On a Lee Shore 15 - Pursuit

   Cara stumbled into the bungalow, the spring-loaded front door slamming shut behind her with a pop like rifle shot, sending yet another jolt to her already ragged nerves.  But never mind that, she was home and all was quiet, except for Frank Sinatra’s oaken-timbre crooning of “In The Wee Small Hours” and the buzz of cicadas from the trees outside.  Regrettably though, the sense of relief that hit her bloodstream like an opiate, would prove short-lived, for only moments later, it was destroyed by a commotion in the darkness to her left.  Swinging his legs off the couch, her father pulled his unbuttoned shirt closed while his companion, Paula, struggled behind her back to re-fasten her bra.

   “Seriously, guys, what the hell??” she spat in exasperation.

   All her father could manage was a mumbled apology and Paula blushed red enough to be seen in the dim light.  Cara headed directly for her room, the only place in the universe she imagined might offer refuge from this disconcerting scene.  She went over to her dresser, found two Ativans, popped them dry, flopped on her stomach on the bed, pushed her head deep into the pillow and awaited unconsciousness.  

   Time passed, the drug took effect, her mind wandered and she relaxed.  “Whatever.  Another one,”  she thought.  “That stupid idiot.”

    It wasn’t as if she’d heard his bed creaking and them moaning.  He’d spared her that anyway.  Paula had nice ones.  She wished she did.  Well maybe if they had twenty years taken off.  

   “I’m half Hispanic,” she thought.  “Aren’t Hispanic women supposed to have big breasts?”

   Women were attracted to Dad.  She’d give him that.  She wasn’t inclined to give him credit for much else at the moment.  Paula was well preserved for a forty-something.  He could seem so helpless.   But she knew his conniving mind.  He had a way of  talking you inside out.  Making you feel like a germ in a petri dish after awhile.  She’d grown up with him and was immune.  As smart as she knew Paula to be, she would see through him, at least eventually, and hold her own.  Paula and Dad.   On second thought, this could only improve things.  Paula was the strong, no bullshit type.  Dad was the weak, total bullshit type, at least for the last few years he had been.  If it took, this could be a good thing.  For her Dad anyway.  Her thoughts became less and less coherent as she drifted.  

   But before the medication could take her completely under, she remembered what Miles had told her at work.  Once again, she heard him in her head:  

   “Not much.  I’ve got to go down to Key West on Wednesday night …”

   She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and texted Shannon.  

   “You up?”

   As she waited, it occurred to her, she’d never heard the front door open or shut, which meant that Paula was still in the house.  She got up and peeked out into the darkened great room.  No one.  There was dim light coming from under her father’s door.  She moved over to the window.  Paula’s car was still outside.  

   “Nice,”  she thought.  “I busted them and they’re still going to. ”

   “Yeah,”  came Shannon’s reply.

   Cara called her.

   “Hey.  Wednesday night,”  Cara blurted out.  “He told me he’s going to Key West on Wednesday night.”

   “So.”

   “So… he was lying. “

   “Are you sure?”  asked Shannon.

   “As sure as I can be.  It was the way he said it.  Anyway, I think it’s worth a shot to follow him.  See what he does.”

   “Okay.  Get the night off.  When did he say he was going down there?  Where would he be leaving from?”

   “I don’t know,” Cara replied.   “We’ll just have to wait.  You hang out near his apartment.  I’ll work like normal, in case he comes into the bar.  If he comes in and I’m not there he might get suspicious.  If he does come in, when he leaves,  I’ll make some excuse and follow him and call you.  If you see him leave from his apartment, you follow him, call me when you’re sure he’s not coming to the bar and I’ll leave and join you wherever he ends up.”

   “Great.  Where’s a good place to watch his door?”  Shannon asked.  “So I can stay in my car.”

   “Watch him from the next street over.  It’s called Wolfe St. - one block over from Aliceanna where he lives.  You can sit in your car and watch between the houses.”

   “By the way, we hooked-up tonight,” Cara interjected.

   There was a pause.  “You and Miles?  How’d that go.”

   “I was scared at first.  Then it came time... and I wanted to.  Just to get at him,”  she was silent for a moment as angry tears emerged, burning her eyes.

   Shannon seemed to know.   “Are you okay?” she asked.

   “Yeah.  And I think I will be.  God, I hope we find something out on Wednesday.  I’ll be okay as long there there’s something we can do.  If not, I don’t know what…  I‘ll tell you more later.  I can‘t stay awake any longer.”

   “Be careful.”

   “I will.  By the way, Paula is in my Dad’s room.”

   “Heh.”

   “Someday maybe I‘ll learn…” she said.  “I’ll pay more attention to what people are trying to do to me than what I’m trying to do to them… When I was in college, I went out with this one guy… really controlling.  At first I was enjoyed the attention… enjoyed being an object in his possession.  He seemed so pleased to own me.  Told me I was beautiful all the time.  Just looked at me and told me I was beautiful.  He said it until I just didn’t hear it anymore… Then I really noticed it…  how much he tried to control me. I swear he looked through my email.  He’d tell me what to wear so he could parade me around.  I had a really good friend… a guy… we used to talk all the time.  But I couldn’t let the guy I was with know about him.  Everyone I liked he didn’t want around… always found something wrong with them.   People would try to me friend on MySpace.  Back when people used MySpace.  Ha.  If they were guys, I just wouldn’t respond because he would be able to see them when he stalked my page.  If they were girls that knew guys, I wouldn’t respond, ‘cause he could click through and see them.  I knew they‘d be hurt, but I was scared how he’d react. “

   “That’s fucked  up…”

   “Shannon.  Good ol’ Shannon.  Always willing to listen…”

   “You’re delirious.  Go to sleep.”

   She obeyed.  She hung up and went to sleep.


   Wednesday night came.  She had been working for a few hours when her phone rang.  She broke off the conversation she was having with an overly attentive forty-something to snatch it up from behind the register.  

   “He’s headed north up Route One… I’m three cars behind him… I’d bet anything he’s heading for Swan’s Wharf… where Katie saw him.  Get you’re ass up here.  Head up towards Swan’s.   I’ll text you if he goes somewhere else.”

   Now Cara began her preplanned performance.  A few minutes delay, trying to act normal, pouring beers, taking food orders, making small talk, then slowly she began to quiet down.  She made a show of leaning on one arm against the bar, waited for a few customers to notice and then headed for the ladies room and stayed there a while, flushing the toilet a few times before she walked out.  Trying her best to look pale and drawn, she walked over to Jake.

   “I just threw up,”  she said.

   “Damn, Cara.  Get the hell out of here.  Go home.  Call me if you need tomorrow off, Manny’ll cover for you.”

   The trick to looking sick is to look disoriented.  Cara grabbed her things and moved toward the door, stumbling once for affect.  Outside she checked to make sure no was around, ran for her jeep, jumped in, ground gravel off the lot and sped up the long drag that led to Route One.  Once she was on the highway, she called Shannon.

   “Where is he now?”  she asked.

   “He’s going to Swan’s… he’s gotta be.  He just turned onto Sea Pines.”

   “Where can I meet you?  Where should we park?”

   “The first left off Sea Pines just before the marina.  I’ll go way back.  I’ll be in my car.”

   A burst of adrenaline exploded into her blood commanding her heart to pound.  Expecting fear to follow, she was surprised to find that she felt, instead,  a momentary ecstatic thrill that quieted into reckless determination.  She was calm and ready.  The palm trees on either side of the highway,  rather than standing still awaiting her as she sped on through the dark, seemed to be sucked behind her through her headlights and southward.  At last, she hit Layton and veered right, towards the water and after a few zigzagging miles, she found Sea Pines Boulevard - a half mile from the marina.  She slowed down, shut off her lights, continuing until she found the last street on the left and turned onto it.  There was Shannon’s car at the dead end of the street.  She pulled in behind it.

   “Is he here?”

   “Yeah.  We can cut between these houses and over onto the hill overlooking the marina.  There‘re hedges up there we can hide behind.”

   “Good.”

   They picked their way through the dark on the spongy crabgrass in the damp soil of the neighborhood yards watching out for dogs, fences and other obstacles, staying out of sight of the marina.  Cara raced along after Shannon, head ducked down, looking over to her right at marina, watching for people under the lights on the jetty, making sure they weren’t seen - there was no one.  A few more strides and she careened face-first into the grass, smacking the side of face against a rock.  She had tripped over Shannon who had tripped over the head of a sprinkler jutting out of a yard.  Shannon cursed breathily.  Cara reached up to the side of her face and felt the warm sticky blood ooze.  They both got up and ran on.

