Swamp Bones (5 page)

Jordan hesitated, then dropped back into his chair. With a sullen shake of his head, he thrust both feet out under the battered table before him, his bulk making it appear miniature.

I slipped in and pressed my back to the wall beside the door.

Jordan glanced at me, then refocused on Yellen. “This is shit, man. Kiley and me are buds. You know that.”

Unconsciously, I noted that Jordan used the present tense.

Lunging forward at the waist, Jordan pulled his cellphone from his pocket, jabbed a few buttons, then placed the device on the tabletop so Yellen could see an image on the screen.

Yellen viewed the picture, then handed the phone to me.

On the left was a pretty blonde, straight teeth, turquoise eyes, a smattering of freckles across a tanned nose. No makeup. The all-American girl straight out of a J. Crew catalogue.

The girl held the neck of a snake easily three times her body length, firmly, behind the jaw. Beside her, Jordan held the tail. Both were beaming. The girl looked Lilliputian compared to her companion and the reptile between them.

“So?” Yellen was unimpressed.

“That was our winning python from last year’s contest. We snagged the prizes for both the longest and the most caught.” His voice cracked. Desperate, he looked to me for understanding. “Kiley’s like my sister.” His eyes bounced back to Yellen. “We’re the best python wranglers and we make the best team.”

“That why she dumped you to go solo this year?”

Jordan’s face flamed. Clearly Yellen had poked a raw wound. “She didn’t dump me, dickhead.”

“How about the fact she was kicking your ass in the contest?”

“I’m catching up. Besides, I’m not in it for the money. Neither is she.”

“Why the split then?”

“I dunno. She was acting all weird before the contest. Secretive. Always going out alone.”

“And that pissed you off.”

Jordan spread his big hands on the tabletop. Stared at them, as if puzzled by their uselessness indoors.

“When’s the last time you saw her?” Yellen pressed.

“At the launch of the hunt,” Jordan answered without looking up. “She vanished into the glades the second the gun went off.”

A full minute of silence crammed the small room. Yellen let it continue, hoping Jordan would feel compelled to fill it. He didn’t.

“Tell me about finding the body.” Yellen used the interviewer’s trick of quick-changing topics.

“Look. It’s not me you should be grilling.” Agitated, Jordan drew back his feet and shifted his weight in the chair. It creaked ominously.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know as well as I do.”

“Remind me.”

“The damn poachers. Kiley’s obsessed with poaching. Won’t ever let it go.” Jordan’s eyes rolled up to Yellen, then shifted to me. “She has secret cameras, tree blinds where she’ll sit for days watching. She keeps a journal—a weird little spiral-bound notebook shaped like a leaf. She writes all kinds of stuff in it. The idea of killing animals for commercial gain, her words, drives her nuts. She hunts pythons because it helps protect the ecosystem.”

“How nuts?” Yellen prodded.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Would she confront the poachers herself?”

“Maybe. She won’t rest until she sees every last one of ’em in jail. She’s succeeding, too. Getting ’em fined, charged.” Jordan jabbed a finger at Yellen. “Find the poachers and you’ll find who hurt Kiley.”

Yellen regarded Jordan a moment. Then, “I want your statement on paper.”

Back in the hall, Yellen asked, “You a size seven foot?”

“Close enough.” WTF?

“Wait here.”

He disappeared into a back room, then returned and tossed me a pair of rubber hip waders. Fetching lime green.

“Let’s go.”

We were headed west on Route 41, the Tamiami Trail. The sun was shooting long tangerine rays straight into my eyes. I squinted and guessed the time at 7:00
P
.
M
. Quick check of my phone said 5:49. Tracker I was not.

For some reason Yellen was feeling expansive. “The Miccosukee are an officially recognized Native American tribe, with a reservation split over three areas in Broward and Miami-Dade: Alligator Alley, Tamiami Trail, and Krome Avenue. We’re headed to Tamiami, the largest. Most tribal operations are handled there.”

I was about to ask a question, but Yellen kept talking.

“It’s mostly two hundred thousand acres of wetland under perpetual lease to the South Florida Water Management District’s Water Conservation Area 3A South. Legit tribal members have some rights to hunt and fish, catch frogs, farm, whatever.”

I waited to be sure he was done, then said, “I’ve heard of the Miccosukee. The tribe was a sponsor in all three of NASCAR’s national series—the Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World Truck. It was big news when they pulled out for budget cuts.”

