Ten Thousand Islands (16 page)

What she was holding looked like a chunk of skull, but she told me it was actually something she called a
Zemi;
a little god all the way from the Bahamas. Then she added, “You know what these bastards may have found here? They may have stumbled onto the evil guy himself. I think they’ve dug up Tocayo.”

I wasn’t amused now.

She didn’t say anything for awhile, but kept digging through the mud with her fingers. “That’s what makes me so damn mad. If there’s a connection between the Caribs and the Calusa, it’s not going to be something obvious. There’s not going to be a sign that reads, ‘Look here!’ It’s going to be little bits and pieces tied together. Exactly the kind of subtle stuff these jerks stomp on and destroy. They’re a type, they really are. It’s like they got a sneaky gene.”

It took me a moment before I realized she was back on the subject of looters again.

“They’ve got contempt for everybody and everything but themselves. Bastards like that are ruining our chances of connecting the travel routes. Out of pure selfishness, too.” She took up the potsherd again and studied it for a long moment, stuffed it into her pocket. “Goddamn them.
Goddamn
them all to hell.” She looked at me, looked at the excavating equipment. “You know what I’m going to do?”

Some of the color had drained from her face. She was that angry.

I said, “Nope. I know what you should do. Get on that cell phone of yours, call your colleagues at the museum
and tell them you’ve got an emergency situation, get down here. Have them notify the sheriff’s department, maybe send a fax. Put it on a formal basis to make certain they light a fire under the right people.”

She had an odd expression. It reminded me of a petulant child, the way her lips were pursed, but it was more than that. There was a quality of cold fury. “Oh, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You can bet on that, Marion. But first, I’m going to show them what it’s like to be violated. That pile of bones, it used to be a person. A person who lived and breathed, not something to be treated like garbage.”

An adult male with children who’d been buried beneath water—I didn’t remind her of the implications of that.

I said, “Exactly why we need to get the law involved. Detective Parrish, he’d be the guy. The people who did this are the same ones who used the backhoe on Dorothy. Count on it.”

She said, “There you go. All the more reason to give them a taste of their own medicine.”

I watched her step carefully over the pile of bones. Watched her take one of the shovels and walk to the front of the backhoe. Then watched her swing hard from the heels and bash out a front headlight. She got a new grip on the shovel, swung just as hard and broke the second one, too.

The vacuum explosion of glass spooked birds in the high tree canopy. Caused them to shriek and chatter as they took flight.

She took a step back, as if savoring her handiwork. “What do you think?”

“I think that was bad judgment. I think it was a very unfortunate thing to do.”

“Really.”

“Yeah. There’s a chance you just tipped them off. They’ll shut down the operation, which means the cops won’t be able to catch them in the act.”

“I didn’t think about that. But it’s too late now, that’s what you’re saying?”

“I think they’ll notice a couple of smashed headlights.”

“In that case, I might as well keep going. As long as I shut the assholes down, why not do it right?” Without waiting for a reply, she walked to the generator and started hammering at it with the shovel. It took her awhile, but the cowling finally flew into pieces.

By now she was breathing heavily; sweating, too, but she had a nice little smile on her face. “All through high school, I played fast pitch softball. Number three hitter. Can you tell?”

“Oh, it shows, it shows. Pretty nice stroke, yeah. I still think you’re making a big mistake.”

“Know something, Marion? You actually seem almost human when you smile.”

I’d never met a woman I’d so immediately disliked, but who, in the space of a few hours, had completely transformed my opinion. I liked her quirky sense of humor and her fierceness. Tomlinson had once described a woman I loved as an “extreme person.” Nora reminded me of that. Style and lots of spirit.

“Something about kooks, you people make me smile.”

“Weirdo. You keep getting it wrong. I said weirdo.” She dropped the shovel and backed away from what was left of the generator. “So tell me something. Are you going
to just stand there like a big goof or are you going to help me tear that trough thing apart?”

“Flume. That’s what it’s called.”

“See? The bookish type. You know what it’s called, but do you have the balls to help?”

Someone was coming….

