“I still don’t see where this is leading,” Hoke said, looking pointedly at Brownley. “I’m working on the old Russell case right now, and I’ve got a fairly good lead—”
“Finish your beer, Hoke. Let Mel tell you the rest of it.”
“The thing is, Sergeant,” Mel continued, “you could put Delaware in Collier County and never notice it was there, and I’m only one man. I had me a clerk, but she quit last month because she can make more money puttin’ pickle slices on burgers at McDonald’s.” Mel crushed his Pepsi can and placed it on the bench.
“I still don’t know what you expect me to do about that.”
“You speak any Creole, Hoke?” Brownley said, taking a sip of his beer.
Hoke grinned. “I just know their worst swearword. Guette mama! I was called it once in Little Haiti, so I checked it out.”
“Guette mama?”
“Yeah. That’s Creole for linguette mama, or ‘your mama’s little tongue.’ At one time, in Africa and Haiti, they used to cut off a woman’s clitoris when she got married. It was called the little tongue, a useless thing to be thrown away.”
“My wife wouldn’t agree on that,” Brownley said. “Why would they cut off a woman’s clit?”
“Without a clit, a man’s wife’s less likely to fool around, Willie. They don’t do it in Haiti any longer. But it has a nice sound to it as a swearword, doesn’t it?” Hoke lowered his voice and growled: “Guette mama!”
Brownley frowned at Mel. “Tell him, Mel.”
Peoples nodded, and sucked his teeth. “Haitian farm workers’ve been disappearing, Sergeant Moseley. We didn’t notice it for some time because they stay to themselves. Because of the AIDS scare, American black men don’t even go after their women, you see. And Haitians don’t complain about things ’cause they’re afraid of being sent back to Haiti. But word gradually gets around. A family man’ll disappear, and his woman’ll ask if anyone’s seen him. Then someone’ll say, ‘I think he went over to Belle Glade to work.’ But a Haitian won’t leave his wife without sending her money. And they all send money back to Haiti. They’re Catholics and family-oriented. But once one of these Haitians disappears that’s the end of him. He ain’t in Belle Glade or anywhere else. And we don’t know how many are missing altogether.”
“When you say ‘we,’” Hoke said, “are you talking about you and Willie here, or you and the clerk who went to work for McDonald’s?”
Mel shook his head. “Me and Sheriff Boggis, in Collier County. I also had a dialogue with a deputy over in Lee County, but he said he wished they all were missing, so I didn’t talk with him again. But what happened, we finally found a body.”
“You and Sheriff Boggis?”
“No, a truck driver from Miles’s Produce, over in Tice. He picked up a load of melons in Immokalee and then stopped on the highway, a couple of miles past the Corkscrew Sanctuary cutoff, to take himself a leak. He went behind the billboard there, the one that advertises the Bonita Springs dog track, and found some toes stickin’ up. It had been raining, the ground was marshy, and the foot had worked its way up. He dug around a little with a stick, enough to see it was a foot, and then phoned Sheriff Boggis when he got to Bonita Springs. Boggis took a look, and then he called me out there to see if it was a missin’ Haitian. And it was.”
“How’d you know? Not just because he was black.”
“He had a tattoo on the back of his left hand. Le Chat, with a couple of pointed ears below the words. The tattoo had been carved in, probably with a razor blade. Haitians, as you probably know, eat cats.”
“No, I didn’t know. These so-called ears, could they be little V’s?”
“I guess you could say that. Why?”
“Nothing. I was thinking about another case. Go ahead.”
“They eat cats because they think it’ll make ’em invisible. It’s a folk myth, because no one’s ever become invisible by eatin’ a cat. But they hear about it, believe it, and then get a cat and try it, you see. If you go to Port-au-Prince, you won’t see any cats at all. Dogs, yes, but no cats. Man owns himself a cat he locks it up inside his house, or some-one’ll grab it and eat it. This Haitian cat eater had this tattoo on his arm to prove it. The little ears were put there to show that the rest of the cat was invisible and inside the man.
