hacks with an axe or a sword. Most times, terrorists used dull machetes. Troy shivered at the screams echoing in his head.

  “I can see the wheels turnin’ in your head, Troy,” Sam said. “I’d like to know where you were around midnight last night, but I’m pretty good at readin’ people’s thoughts. I’m bettin’ you can’t remember it at all, can you?”

  “No, sir,” Troy whispered.

  “Then let’s start with what you do remember.”

  Troy recounted the evening in as much detail as he could. From everything he could remember, it was a fun night. Lots of dancing, laughing, taking selfies, all of that.

  “Selfies?” Sam asked.

  “At least a thousand, sir.”

  Sam picked up his desk phone and punched a button.

  “Darla, do we know if anybody found a cell phone on Mista Bodean’s boat?”

  He listened for a minute, made a careful notation on his yellow pad and then laid the receiver down.

  “No phones found. Which makes sense, since their bodies were not recovered at the scene.”

  Troy slumped. He wasn’t sure what the phones might tell them, but he felt sure it would help him remember the night.

  “Now, I can’t let you outta here for now, Mista Bodean.” Sam stood and moved toward the door as he spoke. “But I want you to know that I ain’t sure this is on you. You may not know it, but we had a rash of strange things happen a few years ago that make me think this is somethin’ else. I’m gonna hold you for a bit while I do some checkin’ on these girls. Gonna see if I can find the bodies, and maybe the cell phones to go with ‘em.”

  The officer that had led him here came in and cuffed Troy again. Sam walked down the hall with them.

  “Do your best to get a little shut-eye, Mista Bodean,” Sam said as he grabbed his coat from a hook on the wall. “It might help jog your memory.”

  Troy nodded as he walked into the cell. The officer took the cuffs off and closed the door. Troy lay down on the stainless steel bench and closed his eyes. He didn’t sleep at all.

  The jangle of keys on the cell door let Troy know someone wa
s coming in. Actually, to call it a cell was a bit of a stretch. It was more like a drunk tank, all concrete block, stainless steel, and a heavy metal door with a narrow slat of wire-embedded window. As he stood, he was pretty sure every bone in his body crackled and popped. A long night lying on the bench made him stiff as a board. Troy held his hands out to be cuffed as Officer Duffy came through the door.

  “No need for that,” he waved him off as he said it. “Chief needs to see you. Long night?”

  “Slept like a baby.” Troy resisted the urge to rub his neck. “Don’t I get some scrambled eggs and bacon or somethin’ like that?”

  “If you were staying in longer, yup.”

  He motioned Troy down the hall. “I can at least get you a cup of coffee. How do you take it?”

  “Lots of sugar, lots of cream. Thanks.”

  He nodded as Troy opened the door.

  “Have a seat, Mista Bodean.”

  Troy sat, thankful the chair was cushioned.

  “Guess you’ll be wantin’ this back?”

  DeFur slid the outback tea-stained cowboy hat across his desk. Inside was a plastic bag with Troy’s wallet, his cell phone, and the key to his boat. He slid the hat on his head and tucked the other belongings into various pockets.