The Egret

by Russell Hill

  While it was not a foolproof scheme, it would be enough to cause Winslow serious pain. And it would remind him that there was someone out to do him harm. Keep him on edge. Make him uncomfortable. And he would want to find me. Which shouldn’t be all that difficult. Davy had found me. He would, no doubt, send someone to take care of me. Perhaps that new driver of his. Or he would hire someone. Finding me and eliminating me would consume him, just as his actions had consumed me. And in trying to erase my threat, he would have to do things that would expose him to discovery. He would be the one moving. I would remain still, like the egret. Wait.

  So I checked with the Ross Post Office about mail deliveries, found out that the mail trucks all came from San Anselmo. A call to San Anselmo told me that the carrier on Carmel Drive didn’t get there until late afternoon. Depends on the mail, the supervisor said. Four o’clock, maybe later if there’s a heavy volume.

  I began to work half days for Ken, spending my afternoons on my bicycle touring the avenues of Ross. I wore a helmet that obscured my head and face, and let my beard grow so that all anyone could see of me was the brush of beard inside the bicycle helmet.

  It didn’t take long to get the mailman’s schedule. And it didn’t take long to find out that most days the wife came down to the mailbox to get the mail. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Winslow came back from wherever he went on those days and the car paused at the gate. The gate was activated, swung open, and the driver drove close enough to the mailbox so that Winslow could reach out from his place in the back seat and take whatever mail was in there. Then the car went forward, the gate closed and the car disappeared inside the garage.

  So I spent my late afternoons up at Lake Lagunitas and Bon Tempe, poking in rock piles with a dead branch, and sure enough, I found a rattler. I had made a snake catcher, a long stick with a screw eye at the end and a short length of cord running through it. Looping the cord around the rattlesnake just behind its head, I pulled on the cord, tightening it, cinching the rattlesnake to the end of the stick, and then it was a simple matter to put the snake into a heavy jute bag. I kept the snake in the garage in a box, and, using the snake stick, held the snake so I could cut off the rattles. The tail still vibrated, but the buzzing of the rattle was gone.

  I lashed a box to the back of my bike and on a Tuesday, put the rattler into the jute bag and placed it into the box and took off for Ross. I waited at the top of the street until the mailman had deposited the mail in Winslow’s box, then rode down, paused at the box, leaned my bike into the hedge and brought the jute bag out of the box. I put the opening of the bag into the mailbox and shook the bag, I could feel the snake moving and when I was sure it was inside the mailbox, I lifted the door until it was nearly closed, withdrawing the empty bag. Now the snake was inside, with the mail. I rode back to Fairfax, thinking of that creature waiting, coiled up and then the hand reaching inside and the sudden strike. And when he withdrew his hand, the snake’s fangs would still be sunk into his skin and the sight of the snake would bring a shriek from him. His hand would swell, and if what I had found on the internet was accurate, his hand would become the size of a softball, the skin stretched and hard, turn blue, he would have to get anti-venom shots and then his wrist and arm would swell. The snake’s venom breaks down tissues so the injury would be painful and would last for weeks. He would not die. Very few people died from rattlesnake bites. But the results were devastatingly painful and long-lasting.

  I went down to Fradalizio’s Italian restaurant and had a celebratory dinner. The old waiter brought me a glass of Italian red wine and made a generous pour. I had been in that restaurant many times with my wife and daughter. I had the halibut, poached and served with sautéed vegetables and afterwards I went up the street to Nave’s bar and had a scotch and watched the baseball game on the television hanging above the bar. I imagined Earl Winslow in the emergency room at Marin General Hospital, filled with painkillers, his wrist and arm swelling and turning blue.

  CHAPTER 18

  Two days later the Independent Journal had the story. ROSS MAN BITTEN BY RATTLESNAKE IN MAILBOX. The reporter even made reference to the thirty-year old Synanon story. There wasn’t much there. A rattlesnake with its rattle cut off had been placed in the mailbox of the CEO of Texas Oil. Police were checking to see if disgruntled shareholders might be responsible, but the victim, Earl Winslow, discounted that theory. “It’s somebody who bears me a grudge,” he was quoted. “I have no idea who it might be. Maybe a shareholder, somebody who lost some money and blames me. But those kinds of people don’t put rattlesnakes into mailboxes. They go after the money. This has to be somebody with a personal vendetta. And I haven’t a clue who it could be. This could have been my wife sticking her hand into that mailbox or one of the maids.”

  But, of course, he did know who it might be. It would be the man who held a gun to his crotch and forced him to dive into the surf at North Beach. The man who believed that he had clipped his daughter’s car and sent her pinwheeling into Tomales Bay where she drowned. The man who knew that he had driven away from that accident and had covered his tracks.

  So the snake had bitten him and he was in pain. That much felt good. Now he would seek me out, try to put an end to me. I would have to be on the lookout for his next move. And Fuller was right. I needed to get the Glock out and practice with it. Become familiar with its workings, carry it with my tools when I went to work. Have it by my bedside when I slept.

  I was not surprised to get another visit from Detective Fuller.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said, standing in my garage doorway while I unloaded my tools from my car.

