Scat (29 page)

Together, Nick and Smoke slipped out the front door.

"Are we taking the motorcycle?" Nick asked, wondering if he'd dressed warmly enough for an open ride.

"Twilly said no, the muffler's too noisy," Smoke said. "Today we need to be quiet."

At the end of the block they came upon the blue Prius, parked with its headlights on. Although the windshield was glossy with dew, Nick could make out two upright shapes inside the car. He assumed it was Twilly and Mrs. Starch, and he was half right.

The driver's window rolled down, and Twilly told Nick and Smoke to get in the backseat. Once they were buckled in, Twilly pointed at his four-legged passenger.

"Say hello to Horace."

With droopy eyelids the bloodhound turned toward the boys, a string of pearly drool unspooling from its lower lip.

Smoke crowed delightedly. "Is that the same one that was chasing us?"

"All is forgiven," Twilly said from behind his black sunglasses.

Nick stroked the dog's silky ears. "Don't tell me he fell for the old raw-hamburger trick."

"Naw, it was steak," Twilly said. "One sniff and Horace decided I was his new best friend. Turns out he's pretty good company. Doesn't ask lots of nosy questions."

"How do you know his name's Horace?"

"Because that's what his boss man was hollering all over the woods after he lost him. By the way," Twilly said, eyeing

Nick in the rearview, "why are you dressed like an usher? Or is that what you usually wear on a hike through the swamp?"

"Uh, no. I had to look like I was on my way to school," Nick said, reddening. He shed his Truman blazer and yanked off his tie. "So, why are
you
wearing shades?" he said sharply to Twilly. "It's practically dark out."

"Not to me."

Smoke asked, "Did you find some more you-know-what?"

"Yup," Twilly said.

"How fresh?"

"Two hours, tops."

Nick sat forward excitedly. "Panther scat?"

"Right," said Twilly.

Smoke looked out the window of the car. "Awesome," he murmured.

Nick borrowed Smoke's cell phone to call Marta, who begged to come along. At first Twilly balked, but Smoke spoke up and said it couldn't hurt to have an extra set of eyes and ears on the hunt. Nick instructed Marta to meet them at the mailbox near the bus stop, and she was waiting in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt when the car pulled up.

She was so excited that she practically hurled herself into the backseat. It took a few moments before she noticed the large, slobbering dog in the front. "What's the deal with him?" she said.

"That's just Horace," said Nick.

"He's a bloodhound," Smoke added. "A good one."

Horace yawned at the compliment.

Marta said, "Oh, I get it. He's gonna help track down the momma panther."

Twilly made a noise like a game-show buzzer. "Wrong," he said. "Horace will soon be tied under a tree, snoring like a train. He doesn't do cats."

"He's a trained manhunter," Smoke explained.

"Where'd he come from?" Marta asked.

Nick said, "Twilly dognapped him."

"Not true. I bribed him with a T-bone, that's all," said Twilly.

He drove slower than normal because of the soupy fog, so it took a while to reach the dirt road leading to the Black Vine Swamp. Along the way he pulled over briefly to snug the seat belt around Horace, which Nick thought was a good idea. A bouncy ride could cause unpleasant problems for a big dog with a full stomach, and also for the other passengers.

They concealed Mrs. Starch's car in the same place as before, beneath the same strangler fig, and set out on foot. Twilly led Horace on a rope leash, and Smoke followed next. Nick and Marta stayed close so that they wouldn't get left behind in the fog, which hung like a wet woolen shroud over the marsh and tree islands.

A small fire was burning at Twilly's camp. Smoke joined Marta and Nick as they stood beside it, the heat feeling glorious on their cheeks. Twilly tied the hound to a cabbage palm and set out a bowl of water, which was loudly slurped up.

Afterward Twilly made a pot of coffee and everybody had a cup. Twilly told them to drink up quickly. Nick wasn't crazy about the taste, but he was grateful for the warm rush.

Mrs. Starch came out of her tent holding the straw hat. The baby panther popped its head up and cried plaintively.

"Patience, dear Squirt," Mrs. Starch said to the kitten.

The three kids gathered around to look. As adorable as it was, the cat was restless and squirmy and not very huggable. Nick noticed long, nasty scratch marks on Mrs. Starch's arms. Meanwhile, Horace the bloodhound had already dozed off under the palm tree.

