“Bullshit. Why should I?”
I said, “You really want me to give you a reason? Someone had to be at your farm to meet the Cubans. Fred Gardiner was drunk and you stayed at the landing strip. That’s what you said. Who helped you?”
“ Fred? How do you know my manager’s name? You tricked me! I’m not saying another word.”
I kept talking. “I think the person who helped you last night helped you bury Annie Sylvester fifteen years ago. Or at least provided you with some kind of alibi.”
“Just like Fred. What did I tell you?” Myles said. “Why bother with questions if you think you have all the answers?”
I said, “I have a few. Billy Sofvia worked for your family in those days, so it makes sense he helped dig the grave. But he’s dead. Died a POW.”
The man tried to hide his surprise but was still sitting up straight, listening.
I continued, “Billy knew you killed the girl. So you either had him fired or somehow steered him into the military. You wanted him as far from the Hamptons as possible. That means at least two people knew you killed Annie.”
His expression said Huh?
“Your parents fired the guy, so one of them either suspected or was sure of it.”
“They’re dead. Leave them out of this.”
“Then there’s at least one person still alive who knows-not counting me.”
He raised his voice. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Aside from the boys down at the bowling alley, you mean? Skull and Bones doesn’t come up that often.”
He turned to face me. “What does my fraternity have to do with.. . How do you know about-” Myles stopped himself because he was flustered, getting mad as he tried to put it together. “Look,” he said, “enough of your games. What’s going on here? One minute, you pretend to be a professional killer. Now you’re talking about things that no one can… that no one is-”
“Supposed to know?” I offered. “Maybe it would be easier if you answered in code. Eight for yes, seven for no. Did I get it right.. . Magog?”
“ Magog? My God!” He took a long, slow breath. “That’s enough. There’s no possible way for you to know that name unless you spoke to-”
I said, “There’s always a way. I know a lot about you, Myles. Almost every question I ask, I already know the answer. Lie to me and I’ll take you back to that road.”
“You sonuvabitch,” he said. “You have been setting me up!”
“ Eight for yes, ” I replied. “Now it’s your turn. Besides Billy Sofvia, who knew you killed the girl? Norvin Tomlinson? Or maybe you snuck off to your island hideaway and confessed to all of your fraternity pals.”
His voice dropped a notch. “Who told you about the island? There can’t be more than two dozen people who know about Tamarindo. Tell me the man’s name and I’ll tell you the truth, deal?”
I’d been referring to Deer Island off Maine, not a tropical island. Tamarinds are an equatorial fruit. But I covered my surprise by saying, “How do you know it was a man? It could have been one of your fraternity sisters. Women Bonesmen: Ever think you’d see the day?”
Myles said, “You’re wrong about that. There are no women, not in our fraternity. Ever, ” his tone so bitter that I realized I had stumbled on something important. I let him talk.
He said, “Who sent you? What are you, an attorney? A private investigator? You’re not really a hit man. This whole thing has been an act.” His voice was getting louder. “Goddamn it, pull over!”
On the road ahead, just before the turnoff to the beach, was a maintenance shed and parking area screened from the road by trees. I’d seen it while jogging to the Falcon Landing entrance. I swung into the parking area and switched off the lights, listening to Myles rant, “Did one of those bitches send you?”
I replied, “Your fraternity sisters would object to the generalization.”
“Those self-righteous, manipulative bitches, that’s who’s behind this. Are they trying to get even because of my lawsuit? Or because someone took what they think belonged to them?”
I said, “You robbed your own fraternity house?”
“You can’t steal what you already own… And I’m not saying another word until you answer me. And don’t try your tough-guy lines again. I won’t fall for it. You’re not a killer. You’re a goddamn actor!”
When I put the Range Rover in park, he reached for the keys. I pushed his arm away. When he tried it again, I laced my arm around his elbow, applied enough pressure to slam him back into his seat. I brought out the little Seecamp. When he turned to protest, I jammed the gun barrel under his chin and lifted. I continued lifting until the man was half standing, head against the car’s roof. He had to grab the sun visor for balance.
