The Blue Edge of Midnight (26 page)

“Maybe.”

“S-So why not let Hammonds have it?”

“Hammonds won’t flush him. He can’t get close,” I said finally turning to Billy with what I knew was that stupidly confident grin we used in the patrol car in Philly.

Billy met my eyes and said: “Let me show you s-something.”

I followed him into his study and while he went into a file room I wandered to the floor-to-ceiling corner windows that looked out on the city. Billy loved high views but the thing about South Florida from a height was its complete lack of borders; no mountains or hills or even small rises, nothing but the horizon to hold it in.

“I know you’re fighting with the idea of this thing being done,” Billy started, talking from the filing room and out of sight. “But your comment about someone having the capacity to kill started me thinking about your known band of Brown’s ‘acquaintances,’ so I dug a little deeper into the case I handled for Gunther when he was being sued by one of his fishing clients. He had told me it involved a family and he mentioned that he and Blackman often partnered up on trips. But when the case was suddenly dropped by the complainant, I never went much more into it.”

“And now?” My attention had wandered to a museum- quality Renoir hanging on an interior wall under its own spotlight.

“S-So I p-pulled the whole f-file,” Billy said, coming back into the room and placing a stack of files in the middle of his broad, polished walnut desk. The attorney for the family had taken depositions from the father and mother.

“Hers is m-most interesting,” he said, pushing the bound transcript across the desk.

The trip had been a fishing excursion into the waters of Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands on the southwest coast. The family, including a ten-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl, were from Michigan and wanted an overnight wilderness trip. They hired Gunther to be their outfitter and guide. He in turn brought in Blackman, who knew the twisting waterways of the mangrove islands better than he. Many of the so-called islands were little more than a mass of mangrove roots that clung to the bottom of Florida Bay. It took an experienced guide to get through the confusing spins and fingers of shallow water and to find those few small islands dry and high enough on which to camp.

The tarpon fishing had been excellent and all were satisfied until evening when they made camp on a narrow sand beach on a small shell mound. They’d cooked dinner on camp stoves and the odor of pan-fried fish attracted a resident raccoon.

“The children thought he was cute and tossed a bit of fish to him to eat,” the mother stated in her deposition.

“It seemed harmless enough but Mr. Blackman became very angry. He snapped at the kids and told them to stop. He said they were turning the creature into a garbage hound.”

“Did his demeanor bother you?” read the question from the attorney.

“Well, I certainly don’t like other people yelling at my children, especially hired help. But I told them it might not be such a good idea.”

“And did they stop?”

“I believe Mathew tossed one more piece. You know, to spite us both. You know how boys can be.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, my God. The raccoon came out to get the piece and, well, it was a blur. I’ve never seen a human being move so quickly.

“Before we could turn to see it, Mr. Blackman had the creature by the back of the neck and had cut its throat with a knife.”

“Did the animal squeal?”

“It never made a sound. But my daughter and I certainly did. It was appalling and I told Mr. Blackman so.”

“You registered your displeasure?”

“He said the animal was useless now for anything but a hat. Then, in front of us all, he held the poor thing up and sliced it open like a wet bag.”

“He skinned it? In front of the children?”

“Exactly.”

As I read, Billy had gone out and refilled my coffee and set the cup in front of me. I took a substantial swallow but did not look up.

“And then what happened?” read the attorney’s question.

“Well, my husband came back into the campsite with Mr. Gunther and when he saw this, this, atrocity, he confronted Mr. Blackman.”

“And what was Blackman’s reaction?”

“He pointed his knife at Henry.”

“At your husband?”

“Yes.”

“In a threatening manner?”

“I thought so.”

“Did Mr. Blackman say anything threatening?”

“He said something about how the children ought to learn about the real wilderness instead of pretending. Then Mr. Gunther stepped in and calmed everyone down.”

At that point in the deposition the attorney steered the woman away from any more talk of Gunther’s peacemaking efforts and went on about the children’s mental anxieties and recurring nightmares and other bullshit to bolster his case. I closed the folder and took another long swallow of coffee.

