The Delta Chain (10 page)

‘No.’

‘And there’s every likelihood someone could still come forward to make an ID and that the girl could be a local or a tourist?’

‘Of course,’ Adam said. ‘After all, Mr. Bingham, the body was only discovered last night.’ Adam was thankful for the chance to press that point to the mayor.

Bingham leaned back in his wide leather chair, releasing a sigh of pent up frustration. ‘Okay, so I guess we are all overreacting. I can’t believe we let some trumped up little reporter do a beat up on this so quickly.’ He allowed a smile to sweep across his face, like a breath of fresh air, but it came and went just as fast, as though sucked back in by deeper emotions. ‘I believe she’s under control anyway, gentlemen. I spoke to her editor just before you arrived.

‘Bennett, one way or another I need you to have this cleared up. Otherwise we won’t be able to stop the Express, and others, making more of it. I’m giving you until the end of the week. If the situation hasn’t been clarified, then I’m going to back Arthur’s suggestion. Understand?’

‘I understand the urgency, sir.’

Adam and Kirby were on their way out when Kirby expressed his surprise at the mayor’s response. ‘Normally he’s always advocating bringing in city experts. Plus I know he doesn’t have a high regard for our local services.’

‘Maybe he has more regard for our local police operations than you think.’

Kirby gave an indignant snort. ‘No, he doesn’t. Believe me. I shield you and the others at the station from all the crap I hear from the local pollies. No, given his earlier reaction to that reporter, I’m surprised he pooh-poohed my suggestion. But he’ll soon change his mind …’

‘As far as I’m concerned, Arthur,’ Adam said, ‘you’re way off base on this. The detective operation is my jurisdiction-’

‘Oh, hurt your feelings, did we?’ Kirby said.

Adam had taken more than enough of Kirby’s sarcasm. ‘I’ve some errands to run. I’ll make my own way back to the station.’

Kirby gave an indifferent shrug. ‘Suit yourself, detective.’

Walking back to the station, Adam felt his resentment subside. Coroner Brian Markham had told Adam, on previous occasions, that Kirby had a reputation for being arrogant with staff and colleagues. But Adam knew the station chief was particularly abrasive with him.

Nevertheless, Kirby may have had a point regarding Bingham. Although originally a Northern Rocks boy, the mayor had spent a long time in the city before returning. He was a known advocate of bringing in specialists on a range of issues.

Why had he sided with Adam on this one after his earlier overreaction?

From the moment Hank Mendelsohn stepped onto the boat he’d hardly been able to keep his eyes off the woman at the helm. That might not have been unusual if the woman was a young twenty or thirty-something with a knockout figure or if Hank was the type to have a wandering eye. He wasn’t. Jean Farrow, well into her fifties, retained a grace and a serenity that drew his attention. Hank was particularly drawn to her green-grey eyes and he sensed in her both an air of fragility and an earthy, steely resolve. Her boat, Tide Flyer, was a sleek cabin cruiser that could adapt to the ocean waters off the coast, or to the shallow, slow-moving rivers that drained into the ocean from the Everglades National Park.

The Ten Thousand Islands strip along the Gulf was a popular tourist run and the boat was now on the last leg of the fourteen-mile tour. It had been raining earlier but now the rain and the fine mist of spray had gone. The reflection of a bright sun sparkled across blue swirls. A gentle sea breeze kept the humidity from rising too high.

Hank didn’t know what the hell he was doing here, wandering aimlessly like a happy-go-lucky vacationer, which he wasn’t. Not really. He was almost as miserable today as he’d been in the days and months immediately after he’d lost Beverly. Nothing had prepared him for the great yawning chasm of sorrow he’d suffered at the death of his wife of thirty years.

That had been two years ago.

He and Beverly had come to Florida – a very different, far less developed Florida back then – for their honeymoon. They’d planned to come back again, but during the early years they’d always holidayed on the east coast with members of Beverly’s family, in the New York and New Jersey areas. Then came the children – two boys and one girl – and what with serious financial restraints and the younger boy’s illness with cystic fibrosis, they never seemed able to make the trip south from Chicago.

Then came the years of long, irregular hours as city editor, then managing editor on the Chicago Herald-Tribune.

