The Heat Islands: A Doc Ford Novel (29 page)

He had seen that void before in Ford's eyes, and it scared him; frightened him as much as anything he had experienced since that night in the bathroom with his mother, the night he'd learned how to take control of life. His life, any life, all life.

Sutter wanted to work this situation real easy, skate with the guy and wait for an opening. The way Ford popped the clip out of the Taurus and threw the whole works into the bushes, it was like he knew what he was doing; a guy with a plan. But what? Probably pissed about the bitch, the way she was whining in there, and Sutter didn't want to make any stupid moves. But at least the guy didn't have that damn gun anymore. So he must have a knife or something: who the hell knew. Sutter said to Ford, "Man, I thought she wanted me to come on to her. I really did—"

Ford's voice: "That mouth of yours—I'm surprised you've made it this far."

"What the hell does that mean? You know how women are."

"That tongue just keeps digging."

Sutter turned his head a little to see, "You're going to call the police, right?"

Ford was pulling him, making him stand up.

Sutter tried again. "The police ... right? You're going to call."

Nothing.

Sutter was thinking:
Just run for it, that's maybe what
I
should do.
He said, "If you don't call the cops, I will. I haven't done anything wrong. I got my side of the story." Ford had his fingers fixed some way on his wrist so that, with just a tiny push, a burning pain shot up Sutter's arm, straight to his brain.

"Ouch!"

"I'm not interested in your side of the story." Talking in a monotone; the way the guy said it was like cold water on the spine.

Shit, this guy's gonna kill me!

Sutter could feel the tears welling in his eyes. "You don't understand—I got problems."

Ford pushed him roughly through the open door into the house, and there stood the blond bitch, holding a lighted candle in one hand, holding her T-shirt up with the other. Face was swollen, bleeding, too. Seeing her, Ford said. "You've got problems all right."

To the woman. Ford said, "Put the candle by the phone, then get in your car and drive somewhere and get some medical attention. To my place, and get Tomlinson. That would be better. If you're okay to drive—"

"I'm okay, but I'm staying with you," she said.

Ford said, "The police call will go over the radio. Journalists keep scanners. They'll be out here, and you don't want them to see you now, do you?"

The blond said, "I don't care."

Sutter was thinking,
If I could get my hands on you one more time
,
but she was keeping distance between them, like he was a mean dog or something, giving him that buggy look.

Bitch.

Sutter said, "Tell this guy, lady, you invited me over here. Tell him the truth and. if he lets me go, I won't press the what-you-call-it ... charges."

"Goddamn you—"

Ford was taking the phone off the wall, holding it between his shoulder and his car, pressing buttons. "Don't pay any attention to him. Go get in your car." Then, as the girl left, he said into the phone, "My name's Ford, and I have a guy in custody who just tried to murder a friend of mine. That's right, I have him—"

Sutter waited as Ford talked, thinking.
Just you and me alone. That's go-o-o-o-d!

Ford hung up the phone as they heard the Vette start, rumbling down the drive, backing out.

Ford swung Sutter around, looking into his face. "Outside, Karl."

Sutter said, "Sure, we'll wait on the cops and see who they believe," and thinking, I
get outside again. I run for it....

But outside, he couldn't run, the way Ford had his arm leveraged up behind his back, and pushing him, too.

"Hey, that hurts, damn you! You don't even understand the kind of trouble you're going to be in."

"I do understand, Karl. That's your biggest problem."

Sutter could see where he was being steered: toward the boat dock at the water's edge. "What the hell...? I'm not getting in a boat with you, goddamn it! When the cops get here—"

"The cops aren't coming, Karl."

"Bullshit, I heard you call them. And when they get here—"

Ford was pushing him along now, rougher. "You saw me pick up the phone and dial—"

"Talking to the cops, yeah. Telling them a bunch of shit."

"You heard me talk and made a natural assumption."

A chill moved through Sutter as he realized.

Ford said, "The assumption was that I really had dialed the police."

Feeling real trembly, real scared, Sutter said, "You faked it. That's what you're saying."

Ford said, "So we could spend a little time alone, get to know each other better."

Oh. shit.