“W-Want to g-guess what the sk-sk-skinning knife m-might have 1-looked like?” Billy said, leaning back in his chair.

Brown, Ashley, Gunther, Blackman, I thought. One moved in and out of the world like a ghost. One was dead. Another I had saved from dying. And last turned out to be as odd as any of them.

“G-Gunther n-never t-told me the details. He said the clients w-went after him because he w-was the owner of the b-b-business.

“I tried to call this f-family but the wife r-refused to talk. She said her husband told her to f-forget it.”

Billy said he’d tried to call Gunther but he was out of the hospital and his business and home phone had been disconnected. The pilot had apparently made good on his vow to leave the state.

“So you’ve been busy, counselor,” I said, smiling at Billy.

“Only 1-looking up alternatives,” he said. “In case y-you were the only suspect they s-settled on and p-pushed into an indictment.”

And they’d had enough to get their indictment. But the most recent target was now on a slab. It was neater that way. Maybe it was over. Maybe they got all they needed.

“M-maybe you could s-second guess the bait thing?”

“Kinda late,” I said. “Right now, I’m going to get in a beach run and then go shopping,” I said. “You game?”

“I w-will drive.”

I finished my coffee and went running. The tide was out and the sand was packed but nothing like the South Jersey shore beaches where the tide could run out and leave a swath of hard brown sand thirty yards wide on the barrier island beaches of Wildwood, Cape May and Ocean City. I’d tried for months to run Lavernious Coleman’s dead face out of my head on those beaches. But his ghost was always waiting for me back on the city streets.

The Florida beach was not nearly as wide but twice as hot, and within a mile the sweat was dripping into my eyes and had glossed across my chest. The nights of little sleep, the drain from my bout with dehydration and the ache from my fistfights with the Glades and its oddballs had left me weakened. At the two-mile mark I turned and headed back, my legs already feeling tight and my calf muscles stinging in the too-soft sand. The last mile I had to push through, my lungs grabbing for air instead of using it, my throat rasping and burning instead of letting my breathing flow. The blood was singing in my ears over the last fifty yards when I tried to sprint it home. The exercise gurus talk about the release of endorphins that bring true runners a high that keeps them hooked on such self-punishment. If it’s true, I never met them, the chemical or the pure distance athlete.

After I showered and dressed and ate a breakfast of toasted muffins and fruit, Billy drove us to an outfitter’s store well out on Southern Boulevard.

Southern was like the majority of South Florida, it wasn’t Southern at all. It could have been a summertime road through any growing sprawl from Des Moines to Sacramento to Grand Rapids. If you’ve driven down a four-lane flanked by mini- marts, McDonald’s, Amoco self-serves and Jiffy Lubes, you’ve been down Southern Boulevard. Hell, there weren’t even any Florida-looking palm trees except where they’d planted some near the international airport to fool the tourists.

I watched overhead as a 757 came rumbling out of the sky on a landing approach. It seemed ungodly close to the road traffic and improbably large to be floating down on the air like that. There were probably two hundred souls aboard and no doubt a few coming to relocate in a warm climate where there were already too many people and too few resources to match their dreams. Yet they came. Just like I had.

In the outfitter’s parking lot was a collection of four-wheel drive pickups and SUVs, more than a few with trailer hitches. But it was also not devoid of the occasional family sedan and a couple of obvious company cars, guys playing a little hooky on a Wednesday afternoon during their sales call time. Billy parked the Grand Cherokee and we went in.

Such places draw an interesting crowd, men with serious looks who will stand for an hour inspecting fishing tackle with the tips of their fingers and practiced eyes. Wannabes who will keep asking the clerk at the gun display to “let us see that one there,” and then inexpertly handle a rifle or handgun that they might admire for its dangerous look but have no capacity for its true use. These are decidedly manly places. The colors are earthy and subtle, the stitching in clothes and fabrics is thick and obvious. The zippers are oversized and even if they’re plastic they’re made to look metallic. This particular store held a clean smell of oil and new cardboard.

