A Hard Death (3 page)

O
ut in the Everglades, Jenner ran along the old canal road, pounding the four-mile stretch in the early afternoon heat. He'd been doing it most days for almost three weeks; at first, each breath had ripped out of his chest, jagged and wet, but now his body had its own rhythm, and his feet steadily beat the ground, working the bellows of his lungs. He could feel his body tightening, distilling down to muscle, sinew, and bone, an increasingly elemental structure moving over the earth, through the air, by the water.

Jenner was healing—not physically, the way the knife slash across his left arm had become a smooth purple scar, but the other healing, his body fusing with whatever particular metaphysical energy powered it across the surface of the world. He was becoming whole again; he was getting better.

He had told the staff at the medical examiner's office to reach him by cell if they needed him. But they wouldn't need him—they never needed him. Douglas County was a place where old money went to die, a place where no one ever died violently. At least, so everyone kept telling him.

Jenner saw no one for two miles, not even a fisherman. The Faxahatchee Canal was a straight line carved across the Everglades to contain the wilderness, to mark the start of farmland and tract housing. But on the far side of the dark water, the canal bank was crumbling and overgrown, now barely recognizable as man-made. The Everglades had fought back against the imposition of order, spilling over the edges, forcing through the boundary of concrete and blacktop.

On his runs, Jenner would pass white herons hunting frogs in the shallows, and packs of cormorants posing in the branches, facing the
sun immobile, black wings like widow's weeds draped wide to dry. And occasionally, on the far side, where smaller tributaries trickled sluggishly through the undergrowth into the canal, he'd catch sight of a gator, half-hidden in the dark, glassy gaps in the pale green lace covering of water plants.

The path ahead fell into shadow as the sun slipped behind clouds. Jenner's mood shifted with the light, and, once again, he found himself running blind, the path, the water, everything falling back until he could see nothing but the man he'd killed. He carried the dead man awkwardly, trailed him along like a sagging helium balloon, the cord somehow entangled around his neck.

He'd talked about it with Dr. Rother, the government-supplied therapist he started seeing after 9/11. Rother said it was a stress symptom, chatter from his unconscious about something being wrong.

But Jenner didn't understand
why
—he wasn't afraid of that man, nor did he feel guilty for killing him. The man had been a monster. He'd killed one of Jenner's friends and carved up another; he'd done it while Jenner lay gasping in front of them. And he would've killed Ana de Jong too.

Ana. The man had kept her prisoner in the warehouse for days, then hunted her like an animal through the decaying space, stabbing at her with a big iron spike. Jenner remembered her lying there on the couch afterward, too weak to cry as he plucked nails from her filthy skin.

Jenner's jaw tightened. Thinking about what the man had done to Ana made it easier for Jenner to remember how he'd killed him. How he'd driven that spike through his chest and held on as the man rattled out his last bloody breaths. The way the spike shuddered with his twitches as he died. The heat of the man's blood coursing down the iron to slick Jenner's fists, locked white-knuckled to the cold, rusted shaft.

And the thing that scared Jenner was that, sometimes, it actually felt
good.

There was a feathery squeak, and Jenner turned to see a blue heron take off, swooping low over the water, the long legs ticking the surface to set spreading ripples in motion. Or was it an egret? No, a heron: the guide at the Everglades park said herons fly with their necks bent.

The world flooded back in. In the distance, Jenner could see the East Farm Road bridge. He'd stop there, catch his breath, look for alligators in the water below. Act like a tourist.

Something was happening up ahead. As the canal path rose up to East Farm, Jenner slowed to a walk.

A sheriff's department Special Response van was parked on the far side, and beyond it an olive-green SUV with the Florida State Parks logo. A tow truck was backed up to the water's edge; by the truck, a uniformed deputy was shouting down into the water.

Jenner walked up onto the bridge to get a better look.

In the canal, a diver was bobbing next to the tow truck cable. The cable disappeared into the water, plunging toward a pale, ghostly shape that billowed faintly beneath the surface.

They were recovering a car.

The diver attached the cable to the frame or axle, then swam to the other side of the sunken car, grabbed the line, and dragged it down into the dark green water.

