Crooked River

9

Roger Smithback ascended the outside steps leading to the dingy attic apartment, trying to be as quiet as possible and not wake the occupant of the first floor. The climb was more difficult than before: that fifth Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks had really done a number on his cerebellum.

He gained the landing and steadied himself a moment, breathing deeply and taking in the nocturnal landscape. Similar little Cape Cod — style houses spread out around him, lining the banks of a man-made canal. He could hear cars, singing, the faint crash of surf, and the endless drone of insects.

Opening the door, he turned on the light, then tacked across the room to an easy chair, which he flounced down into. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and quickly hunted for the photos he’d surreptitiously taken that evening. Thank God, there they were — and decently exposed. Smithback knew how to deploy the more unsavory arts of reportage, but the darkness of the bar had made him worry.

He let his phone hand sink to the floor, then closed his eyes. Immediately, the room began to spin. He opened his eyes again and glanced at his watch. Just after nine. Kraski would still be in his office; he never left the place if he could help it.

After being unceremoniously escorted from the crime scene, Smithback had returned to the mainland, where he’d picked up his Subaru, then driven back to Sanibel — an ordeal in itself — intending to book a motel room. But with the influx of press, they’d become scarce as hen’s teeth. Even the crappiest motels were showing NO VACANCY signs. In the end, he’d been forced to rent a “second-floor suite” from a private homeowner — a post office retiree — at an outrageous rate. The “suite” consisted of one room and a bath, as well as a landlord who would talk his ear off every time they ran into each other. Worse, it was in a frumpy section of Sanibel known as Gumbo Limbo — near the causeway and far from Turner Beach. The silver lining was that the “suite” came with a coveted A-class beach permit, marking him as a resident and, as such, free to wander... as long as he steered clear of that red-haired dickwad from the Coast Guard. Of course, residents couldn’t approach any closer to the crime scene than nonresidents, but at least his movements weren’t restricted and he could get through the checkpoints.

That still left the problem of obtaining more information. Kraski had practically soiled his linen over the photographs and story, praising Smithback effusively for getting the exclusive. Praise from the editor of the Herald was rare, and Smithback had eaten it up. But that was yesterday’s news. As good as it was, Kraski wanted more, and he had quickly reverted to his usual grumpy and demanding persona.

Unlike his deceased brother Bill, also a reporter, Roger Smithback preferred to keep a low profile when he worked. One of the skills he’d picked up while pounding the beat in Miami had been to quickly ID restaurants and bars — which ones were for tourists, which ones were for locals, which for cops, which for wiseguys, and so on. So he’d spent the evening hopping from one promising-looking bar on Periwinkle Way to another, drinking seltzer and keeping his ears open. And eventually, this strategy had led him to the Reef Bar and a certain Paul Rameau. Rameau was a friendly giant of a medical technician who’d seen enough over the past thirty-six hours to need to drown those sights in the flowing bowl: specifically, high-ABV dry-hopped craft beer. Smithback had managed to get a barstool next to him and they’d soon become, if not fast friends, at least drinking buddies.

Rameau, it seemed, had a capacity for beer that matched his enormous size. And so Smithback found it necessary, for reasons of comradeship and credibility, to switch from seltzer to scotch.

He shook his head, forced himself to sit up in the chair. Christ, he’d better call this in before he fell asleep. He took another quick look at the photos, then pulled up his contact list and pressed a button.

His phone was answered on the first ring. “Kraski.”

“Hey, boss.”

“Smithback. I’ve been waiting to hear from you. What you got for me?”

Just like a baby bird, beak wide, frantic with hunger. Already his coup of the previous day was ancient history. Smithback, who was interested in game theory, decided his best strategy was to play to Kraski’s impatience and string him along a bit.

“It’s rough out there,” he replied. “Really rough.”

“Yeah?”

“Something this unprecedented — well, there’s nothing in the playbook. The authorities are working on instinct. Starting with a complete shutdown on information.”

“Have you been drinking? You’re slurring your words.”

“In service of a lead, I assure you.”

“All right. Go on.”

Smithback didn’t respond. He was mentally adding up how many beers he’d bought Rameau and wondering whether he could expense them all or not.

“Roger?” Kraski asked. “You there?”

“Yes, boss.”

“So what you got?”