We’d been at the dig site for half an hour or so when I heard the distant garble of voices and rhythmic snap of branch that told me people were approaching; walking and talking loudly, which suggested that they didn’t know we were on the island. They seemed confident they were alone; were used to having the place all to themselves.

No telling why they hadn’t heard the crash of metal and wood as we destroyed their equipment. Probably because they were making so much noise themselves.

Coming at us from the west, the cove closest to Marco, which is why they hadn’t seen my boat. They seemed to be traveling along what may have been a path, because they were moving a lot faster than Nora and I’d been able to navigate the island. Probably the path created to transport the equipment. Moving so fast they were almost on us before we had time to react.

When I heard them, I cupped my fingers around Nora’s bony arm, pulled her close to me and said, “We’ve got company. Probably the looters.”

She’d heard them in the same instant. Her amber eyes had widened and become rounder, the characteristic reaction of fear as her brain tried to gather sensory data. It is a primitive response, signaled from deep beneath the cerebral cortex, an atavistic reaction. The brain seeks a quick answer so that it may make an ancient, ancient decision: Should we fight? Should we take flight?

Our revulsion for snakes is stored in the same dark little crevice. Right there next to our panicked reaction to lightning and our dread of murky water.

I whispered. “Stand your ground. Stay behind me.”

She said, “You sure? Boy, are they gonna be pissed off!”

“Oh, I think that’s an understatement. Furious is what they’ll be.”

“Then let’s get the hell
out
of here.”

“You want someone chasing you through this jungle? That’s what’ll happen. They take one look at this mess, they’ll be hunting us. Panic’s contagious. And what if they have a gun?”

The voices were closer now. Adult voices; at least two males.

Nora laced her arm under mine and pulled herself close. “Damn it, Ford, I don’t think this is smart! But I’ll tell you one thing”—she released my arm, began to search around in the brush, then stood, finally, holding a chunk of buttonwood—“I’m not going to let them give me any crap. Not the bastards who did this.”

I released a long, deep bream; told myself to stay calm, don’t react to her anger, because I’d have enough to deal with in a minute or two.

What I would have preferred to do was hide in the brush; do some first-hand surveillance. Watch them to make certain they were the ones who’d been digging at this site. Listen while they went about their work; maybe discover what they’d found, if anything, what they hoped to find. Also, maybe find out what cemeteries they’d tried to rob lately.

Let them incriminate themselves while we stayed back in the shadows, taking it all in.

I looked at the mess that, minutes before, had been an efficient, high-tech dig site. The flume and the generator were in pieces. No way the pump would still work with all the sand Nora had jammed into its fuel tank. Same with the backhoe. Lots and lots of expensive damage, with air still hissing out of industrial tires, telling anyone with an ounce of sense that the person who’d slit those tires was still on the island, very close by.

I said, “At least you didn’t set their machinery on fire.”

Nora was holding the club like a bat, looking in the direction of the approaching voices. “Uh-huh, that’s the one bad thing about not bringing cigarettes. You never have a lighter when you need one.”

W
hen the punk rockers came crashing down the path into the clearing, I stood facing them, wearing a big smile. I said in a loud, cheery, voice, “Well, well. Look who just stepped into our trap. You boys have some explaining to do!” Acting very friendly but vexed, like a school principal unhappy with their behavior.

I wasn’t certain it was the punkers at first. There were two males, no doubt about that, but they wore mosquito head nets and long sleeves. It gave them an entirely different look: forty-year-old beekeepers or butterfly collectors on expedition. They could have been that.

But when they stopped, surprised to find us standing there, it allowed me a moment to observe the knobby hands of the leader; it was the tall guy with the dragon tattoo. Yep, and the distinctive body width of his slouching partner suggested he was the kid with the snake crawling up his arm.

When categorizing strangers, the brain differentiates
by that which is most obvious: Female/male, black/white, Dragon/ Snake.

The chubby girls weren’t with them?

Yes … but only one. She came stumbling down through the brush, fanning at the haze of mosquitoes around her head net and making a woo-woo-woo wailing sound that I initially thought was sobbing, but translated after a few seconds of listening: “You two … hey, you two! Bastards went off and left me—!” But then she saw me and said very quickly, “Oh, shit!” and froze as if she was playing that old kid’s game, statue.