"Aw ... Jeezuz, just don't hurt me. I mean it. I can't take that stuff." Sutter began to snuffle and wobble, but he was thinking.
He left my pistol back there in the yard, dumb shit went off and left it. Moment he lets go of my wrist,
I
pull out my case knife and hand him his head....

"You're not being fair!" Sutter was crying aloud by the time they pushed their way through the mangroves to the water's edge—but he had the knife out and open seconds after Ford shoved him away, a Kevlar-handled Gerber. He was palming the knife, a knife as functional as a razor, waiting for Ford to step just a little closer.
Then you wonder why your windpipe is making that funny noise.

Ford said, "Get in the boat."

"No! You can't make me!"

"I'm going to leave you out on a mangrove island. Let the mosquitoes have a chance to drain you before the cops pick you up. Or maybe you try to swim for it and drown. My little present. Believe me. I'd like to do more."

The guy was nearly close enough, and Sutter turned his body slightly, so he could take a clear swing. "You should have contacted the authorities about me! You didn't even give me a chance!" Taking a short step at him.

Then Ford saw the hand coming; didn't even realize there was a knife in the hand until he hammered the arm up behind Sutter's back—which is when he felt something land atop his foot.

"I wouldn'ta really stabbed you. I just want you to leave me alone!"

Pushing Sutter toward the water. Ford said. "Change of plans. Karl—"

"I'm not responsible! I need a psychiatrist!"

Ford said, "No. Karl ... you need gills." and ran him down into the fast, black water, where Karl Sutter had, after long moments of screaming panic, a fleeting sensation of peace as he banked down, down beneath a weight that would not relent. As his brain clouded, he thought:
This is the way it must feel to fly....

Shortly after Ford returned to the house and notified police that Karl Sutter had escaped, a man who had fished through the storm on Blind Pass Bridge got his first bite of the night.

The man's name was Denzler, a retired New Jersey patrolman who loved to fish better than anything on earth. But this night had tried even his patience. It wasn't the weather—hell, up on the Jersey shore, he didn't even bother leaving the house unless it was storming. He loved fishing in storms because that's when the stripers hit best.

But down here in Florida—crap! Two hours of sitting beneath a cheap poncho in lightning and rain, using the best frozen squid he could find for bait, and not the first damn strike.

If so many other New Jersey cops didn't live down here. I wouldn't
waste my time on this grease pit. The Ohioans and the New Yorkers could have it.

Denzler was using a Shimano TLD 20 reel with a graphite stand-up rod, all the latest gear, and heavy mono line, because all the magazines said those lunker bridge snook could kick a guy's ass if he didn't. He sat beneath the poncho, watching the reel miserably, but then the reel started to click.

Hey!

Gently, he took the rod in his hands. The line began to fly. He shrugged off the poncho and stood. He was fishing free spool, and he watched with delight as the line on the reel continued to evaporate away.

Run, you bastard. Swallow it.

Denzler waited until he could wait no longer, then he locked the reel and began to ram the hook home with a series of frenzied pelvic thrusts, just like those bass fishermen on television did it.

Cross his eyes!

The fish was taking line. Not fast, but taking it steadily as a steam engine, pulling away at the speed of the falling tide. Denzler followed the trajectory of the fish, moving along the lip of bridge.

This thing's like a damn whale.

A car approached, and Denzler waved it down. He might need help, he told himself. Even if he didn't, he wanted someone to back his story if the fish broke off.

The driver rolled down the window, and Denzler yelled, "I got the mother of all fish here! You mind sticking around?"

The driver yelled back, "Hell no. I'd pay money to watch."

By the time Denzler had battled the fish for half an hour, a dozen cars were parked side by side on the beach, their lights on. watching. Some of the drivers had formed a pool, betting whether it was a sting ray or a tarpon, and how long it would take to be landed. They called support to Denzler through their cracked windows—complete strangers who had already gotten to know each other by name.

Denzler was thinking to himself.
This is the way I want to die: fighting a hawg, in the rain, before an audience of strangers. Except, it would be nice if some of them wore bikinis,
which is when he got his first look at the fish: a violent spray of water thrown by a gigantic yellow fin.

