I stop moving and hug her back.
She breaks down and begins to cry, and I hold her for a long moment while she cries.
Eventually, she pulls back, wiping her eyes, and says, “Thank you. You can’t know what that did for me. To say it out loud like that.”
I smile. “I know. I’ve experienced the release confession brings many, many times in my life. I get it. Telling our secrets is one of the best things we can ever do for ourselves.”
Frederick Buechner’s memoir Telling Secrets surfaces from my subconscious.
“One of my favorite spiritual writers, Frederick Buechner says, “I not only have my secrets. I am my secrets. And you are your secrets.”
“It’s so true.”
I continue talking as she pulls herself together. “He writes about all of us having essentiality the same secrets, but how we keep them because, even though we want to be fully known in all our humanness, it is also the thing that scares us the most.”
“Sounds like a book I need to read,” she says.
“I highly, highly recommend all of his.”
She nods. “Then I’ll get them. Ready to push on? We’re getting pretty close.”
“Whenever you are.”
We press farther in, inching our way toward where Remington’s main camera trap was found.
More dank, damp swamp floor. More unwelcoming, unkind obstacles. More mosquitoes. More swamp soundtrack. More ancient trees. More hidden, haunted, harsh beauty few humans have ever seen.
Eventually we reach the small clearing where the equipment was found.
On the ground next to one of the trees is a wooden cross, dead bouquets, and faded cards.
“Did you leave those out here over the years?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “They were out here the first time I ever came out.”
I find that interesting.
“Look at this area,” she says.
I do.
“I’m not a photographer, but I picked up a good bit from Remington over the years, and I’ve studied the workings of camera traps since what happened. Remington was good. Knew what he was doing. No photographer worth his salt would set up a trap here. It’s all wrong. There’s no path. Animals don’t even come by this way. There’s no watering hole or feed trough or anything to draw them here or make them stay once they get here. Nothing. Plus the angle and light and space are all jacked. No way he set up here.”
I think about that and what it might mean.
She pulls out her phone. “Look at these.”
She extends her phone over to me and begins flipping through photographs of wildlife near a watering hole.
“He took these with his trap and sent them to me the week before he died. Anything around here look like the background of any of these photos to you?”
I look around some more and shake my head.
“And they’re not from his other trap?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “It was where it was supposed to be and it matches the pictures he sent me from it. It’s a smaller, secondary unit that’s not nearly as good as this one. This was his main one and he did not set it up here.”
“Unless doing so was a message,” I say.
“If it was I can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be,” she says. “And this area has been searched more than any other. There’s nothing else here—no buried body, no memory card, no other evidence of any kind.”
“So,” I say, “someone else moved it because where it was is where the body or other evidence is?”
“I think so,” she says. “We find where it was, we find the place where the woman was killed and buried.”
32
Now
* * *
Alec Horn drives up from Miami toward Wewahitchka thinking about how much he hates North Florida.
Of course, he hates a lot of things. Lots and lots of things. Like his stupid nickname, which a football coach he hated at a high school he hated had given him. And it had stuck. Alec “the Hornet” Horn. Jesus. It’s as imbecilic as it is obvious. He hates fuckin’ traffic too. And people. God but he hates people.
His modest, unassuming vehicle is filled with a variety of weapons, but you’d never know it, nor would any cop who stopped him. They’re hidden in specially made compartments and actually built into the car itself.
Like the car, the killer seems about as unassuming and nonthreatening as a grown man can. Middle-aged. Thinning hair gone to strands on top. Softish, pudgy build. Quick, corner-of-the-mouth smile. Hooded eyes that rarely make direct contact for more than a moment.
But when those small inset eyes do make and keep direct contact, it is to watch the life drain out of his victim’s confused, frightened eyes.
He’s lost count of how many times he’s had that experience, but it’s well over a hundred, maybe even as many as two.
He’s killed as long as he can remember—going back to cats in childhood—but for the past three decades he’s gotten well paid to do it.
He smiles as he thinks of that. His father, who beat and tortured and taunted him as if designed by a sadistic god specifically for that purpose, always said find something you’d do for free and get them to pay you for it.
Proud of me now, Daddy?
He’s a proficient and prolific taker of lives, perhaps the best in the southeast, maybe the entire country. He can’t know exactly. Not like there’s a union or trade organization. And he doesn’t care—doesn’t have to be the best, doesn’t have to have anyone know just how good he is. Just wants to do what he does and not attract attention to himself. Which is why he’s operated at such a high level for as long as he has.
Of course, he doesn’t just kill for money.