The hoist motor howled, and the steel cable stiffened, but the car didn't break the surface. The diver popped up again to yell to the deputy on the bank; the driver cut the hoist motor.

“Dr. Jenner! Doctor!”

The deputy was waving up at him, the diver looking up too, treading water as he floated over the pallid shadow of the drowned car.

“We got a body!”

J
enner climbed the concrete barrier and scrambled down the embankment. It was an unpaved feeder road, a place where people from the Reaches came to drink beer and fish for bluegill and turtles.

He recognized the deputy from a motor vehicle accident out on Pelican Alley the week before.

They shook hands. “Nash, right?”

“Hi, doc.” Nash glanced at Jenner's sweaty Pixies T-shirt and worn Nike shorts, and grinned. “Good thing you were in the neighborhood.”

Jenner joined the deputy and the park ranger at the bank, and peered into the water. He could see the car clearly—a light-colored, late-model compact. The boom slowly pulled up. The cable snapped taut, then the car trunk lurched visibly under the water. The hoist whined away as the car rose, the rear bumper finally breaking the surface in a rush of eddies.

The grinding turned to a howl as the car continued to rise, now tipped vertical. The diver abruptly raised a flat palm; the driver killed the winch.

Beneath the canal's shivering surface, Jenner saw the diver smash the window repeatedly until it was riven by a web of fracture lines. He pushed in the shattered window, then shoved off, kicking away from the car.

He swam to the bank, and, aided by his partner, climbed the rope ladder up onto dry land. He sat down heavily on a flat log.

Jenner and the park ranger watched him catch his breath. She turned to Jenner and said, “Excuse me, doctor? Were you at the visitor center over at Magic Bend Park yesterday?”

He nodded. “My day off.”

She held out a hand. “Deb Putnam.” She had a no-nonsense grip, and a pistol on her hip.

The diver had dropped his weight belt and was unstrapping his harness. Jenner approached him.

“So, what can you see, deputy?”

“You're the ME?” He blew into his regulator a couple of times, then slipped the harness off his back and eased the tank to the ground. “Doctor…?”

Nash said, “Dr. Jenner. Doc, my partner here is Norris.”

They shook hands. Norris took the Mountain Dew the ranger offered, popped the top, and chugged it down in big gulps. He breathed out, and grinned. “Thanks, Deb.”

She tipped her baseball cap back, and Jenner saw she was pretty. Tan, blue-eyed and freckly, blond ponytail—a real Florida girl.

Norris turned back to Jenner. “Well, doc, we've got a big ole swelled-up sonuvagun in there, floating around in the driver's compartment.”

“Is the body intact?”

“It's really murky down there—I can't hardly see him through the window. Best I can tell, he's by himself.” He shook his head. “Don't see any damage to the car, though. Windshield's intact.”

He took another swig of soda. Jenner said, “Why did the tow-truck operator stop? With the hoist, I mean?”

Nash jerked his thumb toward the car. “Tell the truth, this truck's a little bit small for this. That car is just a two-ton bucket holding another ton of water, doc. Norris will go back in, unroll the windows so it can drain right as it comes up.”

“Why didn't you just break all the windows?”

Norris shrugged. “You should try breaking tempered glass underwater some time.”

He stood. “Most likely just another drunk driver—we fish a few out every summer. Welcome to Port Fontaine, doc!”

He finished the last of the soda and crushed the can, then tossed it to the ranger with a belch. “Recycle this, Deb.”

“Norris?” She smiled sweetly, fluidly lifting her hand, one finger raised toward him.

She held on to the can.

Smirking, Norris stepped to the edge, jumped into the canal, and swam to the car. He pulled the mask down over his face, took a deep breath, then dipped down to wiggle into the broken window. It was a snug fit, and Jenner saw why he'd shed his tank.

Nash said, “So, doc, you're from New York, right? Port Fontaine's going to bore the heck out of you—no one ever dies here but old folks or drunk drivers.”

He thought for a couple of seconds, then added, “And then, mebbe two, three times a year, we get a stabbing up in Bel Arbre—you been there yet?”

Jenner shook his head. “What's Bel Arbre? A prison?”

