A Dredging in Swann

by Tim Garvin

  He had lost her.

  He rolled the flytraps, cold from the refrigerator, into neat thigh-sized bundles, and packed them upright into two waxed chicken boxes. He had twelve hundred flytraps this time, a mighty haul, a bonanza, a useless aching chore. He would flee, flush with money, toward nothing.

  One flytrap head had nudged free of its roll, and Cody slid it carefully out and laid it on the wooden table. He pulled the Ka-Bar from its canvas sheath, held it above his head, and drove it down, He missed the half circle of the flytrap head by several inches, worked the knife from the wood and stabbed again, then again, and again. On the fifth try he pinned the head to the splintered tabletop. Unsatisfying. What if he laid his hand, palm up, on the table. He did. He poised the Ka-Bar shoulder height. The blade must enter the palm perfectly into the center, like a nail. He lifted his palm away and drove the knife into the table. He had not reached that stage. It was a possible stage though. In days to come, such a stage could be reached.

  There was a rap on his trailer door.

  “Cody Cooper!”

  Cody crossed the room to push the door curtain aside. It was Elton, standing hands on hips, wearing jeans and a red tank top over the flare of his tiger tattoo. His bald head glinted with oil in the early sun. Behind him stood another man, a large, bulky, frowning man with a mustache and long hair. A thick white bandage crowned his forehead. He had a black eye, and under the eye naked stitches were visible.

  “Open up, dawg.”

  Cody stepped back. Elton climbed the steps, leaving the door open. The large man put a foot on the step and held the door but did not enter. Elton surveyed the kitchen and living room. He shook his head. He spread his hands. He said, “You got yourself a path from the kitchen to the TV chair, and you keep on that path. The rest falls away into depression. I have seen this before, in many a sad life. I could have suspected this in you, but it’s a surprise. Is that your laptop?” He gestured to a computer on the table.

  “Yes.”

  Elton crossed the room and lifted the laptop. He pulled the Ka-Bar from the wood. “You been stabbing your fucking table, making splinters.” He tested the edge with a thumb, then slid the knife carefully under his palm-sized turquoise-encrusted belt buckle, blade down. “I will keep this knife temporarily. We got to sit and talk.” He gestured toward the open door with his free hand.

  Outside on the gravel trailer pad, Cody took a seat in one of the metal chairs.

  Elton said, “Come down to the garage. We need some walls, but right here’s depressing.”

  You Cut the Corner

  Seb, who had gone to bed with Mia misgivings, found that when he woke Monday morning, despite a long dreamless sleep, they had returned. He threw off his blanket and sheet and lay in his underwear, letting the chill from the open window flush sleep.

  They had talked about war, and he had felt the fist of war clench in his chest. She had been kind, but now could be thinking, do I want to invite this intense soldier into my life? She had opened the subject though. And she had gone to Jimmy, the wounded vet, to ask about war.

  And they had kissed. She had asked to kiss him in that soft way, and the silky love feeling had taken them both.

  After a moment, he went to the bathroom, then back to the bedroom to stand before the window for his hundred jumping jacks. His apartment was the upper floor of one of Swanntown’s heritage homes. Below lay the winding streets of the town’s center, stubbornly quaint, but too far off a highway to be much of a tourist lure. Beyond the town, where the sun was rising golden-red in the clear air, he could see Oak Inlet, the scrub-crested strips of island dunes, and beyond that a gleam of ocean. When he moved in two years ago, Mrs. Sutter, his landlord, had inquired about the morning pounding. Jumping jacks, he said. Is that okay? Ah, jumping jacks, she said. It was okay. She was an early riser and said she would hereafter accompany him mentally. Each morning it was a friendly communication, the round, seventyish widow below, aware of his labor, perhaps counting.

  After the push-ups and sit-ups, he showered. Then, with an open laptop, he drank coffee from one of Mia’s mugs and ate yogurt and Grape-Nuts and toast and began a do-list.

