The Blue Edge of Midnight (17 page)

“Yeah. Sorry about that. Sometimes with strangers it can get a little rough out that way,” Gunther said after I spilled a little venom on him about my parking lot encounter and the vandalism of my truck.

“Hell, they still talk about the time some city boy came out there and started calling somebody at the bar a Cracker. Before he knew what hit him he had a blade cut from his scrotum to his rib cage, right through his clothes. There was a barroom full of people and of course when the cops got there, no one saw a thing.”

“They do seem to have a thing for knives,” I said.

There was a silence on the other end of the line that seemed heavy with meaning but hard to read. I wished I’d gone to talk to Gunther in person so I could see his face. He had not yet asked what his “acquaintances” had told me.

“You’ll have to excuse my denseness, Mr. Gunther,” I finally said. “But I’m not real sure why you sent me out there or what your friends want me to do for them.”

“Acquaintances,” Gunther snapped, the first response so far that hadn’t been chewed and measured in his head before letting it out of his mouth.

“You never worked with Blackman?”

“That was a while back,” he said. “I worked with him some because he’d been here forever and knew every damn fishing hole and hog-hunting patch in the Glades. But he wasn’t so good working with people.”

“So you were his partner?”

I could feel myself slipping into my old police interrogation mode but couldn’t help myself.

“We shared some clients,” Gunther said, getting careful again. “I would help him out with outfitters and new equipment that came on the market. He flew with me sometimes so we could spot out places to take sightseers and such.”

“And that ended?”

“He started getting hinky with people, was less tolerant of folks. Clients didn’t like him. It started hurting my business more than helping.”

“But you were still friends.”

“Acquaintances. Yeah.”

I could tell I was starting to lose Gunther’s tolerance, or sense of indebtedness, or whatever it was that had motivated him to confide in me. But I wanted more.

“What’s with this guy Ashley?”

“Nobody knows much about Ashley but Nate. He lives somewhere out near Myersons Hammock in the middle of the northern Glades and just seems to show up, usually to trade off skins and to let the guides know what the fish and game are doing. He lives like the old-timers. Supposedly he’s related to the old Ashley gang but no one knows if that’s true. He’d hang around with the group at the Loop bar if Nate was there, and listen to the bull. I don’t even know why he was there to tell the truth.

“Hell, I’m not real sure why any of us were there,” he added. I could feel him tasting his words. “Doesn’t matter, I’m outta here anyway.”

“Out of the hospital?”

“Out of the state,” he said. “I’ve got family back in upstate New York and I’m going home.”

Now it was my turn to measure my words. There was more going on in the big man’s head than just getting out. Two days ago he was angry that someone had tried to kill him. Today he was chucking it all and running.

“Do you think any of your acquaintances have anything to do with these child killings?”

I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line.

“Thank you for saving my life, Mr. Freeman. Goodbye.”

The line went dead.

I was putting my cup to my lips when the phone rang back to life and caused me to jump, sloshing hot coffee down my chin. The desk manager downstairs was on the line.

“Mr. Freeman, there is a gentleman from AA Auto Glass here. He is in need of your keys, sir.”

When I walked outside through the front entrance, a step van with the Auto Glass logo was parked in the visitor’s lot next to my truck. On the other side, Detective Diaz was leaning against the front bumper of his sedan.

He was dressed in his now familiar uniform: dark canvas Dockers and a white oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves. His tie was pulled down, his sunglasses low on the bridge of his nose. He was talking with the glass installer like they were buddies, killing time in the shade of a bottlebrush tree.

“Good morning, Mr. Freeman,” Diaz greeted me with too much familiarity.

“Detective,” I nodded.

The use of his law enforcement title caused the installer to frown and cut his eyes at Diaz, who probably hadn’t mentioned his status while asking the workman questions.

“What brings you way up here on such a hot and no doubt busy day for you?”

Diaz did not answer, and only motioned to the other man with a nod of his head.

