Death Among the Mangroves (6 page)

“I decide what's appropriate or not,” Duell said. Troy had been staring at Duell's clothes and finally it occurred to him that Duell was wearing a smoking jacket. Troy wasn't sure if he had ever seen a smoking jacket before and Duell did not appear to smoke anyway. Maybe Duell just liked to dress up to watch old movies.

Behind his back Troy heard Clint Eastwood telling some bad men that it wasn't nice to insult his mule. A lot of shooting broke out and Duell's lips tightened. “Get out of my way,” he said.

“I can't wait for tomorrow, Duell. Look at this photo. Do you recognize this man? He was probably one of your students, though he's clearly older now.”

Duell glanced at the photo and back at the television. “I'm sure I don't recall past students,” he said. “I have better things to do than amuse you this afternoon.”

“The movie is only an Italian remake of Akira Kurosawa's
Yojimbo
,” Troy said. “Eastwood gets all the money and the two clans kill each other off. Walter Hill and Bruce Willis did it again in
Last Man Standing
.”

“I don't need your critique of the damn movie. I just need to
watch
the movie. Now get out of my house.”

Patience
, Troy thought. “All right then. So who would be able to tell me if this was a former student? I bet he's in your yearbooks.”

“The yearbooks are in the school library. Why don't you go bother the school counselor. She keeps track of individual students. I'm much too busy running the entire operation.”

“Sure. What's her name and home phone number?”

“Her name is Christine Daniels. I certainly don't have her home number. Why don't you call on her tomorrow, during business hours?”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Troy said. “A young woman is missing, probably in serious danger. Half the town is out looking for her. Her parents are sitting by the phone terrified, waiting for any word whatever. And you won't shut off the television and get off your goddamn ass to so much as look at a photo of a suspect? What the hell sort of degenerate human being are you?”

Duell stood up. “This conversation is over. Get out of my house. You're fired.”

“Duell, if you could fire me by yourself, you would have done it long ago,” Troy said. “I don't understand people like you. It's as if something is just…missing.”

Outside, Troy sat in his car in front of Duell's home, mostly because he knew Duell would be peeking out the window and that would annoy him.

That certainly went well,
he thought.
I'm a professional policeman, so why do I let jerks like that get to me?

He sighed, dug out his department cell phone, and called 4-1-1 to get Christine Daniels' number. He called her. She lived a few blocks away and told him to come on over. In a few minutes he was in her kitchen, sitting at a table and drinking coffee with Christine and Toby Daniels.

Christine was a thin, tall woman wearing jeans and a loose-fitting white tee shirt with a pocket. She pulled out a pair of glasses from the pocket and looked at the picture Troy laid on the table.

“That's Mark Stider,” she said instantly.

“Are you sure? Take your time. Doctor Duell didn't recognize the man at all.”

Toby Daniels snorted. He was an obese man wearing a plaid shirt and the largest pair of Dockers he could find. Troy felt that plaid was a poor choice; Toby looked like a quilt. But he seemed willing to talk.

“Duell couldn't find his butt with both hands and a road map,” Toby Daniels said. “I teach at the school. Biology.”

“Mark Stider would have graduated from here five or six years ago,” Christine said. “But I can remember him because he was the son of Twentieth Circuit Court Judge Hans Stider, and some other things. Last I heard he had graduated from the University of Florida but was still in law school.”

“A judge. That's perfect. Just perfect,” Troy muttered.

“Why? What's Mark done?”

“All he is now is someone in a photo,” Troy said. “What were the other reasons you remembered him?”

Christine looked at Toby. “I'm not sure if I should be talking out of school, so to speak.”

“First time I've heard that expression used literally,” Troy said. “What do you have to say, Toby?”

“That kid was bad news.”

“Toby!” Christine said sharply.