Her abrupt silence accentuated the hushed stares of the two men who’d stopped a few yards from me. We stood there listening to the birds and insect whine and steady
thud-a-thud-a-thud
of construction over on Marco.

Dragon was closest; Snake a follower’s pace or two behind. The girl now pulling in closer, using Snake as a shield. Dragon was the spokesman as well.

“What’d you just say mister? I must’a not heard you right.”

I repeated myself, remaining cheerful but adding a condescending note, letting them know who was in charge.

Dragon had an unexpectedly deep voice, the hint of a New Jersey accent, and his words were accompanied by a mysterious metallic clicking noise. It took me a moment to realize that, along with the horseshoe in his lip, he had something skewered through his tongue. A silver bead, it appeared to be. It kept hitting his teeth, which created the clicking. Tough to see through the netting.

“Trap? I got no idea what you’re talking about, man. We don’t know nothing ’bout no trap. This machinery here, that what you mean? We never seen this stuff before—”
He stopped, saw the wreckage for the first time and it really hit a nerve. An expression of shock crossed his face, and his chest started heaving.

“Holy shit, the whole fucking place is wrecked, man!”

I stood smiling, saying nothing.

“Jesus Christ! Who did this? Did you people do this?”

I said, “Do
what?
” Still cheery, but virtuous, too.

“Who the hell … hey, do you know how much that equipment’s worth, mister? Fucking backhoe alone is like fifty, sixty grand. Fucking pump, the generator—goddamn it, I bought that myself—” He caught himself just in time, and stood there, visibly trying to regain control.

I said mildly, “I thought you’d never seen the equipment before.”

Snake was peeking out to see; so was the girl. “Jesus Christ, Tony, your dad’s gonna shit when he sees what happened to his gear.”

“Shut the fuck up, Derrick!”

So the spokesman, Tony, was Dragon. Derrick was Snake.

Very gradually, I had been moving toward them, trying to force eye contact. In return, I’d been receiving all the comforting signs of submission that are similar in primates and pack animals. Tony would not return my glare. He kept his head down when listening; looked beyond me and to the side when speaking. For each step I moved toward him, he scooched back a foot or two.

I didn’t have a very clear plan of what I wanted to do, but I knew if I could bully their leader, the followers wouldn’t be a problem. They certainly recognized me from the funeral. Already, they’d identified me as someone in authority. I couldn’t say I was a cop. Lie about being a cop and, no matter what, you’re going to court
along with the bad guys. But if I could reinforce the impression of unquestionable authority, I might be able to leverage them into giving me information. If I got real lucky, I could maybe con them into following me to Marco for a meeting with Detective Parrish.

Dr. Ford, did you tell the accused that you were an officer of the law?

Absolutely not
.

This deposition is being taken under oath
.

I’m aware of that. I have no idea why those three people followed my orders. They must’a jumped to the wrong conclusion.

That was the best I could hope for. It was a stretch, but what other options did I have?

I said to Tony, “Know what I think you boys ought to do? First thing is, take off those nets. Makes you look like someone tied a bag over your head. Like the old joke about being so ugly?” I watched them slouch in sullen protest before I barked, “Get ’em off NOW!”

They jumped a little; ripped the nets off and tossed them on the ground as if they were throwing down weapons.

Derrick’s hair was longish, dyed an iridescent maroon. Tony had the spiked purple hair; the kid Tomlinson had said would chew through a man’s chest to get to his heart. Both of them had lots and lots of body piercings, ears, eyebrows, lips. Tony had a nose ring, too, brass with a turquoise setting.

Had he been wearing the nose ring at the funeral? No. It was the sort of thing impossible not to notice. Maybe he removed it for formal occasions. Such a thoughtful kid.

“Girls, too. Lose the head net, sweetie. We want a good look at your face before we start asking questions, then
haul your butts into jail. Grave robbing. A charge like that, you’re gonna spend a year or so behind bars—unless you cooperate.”