I said, “Somehow, Magog, you got the wrong impression about me.”
He said, “You’re hurting me,” but was thinking about it, reassessing, not yet convinced.
When he made an effort to pull away, I wedged a thumb under his jaw and my two middle fingers into the socket beneath his left eye and shook him. My grip was as solid as if his skull were a bowling ball. Ironic. He couldn’t pry my fingers loose but kept trying until I banged the back of his head against the window.
“Know what I found out tonight?” I whispered. “I’m no actor. You need to pay attention, Mr. Myles.” Slowly, slowly, I removed my hand from his face, adding, “I’ve killed better men than you.”
Myles made the reflexive, mewing sound again as he inhaled. Maybe it was the way I said it or maybe because it was true, but the man became as submissive as he’d been on the dirt road.
“I got carried away,” he said. “I’m… sorry. But prying into my personal business, especially fraternity business, I lose my temper.”
“A club for college boys. Do fraternities have a rule against growing up?”
“You could never understand. Even new members don’t understand. It’s not really a fraternity. It’s a noble society, hundreds of years old, left to a very few of us in trust. I’ve had a lot of shitty things happen in my life. But being a Bonesman is the one good thing no one can ever take away from me.”
“Must have been tough when the court ruled in favor of admitting women.”
“That doesn’t mean it happened,” Myles replied, the softness going out of him.
“Well… I don’t give a damn about Skull and Bones. That’s not why I’m here,” I told him. “I’m after the boy.” I was holding the cell phone. “This is how it works. You have five minutes. I ask a question, you answer. Hesitate or lie to me, I slam your head into the window.” I touched the record icon and placed the phone on the dash. “ Talk.”
I wanted to know about Tamarindo. How far was it? How private? Had he told the Cubans about the place?
When he said, “I might have,” I felt the same weird transference as when I had cupped the little chunk of granite in my hand.
The island was south of Myakka Inlet, he told me, only two miles from the man’s beachfront property at Falcon Landing. That put it about forty miles north-northeast of Sanibel, close enough that I was suspicious. I’d never heard of the place. But then he explained, “That’s what we’ve always called it. On maps, it either doesn’t have a name or it’s called something else. It’s about ten miles north of Hog Island.”
I had boated past Hog Island, but it took a few seconds to make a more important connection. Hog Island was where police had trapped and arrested Barbara Mackle’s kidnapper, Gary Krist. My intuitive senses, never strong, were suddenly and subtly displacing reason. But I continued asking questions to assemble proof.
Myles told me his family had owned the island since the 1920s. It was small, about fifteen acres, mangrove bushes on the eastern rim, coconut palms, and a section of beach that faced Charlotte Harbor. His grandfather had built a private fishing camp that had become a retreat for three generations of Myles men. Myles had used the island as an occasional meeting place for his Skull and Bones friends.
I listened closely, trying to see his eyes in the dim dash lights, as he told me the island’s main cabin was built of block and stone. It had a complicated lock system, steel rods through all windows and doors, to discourage vandals. “Even though there’s nothing really valuable inside,” he said. “Some fishing gear and canned food, that’s all. But we don’t want outsiders wrecking the place.”
I thought, Right.
Like all islands with high ground, Tamarindo would be an easy place to dig a grave. Soft sand and shell, only a few feet above sea level. It’s where I would have left the boy if someone had screwed up my plans to use the horse-sized hole in the Hamptons.
My intuitive senses seemed to be right. Will Chaser was on Tamarindo-I knew it on a gut level buttressed by reason. There was a chance I’d find the Cubans there, too.
I checked my battered old Rolex: almost ten p.m. Ten hours nine minutes before the boy’s air ran out… if he was still breathing.
Hog Island was a little over an hour from Dinkin’s Bay in a fast boat, and I owned a fast boat. Suddenly, I was as eager to be free of Nelson Myles as he was eager to be free of me.