At Yellen’s surprised look, I shrugged. “I live in Charlotte. The city’s ground zero for NASCAR.” I’d once worked the case of a body found in a barrel of asphalt at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. “So why are we going to Tamiami?”

“To nail the bastard who killed Kiley James.”

The rest of the drive passed in silence.

After forty-five minutes, we reached a long stretch of bald cypress log fence paralleling the south shoulder. What my daughter, Katy, used to call the pink had joined the ginger and peach now lighting the horizon.

The sunset lit a low canary yellow building with a palmetto thatch roof. A rustically lettered sign proclaimed W
ELCOME TO
M
ICCOSUKEE
I
NDIAN
V
ILLAGE
. A clutch of smaller chickee huts encircled the main building—raised structures with supporting posts, thatched roofs, and open sides.

I lowered my window. The air smelled of grass and algae and fish eggs in the wetlands. Of mud and petroleum. Of food cooking on a charcoal grill. My brain telegraphed images of fry
cakes and pupusas.

“Any chance of scoring some home cooking?” Sampling native cuisine counted as a sort of vacation experience.

Yellen’s tone was scathing. “What you’ll score here is a nine-dollar hot dog and a five-dollar Coke. Maybe some gen-you-ine Indian beading and a hyped-up alligator-wrestling demo. Village is strictly tourist.”

Yellen steered the cruiser through the gate and parked before a building whose sign identified it as the Miccosukee Restaurant. As though cued by a coach, my stomach did an Olympic-level growl. I looked a question at him.

“Knock yourself out. We ain’t punching a clock.”

I scampered in, emerged minutes later with fry bread and an apple. Couldn’t bring myself to eat the gator bits. Still. Any port in a storm. Swamp.

Across an expanse of grassless soil, Yellen was talking to a tall man with mahogany skin and black hair curling from under a raffia cowboy hat that had seen better days. There was a lot of arm flapping, then Yellen nodded and returned to the cruiser.

“Fry bread?” I offered as we climbed in.

No response. Suited me. It was my first real meal of the day.

“Didn’t show up at work.” Yellen’s comment sprang from a conversation we hadn’t had.

“Sorry?”

“Alligator wrangler. Cypress was scheduled. Didn’t come in.”

“Cypress?”

“Deuce Cypress, one of a zillion Miccosukee Cypresses. Including the last tribal leader.”

“Is Deuce’s nonappearance suspicious?”

“Not necessarily. The Miccosukee are generally a solid bunch. Got business sense. They own a casino at Krome Avenue, does good trade. Got ’em a new school, police force, clinic. Even a gym. Members get a cut of the profit, stay out of trouble. ’Cept maybe with the IRS or booze.”

“But?” I’d heard one in Yellen’s tone.

“But every community has its whack jobs. Miccosukee has the brothers Cypress. Rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ moonshinin’ rednecks, and proud of it.”

“And poachers.”

“That’s the word on the street.”

A canal ran along the right shoulder of the road. I watched it slide by the passenger-side window. Here and there gators were catching the last of the day’s sun on one muddy bank or the other. Everyone tanned in Miami.

A short while after leaving the village, we turned north across a crude wooden bridge. “Road” would be an exaggeration for the bumpy, muddy track that followed.

For a full ten minutes the cruiser’s tires jolted from one soggy rut to another. Dense vegetation brushed the side panels. It seemed the swamp was trying to swallow us whole.

“These guys really live off the grid,” I said.

“You got that right. No AC or phones. Just fishin’, gator huntin’, marijuana smugglin’, animal poachin’. The simple life.”

Yellen cut right onto a barely visible track that made the previous one look like a superhighway. Tree canopy obscured the sky, making it seem as though dusk had suddenly won out.

The track ended in a bare clearing fronting a weathered stilt house with an adjacent chickee hut. A mud-spattered pickup sat out front. Past the house I could see a bronze glint of water. Marsh, I was guessing.

The property was overflowing with junk. Rusted-out cars. A clothes dryer that hadn’t been manufactured in the last three decades. Aluminum lawn furniture. A stack of window air-conditioning units. Sawhorses. Cinder blocks. Plastic sacks filled with treasures I didn’t want to imagine.

When Yellen cut the engine, the stillness was almost total. Birdsong. The
tic-tic-tic
of the cooling car.

We waited a moment. No signs of human activity. No breeze.

“You hold back behind me,” Yellen cautioned, alighting.

I must have looked alarmed.