“He needs to know, Chris,” Toby said. He looked at Troy. “You can check your police records too. Mark Stider was broken, somehow, inside. He punched out anyone who looked crossways at him. Arrogant. Waved his dad's judgeship around like a flag. Probably a sociopath, totally without feelings for others, maybe narcissist too, totally engrossed in his own self.”

“Sounds like Doctor Duell,” Troy said. “Just had a run-in with him. It ended ugly.”

“Duell and Mark Stider probably have some things in common,” Toby said. “Though I don't think Duell abuses people physically. He's more into psychological abuse of people under his control. Mark wasn't smart enough to do that. Mark was attractive to some of the girls—jerks like that always seem to draw the dumb ones—but they always left him quickly, quietly, in tears and too often screwed up mentally. We teachers thought he was either molesting some of the girls or at least forcing them to agree to sex with him…”

“What's the difference?” Troy asked.

“You got me. Less beating them up first, I guess. Anyway Chief Redmond ignored us. He ignored the girls who complained.”

“And Duell? He ignore them too?”

“Pretty much. Duell really doesn't have time for teaching or running the schools. He's too busy polishing the nameplate on his desk.” Troy, whose desk and office door had no names at all, smiled at the image.

“Chief Redmond was sort of a Judge Stider toady,” Christine said.

“Well, Redmond is sort of gone now,” Troy said. “I'm the chief and I guess Mark is on his own.”

“Not while his dad is around,” Toby said. “At least the kid left town. Good for us; bad for wherever he went.”

“Apparently he's back, at least for the holidays,” Troy said.

“Is this about that missing girl?” Christine asked.

“Just doing some backgrounding,” Troy said.

“Yeah. Sure you are,” Toby said. “Girl is missing and the chief of police is out on a Sunday waving around a photo of a kid known for abusing young women. I'm guessing he's not wanted for littering. Do the world a favor. Put a bullet into the little bastard. Improve the gene pool.”

Chapter 8

Sunday, December 22

By evening the search was winding down. Townspeople went home to their lives and their dinners. The Sunset Bay boat ramps by the police station were busy with people hauling the boats they had used to search the Gulf in front and Oyster Bay in back. Lester Groud's friends in the guide and crab communities had taken their boats back to the boatyard on Snake Key where they kept them at docks. A few larger boats were nosing back into the Osprey Yacht Club docks across the Collier River. The sheriff's helicopter had long since gone away to refuel and then on to other duties.

Troy watched some volunteer firemen getting into their cars in the parking lot behind the town hall and driving away. He had a hollow feeling in his stomach. They had looked in every obvious place and all the nonobvious ones too and there was not a trace of Barbara Gillispie.

Troy had his officers resume their normal schedule. That evening Troy went to Lee Bell's house. Lee had set up a ten-foot-tall Christmas tree and she and Troy spent an hour stringing lights and decorations around it. Such domesticity was foreign to Troy, to whom holidays meant nothing much.

“Where did you get this enormous tree?” Troy asked. “And did you bring it home strapped onto your Corvette?”

“The nice man at the tree lot over on Barron Key delivered it,” Lee said. “It
was
the largest one he had.”

“Lee, men are always nice to you. You're gorgeous.”

“Thank you.” She grinned. “And isn't that…
nice
.”

Lee had a few wrapped presents for Troy and for some other people she knew in town and she spread those around beneath the tree. Troy had no present for Lee and apologized.

“I can't take time off right now to go shopping in Naples or Fort Myers,” he said. “Or Miami.”

“You ever hear of the Brown Elves?” Lee said.

“The what?”

“UPS, stupid. Santa's neighborhood elves in the big brown trucks. You shop online. They deliver. No problem.”

“Oh. I guess I'm old-fashioned. I like to go look at things before I buy them. Feel them. Buying a personal gift online is almost as bad as simply handing someone you love a store gift card. Where's the romance, the feeling, the personal attention?”

“Am I hearing that you love me?”

“Well, of course I do.”

“You never say it.”

“Lee Bell, I'm in love with you.” He grabbed her and they kissed.