But now the man was talking nonstop, glancing occasionally at the little stainless-steel pistol I had placed on the console but also paying attention to the headlights of passing cars. I should have linked his behavior to the way he’d tried to manipulate me earlier, claiming he would talk more freely if we returned to Falcon Landing.
Even when a Wells Fargo security car appeared out of nowhere, skidding in behind us, yellow lights flashing, I didn’t grasp the significance.
“Rental cops,” I told him. “Keep your mouth shut or we both go to jail.” Myles wasn’t much of an actor either. He exaggerated his confusion as he craned his neck around to look, then overplayed his relief. “Don’t worry,” he said, speaking as if we were partners. “I know these two guys. I see them all the time.”
“Then get rid of them.”
He tried to lower his window, then tried to open his door, but I’d locked everything with the master switch. There was no override on the passenger side.
“I can’t tell them to go away,” he said impatiently, “if I can’t talk to them, now, can I?”
I was thinking about it as I watched the guards in the mirror. They rested their hands on their holsters as if unconcerned as they approached what had to be a familiar vehicle.
I said, “We’re not on Falcon Landing property?”
Myles said, “No, the county maintenance people use this place.”
“Then why are they bothering us?”
“Relax,” Myles told me. “They’re probably bored. They don’t get many calls. And they’re dumb as rocks. Let me handle it.”
I didn’t like the man’s airy tone. Was tempted to start the engine and drive away, but that guaranteed attention from the police-real cops, not the four-hours-of-training imitators.
The locks clicked in tandem when I touched the master switch, then lowered both windows. A Gulf wind flooded the cabin. I said, “Don’t get out,” looking at Myles, seeing his sullen face strobe in yellow rhythmic light.
I glanced in the mirror. Christ, now the security guards were drawing their weapons as they separated, one on each side of the Range Rover, crouching slightly as they came toward us.
I slid the Seecamp under the seat, then grabbed the cell phone from the dash. I punched the recorder’s OFF icon as I said, “Tell them who you are. That everything’s okay. We’re just talking.”
The man lay back in his seat as if he didn’t hear. I hissed, “Do it now!” He turned to me, a weak, nervous smile on his face. “Sure. But give me the cell phone first. Then I’ll get rid of them.”
The phone with his recorded confession.
I reached for the ignition. “I’ll take my chances with the rental cops.”
“Wait!” Myles tried to pull my hand away.
I said, “You’re not getting the phone.”
“But you’ve got to give it to me! They’re here because I called them… with this.” He was holding what looked like a garage opener. It had been clipped to the sun visor, the same visor he had grabbed to balance himself. “It’s a panic alert that works if you’re near the property. Press it and the security guys come running. But sometimes they call police, too!”
He sounded anxious, the way he said it, “police, too!,” as if he already regretted pushing the button. Now I understood why he had tried to maneuver me back to Falcon Landing.
“Give me the phone,” Myles said.
“Not a chance.”
“I’ll tell them it’s a false alarm. I swear.” Then he said, “Shit!,” leaning toward the window, listening. I could hear what he was hearing: the warble of sirens a few blocks away.
He began to panic. “Give me the phone! The real police will be here any minute!”
I shook my head no. I was still tempted to start the car and run for it, but that would’ve been the stupidest possible move. I had to let it play out. I said, “There aren’t many murderers who turn themselves in. I want to see how the cops react.”
“I had no choice. This is your fault.”
“It’s always someone else’s fault, right, Nels?”
“If you don’t give me the phone, I’ll them the truth… that you kidnapped me and threatened to kill me.”
Myles didn’t know I had a more compelling reason to avoid the police. But I said, “Maybe they’ll put us in the same cell. That would be nice, huh? Just the two of us… alone.”
I was watching the security guards in the mirror. They had stopped behind the car. One of them hollered, “Mr. Myles! Everything all right?,” talking loud because of the sirens.