   Reaching the top of the little slope they slid down onto their bellies to the ground on either side of a junction box in a gap in the hedge overlooking the marina, out of  the glow of the marina lights.  There was Miles’ BMW, parked on the marina lot at the opposite end.  They could see his white shirt reflected in the light in the driver’s seat of his car.  Within minutes, as the dew on the grass beneath them soaked into their clothes, another car drove up and then another.  The drivers got out and Miles got out and they all gathered behind the BMW.  The girls could make out Miles, and the heavyset, balding man from the bar the night Katie died and a third man, with a shock of black hair, dressed in light-colored hospital scrubs carrying a stainless steel box.  Shannon and Cara looked at each other.  If there was any doubt remaining about Miles, it was gone now.  

   The three men made their way down the marina jetty and turned together toward a large sailboat, at least 60 feet in length, about 25 yards down the jetty and clambered aboard.  On deck, they stopped and conferred for a moment before descending, one-by-one, down the main hatch.   The man in the scrubs carried the box down.  Seconds later, Cara and Shannon, 100 yards away, saw a light come on through the starboard porthole.  

   For the next the two hours, Shannon and Cara lay in the grass.  Time passed slowly and about half way in, Shannon was startled to hear heavy, rhythmic breathing and then a snort.

   “Hey wake up!” she hissed.  “What are you?  Fucking narcoleptic?”

   “Sorry…”  Cara replied.  “I think I passed out from the excitement.”

   “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake.”

   More waiting.

   At last, they heard the hatch creak open and saw the three men emerge.   The fat, balding man from the bar was now carrying the box.  They climbed off the vessel and made their way to the cars.  The fat man helped the scrubs-clad man load the noticeably heavier box into the trunk of a Lexus.  

   “We gotta get back to our cars, so we can follow them.”  said Shannon.  “I’m not interested in where Miles is going.  Let’s follow the other two.  You take the fat guy in the pimped Escalade.  I’ll take the guy with all the hair in the Lexus. ”

   Cara agreed.  “I’ll remember where that boat slip is.  We’ll want to check on that later.”

   Down the hill, they retraced their steps back through the yards to their car, being careful to remain hidden behind the slope of the ground.  Jumping back into their cars, they both turned around towards Sea Pines Boulevard, lights off, engines idling, waiting for the cars to come out of the marina lot.  Miles’ BMW came out first, followed by the Escalade, then the Lexus.  

   At the entrance to Route One, the Escalade headed north, while the Lexus and BMW turned south.  Shannon followed south.  Cara turned right, following the fat man.  She followed him confidently, knowing that he couldn’t possibly recognize her car, but she still kept distance between her car and his car knowing he was probably a pro and could spot a tail.  On and on they raced through the night.  Twice she thought she’d lost him and she sped up, desperately scanning right and left.  If she lost him now, would there be another chance?  Then his car would reappear and the chase was back on.  Her heart pounded and, veering in and out of traffic, she realized now and then that she’d forgotten to breathe.  At last he pulled off the highway, down a side street, lined with businesses, tacky tourist signs glowing right and left, and into the parking lot of a bar, a real shit hole. The Bergin Hunt & Fish Club.  He went in.

   “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she muttered.

   Reluctantly, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot next door.

   “Great.  Here I am in an open vehicle, at night, in the worst area in the Keys.”

   Still, if not now, then when.  So she stuck it out.  An hour passed.  Feeling exposed as it grew closer and closer to midnight, she slid the seat back and slumped as close to floor as she could, out of sight watching the door of the bar as best she could through the Jeep’s open door.  Midnight.  One o’clock.  She was determined.  One-thirty.  Two.  Customers walked out, were thrown out, carried out, but still no fat guy.  A half hour past closing time, out walked the fat man through the back door along with another man.  The fat man held a stuffed envelope in one hand, slapped his companion on the shoulder with the other and with a beefy guffaw, headed for his SUV, got in and drove out into the dark streets.  

 Cara sat up, re-adjusting the driver’s seat, and took off after him.  About five more miles up Route One he pulled off and wound through a residential area stopping in front of an upscale condo complex.  A really nice place.  Not the kind of place one would expect a patron of the Bergin Hunt & Fish club to live.  After pulling into a parking spot in front of the building, he got out.  Cara came to a stop along the curb on the other side of the street.  Hauling his bulk out of the Escalade seemed to have been a difficult task for him and  he paused to rearrange himself.  Something further down the sidewalk drew his attention, making him look toward the easement which ran perpendicular to the sidewalk, between his condo unit and the next.  He walked down the sidewalk and turned right into the easement and disappeared from sight.  Cara watched.  A muffled pop and a orange-red flash flickered briefly from the easement onto the cars the parking lot, making her start violently in her seat.  She stared dumbly ahead, her mind frozen.  From the easement emerged a male form in a black athletic jacket, zipped to the neck, jeans, and a baseball cap pulled down casting a shadow over his face.  Casually, he tucked a 9- millimeter behind him, into his belt under his jacket, and walked off into the darkness.  

   It was her father.  



   “Seriously, guys, what the hell??” she spat in exasperation.

   All her father could manage was a mumbled apology and Paula blushed red enough to be seen in the dim light.  Cara headed directly for her room, the only place in the universe she imagined could offer refuge from this disconcerting scene.  She went over to her dresser, found two Ativans, popped them dry, flopped on her stomach on the bed, pushed her head deep into the pillow and awaited unconsciousness.  

   Time passed, the drug took effect, her mind wandered and she relaxed.  “Whatever.  Another one,”  she thought.  “That stupid idiot.”

    It wasn’t as if she’d heard his bed creaking and them moaning.  He’d spared her that anyway.  Paula had nice ones.  She wished she did.  Well maybe if they had twenty years taken off.  

   “I’m half Hispanic,” she thought.  “Aren’t Hispanic women supposed to have big breasts?”

   Women were attracted to Dad.  She’d give him that.  She wasn’t inclined to give him credit for much else at the moment.  Paula was well preserved for a forty-something.  He could seem so helpless.   But she knew his conniving mind.  He had a way of  talking you inside out.  Making you feel like a germ in a petri dish after awhile.  She’d grown up with him and was immune.  As smart as she knew Paula to be, she would see through him, at least eventually, and hold her own.  Paula and Dad.   On second thought, this could only improve things.  Paula was the strong, no bullshit type.  Dad was the weak, total bullshit type, at least for the last few years he had been.  If it took, this could be a good thing.  For her Dad anyway.  Her thoughts became less and less coherent as she drifted.  

   But before the medication could take her completely under, she remembered what Miles had told her at work.  Once again, she heard him in her head:  

   “Not much.  I’ve got to go down to Key West on Wednesday night …”

   She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and texted Shannon.  

   “You up?”

   As she waited, it occurred to her, she’d never heard the front door open or shut, which meant that Paula was still in the house.  She got up and peeked out into the darkened great room.  No one.  There was dim light coming from under her father’s door.  She moved over to the window.  Paula’s car was still outside.  

   “Nice,”  she thought.  “I busted them and they’re still going to. ”

   “Yeah,”  came Shannon’s reply.

   Cara called her.

   “Hey.  Wednesday night,”  Cara blurted out.  “He told me he’s going to Key West on Wednesday night.”

   “So.”

   “So… he was lying. “

   “Are you sure?”  asked Shannon.

   “As sure as I can be.  It was the way he said it.  Anyway, I think it’s worth a shot to follow him.  See what he does.”

   “Okay.  Get the night off.  When did he say he was going down there?  Where would he be leaving from?”

   “I don’t know,” Cara replied.   “We’ll just have to wait.  You hang out near his apartment.  I’ll work like normal, in case he comes into the bar.  If he comes in and I’m not there he might get suspicious.  If he does come in, when he leaves,  I’ll make some excuse and follow him and call you.  If you see him leave from his apartment, you follow him, call me when you’re sure he’s not coming to the bar and I’ll leave and join you wherever he ends up.”

   “Great.  Where’s a good place to watch his door?”  Shannon asked.  “So I can stay in my car.”

   “Watch him from the next street over.  It’s called Wolfe St. - one block over from Aliceanna where he lives.  You can sit in your car and watch between the houses.”

   “By the way, we hooked-up tonight,” Cara interjected.

   There was a pause.  “You and Miles?  How’d that go.”

   “I was scared at first.  Then it came time... and I wanted to.  Just to get at him,”  she was silent for a moment as angry tears emerged, burning her eyes.

   Shannon seemed to know.   “Are you okay?” she asked.

   “Yeah.  And I think I will be.  God, I hope we find something out on Wednesday.  I’ll be okay as long there there’s something we can do.  If not, I don’t know what…  I‘ll tell you more later.  I can‘t stay awake any longer.”

