Dead Silence

by Randy Wayne White

  35

  Men shout and bellow when they’re angry. But men who have transcended anger, who function daily with murder in their brains, are transformed when the moment finally does arrive.

  The normal voice is displaced by a primitive voice that is linked, unencumbered, to the limbic cortex—the lizard brain, an aficionado like René Navárro might call it.

  I could hear a lizard voice speaking to Navárro now, saying, “Quit lying. You think I could ever forget your face? Those eyes? Stop backing away . . . Farfel. You don’t have a gun? You always did. Question is, how many rounds?”

  Because I had heard the wise-guy bluster of Otto Guttersen, I would not have believed it was him. It was similar in volume yet had a whispered edge that rasped, as if Guttersen’s larynx had been scarred by the memory of a long-ago scream.

  “What are you talking about? I’m an associate of Dr. Ford’s. He asked me to show you aboard.” Farfel the interrogator had assumed the role of Cuban physician after stepping from the storage shed to introduce himself to Barbara and her unwelcome companion.

  He was sticking to the role as Guttersen thrust his wheelchair forward, pursuing the man while making rasping accusations. Farfel had been as shocked to see Guttersen as Guttersen was to see his former tormentor.

  Where had they met? No idea. Only Barbara had mentioned the showtime wrestler’s military background. But all the information I needed was in Guttersen’s venom the first time he spoke the name Farfel.

  The invalid had been a POW—somewhere. As Roxanne Sofvia had said, “Does it matter which war?”

  I had thought the woman naïve, although her bitterness was justified. But she was right, I was wrong. These recent seconds had exposed my comfortable certainty as ignorance.

  From the flybridge, peeking over the fairing, I had an elevated view of the area. The parking area was directly beneath me.

  I could see that Guttersen was getting frustrated because of the sand, as he tried to press his attack on Farfel. And there was Barbara, dumbstruck, standing near the van, where the doors were still open, dome light on. Like the men, she was in shock.

  Trailing southward was the estate’s private canal, water star-black, roiled by current where it emptied into an ocean inlet near mangrove bushes thirty yards away.

  The yacht sat with its bow pointed toward the inlet, moored portside to a commercial-grade dock. The dock adjoined a party deck, where there was a chiki hut, a grill and outdoor speakers, all of it—parking area included—lighted by low-voltage lamps. The deck extended out over the water on pilings.

  Farfel, I realized, wasn’t actually fleeing. Why would he? He had his laser-sighted pistol, although he hadn’t produced it. Instead, he was leading Guttersen toward the deck, where there was no railing, only a two-foot drop to the water.

  Tide had flooded, current starting to turn.

  “You cowardly sonuvabitch, why you running? My legs don’t work. You know why. You’re the one who did it!”

  Barbara had finally recovered enough to attempt an intervention, saying, “What’s going on here? Mr. Guttersen, I think you’re overreacting. Why don’t we all calm down and discuss whatever it is that—”

  Guttersen’s voice sounded close to normal as he snapped at her, “Shut up! If you want to do something useful, call one of them big shots, Minneapolis National Guard. They’ll tell you who this snake is! Or the doctors at the VA!”

  “But you must be mistaken—”

  Guttersen had reared his wheelchair onto the deck and was now using his fist to hammer at sand clogging the brakes. “Are you blind, lady? Look at his face! If you can’t see he’s lying, you’re dumb as rice, I shit thee not!”

  Barbara was looking toward the yacht now, calling, “Ford! Where the hell are you?”

  Beside me, Hump pressed the gun harder into my neck, and said, “After Farfel drowns the cripple, he’ll be mad if you answer. He told me that he would enjoy killing you more than killing the woman.”

  At first I thought, Barbara. Farfel’s going to kill a senator? But then I understood. Hump was talking about Shelly Palmer.

  “Navárro killed the woman detective?” I demanded.

  Hump realized that he’d slipped up. “Uhhh . . . maybe I imagined him saying that before he returned to the stable. Yes, I’m sure now, because of our agreement.”

  I felt an emotional jolt: a flurry of denial and self-reproach . . . then a flooding change in blood chemistry that was anger.

