Gator Aide (Rachel Porter Mysteries)

by Jessica Speart

  Dr. Sam’s round baby face crinkled up into a smile. “What I found can buy us two one-way tickets to South America, and a life of leisure spent drinking margaritas and working on our suntans, señorita.”

  His smile faded as he noticed the gauze I’d wrapped around my neck.

  “You’ve got quite a gash there, Porter. Maybe we’d better swing by Charity and have that looked at.”

  I put a finger to the gauze and felt the sticky wetness that had begun to seep through, staining the layers of cotton I had covered it with. I knew the cuts required expert attention, but I didn’t have the time or patience to deal with the bureaucracy of an emergency room right now. If I didn’t start tying some loose ends together fast, the gashes on my neck would be the least of my worries.

  “It’s not a big deal, Sam. If you can spare some gauze, I’ll stop the bleeding and bandage it up again myself.”

  “Not good enough, Rachel. If you’re going to be pigheaded enough not to go to the hospital, you’re going to have to contend with my skills. And I don’t want to hear any grousing about it, either.”

  Dr. Sam removed the bandage from my neck, letting loose a low whistle.

  “You want to tell me what happened?”

  “Someone out there isn’t my biggest fan. Last night he decided to show me just how he felt.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “It was too dark to see, but I can make a few guesses. I might just take you up on that offer of sun and tequila. What did you find out about our two prize specimens?”

  I followed Dr. Sam into a small bathroom, where he disinfected his hands as though he were scrubbing for major surgery.

  “We’re going to work on a reward system, Porter. You don’t give me any trouble while I patch you up, and I’ll tell you what I found. It’s worth behaving yourself for a few minutes, I promise.”

  He led me into his examining room, where I hopped up on a portable table just recently washed down from its last visitor. Sam pulled out a syringe, along with a small vial, a long sewing needle, and some fine silk thread.

  “Whoa! Hold on a minute. I was expecting something more in the line of salve and a Band-Aid, not to be a guinea pig for your needlework technique.”

  Dr. Sam smelled suspiciously of borax as he cupped my chin in his hand and examined the wounds, which stung more than ever.

  “Cut the crap, Rachel. You don’t want to go to a hospital, fine. But you can’t walk around with gashes in your neck fast on their way to becoming badly infected. I don’t know if you took a good look at these suckers, but some guy did an expert job of cutting through layers of tissue and skin. Unless you want to end up in the hospital for an extended stay, I’ve got to clean these wounds and sew them up before they begin to fester. Does that explain the situation enough for you?”

  At a loss for a snappy comeback, I only hoped the man had a steady hand and could sew a fine line. Every nerve in my body screamed as Dr. Sam applied disinfectant to the wounds.

  “I forgot to tell you this would be the worst part.” Chuckling to himself, Sam plunged the hypodermic needle into a vial of clear liquid. I held up my hand as he approached.

  “I really hate needles. Just tell me what you’re going to do.”

  He took the time to knock out a few air bubbles that had collected inside the syringe.

  ‘‘This is exactly why I treat animals instead of people. They’re not nearly as much a pain in the neck, no pun intended.” Dr. Sam stood in front of me with the syringe by his side.

  “What I have here is a local anesthetic. All you’ll feel is a slight pinch and ten minutes from now, the area will be completely numb. Then I’m simply going to put in a few stitches. There’ll be some tugging, and you might feel a little strange, but believe me, it won’t feel nearly as bad as it’s going to if I don’t sew these up.”

  Thirty stitches later, I studied Dr. Sam’s handiwork in the bathroom mirror. While the job was neatly done, there could be no hiding the fact that I had been on the verge of having my throat slit. I pulled out a bandanna and wrapped it around my neck, hiding the stitches from sight.

  “Hey, Porter! Enough with the vanity. Come in here and I’ll show you something really interesting.”

  I followed Dr. Sam’s voice next door, where Hook was laid out on a porcelain slab tilted down toward the sink. Covered up in a white smock and latex gloves, Sam had the look of a butcher.

  “You’re not going to believe what this gator ate for his last supper.”

