A Garden of Vipers

by Jack Kerley

  “You saw the bag floating in the gutter. That opened the door. But Crandell thinks you’re messing with his plans. He may want to take you off the board, and he can do it. You’re at home, right?”

  “Watching the tube.”

  “Get out now. Go somewhere. A motel, Pace. I’ll pay. Go there and hang out until tomorrow.”

  “Harry, what can I do to help? I’ll do anything. Tell me how to help you track down this Cran—”

  “There’s nothing to do but get out of there, Pace. Now.”

  “What are you trying to accomplish, Harry? Clue me in.”

  Nautilus sighed, time wasting.

  “Someone’s life may depend on me finding Crandell. I figure this Crandell’s got a place away from things. But close enough to town to keep his hand in his action. Pace, get off the phone and git.”

  “What are you going to do, Harry?”

  “I don’t know, Pace. Listen, I got to hang up.”

  “Shuttles is slick, Harry, the little bastard is one—”

  “Get out!” Nautilus yelled and slammed down the phone.

  CHAPTER 46

  Miss Gracie stood by my bedside. Her hand rested on the sheet an inch from mine. I had a feeling she wanted to touch my hand, make contact.

  She said, “I been told to take the night off.”

  “Who gives you your orders, Miss Gracie?”

  “Him. Cran-man. It’s like always when he comes. If it ain’t done his way, he won’t take the job.”

  It made sense from what I knew of Crandell. He’d want absolute control to lessen the chance of error. I rattled my wrists in the straps.

  “Miss Gracie, can you help here?”

  She turned away.

  “He’s out there now, a bunch of the security folks, too. They’re sure Lucas is trying to get to Miz Kincannon. They say he wants to kill her. I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

  “You’re not sure Lucas is psychotic?”

  “I been told that a thousand times since he came here. That he’s sick. Not to trust him, he lies, pretends to be well. I think he was all mixed up as a kid is all.”

  “How about Dr. Rudolnick? What did he think?”

  Her eyes closed.

  “He wrote up papers they gave to Miz Kincannon, saying how Lucas had to be kept here for his own safety, the safety of others. The doctor got told what to say before he even met Lucas. Dr. Rudolnick was a troubled man and they had hold of him in some way, it’s what they do, hold.”

  “But Ms. Kincannon…” I let the words hang in the air.

  “She wanted the doctor to check on Lucas every few weeks. See if he could get better. The doctor came to see things as they really were. It made him sick at himself, his part in the lie.”

  And eventually made him dead, I thought. Had the decompensating Buck grown paranoid over Rudolnick? Or was the doctor simply another loose end?

  I looked at my strapped wrists. “You can’t undo my arms, legs, Miss Gracie? Give me a chance?”

  “If he found out I did that, if they found out…”

  “You’d be gone. And your son, too. Tyler.”

  An intake of breath. “You know?”

  “Tyler’s too dark-skinned to be one of the Kincannon children. And you would have told me if he was, like you did the others.”

  Miss Gracie turned away, pushed a tear from her eye. “Tyler’d have to go to a charity hospital, a ward. He wouldn’t get nothing like he gets here. Tyler don’t know much but love, and I can give it to him here. And I get to be with him all through his life.”

  “I understand.”

  She reached to the cart, held up two IV bags. She began slipping them into the holder.

  “I got told to put these in you. One’s the muscle relaxer. The other’s a tranquilizer. That man wants you to be fuzzy-headed. He says make it drip slow so it lasts ’til midnight.”

  “He’s coming for me.”

  “I can’t tell the future. But I’ll do the same as I done yesterday. I’m gonna let the tube drip in the waste can.”

  Miss Gracie disappeared out the door. Crandell showed up a half hour later, mining his canines with a toothpick.

  “You’ll be by yourself for a while, Ryder. I sent Auntie Jemima packing. If you gotta crap, you’ll have to fill the old diaper. Must be nice to roll over and shit when you want, like the old burnout upstairs, like most of the whatevers in this place.”

  I turned my head his way, a drowsy smile on my face, a man drifting in a sea of muscle relaxants and tranquilizers.

  “Who say what?”

