Shadow Men

CHAPTER
24

When I got back to Billy's penthouse I slept for fourteen hours, the first six or seven in my clothes. I woke late in the evening and took a shower with the full intent of staying up, but when I lay back on the bed I turned my head into the pillow and was gone again for another six or seven. It was still dark when my eyes snapped open, my heart thumping in fear that I didn't know where I was, nor did I have any concept of the correct day or even the year. My fingers went involuntarily to the soft disk of scar at my neck. I reached over and turned on a bedside lamp, and it took me several minutes to calm myself.

I pulled on a pair of shorts and padded out into Billy's kitchen. The only light came from the dimmed recessed spots that glowed above the counter space and at the front entryway. I had a magnificent headache, and my immediate guess was caffeine withdrawal. I had gone without coffee for longer than I had in many years. I set a ten-cup pot to brewing in Billy's machine and stepped out onto the patio to wait. The ocean was black, and against all odds I couldn't see a single light on the ocean. There were no fishermen, no freighters and no way to judge the horizon-or even the era. There was only the sound of the surf on the sand, the way it has moved up onto land for millions of years. For the rest of the night I sat with coffee, waiting out the darkness and watching light come into the world.

Shortly after dawn I heard Billy moving about inside, and he joined me with an obscene concoction of blended fruit and vitamins and a copy of The Wall Street Journal.

"Welcome b-back, Mr. Van Winkle." We clinked mug to crystal and caught up.

The judge in Collier County to whom the PalmCo attorneys had presented their injunction had apparently not been the recipient of enough PalmCo political money, and they squelched their argument. The excavation had already begun. Billy had sent Bill Lott to be his representative. The old CIA man was grumpy as hell over having to spend days in the Glades fighting mosquitoes and the heat, but he was fascinated by the project.

"He c-called last night to tell us they had already f-found an intact skull. They weren't sharing too m-much with him until he convinced them of his experience with l-law enforcement. Then they l-let him have a look," Billy said.

"They can't tell in the field if it w-was one of the b-boys or Cyrus, but there was an obvious shattering hole in the back of the skull. They've already ruled it a h-homicide.

"Lott thinks a lot of the b-bones and fragments will be spread out from the animals that would have g-gotten to the bodies. B-But in that insect-rich environment, he says it t-takes only a few days for a body to be st-stripped to the bone. So they th-think they'll find the others."

"That ought to get PalmCo spinning," I said.

"It already h-has. There are three agencies in on th-this, including someone from the park service. One of them is already l-leaking info to PalmCo. And an acquaintance of m-mine at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel called on a t-tip he got, so the press is onto it, too."

"So there goes our media threat."

"Doesn't m-matter," Billy said, looking a bit pleased with himself. "Their attorneys left a m-message with my office today. They w-want to meet."

I let him enjoy his lawyerly reveling for a couple of minutes before asking him his opinion on what they might do.

"They will p-probably offer some c-compensation to the families. Not b-because they had any direct h-hand in the deaths, but b- because it w-was their project years b-back and they want to show r-respect for the workingm-men who sacrificed their lives to b-build the trail."

"Christ, that's repulsive," I said.

"It's called spin, Max. And due to the fact that w-we don't have anything sp-specific to tie their old company Noren to John William Jefferson, it m-might be the b-best we can do."

"And that's going to be enough for you?" I said, wondering if my friend had gone soft. But I should have known.

"No. We'll d-demand that they continue to f-fund any extra c- costs for the forensics investigation into the other b-burial spots on John William's m-map. And if there is anyw-way to identify them, their f-families will also have t-to be compensated.

"We will also ask that a m-memorial to the men who lost their l-lives d-during the building of the Trail be purchased by them and s- set in a prominent p-place on land that they will provide."

"And that's going to be enough for you?"

I had succeeded in dampening some of his gloating.

"We will m-most likely n-never see their internal documentation from that time. If it even ever existed, they would have sh-shredded it by now.

"They may even h-have the n-names of the other m-men Mayes's letters sp-spoke of. But I doubt that even a h-homicide investigation is g-going to find them."

When Billy mentioned Mayes's letters I thought of the young man. At the church I'd asked him if he would be driving back to the coast. He said he didn't know. When I stood to go, he handed his great-great-grandfather's watch back to me.

"You'll need this for evidence, yes?"

I told him he'd get it back as soon as possible.

"Yes, I know."

When I left he was still sitting in the front pew, his head bent forward in prayer, but I didn't know for whom-his family or the Jefferson's.

"How much is he going to get in compensation?" I asked Billy.

"I'll ask for a m-million, and they'll give it," he said. "But it won't m-matter to him, you know? He c-called to say he'd enrolled in the seminary.

"Yeah, I figured," I said. "The truth shall set you free."