During the tour Jean Farrow made a point of getting around for a brief chat with each of her twelve passengers. Her assistant, an able young man named Carl, took over the wheel and Jean moved alongside Hank, putting her hands on the rail and lifting her face to the breeze. ‘Ah, feels fantastic,’ she said to no one in particular. Then, the wind gently lifting and tossing her auburn hair, she turned to Hank. ‘Heard you mention earlier to one of the others you were in the news game.’

‘Yes. In Chicago. Retired eighteen months ago.’

‘So what took you so long to get down here. Best damn place in the States.’

‘I don’t doubt it. In fact, I honeymooned here. Long, long time ago.’

‘And you and your wife always planned to come back,’ Jean said. ‘If not before, then certainly after your retirement.’

‘Actually, yes.’ Hank gave her a questioning glance. ‘You must have your psychic cap on today.’

‘Oh, you’d be surprised. It’s not an unusual story. And you haven’t stopped thinking about her since you got here, have you?’ Jean Farrow smiled as the retired newsman fixed her with another questioning stare. Her smile widened. ‘I know the look, Hank. I was widowed eight years ago and the first couple of years were sheer hell. After a while you start to get back into a rhythm. A different life, but a life nevertheless.’

‘And how long did it take you to get to Florida?’

‘Came here four years ago, but not because of any retirement plans. Different reason, but that’s another story.’

Hank didn’t pursue that point, sensing reluctance on Jean’s part. ‘I lost my wife, Beverly, to a heart attack two years ago. Retired from the paper six months later but couldn’t bring myself to come here as we’d planned. Never thought I would.’

‘Well, I’m glad you did and I’d love to hear about your newspaper days. You holidaying here on your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why don’t you join me for dinner tonight? I can promise good, old fashioned cooking at my place, nice and quiet and relaxed, if that’s the way you like your evenings.’

‘It’s the way I’ve liked them for a long time,’ Hank said.

He couldn’t believe he was going on a date. And isn’t that what this really was? Hell, he was sixty-one, and since he’d become a retired widower he’d also become a lost soul, restless and unsure of just what to do with himself. He hadn’t even contemplated dinner with a woman.

Jean Farrow lived in a colonial style white timber and sandstone house with a wide veranda, in the outer suburbs of Everglades City. There was a rambling feel to the layout of the house, though the rooms themselves had been kept fastidiously neat and clean, suggesting an order that contrasted with the meandering design.

One of the first things to catch Hank’s eye when Jean showed him through the house was the collection of family photographs, on the living room mantelpiece and tastefully displayed throughout the home. Her late husband, herself, and a young man, clearly their son.

‘Fine looking young fellow,’ Hank commented.

‘He was the finest,’ she replied with an unmistakable hint of melancholy.

Hank waited, sensing more.

‘His name was Kevin. Very active. A bit of a nomad, runs in the family I guess. He was a reporter like you, Hank. Came to Florida ten years ago to work on the Everglades Courier, then moved to the Miami Daily Mail.’

‘Then he was smarter than me,’ Hank said. ‘I stayed in cold, hard Chicago for my whole career. Perhaps I should’ve headed south like your Kevin.’

‘Well, it’s a damn fine place, weather-wise. Kevin had that right.’ They sat down to the kind of meal Hank had taken for granted during his married years and which he now missed. Jean asked him about his family and his career and he found himself opening up to her more than he’d ever done with someone he barely knew. Her comfortable manner inspired trust.

He told her about his youngest boy, James, who’d suffered the debilitating effects of cystic fibrosis and who’d died at just nineteen in the arms of his mother and father. It was many years now since James’ death and Hank’s telling of the story was not a sorrowful one. He remembered James, who’d had a strong spirit and a marvellous sense of humour, with memories of happiness and affection.

His older son, Brent, and daughter Carole now had families and careers of their own, Brent in New York and Carole in Seattle.

The conversation turned to Jean’s newspaperman son. ‘I visited Kevin a few times after he moved down here. After my husband died I’d stayed on in Washington, running the family hardware business. I really don’t know why, Hank, I never had much interest in hardware to tell you the truth.’ She shrugged and gave him a lazy smile.

‘I’d say you were doing it for your husband’s memory, and for your son and no doubt grandchildren.’