"Holy Christ," someone yelled, "it's a tuna!"

Denzler was shaking. He'd never caught a giant tuna before. Didn't even know they had giant tuna here. His heart was pounding so hard that he thought it would burst, his knees were weak, and his hands were cramping, but he continued to work the rod: lift ... lower ... ree-e-e-el; lift ... lower ... ree-e-e-el.

As the fish moved toward him. Denzler moved toward the fish, crossing the shallow bar that had been formed by the currents and the big gray breakers that crashed ashore there. Out of breath, he yelled over his shoulder to the spectators, "Somebody pull their car around so the lights hit the water. Working a fish this big in the dark is dangerous!"

He was up to his knees in surf, and almost had the thing landed, when the car lights finally found the triangulation point of line and water. It was only a few yards away now, that gigantic yellow form.

Denzler gave a massive lift, pulling the creature momentarily into view ... then stopped reeling, dazed—as he watched a human head and body, hooked just beneath the chin, spin and sink beneath the surface again, catching the current once more.

He felt sickened and weak, but mostly he felt a clammy sense of disappointment.

Denzler thought:
There's no way in hell they're gonna ever let me weigh this big bastard....

By the beginning of the last week of August, Ford knew things wouldn't work out as he'd planned....

He was in his piling house, on the phone, hearing about one of those disappointments now. Listening to Henry S. Melinski talk about the Mayakkatee River Development project. His investigative reporter friend, Henry Melinski.

Years ago. a corrupt politician had remarked. "In the whole great state of Florida, my family and me only got one thing to fear—now that Ted Bundy's dead and malaria's been cured."

Meaning Melinski.

Melinski had the reputation and he had the journalistic clout, which is why Ford was so surprised the news wasn't more encouraging.

Melinski was asking him, "Do you know why they used so much marble to build the new state capitol at Tallahassee? Because marble doesn't absorb shit, that's why."

Laughing, Ford said, "That's a good one. Henry. I like that."

"The only reason you like it is because you think I'm joking—I'm not. Same with the county courthouses. Why does code require they use metal screens in the urinals? Because if they didn't, this state would lose half its county

commissioners the first week. They'd just drain away. Not that that would be bad."

Ford said, "I just thank God journalism hasn't jaded you, Henry."

Standing in the living room with the phone in his hand. Ford could look through the open door to his lab and see the microscope with a fresh slide prepared and lighted, and the postcard he'd just received lying on the dissecting table.

The card was from Jeth, and the first line read:
I started stuttering again. The girl at the desk must of thought I said São Paulo instead of Palo Alto because, goddamn it, instead of California, here I am in Brazil
—

Melinski said, "Go ahead, make your wisecracks. I'm trying to educate you here. Florida attracts the best people in the world, and it attracts the worst people in the world. The best people already have it made, so they go to the beach. And the worst people—"

"The worst people go into politics?" Ford offered. "Exactly. Government work. About seventy percent of the time, that's actually true. Which brings us to the clever senator, Bob Griffin."

Ford was listening.

Melinski said. "When you brought me the research your friends did. I laid it all out and thought. Beautiful. No shit, a masterpiece of investigative journalism. I mean it. I'd like to meet those people, I really would."

Ford said, "They'll be in Boston a while. But when they get back. I'll arrange it."

Melinski said, "It was so good, I figured I wouldn't have to lift a finger. Just write the damn thing out. I woulda shared the byline with them, which is something I don't often do."

"So what happened?"

"What happened is, I started to look down the road a little. I started thinking. What happens if I try to nail Griffin on this? Even though it's a beautiful bunch of circumstantial evidence, the guy is going to walk. You know why? Because he didn't break a single damn law. You hear what I'm telling you? The whole business stinks like hell, but what he did is absolutely legal."

"The voters ought to know," Ford said.

"Which is the only reason I considered it in the first place. Okay, so I write the story and inform the voters. What's the first thing happens? First thing that happens is, the state immediately stops its efforts to buy the twelve hundred acres on the Mayakkatee River. Bureaucrats despise controversy. Hate it. They'd drop that parcel off the CARL list like a hot potato. You want that to happen?" Ford said, "Nope. I truly don't."