Twilly stood away from the fire, pressing buttons on his handheld GPS. He said, "The good news is, they won't be using helicopters to hunt for us-not in this weather. The bad news is, it's gonna be twice as hard for us to find this little guy's mother."

Mrs. Starch fixed an iron gaze on Nick and Marta. "Silence on the trail is absolutely essential," she told them. "One tiny human sneeze could scare the momma cat away for good. That would be a death sentence for Squirt, do you understand? He can't live on zoo milk forever."

Marta and Nick nodded soberly. Both were thinking of the other panther cub, the one that had died.

"Time to go," Smoke said.

Twilly ducked into his tent and emerged with a rifle.

"What's
that
for?" Marta asked nervously.

"Peace of mind." Twilly checked his ammo belt to make lure that the bullet sleeves were full. "Everybody ready?"

The miniature panther growled impatiently inside the straw hat, and even Twilly laughed. They filed out of the clearing and into the misted woods, Twilly leading the way, followed by Duane Scrod Jr., Nick, Marta, and lastly Mrs. Starch, pressing a bottle of formula to the hungry cub's mouth.

For almost half an hour they hiked briskly yet quietly through cypress woods, flatlands, hammocks, and then more pines and palmetto scrub. The fog only seemed to get thicker, wetter, colder.

Twilly was using the GPS unit to retrace his earlier steps; without it, Nick knew, they'd never find what they were looking for. Not a word was spoken, even by Marta when she briefly lost a sneaker in the muck. Likewise, Mrs. Starch didn't utter the faintest cry when the panther kitten, miffed because the milk had run out, swatted her nose with an oversized paw, drawing blood.

At last Twilly motioned for the search party to halt and gather around him. He bent down and carefully lifted a palmetto frond, revealing on the ground a dark greenish pile of unmistakable origin, containing tufts of deer hair, bits of bones, and wisps of white egret feathers.

Marta pointed at the smelly lump and silently mouthed the words "Panther poop?"

Twilly made a thumbs-up sign. Duane Scrod Jr. dropped to one knee and began examining the scat. The only extraordinary sound in the swamp was that of the baby panther, rumbling inside Mrs. Starch's straw hat. Nick felt Marta gently take hold of his shirttail.

After a few moments, Smoke rose and began to move stealthily in small, weightless steps along a tangled trail that he alone could detect.

The others followed, their hearts hammering with anticipation.

Jimmy Lee Bayliss thought it would be best if he spoke to the game warden alone, but Drake McBride insisted on coming along. Jimmy Lee Bayliss had already told Melton and the rest of the crew to take the morning off, in order to avert any risk of the federal officer overhearing Red Diamond's machinery at work in Section 22.

The jostling drive to the Black Vine Swamp was murder on Drake McBride's fractured ribs, and he groaned and cussed the whole time. Jimmy Lee Bayliss stopped the company truck near the entrance to the public boardwalk; he'd never seen fog so thick. It was like a cold, clinging smoke.

Drake McBride got out, rubbing his bandaged midsection. He was still mad about the five thousand dollars he'd given to the owner of the missing bloodhound.

"You think a panther really snacked on that dog? No way, pardner."

"Doesn't matter," Jimmy Lee Bayliss said. "We had no choice but to pay the man off."

Drake McBride snorted scornfully. "He's nuthin' but a scammer."

"Whatever. He found the well pit in Section 22," Jimmy tee Bayliss reminded his boss for the tenth time. "He would've ratted us out if we didn't give him some money."

"Man, I hate scammers," Drake McBride said.

Jimmy Lee Bayliss laughed. He couldn't help it. He completely understood why Drake McBride's father thought his son was a boob.

A green pickup rolled out of the haze and stopped. On the side of the truck was the logo of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Drake McBride said, "Let me deal with this punk, Jimmy Lee."

The "punk" turned out to be a good bit older than Drake McBride, though much more physically fit. He wore a badge and carried a gun on his hip, and he introduced himself as Special Agent Conway.

"'Special agent'?" Drake McBride smirked. "So you're, like, James Bond of the boonies?"

"And who would you be?" Conway said.

"Drake McBride. I'm the president of Red Diamond Energy."

"Right." Conway looked at Jimmy Lee Bayliss. "And you?"