I spent the next two days at the beach, swimming in the surf, reading travel books I stole from Billy's shelves, and then falling asleep with warm salt air in my lungs and uneasy thoughts in my head. I talked with Richards on the phone and gave her a recitation of the details of my wounding of the P.I., the revelation of the reverend's own possible killing spree, and the discovery of his suicide.

She told me about the removal of McCrary's body from her front lawn. That she had spent two hours with internal affairs, documenting what she knew of his relationship with her friend, Deputy Harris. It was shop talk, and even over the phone I could sense an uncomfortable hesitation in her voice. I asked if I could drive down and see her. I asked if she could come up, get away for a day in the sun. She said Harris was now staying with her and she didn't want to be far away. They were talking late into the night, and the woman was in a fragile place.

"You OK?" I asked the last time we spoke.

The phone felt awkward in my hand and I could hear her breath in the receiver.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking about lives caught in circles, Max," she said, without offering more. I tried to out-wait her again and kept swallowing back words.

"We could talk about it together," I finally said. The phone was quiet on the other end, and I winced with a physical ache in my chest that I was losing something.

"Yeah, maybe," she said. "Gotta go." And the line went softly silent.

I wiped the sweat from my left eye with the shoulder of my shirt on the upstroke. When I switched to the other side of the canoe, I did the same on the right. I was pounding down the midline of the river in the open water, reaching and pulling with a ferocity I thought I'd left behind long ago. The sun was high and hot and even my raptor friend in the dead stalk of the tall palm was hiding somewhere in the cool shadows. I'd packed the boat with extra supplies. My intention was to make it a lengthy stay this time. I had had enough of bodies and bones, concrete and air-conditioning, recollections and remembrances. I needed to get back onto my river.

I didn't stop my angry paddling until I reached the cavelike mouth of the upper river, and by then I was gasping to fill my overwrought lungs and the blood was pounding in my ears, and when I finally gave it up I bent forward and was nearly sick in the bow. The canoe coasted along with my final kick-stroke and drifted into the shadows. I laid the paddle handle on one gunwale, the blade on the opposite side, and crossed my arms over it. I rested my head on my slick forearms and closed my eyes. I could smell the leaves and roots rotting on the banks, taste the tannin in the tea-colored water, and feel the shady greenness cooling my back. I wanted to stay in that position forever. Then I heard the distinctive sound of a hammer on hard wood coming from the distance.

I took up the stroke again, and along with it, my head began its speculation. I couldn't work up the same speed as before; the winding trail of the water through the cypress knees and clustered oak tree trunks slowed me. My exhausted shoulder muscles would not loosen again.

The hammering became louder, overwhelming any other sound in the forest. It had no rhythm-six or eight hard strikes, then quiet, then four more. I knew where it was coming from, but not why. When I got to the columned oaks that marked the water trail to my shack, the hammer reports stopped. I turned the canoe in and strained my eyes through the cover of tree limbs and ferns to see if I could catch any movement and surprise whoever was chopping at my home. I crept in slowly, taking care not to let water drip from the paddle blade. Thirty feet from the dock I could make out a rowboat through my cover. It was tied and anchored at one of the rear support pillars. Oddly, an aluminum extension ladder was set in its stern, and I could see that it was leaning up onto the northeast wall and was lashed to the column. Straddling the top of the ladder was Ranger Griggs. He had a plank of newly cut wood in his hand, and I watched him place it carefully against the corner wall of the shack and then take out his hammer from a ring on his tool belt. Before he could set another nail I called out to him.

"How much you charge for this kinda work?" I said.

My voice startled him. The ladder shifted and swayed and started the wide rowboat to rock.

"Jesus!" he yelped.

I paddled over while he settled his own heartbeat and waited for him to climb down. I lashed the canoe on his stern cleat. He was obviously embarrassed, and I made him more so by not saying anything.

"I, uh, came across some Dade County pine and, well, I figured I could use it," he said, stumbling on his words.

"Yeah?"

"Well, I saw the state order warning that the building may not be inhabitable after the fire, and being somewhat familiar with the code, I figured it wouldn't take that much to fix."

"Yeah?"

He sat down on the port gunwale and reached down to open a small cooler. He hooked his fingers around the necks of two iced Rolling Rocks and offered me one. I took it.

"I had the day off with not much else to do so…I hope it's OK."

I twisted the top off the beer and tipped my head back as I drank.

"It looks like you know what you're doing," I said, keeping my eyes up on the corner where he had already set three planks after tearing out the blackened remains of the originals.

"Well, my father was a carpenter, and his father before him," Griggs said. "So I come by it honestly."

We sat in an uneasy silence for a few seconds, both looking up and avoiding what truth might be in either of our eyes. The boats were gently rocking below us both. The quiet was a shared salve.

"Well, then," I finally said. "Let's carry on."