“You recall his name?”
“Best I recollect, feller’s name was Clayton Suskind.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Less than a year.”
“Did Suskind live in Volusia County?”
Floyd smiled, his teeth the color of baked beans. “If you hadn’t told me you was once the law, I coulda figured it out by now. Why you so interested in Joe Billie?”
“He was here the day the girl was found. Walked out of the river.”
“I’ve seen him collectin’ stuff outta the river.”
“Hanging Moss Fish Camp, right?”
“Best be careful if you start jerkin’ Billie’s chain. He might hang you by your scrotum if you screw with him. And you’re a big feller.” He smiled, spat over the side of the boat. “Got to get these cats to the fish house. Runnin’ low on ice.”
I saw a small, spiral notebook in his shirt pocket behind the tobacco pouch. “If I can have a piece of paper out of your notebook here, I can write down my cell number.”
“Sure.” He pulled the pad out of his pocket.
“If you come in contact with anyone who might have seen or heard something in the area where the girl was killed, please call me.”
He yanked the motor cord. The old Evinrude started on one pull, smoke encircling the small boat. Before he put the motor in gear, he look at Max and then at me. “Ya’ll are new to the river and all. Best be careful, know what I mean?”
I watched the silent river flow around the elbow, around the crooked bend across from my dock, and I remembered holding the girl’s trembling hand. I felt there was something very evil around the corner. It was quiet as the current in front of me and darker than the water. I felt its presence just beyond the corners of my blind spots. It preyed on the helpless, the fragile — those broken in mind, spirit and body.
I looked at Max. “There have been warnings, Max. What are we to do?”
She barked and trotted to the end of the dock, stopped and glanced back at me. I followed her and we looked down and saw our reflections off the black water.
I wondered if there was anything just below the surface watching us.
I packaged the arrow for overnight delivery to Ron Hamilton at Miami PD. I marked the box: CONFIDENTIAL. I sat down and fired off an email to him:
Package will arrive in a.m. Please rush the work-up the best you can. See what you have on a missing person, Clayton Suskind, d.o.b unknown, last domicile, Volusia County. Check bodies recovered from Everglades in the last two years.
TEN
The morning sun was topping the tree line down by the river when I started for the door. Max followed me through the house to the front door where she sat down on her rear-end watched me lock the door. She cocked her head. I almost expected her to open her mouth and speak.
“Stay here, Max, I’ll be back in a few hours.” She looked up at me with disbelieving brown eyes. Yesterday I told Max the same thing and almost caused her to develop a kidney infection. “All right, you can come along. Let’s go ask Mr. Billie a few questions. You’re the only back-up I have.”
The white letters on the cypress plank sign leading into Hanging Moss Fish Camp were faded, but I could still make out the words. It read: Bait, Beer, Boats. Under a dozen live oaks and cabbage palms were single-wide trailers, rustic cabins, and a vintage silver Airstream trailer closer to the river. I parked the Jeep in front of the bait shop.
A gunshot popped.
Max barked.
“Hush, Max!” I half-zipped the isinglass windows on the Jeep just high enough to keep Max from jumping out. I shoved the pistol under my belt in the small of my back. I could see no one. I eased out of the Jeep. “Stay, Max! Keep your head down!”
A second shot fired. It came from the direction of the river. I darted to a fifty-five-gallon trash barrel next to an embankment that gave me a vantage point to look down at the river fifty feet below me. I followed a worn flight of wooden stairs to a boat dock.
A shirtless man, bare feet grungy, blurred tattoos on both forearms, stood holding a 12-gauge shotgun. Two boys in their early teens watched something in the weeds. One boy said, “I’ll get it with a paddle, Daddy.” He took a paddle from one of the johnboats and reached into the weeds, lifting out a large water moccasin. Half the snake’s head was blown away.
“He’s still alive!” the youngest boy yelled.
“No it ain’t,” the man said. “That’s just dying nerves twitchin’ the tail. Set him down, boy. Coon’ll come along tonight and eat it.”
The man spotted me and said, “I was cleanin’ some fish over there, turned around and that damn snake had a whole crappie in his mouth. Like to eat it right off my stringer. That’ll teach the sons-a-bitch.”
“Don’t think it’ll be back for seconds,” I said.
He sat the shotgun down, shook a cigarette loose from a Camel pack, lit it with a Zippo in his pocket and inhaled a long draw. He looked out toward the water, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “River’s full of them. Moccasins are mean motherfuckin’ snakes.”
I looked at his catch. “How’s fishing?”
“Pretty good,” he said after taking a second drag. “I bring ‘em boys up here every year. We usually do good, exceptin’ three years ago when the river was so high.”
“Do you know Joe Billie? He lives here at the camp.”
“Don’t know nobody. You can check with Doris in the store.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded and flipped his cigarette toward the dead snake.
Max poked her head out one of the air holes I’d left for her. She watched me silently as I opened the bait shop's screen door. The image that hit me was of an old Florida bait shop with a faded postmark and no return address. Hanging behind the counter was a six-foot rattlesnake skin, filleted open, shellacked and tacked to a cypress board. Pickled eggs and hoop cheese were sold next to alligator-claw backscratchers.
No one was in the small store, but the images of ghosts were tacked to one wall. A father stood next to his daughter and helped the girl hold a stringer of catfish. A barefooted man in bib overalls held up a bass the size of a roasted turkey.
“Help you?” He stood at the threshold of a side door and wiped his hands on a towel. Friendly face, ruddy, perspiring skin.
“Is Doris here?” I asked
“She’s off. I’m Carl. I was skimming dead shiners out of the tank. Didn’t hear you.”
“Do you know Joe Billie?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. He rent here?”
“That’s what I hear.”
“He a friend of yours?”
“He’s a handyman. I have some work I need done.”
“I haven’t met anybody named Joe Billie. You could ask the witch in the blue and white trailer about two hundred yards on the left.”
“Witch?”
“I wouldn’t go there unless you really need to find this guy.”
“Why?”
“If you stop there, you’ll find out.”
ELEVEN
As I drove slowly through the fish camp, I tried to match any one of the trailers or cabins with Billie. They all looked pretty much the same. A 1950’s feel. Sagging trailers with aged aluminum the tint of potato peels. The wooden cabins were painted in varied shades of army green. Most had screen doors. All had tin roofs.
A middle-aged woman stood next to a vintage trailer and watered flowers that looked plastic. A sign in her patch of green yard read: Psychic Readings by Rev. Jane.
I stopped and stepped out of the Jeep. Her head didn’t turn, but I could tell she was watching me. Her hair was swept back, covered by a strawberry-colored scarf. She wore a smock-like dress, dark blue with the images of yellow owls on it. I stepped closer. Her skin was alabaster white with tiny blue spider veins just below the surface on her forehead. Wide emerald green eyes masked detachment.