I then took up the wetsuit jacket and slipped it under the big man's broken thigh. Looking for something to wrap it with, I stripped off the pilot's belt. Attached to it was a leather scabbard. I unsnapped it and took out his knife. The blade was small and oddly curved but was so sharp it sliced easily through the rubber and cloth of the wetsuit. I trimmed it and then cinched it around the leg using the belt to secure it. I was cutting the corded shoestrings from his boots to help tie the jacket when I fumbled the knife and it plunked into the water below and out of sight. I cursed its loss for no apparent reason.
"OK, Fred. Moment of truth, my friend."
I pulled the big man to the crook of the fuselage and let his legs dangle. I got back down into the water and with both feet planted on the matted sawgrass, inched Gunther off the wing and let him slide down my chest and thighs and into the water. I laid him out. The inflated vest kept his massive chest up. Even the wrapped rubberized wetsuit seemed to float his injured leg some.
By now we'd lost most of the light. The sky had gone dusky and a few early stars had already popped. My night eyes had adjusted and the white plane held a slight glow. I took a bearing on the wing edge, fifteen degrees, and stepped deeper into the water.
"Just like a night paddle, Fred," I said, looking at Gunther's pale face. "Let's muscle through."
I don't know how much time passed. We were in hell on earth. You can't keep track of eternity.
Every step into the grass wall was a process. I would sweep at the high, saw-toothed blades with one arm and try to find some half-solid purchase with my forward foot. Then, with my left hand gripped on the shoulder strap of the inflatable vest, I would pull Gunther forward and try to plant another foot in the muck below. I was sweating before we started and three steps into the wall the mosquitoes began to swarm around my face and arms. I could feel them in my hair, knew that the few I splattered with a swat on my neck were instantly replaced. They were so thick I drew an occasional group into my mouth with a breath. I would flail at them with my free hand. Then sweep the grass, move the foot, yank Gunther forward eighteen inches, move the other foot, flail the insects, and begin again. Early on I stumbled and fell, going under over my head in the water and discovered it gave at least a few seconds of relief from the mosquitoes, so I took to voluntarily dunking my head every few steps. Oddly, the insects didn't seem to light on Gunther. Maybe they could sense the odor of imminent death. Maybe the stink of my own sweat and animal oils drew them away from him.
I checked the pilot's pulse. Still there.
"Stay with me, buddy. Work with me," I said, then swept the grass, moved the foot, yanked him forward…
I quickly lost sight of the plane. I thought I could establish a line and then use my own created trail to keep it straight. But once we were enclosed in grass and darkness it was impossible to know if we were making headway toward the camp or skewing off to either side. Above me the first few stars had multiplied into a thousand and twice my heart jumped when a breeze momentarily split the grass and a beam of light seemed to flash through. I thought it was a search light at first, only to realize it was a low moon starting to climb the eastern sky, sending its beams flickering through the Glades. I kept moving.
The night was pulling the warmth out of the water. My legs were cold as it leached away body heat. I tried to concentrate but was losing focus. Gunther had groaned a couple of times when I yanked at the flotation vest. He was slipping in and out. At times the water was so shallow I was able to get good footing and fall forward to gain three feet. In deeper water every lunge brought us less than one. I tried counting the pulls, closing my eyes to concentrate on twenty pulls, then resting, then doing twenty more. As I weakened the moon came full into view above the grass, hanging in the air like a soiled silver dollar. The pain in my ribs became a dull mass. I could no longer feel the razor cuts on my arms and face from the sharp sawgrass. I reduced my pulls to ten at a time between resting.
I tried to think of the paddling, the rhythm and strokes of the canoe. I tried to think of running, pushing through the ache, and then cussed myself for putting in three miles this morning and how that strength could have helped me now. I tried to use the stars as some kind of guide to keep a straight course. I'd lost count of the pulls long ago.
I'd quit sweating but couldn't remember why that was a bad thing. I'd lost any sense of the mosquitoes and then cut my pulls to five at a time and quit talking to Gunther. I thought, more than a couple of times, of leaving the pilot behind.