“Good,” she said breaking off the kiss. “Now what are you going to do to show your love?”

“Probably have a UPS driver hand you a store gift card.”

Lee punched him in the arm. She was tall and strong and had a good punch, and it knocked him sideways slightly. “That's it,” she said. “You go home and sleep in your cold, lonely bed.”

“Won't that make your bed cold and lonely too?”

“Good point. I'll let you stay. But only if you make mad love to me.”

“Sure thing, little lady,” Troy said. “Think of it as the gift that keeps on giving.”

“You wish.”

Chapter 9

Monday, December 23

The man clutched his ex-wife tightly, her back against his chest, his left arm around her under her breasts, his right hand holding the steak knife to her neck. He looked at the other Tampa police officers and then sideways at Troy.

“Put down the knife,” Troy said. “Nothing is so bad we can't work something out to help you. You don't want to hurt her. You love her.”

“I can't go on like this,” the man said. The woman was weeping silently, her eyes on Troy as if he were her salvation. “I can't go on without her.”

“Please help me,” Wanda Frister cried out in her front yard in Mangrove Bayou. Billy Poteet only pressed the barrel of his handgun tighter against her head.

Even in the dream, a part of Troy's consciousness wondered what had happened to the man with the knife from so long ago. He seemed to be having two intermingled dreams.

The man with the knife shook his head. “You'll just put me in jail. I've been to jail before. I'm never going back.”

Troy had his Glock lined up on the man's right ear, about the only thing he could clearly see behind the terrified woman. “I came this far,” the man said. “I'll take it all the way.”

Billy Poteet's right hand pressed the handgun harder against Wanda's throat.

“Don't do it,” Troy said. “I can't let you do it.”

Billy Poteet bent his head to look when Milo Binder fired off some shots to get his attention. Suddenly Troy was seeing Billy's right eye and part of his skull over the top of the sights on the Colt. Troy started to squeeze the trigger.

“You win,” Billy said. “I don't really want to do this.” He took away the gun. He let Wanda go. And Troy's Colt Commander went off and killed him.

As always, Troy woke at this point and leapt out of bed. He was in Lee Bell's house and not his own condo but he knew the way to the bathroom. He'd made the run before. In the bathroom he got the toilet lid up and threw up at once, before even getting to his knees beside it. He waited and then threw up again. He heard a sound behind him and twisted to see Lee, in her knee-length tee shirt she wore to bed, running the cold water tap in the sink. She had a washcloth.

“Rinse out and then put this on your face,” she said. Troy got to his feet and washed out his mouth. He took the cloth and wiped his face. It felt better.

“Thanks.” He laid the washcloth aside.

“Same dream as always?” Lee said.

“Sorry to wake you up,” Troy said.

“That doesn't matter. You matter. How do you feel now?”

“Same dream. Well, no, not really. I now seem to have two dreams that get interchanged, back and forth. The guy in Tampa, years ago, and Billy Poteet six months ago.”

“You had no choice about Billy Poteet.”

“I had no choice about either of them. And how come I never dream about the gangbanger with the water pistol?”

“You didn't know it was only a water pistol.”

“I know that now.”

“What does Doctor Groves say?”

“He rarely says much. He says I'm supposed to figure it out on my own.”

Lee smiled. “Well, that's sort of how therapists work. Can you come back to bed now? I can hold you while you go to sleep.”

“You know I can't. Never can. I'll get dressed and do a little patrolling around town. I like to do that anyway, early mornings. And it keeps the night officer alert and not sleeping behind some store.”

Out on the road, Troy drove his Subaru Forester slowly down Airfield Road. He paused to let a raccoon cross in the light of his headlights and fog lights that he never turned off.
Probably get a phone call about the raccoon sometime later today
, he thought. Airfield Key people were not accustomed to wildlife. He reached the short concrete bridge and crossed over onto Barron Key and then left onto Barron Road. He drove slowly the five miles out to U.S. 41—the Tamiami Trail—and then back again.