Strangers (16 page)

Her heart sank. The fact that so much earth had already been moved here made it a real possibility that she and Betsy had done what they set out to do—find the source of Glynis’ artifacts. But the sheer volume of disturbed earth worried her.

Acres of land had been cleared and graded, with high spots scraped down and low areas filled to the same height. Soil from the retention pond had probably already been used to level future roads, and their paths might cut straight across the spot where more rosary beads and the other half of the broken stone blade were waiting. All that history might be gone already, despite the risk that Glynis took to save it.

Betsy didn’t look as daunted as Faye felt. She’d grabbed two trowels out of her car trunk and was stepping down the sloped side of retention basin. “Let’s see what the soils are like here, anyway. We might learn something useful.”

Faye found the next hour totally pleasant in a totally geeky way. She and Betsy prowled the bottom of the basin, scraping at the walls and checking out the soil horizons. At one end, the pond was constructed so excess water overflowed during heavy rainfall into a more-or-less natural creek. In that area, the two archaeologists hit paydirt.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh…oh, look.”

Faye rolled her eyes at her own articulateness. What was she going to say next?

Oh, oh, look. See Betsy dig. See Betsy and Faye dig up a wad of priceless artifacts.

Because protruding from the creek’s banks were bits of multicolored pottery and at least one lump of metal. The hard glint of sunlight on broken flint and chert spoke of hand-chipped tools. Both women whipped out their cell phones and took pictures, then Faye gently tapped the metal lump with the tip of her trowel. A musket ball rolled out of the creek bank and rested at her feet.

She almost crowed like a rooster. Then she put the thing in her pocket. Comparing the size and weight and metal content of this musket ball to the ones in Glynis’ stash would go a long way toward being able to say, “Yes. Those artifacts came from here.” And that would go a long way toward helping the police figure out who took Glynis and why.

It took the sound of a car engine to remind them that they didn’t strictly have permission to be where they were. Overstreet had okayed their plan to go out to a project site and talk to the people working there. He had not approved any cockeyed scheme to go out and duplicate the action that might have gotten Glynis kidnapped, but there they stood—rather, squatted—poking around in something that might cost Alan Smithson his company and his fortune.

Faye eyed Betsy silently, and they didn’t have to say a word. Both women knew that it would be an excellent idea to just hang out for a while in this mudhole and hope nobody up there noticed them.

Chapter Sixteen

Faye thought that cell phones might be the biggest technological advance since the printing press.

Stored in Faye’s phone was a photo of the spot where Glynis found the artifacts that might have gotten her kidnapped. Yeah, it was a logical leap, but Faye was willing to take it, until lab analysis of that musket ball proved her wrong.

Since her phone was tapped into the Internet—well, maybe
that
was the biggest technological advance since the printing press—the photo had already been flung at the speed of light in the general direction of Detective Overstreet, with a copy to Joe and another copy to Betsy’s assistant.

Because Faye was forty, and thus not born with a cell phone welded to her hand, she had forgotten the tiny
boop
her phone made when she pressed each key. So with her first keystroke, an unnatural
boop
had echoed through the quiet air that caressed this pristine bit of nature.

Betsy had locked eyes with her, both of them sure that they would be discovered by the criminals having a casual conversation just a few yards away from the lip of the retention basin where they hid. But they had been lucky.

They had also been lucky in their choice of a parking spot. The car, clearly labeled City of St. Augustine, must have been hidden by the tree above it and the vegetation around it, at least from the vantage point of the newcomers who seemed to believe they were alone. This was good, because those newcomers would not want anyone who worked for the city to see the artifacts hanging out of the wall of this overgrown ditch. And they would not want anyone at all to hear the conversation they were having right this minute.

How unfortunate for them that Betsy was using the
Record
function on her phone to document that conversation while Faye sent photographic evidence of their wrongdoing all over the World Wide Web.

Having turned off the
boop
ing function on her phone, Faye had finished sending the photos to Joe. Now she was considering using the phone as a sort of periscope, sticking it up over the lip of the ditch where they were trapped and taking a few seconds of video that would have told her and Betsy who was up there. But there was no way to do that without a risk that a flash of sunlight reflected off the phone’s glass face might attract the men’s attention.

Betsy seemed pretty sure she knew who was there, anyway. At the first sound of the first man’s low, cultured voice, she had thumb-typed for a second, then held her phone so that Faye could see the screen.

Alan Smithson.

Faye agreed with Betsy. She’d only heard Glynis’ father speak once, but the voice was memorable.

The other man’s tone was more agitated and excited, and his words carried better.

“I thought you were paying Lex to keep her quiet. Under control.”

“Lex found that Gwennie was her father’s daughter. Neither of us knuckles under to pressure. Even if her little political temper tantrum was at my expense, even if it did cost me money I could have spent on another pretty sportscar for my little girl, I didn’t care. She was busy showing the world what a Smithson is made of. Keep my Gwennie quiet? Under control? What was I thinking? Lex never had a prayer.”

