The Killings InThe Keys

About the Book

Frankly, I don’t know whether to call this manuscript fact or fiction. I know that what I have been able to check is fact, but this is mainly hearsay, as told to me by the real Harley Grant. I met Harley Grant (of course I have changed his name) in Public Market just as I have had Mike Bender meet him, in the beer isle. The second time I ran into him, I invited him over to the ‘Green Flash’ our houseboat tied in Losers Lagoon for a drink. Dottie invited him for supper and after supper we sat around drinking Sam Adams. Dottie finally went to bed and we were still batting our gums. It was then that Harley told me this story that he swears is true. It was two in the morning when he finished. When he finished I shook my head in disbelief. I told him that I was going to check on it. He told me that I would find nothing. Big oil had destroyed any trace that it had ever happened. This I took with a grain of salt. I told this tale to a friend, a Lt. Commander in the Coast Guard. He said, “Let me check on it, maybe I can find something in one of the old logs. I had almost forgotten about it when he got back to me. “Jack, there may be something to that story you told me. I found this entry in the ship’s log of one of the decommissioned 84 foot cutters. Be on the lookout for a 70 or 80 foot yacht with x’s and z’s in its name which was last seen in Key West! This rekindled my interest and I went back to Harley and asked him to show me Hidden Cay. He took me down to the gate, but he said that Mike and Lois were on an extended stay in Goa. Yes, there were peafowl on the property! But that is the only verification that I could find, except I did locate Neal Forest and in a drunken stupor he admitted that he did row a couple of ‘Chinks’ out to a big yacht. In this book I of course invented much of the dialogue and changed all the names. I tried to keep it as realistic as it was when Harley first told it by having Mike Bender tell the story. Further research proved fruitless. I was stonewalled everywhere I went! I even had one threat not to write a book about it. To hell with it, I am going to write it and call it FICTION!

About the Author

Colonel Koneazny enlisted in the US Maritime Service the day after he graduated from high school on his 18th birthday in 1943. He trained as an ordinary seaman, and able bodied seaman and then attended Merchant Marine OCS. He earned his Third Mates Ticket. He then received a direct commission in the US Army Harbor Craft as a 2nd Lt. before his 19th birthday. He served two years in the E.T.O. earning two battle stars. After World War II he joined the Army Reserve and served as Battery Commander of a 105 battery and later a 4.5 rocket battery. He is a graduate of the Field Artillery School, The Field Artillery Field Officers School, The Industrial College of the Armed Forces and a high honors graduate of The Command and General Staff College. He served as Commanding Officer of a Logistical Command until his retirement when he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. He did volunteer work in the Retirement Activities Office at the Homestead Air Base in the winter. Colonel Koneazny was a partner with his brother in the Peerless Tree Expert Co for 40 years. He served on the original Sheffield Planning Board for seven years and Chairman for five years. He was instrumental in the founding of the town park and worked as the first chairman of the Committee. Jack and his wife Dottie spent 19 winters on their sailboat Fayaway sailing the Bahamas, the Keys, the Virgin Islands and the Greek Islands. They divide their time between Sheffield and Key Largo, Florida.