Mangrove Bayou (27 page)

“Feels good, doesn't it?” Troy said.

“What do you mean?” Ronson said.

“Helping people who really need it.”

Ronson looked at the four bedraggled survivors. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

“You risked your life for four strangers. No one would have thought the less of you if you had stayed safe ashore.”

“
I
would have thought less of me,” Ronson said. He looked at the four survivors standing together at the other end of the pier. “One man told me that they had given up. They were in water armpit-deep and rising and hanging onto trees for their lives. They knew they would die. Then, out of the rain and wind and flying tree branches, impossibly, they saw the police boat coming, coming straight at them. Said it was like a miracle. That they had been reborn.” Ronson turned to look at Troy. “I will never forget how that made me feel to hear that.”

Troy nodded. “And that's why I like being a policeman.”

“I might have been a volunteer, but you ordered Bubba to go out and then stayed here ashore yourself.”

“That's what leaders have to do sometimes. Tell others to take the risk. But Bubba and I talked it over first and he was the one who decided it was possible. I would have preferred to go out myself but Bubba, and you, are better at what needed to be done. And these people needed the very best help I could send them. It's not easy, standing safe in the back and watching others take the risk, but I have an entire town to look after.”

“Humm. Maybe that's some sort of courage in itself.”

“Maybe. But anyway, as for these four, I'll take them off your hands. We can get them sorted out at the station.”

“I can handle it. My car's still here. The yacht club has showers and a laundry. I can feed them, clean their clothes, give them some cash to get by and have someone run them up to Marco Island later. That's where their car is.”

Troy looked at Ronson a long moment. “All right. I'll leave them in your capable hands. You seem to have adopted them, or perhaps they adopted you.”

Troy drove himself and Bubba back to the station. “He seems to have had some of the corners knocked off his personality,” Troy said as he drove.

“Ronson? I suppose so. He and those four gabbed all night long. Don't think he had ever really talked to people from that culture before. We were on the backside of a hill out there and the noise made it impossible to sleep even if we could have in that place. Middle of the storm we had to scramble around to the other side of the hill. Thought I might lose the boat then, but it held up good.”

“It's some kind of miracle you saved the boat too, Bubba. That wasn't necessary, but I appreciate it.”

“Luck. And a lot of line. Spiderwebbed it off to red mangroves. They actually make pretty fair tie-offs, if you can wedge in-between two nearby clumps, because they bend with the wind and with the rising tide.”

Troy dropped Bubba off at the station and told him to take the rest of the day off. He drove over to Milo Binder's place. Milo's house was a small block ranch and looked all right this morning. Wanda was wearing one of Milo's shirts and one of his khaki uniform shorts. Milo had apparently cooked them some breakfast on a small camp stove, electricity still only being supplied to major buildings by the town generator.

Troy was brief and blunt. “Wanda, your trailer is gone. So is Billy now. I don't know if your car is still where you left it or if it runs. If you want to go look, you can.”

“Got no shoes, sir.”

“Oh. That's right. Don't try to walk around without good shoes. Too much junk on the ground out there. Whatever shape the car is in, it will be the same later today or tomorrow. No hurry. I think you're better off staying here for the time being. Milo, I need you back at work. Now. Got an important task for you.”

“OK, Chief. Wanda, you stay here. You keep my cell phone. Call the station if you need anything. Otherwise stay off the phone. No way to charge the battery once it dies.”

Wanda nodded. “Thank you, Milo. And you too, sir. For everything.”

Back in his office Troy called Milo and Angel Watson into his office. “Got a job for you two. As you know, before the storm hit we found a dead man halfway out Barron Road, in the south side canal. I'll drive you out to the Forty-One intersection. You each take one side of Barron Road and walk back here. I want you looking for clues, anything at all out of the ordinary.

“That's a five-mile walk,” Milo said.

“I know. Take your time. Go slow. Expect to be at it for as long as it takes. Angel's on the clock, Milo gets OT, lucky stiff.”

“Good thing we got the new lightweight unis,” Angel said. “We'll take along a couple water bottles.”

“Whatever.” Troy had never understood the need for people to walk around clutching water bottles all day. “I found a can of white spray paint in the storage room. Feels full. Every time you spot something that could be important, leave it there but spray a circle on the road on that side. Walk side by side, opposite sides of the road. When you get to town, keep walking on the streets leading to the bridge to Airfield Key. Call me when you reach the bridge.”

On the way out to the main highway Angel spotted the break in the power line. The heavy-duty wire was down between two of the steel towers standing off to one side in the marsh. Troy called Mayor Groud to report it.

“You've been up and down this road for days now,” Angel said when Troy had ended the call.

“I know. Walking is slower and better. And storm surge and high tides have a way of moving things around, rearranging things.”

“It's called police work,” Milo said.

“Oh? What's that?”

“Doing all kinds of boring and useless things because we don't know ahead of time what's useless.”

“Milo, I do believe you have the makings of a police chief. All you've got to do is keep on doing meaningless and boring things for a lot of years. It's kind of a Zen thing.”

“You didn't do it a lot of years. You lucked into this job.”

Angel elbowed Milo. “Don't say things like that. He's done good so far.”

“Well, he's a hell of a good shot, I know that now.”

“Actually, Milo's right about my lucking into the job,” Troy said. “Milo, how come you didn't just ask for a promotion to chief? Your uncle is the mayor, after all.”

“I wanted to. My uncle told me to shut up and sit down.”