  Sam directed me to the tail as he grabbed hold of the head, and we carefully flipped Hook over. Sticking his hand into a thin flap cut in the gator’s belly, Sam’s arm disappeared up to the elbow. When he slowly pulled it out again, his hand was clenched around an erect, tightly packed condom. Untying the knot at its end, Sam dipped his finger inside and then held the condom out toward me.

  “Here. Try some.”

  I followed his example, wetting the tip of my index finger and sticking it inside. My fingertip came back coated with a fine layer of white powder.

  “This is unbelievably good. Do you know how many dealers would kill to get their hands on this stuff?”

  Popping his finger in his mouth, Sam rubbed the residue on his lower gum. “We’re talking pure, undiluted cocaine here, Rachel. There are twenty of these suckers stuffed inside, one of which opened up while Hook was trying to digest the load. Your gator’s diagnosis is easy. He OD’d on some very fine cocaine.”

  Everything began to make sense as the pieces fell into place. There was no way that Valerie could have had the resources or smarts to be a dealer herself. This was definitely a big-time operation. Global Corporation had to be the front for bringing cocaine in through the bayous and pipelining it straight up to New York, with the excess going to Europe. Buddy’s businesses were used for laundering the money, while the diamonds were probably one more dumping ground for large bundles of excess cash. My guess was that Valerie must have siphoned off some dope to sell. Panicking when she was about to be caught, she’d probably fed it to Hook to try to hide the evidence. It hadn’t done either one of them much good. As far as the diamond necklace was concerned, it was anybody’s guess. It might have been given to her as a payoff to shut her up. Or maybe she had just dipped her fingers in and helped herself to the goodies.

  “There’s something else you should know, Rachel. Somebody got to the gator before we did. Hook had already been sliced open when we got him here.”

  My nice, neat package began to unravel once more at the seams.

  “In fact, there could have been even more of these condoms inside. There’s plenty of room in there yet.”

  The possibilities were endless. Plenty of people had had access to Hook up to this point. And faced with a million-dollar gator, the temptation would have been close to overwhelming. A few missing condoms could help boost the retirement fund, and who’d ever know? The stitches on my neck pulled at my skin like the teeth on a piranha. I rummaged through my bag to find the last Percocet, and swallowed it dry.

  “Great. Just great.”

  Sam’s face fell as if I’d just burst his bubble.

  “Sorry, Sam. I appreciate all your work. It’s just that I’m getting nowhere fast, and my time is running out where this case is concerned.”

  Sam pulled off his gloves. “Just let me know when you want to catch that plane to Rio. While I’m piling on the good news, I did a few tests on that chunk of meat you brought in. Fifi was knocked off by a monster dose of strychnine. In fact, I’m surprised their yard wasn’t littered with dead critters by the time it was removed.”

  At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out there was more than dead wildlife in the Williams’s backyard. It was time to turn the mess over to Hickok, and watch how he chose to play out the deal. While I knew there was always the off chance that Charlie himself was involved in this up to his eyeballs, my gut feeling told me I had no other choice. Before heading out, I promised Sam that I’d hav
e Hook removed the next day. Now that the euphoria of having discovered so much cocaine was wearing off, we were both frightened by the implications of keeping Hook around any longer than necessary.

  Stalling for time to think, I decided to stop off at home before driving on to Slidell to face Hickok. Along with my decision to bow out of the case, I’d begun again to wonder if I was really in the right business after all. So far, I had proved myself to be nothing more than a rank amateur. My stomach growled, and I recognized the familiar sound. Depression and anxiety always made me ravenous.

  I stopped off at the Central to pick up a shrimp po’boy, and then headed back home. What I found when I got there didn’t make me feel any better. The place was a shambles, with all the charm of a Freddy Krueger film. My secondhand sofa had been slashed nearly as efficiently as Valerie Vaughn. Its foam-rubber stuffing was heaped on the floor in yellow clumps, looking like globules of chicken fat. Books were thrown from shelves and drawers pulled open, their contents strewn about. I found that I no longer needed an excuse to buy a matching set of dishes, with bits and pieces of my plates smashed all over the floor. The bedroom hadn’t fared much better.

