I used to run a fishing boat for charter out of Cape Cod. People would come from all over to rent my boat and spend the day pulling in all kinds of fish. They’d pull in flounder, black seabass, mackerel, mahi-mahi, swordfish, and even sharks.
I would always pilot the boat so the customers could focus on getting their reels, nets, and various fishing equipment set up and ready to go when we got to my usual fishing spot. I’d often drop anchor, head below deck, and catch a nap while the fishing went on.
Usually, I’d take out small groups of friends and sometimes families. Once in a while, I’d have only a couple of friends rent the boat, and on rare occasions, I’d have someone go out alone to fish. It was on one of those trips when I had the creepiest customer of my life.
He looked like some kind of mobster: short, stocky, with dark curly hair and a mustache. He had a round nose and a scar that ran across his face from just below his left eye across his upper lip and ending just next to the right side of his mouth. He wore a blue baseball jacket and spoke with a heavy Bostonian accent.
He brought on a huge cooler with over 100 lbs of chum in it. He was after sharks, and chum is chopped-up meat used to attract them to the area where you can then hook them with your reel. You just dump it in the water, and the sharks can smell it, supposedly from miles away.
He had a rod and reel that I recognized as professional-grade for sport fishermen, which was fully capable of catching sharks up to 800 lbs. Once he had one hooked, he’d have to use my crane to hoist it up and on board.
On the way out, the man kept staring at me with his cold, dead eyes. The expression and gaze he possessed were unsettling and actually made me slightly paranoid. I had never before encountered someone like that, someone whose very presence made my skin crawl. He kept coming up behind me in the wheelhouse while I was at the helm. He’d just stand there saying nothing.
In one instance, I turned around unexpectedly and caught him quickly whipping his hand behind his back as if concealing something from my view. Then he just grinned at me.
Eventually, we got to the coordinates where I stopped the boat, dropped anchor, shut the engine off, and headed down into my cabin. I told the man if he needed anything to knock on my cabin door. Once inside, I locked the door and quickly found my gun, which I placed within reach just in case.
I drifted off to sleep and woke suddenly to the sound of the door to my cabin hitting up against the stopper on the wall. I lifted my head up, and the man was hovering over me with a grin on his face. I asked how he had gotten into my room. He claimed the door was unlocked. He said he was ready to go back to shore. He had dumped his chum in the water and it had failed to attract any sharks.
I thought this was odd, but frankly, I was glad to get rid of him early. I told him I’d be right up. He left my room and went topside. I checked the door to my cabin on the way out, and it had marks on it that made it apparent that it had been jimmied. I was mad, but I wasn’t going to risk getting into a scuffle with this man. I’d taken his money, and now I just wanted to get back to shore myself.
The ride back was worse than the trip out. He was pacing and writhing his hands and glaring at me the whole time. It was strange. Several times I thought for sure that he was planning to kill me. I went to take a pee at one point and checked my cabin for my gun while I was down there. It was gone. He had taken my pistol.
I decided to act like I didn’t know and go back to the helm. From there, I would keep my flare gun in hand and keep my eye on him. He saw me holding the flare gun, and his demeanor changed. He started acting more friendly.
I dropped him off at the dock and luckily picked up another client right then and there. I dumped his gear on the dock and helped the next customer load up. I disembarked without saying a word to the man.
I took my new customer back to the same spot. Maybe the other man’s chum would produce results. Later that afternoon, he did indeed pull in a shark. We hoisted it up and into the boat.
I always help my customers clean their fish and pack them in ice upon our return. While we were gutting the shark, a police officer approached us. He explained that there was a manhunt going on for a mob thug who was wanted for murder. He had abducted a woman the previous day, and there were witnesses. They hadn’t found the body yet, but they had made flyers with the man’s face on it, and he wanted me to take a look in case I saw him.
Just then, the shark’s stomach accidentally got cut into as we cleaned the creature, and its breakfast spilled out. It consisted of a female human’s hand among other body parts. I was shocked, as was the cop.
I looked over at his wanted poster, and my hair stood on end at what I saw. It was the same man I’d taken fishing earlier. Then it hit me. The chum he was using was his victim’s body. He’d found a clever way to dispose of the evidence. It’s a good thing I had that flare gun, or I might have been with her in the belly of that beast. X