Death Among the Mangroves (3 page)

Johnson was shaking his head. He pulled out his wallet and took out a five and laid that on the desk. “Got change? This is sort of funny, having to pay to talk to a cop.” Troy looked in his own wallet and pulled out four singles and pushed those across. He added another to the two on his desk and put Johnson's fiver into his wallet.

“That won't do,” Johnson said. “I want those people evicted. Why can't you kick them out right this minute?”

Troy shook his head. “Of course you're angry. I would be too. But evictions are fairly complex legal matters and are handled by the sheriff's office. I'll get with them if that seems the way to go. But Christmas is next Wednesday and I suspect we're looking at some delay.”

“But they're just criminals squatting in my house.”

“Mr. Johnson, let's get one thing straight right now. The renters are probably not the issue. They may be acting in good faith. The person to whom they are paying the rent
might
be a criminal. Let me find out. But you leave those people alone. They're mine to deal with, not yours.”

“I suppose. How would you like it if this were your house?”

“I wouldn't. I'd hate it. But I'd still obey the law. Leave them alone. Let me find out what's what and update you.” He slid a notepad and his pen across his desk. “Give me your address and phones. Email too, if you have that.”

Johnson picked up the fountain pen and tried to write with the nib upside down. He looked at it, puzzled. “Sorry,” Troy said. “Here.” He handed Johnson a ballpoint pen out of Troy's middle desk drawer. Johnson wrote down all his contact information.

They shook hands. Troy let Johnson out the front door. Johnson got his Ford Explorer and boat trailer turned around and headed back to Barron Road. That would take him five miles east to U.S. 41—the Tamiami Trail—and the long drive back to Miami. Troy put the money from his desktop into the Bad Words Jar behind the counter in the lobby. He checked his watch. At least Rudy Borden would still have his service station open. Johnson would need to gas up before that drive. Miami was one hundred miles and thirty years distant from Mangrove Bayou.

Chapter 3

Saturday, December 21

With Jeremiah looking for a girl, or worst-case, a cell phone, and in the dark, and Angel joining him, Troy decided his officers needed reinforcements. And he was it. He walked back to his rental condo at the Sea Grape Inn and took his own car and drove to the shopping mall. There were actually three malls in Mangrove Bayou and the strip mall with the Publix grocery store was the smallest. Both department Suburban trucks were parked behind the mall buildings, lights flashing.

Troy pulled in with his Subaru Forester that he could probably have parked inside one of the Suburbans. His predecessor had wrecked the old chief's car and the town council had never bought a new one. Jeremiah was inside a Dumpster, digging around, holding a flashlight in one hand. Angel had climbed onto one of the side handles that the truck would use to hoist the Dumpster and was looking down and helping with a second flashlight.

“Many are the duties of the Mangrove Bayou police officer,” Troy said, looking in. “Including Dumpster diving.”

Jeremiah looked up and smiled. He was so large he took up half the Dumpster himself. There was a spot of something—Troy hoped it was only mayonnaise—on Jeremiah's jet-black forehead.

“No people in here, Boss. 'Less you count me, feeling around for a phone. Probably gonna need to toss all this out onto the pavement to go through it.” Jeremiah sang bass in his church choir and when he spoke he rumbled like a level two Richter-scale earthquake.

“Tried dialing the number,” Angel said. “It rang at my end but didn't hear it anywhere around here.”

“The phone company said it was here,” Troy said.

“Then it's here,” Angel said. “Or within ten meters or so, at least. That's the accuracy for the GPS.”

“I actually knew that,” Troy said.

“Jeremiah, need me to spell you in there?” Angel asked. “I'm smaller.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “You might sink out of sight, little lady. And one messed-up uniform is enough.”

“Maybe Chief Adam can help you,” Angel said. “He's tall.”