   “Be careful.”

   “I will.  By the way, Paula is in my Dad’s room.”

   “Heh.”

   “Someday maybe I‘ll learn…” she said.  “I’ll pay more attention to what people are trying to do to me than what I’m trying to do to them… When I was in college, I went out with this one guy… really controlling.  At first I was enjoyed the attention… enjoyed being an object in his possession.  He seemed so pleased to own me.  Told me I was beautiful all the time.  Just looked at me and told me I was beautiful.  He said it until I just didn’t hear it anymore… Then I really noticed it…  how much he tried to control me. I swear he looked through my email.  He’d tell me what to wear so he could parade me around.  I had a really good friend… a guy… we used to talk all the time.  But I couldn’t let the guy I was with know about him.  Everyone I liked he didn’t want around… always found something wrong with them.   People would try to me friend on MySpace.  Back when people used MySpace.  Ha.  If they were guys, I just wouldn’t respond because he would be able to see them when he stalked my page.  If they were girls that knew guys, I wouldn’t respond, ‘cause he could click through and see them.  I knew they‘d be hurt, but I was scared how he’d react. “

   “That’s fucked  up…”

   “Shannon.  Good ol’ Shannon.  Always willing to listen…”

   “You’re delirious.  Go to sleep.”

   She obeyed.  She hung up and went to sleep.


   Wednesday night came.  She had been working for a few hours when her phone rang.  She broke off the conversation she was having with an overly attentive forty-something to snatch it up from behind the register.  

   “He’s headed north up Route One… I’m three cars behind him… I’d bet anything he’s heading for Swan’s Wharf… where Katie saw him.  Get you’re ass up here.  Head up towards Swan’s.   I’ll text you if he goes somewhere else.”

   Now Cara began her preplanned performance.  A few minutes delay, trying to act normal, pouring beers, taking food orders, making small talk, then slowly she began to quiet down.  She made a show of leaning on one arm against the bar, waited for a few customers to notice and then headed for the ladies room and stayed there a while, flushing the toilet a few times before she walked out.  Trying her best to look pale and drawn, she walked over to Jake.

   “I just threw up,”  she said.

   “Damn, Cara.  Get the hell out of here.  Go home.  Call me if you need tomorrow off, Manny’ll cover for you.”

   The trick to looking sick is to look disoriented.  Cara grabbed her things and moved toward the door, stumbling once for affect.  Outside she checked to make sure no was around, ran for her jeep, jumped in, ground gravel off the lot and sped up the long drag that led to Route One.  Once she was on the highway, she called Shannon.

   “Where is he now?”  she asked.

   “He’s going to Swan’s… he’s gotta be.  He just turned onto Sea Pines.”

   “Where can I meet you?  Where should we park?”

   “The first left off Sea Pines just before the marina.  I’ll go way back.  I’ll be in my car.”

   A burst of adrenaline exploded into her blood commanding her heart to pound.  Expecting fear to follow, she was surprised to find that she felt, instead,  a momentary ecstatic thrill that quieted into reckless determination.  She was calm and ready.  The palm trees on either side of the highway,  rather than standing still awaiting her as she sped on through the dark, seemed to be sucked behind her through her headlights and southward.  At last, she hit Layton and veered right, towards the water and after a few zigzagging miles, she found Sea Pines Boulevard - a half mile from the marina.  She slowed down, shut off her lights, continuing until she found the last street on the left and turned onto it.  There was Shannon’s car at the dead end of the street.  She pulled in behind it.

   “Is he here?”

   “Yeah.  We can cut between these houses and over onto the hill overlooking the marina.  There‘re hedges up there we can hide behind.”

   “Good.”

   They picked their way through the dark on the spongy crabgrass in the damp soil of the neighborhood yards watching out for dogs, fences and other obstacles, staying out of sight of the marina.  Cara raced along after Shannon, head ducked down, looking over to her right at marina, watching for people under the lights on the jetty, making sure they weren’t seen - there was no one.  A few more strides and she careened face-first into the grass, smacking the side of face against a rock.  She had tripped over Shannon who had tripped over the head of a sprinkler jutting out of a yard.  Shannon cursed breathily.  Cara reached up to the side of her face and felt the warm sticky blood ooze.  They both got up and ran on.

   Reaching the top of the little slope they slid down onto their bellies to the ground on either side of a junction box in a gap in the hedge overlooking the marina, out of  the glow of the marina lights.  There was Miles’ BMW, parked on the marina lot at the opposite end.  They could see his white shirt reflected in the light in the driver’s seat of his car.  Within minutes, as the dew on the grass beneath them soaked into their clothes, another car drove up and then another.  The drivers got out and Miles got out and they all gathered behind the BMW.  The girls could make out Miles, and the heavyset, balding man from the bar the night Katie died and a third man, with a shock of black hair, dressed in light-colored hospital scrubs carrying a stainless steel box.  Shannon and Cara looked at each other.  If there was any doubt remaining about Miles, it was gone now.  

   The three men made their way down the marina jetty and turned together toward a large sailboat, at least 60 feet in length, about 25 yards down the jetty and clambered aboard.  On deck, they stopped and conferred for a moment before descending, one-by-one, down the main hatch.   The man in the scrubs carried the box down.  Seconds later, Cara and Shannon, 100 yards away, saw a light come on through the starboard porthole.  

   For the next the two hours, Shannon and Cara lay in the grass.  Time passed slowly and about half way in, Shannon was startled to hear heavy, rhythmic breathing and then a snort.

   “Hey wake up!” she hissed.  “What are you?  Fucking narcoleptic?”

   “Sorry…”  Cara replied.  “I think I passed out from the excitement.”

   “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake.”

   More waiting.

   At last, they heard the hatch creak open and saw the three men emerge.   The fat, balding man from the bar was now carrying the box.  They climbed off the vessel and made their way to the cars.  The fat man helped the scrubs-clad man load the noticeably heavier box into the trunk of a Lexus.  

   “We gotta get back to our cars, so we can follow them.”  said Shannon.  “I’m not interested in where Miles is going.  Let’s follow the other two.  You take the fat guy in the pimped Escalade.  I’ll take the guy with all the hair in the Lexus. ”

   Cara agreed.  “I’ll remember where that boat slip is.  We’ll want to check on that later.”

   Down the hill, they retraced their steps back through the yards to their car, being careful to remain hidden behind the slope of the ground.  Jumping back into their cars, they both turned around towards Sea Pines Boulevard, lights off, engines idling, waiting for the cars to come out of the marina lot.  Miles’ BMW came out first, followed by the Escalade, then the Lexus.  

   At the entrance to Route One, the Escalade headed north, while the Lexus and BMW turned south.  Shannon followed south.  Cara turned right, following the fat man.  She followed him confidently, knowing that he couldn’t possibly recognize her car, but she still kept distance between her car and his car knowing he was probably a pro and could spot a tail.  On and on they raced through the night.  Twice she thought she’d lost him and she sped up, desperately scanning right and left.  If she lost him now, would there be another chance?  Then his car would reappear and the chase was back on.  Her heart pounded and, veering in and out of traffic, she realized now and then that she’d forgotten to breathe.  At last he pulled off the highway, down a side street, lined with businesses, tacky tourist signs glowing right and left, and into the parking lot of a bar, a real shit hole. The Bergin Hunt & Fish Club.  He went in.

   “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she muttered.

   Reluctantly, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot next door.

   “Great.  Here I am in an open vehicle, at night, in the worst area in the Keys.”

   Still, if not now, then when.  So she stuck it out.  An hour passed.  Feeling exposed as it grew closer and closer to midnight, she slid the seat back and slumped as close to floor as she could, out of sight watching the door of the bar as best she could through the Jeep’s open door.  Midnight.  One o’clock.  She was determined.  One-thirty.  Two.  Customers walked out, were thrown out, carried out, but still no fat guy.  A half hour past closing time, out walked the fat man through the back door along with another man.  The fat man held a stuffed envelope in one hand, slapped his companion on the shoulder with the other and with a beefy guffaw, headed for his SUV, got in and drove out into the dark streets.  

 Cara sat up, re-adjusting the driver’s seat, and took off after him.  About five more miles up Route One he pulled off and wound through a residential area stopping in front of an upscale condo complex.  A really nice place.  Not the kind of place one would expect a patron of the Bergin Hunt & Fish club to live.  After pulling into a parking spot in front of the building, he got out.  Cara came to a stop along the curb on the other side of the street.  Hauling his bulk out of the Escalade seemed to have been a difficult task for him and  he paused to rearrange himself.  Something further down the sidewalk drew his attention, making him look toward the easement which ran perpendicular to the sidewalk, between his condo unit and the next.  He walked down the sidewalk and turned right into the easement and disappeared from sight.  Cara watched.  A muffled pop and a orange-red flash flickered briefly from the easement onto the cars the parking lot, making her start violently in her seat.  She stared dumbly ahead, her mind frozen.  From the easement emerged a male form in a black athletic jacket, zipped to the neck, jeans, and a baseball cap pulled down casting a shadow over his face.  Casually, he tucked a 9- millimeter behind him, into his belt under his jacket, and walked off into the darkness.  