‘Won’t be any of those now.’ After a brief pause, she continued: ‘When Kevin died I thought damn it, damn the whole wide world.’ Hank nodded. He knew that feeling and his eyes conveyed his empathy. ‘I came down here, decided I’d stay on. I think maybe I wanted to live out my days in the place Kevin spent so much of his time. But I also needed a fresh start. I learned how to skipper a cruiser, bought the Tide Flyer, built the business up from there.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Mostly, though, deep down anyway, I think I’ve always hoped I’d come across something to lead me to the men who murdered Kevin.’

Hank started. He hadn’t expected that Kevin Farrow’s death had been something that dramatic. The sudden fact of the matter chilled him out of the comfort he’d been feeling in this peaceful home with this warm woman.

‘I’m sorry.’ Jean’s open palm flew to her mouth, ‘I shouldn’t have just blurted that out. I forget that it comes as a shock to people.’

‘That’s okay,’ Hank said. Jean picked up her glass of red wine and took several sips. They ate for a short while in silence. ‘If you’d like to tell me about it, Jean, then please. I can be a good listener. Had the training, you know.’

She smiled. ‘Of course.’ Her eyes took on a dreamy quality as she mentally searched out the facts. ‘Kevin was one of those writers who had a whole swag of causes he was passionate about. One of them, a very big one, was the conservation of animal species, something of a major, on-going concern here in Florida.’

‘Yes. I’ve been doing some reading on that lately.’

‘He’d picked up on some reports, tourists exploring the more isolated areas of The Everglades, who’d reported a sleek water craft, manned by poachers, capturing alligators.’

‘That would’ve got his hackles up.’

‘You bet it did. It’s only been in recent times, with the alligators under the Protected Species laws, that their numbers started flourishing again. The rangers had investigated the reports without success, but then after a long silence, six months or so, there were a couple of new reports. Kevin went out there, backpacking, with tents, cameras, you name it, to trek through the ‘Glades in search of the hunters. And what he believed was a big story. He loved doing that kind of thing.’

Hank waited while she took a break, sipping more wine.

‘It seems these bastards, whoever they are, got hold of Kevin and strung him up good and tight between branches over the river bank.’ Hank’s eyes widened as he listened. ‘Well, the ‘gators they left him for got him all right but apparently couldn’t dislodge him from the binds, so they bit him clean in half, carried off the torso…’

‘Oh my God…Jean…’

‘The rangers found his upper remains, still hanging from the ropes, a few days after he was reported missing. They combed the place for those hunters, bringing in the State police, the Feds, everyone and his dog according to them, but they never found a damn thing to lead them to the culprits. Nothing whatsoever.’

‘I don’t recall hearing about any of this.’ Hank’s heart was crying out for this sad but feisty woman.

‘They never released the full details to the public. Too gruesome, they said. Didn’t want it to hinder their investigation, they told me. Of course, they wouldn’t have wanted anything like that to become known to the massive tourist trade down here. Not good for business.’

‘These hunters-?’

Jean had an answer before she’d heard the question. ‘There’s never been another sighting or report on them. Vanished, it seems, into thin air.’

‘But surely…’

‘No. Nothing.’ As though suddenly realising or remembering something, Jean’s eyes widened and her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh dear, oh…what on earth am I thinking, inviting you to dinner then laying all…
that
…on you. Believe me, I don’t usually…and now, of course, I’m rambling…’

Hank reached forward and clasped her hand in his. It was a spontaneous act. ‘You’ve had a terrible cross to bear.’

‘Still, it’s hardly dinner conversation.’

‘It could use a little work,’ Hank said with a wink. And she smiled.

‘You’re probably wondering why I’ve stayed here, but as I said before I feel close to Kevin, and I know his father would’ve liked it here as well. What’s more, I like to keep in touch with Mandy.’

‘Mandy?’

‘Kevin’s widow. She’s remarried now to a nice fellow and they have a daughter. Best thing for her.’

‘Yes,’ Hank agreed. The conversation turned to other things and the mood lightened again. But in the back of Hank’s mind, old familiar wheels began to turn. The reporter in Hank Mendelsohn’s soul had never retired, he lurked within, forever inquisitive. And the story Hank had just been told was one of the most bizarre he’d ever heard.