Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons (22 page)

I looked over my shoulder to see if the other cars were close behind us, but Cupcake took up so much space that I couldn’t see out the back window. He smiled at me when I looked back. He really did have the sweetest smile I’d ever seen.

Outside Sarasota, Clark Road becomes State Road 72, a stark two-lane highway edged by pines and oaks dripping gray moss like old men’s beards. The highway runs due east to Arcadia, the only incorporated community in DeSoto County. Arcadia is a town of survivors. On Thanksgiving Day in 1905, it was destroyed by a fire that started in a livery stable. A century later, on Friday, August 13, 2004, the city was almost destroyed again by Hurricane Charley. Arcadia still depends primarily on agriculture for its economy, but it has reinvented itself as a tourist attraction for antiques lovers. People drive from miles around on Sundays just to eat a good country breakfast at one of their restaurants and shop in their antiques stores.

Along the highway, bridges span boggy swamps where giant alligators stretch themselves as if posing for tourist photos. Fields of cabbage palms harbor rattlesnakes. Orange groves and fields of ragweed are neighbors to fenced pastures where heat-tolerant Senepol cattle raise their smooth polled heads to look at passing cars. Turkey vultures circle fresh carcasses of small deer or wild pigs struck by speeding trucks. An occasional mailbox atop a post marks a dirt lane twisting to an old Florida world that will soon be extinct.

I drove with both hands on the wheel, careful around frequent twists in the road, imagining how terrifying it would have been for Angelina to hitchhike along this gator-edged highway. Large alligators are awesome animals. They consume anything that comes close to them. Tourists who underestimate their speed or ferocity have been known to lose a family pet to them.

When we were halfway to Arcadia, Zack said, “I looked up Gator Trail on the Internet. It intersects State Road Seventy-two a few miles this side of Arcadia. Just before Horse Creek.”

He sounded as if everybody in Florida knew where Horse Creek was. Maybe they did and I was the only one who didn’t.

I said, “Uh-huh.”

In my rearview mirror, I could see headlights from a line of cars snaking behind us.

We ate up a few more miles and Zack spoke again. “About two years ago, some coyotes crammed a bunch of illegals inside a refrigerator truck and smuggled them into Florida. They dumped them in a house somewhere outside Arcadia and left them. Men, women, and children. They were all half dead from dehydration. Some of them died.”

Cupcake said, “People shouldn’t be treated like that.”

Zack said, “The thing is, Myra Kreigle owned that house. I remember it because Ruby and I had just started dating, and Myra’s name caught my attention. The police talked to her, but she claimed she didn’t know anything about any smuggling. The police believed her, but now I wonder if she was in on the whole thing.”

I said, “Do you remember where the house was?”

“Some place outside town.”

Arcadia is edged by makeshift communities of tin-roof shacks and old mobile homes on dirt roads. As if he realized the futility of looking for Opal in any of those places, Zack went silent and still.

I said, “You promised to tell me why your friends are going with us. And let me just say, for the record, that I think it’s a bad idea. We’ll attract too much attention.”

From the backseat, Cupcake said, “Tell her, bro.”

Zack seemed to try to collect his thoughts. I had the feeling that racing came a lot easier to him than speech.

He said, “They’re just coming along in case we need them. You know, safety in numbers, that kind of thing.”

I could almost feel Cupcake’s eyes roll at the way Zack had evaded the question. Zack didn’t want to share his plan with me, and that was that.

I said, “We’re getting close to Arcadia. Watch for Gator Trail.”

Almost immediately, Cupcake said, “There’s Horse Creek!”

A neat white rectangle low to the ground announced that Horse Creek lay directly ahead. Before we got to it, another well-painted sign at a blacktopped road announced Gator Trail. It seemed as if the entire universe had entered into a conspiracy to help us find Opal. First we’d got information about where Vern had left Opal, now there were signs to direct us. How much better could it get?

I made a sharp turn onto Gator Trail, amazed at how fortunate we were. I was sure we had lucked out, big time.

Somewhere, a donkey probably laughed.

27

As I turned onto Gator Trail, Zack mumbled something into his headset, and instead of turning with us, the line of cars behind us went straight over Horse Creek. In the side mirror, I watched their taillights pull to the shoulder and park half hidden under the trees.