“So he was a Haitian, Sergeant. Afro-Americans don’t tattoo French words on their hands. Besides, his feet and hands were calloused, and he’d been a field worker all his life.”
“How was he killed?”
“The ME wasn’t positive. He’d been badly beaten around his head, and the ME didn’t know whether he was dead or just unconscious when he was buried, so he marked it down as ‘Death by Misadventure.’”
“That’s pretty damned vague, especially if the man was buried alive.”
“The ME couldn’t say for sure. He’d been in the ground too long.”
Hoke nodded. “So all you have to do now is find the man—or woman—who buried him and see if he’s buried a few more somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Brownley said. “That’s what we want you to do.”
“Me?” Hoke shook his head. “Collier County’s a little far out of our jurisdiction, isn’t it, Willie? We can’t—”
“I know, but this is a special case, Hoke. I told Mel I’d help him out. And we’ve got something to go on. It’s something you could check out in a couple of days. The ME dug some dirt out from under the corpse’s fingernails and toenails, and it didn’t match the loam where he was buried. It matched the dirt in a grower’s farmyard this side of Immokalee. A man named Harold Bock, nicknamed Tiny Bock. That name ring a bell? Tiny Bock?”
Hoke shook his head. “I don’t know the name.”
“There was a feature article on him a few years back in the Miami News. He was an old-time alligator poacher, born in Chokoloskee. Then, when the state cracked down on poachers, and they couldn’t sell the skins up North any longer, he bought up farmland in Lee and Collier counties and became a grower. His property’s scattered, but he’s got about two thousand acres, all in two- and three-hundred-acre parcels. He usually runs three or four gangs of workers, and he grows all kinds of shit. But the farmhouse he lives in is on the Immokalee road between Carnestown and Immokalee. Mel got this sample of soil from his farmyard, and it matched the dirt under the dead man’s nails. I had it checked out at the University of Miami by Dr. Fred Cussler, the forensic geologist.”
“I met Dr. Cussler once,” Hoke said. “White-haired guy, supposedly the world’s authority on oolite. But most of the soil in South Florida’s about the same, isn’t it?”
“In a way—coquina stone, shale, gravel, sand, oolite. But you give Cussler a sample, and he’ll tell you where it came from in Dade County. Besides, this Tiny Bock beat a slavery rap three years ago, you see. He had a bunch of winos living in a trailer and was charging ’em more for their food and rent than he was paying ’em. He wouldn’t let anyone leave until they paid what they owed, and they couldn’t get even. He also gave ’em free wine.”
“So how’d he beat the rap?”
“One of the winos escaped and told the sheriff about the other men out there. Sheriff Boggis went out there and turned ’em loose, but there was no case. Bock had books proving that all these winos owed him money. He was charging three bucks for a plate of beans and a chunk of corn bread and ten bucks a night for a straw mat in the trailer. So there was no case.”
“They do this in Dade County, too, Willie,” Hoke said.
“But this is different. Because of this incident with Bock, a workers’ co-op got started in Immokalee, and the growers blame Bock. Half the migrants’ wages must be paid to the co-op each week, and then the co-op gives that money, less expenses, to the workers when they finish the job.”
“What you’re telling me is that Bock is disliked by the other growers—” Hoke started to say.
“Hated is more like it,” Mel broke in. “Because of Bock they all have a lot of paperwork to do no
w, and they can’t hide any income from the IRS. Not very well they can’t.”
“So anything that happens, the other growers’ll all say it’s probably Tiny Bock?”
“That’s true,” Mel agreed. “But Bock’s the only suspect we have, and the dirt did match at his farmhouse yard. Him and his foreman live alone, ’cept for a couple of pit bulls he keeps in the yard. I was a little nervous the night I went down there to get the soil samples.”
“I still don’t see what you expect me to do about it,” Hoke said. “I don’t know shit about farming. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to investigate something like this. What did Sheriff Boggis say when you told him you were bringing me in, Willie?”