“The locals don’t know anything; I’ve asked around. But I’ve rented a room and I’m well positioned if anything should come up.”

“Now that you’re on the crime beat, you know you’ve got to dig.”

“They’ve got this one squeezed up tighter than a duck’s ass.”

Silence over the line. Then a sigh of exasperation. “Smithback, I admire how you jumped into this case. But being my best investigative reporter means you have to bring me product — and, on a hot case like this, daily, not next week. You showed real initiative yesterday — so where’d that go today?”

Best investigative reporter. That was more like it. Smithback knew he’d gamed Kraski about as far as he could with this no-info sob story. “I was just getting to that. I’ve got product.”

“Yeah?” Instantly, annoyance was replaced with eagerness. “Like what?”

“Like the number of feet that washed up. The count’s broken one hundred — how’s that? And they’ve been in the water a long time, close to a month.”

“Holy shit. Where are they from?”

“Nobody knows. They’re doing DNA and all kinds of other tests.”

Smithback could hear the creak of the chair as Kraski rolled it up to his desk. “What else?”

“That’s more than anybody else has.” And I had to spend an entire evening getting a shell-shocked technician drunk just to get that. But he’d decided to hold back the really big scoop — or at least, what he hoped was going to turn into the big one.

“Okay.” Kraski knew better than to ask for Smithback’s source. “You’ll write it up and send it to me, pronto?”

“On it now.”

“That’s some good work, Roger. Keep it up.” And Kraski hung up.

Smithback sat back. It was good work.

But he’d done more. Much more. When Paul Rameau was at his drunkest and friendliest, Smithback had heartily suggested they exchange phone numbers. Rameau gave Smithback his number. Then Smithback suggested getting his contact info into Rameau’s phone by calling it from his own.

Which accomplished exactly what he hoped: Rameau took out his phone to check it and kept it out when Smithback gushed about how much he liked the OtterBox case. That led to Rameau talking about how, in his line of work, he dealt with a lot of disgusting and corrosive fluids, which made the rugged OtterBox ideal, especially since he had to use it for work almost every day.

And then he laid the phone on the bar.

It was surely crammed with information. But how to get his hands on it? That was where Smithback got really clever: he made a series of urologic references, including how drinking beer made him piss like a racehorse, which was why he drank only scotch — which in short order had the desired effect of sending Rameau lurching off to the men’s room.

As soon as he was out of sight, Smithback tapped the screen on the technician’s phone to make sure it wasn’t about to lock up, then pulled it over. He had sixty seconds to mine this baby. Email would be too time-consuming. He quickly dismissed voice mail or text for the same reason. But photos — did Rameau take photos of his work? Smithback tapped the photos app, and there they were: dozens of them. Smithback whipped through them — a whole slew of crisp, gruesome pictures of feet in every stage of dissection, from first incision to flayed and skeletonized. Rameau was a damn good photographer, too, every picture crisp and well framed.

They were all repulsive, but none revealed anything noteworthy. And then, with seconds to go, he struck gold. Three amazing photos, all in a row, of the same thing.

With his own phone, he quickly took photos of Rameau’s pictures: one, two, three. And now as he mentally reviewed his coup, he was so pleased that, in the darkness of his “suite,” he once again woke up his phone and scrolled through the shots he’d taken of Rameau’s screen. The three pictures were close-ups of the top outer part of a foot, from the ankle up to where the leg had been severed. The skin around the amputation was shriveled and ragged, and the bone protruding from the sea-bleached flesh was revolting. But there, clearly visible on the skin, was a tattoo — almost all of one, anyway. It was a cross, surrounded by lightning bolts and some lettering. The lettering was a little blurry, but he could do something about that.

He wasn’t going to go off half-cocked and tell Kraski about this. He needed to develop the lead. He’d download the photos to his laptop, then manipulate and sharpen them so he could read those letters. And then he’d ask around on the down low, hoping to identify the tattoo and maybe even where it had been inked. Because something about it looked familiar. And if he was right, this could lead to the biggest scoop of his career. It had to be said, Kraski was nearing retirement... and “Roger Smithback, editor in chief” had a nice ring to it.

Pushing himself out of the chair, he shut off his phone, then made his way toward the room’s lone table, where his laptop — and the story he’d promised Kraski for the Herald — was waiting.