Free Minus Tide by Dennis Yates

be ashamed but I know you don’t give a shit.”
    The sheriff stared at the wood stove and sighed. The glow was already fading. Was he going to be able to move? His back was killing him. Whiplash for sure, no hope of sliding his hands under his legs so he could get them in front. He was just too fat and out of shape for that. And she was right about Mitch. He’d been as squeaky clean as they come. Always was a good kid. Never got mixed up with a bad crowd or caused him any trouble. Back then he sometimes wished he’d had an excuse to stop by Mitch’s house to have a talk with his folks, just so he could’ve gotten a glimpse of the boy’s older sister. Linda was captain of the cheerleader team and oh man did she have some curves on her.
    “Hate me all you want Tammy. But you’re going to have to forgive that boy one of these days. I also know it wasn’t his idea to start a family this soon. Hell, I worked with him the same day you’d shoved that dripping home pregnancy test under his nose. Poor kid was shock. I had to pull over twice just so he wouldn’t puke in the patrol car. But you just couldn’t wait get that noose around him good and tight, could you girl? So let’s just cut the crap now and talk about how we’re going to get out of here before they come back.”

 
     
     
    Chapter 18
     
     
    Gradually Tammy’s crying began to mingle with the sibilant chorus of water being pulled from the bay. Mitch imagined fish being drawn out to the dark mouth and the crowd of lurking sea lions, the exposed sandbars loaded with clams. If you didn’t mind taking the risk of getting grounded until the tide turned, you could land a small boat on one of those sandy islands and go home with more clams than you could possibly eat.
    He hadn’t wanted to go out with the sheriff that night. It was too windy and the waves at the bar were bigger than he’d seen in a while. He’d once capsized in similar weather, but it had been in the daylight and some other fishermen were quick to pull him out before hypothermia set in and the current pulled him under. On that night with the sheriff the bay had been empty and other than a watery moon far to the south, he remembered it mostly by the shapes of black waves and their echoing thunder between the rocky sphinx-arms of the jetties. He’d begun to feel uncertain that he would make it home alive, that the sheriff was having second thoughts about allowing him into his private world of traffickers and pirates. The sheriff had been acting restless, and more often then usual Mitch had smelled alcohol on his breath while they were on duty.
    The sheriff promised a smooth transaction, that they’d be returning to shore before he knew it. We make the buy and then drive the stuff to a guy waiting in a Portland motel, he’d said. As simple as visiting grandma on a Sunday afternoon. We’ll take the patrol car so it’ll look like official business and I’ll have you’ll back home in time for dinner with the little wife.
    There were two of them. The captain steering the boat and a bald beefy guy with a backpack. They’d seemed mildly hostile and appeared to be heavily armed. As soon as they’d gotten within hearing distance they began to shout “No Luce, no Luce!” The sheriff didn’t understand what they saying, and the engines of both boats drowned out Mitch’s translation. When Mitch was about to toss over the duffel bag of cash as planned, one of the traffickers did something that made the sheriff panic, and before Mitch even realized what was happening, shots were fired and the large tattooed man was clinging to their starboard bow with blood spraying from his chest and the boat he’d come from began to rapidly zigzag back out to sea. Mitch was sure its captain had been hit too, had heard the man’s screams above the thundering motor and waves.
    He’d slipped on the trafficker’s blood and fallen, bashed his knee against a crate. Writhing in pain, Mitch had watched the