I was giving up when I swung my arm into the grass again and the back of my hand thunked into something solid. The pain seemed to snap a few brain cells alive.
A piling, I thought, prying my other hand from a cramp-locked grip on Gunther and then using both to feel the squared pole in front of me. I reached up and touched the wood like a blind man. There was a platform above that sloped down in the opposite direction like some sort of ramp. I yanked Gunther around. I got a step up onto solid wood and dragged his chest out of the water. Once he was secure I crawled up the planks toward the moon.
We'd hit the camp off to the south at a short boat ramp that must be used to drag up canoes or skiffs. In the moonlight the weathered wood of the structure glowed like dull bone and the surrounding horizon of sawgrass took on the color of ash. I stumbled along the dock, my legs stiff and barely holding. At the main cabin the door to one side was unlocked and it swung open on crusted hinges.
Inside it was darker, but like in my own shack, I could make out shapes of a table and bunks against one wall. I found a slick blue rain tarp folded on top of an old trunk and carried it back outside to where Gunther lay. He groaned again when I pulled him onto the flattened tarp.
"Bedtime, Fred," I said, and then twisted two corners together and somehow dragged him up the ramp and into the cabin. Inside I pulled a mattress from one bed to the floor and after deflating the vest and prying him out of it, I rolled the pilot onto the mattress and covered him with every blanket I could reach.
I finally sat on the edge of the bunk, breathing hard and shallow as if only half of my lungs were working. I was caked with mud from the crotch down. A filmy mixture of blood and water covered my arms. My face felt swollen from the insect bites.
Moonlight was pouring through an old-style four-pane window. Gunther's face was turned up to the ceiling. I didn't know if he was alive or dead. I stared at the spot on his neck where a pulse would be but I could not move myself to it. I didn't even feel myself fall back into the bed.
I could feel the helicopter blades, more than hear them, a whumping of air that rattled the wood walls around me. In my half dream I could feel the knock of boots on hardwood floors, the hard steps vibrating into my cracked ribs and curiously tickling the bone.
I could feel the words, sharp and urgent medical terms jumping out of men's mouths, and then I was rising up out of warm water. Up out of pain. I'd spent enough time in hell. It was time to leave.
CHAPTER 10
When I woke up the stiff coolness of the sheets was against my legs and chest so I raised my right hand and it went to the left side of my neck. There were no bandages this time, only the smooth dime-sized scar. I was in a hospital bed but I had not dreamed eighteen months in Florida.
I tried to open my eyes but the lids felt like they were stuck with a dry, cracked paste and when I finally forced them, it felt like sandpaper scraping across my corneas. Billy Manchester was standing at the end of the bed, his arms folded across his chest.
"Good m-morning, Max."
I blinked a few more times and tried to swallow but couldn't find any moisture in my cheeks.
"Counselor," I finally croaked.
"Y-You are alive."
The reassurance was a light attempt at humor, but I wasn't sure how close to reality.
"Was there any doubt?"
"I wasn't here w-when they brought you in. But d-dehydration and exposure are d-dangerous conditions."
"How long?"
"You w-were in and out of c-consciousness most of yesterday and 1-last night," Billy said, pouring a glass of water from a bedside pitcher and putting in a straw before telling the story.
When I hadn't showed up at his tower by late Saturday night and he couldn't get an answer on the cell phone or at Gunther's office, Billy had called the sheriff's office. When he told them of my planned meeting with Gunther, they patched him in with a search-and-rescue unit that was already working reports that Gunther and his plane were missing.
The pilot's family had been to the hangar. Billy confirmed his ownership of the Jeep parked next to the tarmac. At 11:00 Sunday morning a private pilot radioed his sighting of a downed plane near the Everglades fishing camp. Within an hour a ranger in an airboat was at the camp and was met by an emergency helicopter. A chopper with a pontoon landed in the swamp and airlifted us out.
"Gunther?"
"He's alive. But he m-might lose his 1-leg."
