Eyes Of The Storm

By Charles Lundy

Don Monoe is a retired detective waiting to die in a coming storm.He couldn't catch the killer who took several lives on Key Serpiente,the last being his own wife.

A young woman comes to his house as the winds howl.She says some has tried to kill her and she needs help. The old killer has returned to bury evidence in the waves.
New technology could unmask him. Don will have justice for the victims.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Lundy
• Release date: Jul 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370409099

Charles Lundy

Charles Lundy- I am a man born in another century that likes books and writing. Ideas are easy, writing is hard. Editing is torture. I spend my spare time gardening, inventing, hunting and working.

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Eyes of the Storm

Copyright 2009 Charles Lundy

Published by Charles Lundy at Smashwords

Published by Charles Lundy at Smashwords

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CHAPTER I

It was a wicked August day on Serpentine Key. The sun that blessed this vacation mecca was setting. The streets were deserted, even the animals had left. Like a mythic monster, the sea was coming to swallow the island. Hurricane James would make landfall in less than six hours.

Retired police chief Don Monroe lay sprawled against a sand dune on Telford Beach, a bottle of scotch in his hand. The drink ran down his neck and stained his starched shirt while waves licked his polished boots. People usually dress up for a funeral, especially their own. It shouldn't be too long before his was over. Besides, the uniform had just been hanging in his closet gathering dust for ten years, ever since his retirement. He was surprised to find it still fit. For a moment the brass buttons and stripes took him back to his days as the town's top cop. He could remember clearly when he was part of the thin blue line between the citizens and the crazies. Even so, he and his wife Tammy had loved island life. Now she was dead, and it was his fault.

A shrieking wind blew rain and sand in his face drawing him back to the present. He struggled to take a fading picture from his pocket. The sparkling eyes and mischievous grin always gazed back at him from the photo. His smile had faded long ago but he would never forget her, no matter what had happened.

Don began to sob quietly. I tried to save you. He took a drink and dropped his head back against the dune, his forearm resting across his eyes. I tried....

Don's grip relaxed, and the wind tugged Tammy's picture from his hand. The waves took it out to sea. He opened his eyes and raised up in time to watch as the photo went under. If he followed his plan, he'd join her soon. The advancing hurricane would bury him in its waves, bringing them both peace. Don lay back again, the image of Tammy's face still before him, and he remembered her fate.

Don and Tammy had lived on Serpiente Key for twenty years. At first it was a paradise. Citrus trees bloomed and bore fruit year round. Shorts were business attire. A marimba band played on a street corner every weekend for tourists who enjoyed bumping hips with the locals as well. But Serpiente was more than a tropical paradise. It had a varied history, too. It had been a military outpost first for the Spanish who built adobe forts. It was they who named it Serpiente, after the coral snakes that thrived in the area. The British added a deep harbor but kept the name. During World War II, a runway was put in for patrol planes that flew reconnaissance over the coastal waters searching out German subs. Rusting quonset huts still stood deteriorating beneath the sun and the creeping seagrape vines. When Coca Cola cost a nickle, rich industrialists arrived, building winter hideaways. They quickly gobbled up the surrounding property and began a development boom.

Now the island was in decline. The environmental movement and the presence of green sea turtles put a halt to the growth. The tycoons lost interest, and Serpiente went back to the locals.

This was fine with most of the residents who were primarily baby boomers living in their pastel 50's art-deco houses. They were not ready to give it up to the younger generation. This gave the place a sort of decaying charm. Don had often noted the effect it had on visitors. They would sit at the Oasis bar, drinks in hand, mesmerized by the vast Atlantic. After a few too many, accountants would be propositioning Sunday school teachers. After a few more, they'd accept.

Don considered himself immune to the effect of his surroundings, at least when he was on duty. They interfered with sober police work. At 6’2 and with two tours of Nam in the Air Force Force, he could handle the locals. It was his job to keep the college kids from going crazy in the summer while keeping tabs on the old people who already were. Hal Wimbly, his chief deputy, dubbed him Guardian of Virginity and Detector of Gas Leaks. Don had a special fondness for the old timers. Most called him son" and treated him like their own. Fixing toilets, cleaning gutters and the like was often part of his job.

Beneath the pleasant exterior, there was always something about Serpiente Key that made him uneasy. The atmosphere pulsed with a sub-tropical energy. This was good for tourism, not for law and order. Something about the place made people reckless. College girls would go topless at the beach. Old fools would wade out each year to catch the big one only to wash ashore a bloated corpse. In 1986, this atmosphere spawned a series of murders.

No one lives forever. Old people die, eventually. It was expected and often not investigated, unless something looked suspicious. In ‘86 there were suspicions. There was an increase in the number of deaths, some with peculiar details that didn't