  My arms were extended behind me. With my hands, I was doing what children do when they interlace their fingers and play Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open up the doors and here’s—

  “Stop moving,” Farfel said. “I have never shot a gun, but I know it’s loud. My ear, it is already aching.”

  He was kneeling to my right, starboard side. When I glanced at him, I noticed something in the water, something moving. It was an elongated shadow gliding across the black water toward the dock where Farfel was standing, now taunting Guttersen with his patient denials.

  The shape was pointed like the snout of an alligator—a huge gator, if I was right. It had to be fourteen feet long. It was moving fast, propelled by an effortless wake.

  “Are you trying to trick me?” Hump was straining to follow my gaze without turning away.

  I wanted to remove my glasses and clean them. Mangrove shadows cloaked details, but the speed was right, as well as the low, surface-flush profile. It’s illegal to feed gators in Florida, which makes people even more eager to do so. The big ones come to associate people with food. Gators have killed a dozen strollers and swimmers in recent years.

  If Guttersen went into the water, drowning was the least of the man’s worries.

  I whispered fast, “I’ll take you to the boy. He can remove the curse like he promised if you help me disarm Farfel. Just show me where you buried him.”

  My offer keyed an alpha-male response and Hump used his left hand to slap the back of my head. “He was my father’s friend! Do you take me for an idiot?”

  Behind my back, I snapped my fingers inward, levered my wrists outward and my hands exited the duct tape as if exiting a cave.

  “Can you swim?” I asked the man.

  “Of course! Not well, but—”

  Before Hump could finish, I slapped the gun away, then looped my arm under his crotch as he attempted to stand, using the man’s own upward momentum to vault him over the railing. His three hundred pounds felt light because of my adrenal surge.

  The man somersaulted backward, hollering, “Hey!,” as if offended. His body imploded the water surface with the sound of a refrigerator.

  I looked to see the gator’s reaction, but it had disappeared—in front of the yacht possibly. Or it was now submerged, swimming toward the vibration of the huge Cuban’s thrashing.

  I looped the noose off my neck, stripped the ball of tape from my wrists and knelt.

  Shelly Palmer’s pistol was on the deck. A Glock—not a favorite, but it was loaded. I checked to make sure before scrambling down the ladder. As I sprinted across the gangway, I heard a man’s scream.

  I hoped it was Hump. It wasn’t.

  Guttersen!

  Somehow, Otto Guttersen had gotten to his feet and was choking Farfel. He was wrestling with the Cuban, driving him toward the edge of the deck, as he screamed profanities, sputtering, “Die, you sonuvabitching snake, die!”

  Why wasn’t Farfel using his gun?

  There was a reason.

  By the time I got to the men, Guttersen had the Cuban pinned, his body dwarfing the man, but I could see that Farfel was faceup, eyes glassy, as the big wrestler, clearly not a fraud, used an effective choke hold to position Farfel’s head over the water. Guttersen was using the wooden planking as a fulcrum, trying to snap the man’s neck . . . or snap the man’s head off.

  Barbara was pulling at Guttersen’s shoulders, yelling, “Stop, stop, stop! He’s dead! I think he’s dead!”

  As I helped the wo
man calm Guttersen, I could see that she was right. But Guttersen hadn’t killed Farfel. It took me a dizzying, confused moment to understand. Protruding from beneath Farfel’s Adam’s apple was the steel point of a hunting arrow. It had pierced an area near the jugular, had maybe nicked it, judging from the amount of blood.

  An arrow?

  From the adjoining dock, I heard a momentary splashing. I didn’t look, assuming it was Hump. But then we all turned when we heard a boy’s voice ask, “Where’d I hit him?”

  Will Chaser!

  Will was no longer dressed like a cowboy, as when I’d first seen him. He was nearly naked, face smoke-smudged, blood-crusted, carrying a bow and withered quiver as he approached, his hair tied back Apache style with a blue wind band.

  His black eyes reflected a momentary red-sparked gleam when he looked at me, a look of recognition.

  Beneath lights at the dock’s edge, where a kayak was tied, Hump, dog-paddling, was now calling, “Dr. Navárro, be careful! Devil Child is back!”

