Saltwater in the Bluegrass

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, times, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © by Clifford A. Kice III - 2006

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Cliff Kice, songwriter, guitarist, and author, has now brought to the scene a new chapter in Private Eye Mysteries with the Adventures of J. C. Stringer.

Fresh from the southern tip of Florida, Jimmy Chase Stringer, Private Investigator, is a no-holds-barred kind of detective. He lives on his sailboat, the
Brenda Kay II
, in Pompano Beach at the Harbor Club Resort & Marina. He is tied to each case and lives life with passion, values, and basic resiliency. He knows his stuff when it comes to a case, and he trusts his instincts when it comes to people. Sit back now and experience the magic of paradise in
Saltwater in the
Bluegrass
.

J. C. Stringer heads north to the beautiful rolling hills of Kentucky to solve this case. Enjoy his fast-paced lifestyle as Jimmy’s job takes him from Florida to Kentucky, to the Bluegrass State during the yearly Run for the Roses and the Kentucky Derby Festival. Enjoy the ride as he uncovers all the angles and works his talents against Katherine Ingram and the power she holds over her family and the company she now runs.

“OPEN YOUR MIND TO THE TROPICAL SOUNDS OF THE
ISLANDS AND THE FLORIDA KEYS,

SET YOU SAILS FOR THE SUN, FILL YOUR BLINDER WITH

RUM, SET YOURSELF A COURSE AND MAKE SURE THAT IT’S
FUN,

GIVE YOURSELF A COUPLE OF HOURS, SOMETIMES IT TAKES
YOU ALL DAY,

FIRST TO OPEN YOU EYES AND THEN TO REALIZE YOU’VE
MADE IT THROUGH ANOTHER DAY.”

Hemingway said it best: “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love!”

Every year they come by the thousands, in all shapes and sizes—most with
attitudes—in search of the blissful excesses that life has to offer. Northern
folks, men, women, and children, all in a vacation mode—men sporting
jogging shorts, tank tops, a variety of “been-there” t-shirts, and sandals;
women in their newly-designed, pastel-printed bikini tops and baggy silken
blouses, barely covering up their oily half-baked bodies and their out-of-
shape thighs; kids straggling behind, doing their best to keep up with their
mask and goggles, sandcastle toys, and scuffed-up Frisbees.
Where hotels and motels suddenly turn into expensive montages of rooms
and assortments with spa packages, pools, and cable hookups—where
children stay free—with cabana bars and tike torched evenings, with
dinners, live music, continental breakfasts, high-speed internet, and all the
amenities of home. Where down along the shorelines, venders arrive early,
canvassing the area for the right spot to set up their shops. Where lawn
chairs, umbrellas, pop-up tents, wave-runners, floats, beach towels, toys,
and mopeds are unloaded and scattered about, and where gift shops and
shell shops are open on every corner with anything and everything for sale,
or for rent.

If you haven’t guessed by now, yes, in these parts, this is simply known as
tourist season: something that comes around every year and is, for the most
part, tolerated.

Now, as for weekends in these parts, this brings on a different type of story
altogether. A life of its own you might say, bringing with it an array of the
local inhabitants from the water-rich interiors—as it continues to bustle
along with activity—with people in their solitary ways, heading out from the
many canals and marinas, jaded shallows, mangrove bays, flats, and keys,
jettisoning towards the open waters for several days of activities. Where
people canvass the coastline: those with their morning rituals, the runners,
joggers, and walkers, each lost in their ascetic ways, those who are icing
beers, scratching lottery tickets, fueling vehicles and watercraft, those
sunbathing, lathering sunscreen, and sucking soda, while others are simply
looking for shade, or a place to hide. Then there is the harbor crowd, the
rich condo commandos out of their concrete castles spending the day on the
water, socializing and grilling on their mini-yachts, the poorer sector
heading from their apartments or single-family dwellings to spend the day
working or playing closer to the shore in their runabouts. The drunks and
binge-drinkers looking for an air-conditioned or shaded spot to crash. The
strippers heading home from a night of frolic and pole dancing. The young
and horny still thinking they’re in a lost spring-break
Miami Vice
episode,
and the junkies crawling around with the cocaine jitters trying to secure
their next fix.

And then, like you might guess, there are the old sea-dwellers, like the two
men I passed early Saturday morning while on my way through Jacksonville.
Both men, simply trying their best to stay off the radar, lost in informality,
still hanging on to life in this racially integrated town, smartly in the shade
near a congested corner watching pedestrians, mopeds, bicyclists, and cars
as they cruise past.

Both men looking, from what I could tell, satisfied with the prospects of
doing nothing all day except sitting back with their morning cocktail and a
smoke, eating boiled peanuts, playing dominos, and reading the daily
newspaper. Basically taking in whatever the day had to offer and nothing
more—the more being the survival of another inter-city coastal evening and
the new league of violence that seems to permeate Florida’s streets from
midnight until dawn these days.

As for today; today is nothing all that different.
Along the shore light breezes ripple the water. The gentle surf and seaside
breezes carrying scents of jasmine and frangipani through the trees, as high
tide started back out to sea. Florida was waking to the smell of the ocean
and the grind of another overly-saturated tourist season morning.
As for me, holding down the mind-boggling thoughts of surely being
envied by everyone who might be looking, I pulled out of Harley Motors onto
A-1-A in my newly-restored 1963 Corvette and headed south towards home.

Lamar Alex Ingram,
57, lay alone, supported only by the weight of his body, in a broken, fetal-like position, his body giving little, if any, response to the commands his thoughts so desperately warranted. Broken and torn he lay trapped deep within the cave system that only hours earlier had been a large passageway for employees to use in entering and exiting the Ingram mine.

This passageway was used for the transportation of gold and mineral deposits.

Now he was part of the rubble, part of the debris, and part of the horror. He was part of what transcended the area and engulfed the formations into a disastrous and fatal cave-in.

Unable to move his body, he waited. Unable to keep his eyes open, he hoped, he prayed, he cried, he stopped, and then again he sat and listened. He would wait for anything that might bring him a lasting ounce of momentary comfort, a chance that he might be saved, a chance that someone would find him, but sadly there would be nothing, nothing but a rumbling of silence and uneasiness. Lamar struggled to see in front of him, to make out an image, but due to the dust and the dirt hanging in the air, his attempts became useless. He could not see. He could not make out where he was or what had happened. He could not think. His body shook. His eyes blinked uncontrollably. His mouth went dry. His lips began to crack. Within seconds of the collapse everything had become quiet. He had become dizzy and disoriented.