I went to the far back of the store to the marine area. Billy walked around, absorbing and looking only slightly out of place in a pair of pressed slacks and starched white shirt but without a tie. He was comfortable in one of the few places where he didn’t have to worry about being assessed or hit on by the opposite sex.

The same guy who sold me my first Voyager canoe was in the back and recognized me. I could tell by the quizzical look.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You like the first one so much you want two.”

There is no such thing as boat humor.

When I told him a vague story about the vandalism, he looked personally hurt.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but that gets me,” he said. “That’s such a fine piece of craftsmanship. I could maybe see some asshole stealing it, but not just smashing it up.

“If you bring in the old shell, we can ship it back up to Ontario and see what the home factory can salvage,” he said, searching for a positive.

He had another Voyager in the back, same model as I had. I filled out the paperwork. The salesman said again how sorry he was when he handed me back my credit card and a receipt for thirty-eight hundred dollars.

“Drive around back and we’ll tie it down on your truck.”

I went to search for Billy and found him back toward the front of the store, looking down into a glass case along one wall. His hands were in his pockets and he was staring, absorbed in the way he usually became in art galleries or in front of computer screens. The clerk was helping a couple of twenty- somethings look at a trio of black, brush-finished 9mm handguns. He had the guns out on a cloth on the glass top at the far end but he kept looking down at Billy, more concerned it seemed over a dapper black man staring at a display than with the customers in front of him.

When I stepped to Billy’s side I could see he was looking at knives, the store’s collection of antique and historic blades. I scanned the case and saw the short curved edge that had caught his eye.

“Didn’t y-you say it was s-similar t-to that?” Billy asked, knowing that I’d recognized the piece. The trophy knife was sharpened and shined to a brutal gloss. Its handle was of dark mahogany or walnut and was polished from years of use, the oils of who knew how many working hands.

“More than similar,” I said, bending to look at the word Meinstag printed on a gold-plated tag under the knife. It was exactly the same as the knife from the stump that I now had tucked away in my fanny pack in the truck. And although no expert, I would have bet it was an equal brother to the blade Nate Brown was using on the sawgrass bud as he sat on my dock yesterday morning.

“Gentlemen. Anything I can help you with?”

The clerk had put the guns away and shed the boys-with-toys couple. I hoped it was because he could see the more appreciative demeanor in Billy’s eyes and the real money in his clothes.

“What’s the history behind this piece?” I asked, pointing out the German knife.

“Ah, the Meinstag,” the clerk started. “German-crafted as only they could do it back in the thirties.”

I knew we were going to get a sales pitch, but the guy wasn’t just spinning a rehearsed speech. From a deep pocket, he pulled out a ring of keys attached to a long rope chain and unlocked the display case.

“This was a special knife. Handcrafted long before the German war machine started cranking out weaponry in mass for World War II.”

He took the knife out like a jewelry salesman showing an expensive tennis bracelet and put a black piece of felt down before setting the knife on the glass counter.

“There were probably a thousand of them made at most.” He picked it up after neither of us made a move to touch the piece and held it lightly in his thick stubby fingers.

“Very high quality German steel,” he said, drawing a finger down the backside of the blade. “And the curve in the blade made it especially versatile for everything from hunting and skinning to cutting lines and even carving. The folding style was well ahead of its time.”

We watched him snap the hinged instrument closed and then easily reopen it.

“The bulk of them were issued to Germany’s elite mountain troops, fighters who were skilled woodsmen and would spend weeks in the wilderness on advance missions out past the front lines.”

The salesman was a short, fleshy man, probably in his late forties with a shiny pate. His jowly face was so closely shaved I could see the high red capillaries just below the skin.

“And they got here …” I spoke each word slowly, trying to urge the story on.

“They were coveted by American soldiers in battle. After a fight with the mountain troops the GIs would go over the bodies or disarm the survivors and pocket the knives for themselves, especially the guys who could appreciate them. They brought them home when they got discharged and there’s still a few of them out in circulation. Collector’s items. Like this one.”