There was no ice for the beer, so they drank the beer first, before the August heat ruined it. Then they turned to the wine and moonshine, not caring that it was warm. Empty cans, bottles, and cigarette butts littered the crossties between the railroad tracks. A camping lantern, leaning precariously on one crosstie, provided the only respite from the night, and insects swirled around it. The railroad at this point ran north and south, and four men sat low on the east rail, like birds on a telephone line, their legs splayed out in front of them and their backs close to a thick growth of scrub oak and palmetto. On the west side of the tracks the ground was higher, and a lone man sat there. He looked down at the four men, took occasional swigs of rye whiskey from a bottle, and chain-smoked Camel cigarettes. His butts lay in a neat pile at his feet.

Each of the four men wore rough clothes and rubber boots, the boots of men who spend their days on small boats dredging for clams in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon. The northernmost man on the rail was heavyset, older than the other three, probably in his late thirties. He was beginning to go bald above his forehead, and bushy eyebrows came together above his sunburned nose. He took a Buck knife from a holster on his belt and peeled away the plastic seal on a large bottle of cheap, scuppernong wine. He unscrewed the cap, took a large swallow, and passed it to the man on his left.

“Don’t hog it, Clyde.”

Clyde pulled the bottle tight to his chest. His eyes were glazed, and his begrimed red hair hung limp beneath a camouflage baseball cap with a deer on it. He took two unsteady drinks, larger than his share, some of the wine draining down the corners of his mouth.

The man on his left snatched the bottle from his hands. “Joey said don’t hog it, dammit!”

Clyde made a show of trying to take the bottle back but instead toppled to one side and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

The third man, like Clyde, was probably in his mid-twenties. Snake tattoos adorned both sides of his thin neck. H.A.T.E was tattooed on his right knuckles, and his baseball cap read “Dennis.”

“We going to be rich, ain’t we, Joey?” said Dennis. He tipped the bottle high above his face and let the wine stream into his mouth.

“Maybe,” said the heavyset Joey.

“It’s a sure thing,” said Dennis.

“Ain’t no sure things,” said Joey.

The fourth man was small and frail, younger than the others. Despite the mosquitoes, he wore only a tank-top in the humid August night, and his collarbones jutted from beneath the straps. He wore no cap. He was too drunk to take the wine from Dennis. When he tried, he teetered as if he were going to fall backward off the rail.

“Goddamn,” said Dennis, “Little Donnie can’t even hold a bottle.”

They all laughed. Joey rose slowly, moved with unsteady steps to the scrub oak behind him, and took a leak. Through the trees he watched Highway U.S. 1, which ran north and south, parallel to the railroad tracks. It was past midnight, and, except for a few brightly lit semi-trucks, the traffic was light. Beyond the highway lay the little fishing community of Valkaria, Florida.  Beyond the town lay the Indian River lagoon, and beyond that lay the barrier island that separated the Lagoon from the Atlantic Ocean.

Joey returned to the rail and sat down again, his legs revolting against the alcohol. As he did so, he saw the lone man on the opposite side of the tracks raise a rifle. At first Joey was confused. Then he raised his hands to protect his face. A bullet went through both hands and out the back of his head. A quick, second shot hit him in the chest. The force of the impacts drove him backward, and he slid onto the gravel and dirt near the scrub oaks. His legs sprawled over the rail, his head pushed askew under a clump of palmetto.

Clyde and Dennis tried to stand and hide at the same time, getting in each other’s way. They turned their backs to the gunman to push up from the rail, and six quick shots rang loud, followed by the thuds of bullet after bullet slamming into flesh and bone. Clyde and Dennis collapsed face first across the rail they’d been sitting on.

Donnie, the small man, began running south along the rails. He was twenty yards away when two bullets hit him in the back. He fell to his knees, then tried to stand. He crawled across the rail into the high grass near the scrub oak and rolled over. He was raising his hands to plead when the gunman stood over him and shot him twice in the head. The force of the bullets made his head bounce off the hard ground.

The gunman walked slowly back to the other three, and one by one he shot each man again, in the head. Then he searched for the spent cartridges, put them in his pocket, picked up his bottle of rye whisky and cigarette butts, and walked north into the night.