"He's my project manager," Drake McBride said. "Mr. Bayliss is his name. Lemme save all of us from wastin' one more second of our precious time-there's no panthers out here, okay?
Nada.
Somebody made a big mistake."

Conway smiled politely. "We received a report from a citizen who was quite certain he saw one in this area, so we're required to check it out. But not today, gentleman. Not in this heavy fog."

Jimmy Lee Bayliss quietly exhaled in relief. Drake McBride simmered.

"Where does the boundary of your oil lease start?" Conway asked.

"Three-quarter mile down the road," Jimmy Lee Bayliss said, pointing. "There's a sign and a metal gate."

"Leave it unlocked tomorrow morning," the Fish and Wildlife agent advised. "If there's no weather, I'll be back with a couple of other officers and a tracking dog."

"Oh, great," muttered Drake McBride under his breath. "Another mutt."

"Excuse me?"

"Nuthin'."

Jimmy Lee Bayliss quickly cut in. "We'll cooperate totally, Agent Conway. Whatever you need us to do, consider it done."

"Good." The officer took off his wire-rimmed eyeglasses and wiped the condensation from the lenses. "Hardly any animal on earth is more endangered than the Florida panther-are you aware of that? There's somewhere between sixty and a hundred left, that's all, and our job is to try and save 'em from extinction. That's why we follow up on possible sightings."

"But I told you, there can't possibly be a sighting out here, because there ain't no damn panthers!" Drake McBride protested.

The officer said, "They're really quite beautiful. Ever seen a picture?"

"No, but I've seen cougars out west, shot dead and skinned where it's all proper and legal. Basically the same varmint."

Conway put on his glasses and turned his back on the president of the Red Diamond Energy Corporation. "Make sure you leave that gate unlocked," he said to Jimmy Lee Bayliss.

"Yes, sir. Can I ask who it was that called up and said they saw one of those cats around here?"

Conway walked to his truck and looked at his clipboard. "The name on the report is Hayduke," he said. "George W. Hayduke."

The name meant nothing to Jimmy Lee Bayliss or his boss, who hadn't finished a book since his junior year of college.

"He gave a GPS waypoint, too," Conway added, "so we've got a good place to start."

"Really?" Jimmy Lee Bayliss suddenly felt queasy.

Sulking, Drake McBride said, "So I guess any ol' crack-Pot can call up the U.S. government and say they saw a panther or a unicorn or even a UFO, and you guys put a posse together the next day. Is that how it works?"

Special Agent Conway got in his truck and rolled down the window. "Be careful in this fog," he said, and drove off.

Detective Jason Marshall had received two unexpected phone calls that Monday morning. The first was from a man named Bernard Beanstoop III, otherwise known as Bernie the Bean, who was only the most famous and most expensive criminal defense lawyer in Tampa.

Bernie the Bean informed Jason Marshall that he'd been hired by the grandmother of Duane Scrod Jr. to represent the young man accused of arson. Bernie the Bean said he was currently working with the family to find Duane Jr. and persuade him to turn himself in. The attorney also stated that the boy was "one thousand percent innocent," and would fight all the charges pending against him.

"But he ran away from me," the detective pointed out. "That's resisting arrest."

"Extenuating circumstances," chirped Bernie the Bean. "The poor kid simply freaked. Anyway, if you should find Duane before we do, please inform him that his grandma already got him an attorney. And not just any attorney-the best!"

The conversation was not a bright spot for Jason Marshall, who'd been nursing doubts about the Black Vine Swamp case ever since visiting the hardware store where the butane torches had been sold.

No less troubling was the second phone call of the day. It came from an eager state prosecutor who told the detective not to fret about the videotapes showing that the torches weren't purchased by Duane Scrod Jr. The fugitive teenager remained the prime suspect, the prosecutor asserted.

"The tapes don't prove that punk didn't set the fire," he added. "They just prove he didn't shop at that particular store. Heck, he could've bought the exact same brand of torch over the Internet!"

Which was probably true, the detective thought, yet still it seemed like a suspicious coincidence, given the timing of the arson.

"The only mystery in this case," the prosecutor went on, "is how a rotten apple like Scrod ever got into a private school as good as Truman. I mean, your daughter goes there, right, Jason?"

"She does," the detective said tightly.

"Well, if it were my kid, that would seriously sketch me out-guy with a rap sheet like Scrods, walking the same halls."