“Mel and I didn’t tell Boggis anything about you, Hoke. Mel tried to get Boggis to assign a deputy in plain clothes, but Boggis said his deputies are too well known in the county to do any undercover work. Any deputy wearing civvies nosing around would be recognized in no time. But Mel and me talked this over, and naturally I thought about you—”
“I’m not right for this,” Hoke protested. “You need a Department of Law Enforcement man, some stranger from Tallahassee. I don’t have any jurisdiction in Collier County. If the sheriff found me nosing around, my ass would be buttermilk, for Christ’s sake.”
“That’s the whole idea,” Brownley said. “You won’t be official. You’ll just be a private citizen. If you find out anything, just get word to Mel here. He’ll get in touch with Boggis if there’s something concrete to go on. I’m asking you to do this as a favor to me because I owe a big favor to Mel.”
“Okay, let me get this straight, Willie. You want me to visit Tiny Bock’s farm, sneak past a couple of vicious dogs, and then dig around the farm to see if I can find a few more dead bodies. That it?”
“Not exactly, Hoke,” Brownley said. “Bock’s advertised for crew chiefs in the Immokalee Ledger, but no one wants to work for him. Only someone desperate for money’ll work for the son of a bitch. Lately Bock and his foreman, a Mexican named Cicatriz, have had to drive over to Miami to find Haitian laborers. They soon quit and drift back to Miami.
“So when you go out to the farm and ask for a crew chief’s job, he’ll hire you. Once you’re living there, you’ll be able to check around with no sweat.”
“It won’t work, Willie.” Hoke shook his head. “He’ll ask me some questions about farming, and he’ll know immediately that I don’t know the difference between my dick and a cucumber.”
“You won’t be picking cucumbers or nothing yourself. If he hires you, you’ll be supervising pickers, and they know what to do. You should be able to supervise a gang of Mexicans, Haitians, and winos—”
“What about my cases in Miami?”
“González can handle things till you get back. After all, they’re all cold cases anyway. A couple of days won’t matter. I’ll have him report daily to Bill Henderson.”
“What I was going to have González do today was to check to see if Dr. Schwartz is wearing the late Dr. Russell’s Rolex and diamond ring. But González isn’t subtle, and I have to tell him how to go about it.”
“I’ll explain it to him. Is this important?”
“Might be. Schwartz married Russell’s widow and drives his Mercedes, so it might be worthwhile to know whether he’s wearing his watch and ring as well.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell Gonzáles how to go about it.”
“How?”
“I’ll just have him make an appointment. Then, when he goes in, he can take a look when Schwartz examines him.”
“Examines him for what? What’s supposed to be wrong with González?”
“What kind of doctor is Schwartz?”
“Internal medicine.”
“Okay, I’ll tell González to say he’s got a bellyache.”
“No.” Hoke shook his head. “Ulcer. Two hours before his appointment, make a peanut butter ball, the size of a marble. Let it dry a little, and then have González swallow it without chewing it. In two hours it’ll spread out a little in his stomach and look like an ulcer on an X ray.”
“You sure?”
“A lot of guys beat the draft that way during Vietnam. And it’ll work on Dr. Schwartz. I don’t want him to suspect anything, so Teddy’ll have to get his story straight.”
“I understand that. Anything else?”
“Several things. What’re you going to tell Ellita and my daughters? I can’t just disappear for a few days without a word—”
“I’ll tell Ellita you’re on a special assignment when I drive your car back. As an ex-cop she’ll understand that.”
“You’re taking my car, too?”
“You won’t need it. And don’t write or call Ellita either.”
“There’s one other thing, Willie. It might be important, and it might not. But Donald Hutton got paroled—”
“The man who poisoned his brother? You must be wrong. He got a mandatory twenty-five.”
“I know. But he was awarded a new trial on his last appeal. The state attorney didn’t want to retry the case, so he’s out on a time-served. It isn’t all that unusual.”
“You don’t think he’s still out to get you, do you? After all, it’s been ten years.”
“I don’t think so, no. But he bought the house right across from me in Green Lakes. If I’m out of town, he might try to get back at me through one of my daughters or even Ellita. I’m not really worried about it, but this is a bad time for me to be away for a few days.”