I refused to ask why they weren’t following us to the house. I supposed Zack had given them instructions. I supposed he and his racer friends had arrived at some kind of plan that seemed logical to them. Something told me I might be happier not knowing that plan.

Faint light from a rind of moon carved shallow pools in Gator Trail’s unlit, single-lane blacktop. Our headlights cut a tunnel between a dark tangle of scrub pines, oat grass, conifers, mossy oaks, and palmettos on each side of the road.

Cupcake gestured toward the black silhouettes. “Wild hogs live in there. They come out at night to forage. During the day they dig holes to sleep in.” He sounded as if his skin crawled at the thought.

I didn’t want to think about those feral hogs. As ferocious as alligators, wild hogs are not choosy about what kind of flesh they eat.

After a mile or two, the road made a sharp right, but my headlights caught something on the left that made me stop, back up, and turn the Bronco left.

A decades-old sign almost hidden by brambles and tall weeds announced the entrance to Empire Estates. A second sign warned:
NO TRESPASSING! RESIDENTS AND GUESTS ONLY!

The sign had been formed by wooden blue letters nailed to a white board, but the blue paint had crazed like old china, and the letters hung at dipsy angles. Beyond the sign, our headlights picked up the gleam of a white sand road so encroached upon by trees and underbrush that it was narrow as a cart trail. Once the entrance to a luxury retirement community, the broken sign and silver road were all that was left of failed hopes.

Cupcake said, “Somebody’s been stuck.”

Ahead on the road, tires had eaten deeply into sand and left two long furrows. The humped ridges reminded me of the way loggerhead turtles throw up piles of sand while they dig their nests. But we were a long way from loggerhead nesting grounds, and a different kind of reptile had made those furrows. Most likely, he had done it in a black limo with tinted windows.

Zack said, “Heavy car, too much speed for sand.”

Cupcake said, “Locals would know better.”

“Yup.”

An explosion of light and an impatient honking sound made us all jerk and look out the rear window at a tall pickup. The truck’s engine thrummed with the impatient energy of a motor prepared to roll over anything in its path. Praying the truck wasn’t driven by one of Tucker’s goons, I leaned out my window to get a look at the driver. It was a woman, and she looked like she was on her last nerve.

In half a nanosecond, I was out of the Bronco and trotting to the pickup. The woman had her window rolled down and an elbow resting on the frame.

I said, “Gosh, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you back here! The thing is, I’m not even sure I’m on the right road, and when I saw how somebody had got stuck in the sand, I was afraid to go on.”

She didn’t smile, but the hard look in her eyes softened. “Yeah, some fool got stuck there. Big old black limo with a numb-nuts driver.”

I said, “Oh God, I’ll bet that was my crazy old uncle’s driver. That’s who I’m looking for. He’s my mother’s brother, and she’s worried about him.”

She perked up at the thought of my crazy old uncle. “He lives around here?”

“Well, that’s the thing. He lives in Tampa, but he owns a house around here somewhere—I think it’s on this road, but I’m not sure. He’s rich as all get out, has a big black limo and a driver, more money than good sense, to tell the truth. Anyway, he told my mother he was going to come stay in his house down here for a few days. He’s probably all right, but I promised my mother I’d check on him.”

The woman took her elbow off the window frame to get down to dissing my crazy uncle.

“Only one house it could be. You go about a mile and then turn at the first right. It’s about a half mile down. Mailbox at the road, but the house is behind trees. Nobody lives there, but every now and then you’ll see several cars there. I always figured something hinky was going on in there, gambling or women or something. But we don’t stick our noses in other people’s business out here, you know?”

I looked at the bleak landscape of tall weeds and overgrown trees. “Doesn’t look like many people live out here.”

“Only a few of us. Most are mobile homes or RVs. We all know each other, watch out for each other. But that house is one nobody knows about.”

I could tell she couldn’t wait to spread the news about my rich uncle and his eccentric ways.

I said, “You think I can drive through that sand and not get stuck?”

“You just got to be careful, is all. Don’t hit it hard.”

“Actually, I think I’ll skip it. If his limo driver was here this morning, then my uncle’s fine. I’ll get out of your way now.”

I sprinted back to the Bronco and pulled it back to the main road so the woman could drive through the Empire Estates entrance. She tooted her horn and waved at me as she drove past. At the rutted sand, she slowed to a crawl and eased her way through.