Nick Robles loved the practice of criminal trial law, but it hadn’t made him rich. After the University of Florida and six years in the Marines, Nick had worked for five years as an investigator for the Brevard County State Attorney’s office. Then came law school and after that Cape Canaveral. Now he earned a living as a lawyer, investigator, and boat captain, supplementing his law practice by chartering his boat, Misdemeanor, out of Port Canaveral. At $2,500 a day, the charters barely covered the cost of fuel and the upkeep of the boat, but he loved the sea as much as he loved the challenges of the courtroom. Only someone who stands beside a client when the court sentences them to death can fully understand the awful power of the law. Only someone who experiences the wind’s changeability, the smells and the ever-changing colors of the sea, can understand the healing power of its waves.

When he wasn’t sleeping aboard the Misdemeanor, Nick lived upstairs in the Victorian house that served as his office in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Today he was tired. It had been a long drive from North Florida, and the August humidity, even this early in the morning, was overpowering. He unlocked his office door. The frosted glass read:

He went upstairs to shower and then came down to his office kitchen, desperately in need of coffee. He’d spent much of the last night driving from Raiford Prison in North Florida after attending the execution of one of his former clients, a man called Dobie Sturman. When he was a young attorney, Nick had represented Dobie, and he still felt guilty about not preventing the death sentence, though, in retrospect, there wasn’t much Nick could have done. Dobie, in a drunken rage, had killed his wife and teenage daughter, dismembered them, and buried their bodies in the back yard. It had been a stupid argument over Dobie’s brutal treatment of the family dog. Dobie had asked Nick to attend his execution. How does someone say “no” to that request?

It hadn’t been Nick’s first execution. Before becoming a lawyer, while still an investigator for the Brevard County State Attorney’s office, he’d been asked by a victim’s parents to witness the execution of the man who had killed their daughter. They didn’t have the stomach for it, but they wanted someone to confirm that he was dead, and it had been Nick’s investigation that resulted in the man’s conviction.

By now, Nick wasn’t squeamish about executions. In his view, it was a myth that all criminal defense lawyers are bleeding-heart liberals. Nick believed in the death penalty for egregious cases, but it still stung when the defendant was his client. Usually, Nick represented those accused of crimes for the same reasons most criminal defense lawyers do. He understood that he was a cog in a machine designed to achieve a close approximation of justice. To accomplish that, the accused had the right to put the best possible case forward. It didn’t hurt that the lawyer was paid for doing it.

Marta Santos, Nick’s paralegal and investigator, came down the stairs. She had her own apartment in the old, rambling Victorian house. Her shiny black hair and dark eyes made her attractive, and her muscular body, baggy jeans, tattoos, and closely cropped hair suggested “butch.” She was lesbian and made no secret of it. Originally from Brazil, she still spoke with a recognizable accent. She was a former New York cop, forty-four years old, and as tough as they come. She had quit the NYPD after the department wrote her up for the use of excessive force. She had been struggling to subdue a drunk weighing over two hundred and fifty pounds. He was about to get the best of her, so she squeezed his balls so hard they had to take him to the hospital. It was the talk of her fellow officers for weeks.

Not yet nine a.m., and the phone was ringing. Marta answered it.

“Nick, do you know a Fergis Bender?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“Well, he says he knows you and wants to talk. Says it’s urgent.”

Nick walked into his office, slumped into his chair, and picked up the phone. Marta brought him his coffee.

“Mr. Robles, you probably don’t remember me. I was two years ahead of you in Merritt Island high school. I’m the son of Knox Bender.”

Assuming the man was being accurate, Nick figured that would make him forty-eight years old. Nick didn’t remember Fergis, but he knew who Knox Bender was—as disreputable a character as ever lived in Brevard County. He had spent one year in the county jail for beating his wife, after she’d ended up in the hospital. He had been arrested more than once for public drunkenness. Six or seven years before, Nick had represented him on two of those occasions. Knox had also twice been arrested, but not convicted, on suspicion of grand larceny.

“I know your father,” said Nick.

“I thought you would.”

Nick sensed a verbal shrug in Fergis’s words, a resignation to an unwelcome reality.

“I want you to represent him,” said Fergis.

The polished, sophisticated voice on the phone didn’t square with how Nick would have envisioned a son of Knox Bender. “Can you come into the office?” he asked.

“I’m in San Francisco, but I can wire you your fee.”

“What is your father accused of?”

“Yesterday, Knox told me someone killed four men on the railroad tracks near Valkaria. He tells me the police suspect him. He hasn’t been arrested yet.”

“Did he tell you he did it?”

“No.”