I talked with the glass guy, gave him my keys. When he went back to his van I returned to Diaz, who was still leaning on his front bumper. He had backed into the parking space. It was standard practice for someone using an unmarked police car. If the detective needed to get his shotgun or bulletproof vest out of the trunk, his hardware wasn’t so easily seen by passers-by.

“So what’s up? You get any prints off that stuff?” I asked.

“No. None at all,” Diaz answered. “They’re still trying to trace the retailer on the GPS unit, but it could be hundreds of places and the guy would have paid cash. Hell, it was probably stolen anyway.”

I nodded, waiting.

“So,” I repeated. “What’s up?”

“You have some trouble?” he asked, answering my question with a question, waving the back of his hand at my injured truck.

“Diaz,” I said, losing patience. “What the fuck do you want?”

The windshield guy peeked up from his work. Diaz put his back to the workman and looked into my face.

“We’ve got a suspect, Max. He’s in the house right now. Being interviewed.”

The information wasn’t something Hammonds would have necessarily shared with an outsider or that Diaz needed to drive here to tell me.

“Seems that during the interview, your name came up,” he continued.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Hammonds wants you to join us down at the office.”

“May I ask who this suspect is?”

“Name is Rory Sims. Some kind of environmental activist,” Diaz said. “Familiar?”

I didn’t answer. A new rock was in my head, its edges sharp and irregular. I uncrossed my arms and stood up.

“You want me to ride in front or in back?”

CHAPTER 17

I
rode in front, but it was just as quiet as if I’d been stuffed in the back with a set of handcuffs looped through the D-ring on the floor.

When I asked Diaz what Sims had said and why they considered him a suspect, he stared into the passing lane and said: “Anonymous tip.” When he refused to offer more, I put my elbow on the passenger’s side armrest, matched his reticence, and tried to smooth the rock on my own.

If someone had dropped a dime on Sims, what could they have said to make Hammonds take it seriously? His team must have listened to hundreds, maybe thousands of crank tips and useless accusations by now. If the information was legitimate, it still didn’t make sense. Would some environmentalist get so caught up in his cause that he would turn to violence? And how the hell would a guy like that slip in and out of neighborhoods and into a place like my river shack without leaving a trace?

From my quick encounter at the Loop Road bar, Sims seemed the least likely in the group to be scuttling through the swamp. It wasn’t in his eyes. Killing children wasn’t like picketing the EPA or marching on the White House. A brain would have to fester some time to find enough motivation for what this guy was doing. Sims didn’t have the smell of it. But what had he told Hammonds about me?

When we finally pulled into the administration building lot, Diaz took three turns searching the rows for a spot under the withering shade trees. He finally gave up and took a slot in a middle row with the other unfortunates sizzling under the sun. The entire sky seemed white hot. When we got out, Diaz strode across the parking area like a man avoiding a downpour.

“I hate the summer,” he said, more to himself than to me as we went through a side door and then into an elevator obviously not for public use.

The doors opened onto a room of cubicles and I was lost until we came through another door that led into the same half- glassed office of files and desks where I’d been caught staring at Richards’ legs.

This time it was busier. A long folding table had been brought in and was stacked with new phones and laptop computers and half-empty Styrofoam cups. Three young men wearing the same careful haircuts and cinched ties were working the phones, all of them standing but bent to the task of typing in notes. Diaz gave the secretary outside the high sign and she picked up her own phone. None of the federal agents looked at us when she signaled back and we went into Hammonds’ office.

This time the government had made no attempt to cover its encroachment into Hammonds’ space. In front of his bookcases was a South Florida map showing the vast Everglades and the color-coded counties and municipalities along the east coast. There were plastic pushpins jammed into the map board in a variety of places. The red ones I recognized as the spots were the first four bodies had been found. There was one stuck in my river. There was also a yellow pin downstream at the location of my shack. Along one wall the office furniture had been shoved out of the way and the space was now occupied by a table with two laptops, an exterior modem, a zip drive and a spaghetti pile of wire dripping down the back. Hammonds still had his chair, but I could tell that even that was in jeopardy.

