“So you think whoever’s behind what happened to Remington is still out there,” I say, “wasn’t one of the ones killed that day?”
“Those guys—even Gauge—were drones, worker bees, not the big boss.”
Her use of worker bees makes me think of the upcoming Tupelo Festival, which takes place here in the park each year on the third Saturday of May, and reminds me that Anna and I have been in town nearly a year. It was at last year’s festival that I caught my first case as an investigator with the Gulf County sheriff’s department—the disappearance of Shane McMillan, a young man home on leave from Fort Benning.
“And you think they killed him because he saw what happened to the woman who was murdered?” I ask.
“Because he had evidence of it.”
“No other reason?” I ask. “No other motive? Just that? He was at the wrong place at the wrong time?”
She shrugs. “It’s what I’ve always thought. I guess there could be other motives. I don’t know.”
“Any idea why the evidence he had or the woman’s body has never been found?”
“I was only able to search for them for a short while before the two men threatened us at the gallery that night. I stopped looking then. As far as Sheriff Wilson and his so-called investigation . . . it was either one of two things—corruption or incompetence.”
“In his message, Remington said he was going to try to hide the photographs his camera traps took of the crime near a landmark on the river. Any chance he just wasn’t able to do that?”
“I guess it’s possible, but if that’s the case, the memory cards should’ve still been on him.”
I nod and think about it.
In our silence, I hear the sounds that were only desultory a moment before—the drive-thru teller at Centennial Bank, the light traffic on Main, a couple of kids playing on the jungle gym on the opposite side of the park, the occasional tractor-trailer piled high with recently felled pines gearing down as it comes through town.
“If it’s still there,” she says, “I’m gonna find it. I’ll be here all week. Plan to search for it—for both of them, the body and the memory card—every day.”
“If it’s been out there all this time the chances of it working are . . .”
“I’ve got to look.”
I think about the prospects of searching for a small memory card, not much bigger than a quarter in the vast, seemingly endless swamp, and the odds of actually finding it.
“The original crime scene and burial site had to be close enough to Remington’s camera traps for them to capture it. Was that area searched thoroughly?”
She nods. “He actually had two camera traps set up. Both areas were searched thoroughly—and not by Wilson and his department, but FDLE. They used sonar and everything.”
I think about that too.
A gentle breeze blows through the park, twirling bits of sand and leaves, waving the Spanish moss on the oak trees, and rippling the surface of the lake.
Heather clears her throat and swallows hard. “I can’t explain why they didn’t find her, but I know she’s there.”
“Could what he said be code for something else?” I ask. “Could he have been trying to get you or law enforcement a message that the men who were after him or their bosses wouldn’t understand?”
She shrugs and seems to think about it. “I guess it’s possible, but . . . I really don’t think so.”
“Then I can think of only two possibilities,” I say. “Either his camera traps were moved or her body was.”
22
Then
* * *
He wakes shivering, not sure where he is.
—You still with us, killer?
The emotionless voice on the radio brings everything back: spray of blood, collapse, fire, run, chase, kill, hunt.
—Don’t be like that. Don’t ignore us.
Remington remains motionless, quiet.
—What about the rest of you? Anybody got anything to say?
—I see him. I see him.
—Where?
—I’ve got a shot. I’m gonna take it.
Remington rolls, leaving both the radio and the rifle.
—Anybody see anything?
—What? I thought you had him.
—I was just trying to get him to run. See if any of us seen him when he did.
—Brilliant, Donnie Paul.
Grabbing the walkie and the weapon, Remington shakes himself and begins to walk.
—Did you run, killer?
Gauge is the only one to call him that, as if the others, without being told, know not to.
—I did, Remington says. But I was already. I can see the river. I’m almost—
—Almost what?
Remington doesn’t respond.
—Did somebody get him?
—I didn’t.
—Me neither.
—I didn’t either.
—Wonder what happened to him.
—Killer? You there?
In the flats now, Remington turns west, back toward the ATV.
How long did I sleep? It’s just as dark. I don’t feel rested. It couldn’t’ve been very long.
—Whatcha you think happened to him?
—Maybe a bear got him. Or he fell and broke his neck.
—Radio could’ve died.
—He realized he was telling us where he was.
—He’s smarter than that, Gauge says.
—I don’t know.
—I do.
—But he’s freakin’ the fuck out.
—He’s heading in a different direction. Probably the opposite.
—So we don’t need to cover the river?
—Unless . . . that’s what he expects us to think.
—Come back.
—He may really be heading toward the river.
—Whatta we do?
—Everybody keep doing what you’re doing. And remember he can hear us. Better use code from now on.
* * *
Stilted.
Stiff.
Awkward, self-conscious.
Paranoid.