Nick hadn’t read the local paper in a couple of days. These four dead men were news to him. But at the moment he was puzzled about something else. Fergis had referred to “Knox.” Why not “Dad” or “my father”?

“A case like that will be expensive,” said Nick.

“How much?” The voice was all business.

“My fee for four murders will be $100,000 plus expenses.”

The response came quickly: “Where do you want me to wire the funds?”

“I’m curious,” said Nick. “What do you do in San Francisco?”

“I’m a hedgefund manager. Money is no problem.”

“I’m assuming your father will be coming in today?”

“He should be there by nine o’clock, if he’s not drunk.” Now the voice had a hard edge.

“Will you be coming to see him?” Nick asked, though he already knew the answer.

There was short, sardonic laugh on the line. “Not hardly,” said Fergis.

“I get the impression you and you father don’t get along.”

“My father is a first-rate piece of shit. I left home after he beat my mother. My grandparents raised me. The only time he calls me now is for money. This is my good-bye gift, but don’t worry, I’ll pay whatever it takes.”

“I’ll transfer you to my paralegal. She’ll give you instructions for the wire transfer. Please give her an address and a phone number so we can reach you. There’ll be a limit on what I can share with you, of course, but I assume you’ll want to know the outcome.”

“Yes, let me know. But the son-of-a-bitch will call for more money whether he’s convicted or not. Tell him this is the end of the golden brick road.”

Nick hung up the phone, leaned back, and sipped his cup of coffee. It was a big fee, but he had an uneasy feeling that Knox Bender was going to be a real problem.

After the shower and the coffee, Nick was beginning to come alive. He went to the front door, hearing Marta at the reception desk giving Fergis the wire-transfer instructions. The late-night edition of the Orlando Sentinel was on the porch.

He didn’t have to search for an article about four dead men. It was the lead story on the front page:

Nick laid the newspaper on Marta’s desk. “Our new case.”

It occurred to him that he should go upstairs and change into a shirt and tie, since he was still wearing the Sasquatch tee-shirt he’d put on after his shower. Marta always made fun of the shirt, but it comforted Nick to think that somewhere in this large world there existed a bipedal creature less prone to folly than humans.

Fergis was prophetic: Knox Bender was not at the office at nine. While waiting, Nick read the Orlando Sentinel story several more times. He was lucky in this case. Usually the first time he got any details of a crime was when he met his client or read an indictment. Here, some experienced reporter had given him a wealth of information. He took out a legal pad and began making notes. They were divided into two parts: questions he wanted to ask Knox Bender, and what investigation would be necessary to defend him. Even if Bender had killed the four men, small details would be helpful in putting on a defense.

Bender finally arrived at 11:15 a.m., smelling of alcohol, bacon, and eggs. Nick smiled at the thought that he must have had whiskey with breakfast. He had aged visibly since Nick had last represented him; according to Nick’s calculations, he must now be seventy-two years old. Time had clearly taken a toll on him. He walked with a limp as Marta escorted him into Nick’s office. He wore battered cowboy boots, jeans with holes in both knees, and, even though it was August, a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves cut away.

“My son call you?” he asked. There was trepidation, uncertainty in his voice.

“Yes,” said Nick. “Have a seat.”

Bender sat nervously on the edge of the chair, his forearms on Nick’s desk. “He ask you to represent me?”

“He’s agreed to pay your legal fee.”

At that Bender slid back in his chair, and Nick sensed some of his trepidation draining away. “He’s a good man,” said Bender, without any emotion. He didn’t ask how much Nick’s fee would be or how his son was doing.

“Do you want me to represent you?” asked Nick.

“Yeh. You represented me before.”

One of Nick’s first jobs was to assess how his client might look to a jury. He already dreaded what any jury would think of Knox Bender. There are men whose lack of moral restraint and self-control, whose drinking, gambling, vice, and corrupt lifestyle are etched into their faces, into every fiber of their being. They’re easy to dislike, and Knox Bender had that look. Nick had seen plenty of defendants convicted merely because the jury disliked them.

The man before him was thin and sinewy, his skin clinging tightly to the backs of his hands, to every muscle and ligament in his forearms. His arms and face were a reddish, mottled brown that resembled distressed leather. There was a cowl of wrinkles around his face. He wore a dirty fedora with its front brim bent down over his forehead. Beneath the brim, intense green eyes glared out from below scraggly eyebrows—accusing, harsh, angry at the world.