“But she cost me the election. She cost me everything I’ve worked for.”

The word “election” caught Faye’s ear. Faye typed
Dick Wheeler?
into her own phone. Betsy read it and nodded.

Alan Smithson wasn’t buying into the defeated politician’s accusations. “My daughter is beautiful and charming, but she did not go into the voting booth with every last person in the county and help them mark their ballots. She didn’t help you any, but you lost your own election, Wheeler.”

“I didn’t have a chance, not with her telling the world that I thought we should open brothels and crack houses in the Castillo de San Marcos—which is a National Monument and thus not really any concern of county government, by the way. So I resent losing my seat because of it.”

“I said it already, Wheeler. My daughter is not the reason the voters threw you out on your ear. Do you understand—”

Wheeler’s voice rose in volume and in pitch as he interrupted Smithson. “You said Lex could keep her quiet. You said—”

“Don’t interrupt me, imbecile. Listen carefully. My daughter is not the reason for your problems.”

A familiar metallic click sounded. It wasn’t loud, but it was. There’s no louder noise in the world than the sound of a revolver’s hammer being pulled back.

“Now. Say that you understand what I’m telling you.” Smithson’s tone was as cool and even as the constant rustle of wind in the trees overhead.

“I understand. I do.”

Faye was pretty sure that she could hear Wheeler sweat.

“Say it again, Wheeler.”

The ex-commissioner stammered a bit, then said, “I understand you very well.”

Faye was very glad that she’d just used her amazing new phone’s GPS capabilities to let Joe know exactly where she was. Just in case he hadn’t already figured it out, she texted him a message that would leave no doubt what she wanted him to do:

***

Faye wasn’t sure she could feel her feet any more, but moving them was too risky. Not far from the lip of the retention pond where she and Betsy crouched, Alan Smithson had been haranguing Dick Wheeler for quite some time.

Faye’d had time to think about the best way to get rescued.

It was clear that Alan Smithson was not quite sane, no more so than any man whose daughter was missing. The fact that his daughter’s boyfriend had turned up dead had only pushed the man further over the edge.

“They say she might have been pregnant when she disappeared, Wheeler. I guess she’s still pregnant. If she’s still alive. If she hasn’t lost the baby…my grandchild…” Faye heard an ugly choking sound. “What are they doing to her? What do they—”

“Put the gun down, Alan. You don’t want to hurt me.”

“Are you sure? Where were you early Tuesday morning, Wheeler?”

“What are you saying? Do you think I—”

The voice broke. Now Faye was sure she could hear Wheeler sweat.

“You know where I was, Alan. You know where I always am on Tuesday mornings—the Rotary Breakfast Club. I was the speaker, for God’s sake. I couldn’t have left in full view of half the businesspeople in the county. Nobody has a tighter alibi than I do, except for the other folks at that meeting. Speaking of Tuesday morning Rotary Club…where were you?”

“I’m just not so sure about that alibi, Wheeler. How long does it take to subdue a young woman? A pregnant, scared young woman? We don’t know when Lex was killed, so maybe you had time to…hurt my Glennie…before you bellied up to the podium and gave that same stupid speech you give everywhere you go. What time does Rotary start, Wheeler?”

“You know that. Eight o’clock.”

“Dunkirk Manor’s five minutes from the restaurant that has served the Rotary Club the same bad breakfast for thirty years. Longer than Glennie has been alive. I think you had time to snatch her. Maybe she was in your trunk while you were eating your powdered scrambled eggs.”

Faye heard footfalls. She imagined Smithson taking a step toward Wheeler, and Wheeler taking a step back, but she didn’t really know what was happening. She just knew that they were getting closer to the edge of the bank. If they got too close, there was no way they could miss seeing her and Betsy. Setting her feet down gently and slowly, the way Joe had shown her, she began making her way to the spot where the retention basin connected to the creek. Betsy nodded in understanding and followed.

Crouched down with her fingers almost dragging the ground, Faye’s motion was more like crawling than walking. Her knees were in agony, but she used those low-hanging hands to clear brittle sticks and dry leaves from their path. If their feet fell only on pine needles, no one could possibly hear them. Well, Joe could, but he wasn’t here yet.

Joe. He was on his way, and he would be walking into the worst kind of situation. Two angry men, one of them scared and one of them with a gun. She paused and texted the shortest message that would get her point across.

Then she resumed crawl-walking, an activity that no pregnant body should ever be asked to accomplish.

***

Angry words spilled down into the retention basin where Betsy and Faye were trapped. The two women stood at the bottleneck where the basin overflowed into the creek, and the word “overflow” spelled bad news for Faye. The basin was designed to behave like the bathroom sink in the house where Faye grew up.