  Through it all, my phone machine continued to blink steadily, its red light flashing on and off like a warning sign. Not knowing what else to do in the midst of so much destruction, I automatically pressed the play button. Hickok’s voice boomed out as thick as gumbo with its Southern twang.

  “Get your ass on over here, Bronx. You, me, and Trenton are goin’ fishing tonight.” The time stamped on the machine set the call at just after three o’clock.

  I tried to call Hickok at work to fill him in on what had taken place, but it was after five and everyone was already gone, including, oddly enough, Charlie. It was only then that I remembered there should have been another message on my machine. The call that Sam had placed to me was missing. I frantically dialed his number, worried that I might already be too late. The first two rings bounced around in my head like a shrill scream in an empty theater. By the time Sam picked up, my throat was constricted with fear.

  “Sam, get out of your office right now. I just came home to find everything in my place systematically decimated with a very sharp razor. It looks like a search-and-destroy mission over here.”

  Sam’s voice rose an octave higher on the other end of the phone. “What the hell do you think they were looking for, Rachel?”

  For a former activist, he was slow on the uptake. “All that cocaine. Didn’t you say a dealer would kill to get his hands on the stuff? Well it looks like you were right, and your message is missing off my machine. So just get the hell out of there now!”

  “Fine. But I’m taking the stuff with me.”

  “What are you, crazy? Don’t take the time. It’s not worth it. Just leave!”

  “Listen, Porter. I’m rolling the whole autopsy table into the back of my truck right now. Gotta go. I’ll catch you later.”

  I was left holding a dead line. Sifting through my things, I wondered if it had been Gunter who’d returned in hopes of finding the cocaine. And then I remembered the one thing in my possession that someone could possibly want. Valerie Vaughn’s videotape. That’s when my stomach tightened into a knot. I had left it downstairs with Terri. If anything had happened to him I would have only myself to blame, and it would be more than I could bear.

  I tore out of my apartment, taking the steps two at a time. Saying a silent prayer, I let myself in his front door. Everything was in place, just as I had left it that morning. The charcoal drawings and photos of long-dead movie stars stared at me as I made my way down the hall, their eyes accusing me of not being good enough to crack the case, not having made the grade, and not having been concerned enough about Terri’s safety. My heart pounded so hard I could scarcely breathe as I peered into the living room.

  Terri lay asleep on the couch, the television a crackling pattern of snow. I thanked God and pharmaceutical companies for the Valium he’d taken before I’d left. It had probably let him sleep through the ransacking of my floor above. I made my way back out past that gallery of eyes, which judged me as harshly as I did myself.

  Closing the front door, I sat down on the stairs as my legs began to shake and my eyes welled up with tears. I had to find Hickok. He’d become my only cavalry. Without him, I was about to go down just like Custer, who’d been as stupid as I’d been up until now, with something equally intangible to prove.

  Seventeen

  A light mist had begun to fall, making the day darker than it should have been. Left to wonder where Hickok was headed and how I would ever hook up with him, I found myself driving deep into the heart of Cajun country. Billows of fog as thick as cotton candy rolled across the road, making it all but impossible to see the headlights of cars before they barreled past. My thoughts wandered back to Kitty and Valerie Vaughn as I questioned how close I was to becoming one more victim to be passed over, the case hushed up, just another statistic in New Orleans’s growing homicide rate. I continued to drive on without thinking of where I was going, until I realized I was heading toward Trenton Treddell’s.

  The fog lifted as night cannibalized the last remnants of day. The moon rose, only a sliver less full than it had been the night before. I turned onto the dirt road that led to Treddell’s house and immediately plunged my front tire into a deep rut, knocking out what little was left of my car’s alignment. The blood-chilling cry of a nutria rose from a canal off to my right, and a second critter picked up the cry. Not a light was to be seen as I continued on, until finally, a small incandescent pinpoint radiated through the trees. Driving closer, I saw that it came from inside Treddell’s house. Trenton’s pickup was gone, but the pink Cadillac stood on the gravel drive, the moonlight reflecting off its polished surface.