  Barbara had sagged against me. I disentangled myself from her arms, saying, “Call nine-one-one. We need an ambulance now.” Running toward the horse stable, I added, “Then cancel the ransom flight.”

  When I entered the stable and knelt beside the body of Shelly Palmer, I saw that we could cancel the ambulance, too.

  Farfel had used the drill.

  36

  The morning of the deadline, Sunday, January twenty-fifth, I got five hours’ sleep, put my skiff on a trailer, then rendezvoused with Tomlinson near Southwest Regional Airport.

  “Any news?” he asked, swinging his backpack into the bed of my old Chevy pickup.

  I told him I was too tired to talk, for him to sit back and I’d share everything telepathically. After a few beats, I added, “But the kid’s okay. He’s not too fond of me, but he’s safe.”

  Tomlinson had already seen news bulletins on CNN while waiting for his flight. But he must have read the weariness in my face because he told me, “The kid’s a solid judge of character. Tell me the rest later,” then dozed most of the trip.

  At two p.m. we met Jibreel Sudderram and two fellow FBI agents at Falcon Landing and chauffeured them to Tamarindo Island. Because it was my boat, I had asked Sudderram earlier to play the bad guy and inform a U.S. senator there wasn’t enough room for her aboard.

  Legally, it was almost true, even though my skiff has carried as many as fifteen. But Barbara had been on a combination power binge and talking jag since she’d seen blood pumping from the Cuban interrogator’s neck. I didn’t want to listen to her endless cell-phone conversations or babysit her questions.

  The agents were trained to be patient with civilians. I was not.

  The lady’s protests were neutralized by the fact that one of the agents was female. Besides, as I rationalized for our little group, Barbara had already acknowledged that Tomlinson was a credible psychic by attending one of his lectures, so she had no choice but to accept the decision that he might be useful.

  The agents didn’t consider Tomlinson a psychic, nor did I. It was a concession I would never have made but that the senator had, so it was excuse enough to bring him along.

  “Right?” I asked Agent Sudderram.

  The man looked as tired as me, but the news about the boy had improved his mood.

  He replied, “Why bother her with details?”

  Will Chaser had been taken to a Sarasota hospital. Procedure and common sense mandated a physical exam and that he be interviewed by child psychologists before he could be questioned by police.

  It had been only fourteen hours so it was possible the boy was still in shock, but he appeared to be handling everything okay, Agent Sudderram told Tomlinson and me as I maneuvered the skiff through mangrove cuts, then down the winding channel toward Tamarindo.

  Five minutes later, Sudderram was still briefing us as I dropped off plane and idled toward the island’s narrow dock, NO TRESPASSING signs freshly guano-streaked as cormorants, spooked from pilings, then struggled toward laborious flight.

  “I’ve worked with the hospital staff before,” Sudderram told us, “so the doctor let me stick around as long as I didn’t ask any questions. Will said he didn’t mind. He seemed fairly cheerful, considering what he’d been through.

  “Will told the staff he couldn’t remember much after his coffin started flooding. He said he didn’t feel scared, just sort of sleepy and dreamy. Maybe he blacked out—his words.”

  A doctor told Sudderram that a blackout was consistent with the results of an EEG test, which measures brain cell activity, and an MRI scan, which doctors said revealed strokelike indicators visible in the boy’s brain tissue.

  For a short time, apparently, Will had gone without oxygen. Damage appeared to be minimal, however.

  “Next thing the boy says he remembers was crawling through sand toward a cabin. He says he also remembers being pissed off at the Cubans. But not crazy mad—he made that point over and over.”

  Sudderram smiled at me as I secured the skiff. “It seemed very important to the kid that we believed he was only sort-of mad. You know, that it was no big deal listening to his kidnappers stab the limo driver and then bury him alive.”

  Tomlinson was standing with his back to us, staring at the remains of the cabin, seeing the charred shutters and broken glass, smoke still tunneling up from the collapsed roof.

  “Sort of mad, huh? I’d hate to see what happens when the kid get seriously pissed off.”

