Mangrove Bayou (17 page)

“So, are you a legitimate member or a mere honorary annoyance like me?” he asked. “Do they let in the Irish here?”

Bell laughed. Troy liked her laugh. “They let in people with money. I have money. Do you have money, Chief Adam?”

Troy grinned. “I have yet to get a first paycheck but I suspect—I'm afraid to run the actual figures for fear I'll find I'm right—that I made more money, per hour, in college when I worked at a burger joint. So, Lee Bell, are you married? Dating some plutocrat yachtsman?” She had no wedding band and he had seen her property record, but Troy knew not to go by those alone.

She shook her head. “No plutocrats, and divorced. He was a stock speculator who knew how to do it. I caught the bastard with his secretary. The usual story. He bought me out rather than pay alimony all his life. I invested wisely and picked out a career that seemed fun.”

“Well, hello. I'm Troy Adam.”

“You said that. What's your story?”

“Never married. And not even dating since I came to Mangrove Bayou. I guess I'm sort of a hermit.”

“You could go blind being a hermit,” Lee Bell said. “Tell you what. Let's go have a look at your hermitage.”

Troy thought a moment. “Let's go have dinner some place,” he said. “Get to know one another better.”

“Sort of like a date.”

“Sort of like a first date, yes.”

“Oh, poo.”

“Take it or leave it.”

Her eyes widened. If possible, Troy thought, they turned more green. “Masterful,” Lee Bell said. “I like that in a man. But what about the second date?”

“I was thinking tomorrow night. There's only so long I can stand to be a gentleman.”

“Like that too. Where shall we go for dinner tonight? The dining room right here?”

“Bert's Crab Shack. It's about as far as I can think of from here, both geographically and gustatorily.”

“You use big words for a southern redneck cop.”

“I'll try to live up to them. Tomorrow night. Assuming, of course, our first date goes well.”

“Well, if I must, I suppose I must.”

“And besides, you come highly recommended.”

“You're joking. Who recommended me?”

“A friend.”

“How did your friend know I would even be here?”

“I'm the police chief of…”

“You said that before too. Let's get out of here before I turn Republican.”

Troy waved an arm and she led the way to the front door of the club. The blonde girl still sat at her desk, hands folded in front, staring at the front door in a small room. “It could not have been easy getting into those jeans,” Troy said as Lee Bell strode across the parking lot to her Corvette.

“Easier getting out of them,” she said. “Where's your car.”

“That Forester over there.”

Lee laughed. “A nunmobile?”

“Hey! I like my Forester. It can pull my boat, carry my canoe, and transport myself and my gear and in all-wheel drive with a solid engine. Can your Corvette do that?”

“Why would I want it to? Don't you at least have a chief car? With a siren?”

“It's a small department. Do you know where Bert's is? South end of 7th Street.”

“I'll find it. I'm a professional pilot.”

Chapter 27

Saturday, July 27

Troy tried to eat in different restaurants for breakfast and lunch. Show the flag, meet the people. On Saturday morning he did his morning run out to Government Key and back and showered and dressed. But he didn't feel up to exploring and ate in, alone on his balcony table, looking out at some people splashing in the water below him and at the Gulf of Mexico beyond them and the offshore islands.

Troy and Lee had eaten the crab cakes at Bert's—probably actual crab cakes—and had then sat on Bert's rickety dock and talked until past midnight. Troy could not recall the last time he had talked so much, and so much about himself. Lee Bell proved to be educated, intelligent, funny in her own way, and a delight to be with. Troy had considered, a half-dozen times that evening, inviting her back to his condo. But, each time, he tamped down the desire and reminded himself that some things were better done slowly. Just not too slow; he was already looking forward to tonight.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Lee had asked. “It's the weekend.”

“Meeting a couple of my officers out at our new gun range. Got a meeting with the town council and department heads later, about the storm. You?”

“Trying to decide what to do with my aircraft. Can't leave it here. Wish that storm would make up its mind where it wants to go. I need to fly my plane out and park it someplace safe, but I need to reserve a tie-down slot wherever I go. And I don't yet know where to go. You could come along and we could just fly over to St. Louis or someplace. Storm's not going there, for sure.”

“I don't think the director of public safety is allowed to leave town during a hurricane.”

“I suppose not. It will probably go someplace else anyway.”

At two in the afternoon Troy unlocked the gate in the fence alongside Barron Road where it crossed over Government Key. The island, in the middle of Oyster Bay, hosted a water tower, sewage treatment plant, town backup generator and other mysterious sheds, all fenced off from the road.

The new gun range was as minimal as it could be. There was a ten-foot berm, pushed up with the town public works bulldozer. In front of that were some wood realtor yard signposts but with hangers for targets in place of the usual signs. Metal stakes pounded into the ground marked off ten, twenty-five and fifty-yard distances for the pistol shooters to stand. Another stake was planted at one hundred yards, for the rifles, and was across the small parking area. Troy wondered if he was expected to not park between that stake and the targets when using a rifle, or just roll his windows down first. He took some targets out of the back of the car and was clipping those to the signposts when Juan Valdez and Bubba Johns, in Juan's car, pulled in to park next to Troy.

Juan and Bubba had department Glock Model 22s in .40-caliber. Troy had his usual Colt .45 but had also brought his .22 target pistol with a Nikon holographic sight.

“Toy gun,” Bubba said, looking at the .22. “And barrel as long as my forearm.”