Troy laughed. “For a guy who tries to act like a backwoods 'neck,” he said, “there's no moss growing on Lester Groud. Now get out and start looking. I have important police chief things to do.”

Back in town, Troy checked the cells. All the crew and their families had left. June was on duty but was sleeping at her desk in the lobby, her head down on her crossed arms. The place needed a tidying up and good scrubbing but Troy decided that wasn't important now.

“You had anything to eat lately?” he asked Norris Compton through the barred window in the upper half of the cell door.

“Nope.” Compton was lying on his back on his bunk, reading a book. Troy was past wondering where he had acquired that.

“How about water?”

“Got plenty of that.” Compton held up a plastic water bottle. “And, actually, the sink and toilet still work.”

“They would. One thing hooked into the circuit for the backup generator is the pump for the water tower. I'm hungry too. I'll raid the meeting room upstairs. They have emergency supplies there. See if I can round up something to eat. It won't be five-star.”

Chapter 42

Wednesday, July 31

That afternoon Troy took Norris Compton up to Naples. They didn't go to the jail. They met with an assistant state attorney named Rita Shaner. Troy handed over a copy of Compton's file. Compton's attorney was there too, out of some law office in Naples. They all sat around a table in a conference room.

“You arrested him for discharging a firearm within city limits?” Shaner said. She was thirtyish, five-eight with black hair and brown eyes and tending to plumpness. Shaner raised her eyebrows. “That's a misdemeanor. And you jailed him for
that
?”

Compton raised his head and looked at Troy. Troy winked at him. Compton smiled and said nothing. Compton's attorney looked puzzled.

“We take such offenses very seriously in Mangrove Bayou,” Troy said.

“Geez, I guess so. Well, we'll take it from here. Can't believe you're wasting my time with this. Misdemeanors are county business. I'll run this by any county judge back there who, like me, was dumb enough to show up for work today. Come back for him in a half-hour.”

Troy stood to leave. He looked down at Compton. “Norris, stick around and I'll give you a ride back. I got a thing to do here myself.” Troy went down the hall and talked to another assistant state attorney about the shooting of William Poteet. They set a date for a full hearing when the witnesses could testify too.

On the way back to Mangrove Bayou, Compton sat in the front seat and not in the back behind the cage. “I appreciate what you did for me back there,” he said.

“I'll keep the gun. Damn thing's too dangerous anyway. It's an antique. What did they give you at the hearing?”

“I'm a bad boy. They haven't done the paperwork yet but it's one year's probation. Got to check in with some probation officer once a week. And some kind of community service for one hundred hours.”

“Kelly Thompson,” Troy said.

“That was the probation officer's name. Is Kelly a man or a woman?”

“I have no idea. Never met the person, only seen the name on some paperwork. I'm new and only here on probation myself.”

Compton chuckled. “Well, let's hope neither of us screws it up.”

“Got three more things for you to do,” Troy said. “You don't have to do any of them. I arrest people, I don't decide on the punishments.”

“What now?”

“Get yourself into an AA program of some kind. You're a smart guy when you're sober, and pretty stupid-acting when you're drunk. In AA I believe they refer to ‘pulling a geographical,' meaning that moving from Atlanta to Mangrove Bayou doesn't make the underlying problem go away.”

“I can do that. What else?”

“Second, I can use your help around the station but I can't pay you. Maybe I can talk to this Thompson person and get you assigned to me. Come in a couple times a week and do some filing, straightening up the paperwork. I can really use the help. And you got to work off your community service anyway.”

“Beats picking up cans and bottles along the road in August.”

“Yes, I suppose it would. Last, you're going to learn to fish. I've arranged for you to work for Lester Groud. He's our mayor and also a fishing guide. He'll probably work you like a dog, doing anything nasty he doesn't want to do. He'll not pay you anything but at least he'll treat you bad. But he knows how to fish and he'll teach you.”

“Why are you doing all this?”

“You need some structure. You need some point to living here in Mangrove Bayou. You need to be a part of the community and you need to be doing something useful to the rest of us. Otherwise, you will have no self-respect and you'll just be seeing the world through the neck of a beer bottle.”

Troy turned off U.S. 41 and onto Barron Road. He called Angel and Milo on the radio and told them where he was. “You guys find anything interesting for me? I can check now.”

“A few spots,” Angel said. “Two on the right side heading south. One on the left just a half-mile or so in. That one looks good. Some clothes, bloody. We're almost to the Airfield Key bridge. June's going to come pick us up in a minute.”

“Looks like you get to watch actual police work going on,” Troy said to Compton. He slowed down and looked ahead for spray-painted circles. When he saw the one on the left side he stopped, facing the wrong way in that lane, and turned on his emergency lights. “Stay here,” he said to Compton.

Angel and Milo had found some muddy and obviously bloody clothing. There was a depression where the clothes had been buried but whoever buried them hadn't dug a very deep hole. The heavy rain had washed some of the loose soil down the embankment into the canal, exposing part of a pair of blue jeans. He called June on the radio and asked her to get Tom VanDyke headed his way with his camera. He used his cell phone to call Kyle Rivers at the Everglades City Sheriff's Substation and tell Rivers what he had found.

“And doesn't anyone else work District Seven? You seem to be the one I get every time.”

“Got one other guy on duty. Not counting the lieutenant, whom we don't count on anyway.” Troy heard a male laugh in the background and some muttered comment. “Other guy's out doing actual patrolling. I'm just sitting here rewriting all my reports, make me look better. Why do you need me?”