Death Among the Mangroves (10 page)

Mondays were the slowest day of their week. Troy sat at June's desk in the lobby and had a good view of the television vans parked across the street. There weren't too many reporters around them; Troy assumed they were all out looking for any remotely related story to use about Mangrove Bayou. He hoped Lester Groud would appreciate the national publicity.

He got on the phone and called Detective Ramon Bustello Prado at the Tampa Police Department.

“What the fuck do
you
want,” Prado said.

“Bust, is that how you answer the phone now?”

“It is when it's my private cell phone and the caller I.D. says the Mangrove Bayou P.D. is calling. I heard they had hired you. Are they out of their minds?”

“So far, yes. In fact, they made me chief, so it's a promotion. You ever going to be chief, Bust?”

“Shit! They can keep the stars. I want to retire to Florida and play golf.”

“You already live in Florida and play golf.”

“What can I say? Inadequate career goals. Why are you infesting my cell phone on what had been, to now, a fine day?”

“I need a favor.”

“You need a favor. Let me quickly recap your career. Your insubordination so pissed off the people here at Tampa P.D. that they fired you. Not to mention that you were so trigger-happy that you killed a teenager armed with a water pistol.”

“It looked real to me.”

“So you got hired on by some town that is so small it hasn't got a traffic light or a parking meter, and yet they have you handing out traffic tickets.”

“It's a tough job, but som…”

“Yeah. Right. How's the pay scale?”

“Lower than what I made before. But I get to be the chief.”

“Do they give you a chief's car to drive? Maybe with one of the old ‘bubble-gum machines' on top?”

“Not yet. But I'm still on probation for a few more days.”

“You get a car when they make you permanent?”

“I don't think so.”

“But at least you can't be insubordinate any more, being as you're in charge.”

“Not so. Now I am insubordinate to a mayor and town council. I'm moving up in the world.”

“Christ. Good to know you haven't changed. What's this favor you need from your old pal in Major Crimes, and which I shall have to keep secret for fear someone will learn I still talk to you?”

“Need to find out if one Mark Stider,” Troy spelled out the names, “is still a student at Stetson Law. If he's not, why not? And it's a homicide case so I'm in kind of a hurry on this.”

“Those schools don't like to hand out that information.”

“Why I called you. You'll scare them into it.”

“Tampa or Gulfport campus?”

“Gulfport, I think. If not, then check Tampa. And, while you're at it, call the University of Florida law school and ask about Stider. He did his undergrad work there, so why didn't he go on to their own law school?”

“I know how to do my job, Troy. Get back to you.”

Troy started to ask when, but he was talking to a dead connection.
Whatever happened to the days when you could hear the phone being hung up,
he thought.

The phone rang as he was still staring at it, making him jump. The town counsel was on the phone.

“What's going on over there?” Frank Lawton said. “Just got a call from a friend of a friend in the legal beagle business. I won't say who but he's got
mojo
in the courthouse. He chewed my ass. Says you applied this morning for a search warrant for a motel room rented to one Mark Stider. You also applied for a warrant to search the home of said Mark Stider here in Mangrove Bayou.”

“I did. And I did that too.”

“Jesus! Did you know the kid is the son of Judge Hans Stider, of our very own Twentieth Circuit Court?”

“I knew that.”

“Well, know this too. The shit hit the fan up in Naples. The day clerk took your request and ran down the hall to Judge Stider's office so fast he set his shoes on fire. The upshot of all that was that your requests have been denied. Fastest I ever saw Judge Stider move on anything. I mean, we call him ‘Stider the Slider' because he hates work and likes to kick cases down the road forever. He's a defense attorney's dream come true. Anyway, I got chewed out for not keeping you under a tighter rein.”

“I didn't know you had reins on me at all.”

“I didn't either. Look here, whatever you're doing, do it more carefully. My job, as volunteer part-time town counsel, for which I am paid some pittance so low I can't recall what it is offhand, is to keep the town out of trouble. And getting our asses kicked around by a circuit judge isn't likely to be helpful.”

Chapter 15

Monday, December 23

That afternoon, Troy drove to the high school on the back side of Barron Key. He had an appointment to talk to the high school kids in the auditorium there. Inside he took several deep breaths to get it over with. He hated the school smell, kids who did not yet know how to bathe and deodorize properly, who used too much aftershave or perfume, the testosterone and estrogen practically dripping down the walls.

At least he was spared the musty smell of old books. The school had almost no books. The kids all had tablets and laptops and smart phones and little music things stuck into their ears and probably more he couldn't see. They were talking, phoning, texting, tweeting, Facebooking, instant messaging. He wondered how they had time to learn anything. In his experience with graduates of the Florida school system, they mostly didn't.

It turned out that the weekly community information session was the last event of the day. In the auditorium, Dr. Howard Parkland Duell, principal and also town councilman, introduced Troy as, “Hired on a probationary basis to try out for director of public safety.” He didn't mention kicking Troy out of Duell's house recently.

Troy stood and walked to the front of the stage and to one side of the podium. He stared down at the faces before him. This auditorium did not have theater-style seats, just a lot of folding metal chairs lined up in rows. He realized it was actually a basketball court; there were baskets at each end of the room.

He had a flashback to his high school in Troy, New York. The senior prom had been in a dreary room just like this one, with colored rolls of crepe paper strung around as if that made it festive and cans of spray scent sprayed around to try to cover the smell of sweat and dirty socks. A few kids had cars but mostly their parents brought them. Troy had no parents, or at least none who had wanted him. His mother had probably been a prostitute and his father some unknown Asian, and he had been abandoned immediately after birth. He didn't know either of his parents or even if they were still alive.