  “Must be nice floating around in there, Ryder. Just checking before I go to work. Your former juice hole is heading to Buck’s place around nine, and I expect I’ll have some clean-up chores afterward.”

  “Unh-hunh. Sure was.”

  “Just for your records, Ryder, wasn’t me killed Holtkamp and Franklin. Buckie volunteered for the job. Ain’t life a bitch, Ryder? Guy looks like Buck Kincannon, and he’s all screwy about women.”

  “Screwly wha?”

  Crandell grinned and flicked the toothpick at me. It hit my nose and I looked a foot left of his head. He dusted his hands together.

  “I’ll be by later. I got to rip up your clothes, splash ’em with your blood, drop them where they’ll roll up on a beach. Probably scare the hell out of some tourists from Wisconsin. There’s a hole in a barn floor about ten miles from here. It’s a lonely hole and needing company.”

  I batted my eyes, like I was trying to stay awake.

  Crandell said, “Now I got to deal with your old buddy, Shuttles. Remember him? Got a little problem over on that side. Pain in the ass, but I just keep repeating, Rio de Janeiro.”

  “Whuff?”

  “You’re no fun when you’re like this, Ryder. But we’ll have a few final laughs before you hole up tonight, I gar-on-tee.”

  “Incoming,” Nautilus said twenty minutes after he’d sent the message. Claypool ran to Nautilus, leaned over the detective’s shoulder.

  Hang tight, help on way. Meet location B 11 pm Tell partner he’ll get his payoff. Cash. Respond when you get a chance, ASAP.

  Nautilus said, “He probably thinks Shuttles is with Logan right now.”

  “Where’s location B?” Claypool asked.

  “That’s my next problem,” Nautilus said, rising from the computer and running out the door.

  Hearing the outer door close, I started fighting my restraints. The leather was four inches wide, twice as thick as a belt. It was like fighting cast iron.

  Freddy walked by in the hall, talking to himself, his puppet held high.

  “Rowf! Rowf! Shhh, don’t be so loud, Puppy. Carson is sleeping.”

  “I’m not sleeping, Freddy. I’m just laying here.”

  His head spun to me. He raced into the room.

  “Want to play, Carson? Puppy just woke up, too. He takes an after-supper nap with me.”

  We played, which meant Freddy licked the puppet over me while I chanted, “Good boy, nice puppy.”

  A few minutes passed.

  “Freddy, could you do me a favor?”

  “You want a drink? More purpleberry?”

  “I’m interested in what’s going on outside. It’s kind of a special night. Now and then could you check at the window up front for me, tell me what you see?”

  “What I see where?”

  “At the house across the way.”

  “Uncle Buck’s house?”

  “That’s the one,” I said. “How about taking a look now.”

  He tottered away, the puppet face dangling off his hand, returning after a couple of minutes.

  “There’s just one car at Uncle Buck’s, Carson. It’s the one that belongs to that man I don’t like.”

  “Which man is that, Freddy?”

  “That man that comes around sometimes. He fired Ms. Holtkamp, my teacher. Then he came and fired Dr. Rudy, Lucas’s teacher.”

  “Fired them?”

  “That’
s what Uncle Buck said. It means they had to stop working here. Dr. Rudy only came once in a while, but I liked him. I loved Ms. Holtkamp. She taught me words and numbers.”

  “The man you don’t like…You’re talking about Mr. Crandell?”

  Freddy looked at the floor. “One time when no one was looking he stepped on Puppy, asked me if that hurt him. When I said yes, he laughed and did it again.”

  “Freddy, I’m going to tell you the truth. There’s going to be some trouble outside. Something bad is going to happen if I can’t go help a friend of mine.”

  He frowned. “What’s that mean?”

  “I’ve got to get these belts off my arms and legs. They’re holding me down. Keeping me from helping my friend.”

  “They’re tight, Carson. I don’t think you can.”

  “I know. That’s why I need for you to help me. You can take them off, Freddy. Unbuckle the belts.”

  He shook his head.

  “I can’t, Carson.”

  “Because it’s red?”

  “I don’t do red things. That’s what Lucas does.”

  “You’ve got to help me, Freddy. I need to get off the bed. It hurts. Do you want a friend of yours to hurt?”