Zack said, “What?”

“She said a black limo got stuck in the sand. Also said there’s only one house where nobody lives full-time. Sometimes cars are parked there, but most of the time it’s empty. She told me how to get there.”

Zack twisted his torso around to look at Cupcake. They exchanged some kind of silent communication that made them both solemnly nod their heads.

Zack fingered the phone speaker attached to his ear and spoke quietly. “We’re on the road to the house. Stand by.”

Turning to me, Zack said, “Dixie, after we talked to you, Cupcake and the other guys agreed on what we’d do if we found out for sure that Opal was here in a house.”

“What’s your plan?”

“I’ll explain it later. Let’s drive on.”

Everybody wanted to wait until later to tell me important things. I hate later.

I said, “You’re not afraid we’ll get stuck too?”

He shook his head. “Different tires, different weight, different driver.”

We rolled on, straining to see ahead, our tires gnawing their way through the ruts Vern’s limo had left. The road got more narrow and uneven, with deep holes dug by rain and time. We bumped along until we came to a side road with a rotting sign that gave a street name we couldn’t read. There were no houses on the road. Evidently, the Empire Estates hadn’t sold well. At another intersection, we drove to the end of yet another lurching sandy road. The car’s motor hummed in concert with the whine of mosquitos rising from the surrounding palmettos and sawgrass.

After about a mile, the road made a right angle. Another quarter mile, and Zack’s forefinger pointed toward a copse of trees ahead. “A house is in there. Pull over.”

I couldn’t see it, and from Cupcake’s silence I didn’t think he could either. But a metal gate ran across a driveway that one could assume led to a house, so I pulled to the road’s edge and parked. I could barely make out a chain running from a gatepost to the top of the gate, but I knew people rarely lock gate padlocks. Too much trouble for the owners to get out of their cars and unlock the things every time they go through, so the chains only serve as notice that the place is off-limits. If you drive in, you could be shot for trespassing. If you sneak in like we intended, you could be shot and displayed on a metal spike as a warning to others.

We sat panting like stressed dogs for a moment, then Zack pushed his door open and slid out of the car. I leaned to grab my 4-C-cell flashlight from the space between the front seats, touched the .38 at the back of my jeans to reassure myself it was still there, and got out too.

With flashlight and gun, those two “weapons of opportunity” that no cop is ever without, I felt as if I were back in uniform. Hit somebody on the head with a gun barrel, that’s using a “weapon of opportunity.” Hit them with the handle of a flashlight, that’s another “weapon of opportunity.” With the woods full of feral hogs and other swine, I figured I needed all the weapons of opportunity I could lay my hands on.

Cupcake got out last, squeezing his bulk through the opening like an enormous baby being born of a Bronco. We stood a moment beside a ditch that ran beside the road, getting our bearings and letting our feet get accustomed to the lay of the land before we moved forward. On the other side of the ditch, a swath of sawgrass lay silvered by wan moonlight. Beyond the sawgrass, a dark morass of trees and shrubs led to the spot where Zack thought he’d seen a house. As I looked across the ditch, I made out the dark outline of a vulture in a skeletal cypress tree. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that the bird turned its head and looked at me.

Speaking low, Zack said, “When we get there, we’ll go to the front door and engage whoever’s inside while you go around to the back door. You’ll go in and look for Opal. When you find her, you’ll bring her out and get in the car. When we see you, we’ll leave.”

“That’s your plan?”

He nodded solemnly, his head bobbing like a shadow puppet against the muzzy night. “The other guys will cover our backs.”

I stifled a nervous giggle. He had left out so many moves that it was almost funny, except I knew very well what those moves were going to be, and it wasn’t at all funny.

Cupcake leaned forward and spoke close to my ear. “If you want me to, I’ll go inside with you. Just in case you need muscle.”

That made me actually sputter a laugh that sounded like the bark of a teacup chihuahua puppy. Zack was a Boy Scout with a keen mind for electronics and motors and speed ratios and probably a lot of things I didn’t know diddly about. Cupcake was a mountain with a sweet smile and dainty feet who could stop other mountains carrying footballs. But when it came to rescuing Opal, they were babes in the woods. In a few minutes I would be confronting hardened criminals, and all I had for backup were two innocent children.