Melinski said. "Truth is, they're probably going to drop it anyway. It's too closely associated with Marvin Rios, and Rios is too closely associated with Colin Kane." Colin Kane meaning Karl Sutter.

"You know authorities are now estimating that Kane, coast to coast, raped and murdered more than thirty women? Law-enforcement people are showing up from all over the country, trying to close the books on rape victims. They're tying together all the MO stuff: garbage bags, the cigarette in the mouth, and a couple of other nasty things you probably don't want to hear about."

Ford said, "That's right. I don't want to hear about it." Melinski said. "You know what gets me? I don't doubt for a second that Colin Kane drowned accidentally in Blind Pass. The bastard was psycho; probably thought he could walk on water. But why in the hell is the DA so quick to agree that Kane also killed Rios? Hell, circumstantial evidence was all they had—and not good evidence at that! Maybe Griffin killed Rios—you ever think about that?"

Ford, who was the only person in Florida who actually knew who killed Marvin Rios, said, "Never did."

"What I'm trying to tell you," Melinski said, "is that an investigative reporter's got to pick his projects carefully.

You know what I got before me right now? We got a woman county commissioner who's screwing a local lobbyist. She appoints the lobbyist and his brother to an important county post—and insists there's no conflict of interest. So then one of the department heads commits suicide, and leaves a note saying she's not going to let this county commissioner strong-arm her anymore—see what I mean? This shit just goes on and on and on. I mean shameless, white-trash crap. The morally bankrupt and the terminally stupid have only one occupational hope in this state—government office."

Because Ford didn't agree with Melinski, his attention started to wander. He felt bad about the Mayakkatee River property, but he had done what he could and there was nothing more that he could do. He had borrowed a little portable television from Rhonda and JoAnn, the women on the Chris-Craft, and now he turned it on. The U.S. Open was under way, and Walda was in the quarter finals—though she wouldn't play until that night. Still earlier that morning, one of the networks had played an interview with Dewey—a puff piece on why she was taking a sabbatical from the sport to work full time as Walda's trainer.

Dewey had handled herself well on camera. She was articulate and funny, and she had tugged on her ear to say a private hello, just as she had promised him. She looked happy—and. more than anything else, that's what Ford wanted for her. Sometimes, she had told him, they could hold each other.

Walda had told him the same thing....

But the interview wasn't playing now, so Ford switched the set off Melinski was saying on the phone, "The point is this, it's like they describe it in war: For an investigative reporter, Florida is a target-rich environment."

Through the screened window. Ford could see a woman coming up the walkway. The public defender, Elizabeth Harper, with hips swinging and a spring in her step.

"Yoo hoo—Dr. Ford?"

Into the phone. Ford said quick good-byes to Melinski, then headed for his microscope in the lab. As he crossed the walkway, he called, "Come on in, Liz. Back part of the house."

Early the previous morning. Ford had accompanied a friend forty-three miles offshore, and there he had done a short drag with a stramin plankton net. There were tarpon in the area; Ford saw them rolling.

In that drag, he had caught a tarpon; the tiny, microscopic tarpon larvae that he had tried but failed to find in the hot shallows of the bay. Not that he was going to give up. He wasn't. Not yet—because he wasn't convinced that tarpon spawned only offshore.

Ford squinted into the microscope, and a draconic creature loomed up at him: a translucent creature with huge eyes, a reptilian tail, and massive curved teeth, like something out of a nightmare.

Marvin Rios had had such a nightmare; had experienced this creature for what it really was: unyielding, instinctive, and elemental. Looking through the lens, Ford had the brief mental image of Rios, the night of the storm, lying terrified beneath a tarpon while that fish pounded him to death, trying to find its way back into the water....

"So here you are!" Liz Harper, not looking nearly so reserved in pink T-shirt and jogging shorts, stood at the door with a smile on her pale, pretty face. "I'm ready for my first lesson in safe boating. Or is it sunbathing? How about you?"

Ford took the slide off the microscope and put it carefully into the stainless-steel sink beside his dissecting table. He grinned at her, thinking,
I like the way this woman looks.

Turning on the water, he said, "Just as soon as I get rid of this evidence...