  “Lucas says things like that when he’s in the red bed and the red room. He asks me to help.”

  “And you help Lucas, right?”

  “I’m not allowed.”

  It was a simple statement of fact, without moral judgment or sense of consequence. He’d been told not to unbuckle someone under restraint, thus he wouldn’t.

  “Please,” I said.

  “Let’s just play, Carson. Puppy wants to play. He likes you.”

  “I don’t want to play, Freddy. I need to get the hell out of this bed!”

  His face screwed up and he started crying.

  “You’re acting like Lucas does sometimes. I’m leaving.”

  He turned and stomped toward the door. I called at his back.

  “Freddy, I’m sorry. I’m distraught.”

  He turned, wiping an eye with a finger. “What’s distroffed mean?”

  “It means I like you and want you and Puppy to stay.”

  Freddy’s sudden smile was wet and lopsided. He ran to the bed. I let the puppet lick my face, bounce on my belly, bark at my toes. Freddy worked the puppet up my leg.

  “Walking, walking, walking the doggie…”

  I said, “Could you take another look outside for me, Freddy?”

  His bottom lip pouted outward. “It’s way over on the other side of heaven, past the rooms where Miss Gracie lives. Do I have to?”

  “It would make me happy.”

  He sighed. “All right, Carson.”

  He scampered away, returning moments later. He held up the puppet like it was talking. “Rowf! There’s no cars over there now. Puppy says it’s empty.”

  I wondered what time it was. Crandell had alluded to Dani being at Buck’s place near nine p.m.

  “Do you know how to tell time, Freddy?”

  He stared at the ceiling, remembering. “Miss Holtkamp said there are two hands on a clock, like on a person. The big hand—”

  “Why don’t you look at a clock if there’s one around?”

  “There’s one in Tyler’s room.”

  “Let’s see if you really can tell time. I’m thinking you can’t.”

  “Betcha I can.”

  He was back in a minute. He held his arms out to indicate 7:40. “It’s seven and forty, ha-ha. Here comes Puppy, Carson.”

  It was getting annoying, trying to think with the puppet slapping across my arms, chest, and face.

  “How about you give Puppy a break for a few minutes, Freddy?”

  Freddy kept up the licking and gnawing motion.

  “I can’t stop him, Carson. Watch out.”

  The sock puppet gnawed on the bedrail, licked at my arm. I started to again ask Freddy to stop, but heard his words repeat in my head: I can’t stop him.

  Was Puppy an independent entity? Cold sweat prickled on my forehead. I kept my voice light and even and smiled at Freddy. I had one final shot at life, the strength of the fantasy of a retarded man.

  “You’ve been told not to unbuckle the belts, right, Freddy?”

  “Yup. Puppy’s licking your shoulder, Carson.”

  I giggled, a happy guy. “You’re right to not unbuckle the belts, Freddy. But if you hadn’t been told not to unbuckle the belts, you could unbuckle the belts. Isn’t that right?”

  “I had to be told not to do it. And like a good boy I do what I’m told. Lick, lick, lick.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Freddy?”

  “What?”

  “Has Puppy been told not to unbuckle the belts?”

  CHAPTER 47

  Nautilus thundered into the jail. He looked in the holding cell where he’d last seen Shuttles; empty.

  “Where’s Shuttles?” Nautilus yelled to a turnkey sipping a cup of coffee.

  “Interrogation.”

  Nautilus ran down the hall. He saw Doria Barnes, an assistant DA, sitting on a bench and sorting through papers. “I need to talk to Shuttles,” Nautilus said.

  Barnes rolled her eyes. “Good luck. Mr. Shuttles is with his new attorney.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Preston Walls.”

  Nautilus growled and pushed through the door of the interrogation room. Shuttles was sitting in a chair at a small wooden table, Preston Walls beside him, nodding.

  “Hey, Harry,” Walls said. “How you been keeping yourself?”

  Nautilus ignored the attorney and stuck his face in front of Tyree Shuttles.

  “What do you know about a location B?”

  Walls put his hand on Shuttles’s back. Patted it. “My client has nothing to say, Harry. Sorry.”