   It was her father.  



   “Seriously, guys, what the hell??” she spat in exasperation.

   All her father could manage was a mumbled apology and Paula blushed red enough to be seen in the dim light.  Cara headed directly for her room, the only place in the universe she imagined could offer refuge from this disconcerting scene.  She went over to her dresser, found two Ativans, popped them dry, flopped on her stomach on the bed, pushed her head deep into the pillow and awaited unconsciousness.  

   Time passed, the drug took effect, her mind wandered and she relaxed.  “Whatever.  Another one,”  she thought.  “That stupid idiot.”

    It wasn’t as if she’d heard his bed creaking and them moaning.  He’d spared her that anyway.  Paula had nice ones.  She wished she did.  Well maybe if they had twenty years taken off.  

   “I’m half Hispanic,” she thought.  “Aren’t Hispanic women supposed to have big breasts?”

   Women were attracted to Dad.  She’d give him that.  She wasn’t inclined to give him credit for much else at the moment.  Paula was well preserved for a forty-something.  He could seem so helpless.   But she knew his conniving mind.  He had a way of  talking you inside out.  Making you feel like a germ in a petri dish after awhile.  She’d grown up with him and was immune.  As smart as she knew Paula to be, she would see through him, at least eventually, and hold her own.  Paula and Dad.   On second thought, this could only improve things.  Paula was the strong, no bullshit type.  Dad was the weak, total bullshit type, at least for the last few years he had been.  If it took, this could be a good thing.  For her Dad anyway.  Her thoughts became less and less coherent as she drifted.  

   But before the medication could take her completely under, she remembered what Miles had told her at work.  Once again, she heard him in her head:  

   “Not much.  I’ve got to go down to Key West on Wednesday night …”

   She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and texted Shannon.  

   “You up?”

   As she waited, it occurred to her, she’d never heard the front door open or shut, which meant that Paula was still in the house.  She got up and peeked out into the darkened great room.  No one.  There was dim light coming from under her father’s door.  She moved over to the window.  Paula’s car was still outside.  

   “Nice,”  she thought.  “I busted them and they’re still going to. ”

   “Yeah,”  came Shannon’s reply.

   Cara called her.

   “Hey.  Wednesday night,”  Cara blurted out.  “He told me he’s going to Key West on Wednesday night.”

   “So.”

   “So… he was lying. “

   “Are you sure?”  asked Shannon.

   “As sure as I can be.  It was the way he said it.  Anyway, I think it’s worth a shot to follow him.  See what he does.”

   “Okay.  Get the night off.  When did he say he was going down there?  Where would he be leaving from?”

   “I don’t know,” Cara replied.   “We’ll just have to wait.  You hang out near his apartment.  I’ll work like normal, in case he comes into the bar.  If he comes in and I’m not there he might get suspicious.  If he does come in, when he leaves,  I’ll make some excuse and follow him and call you.  If you see him leave from his apartment, you follow him, call me when you’re sure he’s not coming to the bar and I’ll leave and join you wherever he ends up.”

   “Great.  Where’s a good place to watch his door?”  Shannon asked.  “So I can stay in my car.”

   “Watch him from the next street over.  It’s called Wolfe St. - one block over from Aliceanna where he lives.  You can sit in your car and watch between the houses.”

   “By the way, we hooked-up tonight,” Cara interjected.

   There was a pause.  “You and Miles?  How’d that go.”

   “I was scared at first.  Then it came time... and I wanted to.  Just to get at him,”  she was silent for a moment as angry tears emerged, burning her eyes.

   Shannon seemed to know.   “Are you okay?” she asked.

   “Yeah.  And I think I will be.  God, I hope we find something out on Wednesday.  I’ll be okay as long there there’s something we can do.  If not, I don’t know what…  I‘ll tell you more later.  I can‘t stay awake any longer.”

   “Be careful.”

   “I will.  By the way, Paula is in my Dad’s room.”

   “Heh.”

   “Someday maybe I‘ll learn…” she said.  “I’ll pay more attention to what people are trying to do to me than what I’m trying to do to them… When I was in college, I went out with this one guy… really controlling.  At first I was enjoyed the attention… enjoyed being an object in his possession.  He seemed so pleased to own me.  Told me I was beautiful all the time.  Just looked at me and told me I was beautiful.  He said it until I just didn’t hear it anymore… Then I really noticed it…  how much he tried to control me. I swear he looked through my email.  He’d tell me what to wear so he could parade me around.  I had a really good friend… a guy… we used to talk all the time.  But I couldn’t let the guy I was with know about him.  Everyone I liked he didn’t want around… always found something wrong with them.   People would try to me friend on MySpace.  Back when people used MySpace.  Ha.  If they were guys, I just wouldn’t respond because he would be able to see them when he stalked my page.  If they were girls that knew guys, I wouldn’t respond, ‘cause he could click through and see them.  I knew they‘d be hurt, but I was scared how he’d react. “

   “That’s fucked  up…”

   “Shannon.  Good ol’ Shannon.  Always willing to listen…”

   “You’re delirious.  Go to sleep.”

   She obeyed.  She hung up and went to sleep.


   Wednesday night came.  She had been working for a few hours when her phone rang.  She broke off the conversation she was having with an overly attentive forty-something to snatch it up from behind the register.  

   “He’s headed north up Route One… I’m three cars behind him… I’d bet anything he’s heading for Swan’s Wharf… where Katie saw him.  Get you’re ass up here.  Head up towards Swan’s.   I’ll text you if he goes somewhere else.”

   Now Cara began her preplanned performance.  A few minutes delay, trying to act normal, pouring beers, taking food orders, making small talk, then slowly she began to quiet down.  She made a show of leaning on one arm against the bar, waited for a few customers to notice and then headed for the ladies room and stayed there a while, flushing the toilet a few times before she walked out.  Trying her best to look pale and drawn, she walked over to Jake.

   “I just threw up,”  she said.

   “Damn, Cara.  Get the hell out of here.  Go home.  Call me if you need tomorrow off, Manny’ll cover for you.”

   The trick to looking sick is to look disoriented.  Cara grabbed her things and moved toward the door, stumbling once for affect.  Outside she checked to make sure no was around, ran for her jeep, jumped in, ground gravel off the lot and sped up the long drag that led to Route One.  Once she was on the highway, she called Shannon.

   “Where is he now?”  she asked.

   “He’s going to Swan’s… he’s gotta be.  He just turned onto Sea Pines.”

   “Where can I meet you?  Where should we park?”

   “The first left off Sea Pines just before the marina.  I’ll go way back.  I’ll be in my car.”

   A burst of adrenaline exploded into her blood commanding her heart to pound.  Expecting fear to follow, she was surprised to find that she felt, instead,  a momentary ecstatic thrill that quieted into reckless determination.  She was calm and ready.  The palm trees on either side of the highway,  rather than standing still awaiting her as she sped on through the dark, seemed to be sucked behind her through her headlights and southward.  At last, she hit Layton and veered right, towards the water and after a few zigzagging miles, she found Sea Pines Boulevard - a half mile from the marina.  She slowed down, shut off her lights, continuing until she found the last street on the left and turned onto it.  There was Shannon’s car at the dead end of the street.  She pulled in behind it.

   “Is he here?”

   “Yeah.  We can cut between these houses and over onto the hill overlooking the marina.  There‘re hedges up there we can hide behind.”

   “Good.”

   They picked their way through the dark on the spongy crabgrass in the damp soil of the neighborhood yards watching out for dogs, fences and other obstacles, staying out of sight of the marina.  Cara raced along after Shannon, head ducked down, looking over to her right at marina, watching for people under the lights on the jetty, making sure they weren’t seen - there was no one.  A few more strides and she careened face-first into the grass, smacking the side of face against a rock.  She had tripped over Shannon who had tripped over the head of a sprinkler jutting out of a yard.  Shannon cursed breathily.  Cara reached up to the side of her face and felt the warm sticky blood ooze.  They both got up and ran on.