I reached for the water glass and sipped at the straw. My arms looked swollen and the thousands of fine lacerations from the sawgrass had been coated with some kind of clear antiseptic cream. Billy had started to pace.
"Your n-name is all over the news. They had to ch-chase one reporter off this floor already today."
The ranger who first arrived at the fish camp had surveyed the area after we'd been airlifted. He'd followed the mashed sawgrass trail we'd left leading back to the plane. He'd told reporters he wouldn't have believed it possible if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. The press was clamoring for a bedside interview. Billy, as my attorney, had issued a single, unstuttered "No."
I knew how uncomfortable Billy would be in front of cameras and tape recorders. But his anxious pacing meant more than that.
When he'd gone to get his Jeep late Sunday afternoon after they stabilized me, he'd dismissed the taxi driver and gotten inside the truck. He was pulling out in reverse when he saw the message in his rearview mirror and stopped and got out to walk around back and read it. The words were drawn in a slight film of dust on the back window: "Don't Fuck With Mother Nature."
Somewhere back in my cobwebbed brain I plucked out the memory of the owl voice hooing from a stand of pines.
"I c-called Hammonds. He said his c-crime scene technicians would go over it."
"And the plane?" I said.
"I know s-someone at the FAA."
I had no doubt they'd find some sign of tampering when they went through the wreckage.
Billy was still pacing.
"Hammonds is outside," he said. "They w-want to talk. I told him only w-with me p-present."
I looked at Billy's eyes and when they locked onto mine, I knew he'd found out about my stupid visit to Hammonds' office without him. I nodded.
"B-Be careful. You're not off the h-hook yet," he said, going to get the detectives.
Hammonds came in first, followed by Diaz and Richards. Diaz nodded and I swear came close to winking. Richards took up a spot against the far wall, brushed a strand of blond hair from her face and crossed her arms.
Hammonds stood at the end of the bed. The model of professionalism. He was wearing a charcoal suit, his tie pulled tight. But there was a slump in his shoulders that I doubt was there three months ago.
"I'm a little dismayed that an ex-cop who took it upon himself to bail out of a law enforcement career comes down here and starts getting his fingers stuck in a serial killer investigation," Hammonds started, pulling no punches despite the situation.
"We're agreed," I said, my voice still dry and barely audible.
"We served a warrant on your place Saturday morning," he said.
"On a tip?"
Hammonds looked quickly at Diaz, who just shrugged.
"On an anonymous tip that we might find an important piece of electronics that could be vital to our investigation."
"And?"
"Came up empty. And disappointed," Hammonds said, holding my gaze.
"Maybe you'd find a better suspect by looking for somebody who knows about planes. At least enough to bring them down," I said, feeling a flush of anger making its way through my medication.
"We're already on that. In fact your friend Mr. Gunther was on our screen before you got there."
"As a suspect?" I said, looking over at Billy.
"As a person with a wide circle of friends who know the Everglades, some of whom have strong views about it."
"From what I understand that's a big circle," I said.
"Your involvement with him makes it a somewhat smaller circle."
"Oh, I see," I said, now feeling the blood rise in my chest. "I get involved with this guy in a series of child killings and then we decide on a suicide pact and crash our plane in your godforsaken Everglades. But then after we're busted up and Gunther's half dead, we change our minds and I drag his ass all night through the swamp and then roll over in the fucking middle of nowhere with the near zero chance of somebody finding us before we both shrivel up into fish bait."
Hammonds' eyes did not leave my face. His expression never changed.
"If that's your best fucking theory, Detective, no wonder you're still chasing this asshole."
My outburst silenced the room and plunged me into a dry coughing fit that ripped at my insides. Billy tried to get a sip of water into me. No one said anything for several seconds.
I looked at Richards who stood staring at the jiggling bag of saline that fed into my arm. Her eyes were red-rimmed and held a deep ache. I'd seen that look before, reflecting back at me in a medicine cabinet mirror in my own Philadelphia home.
"Do you really think I did this?" I said, looking at her.