  “The job in Petaluma is almost finished. Not sure where I’ll be next week.”

  “I was thinking of something besides carpentering.” He said.

  “And what would that be?”

  “Our mutual friend, Mister Winslow, got some mail that was apparently addressed to him and it caused him a great deal of pain.”

  “You mean the snake in his mailbox? I read about it in the paper.”

  “My guess is that you did more than read about it.”

  “You think I put that snake in there?”

  “Your fingerprints were not on his mailbox. Whoever did it must have worn gloves.” He pointed at my work gloves. “Those would be good. Leather, good for handling a dangerous reptile.”

  “Is Winslow accusing me of doing it?”

  “No, he’s not accusing anyone. Which is why I stopped by. I don’t think you’ll get a snake in your mailbox. I think you’ll get something much more deadly.”

  “Why aren’t you charging me with a crime? If you think you know so much, why aren’t you putting the cuffs on me? Because I had nothing to do with Winslow’s problems. Somebody else is fucking with him. A man like that probably has more enemies than you can count. You come around here and you drop little hints that I’m the one who put him in the ocean, I’m the one who put a snake in his mailbox, and it’s beginning to get on my nerves. You said you empathize with me. OK, you empathize with me. But you keep telling me I’ve done stupid things and you keep hinting that I’m the person responsible for that asshole’s difficulties, and like I told you, I’m done with him. I’m back at work, I’ve got a life to live and I can live it whether he gets bitten by a snake or not.”

  “You still have that Glock you bought?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because the case I’m investigating, the kid who got whacked out at Five Brooks got whacked by a nine mil. And you bought a nine mil. And this kid was killed in West Marin and that’s where Winslow took his near-fatal swim. And I’m just wondering. That kid was a truck driver who spent a lot of time on those roads out there. Did he see something that he wasn’t supposed to see? I don’t think you’re capable of doing something like that, but I’ve got a spent bullet from the kid’s head and I’d just like to rule out any connection you might have.”

  “Are you fucking crazy? You think I could go out there an
d shoot some kid? A kid who is probably the same age as my daughter was?”

  “What makes you say that? You know how old he was?”

  “You keep calling him a kid.”

  “So, you still have the Glock?”

  “As a mater of fact, I don’t. I put it out here in the garage. You said to put it somewhere that I couldn’t get to it easily, so I put it in a cupboard out here and somebody broke in and stole some tools and they took the gun too.”

  “You reported it missing?”

  “Not yet. I’ve been busy. And frankly, I was just as glad that it was gone. I had no business buying that thing.”

  Fuller shifted his weight.

  “So you’re telling me that the gun was stolen this past week?”

  “Yes.”

  “I get uneasy when I ask somebody about their gun and they tell me that their gun was stolen or lost. What I don’t want to think is that you had anything to do with that kid’s death. But two things weigh on me: that swim Winslow took and that rattlesnake in his mailbox. I know how you feel about him. I find it hard to believe that you’ve simply wiped him off your slate. The fact that you’re back at work is a good sign. File a report on your missing gun with the Fairfax cops. File a report on the theft of your tools. I’ll repeat myself. Don’t do anything foolish or stupid. Mind your own business. And if anybody threatens you, let the cops know. Let me know.”

  He continued to lean on the edge of the garage door.

  “You finished here?” I asked.

  “I hope so. I hope I’m finished.” He left.

  CHAPTER 19

  If I got rid of the Glock, threw it into the bay or buried it, then I would have nothing to defend myself if Winslow sent somebody after me. But keeping it was a risk. Obviously it wouldn’t take much to match the slug they had from the kid’s death and my gun. And Fuller was sniffing around. Would he talk to the clerk at the Tomales Bay Lodge? Of course he would. And the bartender at the Old Western might remember me talking to Davy. Would Davy’s partner at the bar remember the guy who bought them Manhattans?

  I wondered what creatures preyed on the egrets. I found out that raccoons and rats raided nests for the chicks, but the adults had little to fear. The occasional coyote might attack while an egret was foraging in a field, and hawks were another danger, but egrets wading in a marsh or at the edge of a bay had little to fear. Such a big bird with a long, dangerous beak was not something to mess with.

  My house is small, what used to be a summer cottage for a San Francisco family, a place out of the fog to go to when it got hot in Marin. A place for the family to bathe in the summer sun, raise tomatoes in a small garden, the father going to and from work in the city on the ferry, the children running in the grassy hills above the cottage. Built as a summer cottage, it had been remodeled over the years, utilities brought up to date, the kitchen pulled out, new appliances and cupboards installed, and I had done much of that work myself. It was still small, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a covered porch across the back that looked out toward Mt. Tamalpais. Trees on all sides, there was a steep driveway that climbed to the narrow street, a small garage that might have been used years ago to house a small car, a Model T or a Model A, but not large enough for my Toyota. I installed a workbench where I keep my chop saw, cupboards and shelves for other tools. I’m on a slope so that the back of the house is on stilts, the front at ground level. The bedroom I choose has a view of the mountain. It’s a quiet neighborhood, the occasional dog barking at a deer that wanders through, and sometimes, in the early morning, I can hear the high-pitched howl and trill of coyotes on the ridge above my street. At night the only sound is the occasional owl, a far-off dog bark, and the sound of an automobile, somebody coming home late. Otherwise, it’s a silent neighborhood, which is why, when I heard the scratching, I awoke. Was it a raccoon trying to get at the garbage can? A rat chewing on a shingle on the side of the house? No, it was something at the front door, something working at the latch. I reached out to where the Glock was positioned on the bedside table. I slipped out of bed, crossed the living room to the front door. The handle was turning, and there was something being inserted between the jamb and the door. Someone was trying to get into my house.