   Reaching the top of the little slope they slid down onto their bellies to the ground on either side of a junction box in a gap in the hedge overlooking the marina, out of  the glow of the marina lights.  There was Miles’ BMW, parked on the marina lot at the opposite end.  They could see his white shirt reflected in the light in the driver’s seat of his car.  Within minutes, as the dew on the grass beneath them soaked into their clothes, another car drove up and then another.  The drivers got out and Miles got out and they all gathered behind the BMW.  The girls could make out Miles, and the heavyset, balding man from the bar the night Katie died and a third man, with a shock of black hair, dressed in light-colored hospital scrubs carrying a stainless steel box.  Shannon and Cara looked at each other.  If there was any doubt remaining about Miles, it was gone now.  

   The three men made their way down the marina jetty and turned together toward a large sailboat, at least 60 feet in length, about 25 yards down the jetty and clambered aboard.  On deck, they stopped and conferred for a moment before descending, one-by-one, down the main hatch.   The man in the scrubs carried the box down.  Seconds later, Cara and Shannon, 100 yards away, saw a light come on through the starboard porthole.  

   For the next the two hours, Shannon and Cara lay in the grass.  Time passed slowly and about half way in, Shannon was startled to hear heavy, rhythmic breathing and then a snort.

   “Hey wake up!” she hissed.  “What are you?  Fucking narcoleptic?”

   “Sorry…”  Cara replied.  “I think I passed out from the excitement.”

   “Keep your voice down, for God’s sake.”

   More waiting.

   At last, they heard the hatch creak open and saw the three men emerge.   The fat, balding man from the bar was now carrying the box.  They climbed off the vessel and made their way to the cars.  The fat man helped the scrubs-clad man load the noticeably heavier box into the trunk of a Lexus.  

   “We gotta get back to our cars, so we can follow them.”  said Shannon.  “I’m not interested in where Miles is going.  Let’s follow the other two.  You take the fat guy in the pimped Escalade.  I’ll take the guy with all the hair in the Lexus. ”

   Cara agreed.  “I’ll remember where that boat slip is.  We’ll want to check on that later.”

   Down the hill, they retraced their steps back through the yards to their car, being careful to remain hidden behind the slope of the ground.  Jumping back into their cars, they both turned around towards Sea Pines Boulevard, lights off, engines idling, waiting for the cars to come out of the marina lot.  Miles’ BMW came out first, followed by the Escalade, then the Lexus.  

   At the entrance to Route One, the Escalade headed north, while the Lexus and BMW turned south.  Shannon followed south.  Cara turned right, following the fat man.  She followed him confidently, knowing that he couldn’t possibly recognize her car, but she still kept distance between her car and his car knowing he was probably a pro and could spot a tail.  On and on they raced through the night.  Twice she thought she’d lost him and she sped up, desperately scanning right and left.  If she lost him now, would there be another chance?  Then his car would reappear and the chase was back on.  Her heart pounded and, veering in and out of traffic, she realized now and then that she’d forgotten to breathe.  At last he pulled off the highway, down a side street, lined with businesses, tacky tourist signs glowing right and left, and into the parking lot of a bar, a real shit hole. The Bergin Hunt & Fish Club.  He went in.

   “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” she muttered.

   Reluctantly, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot next door.

   “Great.  Here I am in an open vehicle, at night, in the worst area in the Keys.”

   Still, if not now, then when.  So she stuck it out.  An hour passed.  Feeling exposed as it grew closer and closer to midnight, she slid the seat back and slumped as close to floor as she could, out of sight watching the door of the bar as best she could through the Jeep’s open door.  Midnight.  One o’clock.  She was determined.  One-thirty.  Two.  Customers walked out, were thrown out, carried out, but still no fat guy.  A half hour past closing time, out walked the fat man through the back door along with another man.  The fat man held a stuffed envelope in one hand, slapped his companion on the shoulder with the other and with a beefy guffaw, headed for his SUV, got in and drove out into the dark streets.  

 Cara sat up, re-adjusting the driver’s seat, and took off after him.  About five more miles up Route One he pulled off and wound through a residential area stopping in front of an upscale condo complex.  A really nice place.  Not the kind of place one would expect a patron of the Bergin Hunt & Fish club to live.  After pulling into a parking spot in front of the building, he got out.  Cara came to a stop along the curb on the other side of the street.  Hauling his bulk out of the Escalade seemed to have been a difficult task for him and  he paused to rearrange himself.  Something further down the sidewalk drew his attention, making him look toward the easement which ran perpendicular to the sidewalk, between his condo unit and the next.  He walked down the sidewalk and turned right into the easement and disappeared from sight.  Cara watched.  A muffled pop and a orange-red flash flickered briefly from the easement onto the cars the parking lot, making her start violently in her seat.  She stared dumbly ahead, her mind frozen.  From the easement emerged a male form in a black athletic jacket, zipped to the neck, jeans, and a baseball cap pulled down casting a shadow over his face.  Casually, he tucked a 9- millimeter behind him, into his belt under his jacket, and walked off into the darkness.  

   It was her father.  

On a Lee Shore 14 - Maintaining The Status Quo

   “Of course you know what this means, don’t you?” asked Shannon.

  “What are you talking about?" Cara shot back plaintively.  "What does what mean?”  

   On an all but forsaken stretch of beach, tucked up under the dunes, awash in the pungent morning breeze off the ocean, Cara and Shannon huddled together.  Vaguely moving forms, scarcely visible in the distance without squinting into the rippling heat, were the only indications that other humans were nearby.  It was hot and promised to become hotter still and the beach glare intensified at each step the sun took on its relentless climb towards its high point.  An hour or more had gone by since they arrived.  They felt comfortable here.   Here they could talk, in normal tones, about the matters at hand.  

  As incredible as it sounded, they couldn’t escape the conclusion that Miles was involved in Katie’s death, perhaps even ordered  it, and further still may have ordered her death for witnessing some criminal activity.  They could talk about it rationally, and even calmly, at one moment, but at the next, they were just as shocked and panicked by it as when it had first occurred to them.  Katie, silly, blithe Katie, effervescent Katie, the froth on their young lives, was at the center of an nightmare more terrible than either of them had encountered.  But they both knew it was time for them to stop looking at it aghast and confront it head on.  

   “… it means…,” Shannon explained, “that you’ve got to continue to act normal around Miles.  And by normal, I mean, seeing him like you used to see him.  Call him like you used to.  Text him like you used to.  If you don’t he’s going to know something’s up.  If he’s  got the stones to do what he did, God knows what he might do to us.  Especially after that scene I put on with him at the Parrot the other night.  We’ve got to smooth things over.  I’ve got to smooth things over.  We gotta get things back to the way it was before Katie died.  Until we figure out what to do.”

   “I don’t know.”  said Cara.  “I don’t know if I can.  We were like once-a-week, you know… and now, even the thought of touching him makes me sick.”

   “I don’t think we have a choice,“ said Shannon.   Then she paused, reflecting, before she continued.  “You know, actually, we do.  We can either get things back to normal with him so that we can figure out what to do next or we’ve got to get the hell out of here… and not just us… we’ve got to warn your father and Chris and maybe even Paula - ‘cause she was there that night, too.  And we can do that if you want.  Maybe that’s the smart thing to do.  We could go to Mark, your FBI agent and spill it all to him and let him take it over, then warn everyone involved and get the hell out.  But, I’ll tell you what… I don’t want to.  Right now, I’m pissed.  I wanna fuck that bitch over for what he did to Katie.  Some how, some way.  I really don’t care about anything right now except that.  Look at me, for God’s sake… 26 years old, hanging around a beach town, doing nothing, living like a bum, but things were good here.  With you and Katie and Chris and your Dad - it was like a family…”

   “But we’re still here,” said Cara weakly.

   “Yeah, I know.   I didn’t mean it that way, honey.  But it can never be the same again.  Nothing can ever be the same unless we do something, because he‘s always going to be there too.”

   “What do you think we should do?”  asked  Cara.

   They stared blankly at the surf for a moment, then Cara, feeling a little more resolute, said  “Well first…, what we’ve got to do is get more information.  We’ve got to find out what it is he’s up to.  We’ve got to find out when he’s going to that marina again or any place we find out he‘s going that sounds shady - and follow him and watch him.”

   “You’re right.   Keep an eye on him.  Anytime he‘s acting suspicious or weird, pay close attention…“

   “…and there’s another thing I’ve got to do.”

   “What?”

   “I’ve got to find out how my Dad is involved in all this.”

   It would all happen faster than they expected.  At the Boiled Parrot Saloon that night, Cara went about her work as usual.  Pouring drinks for the regulars, making small talk and trying to find a shallow conscious space she could inhabit, not thinking too deeply about the drama swirling around her, for fear that it would make her act differently and that, acting differently, she would call attention to herself.  She felt like everyone could read her mind.  But slowly… slowly… the musty, beery smell of the bar and the careless jabber of the customers, the woosh of the taps and the drone of the corny bar music, helped her relax and fade into the canvas.  