Two FBI types were in the room, gathering up files, logging off one of the computers and looking unusually put out for FBI types. Hammonds sat behind his now cluttered desk, his fingers steepled, waiting. Richards was also there, half sitting, half leaning on the edge of the computer table. She was again dressed in a business suit of light gray material with a white blouse that had a prim, close collar. She had her legs crossed at the ankle and I noticed a thin gold bracelet there. I moved my eyes to the floor until the government boys were gone, then looked up at Hammonds when the door clicked shut. His eyes were closed.

“Let’s be up front, Mr. Freeman,” he started, his voice trying to reach a tone of authority that he was maybe beginning to lose. “You may not have been much of a cop in Philadelphia, according to your record, but you’re smart enough to know the drill.”

I silently agreed on both points.

“Proximity made you a suspect in the Gainey child’s homicide. We never found anyone near the others. Your psychologicals from Philadelphia made you as unstable. There was the shooting incident up there with the minor involved.”

I had to force myself to stay locked onto his eyes, which were now open and painful-looking in their swollen tiredness.

“When you came across with the GPS and the canoe tag we tried to reassess. Your input the other night at the scene was an acquiescence.” He pushed himself away from the desk and crossed his arms over his chest.

“But dammit, Freeman. Your name keeps coming up in this godforsaken mess and I do not like that coincidence.”

So I was wrong about the voice of authority.

“What do you want to know?” I said. If they were actually going to lay their cards out, it was probably time for both of us to play straight.

“How do you know this Rory Sims?”

I told them about the Loop Road meeting, arranged by Gunther, whom they had obviously interviewed at the hospital after the plane crash.

“You must have asked Gunther enough questions about me to make them assume I was trustworthy, in a suspect sort of way,” I said.

“Loop Road’s a tough place to have conversations for an outsider,” Diaz cut in from behind. “We never get shit out there but nasty looks and Cracker drawl.”

I didn’t bother looking around.

“Who was at this meeting?” Hammonds resumed.

I gave them the names.

“Blackman we know about,” Richards finally said. “He’s a disgruntled guide who has a few minors, mostly tiffs with clients. But he’s never been vocal or threatening to residents that we know of. But you actually talked with Nate Brown?”

The amazement in her voice made me turn around. For the first time she looked at me as if I was a human being instead of somebody in a lineup.

“Yeah,” I said. “Crusty old guy who didn’t say much but was obviously the man behind the meeting.”

Richards filled in the others on Brown’s criminal and military history, adding that he had been suspected by the DEA for using his knowledge of the Glades to help marijuana smugglers dropping loads in the wilderness areas in the late 1970s.

“But he’s been off the books for years. Everybody thought he’d died.”

I was impressed, and watched her looking from face to face in the room.

“So what about this Ashley?” Hammonds said. “What’s his story?”

Richards shook her head. I had nothing more to offer.

“Let’s get on that,” Hammonds said. “One of you two.”

Diaz scribbled on his pad. Richards just nodded. Hammonds cleared his throat and looked at me. It was his turn to share.

“We got Sims in here on an anonymous tip this morning. One of the FBI guys took the call. The voice was obviously distorted, but they weren’t taping a random call anyway.

“When the agent told the caller a name alone didn’t mean much, he dumped a reference to a herpetologist down in south Dade County. Said Sims knew where to get rattlesnake venom and hung up.

“Only the interior investigators are supposed to know that the first child was killed by snake venom. I know enough about information leaks in a high-profile case not to be too optimistic, but it was enough to get Sims in here.”

“We’d already talked to the snake guy at the University of Miami. We got back to him and he and Sims go back. They share a lot of data on snake movements and Sims does some tracking for him after they stick these transmitters into the captured ones,” Diaz said.

“Point is, we get him in here and he denies any involvement and then he brings your name up like you can vouch for him,” Hammonds said.

“So is he still here? I’ll talk to him. Let him explain it himself.”

Hammonds turned away.