  I was picturing Farfel’s lead-glazed eyes, the razor edge of the hunting arrow creating a pyramid of skin beneath his Adam’s apple, blood-circled like a third eye.

  I asked, “The boy admitted starting the fire?”

  Sudderram said, “Too early to talk about that. But if he did, who could blame him?”

  We walked single file along a path lined with whelk shells through a heated space of uplands and cactus to the beach. There was the coffin, lid closed, lying next to the remnants of a hole, and a knotted pile of clothing—Will’s filthy jeans and western shirt.

  The hole was filled with sand that had collapsed, loosened by the last high tide. The coffin had been made from an industrial crate and modified with a plywood lid. As the female agent took pictures, the other agent used a measuring tape.

  A three-inch hole had been augured through the plywood lid, then patched over with a chunk of what looked like pine flooring. The hole was cleanly bored. The patch was a sloppy job but nailed tight.

  A second hole had been cut into the side of the coffin. It angled vertically at about twenty degrees. Another sloppy job. As Sudderram made notes, I took notes of my own.

  Tomlinson, I noticed, was wandering around the area, a familiar Om-dazed look on his face. I watched him walk into the remains of the cabin.

  Sudderram stopped writing long enough to ask me, “Does he always behave this way at a crime scene?”

  I replied, “No. Sometimes he acts sort of weird. I’m warning you in advance.”

  We both laughed too loud, a symptom of exhaustion.

  The agents and I discussed the coffin. Sudderram guessed that the Cubans had planned to bury the boy on Long Island in the horse pasture, but attention from the police had changed their plans.

  “The hole in the lid would fit the sort of galvanized pipe they used at the stable when they buried an animal,” he said.

  Because they’d had to improvise, the Cubans—Hump, who was now in jail—had sealed the first hole with a chunk of flooring, then used a screwdriver and hammer to create a second breathing hole. A six-foot length of PVC tubing lay nearby.

  It explained how Will had stayed alive while buried, but it didn’t explain how the boy had escaped. Judging from the way the tide had sucked sand into the hole, it was possible the rising water had also lifted the box free.

  “The box looks solid enough,” Sudderram offered. “Bury a small boat in sand, the same thing would happen. Water exerts pressure as it rises, the hull displaces water, which incre
ases buoyancy. It was a fairly shallow hole—Will told doctors only about four feet deep. A foot or two of lift could have displaced enough sand for the kid to kick the lid open.”

  I asked, “He doesn’t remember at all?”

  “That’s what he says and I believe him. Said he had dreams—a spacey and free sort of feeling that could describe a sensation similar to floating, couldn’t it?”

  There was one problem, I reminded him. “You were on Long Island. You remember the backhoe driver saying he used pipe to vent water pressure. If water flooded the graves, the excess would have exited up the piping instead of lifting what was buried.”

  When agents opened the coffin’s lid, though, we saw that Sudderram and I were both right. Sort of.

  Inside the box was a skull. The skull was volcanic gray and had the look of centuries. A section of the parietal bone was missing as well as several teeth.

  “Jesus Christ, the kid never mentioned this,” Sudderram said, kneeling, then stepping back to get out of the way of the camera.

  I noticed that Tomlinson was hurrying toward us as if we had waved him over. We hadn’t. On the drive to Falcon Landing, he’d awakened in time for me to tell him a little of what had happened, but I hadn’t mentioned Myles implying that he’d stolen fraternity artifacts.

  Even so, I expected Tomlinson to take one look inside the coffin and make the association instantly. Which he did. But it wasn’t just because the skull was there. Nor was it because we discovered several other bones—ribs and segments of finger bones—when agents removed a sodden blanket.

  What convinced Tomlinson was the way the skull was positioned. It was wedged into a corner of the box, between two braces, with the back of the skull angled perfectly so that it covered the airhole.

  The skull had served as an effective stopper. If it hadn’t been there, the box would have partially flooded but wouldn’t have floated.

  The agents were wearing rubber gloves. I wasn’t, so I kept my hands at my sides as I leaned close to inspect. The skull couldn’t possibly have formed a watertight seal, but it might have sealed the vent enough to allow the box to drift upward, freeing the boy.