“Sorry, Angel, that would be my cue to hit the streets and patrol while you fine officers Dumpster dive. Got an errand to run anyway. Official police chief work. Oh, and one more thing. Shut off those flashing lights on the trucks. We don't need to be waking up half the town with them.”

It was a drive of only a few blocks south on 19th Street to pay a visit to some soon-to-be-unhappy renters. He rang the doorbell and a short, skinny Hispanic-looking man answered. Inside, Troy could see a living room and, through an archway, a woman and two kids sitting at a dining table.
Swell
, he thought.

“I'm Troy Adam, the Mangrove Bayou police chief.” He showed the man his badge since he wasn't wearing a uniform. “You aren't in trouble but I'd appreciate it if you could step outside with me a moment. No need for the kids to be hearing this.”

The man, looking puzzled, stepped outside and closed the door, and he and Troy stood on the porch. “Eduardo Martinez,” the man said. “What's going on?”

Troy explained the situation. Martinez, of course, protested. “I paid my rent. Broken no laws. Never broke in here.” He looked angry about it.

“I suspected as much,” Troy said. He actually had no idea at this point that the Martinez clan was innocent but he was a good judge of character and liked what he saw. “You didn't create this mess. But you're in it now. Fact is, the man who rented this place to you apparently did so illegally. The real owner wants you evicted so he can sell the house. I don't have any choices here, and neither do you. Who rented this house to you?”

“The Reverend Heth Summerall. He's a minister of some sort. Got to be some kind of mistake.”

“Not one that I can find,” Troy said. “But I only stopped by this evening to talk to you and give you a heads-up on this. Why don't you come by the police station some time tomorrow and you and I can figure out what to do about it.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Yes, it is. I'll try to buy you some time to look for another place to stay, do what I can for you. Seems to me the main thing is not to upset the kids. But the law is the law and the Reverend Heth Summerall appears to have violated it and you are the victim. Come by and see me tomorrow.”

Troy drove away and started patrolling the town. He didn't mind arresting people for the big crimes, he thought as he drove. It was the little things that he sometimes had to do that bothered him. Kicking people out of their home at Christmas time had to be right near the top of horrible things to have to do. It was, he thought, almost Biblical.

Chapter 4

Sunday, December 22

Jeremiah found Barbara Gillispie's cell phone after several hours of searching and tossing out trash from the Dumpster. It had the ringer turned to vibrate-only. He brought that back to the station in an evidence bag and someone at the strip mall got the job of shoveling everything else back into the Dumpster. There was no sign of Barbara Gillispie and there were no useful phone calls listed on the phone.

Troy spent Sunday morning organizing a search for her. For a community dependent upon tourism, losing a visitor was bad for business and everyone knew it. With Mayor Lester Groud's help, he divided up the inland bays and salt marsh into sections and some of Groud's fishing-guide friends went out in shallow-draft boats to look. Others headed out to pick through the nearby mangrove islands, a far harder task. They also covered the three larger islands making up the town itself, and the sheriff's department had a helicopter buzzing around the offshore mangroves too.

Cilla Dowling rang the station's front doorbell just after eleven a.m. Dowling was the local editor and reporter for the town online newspaper, the
Bayou Breeze
. Troy let her in and they went back to his office. She was about fifty,
a thin, tough five feet, six inches with a tanned, weathered face, brown hair and eyes. She always wore her hair long in a single braid. She was wearing blue jeans and a matching denim blazer over a purple shirt with the collar out.

“No bulging chest today?” Troy said. Cilla was usually seen in too-tight tee shirts with journalism slogans across her large breasts.

“Too cold for that. Besides, I already know I can't vamp you out of a story. Why waste them. You must know why I'm here.”

Troy saw no reason not to tell Cilla everything he knew about Barbara Gillispie's disappearance, which, at this point, wasn't much. “And all the help, tips, anything at all that I can get, will be appreciated.”

“You going to put up a reward for information?”

“I don't know. I don't even know where I'd get the money. If we do, I'll call you for sure.”