  “Keep doing that,” I said, “and I will put a bullet through this door.” The scratching stopped, the doorknob stilled.

  “You’re not fucking around with somebody who’s easy pickings,” I said. I went to the window and looked out into the darkness. I could see a shape, briefly illuminated by the street light at the top of the driveway. Winslow had sent someone and whoever it was now knew that I was alert at night.

  Fuller had been right. Winslow would try something else. I would install motion-sensitive lights outside the house so that if anyone else showed up, the outside would immediately be lit up. I would carry the Glock with me in my tool box. And I would figure out something that would make Winslow think twice before trying again. I would make his life miserable. Make him look over his shoulder every time he left his fortress of a house. Make him surround himself with armed men. I would find something that was more deadly than a rattlesnake.

  I went back to bed. I lay there in the dark, waiting. Waiting for what? I thought. Be still, I told myself. Be as still as an egret, waiting at the tide line, waiting in the mud at the edge of Tomales Bay, waiting in the marsh behind the shopping center, waiting for something to move. Winslow had moved. Now I needed to fix him with my eye, strike when it was time. The sky outside the window began to grow light, the top of Mt. Tamalpais grew distinct. This was the room my daughter had slept in. She, too, had watched the sun grow on the mountain. If she were alive today, she would be entering her senior year at university, She would have taken courses for her teaching credential. She wanted to be an elementary school teacher, and I could imagine her in a classroom, surrounded by eager children who did not reach up to her waist. She would have been good at it. Again, the image of her submerged in water filled my head. She was upside down and the water was green and shimmered and it enveloped her. Fish swam in front of me, and things floated up into the water from the floor of the car, a paper coffee cup, a receipt from the burger shop in town, tissues and one of a pair of old flip flops, the kind she wore at the beach. It all floated between me and her face and then it stopped, a rush of water and air ballooning as the car was lifted and now I was on the highway as the water rushed from the open car doors. It was the same dream every time. It was four o’clock, the light just beginning to grow and today I would go to a new job in Santa Rosa, another kitchen, more cabinets. Ken was happy with my work, and the cabinets came from IKEA, were pre-fitted, easy to install. All I had to do was replace the kitchen wall, hang the cabinets, make sure they worked properly. Two days at the most. A house at the end of a cul-de-sac, not an easy place for someone to sneak into. I would be safe today and tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 20

  The evening news was on and there was a report on Iraq. The reporter stood amid the wreckage of a street, houses in rubble, and in front of him was the shattered remains of an army HumVee.

  “Here is where they met their death,” he said, gesturing toward the wreckage.

  “They drove over an IED, an improvised explosive device, and it blew up under the vehicle, sending it into the air. Inside, the four men were trapped. Two of them are in the field hospital, bound for care in a German facility where they will be prepped for artificial limbs, and the other two were blown to pieces by this device.” He held up some fragments of metal.

  “This is all that’s left,” he said, holding up a piece of the bomb.

  Suddenly it dawned on me. Men in that foreign country had figured out a way to blow up soldiers who drove armored vehicles. Winslow drove an expensive Mercedes, but it wasn’t armored. And if they could figure out a way to blow up soldiers, then I could figure out a way to blow up Earl Anthony Winslow.

  I watched the rest of the report carefully. But there was nothing about how the bomb was cons
tructed, only details about the number of such weapons. Apparently at the beginning of that war soldiers were killed by rifle fire or mortar attacks but now the majority of the injuries came from these bombs, placed where vehicles traveled, set off by remote control, using simple mobile phones as the triggering device. If terrorists in a foreign country under siege by another army, denied the usual avenues to materials, could make such weapons, how complicated could they be?

  I went to my computer and googled IEDs. What I found was that the idea went back to the 1960’s when members of the Irish Republican Army fashioned bombs to blow up British soldiers and pubs frequented by the opposition. The bombs had gotten more sophisticated, but the principle remained the same. Make an explosive device, figure out a way to detonate it from a distance, often not far away and when the vehicle filled with soldiers drove over it, boom! It shattered their lives.

  I could imagine Winslow’s expensive Mercedes driving out of his gate, turning onto Carmel Drive and suddenly there was an explosion, a crater in the street and the car would be on its side, shattered, and Winslow would be either dead or in pieces, requiring a pain-filled rehabilitation, dealing with replacement limbs and possibly a damaged brain, rendering him non compos mentis. It would be the perfect way to deal with the fucker.