His goatee and mustache were yellowed from smoke and tobacco stains, and Nick quickly saw why. Bender was dipping snuff and spitting into an empty Styrofoam cup. Nick asked him if he would stop spitting while they talked, and Bender set the cup on the corner of Nick’s desk. He asked if he could smoke, and Nick said, “No.”

“Your son told me about four dead men near Valkaria. He said the police suspect you. As your attorney, I’m going to ask you a question, and I need an honest answer. I don’t care what the answer is, but if I think you’re lying to me, I won’t represent you. Do you understand?”

“This ain’t my first rodeo,” said Bender. His voice was raspy.

“Did you kill the men at Valkaria?”

“Hell, no. They needed killing, but I didn’t do it.”

Bender was not making Nick’s job easy. “Do you know who did kill them?”

“No, but you’ll find enough people who wanted to. They were robbing half the folks in Valkaria.”

“How do you know that?”

“All four been arrested for stealing. Donnie Vinoski pled to stealing a pickup truck, but the goddamn judge withheld sentence.”

“The newspaper say you were the first person to talk to the deputy when he arrived after midnight. Did you make the call to the sheriff’s department?”

“My girlfriend did.”

“What’s her name?”

“Lois Fawlson.”

“You and she were at her mobile home?”

Bender grinned. “More like a trailer than a fancy ‘mobile home,’ but yeh.”

“Where were you when you heard the gunshots?”

“I was on the crapper. I told Lois to call the sheriff. I was occupied.”

“Had you been at the trailer all evening?”

“Yeh. Lois and me was watching TV shows on her iPad. Somebody stole her new TV.”

“Why did you take the deputy to the railroad tracks?”

“Because that’s where it sounded like the shots came from. People drink and screw there all the time. I been there myself. That part of the tracks is surrounded by scrub oak, and there ain’t no trains at that time of night. Gunshots ain’t all that unusual. Folks get drunk and shoot at empty bottles and cans. A guy got killed a few years ago when a bullet ricocheted off the rails.”

“When you got to the tracks, did you see the dead men?”

“Not at first.”

“Did you stay while the sheriff was there?”

“Yeh, I saw all four bodies.”

“Did you recognize them at the time?”

“Recognized Donnie Vinoski. Worked with him once down at the clam-shipping company. Sorted clams. All four men were shot in the face, though. Hard to recognize ’em.”

“What do you do for a living, Mr. Bender?”

“I used to have a boat and rake clams, but the bank repossessed it. Since then, I get by. I do roofing, some landscape work, some jobs down at the clam-packers when I can get ’em.”

“Have you talked to the police?”

“Just there on the tracks.”

“What makes you think they suspect you of the murders?”

“Lois says they came looking for me. Got a warrant for my arrest.”

“I suggest you turn yourself in. We can try to get you bonded out, but with four murders you’ll probably stay in jail until the trial date. You have a problem with that?”

“I guess not. You think my son will go my bail?”

“I doubt it.”

“I guess beggars can’t be choosers. Go ahead and call the sheriff. I been arrested before.  I’ll go outside and smoke. You got something to drink? They won’t let me drink in jail.”

Nick didn’t want Bender to be drunk when he was arrested. Still, he understood. He went to the kitchen and brought back a small glass of whiskey. “Drink it before the sheriff gets here.”

Someone murders four men on a lonely, dark railroad near the fishing village of Valkaria, Florida. The victims are men who made their living by dredging for clams in the Indian River Lagoon. Nick Robles, criminal defense lawyer and part-time charter-boat captain, is hired to represent Knox Bender, a disreputable local character. The evidence is overwhelming and points directly at Knox—until Nick learns that the dead men have been spending gold and silver coins at a local bar. The coins are reals and escudos from the Spanish treasure fleet that foundered off Florida’s east coast in a hurricane, in 1715.

Nick’s first problem is staying alive. Relatives of the dead men are trying to kill him. His second problem is finding out exactly where the dead men got the coins, and whether someone killed them to keep the treasure’s location a secret. Nick ends up in the labyrinthine world of a Spanish treasure historian, unscrupulous treasure hunters, a crazy man who thinks he’s the reincarnation of a Spanish treasure salvor, and the Dominican mob. At the same time, he must defend Knox Bender, and Knox has got even more people wanting to kill him.

This is a sequel to Dead Girl Waving, my first Nick Robles novel. Why did I choose to write it? Because creating unique characters and putting them in complicated, dangerous situations is a blast. It keeps me up late at night.