  First was the rolltop desk and a careful flashlight search. Either it was too big to move, or it was an antique she thought Leo might value. Or she had left something in it. For instance, the testament the governor had mentioned. That was part of the hotshot murder theory, so not something to mention in the morning briefing with Stinson.

  Also, call Kate. She would be out with her well-digging crew. Maybe meet them out there, find a confession, or bloody shoes, or a bloody dress.

  Then call Leonard Castle, Germaine’s lawyer, ask about the testament, ask about the will. Did Germaine hint at or admit her guilt in the Hugh Britt murder? Unlikely, since wouldn’t Castle have contacted law enforcement after her death? Except if she had only hinted.

  Get Leo’s letters to his wife. Call Virginia Rubins, can she get her mother to release them? Forty-odd years would be five hundred letters. Divide them up. Hours and hours.

  Locate the reporter who wrote that Sunday magazine article. What rumors and innuendo did he leave out? If he was alive. So Bonnie again, for the phone number. In the shower, he had scrubbed the X from the back of his hand. A grocery store rose.

  What else? The drone video. If it didn’t show up, hassle Prince stronger. Likely nothing though, since, as Prince had said, the hog barns were on the other side of Squint’s inlet farm.

  That was the extent of possibles. After that, door-knocks and a wait for informants. Then a fade to silence and the cold-case cabinet.

  When he checked his email, he found a chatty letter from his mother. She was in Italy, leading a tour of Americans through the sites of Rome. Today was the big Colosseum day. He typed a fast reply, mentioned he had met a girl, then deleted that. It would make her restless. She would be back in two weeks, when things would have more shape.

  He sent the letter and saw another email had arrived, an anonymous one: Are you a man of your word? I hope so, since I’m trusting the shit out of you. Just in case, I cut the beginning few frames which show some guy in a boat launching a drone. Also, as you’ll see, the pilot led them on a goose chase for the fun of it. After the chase, the pilot turned the camera off. The attachment is an MP4 and will run on anything you have. The start time stamp is 11:34 Saturday morning.

  Seb double-clicked the attached file, Cooper Farm11.

  A drone was flying low over water, then over sand and oak scrub. It passed over an octagon orange tent, which, Seb recalled, Squint had mentioned as like a tent he owned, or maybe even his, or something, then continued, gaining altitude and turning up the inlet, heading west. Seb streamed the video forward with his index finger until the silver roofs of Cooper Farms appeared, three long hog barns, with various outbuildings, then two immense lagoons, one open and purple-brown, the other covered with a pale-green tarp. The camera panned across the farm, then followed a road for several hundred feet, then a side road, and halted over a large metal dumpster. The dumpster lid was thrown back, showing a jumble of hog carcasses. More carcasses were tumbled in a heap beside it. The video descended, slowed, zoomed. Four brown vultures heaved themselves laboriously into flight. Above the carcasses, a swarm of black flies densed and shifted like tiny starlings.

  The camera drew back and returned down the road to the farm. Two men appeared below, one bald, one in a blue baseball cap. The bald one lifted a rifle to his shoulder, and the picture shifted abruptly as the drone juked. The camera zoomed, still juking, and showed Squint Cooper and a young Hispanic man, both looking up, Squint aiming, levering the rifle, and firing. In a moment, Squint and the young man strode up the road and into a garage. The camera followed them. A blue van emerged. The camera pulled back, gaining height, then proceeded down the gravel road toward Twice Mile. Behind it, the van pursued. A mile later, a landscaped lawn appeared an
d in its midst an immense columned home, the Cooper home, formerly the Britt mansion. The camera turned left at Twice Mile, holding a hundred feet above the asphalt, its motion smooth and fast. The van followed. At Ruin Road the drone turned left again.

  The van continued behind it for a few hundred yards, then slowed, made a U-turn, and headed back. The camera turned and followed, slowly gaining. The van turned right at Twice Mile, and the camera cut the corner, catching up. At the Cooper Farms entrance the camera, now right behind the van, again cut the corner, first showing the empty gravel road ahead, then looking back. The van had vanished.