   In walked Miles.  Taking a seat next to Chris, who’d come in only few minutes before, at the far end of the bar from where she stood, next to the tap, topping off a pint, he winked at her.  A spike of a adrenaline shot up from her gut into her head, making her teeth tingle and her stomach churn.  With some difficulty she mastered it and tossed a wink back at him, impressing herself with her coolness.  She could hear Chris and Miles start up a conversation.

   “What’s up, buddy?” asked Chris.

   “Not much.”

   Other than that, the only words she could make out were “coach” and “football”.  Football talk.  Miles didn’t know anything about football, so this was bound to be an awkward conversation.  Working in bars as long as she had, she’d learned to decipher conversations smothered by bar noise, but they were talking too softly even for her.  She was glad for the moment to have a few beer orders to fill because it put off the inevitability of having to talk to him.  When she did, at least Chris would be there for cover.  

   Watching Chris talk to Miles, she saw it again.  The itchy reluctance in Chris, indicating that he didn’t want to talk to Miles any more than he had to.  All her friends seemed to feel that way. She could see it  from across the room, crowd noise, smoke and all.  Chris didn’t hate Miles, they were just different sorts, not meant to be together.  Chris, the unassuming, quiet tattoo artist, sleeve-tattooed down both arms, all dry humor and eye-rolls, happy enough to be by himself in a crowd.  Miles the Metrosexual, too tanned, ridiculously handsome, attentive and boring.  Chris wasn’t exactly her type, but couldn’t she just for once, split the difference and go for something other than these vain nut jobs that she always found herself with.

   “This is the way it always is…,” she muttered, audibly, to herself.  “My friends always hate my boyfriends.  Boyfriend?  Is he my boyfriend?  This blow-up doll?  More like a commodity?  Service?  Prostitute?  Fuck!  What kind of a piece of shit am I? “

   She knew she had to so, eventually, she edged her way over too him.  By that time, Chris had made good his escape into the men’s room.  Cara knew he wouldn’t be back.

   “Hi sweetie, how are you?”  he said.

   “Okay,” was all she could muster.  Then she forced herself.  “Anything interesting going on?”   Although the question was lame in the extreme, but she was pleased with the way it came out.  She thought it sounded fairly normal.  

   “Not much.  I gotta go down to Key West on Wednesday night to check around that hotel real estate my Dad is developing.  Things aren’t going as well as he wants.  Some of the subs aren’t showing up and the whole thing’s falling behind.”

   “Oh, brother,”  she thought.  “Could he be so stupid as to use the same cover lie twice?  Yes, he could be that stupid.  How much more obvious could a lie be?  Checking into a real estate deal on a Wednesday night?  The same exact cover story he had used - that Katie had busted him on - when she saw him at the marina.  Perfect.  He’s just blocking off that time because he knows we usually get together then and he needs that time because he’s got something important to do.  Okay buddy, we’re watching your idiot ass!”

   For acting normally and being relaxed, she gave herself passing grades.  That was a good thing.  The better she felt, the easier it was to keep it up.  She was positively bubbly from that point on.  She blabbered giddily on to him until:  “Slow down, fool… he’s going to see through you.  You’re never this enthusiastic.”  Then, like a safe falling from the ninth floor, he hit her.

   “Can we hook up later?” he asked.

   “S-s-sure.”

   At closing time, she cleaned up with Manny as usual.  Stacking chairs on tables, cleaning up spilled beer and ketchup, shutting down the CO2 feed to the taps, putting ingredients back in the freezer and refrigerator.  Old Walter was already gone.  She used to hate to do this, now it was her favorite thing, she lingered over it.  It was safe.  It was her old life; the life she’d lost.  It was the only thing that stood between her and what she knew she had to do next.  

   And then out the door, around back to the footbridge over the mangroves.  The scent of the dark air soaked in a perfume of wood, water and mud, long steeped, worked one into another like an exotic tea, filled her lungs.  Normally these sensations signaled release, a day’s work done, rest.  Tonight they seemed like incense burned at her own martyrdom and the footbridge, the stairs to her scaffold.  Emotionally, she prepared herself, stiffened in her resolve.  She thought about Katie.  Then like Jepthath’s daughter, going to meet her death, for her father’s rash vows, she mounted the bridge toward the beach and her rendezvous with Miles.  

   But once her foot hit the cool, dry sand and she saw him out there on the sand, waiting, cigarette burning, she changed.  Sneering at the Joan of Arc pretensions of just a moment ago, she emerged an incarnation of a Sylvia Plath bitch goddess, an avenging, retributive wraith, more than ready to sweep the scythe. “He thinks he’s going to fuck me? Well, fuck him!” she seethed to herself, startlingly calm on the outside, while inside, a chilling admixture of fury and jubilation.  She wondered at it for a moment.  Who is this in me?  Who am I now?  And then, as if by revelation, she answered herself:  “I am my father’s daughter.  I am the child of an amoral man who consumes the lives of women and men and discards their hollowed husks.  I am the child of a criminal, a liar.

   She crept up behind him, playfully, as always, but this time, she went at him, her friend’s murderer, with a burning hate just below the surface.   Like a fighter, she parried every thrust, teasing him on, mocking him, giving in to everything he wanted, satiating herself on his flesh like a shark tearing apart it’s prey and leaving an eviscerated victim to bleed out.  She took him on and played the part to the hilt.  She beat him to a pulp.  And then it was over.

   By the time she fully awakened from her blood lust, she found herself walking toward the causeway and homeward toward the bungalow.  He was behind her, heading in the opposite direction, a hundred yards off, to his car.  She stumbled and fell as the trance wore off, her blood pressure dropped, her skin went cold and nausea swept over her.  She retched and vomited in the sand.  Deep sobs like tremors shook her.  “Dear God... Oh dear, sweet Jesus, forgive me.”  

Bruton Parish Church, Williamsburg, VA

This Theist's View Of The Universe

     The first thing that impresses me about your acquaintance’s response is that it really contains nothing that qualifies as an argument - although this was clearly what you requested. So maybe you should start by asking your question again, then get back to me. I’m obviously being slightly sarcastic, but I’m also being serious. If I’m missing something, please let me know. The only argument that he advances is a fallacy. He, at one point, defends his belief in evolution by saying that it is a theory of the same caliber as gravity. Yes, it is considered a theory by science, right alongside cell-theory and relativity, but this isn’t your fault. A theory in science is an accepted fact, regarded as no longer needing proof. Cell theory, of course, needs no further proof because it’s been observed time and time again. If you walk up to an particular oak tree, you don’t need to observe it under a microscope to be scientifically certain it is made up of cells, because you know that other oak trees have been observed and been shown to be made of cells. But, of course, as he himself says, theories are subject to modification. At one point, gravity or “gravitational theory” (as he oddly puts it) was thought of, by science, as being a sort of Star Wars tractor beam, emitted by a celestial body, sucking objects toward it. Now we know (or think we know) that it is caused by a ripple in the single fabric of space and time caused by the mass of the celestial body, which when followed by smaller objects causes them to drift towards it.. He also states that gravity is “not generally questioned by the general public”. This is another aspect of the same fallacious “argument”. I guess he’s saying that since virtually nobody questions it, neither should you. I know you well enough to know that isn’t going to satisfy you. The point is that Evolutionary Theory is certainly not a theory in the same sense that Cell Theory and the Theory of Relativity are. Both of these latter are clearly observable, but Evolutionary Theory is not, except for in the fossil record which falls far short of proof, most notably because fossils are dead and contain little or none of the fossilized life’s original material. Also, I believe, the reason that many scientists generally consider the Theory of Evolution as an accepted fact is because it, or some derivation of it, is the only choice available within their worldview (religion??). This makes the creation/evolution debate really a question of philosophy or metaphysics. Therefore, while the Theory of Evolution may be accepted fact to modern science (or modern scientists) it is most certainly not in philosophy or metaphysics. If you accept it as such, he has won the argument by default. 