Walking through the flats, every tree is a man with a gun, is Jackson about to level his rifle and begin firing.
Move. Just keep moving.
He stays close to the edge of the hardwood hammock, crouching, turning, zig-zagging, trying to create a difficult-to-hit target for any would-be assassin.
What did I dream?
Fragments fall like confetti. Wisps. Snatches. Fading fast.
A bit of Shakespeare he had to memorize for a British Lit class somewhere along the way drifts up.
—To be or not to be . . . he whispers. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. . . . To sleep. Perchance to dream. . . For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. . . Shuffle off this mortal coil. . . Undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
To be or not to be? That is the question.
It’s being asked of him tonight. He’s got to answer it. Suffer or take arms?
Answered that one once already, didn’t you, killer?
Goddamn it. Gauge is in his head.
The thought of killing Jackson causes him to dry heave. He has nothing left to throw up.
Full moon.
Fog lifted.
Clear.
Cold.
Stars.
With the fog gone, the bright moon casts shadows on the frosty ground.
Walking through an herb bog, insect-eating pitcher plants, bladderworts, sundews, and butterworts slapping against his legs, he glances up to find Polaris and confirm he’s heading in the right direction.
He is.
Just a mile or so to the ATV, then three to the truck.
He’s beginning to believe he can do it, that he might actually make it, but he’s so tired, so hungry, so cold.
* * *
Nearing the
area where he had hidden the four-wheeler, Remington takes cover in a thick stand of bamboo.
Watching.
Waiting.
Listening.
The wind rustles the bamboo, clacking the shoots together, swishing the leaves. It rains down oak leaves and pine needles, sways palmettos, and makes the knocking sounds of palm fronds. And makes it impossible to hear.
He scans the area, searching for signs the men have been here—or are still here, but he sees nothing.
Cole had trained him to always hide his ATV when he came out here. You wouldn’t want to really need it—be shot or snake bit—and not be able to get to help because someone vandalized or stole it.
Thanks, Dad.
The ATV is hidden well. They’d have to either stumble upon it, or, more likely, find its tracks farther back and follow them here. Marked, cut, carved, the small dirt road is layered by multiple tracks. The tire impressions left by his dad’s ATV would be difficult to distinguish from the others.
Slowly.
Quietly.
Carefully.
Crouching, he eases toward the thicket that hides the vehicle. Nearly every inch of his father’s Yamaha Grizzly is either camouflage or black, which when driven into a thicket of palmetto, bamboo, palms, low-hanging limbs, vines, and covered with fallen branches, makes it virtually invisible.
Gently pushing aside bamboo and pulling away branches, he uncovers the ATV, never so happy to see a vehicle in all his life.
After the four-wheeler is completely exposed, he ducks down behind it and surveys the area around him.
No men.
No movement.
No nothing.
Before rising, he reaches in his pocket for the key.
It’s not there.
He checks again. It’s gone.
He quickly checks his other pockets, jamming his hands in and feeling around in his jeans and his jacket.
He’s still got the ring of truck, house, shop, and mail box keys, but not the small Browning fob with the buck outline that holds the single, small ATV key.
It must have fallen out at some point during the night, either when he was running, falling, rolling, or crawling.
Shit.
I can’t believe this. Fuck.
How could I have lost it? Think.
23
Now
* * *
“Of course the shootout was drug related,” Bryce Dyson says.
We’re at Pepper’s, the Mexican restaurant across from the Panama City Mall, eating tacos and burritos and talking about drugs and murder and corrupt cops.
Dyson used to work with Sam and Daniel at FDLE and our paths had crossed a few times over the years. He is now with DEA, working out of the Panama City field office.
He’s a late-twenties-early-thirties guy with dark skin and wispy dirty blond hair that has receded to about the half way mark of his head. Beneath a large forehead and prominent brow, his light blue eyes seem to always be moving.
“I appreciate you talking to me,” I say.
“You kiddin’? All you’re doing for Sam . . . I’d do anything in this world I could for you. So glad she’s doing better. Any word on Daniel?”
I shake my head and frown. “Not so far.”
“Anything I can do to help find him, let me know.”
“Thanks. I will. I can’t believe we haven’t found him yet.”
He nods slightly and gives me a frown of his own. “Longer it goes the less likely a good outcome is.”
No one is supposed to know where the DEA field office is, but everyone does. It’s on Frankford not far from the old airport, so I offered to meet him on the other end of 23rd Street, but he wanted tacos. And not just any tacos. Pepper’s tacos.
The building Pepper’s is housed in was many other businesses before it became Pepper’s, and its large open room of tiled floor and hard surfaces is echoey and loud, the sounds of the lunch crowd eating and drinking, talking and laughing, and piped in Mexican music bounces around the room, reverberating as if designed to do so.