“They’re generally not violent, but they don’t take to strangers.”

Take to strangers? Yellen watched way too many westerns. I said nothing, just followed him.

We were walking toward the house when two shots rang out. I hit the dirt. Yellen didn’t. Just regarded me with amusement.

I stood and brushed soggy leaves and mud from my front.

“Redneck hello” was Yellen’s only comment.

More gunfire, followed by laughter.

“Deuce!” Yellen barked.

The laughter stopped.

“Get your ass out here.”

The screen door banged open and a dog came barreling out onto the porch. Brindle, snarling, the fur on its spine standing straight up. Pure junkyard.

My heart jumped to my throat, but this time I took my cue from Yellen. He held his ground. So did I.

A scruffy human emerged from around the side of the house. Sinewy, bearded, a Remington twelve-gauge gripped two-handed in front of his chest. Pure swamp.

For a moment we all looked at each other. I took in more detail. Bloodshot eyes. Inked forearms. Bulge of tobacco under the lower lip. Denim and camo that had never known laundry detergent. I guessed Deuce’s age around five years north of high school dropout.

The dog ran to Deuce, tongue dangling, eyes hard on us. Deuce shot it a butt-kick accompanied by a nonchalant “Get on, Rooster.” The dog yelped and slunk away. I didn’t try to hide my disgust.

“Lose the shotgun, Deuce.” Yellen spoke.

“Don’t have to. Standin’ my ground.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“Ernie!” Cypress shouted, eyes never leaving Yellen. “Sheriff’s here wanting to invite you to the prom!”

A younger version of Deuce appeared. Mirror image except for the addition of a stud in one ear and a faded Little Feat concert tee instead of camo on top.

“Where’s Buck?” Yellen made no effort to mask his impatience.

“Buck ain’t here,” Deuce said.

Yellen waited.

Deuce shrugged. “Ain’t my brother’s keeper.”

Ernie made an odd giggling sound and looked to Deuce for approval.

“Kiley James was found dead in the swamp.” Yellen didn’t mince words. “Murdered and
dismembered. And the trail leads right here.”

“What the hell?” Deuce looked like someone had slammed him in the chest. “White woman dies and you blame the Indian?”

“Save it,” Yellen said. “As I recall the little lady tuned Buck up with a bottle after he groped her at Alligator Ron’s last summer.”

“She’s a bitch.” Deuce’s eyes flashed angry and black. “She’s the one done the assaulting.”

“Self-defense ain’t assault, Deuce. That big brother of yours has a temper and a fondness for Jimmy B. Not a good mix. Bought him more than one night in my jail.”

“What’s your point?”

“Where is he?”

Deuce only glared.

“Word is Kiley was about to nail y’all for poaching.”

“We ain’t poachers.” This from Ernie, who was still smiling. Deuce shot him a look.

“We got rights to hunt and fish.” Ernie went on, barely audible, and now looking at his boots.

“Not on park land, you don’t.” Yellen was ignoring Ernie, talking only to Deuce. “Maybe Kiley caught you upping your bounty count with illegal kills.”

Deuce’s face crimped in scorn. “You talking ’bout the staties’ Python Challenge? We ain’t into that honky shit.”

“When’s the last time you saw Kiley James?”

Deuce shrugged. “Been a while, I reckon.”

Ernie’s eyes stayed glued to his footwear.

“Word is Kiley had pics that could put y’all behind bars.”

Deuce shrugged again. He was good at it. “Can’t have pics of what ain’t happened.”

“I’m thinking maybe Kiley came by pointin’ fingers. You made the problem disappear. Be pretty easy way out here in the swamp.”

“Screw you,” Deuce said. “There’s poaching goin’ down all right, but it ain’t Cypress.”

“You got a chain saw?” Yellen switched tacks.

“What?” Surprised.

“Do. You. Own. A. Chain. Saw.”

“Naw, man.”

“Who’s poaching then?” And again.

Yellen’s interview tactics weren’t rattling Deuce. “Maybe Kiley James. Ever think of that? Maybe it was her playing dirty tricks.”

“Lady sure as hell didn’t kill herself.”

Deuce seemed to roll that around in his mind. Which I was beginning to suspect was sharper than his appearance suggested. Finally, he spat, “You know the real victims?”

Knowing the question was rhetorical, Yellen didn’t respond.

“Pythons. And gators. Greedy pricks in Miami don’t give a rat’s ass where the skins come from. Long as they can make their fancy shoes and belts.”