He killed a man a couple of hours ago at a rest stop on I-75 because he looked at him the wrong way. Nicked his femoral artery, slit his throat, and watched the light drain out of his eyes like the blood from his body. Look at me funny now. Left him sitting on the toilet inside the last stall on the left in the large, open, moist-tiled public facility.
Felt nothing then. Feels nothing now.
A juvie psyche specialist once told him he had two different disorders—each rare, both rarely seen together. He told him he suffered from paranoid personality disorder, or PPD, and antisocial personality disorder, or APD, but when he killed him he assured him he wasn’t suffering from them at all. If there was any suffering related to them it was most certainly that of others, wouldn’t he agree?
He’s never killed a kid and only a handful or so of women.
One woman had asked him why God would make such a man as him as he was killing her. He had no answer for that and he told her so.
He had no answers for anything. At all.
He’s not in the questions and answers business. Men who ought to know better run that sham.
He does have one burning question at the moment, though. Why the fuck did he ever agree to come to North Florida again? And a followup if he might. Does agreeing to do so, even for a huge sum of money, call into question his mental health?
He believes it just might. It just might at that.
33
Then
* * *
As the engine cools, it begins to make a ticking sound.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Remington’s so close to the engine, he can’t gauge how loud it really is or how close the others would need to be in order to hear it.
Rustling in the undergrowth nearby.
Radio off.
Movement.
Hands on the rifle, finger on the trigger. Ready.
Boots stamping on cold, hard ground.
Circling.
If he pulls back those branches are you going to shoot?
I can’t. I can’t do that again.
You’d rather die? Never see Heather again? Not be here to take care of your mother?
No.
Then what? What if there’s no third option?
I can’t kill them all.
Why not?
I just can’t. There’re too many. Odds are too high against me. Even if I had the skills, I don’t have the stomach or balls or whatever it is I’m lacking.
More steps.
More movement.
Swish of grass, scratch of branches.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
—I hear something, Tanner whispers.
—What is it? Gauge’s voice responds from the radio.
—Not sure.
Pounding heart. Light head.
Blood blasting through veins.
Ears echoing an airy, spacious sound.
—Well where’s it coming from?
—Not sure.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
—What’s it sound like?
—Never mind. It was just a critter.
—Make sure.
—I will.
Tanner moves around the area a little more, then wanders off. Remington waits a while to make sure all the men have moved past him. Then waits a little longer to ensure they won’t hear the four-wheeler.
Crawling out from beneath the machine, he lifts his head and scans the area.
No one.
Crouching, then standing, he continues to search for any sign of the men.
Nothing.
Quietly but quickly removing the branches, he puts the four-wheeler in neutral and pulls it out of the thicket.
Straining, he pushes the machine into the flats, and then about twenty feet more before starting it.
Key.
Ignition.
Gas.
Brake.
34
Racing.
Lights off.
Radio to his ear.
Listening.
Based on the conversations on the walkies, the men didn’t hear him, don’t know he’s now racing toward the river swamp.
Unlike paper company-planted pines, the trees of the flats aren’t in rows, but scattered throughout, roughly five feet apart. He flashes his lights occasionally to avoid crashing into one of the thick-bodied bases of the longleafs.
Crouching down, riding low on the seat in case he’s wrong and one of them has him in his sights at this very moment, he drives as fast as he can, never overthrottling the engine, keeping the machine as consistent and quiet as possible.
In minutes, he is roughly halfway through the pines. You’re gonna make it. Relax.
He lets out a sigh of relief, rolls his shoulders trying to release some of the tension from his body.
—You got past us, didn’t you, killer? Gauge says. Impressive. Where are you now?
—You really think he’s not here? Tanner asks.
—Then what the fuck we doin’? John says.
—He could still be here, Gauge says, but my gut tells me he’s gone.
—Your gut’s right again, a new voice says. He’s on a four-wheeler in the flats.
—You got him?
No reply.
—Jeff?
Another one. Jeff. Makes six he knows of. Odds’re growing worse all the time.
—I got him.
Remington turns to the left and begins heading north, zig-zagging, leaving his lights off as much as possible.
A round ricochets off the right front fender, and a moment later he hears the rifle blast.
He’s on the eastern side, Remington thinks. Stay north. Get into the hardwoods.
Though not at the exact same spot, he’s nearing the edge of the hardwoods where he had fallen asleep earlier. All of his efforts and he’s no better off. Just as deep in the woods, miles from his truck, miles from the river.
But alive.
True.
Move about, but don’t stop. Get into the hardwoods.
Another round flies by.
Come on.
And another.
Almost there.
The next round strikes his right front tire.
Blowout.
No steering.
Loss of control.
The handlebars whip left, and the ATV is airborne, flipping. Remington feels himself flying through the air, centrifugal force momentarily keeping the machine beneath him.