     Most “scientific” people are loath to recognize the philosophical/metaphysical nature of the creation/evolution debate, but it is certainly true. Evolution is the choice of atheists, because it dovetails with their religion. Really the word “choice” is not applicable. Theists believe that God created the universe, atheists believe that the universe created the universe. Theists have faith in the supernatural, atheists have faith in nature. Both points-of-view require faith. Theists have no choice in the matter, neither do atheists. Theists may have more freedom to maneuver than atheists though. Theists can choose between the biblical creation account or a more deistic view of God as the driving force behind an evolutionary process. The latter is almost as weak as the atheistic evolutionary theory, but at least one isn’t left with blunt instruments like mutation and natural selection as driving forces. Atheists are stuck with Darwin in all his pre-genetics glory. If you can think of another option, let me know. Furthermore, this option basically amounts to spontaneous generation, a concept that died with the 19th century. To mask this embarrassing truth, evolutionists, almost uniformly, resort to personification of natural selection and mutation and even throw in “Mother Nature” from time-to-time, assigning words like “design” and “plan” to inanimate forces incapable of intent. In light of this, his statement that “the scientific process starts with observations and ends with a body of facts” is nonsense. 

     He doesn’t really give any of the “overwhelming evidence for evolution” that he refers to, but I’m sure he has the fossil record in mind. Moreover, he throws out fearsome references to “endogenous retroviruses”, “phylogenetic inference” and “molecular data” apparently referring to evidence for evolution in genetics. This sounds a lot like a smokescreen to me. If someone told me to feel free to research <fill in name of discipline here> and you’ll find I’m right, I’d be more than a little suspicious. He never gives any of the overwhelming evidence that’s in the fossil record or in genetics, so I wouldn’t know how to counter him. Sometimes I think, that the evolutionist “argument” bears more than a passing resemblance to the Stalinist/Maoist “big lie”, i.e. if a lie is told often enough without challenge, it becomes accepted fact. We, Christians, must be extremely careful not to fall into the trap of arguing with the restrictions set in place by our opponents. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t argue from science, we just shouldn’t allow our opponent to dismiss our concerns casually, which is what happens. You put my problem with the fossil record as proof of evolution very succinctly when you said “every species reproduces after its own kind, and such patterns are genetically predetermined”. Basically, you are quoting the Bible’s “each according to its kind”. The fossil record shows exactly that, but this argument is often casually put off as the overly-simplistic explanation of a religious zealot and scientific neophyte who’s copped out by resorting to magical explanations. Before moving on, we need to demand an explanation for the lack of transitional species. If evolution were true, the fossil record should show unbroken transitions of species. As a matter-of-fact, I think it should be somewhat hard to tell where one “kind” begins and another “ends”.


     In regard to genetics, again you sum it up well, saying: “The form is a direct representation of the information from whence it comes.” If you were to study genetics for decades, I doubt you could come up with anything better than that as a summary. Does the DNA of a fish have the “ability” to eventually become a dog? Certainly genes can mutate, but can they make a leap of that magnitude? (Never mind that the effects of mutation are most often deleterious, as he admits) It’s at this point that the evolutionist usually resorts to “billions or millions of years” as the secret sauce that makes all possible. It always seemed to me that it is “billions or millions of years” that are the evolutionist’s god. Who knows what can happen in this amount of time?? Clearly, we can’t be satisfied with that, we must find a biological mechanism. Also, Darwin’s original theory relied heavily on his belief in the inheritance of acquired traits, i.e. if I become deaf from a childhood disease, I may father children who are also deaf. When this was found to be untrue, Darwin’s view of natural selection, to a large degree, broke down.

     When I was younger, I would often attempt to take the initiative in an argument and seek to prove my case. This is fine, but when you aren’t an expert on the subject (and it’s impossible to be an expert on every subject), it can be very difficult. Your father once told me, in reference to apologetics, particularly against cult beliefs, that it’s much more important to know what YOU believe rather than what the other guy believes. This can take you a long way. You’re a smart guy, so make them explain themselves to your satisfaction (and hopefully to theirs as well). A statement like “The second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems” is obviously used fallaciously here. When you’re talking about something as all-encompassing as evolution, I’m not sure what constitutes an open system or a closed system. Is it an open system then? If so, what is it open to? God? His obtuse analogy: “...is like tying your unlaced shoe and claiming that the complexity did not just increase” also doesn’t pass muster as bolstering his argument, but it might bolster yours. In context of this discussion, I think it just might be God who’s tying your shoe. His dismissal of the term “macro-evolution” is also self-serving. This is clearly an attempt to use a little sleight-of-hand to re-frame the argument in his favor. “Micro-evolution” like the famous black moths “succeeding” over white moths in England as the Industrial Revolution began is obviously true to the point of being a truism. Lumping the metamorphosis of single-celled organisms into humans (macro-evolution) in with these moth’s success (micro-evolution) is almost breathtaking in its audacity.

     My point is that you don’t need to commit every scientific tome to memory in order to argue with people like your acquaintance. On the contrary, I believe it can be a hindrance. You’ll more often than not fall into a “forest-for-the-trees” blindness and confusion. Put this debate into its proper place: metaphysics. You will find that just beneath all the impressive-sounding jargon lies the real reason for his belief in evolution: his atheism. That, far more than anything else determines his views. He can’t believe in God, so he, as a matter of course, must accept the humanist evolution myth. Metaphysics should be your point of “attack”. Moreover, in my opinion, you’ve already “won” the initial round of the argument over the physical evidence by default since he did not advance any counter-arguments to your assertions that a) the fossil record supports creation by “kind” and b) our modern knowledge of genetics tells that a “kind” reproduces only another of its “kind”. He must confront these assertions with something other than a smokescreen before discussion of the particulars is appropriate.

     Isn’t it a shame that we live in an age when philosophy and metaphysics is largely viewed as quaint and antiquated? These disciplines were rightly seen as foundational for millennia and nothing has changed. In fact, the first scientists were, of course, clergymen. We have morphed from a nation of thinkers to a nation of technicians. Since you are a thinker and scholar, I don’t need to tell you that this is a bad thing. Such a nation is a follower nation, not a leader. A follower nation since we are no longer able to metaphysically justify our actions as good or bad. Macro-Evolution is simply another symptom of secular humanism, which has come to the fore since The Enlightenment. Others include socialism, judicial activism and justice as rehabilitator rather than punisher. As a military man, you know that as recently as World War II this nation was capable of seeing itself as an force of good set against a force of evil. Now it seems we are not, since we are unable to denounce, or at least publicly denounce, something as obvious evil as the Islamist movement.

     I hope this helps. At any rate, it was fun to think about and discuss with a brother. And hopefully, at some point in the future, we will be able to discuss things further over a pint.

On a Lee Shore 13 - Demons in the Forest

There are demons in the forest.  In small villages like Guasimalito, on all three of the earth’s continents with third world populations, there are demons in the forest.  Ask any villager.  Within its borders, the village shelters its people, but in the black-green shadows of the timbered primordial expanse beyond, they’re on their own.  And at dusk, the dark ethereal perimeter seeps slowly inward, and as the shadows of the trees stretch toward the east swamping their sanctuary, the inhabitants bed themselves down behind doors and compound walls in hope to making it through until light.  Night.

The men are on the move toward a new target.  Several weeks ago on a different continent, Guasimalito, Jose Mirobal’s village, has already been hit, but the profile of tonight’s target is the same.  A remote village in a heavily forested region of a country plagued by civil war, drug-running and banditry.  The forest gives the men cover to launch a quick strike into the village and the ability to disappear quickly afterward.  The region’s history of unrelenting violence allows the men to do their worst without fear that an undermanned and corrupt regional police or militia, if it even exists, will take too much notice.  

    The hysterical shriek of a tin whistle sounded by the squad leader rips through the village’s nocturnal peace signaling the start of another incursion.  Teams positioned to the north, south, east and west of the village surge forward out of the trees toward their targets.  But these targets are not chosen at random.  One week earlier, the scout squad, disguised as missionary workers visited the village, identifying villagers in comparatively good health matching the requisite blood types and genetic profiles, taking photographs of those selected, and marking the GPS position of each target’s home, for use by the harvest squad.

    And so it begins.  Teams of three approach each targeted house.  One man, stationed outside keeps guard, armed with a AK-47, the nondescript weapon of a drug runner or revolutionary, under orders to neutralize any alarmed villager who might attempt to interrupt the operation.  Forcing entry to the home, the other two men shove flashlights in each occupant’s face, compare them to the target photos and either select or reject.  Resistance offered by an occupant, not being extracted, is eliminated with a single shot to the head.  The bewildered target is then bound with plastic cinch cuffs and gagged with duct tape.  Under no circumstances is the target to sustain any damage other than superficial injury, the viability of the target is preserved at all costs.  Members of the squad know that damaged goods will not be tolerated.

    On to the next house.  There, a frightened girl, only 14 years old, has been targeted and is being extracted.  Eyes bulging in their sockets, she frantically searches the room for an explanation, her hands bound tightly, her mouth gagged.  On the floor, her father, recently widowered, is bleeding out from a wound to the head that has severed his temporal artery.  He is alive, but not for long.  The victim’s legs are not restrained, the extraction teams need her to walk on her own.

