The Night Monster

CHAPTER 47

I left the pharmacy and ran down the street. Linderman and my dog were nowhere in sight. Turning the corner, I saw the FBI agent standing in the metered parking lot, checking out my car. Buster was not with him.

I get nervous when I lose sight of my dog. My legs picked up speed, and did not stop running until I was standing beside Linderman.

“What happened?”

“Buster saw a guy trying to jimmy the door of your car, and took off after him,” Linderman explained. “The leash flew out of my hand.”

I could have been angry with Linderman, only Buster had done the same to me many times. “Where he’d go?”

He pointed at the stand of pine trees adjacent to the parking lot. The trees were so thick that I couldn’t see through them. Cupping my hands over my mouth, I let out a yell. From inside the pines came a happy yelp. I felt myself calm down.

“Your car took a hit,” Linderman said. “There’s some paint missing by the door.”

I gave it a quick inspection. The trunk was still locked, and so were the doors. The missing paint around the window wasn’t pretty, but I could live with it.

“Did you see the guy who did this?” I asked.

“Just his back,” Linderman said.

Buster emerged from the stand of pine trees walking on three legs. Stuck in his mouth was a rectangular piece of cloth. Whoever had tried to break into my car had gotten a real ass chewing. I checked his paw. There was a thorn stuck in the pad.

“I need some help,” I said.

Even the best dogs will bite you when in pain. I held Buster’s mouth while Linderman removed the bloody thorn from his paw. He didn’t flinch.

“Any luck at the pharmacy?” Linderman asked.

“I’ll tell you in the car,” I said.

I got the hell out of Chatham, and drove toward the highway and our motel. On both sides of the road I saw broken-down farm buildings and unworked land. Florida had more cattle and horses than Texas, yet none of it seemed to be here.

“Lonnie and Mouse live somewhere nearby in the woods,” I said.

Linderman turned in his seat to stare at me. If anything defined our relationship, it was my ability to surprise him.

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“I bribed a little girl with five bucks, and she told me. Little kids go cheap.”

“If a little kid knows they’re here, then probably most of the townspeople do.”

“That would be my guess.”

Linderman fell silent, and stared at the rain-slicked road. I sensed he was still having a problem with my Chatham conspiracy theory.

“I have a friend at the DEA’s office in Miami,” he said. “I was on the phone with him while you were inside the pharmacy. My friend works all the major drug cases in Florida. He said Chatham isn’t involved in trafficking drugs.”

“How about manufacturing crystal meth? That’s big in these parts.”

“Nope.”

“Could they be growing marijuana?”

“I asked, and he said the town was clean.”

Most of Florida’s crime problems over the past thirty years were drug-related. The fact that Chatham wasn’t involved in drugs only deepened the mystery. A convenience store appeared up ahead, and I tapped my brakes.

“Well, they’re doing something bad,” I said.

The store was called Shop amp; Save. Half grocery, half hardware store, with a rack of cheap clothes thrown in for good measure. I grabbed three prepackaged sandwiches and some cold drinks and went to pay up. The teenage kid working the register had shoulder-length hair and red-laced eyes. He rang up my items without making eye contact.

“You always smoke your breakfast?” I asked.

The kid lifted his head. I could have knocked him over with a feather.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he stammered.

“I smelled the reefer on your breath when I walked in.”

“I’m not stoned.”

“It smelled like homegrown.”

The kid’s face turned wet with fear. Linderman shouldered up next to me, and opened his wallet in front of the kid’s face. The gold FBI badge was hard to miss.

“Shit Daniels,” the kid said.

“Take a deep breath, and tell me your name,” I said.

“Tucker. My friends call me Tuck.”

“Are you from around here?” I asked.

“Next town over.”

“We’re interested in what you can tell us about Chatham,” I said.

Tuck swallowed the rising lump in his throat. I didn’t like scaring the daylights out of adolescents, but we needed some answers, and he looked like a good subject.

“Folks in Chatham have always been unfriendly,” Tuck said. “It got worse a couple of years ago.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Some guys from Jacksonville showed up, and started asking questions. Then the townspeople started fighting with each other. Couple buildings got burned down, and I heard some folks disappeared.”

“They disappeared?” Linderman said.

“That’s what I heard. Can I ask you guys something?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“You’re not going to arrest me, are you? I only took a couple tokes.”

“Whose buildings got burned down?” Linderman asked.

“Old Man Kaplan lost a barn and a bunch of animals,” Tuck said.

“Think he’d be willing to talk with us?” I asked.

Tuck saw his opening. He came out from behind the counter, and pointed at the road outside the store. “Go back the way you came. Four miles, you’ll see a dirt road. Drive down it, and there will be a big farm on your right. That’s Kaplan’s place. I’m sure he’d be willing to tell you what happened.”

Tuck had given us plenty of information to work with. I patted him on the arm. “Thanks a lot. One last thing. Don’t tell anyone about this conversation.”

Tuck walked us outside to our car, and shook both our hands.

“I won’t tell a soul,” the boy said.