There had been a little hole in that sink, a couple of inches from the top. If little Faye wanted to float her toy boat in the sink, she could stop the drain and fill it up. But if she filled it too full, the water would flow into the hole. Try as she might—and scientific little Faye had tried hard, resulting in wet floors, high water bills, and spankings—she couldn’t fill the sink to the brim and she certainly couldn’t make it overflow.

This basin had been designed to hold most of the stormwater that flowed off this large piece of property, which was a lot of water. During an ordinary thunderstorm, the water level would rise, then it would go down later, as the water soaked in and evaporated. But during some major event like a hurricane, it was possible that the basin would fill up, run over, and flood all the pretty houses that hadn’t been built yet. So the stormwater engineer had designed this thing so that excess water would flow down the creek.

It was too bad for Faye that this engineer had decided the water needed to be up to her waist before it overflowed. Because this meant that she had to haul herself up to an earthen ledge that struck her at waist-level. She had to do this silently, so as not to attract the attention of the armed man above her. And she had to do it quickly, because the angry voices were getting closer.

She looked at Betsy, nodded, then placed both hands on the squishy ledge and pushed hard. All this accomplished was to lift her feet off the ground, where they flailed, trying and failing to gain a toehold. Digging in with her knees to try to lift herself up to creek-level accomplished just as little.

Fortunately, Betsy had been pregnant—four times, if Faye remembered the conversation correctly. Faye suddenly felt the older woman’s shoulders beneath her feet. Betsy had squatted beneath her and was slowly standing, using the strength of her own legs to lift Faye to where she needed to be.

Faye felt her swollen belly clear the top of the bank and shoved herself forward face-first into the creek, holding her left arm high enough to keep the phone clear of the water. Reaching back to help, she only needed to give Betsy’s arm a gentle yank before they were both lying in the mud, wondering how hidden they really were. Faye was ever-so-grateful for her preferred work garb, olive-drab Army surplus cargo pants and a matching t-shirt. Betsy was behind her, but Faye couldn’t remember seeing her in a bright color. Maybe she was wearing dirty jeans and a brown t-shirt. That would be fairly unobtrusive.

Without looking back to see, Faye started moving down the creek toward the river. It couldn’t be far. Well, she didn’t think it could be far, but she’d been tooling around this property in a car. Now she was crawling on elbows and knees through water that was more than a few inches deep, with her cell phone clutched between her teeth to keep it dry…dry-ish. And she had no idea whether their butts were sticking up so high that they could be seen over the creek’s shallow bank. She figured it was best to just stay low and get the hell out of there. Betsy seemed to agree. The arguing men had grown louder, if possible, but nothing in their tone had changed to suggest that Betsy and Faye had been seen.

When the gunshot came, it took every ounce of Faye’s will to keep from throwing herself face-first into the water, drowning the cell phone that was her lifeline to Joe.

The noise echoed through the empty woods. Faye could almost smell burnt gunpowder.

But then two angry voices burst out again, and one of them said, “Have you lost your mind? You could have shot me. You could have
killed
me.”

So she knew that the bullet hadn’t found its mark. She also knew that the two men were as completely distracted as they could possibly be, which gave her and Betsy a fighting chance to get away. And she also knew that Joe couldn’t be far away by now. Unfortunately, she knew with complete certainty that the sound of that gunshot had deprived Joe of the ability to wait. He would be here any minute, and Alan Smithson might aim better this time.

She took the risk of stopping a moment and she also took the risk that her damp fingers would render her electronic lifeline useless.

This was sort of a lie. She
was
near the gun, but she was safe and if Joe ran toward the sound of that gunshot, he wouldn’t be.

She resumed crawling on elbows and knees. Florida is not a rocky place. As a person who spent her days digging in the dirt, Faye knew that better than anybody. Nevertheless, there were rocks in this creekbed, and pine cones and tree roots and prickly sweetgum balls. Her pants protected her legs a little, but her forearms were bruised and she was pretty sure that their skin was being peeled off a piece at a time. Her sodden shirt, riding up beneath her armpits, wasn’t doing the best job of protecting her belly, either.

Nevertheless, she kept crawling, because Joe’s ability to stand still when he thought she was in danger was limited indeed.

***

Joe had the eyes of a raptor and the ears of a bat. When the gunshot sounded, he was not fooled by the echo. The sound hit each of his ears a fraction of a millisecond apart, so he knew exactly which direction to look for the shooter. And despite Faye’s instructions to wait, he intended to locate that gun.

When he got there, maybe he’d do what she’d told him to do. Maybe he’d wait. Or maybe he’d go for the shooter’s throat. But surely Faye knew that he would not leave her alone and in danger.

Never.

He pulled off the road and hid the car in a copse of bushes, then he set off walking through a lightly wooded piece of ground marked for development by surveyor’s flags and orange paint. His moccasins didn’t make a sound on the pine needles that littered the ground. He could see two men arguing in the distance. One of them was waving a handgun at the other one.