  The camera gained height and headed across the pine forest. The video closed.

  Seb closed his eyes. The van had not returned to the farm, but instead continued down Twice Mile.

  Toward the Ford lodge at the western end of the Cooper estate.

  At approximately noon.

  The evening of the murder investigation, at Smitty’s Sportsbar, Squint told him he had sent his employee in the van, Jorge something, to track the drone to its LZ. He found Squint Cooper’s number in his phone and pressed send.

  “What’s up, Seb?”

  “The day the drone flew over your farm you said you sent somebody to track it. Who was that?”

  “Jorge Navalino. One of my crewmen.”

  “When did he return?”

  “No idea. I was up at the house. Why?”

  “Is he around today?”

  “Somewhere. I’m up at the house. What’s the deal?”

  “No deal. Talk to you later.” Seb began to end the call then said, “Squint? You there?”

  “I’m here. What?”

  “The other night outside Smitty’s you showed me that video. Recall that?”

  “I do. But now he’s cut the video down. There’s just—”

  “I know, but I got the whole thing. And I remember you said something about an orange tent. Remember that?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “There was an orange tent on the sandbars. You said something like, I have a tent like that.”

  “Well, if I did, I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t. What’s the significance?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t remember an orange tent.”

  “I’m sixty-seven and my brain’s gone porous. What’s it about?”

  “I’m trying to locate where …”

  Seb’s heart began to beat. A wave of excitement flashed through him.

  The drone had not crossed the inlet.

  He said, “Got to go.” And ended the call. He opened his browser and surfed to Peter Prince’s website. Prince’s cell phone was listed. He dialed.

  Prince answered. “Hello.”

  “Mr. Prince, this is Seb Creek.”

  “You got the video?”

  “I just went through it. Tell me this: you didn’t cross the inlet, did you? I didn’t see any open water.”

  “So what?”

  “That means you launched on the Cooper Farms side of the inlet. Which is just north of the base. On the same side of the inlet. Which means you flew the drone across the base.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  Seb said, “Relax. I’m not about that. But you launched from the Intracoastal and cut the corner of the base, didn’t you?”

  “I knew I never should have given—”

  “Hold up. I could give a shit about somebody flying in restricted airspace. That’s federal. My business is I need to know exactly where you were. Do not lie to me.”

  “Detective, we’re on the phone. Meet me somewhere.”

  “No time. Here’s my guess: You were about two hundred yards past the base boundary in the Intracoastal when you launched. You cut the corner at about forty-five degrees to get to open water. Then you followed your relays down the inlet to Cooper Farms, then went east across the woods. How close am I? If I’m close don’t say anything.”

  There was a silence.

  After a moment, Prince said, “Why is this so important?”

  “Never mind. I got to go.”

  Seb ended the call. He found the sheriff’s number and pressed send. Let the sheriff tell Lowry. It was possible that a drone video had solved both investigations.

  “Hi, Seb, what’s up? I was fixing to call you.”

  “I’m saving you the trip. I just got a lead.”

  “You did? On Sackler?”

  “No, on the other thing. The choppers.”

  “Really. We just got one here too. Somebody was on the base a couple hundred yards away digging up flytraps.”

  Seb went cold. “Flytraps? Say again?”

  “They found where somebody had been digging flytraps. Under an old water tower. So that could be our guy. They’re checking arrests right now.”

  Seb blew his breath in a long sigh. He said, “Oh, Jesus.” His head dropped toward his chest.

  “Why? What’s your lead?”

  He said, “My lead?” His mind would not clear. Seb held the phone against his thigh and inhaled. He brought the phone back to his ear and made his voice matter-of-fact. “I should have called last night—there’s a guy I know, and he’s got some boats for rent. Jimmy Beagle of Jimmy Beagle’s Famous Floating Fish House. He’s up at the top of the inlet on Willow Creek. The creek has pretty much filled up, so I doubt he’s in any databases, and they’ll probably miss him. But I know he rents skiffs because I saw them last night. I was on a romantic tryst with my new girl. It went right out of my head until this morning.”