Melvin Peoples got up, and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know what this is all about, Willie, but if Sergeant Moseley’s family’s in any danger, we’d better forget about this idea or postpone it. This investigation could take three or four days or more—”
“Take it easy, Mel,” Brownley said. “I can handle this. I’ve got to drive Hoke’s car back anyway, so I’ll stop by and talk to Hutton myself. The threat he made ten years ago doesn’t mean much. But I’ll talk to him, and if I don’t like what he says, I’ll make him move.”
“I already checked with his parole officer, Willie,” Hoke said. “He told me Hutton can live anywhere he wants, and there’s nothing we can do.”
“He can’t do anything, but I can.”
“It’s not that important, Willie, but I thought you ought to know about it.”
“I’ll check him out. Now empty your pockets and put everything on the bench here.”
“What for?”
“I’ve got a new ID for you. If Bock finds your gun and badge on you, he won’t believe you’re a crew chief so down on your luck you’re asking him for work. Gun first.”
Hoke took his gun and holster from his belt in back and placed it on the bench.
“Cuffs, too.”
“They’re in the car—glove compartment—together with my sap.” Hoke put his badge and ID case on the bench. He removed his money from his wallet—eight dollars— and put the wallet beside his ID case.
“What else you got in your pockets?”
“Cigarettes, about a half pack. This Bic lighter, some Kleenex, some change. Car keys and fingernail clipper. That’s it.”
“Okay. Keep the lighter and cigarettes, and put your money in this wallet. It’s your new ID.” Brownley handed Hoke a well-worn cowhide wallet that was torn on one side. There was a yellow business card, advertising Goulds’ Packers, Goulds, Florida, with an address and telephone number. There was a letter on lined stationery that had been folded and refolded. Hoke took the letter out of the envelope, addressed to Adam Jinks, General Delivery, Florida City, FL, and read it:
Dear Adam,
I got your money order for ten dollars the one from Farm Stores, but how long do you think ten dollars will last not long when I still have rent to pay and Lissies been sick with the croop and needs to see a doctor. I can’t find no work here in Lake City where I can take Lissie with me and I been sick myself. So if you can send another MO soon I won’t bother you soon again.
A
ll my love EVIE.
“I guess,” Hoke said, “when I get paid I’d better send my ‘wife’ some more money up in Lake City.”
“If you do, it’ll be a shock to Evie. Adam Jinks was killed in a knife fight in Florida City last Friday night. By now she knows it, but no one else down here does. I kept his wallet. They brought Jinks up to Jackson, and he died there. I got his effects, such as they are. And because it happened down in the Redland, it didn’t make the Miami papers.”
Hoke nodded and looked at the rest of the wallet’s contents. There was an unused condom wrapped in a piece of tinfoil, a photo of a freckled young woman with a little girl on her lap, a fourteen-cent stamp with Sinclair Lewis’s face on it, and a coupon torn from a newspaper that would entitle the owner to a free Coke at Arby’s if he also bought a roast beef sandwich.
“Is this all?” Hoke asked. “There’s no money.”
“Jinks was fired from the Goulds packinghouse, and he was broke. He got knifed trying to steal a man’s change off the bar in Florida City. Put your own money in the wallet, and there’s your ID. Adam Jinks is an easy name to remember.”
“There should be a Social Security card.”
“He probably knew his number and lost the card. Hell, I lost my card ten years ago and never asked for another. I know my number.”
“All right,” Hoke said. “If I’m asked, I’ll use mine.”
“Give me your teeth, too, Hoke.” Brownley held out his hand. “Jinks didn’t have any teeth, so you can’t either.”
“He had false teeth, didn’t he?”
“Not when he was knifed, he didn’t. He probably pawned ’em, but there wasn’t any pawn ticket with his effects. Hand ’em over.”
Hoke removed his upper and lower dentures, wrapped them in a tissue, and placed them in Brownley’s hand. Brownley dropped the teeth into his right front pocket. “I’ll take good care of these, Hoke. Soon’s I get home I’ll put ’em in water with some Polident.”
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