His date's mother had picked him up at the front door of The Orphans Home. He was a skinny kid with a too-small suit clutching a too-expensive corsage. The girl was one whom nobody had asked to the dance, and some of the seniors had assigned Troy to her. The mother took the corsage from Troy and pinned it onto the girl's dress, something Troy had been fantasizing about doing himself for a week. When the dance was over the mother dropped Troy off at The Orphans Home at ten p.m. and drove off with her daughter without a word of goodbye. Today's kids showed up for proms in tuxedos and gowns and in stretch limos, had hotel suites rented for unchaperoned partying, and didn't come home before dawn. He shook his head. He wasn't sure which was more frightening to a shy teenager, the old days or the new.

There were several hundred kids in the gym today. Troy waited until they had quieted and at least some were looking at him. The rest had their heads down, texting and tweeting their friends.

“So, who was the last person to do this weekly pep talk?” Troy asked. Several kids shouted that it had been some man who flew a Coast Guard helicopter.

“Well, I can't compete with that. I'm the police chief…”

“Actually, the director of public safety,” Dr. Duell said, interrupting.

“…the police chief. I'm the Man, the po-po, the fuzz—does anyone even call us the fuzz any more?—the head pig.”

Troy jumped down from the stage and walked through the folding chairs until he was in the center of his audience. Half of the kids had to squirm around sideways to see him.

“Everyone now put both your hands up, like this.” Troy raised his arms over his head, straight up. The kids stared.

“Seriously. Do this. Humor me. All of you. Every one.”

They did so. Some still had their phones in one hand or the other. “I'm going to talk and I promise not to talk so long that your arms get tired. But I'd like you to pay attention to me and stop tweeting your friends who are probably right next to you.” There was a general laugh.

“Most people think we drive around all day in our police cars looking for some excuse to write lots of traffic tickets. And, believe me, in a town with a thirty-MPH speed limit, no traffic lights and no parking meters, it's not that easy to write a lot of tickets.” More laughter. “Sorry to burst your bubble. Oh, sure, if you do eighty up Barron Road, look for us in your rear-view mirror. Mostly, though, we serve and protect. We actually take that seriously. We will protect you from crime if we can and catch the criminals if we can't.

“But for you men and women, remember that we serve too. We serve you just as much as we do your parents. If you have a problem, something you don't want to talk to your parents about, or your school counselor, or your minister or even your friends, it's possible that we can help. And if we can't, we probably know who can. We know all sorts of people, agencies, experts. If you don't want to talk to my staff, you can call up and ask to talk to me, one-on-one. Not a problem. Any time, any place.

“That's my speech, except for this: Remember that we don't like arresting people. We like helping people. That's just basic psychology and you're all smart enough to know about that. Does anyone have a question? Oh. Put the arms back down.”

A girl in the front row raised her hand once more. Troy pointed at her. “What do you think happened to that girl who disappeared over on the beach?” she asked.

“What do
you
think might have happened?”

“I think she got killed. Do you think you'll ever find her body? Everyone in town is talking about it. My dad says it's bad for business.”

“Kind of bad for Barbara, too. That's her name. Barbara Gillispie. She has a name. She's a person. I have her photo on my desk. And I'm going to find her if I can, dead or alive.”

“Do you promise?”

“Promise what? I promise to keep looking. I don't promise to find her. We've looked about everywhere we can in town but it's a big marsh out there and the mangroves are even harder to search. A lot of you helped in the search on Sunday and I really appreciate that. Yes, you in the back.”

“I saw you drive up. In some Japanese shrimpy-SUV wannabee,” a young man said, grinning. “Don't you have a real police car?”

“No. But I'm thinking about buying a whistle to hold between my lips and blow as I drive.”

When the laughter died down a boy halfway back asked, “Are you going to arrest us for smoking marijuana?”

“Ah. Marijuana. Mary Jane. The gateway drug. One toke and you're instantly a maddened heroin addict. Did you know that
cannabis
is one of the most common weeds in some parts of the country? Not around here, sorry to have to tell you, but in the Midwest. But don't smoke that crap. It's like smoking a car tire.” There was a laugh from the crowd.

“You ever toke any, man?” a boy to one side said. He was bigger than most and so were his friends with him.
Probably the football team's offensive line
, Troy thought.

“When I was younger, in college, I would sometimes take a joint being passed around the room,” Troy said. “But…”

“I really don't think you should be encouraging our impressionable youth to do drugs,” Dr. Duell said.

“I thought I was talking there,” Troy said to Duell. “Hush up now.” He turned back to the students. “I was just being polite, or maybe I was afraid of looking like I wasn't cool. Lots of social pressure on you here in high school and it takes a real man or woman to stand up to it. Fact is, or was, I never liked dope. Maybe because I never smoked cigarettes and so was not accustomed to smoking at all. When I got older I realized I didn't need to worry about looking cool to anyone else. I realized that being independent, mature, my own man, was the coolest thing.

“Even later, I realized something else. I didn't like the feeling of not being in total control of my mind. That's why I also gave up drinking.”

“So you think we should all be teetotalers and Christian robots?” the boy said. “No cigarettes. No beer. No weed. Geez, you must have boring weekends.” A roar of laughter from the crowd made Troy grin.

“Did I say that? My my. So much meaning packed into so little speech. No, you do as you please. Just don't let me catch you with the weed, at least before the legislature changes the rules. Personally, I think the war on drugs is a dismal failure and probably always was. It's a political thing. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. But as Chief Adam, I'll arrest you if you break the law.”

“But that's hypocritical,” the boy said.

“No. It's not. I'm in the enforcing-the-laws business. I don't much like that law. You don't much like it. But it's a law and I'll enforce it. I don't get to pick and choose which laws to enforce and which not to. You want it changed, do something about it at the polls if you're old enough, and by talking to your state and national legislators.”