    Exiting the village in the directions from which they entered, the teams travel at least two miles out of their way before doubling back to a stretch of road running from north to east of the village.  This is the rally point.  Waiting at a point in the road north of the village, a van begins bumping its way along picking up each team, in turn, as it moves to the south and east.  Each target is placed on a rack in the van, designed for just this purpose.  Only then are the victim’s legs restrained.

    Seventy-five kilometers to the southeast, a small field hospital has been set up, equipped with a reasonably sterile operating room, where a surgeon does the unthinkable.  The victims, including the young girl, are taken one by one, alive, into his chamber but emerge only as empty husks to be discarded and harvested merchandise, cryogenically preserved, to fill Miguel Mariposa’s manifest.    

On a Lee Shore 12 - Revelation

    Three o’clock in the morning.  Cold sweat.  Night terror.  Her open door let the rising flood of moonlight, deep on the floor outside, gush into her room in a torrent.  Black night behind the blinds of her windows and in the haunted, grasping trees beyond.  Her body shook in the wet sheets, the room spun and for a full minute she gasped for air, her lungs compressed, as she frantically tried to scream out.  

    “I’m awake!   Calm down.   Dammit!  Calm down!”  She lay frozen, not daring to move, her ears straining to detect any foreign noises in her room or in the bungalow made by the specter that had visited her.  After an eternity, she realized she was alone.  “It was just a dream.  All a dream.  I’m home.  In my bed.  Daddy’s the only one here.“  Relieved, she gave in to two or three jarring sobs that she let force her into a fetal position, which she held, her arms wrapped over her head, squeezing her body into a knot and shutting her eyes tightly, trying to force the fear and panic out.  

    How the does it happen?  How do memories in the subconscious brain re-emerge into the conscious? Is it simply a matter of chemicals shifting position?  Electricity redirected onto different circuits?  Neural impulses changing paths?  However it happens, as she slept that night, the details of the night of Katie’s death slipped out of the shadows, showed themselves and then slipped away again, leaving her with no direct recollections of the events but only memories of the dream now past, a strange ability to know of the thoughts of others in the dream, and the certainty that what the dream revealed was the truth.

    Alone in the dark room, she took inventory of the fragments of her dream.   In her dream Miles sat apart from the others that night, not drinking and watching… watching Katie.  Not drinking, staying alert.  Katie was talking to Chris, and Miles, she was sure, was intent on knowing what they were talking about.  A heavyset man also made an appearance, clumsily hitting on Katie, trying to buy her a drink.  And in the end, Miles had looked at the heavyset man and given him instructions, she knew, omniscient in her dream, with a single look.  His instructions were, “Yes, she’s the one.  Kill her.  Get rid of her for me.”

    It‘s true, she gasped to herself, Miles murdered Katie or, at least, arranged it.  Miles.  Her Miles. The fact asserted itself in her mind and wouldn’t be denied, no matter how much she wanted to doubt it.  At that moment, she was a seer, a psychic, her mind connecting to something in the natural world, that it couldn’t access in its conscious dimension.  Miles killed her.  Still she wanted to doubt but it wouldn’t let her go.

    She spent the rest of the night, lying still, piecing together the events of last few days - Miles' behavior, yesterday’s meeting with the Mark Hall, the FBI agent - while slowly emerging from the strange state of consciousness, it’s power over her gradually diminishing until departing, finally, at first morning light, but leaving her with an inescapable understanding of what had happened.  She reached for her phone on the nightstand and called Shannon.

    “What’s up?” Shannon mumbled groggily.

    “You’re going to think this is crazy, but I think I know what happened to Katie…”

    “What??”

    “I know, it sounds stupid.  But I’m sure.  I know it.  I know it.  Can you meet me somewhere?”

    “How about the beach?”

    “In an hour?”

    “An hour?!”

    “Yeah, please?”

    “Okay.”

    She got there well before Shannon and nervously paced the area of the beach where she felt Shannon would go to first.  It was only then that she considered the implications of her early morning vision beyond what had happened to Katie.  If Miles had done what she now believed he had done, what did he have in mind for her?  Shannon?  Her father?  Even Chris who was the last person Miles had seen talking to Katie?  Her first instinct was to doubt the accuracy of her dream - it was a dream after all.  Her second was to doubt her own sanity.  Her third was to seek shelter up near the dunes where she wouldn’t be so exposed out in the open.  Her eyes studied each approaching form, which, one by one, proved to be strolling retirees and beachcombers, until, at last, out of the haze of the early morning sun and salt spray, she saw a form that she recognized.  Closer and closer it came.  White t-shirt.  Black, knee-length, athletic shorts with a blue stripe down the side.  Dark skin.  Red, curly hair, pinned back.  Searching green eyes.  Shannon.

    “This better not be a joke.”

    “I swear to God…”

    Cara had intended to start at the beginning and give an orderly account of the last two day’s events, but instead she excitedly launched into the details, darting back and forth idiotically between last night’s dream and her conversation with Mark Hall, until Shannon, exasperatedly, slowed her down.

    “So… it came to you last night that Miles ordered some guy to kill Katie?  In John Steven’s… the night she died.”

    “Yes.  That night’s been just a blur for me until this dream… I got so drunk that night.  I guess it’s always been there.  I can see Miles doing it:  looking at Katie then to that fat guy.  Do you remember that fat guy?”

    “Vaguely.  Balding.  Little goatee.”

    “Yeah.  And then the other night when you and Miles were arguing Katie about that night at John Steven’s… Miles lied.  He said he was drunk but I know he wasn’t… he didn’t drink anything but Diet Coke.  I remember thinking it was strange then.  It was the conversation, I had with this guy Mark, the FBI agent that must of triggered all this.  And oh… he was there that night too!”

    “The FBI agent was there?  That night?  At John Steven’s?  What?  Before Katie was killed?  That can’t be a coincidence.”

    “Yeah, he told me he was and at first I didn’t remember him.  But now I do.  I was talking to him.  But I was so drunk…”

    They stared at each other.

    “He’s following Miles… investigating him, maybe…” Shannon said,  “Or… he’s investigating you because he knows you’re with Miles.”

    “Yeah, like I told you, when I was leaving the police station, he walks me out to my car…  then he just asks me what I know about Miguel Mariposa - Miles’ father - and that he knows I’m seeing Miles.  That was it… and he had this look in his eye like he didn’t want to say more… and then he tells me to be careful. ”

    “Here’s what he’s doing.  I know it.  He’s gotta be investigating something that Miles’ father is involved with.  You know… we’d always heard that he was some big connected guy or something… and he’s identified you as being on the inside - he must want you to watch him.”

    “Me?”

    “Yeah, he wanted to plant all that in your head… so you’ll watch Miles and, I suppose he’s hoping that you’ll report what you see back to him.  That’s it.  The guy’s taking a risk.  What if you just go and tell Miles all he told you and Miles warns his father and they just pack up their little show and leave?”

    Cara thought for a while.

    “I know why he’s not worried about that,” she said.  “The last thing he said to me before I left the police station was, ‘Did you know your father is a associate’, or did he say ‘former associate of Miguel Mariposa?’”

    “Shit.  He’s got you. Doesn’t he?” said Shannon.

    “Yeah, I better keep everything he’s told me to myself, because he’s got something on my Dad.”

    Cara sank down into a heap in the sand, covered her face with hands and cried. Shannon crouched down behind her and put arms on her shoulders, barely able to keep the tears back herself.

    “What is going on?  This can’t be happening.  What am I supposed to do?  What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Cara blurted out, nearing panic.  “I come down here to try to help my Dad out, I mean… he’s become this hopeless drunk… and now this…  What is he involved in?  Something big enough to get somebody killed?  You gotta help me, Shannon, help me think what to do.  You gotta help me. ”

    “I’ll help you…” said Shannon calmly.  “I will… This is good… in a way… because now we can do something… We’re gonna work with this guy Mark - at least we’re gonna try. Here’s the thing.  I think I know why they killed Katie.  Remember, Miles didn’t just lie about being drunk that night.  You busted him in a lie before.  Remember?  At the beach, the morning of the day Katie was killed.  Miles told you he was going to be one place, but Katie saw him up at Swan’s Wharf where Johnny keeps his boat.  She saw Miles and a bunch of other guys unloading something off a boat…”

    “That’s right!  And she said that he looked at her like he wasn’t too happy to see her.”

    “Yeah.”

    “Jesus…” stammered Cara.

    “I also remember Katie saying that one of them was a cop.”

    “Well, they're smuggling something.  Something valuable enough... or incriminating enough... to kill for.”