I called through the open window, “Mr. Myles is just fine. We’re talking about going into the recording business.” I looked up at palm trees where fronds reflected the blue strobes of a squad car, slowing to turn into the parking lot. I looked at Myles. “I think we might have a big hit on our hands, Nels. Can you picture the headlines?”
Talking fast, he said, “I’ll help you find the missing kid, I swear to God. Give me the phone. We can use my boat if you want. I’ll tell them it was a false alarm. If I tell them, they’ll believe me. We don’t have to do this!”
“You’re right,” I replied. “You’re taking a stupid risk. Get rid of them. But it’s your call. No matter what, I keep the phone.”
He was looking out the side window. “Jesus Christ, they’re here! Why are you being so damn stubborn? I offered to help you.”
I said, “Tell them you hit the button accidentally. You claim Bonesmen are noble? Prove it by helping me help the kid. I’ll decide later if I give the recording to police.”
A lie. Annie Sylvester’s family deserved to know where she was buried and who had killed her. Myles probably realized what I was doing: The shrewd anticipate deceit by projecting their behavior onto others. But the man had no choice… Until a polite policeman told us to step out of the car, then asked me for identification.
“It’s procedure,” he said, sounding bored until I hesitated, undecided if I should break one of my own rules and lie to a cop. I own several false passports, but it was pointless to carry one in my own home state. All I had was a driver’s license.
“Left your wallet at home, did you?” the officer suggested, suddenly more interested. “What’s your name?”
That’s when Myles surprised me, saying, “I can vouch for this man. He’s a business associate of mine.” He was standing near the security guards, who had made their deference obvious.
The cop appeared satisfied, but he was also studying Myles-seeing the stained pants, the swollen ear-as Myles turned to me, thrust out his hand and said, “I bet you left your wallet near the pool. Give me my cell phone, I’ll call the wife.”
I looked at his hand, aware the officer was staring. “I didn’t lose my wallet,” I said. “I think I left it in the car. I’ll take a look.”
I opened the car, pretended to loo
k for the license and handed it to the officer. I watched his face, then winced inwardly at the man’s reaction as he read my name.
“Marion Ford,” the cop said, sounding cheerful, but his cheeriness was steel. “As in Dr. Ford, the biologist?”
“That’s right.”
Now the officer was smiling but also backing away as he touched a hand to his sidearm and unsnapped the holster. “I have some friends who’ve been looking for you, Dr. Ford. So what I’d like you to do right now is empty your pockets, then have a seat in the back of my vehicle.”
He glanced at Myles, the rich, respected Falcon Landing resident, who looked from me to the cop, his eyes signaling a reminder. The cop’s eyes signaled respect in reply.
As I processed the exchange, the image of an iceberg came into my mind. Odd, until I remembered a conversation I’d had on a faraway winter beach. The father of a dead girl, Virgil Sylvester, had described an iceberg he had seen off Nova Scotia, its peaks like fire at sunrise, the ocean dark beneath.
“It’s that kind of power they got,” the fishermen had told me. “Even when they use it, you don’t see it.”
I’d heard the man’s words but was deaf to their gravity.
“Oh, one more thing, Dr. Ford,” the cop said. “While you’re emptying your pockets, give Mr. Myles his telephone back, okay?”
28
The police detective, a woman named Shelly Palmer, told me she lived in Cape Coral, not far from Pine Island and the fishing village of Gumbo Limbo, where the late Bern Heller had owned a marina until he was sent to prison and his business went into foreclosure.
On the drive from Sarasota to Fort Myers, she had tried to bait me, saying things like, “I hear the man was a monster… Locals say the man who killed Bern Heller did the world a favor… What was he like, Dr. Ford… your personal opinion, I mean?”
Whenever she pressed, I removed my glasses and leisurely cleaned them, putting space between my anger and my intellect. She gave up after half an hour, as we traveled south on I-75, forty miles between the Sarasota County line and Lee County, our destination.
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