Time slows, expands, elongates.
It’s as if the whole event is happening to someone else, as if he’s somehow witnessing the accident unfold in surreal slow motion.
Let go. Get away from the four-wheeler.
Tuck.
Roll.
He lets go of the handlebars, hits the ground hard, rolls a few feet, as the ATV sails into a fat pine, gashing a huge chunk of bark and chopping about halfway into the wood.
35
Now
* * *
When I get cell phone service again I see I have a missed call and message from the 305. It’s from a DEA agent in the Miami office named Henrique Alvarez.
I listen to the message and return his call as I’m driving back toward town.
After a few moments of small talk and each of us saying what a good guy and agent Bryce Dyson is, we get down to it.
“How certain are you that large amounts of North Florida marijuana are winding up in Miami?” I ask.
“Certain,” he says. “As certain as I can be. No doubt in my mind.”
“And it’s still happening?”
“Seized some today.”
I nod and think about it though I know he can’t see me.
“Dyson says you think it could be connected to the shooting you’re investigating,” he says.
I turn off the upper Dalkeith Road onto Highway 71 and head toward Wewa.
“Yeah, but I can’t find any real evidence that it is,” I say. “And in all this time, nothing has turned up—no drug busts, no crops found in the area where it happened. Nothing.”
“May not be,” he says. “The shit is coming from North Florida, but doesn’t mean it’s coming from your particular part of North Florida.”
“True. And what happened in the woods that day might not have anything to do with drugs, but . . . I want to make sure before I move onto something else.”
“Makes sense.”
“And it’s large amounts coming from up here?” I ask.
“Massive. And great quality too. People keep sayin’ it’s like Gainesville Green moved upstate a bit,” he adds, referring to the legendary weed grown in Gainesville beginning in the 1970s.
“I’m assuming y’all looked for it, too,” I say.
“Sure. Pot isn’t the priority it once was and will probably be legal before long, but . . . yeah we’ve looked for it. Our people. I personally haven’t been up there traipsing through the swamps. But we think it’s more likely to be coming from a little more north of where you are. Like maybe in the Cottondale area. But that could be wrong. Hell, it probably is. We’ve looked all around there and never found anything there either. It was a long shot, tenuous connection anyway.”
“Which was?”
“The logo. Grower uses a badass hornet and that’s the school mascot up there.”
“Really?” I say. “That’s interesting.”
I remember what Reggie had said about Robin coming from Cottondale where his dad coached football and how he made the mistake of wearing a CHS Hornets t-shirt when he first arrived.
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“Hornet has come up in the investigation of the cops who originally worked the case, the ones who were later killed. It’s a stretch, but . . .”
“How so?”
I tell him.
“That could be it. We hit a wall with everything we looked at. Thought maybe it was completely unrelated to the school or the grower could’ve grown up there and be somewhere else now. Thought maybe it was random, like the grower had a hornets’ nest on his farm and . . . I don’t know, but I do know the shit is coming from somewhere up there, so . . .”
“But if it still is,” I say, “means somebody besi
des the cops who were killed was involved and kept it going, or somebody took over the operation when they were killed.”
“Maybe you’ll find out who for us.”
“Will do my best.”
Passing through the intersection with Overstreet and coming into the city limits, I slow down a little.
“Let us know how we can help. Oh, and Bryce said to tell you there’s one undercover female DEA agent missing. Her name is Cassandra Hitchens—Cassie. She worked out of the Gainesville office and has been missing the right amount of time to fit, so if you find the missing victim let us know. We’ve been looking for her for a while and it’d mean a great deal to us and her family to know what happened to her. Give me your email and I’ll send you some information about her.”
“Thanks,” I say and give him my email address.
“I hope it’s not her,” he says. “But . . . in another way . . . Too much time has passed for us to find her alive, so now we just want to find her, you know?”
36
Now
* * *
When I get home I read Cassandra Hitchens’ file and am immediately overcome with an urge to call and check on my girls.
I can’t imagine what Cassandra’s family is going through, what it must be like to not just lose a daughter but to have her missing with no answers.
Of course, the truth is I can imagine it all too well, which is why I’m calling to check on my girls.
A big part of what I do involves my imagination. I often put myself in the mind of victims, killers, other investigators through acts of imagination. In many ways that matter I have honed my imaginative skills to such an extent as to be able to torture myself with what ifs and dark possibilities.
I call Susan and talk to Johanna first.
Johanna is tired but enjoying their vacation and tries in between yawns to tell me about all she has been doing.
I call Anna next, and after a chat with Taylor, settle into a longer conversation with Anna while her mom gives Taylor a bath.
The Remington James Box Set Page 29