“Ha, no!” He mused for a second, then his face assumed an expression so thoughtful it bordered on soulful. “Although I guess in a way, you could say that—Bel Arbre is where the migrant workers live, about forty miles north of here. Mexicans, mostly. Dirt-poor. Guatemalans. A few Haitians. People from Peru. Mostly illegals, but unless there's trouble, we don't interfere—who'd pick the strawberries if we got rid of the illegals?”

He grinned brightly.

There was a yell from below; Norris had both rear windows down. The hoist began to grind, and the car—a generic sedan, a Ford or maybe a Hyundai, the color of cream gone bad—slowly began to rise.

 

Deb Putnam leaned against the cruiser next to Nash, the two of them idly watching Jenner over on the bank.

She said, “Hey, Tom, the doc looks familiar…”

Nash leaned in to her excitedly. “Those college girl murders in New York this winter? Doc Jenner is the one that killed the guy.”

“Oh my gosh!” She stared at Jenner, remembering the crimes. “That was horrible.”

Then she remembered the aftermath. “Didn't he end up dating one of the victims?”

“Yep. Big fuss about that—she was, like, sixteen.” Nash grinned at her slyly.

Deb rolled her eyes. “She was in
college
, Tom! She had to be at least eighteen.”

“Whatever. He's single now—want me to tell him you're available?”

“No, thanks.” She laughed, and looked Jenner over. “Although, maybe I'll tell him myself…”

 

Jenner sat on the bank and watched the car slowly rise, waiting to see the body.

His first dead body in a vehicle case had also been in Florida, back in Miami, when Marty Roburn was his boss.

A young doctor, taking his brand-new Saab convertible for a test run on the Don Shula Expressway, made the mistake of flipping off the wrong car; Crime Scene counted thirty-two bullet holes in the side panels, and Jenner counted seventeen more in the doctor.

They towed the car into the mortuary garage just before dark, the shroud-covered victim still strapped to his seat. The doctor's father was a deputy police chief in Miami Beach, and the body arrived with a retinue of detectives and uniformed cops. The detectives crowded Jenner as he tried to examine the body, peppering him with questions, and getting testy when he finally stopped answering.

Then a voice boomed out, “Officers! Step away from that damn car! Step away from that damn ME! Give the boy some room to breathe, for Christ's sake!”

There was some shuffling of feet, and Jenner looked up to see Marty in his vest and weathered fisherman's hat, the madras plaid band bris
tling with lures, trolling rods at his feet in a green Frabill case. It was a Wednesday, and every Wednesday Marty took his boat out to go sunset-fishing for mahi-mahi and kingfish.

He laid a hand on Jenner's shoulder and announced, “The doctor needs room! You're slowing him down; everyone out except for one detective and one uniform.”

For almost six hours, Marty stayed with Jenner, watching him work. He nodded approvingly from time to time, and a couple of times leaned in to suggest a technique, but mostly he just sat back and let Jenner get on with his case.

Afterward, they went for a Blizzard at a Dairy Queen by the Miami River. At midnight, they were sitting at a picnic table by the oily water, sweating in the heat and humidity, Marty going on and on about casting and lures, Jenner, exhausted, nodding occasionally.

Then Marty squinted at Jenner. He took a big draft of his Blizzard, and said, “Can you keep a secret, Jenner?”

They walked back to his car. Marty's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was approaching, he explained, and he'd had a jeweler make something special. “Bobbie knows I got her something, and it's driving her nuts! She's tearing the house apart, but she's not going to find it…”

He leaned forward, reaching deep under the dashboard to feel along the steering column; his eyes lit up and, with a flourish, he produced a small white cardboard box.

“It's my own design.” He spilled the contents onto his palm: there were two platinum fish hooks, each on a fine chain. Marty fiddled with them for a second, then showed Jenner that the two hooks fit together to form a heart, the point where the barbs met hidden by a large diamond. The plain hook, he explained, was for him, the one with the diamond for Bobbie.

“Doc.”

Jenner looked up. The car was mostly out of the canal, the passenger compartment draining quickly as water gushed from the open windows. A huge gray mass of sodden clothing and slippery, pale
flesh was plastered down against the front window, now just above the water.

The crane motor shrilled as the car rose faster, and then it was clear, swaying slightly over the canal, water sieving from the hood and radiator.

They waited on the bank for the car to drain.