  “Shuttles just call you, Walls?” If Crandell knew Shuttles was in jail, it was all for naught.

  “Minutes ago,” Walls said. “Evidently Mr. Shuttles knows of my expertise with the wrongly accused.”

  Nautilus put his palms on the table, glared into Shuttles’s eyes.

  “If I don’t find out where location B is, Carson could die. How’s that, Shuttles? There a glimmer of conscience in there anywhere?”

  Shuttles looked away. Walls leaned back in his chair, flicked the tassels on his shiny Italian loafers, shoes as sleek as eels.

  “Maybe we can come to a deal, Harry. Mr. Shuttles, if I’m given to understand the problem, was an unwitting pawn in someone else’s game. He might have unknowingly mishandled evidence, but that was an accident. In return for anything he might tell you, my client wants immunity from prosecution.”

  Nautilus glared at Shuttles. “I doubt he knows where location B is anyway, Walls. He’s low level, a gofer.”

  Shuttles nodded to Walls. The attorney walked over, listened as Shuttles whispered in his ear. Walls straightened.

  “He perhaps knows pieces of what you need. He knows them inadvertently, of course, not as part of any crime or conspiracy. Maybe someone from the prosecutor’s office could talk deal? I believe Ms. Barnes is in the building.”

  “I don’t think so,” Nautilus said. “I’m done here.” He walked from the interrogation room with Walls in his wake. He stopped at a water cooler a dozen feet down the hall.

  Come on, Walls, come on…

  The lawyer parked himself a few steps behind Nautilus, his voice wheedling. “Harry, we can make a nice deal here. The kid made some kind of mistake. He’s not even sure what. You got weight with the DA.”

  Walls bargaining without even knowing what had gone down.

  “Bye, Preston.” Nautilus wiped his mouth, started away.

  “Harry, we can do something good here. I know it.”

  Nautilus paused. “Do you know what Shuttles did? Who he’s working for?”

  Walls puffed out a righteous chest. “My client asserts his innocence. And that, Harry, is all I need.”

  Nautilus started down the hall. A doz
en feet away, he turned his head over his shoulder, said, “Crandell.” Nautilus got three steps before Walls was in front of him.

  “Christ. What did you just say, Harry?”

  “The Kincannons have a pipeline into Shuttles for various ongoing necessaries. Crandell’s the intermediary. You ratted Crandell out to me, Walls, remember?”

  Walls looked seasick. “Harry, I did no such—”

  “I’m in contact with Crandell by e-mail. I’m gonna go write him back, remind Crandell of his old friend Preston Walls from Barton, Turnbull and Pryce. ‘Rabies sloshing under his pupils.’ That’s what you said about him, right?”

  Walls’s flesh had turned the color of lard. Sweat peppered his forehead.

  “You can’t do this.”

  Nautilus clasped the attorney’s shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze. “If Crandell doesn’t come to me, Walls, I bet he comes to you.”

  Walls said, “Let me go talk to my client. Perhaps I can—”

  “Lie to him, Walls. You know how it’s done. I’ll be right here.”

  Five minutes later, Walls came through. Shuttles, apparently thinking he was showing good faith for a deal agreement, wrote a return message on a slip of paper.

  Loc B cnfirm. 11 pm cnfirm. IO 50G to man in? Route per rehrsl. 90 min. Don’t frgt: IO 50Gs.

  A confirmation of location B at eleven tonight, two hours; “I owe 50 grand.”

  Shuttles also passed along driving directions. Not far, just on the north side of Mobile. Nautilus called Forensics, had Claypool send the message from Shuttles’s computer. He took out his service weapon, checked the clip, patted the two extras in his pocket. He’d get there early, scope out the territory. Wait.

  He checked the weapon a second time, a Glock 17. Then raced back to the department to pick up the .380 in his locker, a little something to tuck down the back of his pants. Maybe he’d check out a shotgun as well.

  I petted Puppy after he’d liberated me—Good dog, good dog—then told Freddy his pet needed a reward. Freddy wandered to the kitchen area to fix Puppy and himself a snack. I followed, drank a glass of milk and jammed a slice of pizza in my mouth, fuel, then started searching for a weapon and a way out.