Soccer is on the big screen TV behind the bar. Several men at the bar sit directly in front of it, fixated.
“For a long time now—since back before what happened to Remington—our Miami agents have been telling us that they’re seeing huge amounts of product down there from up here, that North Florida is supplying South Florida in weed.”
“Really?” I ask, unable to hide my surprise.
“I know, right, but . . . it’s legit.”
“And it’s just marijuana?” I ask. “Nothing else?”
“Right. Which is smart ’cause it’s not the priority it once was. Hell, everybody figures it’ll be legal sooner or later, but in the meantime whoever’s doing it is making a fuckin’ fortune.”
I nod and take another bite of my burrito.
“Thing is . . . we know about it, right? Been looking for it—for a long time now. Can’t find shit. Don’t know where it’s being grown, who’s doing it, how it’s being shipped, nada. It’s embarrassing.”
“You sure it’s still happening?”
He nods. “Positive. It did slow down a bit after what happened with Remington and the others, which is another reason we think it was related, but then it picked back up again.”
“What about where all the bodies were found?” I say. “Where they hunted Remington and his camera traps were set, doesn’t it make sense that their crops are around in that area?”
“You’d think, but we searched it when they were found and since. And nada.”
“You throwin’ in all the Spanish since we’re eating Mexican food?”
“Huh?”
“That’s the second time you’ve said nada.”
“Yeah? Bite me, punta.”
“I’m gonna stick with the burrito and tacos, but thanks for the offer.”
The waiter comes back and refills our drinks. We eat in silence as he does and thank him as he rushes away.
“What about the sheriff at the time?” I say. “Wilson. He ever under investigation related to drugs?”
He smiles. “Funny you should ask. We sent in an undercover agent. She set herself up in a little house trailer in the middle of nowhere, began to grow and sell weed and make and distribute meth. Ordinarily, we notify the sheriff when we send someone into his county, but we didn’t say anything because the sheriff and a few of his men were targets of the investigation. So here she is investigating them and they start investigating her. Huge cluster fuck. Eventually, they arrested her and she had to blow her cover, but . . . she believed—well, everyone in the agency did—that they were only busting her to take out their competition. Wasn’t long after that they were taken out, so . . . we never got to make a case against them.”
Someone scores a goal and the guys in front of the bar erupt in cheers and high fives.
“Where is she now?” I ask.
He smiles. “She’s not the woman Remington said Gauge killed. She’s not missing. She’s still an agent.”
I nod. “Good. But whoever was killed could be another agent from somewhere. Can you check to see if any are missing—have been missing since back then? Gauge was from Franklin County. Maybe she was undercover over there.”
“Or maybe there never was a woman,” he says. “Pretty sure someone would’ve found her by now.”
“You ever been out in those swamps?” I say.
“No, and I don’t plan to.”
“Well, even light gets lost out there. Not so hard to imagine a burned and buried body might not be found.”
“So you think there is one out there?”
I nod.
“I’ll see what I can find out about any missing agents for you.”
“Thanks.”
We finish the last of our food.
“Do you know how exactly the DEA in Miami knows the pot is coming from up here?”
He shakes his head. “I can find out. Probably all marked with the same mark. Growers brand their shi
t more than fuckin’ car companies, but that would only let them know it all came from the same source. Not sure why they think it’s from up here.”
24
Then
* * *
The radio sounds and he jumps.
—Y’all remember that ugly girl Donnie Paul dated?
—The one with the real big tongue.
—Yeah.
—I remember her. Goddamn she was ugly as fuck.
—Remember how we used to talk about her, using that code we made up in school?
—Yeah. She never had a clue.
—Let’s use that same code. As much as possible.
—We can do that.
Think, Remington reminds himself.
Where could it be?
No way to know. He had traveled too far, fallen too many places. It would take too long to backtrack even if he could, and with the way he’s been navigating tonight, he’d be lucky to find even one of the locations of his many stops, drops, stumbles, falls.
How could he be so stupid?
Why didn’t you protect it? Check on it? At least confirm it was still there before you walked all the way back over here?
He’s so weary, so spent, his nerves so frayed, his taking of another man’s life so recent, that he feels himself breaking down, about to cry.
Don’t.
You can’t. Not now. Later, okay, but not now. You don’t have time. Take a minute. Take a breath. Clear your head. Pull it together.
He does.
After a moment, he says aloud, I’ll just walk to the truck.
Patting his father’s four-wheeler, he says, I’ll come back for you when all this is over. He then stands and begins to walk down the small path toward his dad’s truck.
He’s only taken a few steps when a thought occurs to him.
Who’s the most competent, careful, and practical man you’ve ever known?
Dad.
Which means?
He wouldn’t’ve lost the key.
True, but what else?
The Remington James Box Set Page 25