She started to speak but then turned away and quickly walked out the door. Diaz cleared his throat and took a step forward.
"She was at the kid's funeral all morning, the one you found," he said before Hammonds cut him off.
"Mr. Freeman." His voice was unaffected by my tirade. "We are still seeking that electronic device. And Mr. Manchester has indicated that our search may not be futile."
I looked again at Billy, who was silent.
"If you are inclined, give Detective Diaz here a call," Hammonds said and then turned and walked out of the room.
Diaz reached out and put a business card on the bed. This time he actually did wink before leaving. I closed my eyes, exhausted again, and let the silence sit in the room. I could feel my heartbeat under the sheets. I thought I could feel the saline dripping into my vein.
"We should give him the GPS?" I said without opening my eyes.
"I think it w-would be p-prudent. They might track it b-by its serial number. They could g-get lucky."
Billy's sense of protecting me had shifted from legal to physical. The killer had made a turn when he sabotaged Gunther's plane. He'd expanded his threat and his target field. There were no windows in the room, only the off-white walls. It made the space look starkly empty.
"What's with the woman?" I asked Billy, surprising even myself when the question slipped out of my mouth.
"My guess is sh-she has let herself get too close," Billy answered. "You know h-how the ch-child you found died?"
I had missed a few days of news.
"Dehydration," he said. "She was d-deprived of water. Probably f-for days."
I kept my eyes shut. I had watched Richards when she came in the room, could smell her perfume. I'd seen her move her fingers to her hair and tuck the loose strand behind her ear and the movement raked my insides more than any fractured rib could have.
"Billy," I said. "Get me out of here, OK?"
CHAPTER 11
It was the first time I'd seen her close up. She was crouched in the shadows, holding an assault rifle, breathing in that same deep rhythmic way of hers that I would watch for years afterward in our morning bed.
That day we were inside an abandoned Philadelphia elementary school. The electricity was long since gone, pulled out by the demolition contractors who in a few weeks would knock down the thirty-y
ear-old structure and scoop it off the corner near Lehigh Avenue in Kensington. The only light came in through the partially boarded windows and streamed through the haze of dust that seemed to float from the old recessed tile ceilings.
The Philadelphia Police SWAT team used the building for exercises, practicing how to handle interior room sweeps in the empty hallways and classrooms. Meg had been with them for eighteen months. She was a patrol cop. A good one. Tough when she needed to be and friendly enough when she wanted to be. At least that was the word around the roundhouse. She was also a hell of a good shot with a sniper rifle and that's why she was working with the Special Weapons And Tactics team.
I was there on an invite from Tommy Gibbons, a guy I'd known since we were in the police academy who'd asked me to stop in and observe this particular training gig. Gibbons had been trying to get me to apply for a SWAT spot for a couple of years. My lack of ambition bothered him. His constant state of enthusiasm bothered me. Somehow, we were friends.
"Come on, Max. Just come out and watch," he'd said, interrupting a perfectly fine glass of Schaefer on draft at McLaughlin's. "I know there's an intense guy under that dumb lineman look. I know it. You got what makes these guys tick, Max. Come on. Just come out and watch 'em work and see if you don't catch a bug."
I was into my third glass of beer. It was summertime. A thirty-year-old version of the Drifters singing "Up on the Roof" was on the jukebox. I was staring at the oak scrollwork on McLaughlin's famous hundred-year-old bar mirror and for some yet unknown reason said, "Yeah, OK."
So the next day I was leaning against an empty metal fire extinguisher box watching the team position themselves in the hallway for a drill on "room probes" and watching the woman who would capture and then severely stomp my previously lazy heart.
Megan Turner was dressed in black, armed and dangerous. There was something about her profile, the sharp straight nose, the small rise of her cheekbones, and her delicate but determined chin that made me stare despite myself. Yet even that first day it was her eyes that caught me. From a distance of fifteen feet their ice-blue color seemed to absorb the fractured light, reflect none of it, and perform the uncanny task of sending an emotional thought across a room. It was her eyes and her hair that day.
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