  “That the one you had coffee with?”

  “It is. Mia.”

  “And you doubled back on her last night.”

  “Right. She has a place on Willow Road. She makes pottery.”

  “Love made you stupid.”

  “I guess it did. She was out with Jimmy by the fish house having a beer.”

  “I’ll let them know. They haven’t found Grayson Kelly, by the way. But they do know he was planning to go floundering. He told some guys in the brig. That’s what he did home in South Carolina.”

  They ended the call. Seb closed the laptop, shrugged into his weapon harness and sport coat, and went down to his Honda. He started the engine, then slipped out his phone and surfed to the state criminal database. He entered the name Cody Cooper and let the phone search while he backed out.

  New Deal

  Cody, Elton, and the big man descended the slope to the garage. The boat, sanded and scraped, was overturned on sawhorses. The gallon of paint, crowned with blue drippings, sat on the hull. A wide umbrella, duct-taped with a circle of shimmery Mylar curtains, was taped to a clothes hanger and hung from the rafters.

  Elton batted the Mylar. He said, “What’s this about?”

  Cody looked at the big man.

  Elton said, “This is my nephew, Carl Peener. He’s part of the deal now.”

  “What deal?”

  “The deal where you stole those Stinger missiles, little man.”

  Cody swung his hands before him dismissively. “I got no idea what you’re talking about.” He edged toward the boat to pass them. “Listen, I got to …”

  The big man put a hand on his chest, stopping him. “You stole some Stinger missiles? How cool is that?”

  Elton said, “He’s family, and I need him. Next subject, what the fuck is this?” He batted the Mylar again.

  Cody backed up. He said, “What the fuck, Elton.”

  “Cody, we got a new plan. What’s this?”

  Cody said, “It stops thermal scopes from spotting you.” He looked at Peener. Then, committing himself: “For when I go back to the site.”

  Elton said, “Really.” He said to Peener, “You ever hear about that?”

  Peene
r was finger-dabbing the stitches under his eye, He said, “Never did.”

  Cody said, “Look it up.”

  Elton said, “Looks like you’re painting your boat back blue. Wouldn’t it be smarter to paint it red? Or yellow?”

  “I guess.”

  Elton said, “Let’s sit down, what say?”

  Four webbed chairs hung on nails along the garage wall. Cody removed one, opened it, and sat, letting the casual inhospitality of not offering Elton or Peener a chair hang unremarked.

  Elton removed a chair and kicked it open. He sat, laying Cody’s laptop on his thighs. They were knee to knee. Cody could lean, reach for his laptop, then seize the knife handle. He shut his eyes for a moment. Joy came, faint then clear. He was free of these people, with their intentions and plans.

  Elton said, “What’s funny, dawg? You fading on me?”

  Cody opened his eyes. He had been smiling. “What are you doing here, Elton?”

  “Cody, do one thing. Raise up your T-shirt, up to the neck.”

  Cody, still half smiling, raised his T-shirt.

  “Let me have your phone.”

  “Not on me.”

  “Stand up, Cody.”

  Cody stood. Elton leaned forward, his forehead against Cody’s stomach, patted his pockets, swiped through his crotch, ran a hand up his back. He said, “Sit down.”

  Cody sat.

  Elton said, “You know what a habitual felon is, Cody? It’s a guy got three felonies, any damn kind. The fourth one, they kick you up four notches, ten years minimum. I got my three. So I pay attention. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Cody said. Then the joy flow spoke. He said, “I liked Harvey Clement.”

  Elton opened the laptop, faced it toward Cody. It hid the Ka-Bar, which despite the joy, Cody’s eyes had swept again.

  Elton said, “That’s bold talk.” His tone was faintly amused, faintly admiring.

  “I always felt bad about that. I liked Harvey.”

  “Harvey Clement wore a wire into my home. I am not afraid to be serious with people. I am being serious with you now. You told me you would send ten emails to the terrorists. Show me on this computer where you sent them.”