  Remembering my last run-in with Dolly, I prepared myself for the worst as I approached the front door.

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  Dolly stood framed against the light, her hair a flaming hibiscus that glowed as if on fire. She was squeezed into a one-piece black bodysuit, its low neckline showcasing the tops of her breasts, with their gathering of tiny wrinkles. Her eyes were bloodshot and her coral lipstick smudged, and the distinctive odor of Southern Comfort wafted toward me. Standing barefoot on the orange shag carpet, her polished toenails were as red as freshly drawn blood. Her hand itched to slam the door in my face. While I desperately needed information as to what was about to go down tonight, I held only the faintest glimmer of hope that Dolly would be of some help.

  “Is Trenton at home? I have to speak to him.”

  Dolly glared at me, her eyes glazing over with tears as her bottom lip began to tremble. “Do you have any idea at all what your interfering has done?” A large tear rolled down along the side of her nose and into the coral cavern of her mouth. “For your information, you just might be responsible for getting my husband killed tonight. Or are you too dumb to even know what you’re messing with?”

  Taken even more by surprise at Dolly’s tears than by her outburst of emotion, I found myself speechless as she slammed the door in my face. It was then that I knew Hickok’s fishing expedition had to have something to do with the drug pipeline I had stumbled upon. While Hillard and Buddy might have been minor-league players with drugs during their former gator days, they were involved on a major scale now, with Global Corporation marketing the majority of the dope. There was nothing better than to have two homeboys who knew the ins and outs of every bayou and channel sneaking in dope, most likely from Colombia. It gave Sabino and his pals control over the Louisiana coastline, and that in itself was priceless.

  I wheeled my car around and started to head back down the dark road. If Charlie and Trenton were out on a sting tonight, I had every intention of joining them, no matter what. The honking of a horn and the blare of a cracked headlight jerked me out of my thoughts as I swerved hard to avoid the oncoming pickup. Slamming on his brakes, Gonzales pulled up beside me. He squinted his eyes tight
and thrust his head forward to see if it was really me. His hair hung in long, oily strands, resembling slimy earthworms, as he leaned his body halfway out the truck window.

  “Miss Porta, you gotta come wit me now. Charlie, he cursing you out somet’ing good for not being here yet. He and Trentone, dey gone out into de swamp. But you come wit’ Gonzales. I got us anot’er boat and we find dem.”

  Gonzales didn’t wait for an answer. He maneuvered his broken-down truck around and took off, so that I was left scurrying to catch up with the trail of dust he left in his wake. Making a sharp turn onto the blacktop, he didn’t go far before veering off onto another dirt road. That road forked onto an even smaller and more rutted path. My VW vibrated with an intensity that left me wondering if it could go much farther, when I caught sight of the swamp up ahead.

  Making his way over to a small aluminum boat, Gonzales waited for me as I peered into the foreboding swamp that lay quiet as the dead. I hesitated for a moment before stepping into the bobbing silver can, then we pushed off into the murky water, where we were swallowed up by the darkness of night. Gonzales silently paddled under the skeletons of forlorn cypress trees that closed in around us. A nearby choir of green frogs sang a down-home version of country Muzak. Water hyacinths floated on top of the liquid swamp, their blossoms closed to protect them from the evil roaming through the night like a desperado in flight from the light of the moon.

  “The devil lives in the swamp, Bronx. That’s why the trees grow so crooked.” Hickok loved to tell me that, feeling almost Cajun himself after having lived in the bayou so long.

  The cypress trees were twisted, their trunks frozen in serpentine splendor as I searched for the devil now. The hum of cicadas swelled from a small chant to a roaring crescendo, as we glided past a log with bright eyes that locked onto mine. Taking a closer look, I saw a bony head with walnut-sized ridges leading to a larger series of bumpy profusions resembling a spine. A gator lay patiently in wait for his dinner. Hearing the swish of wings overhead, I lifted my face and was gently caressed by dry strands of moss, their lacy skirts hanging down from a row of cypress trees.