“Who would make a decision on a reward?” Cilla asked. “Lester Groud, maybe?”

“He's the mayor. I guess so. I'll find out. We'll both find out. But with any luck, she will turn up soon.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I'm hoping so.”

Dowling crossed her legs to give her something to write on in her reporter's notebook. She had a barb-wire tattoo around one ankle. “We rely on tourists for our living here,” she said. “Letting one go missing can kill this town. If you don't find this girl pronto the whole news business is going to drop down on you like the D-Day invasion. Don't you forget little old me when that happens.”

Troy sighed. “I know. Wherever possible I'll try to give you exclusives.”

“God help us all.”

“Yes, Cilla, God help us. And God help Barbara Gillispie if we don't find her soon.”

“No, Troy,” Dowling said, “God help
you
if you don't find her soon.”

Until someone found something, Troy could only wait. Eduardo Martinez showed up and Troy ran his I.D. through the system. Martinez was clean. He had even remembered to change his driver license address when he moved from Orlando to Mangrove Bayou. Troy hadn't changed his own when he moved from Tampa and he made a note to do so.
Six months late and I'm the damn police chief. Do I owe a dollar? Guess not, didn't say it out loud.

The day shift was on and Troy told Juan Valdez to take the dispatch duties on the other department cell phone. He joined Lee Bell at the Osprey Yacht Club for the Sunday brunch. He took one each of everything that contained meat and cholesterol. Lee took some salad and a small slice of bloody roast beef.

He now had on his “longs” uniform, long-sleeve khaki shirt with shoulder straps and his name and “Chief” on the right pocket, and “Mangrove Bayou Police” on the left, and long trousers. He didn't wear the full duty belt his officers used but he had his .45-caliber pistol in a belt holster, and a radio clipped to his belt with a lapel microphone/speaker with a small earpiece clipped to the left shoulder strap. Lee Bell wore tight white jeans with a light green man's shirt with long collar points worn out over a white sweater vest. The shirt matched her eyes. She was as tall as Troy, thin and redheaded.

They were both yacht club members, Lee legitimately. She was wealthy enough but also owned an air cargo/passenger service. She flew a Cessna Grand Caravan around Florida and lived in a large home just up the road from the yacht club on Airfield Key.

Troy had been reluctantly admitted only because the director of public safety had always been an honorary member—even though the management wanted to toss him out once they saw what color he was. The Osprey Yacht Club was Caucasian, wealthy and conservative. Caligula would have been welcomed with open arms; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not so much. In South Florida, with his slightly almond eyes and short, straight black hair and what Mayor Groud called his “beige” complexion, Troy was often mistaken for a local Native American, either Seminole or Miccosukee.

“Told you before,” Lee Bell said as they ate, “I can take the plane up. Lend me some people to look out the side windows and I'm yours for as long as it takes.”

“Appreciate that. Might get back to you on it. Today at least we have a chopper from the sheriff's office.”

Lee nodded. She cut off a tiny piece of roast beef and nibbled on it. Troy had already scarfed down almost everything on his plate. Several years as an Army officer had made him a fast eater. “It's probably better for snooping around those mangroves anyway,” Lee said. “My stall speed is a little over 60 knots and I wouldn't want to fly around at less than 100, just to feel comfortable. And you do know that you look silly with that thing in your ear.”

They had a nice view of the yacht club docks from their window table. Troy turned from the view to look at her. He never tired of looking at Lee Bell. They had met at this very club six months earlier.

“Why? I see people walking through the grocery store with earpieces and talking into phones and all they're discussing is the price of tomatoes,” he said. “Me, I'm doing important police chief work.”

Wanda Frister was on duty and refilled Troy's ice tea. Lee was drinking a mimosa. “How are you and Milo getting on,” Troy asked Wanda.

“Great. And I'm glad to be out of that trailer anyway. And away from that horrible Billy Poteet, too.” She moved on with her ice tea pitcher.