Troy smiled.
“Volquartsen version of a Ruger target gun. The barrel is eight inches, counting the compensator. S
ee that one target sheet with the little circles?” He was standing at the ten-yard stake. He raised the gun, took three slow, deep breaths to get the carbon dioxide out of his bloodstream, let out the last breath and held, centered the tiny red dot, visible only inside the sight, on the lower left circle, and slowly squeezed off five rounds. He took three more breaths and repeated this on a second circle. The circles were the size of quarters, 20 to an 8x11 sheet of paper. Two circles were entirely blown out.

“Toy gun, fancy sight,” Bubba sniffed.

“Maybe. But I could not only shoot you in the heart, I could choose which ventricle. Shooting target .22s, there was one guy better than me in Tampa and he went to the Olympics. But this is just a hobby. The ammo is cheap.”

“Lemme try,” Juan said. Troy handed him the pistol and the extra magazine. Juan swapped out the empty magazine for a full one.

“Ten rounds in that magazine,” Troy said.

“No problem,” Juan said. He pointed the gun at the target and it went off. Juan jumped. The bullet sailed away into the salt marsh beyond the island. “Jesus!”

“Oh. And also a two-pound trigger pull,” Troy said. “Goes off if you think real hard.” Bubba grinned. Most semiautomatic pistols had five-pound pulls or slightly more.

Juan steadied the gun and squeezed off nine more shots. His pattern was the size of a saucer. “I don't get it,” he said. “I can see the little dot inside the sight, no problem. Your pattern is one hole. What's the secret?”

“You know the joke about the tourist in New York City who jumped into a taxi and said to the driver, ‘Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?'”

“No. Never heard that.”

“Ah. Well the cabbie turns to him and says, ‘Practice, practice, practice.' Now, let's go shoot some more manly guns. Grab your .40s.”

Bubba and Juan shot first at life-size silhouettes from ten yards. Bubba stood stock-still and put fifteen rounds in a saucer-size pattern in the center of the target.

“Good,” Troy said. “Middle of mass. Textbook.”

Juan tried to move around between shots and his were more scattered. They hung new targets.

“New rule,” Troy said. “Anyone shoots up the four-by-fours holding up the targets has to find replacements.”

“No problem,” Juan said. “Find a house for sale and have the night shift yank a sign out of the yard at three a.m.”

“I did not hear that.” Troy pulled out his stainless steel Colt Commander .45-caliber. Bubba shook his head. “Hundred-year-old gun. And stainless is shiny at night.”

“It's Parkerized. Doesn't reflect much.”

“Is that true?” Juan said. “That gun is a hundred years old? Looks new to me.”

“The design is old, in fact more than a hundred years,” Troy said. “They're all called ‘1911s' and the original .45-caliber 1911 is a real hogleg. This is a cut-down version with an inch off the barrel, intended for concealed carry.”

“Damn antique,” Bubba said.

Troy removed the magazine, handed the gun to Bubba, and thumbed out the cartridges into his left hand. He got a box of standard ball ammo from the back of his car and loaded eight of those. The Federal Hydra-Shoks he normally carried cost more than a dollar apiece. Even the standard ball he used for practice was fifty cents a round and Troy had to buy his own ammo; the department's pistol ammo was all .40-caliber.

“I like my Colt Commander. It's all real steel, not plastic like those Glocks. I'm old-fashioned.”

“Too much bullet, too small a gun,” Bubba said, handing the gun back. “We use .40s 'cause the recoil is less. And we can have fifteen rounds to your seven.”

“Ah,” Troy said. “We big-caliber folks have a saying: ‘Your nine or forty might or might not expand. But my forty-five will never shrink.' And your ammo is 155-grain, mine is 230-grain.”

Troy turned and fired four rounds at the first target, then ran five yards to one side and put three rounds into the second target. The first target had two in the heart and two in the neck; the second had two in the heart and one in the head.

“Man. That's good shooting.” Bubba said.

“But you missed half the time,” Juan said.

“Not so.” Troy shook his head. “Your Glocks have longer barrels. This Colt is heavy enough but the shorter barrel and larger cartridge means it kicks up more on recoil. Bubba's right on that. I've learned to ride the recoil and ‘double tap' with the second round to the neck or head. At longer ranges I shoot the first shot lower, to the abdomen. That way I don't have to regain the sight picture each shot.”

“It was good shooting,” Bubba said.

“I want everyone to practice. Juan, you had the right idea. Shoot and scoot, shoot and scoot.”

“No need to scoot if you put the bad guy down with the first shots,” Bubba said.

“How you know he's the only bad guy?” Juan said.

Bubba nodded “Good point.”

“That's right,” Troy said. “But you can't expect to hit anything while actually moving. So you shoot a few rounds, move, set and aim, shoot a few rounds, move and so on. Trick is to make the set and aim really quick.”

Bubba was looking at Troy's gun. “What kinda sights are those? Not factory spec?”

“Night sights. Tritium. Glow in the dark. But only from the back, where I can see them.”

“Cool,” Juan said.

“Sure is. That way I can find the gun in my bedroom at night.”

Chapter 28

Saturday, July 27

Jarvess “Tats” Michaels floated up Saturday afternoon in the canal on the east side of Barron Road and about four miles out of town. The truck driver bringing gasoline to Rudy Borden's service station sat high enough to see the body in the canal. Troy cut short his meeting with the town councilmen about the oncoming storm and drove out Barron Road. Kyle Rivers was there alone, his sheriff's patrol car parked facing the wrong way in the eastbound lane, lights flashing. Troy parked behind Rivers' car and turned on his own yellow parking flashers. Rivers walked over to Troy's Subaru and sadly shook his head.

“Still driving Japanese?” Rivers said. “When do you get a real police car? With a siren.”

“Everyone asks me that. Thinking of buying me a whistle.”

Rivers nodded. “That's good. Then you could stick that in your mouth, roll all the windows down, and blow it as you drive.”