Tula screamed for help, yelling, “He has me, make him let me go!”
Squires took a step but then stopped, frozen by the gun and what was happening.
Now the girl was hollering to her invisible friend, “Jehanne! I need your help, Jehanne!” as she slapped at Victorino with her hands. Then the skinny girl shot a heartbreaking look into Squires’s eyes, pleading, “Don’t let him hurt me. All I want is my mother!”
Without even thinking about it, Squires began limping toward the V-man. Slow at first, then faster, taking long strides despite his bad hamstring.
Squires knew that the shotgun was loaded with bird shot, which was what he and his buddies used to hunt dove and quail. Little tiny pellets half the size of match heads. Hell, he’d been hit by more than a few of those pellets when he and his drunken buddies shot at birds in a cross fire. They didn’t hurt much, and it took almost a direct hit to break the skin.
Not that it mattered, because inside Squires’s brain something had snapped. He felt an invincible cerebral combustion surging through him. It caused the steroid oils, and the D-bombs he’d swallowed, to engorge his monster face with blood.
Laziro Victorino screamed a warning as Squires moved toward him, dragging his right leg with every step. The gangbanger screamed again as he hurled the girl to the ground, pointed the shotgun and this time pulled the trigger.
Squires jolted, grunting at the stinging impact. But that didn’t matter, either. The giant stumbled, regained his balance and kept coming.
Arms outstretched, Harris Squires was hell-bent on getting his fingers around the V-man’s neck because now the little saint was calling for his help again, screaming, “Please, please, Harris! Don’t let these men take me away from you!”
THIRTEEN
The reason I turned east, toward what turned out to be Harris Squires’s hunting camp, was because after touring Immokalee, seeing a helicopter and a half dozen cops parked outside a church, I decided that my detective friend might be wrong when he told me that Squires and Tula had left Immokalee and were now on their way back to Red Citrus trailer park.
It was 11:20 p.m. when Leroy Melinski called my cell to give me what he believed was the good news. I had cruised Immokalee’s slow streets and then headed out of town, occasionally glancing at the satellite aerial that showed Squires’s four hundred acres of what was probably saw grass and cypress trees.
“The girl wasn’t kidnapped,” the detective explained when I answered. “She told a bunch of people-including a priest and one of her aunts-that Squires volunteered to drive her around and help her find her mother. So there you have it, Doc. Turns out your kidnapper is just being a Good Samaritan.”
The reception on my phone was fuzzy, so I said, “You’ve got to be kidding. Say that again.”
Melinski told me, “Harris Squires and the girl stopped at some church, a pretty big one, so there’s confirmation on all this. A couple hundred people listened to her give a speech or a sermon, whatever you call it. Squires got out of his truck to listen, but he didn’t come inside.”
I said, “People on the scene told you this?”
The detective said, “Squires even made nice with some gangbangers who gave him a hard time. Not Latin Kings. Probably MS-13 from Guatemala, who are bloodthirsty little shits. But even they must have been convinced.”
I told him, “This just doesn’t mesh with what I know about Harris Squires,” as Melinski talked over me, saying, “I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but I’ve heard enough to be convinced. So you can relax, okay? Go back to your test tubes or have a beer. I’m going to bed.”
I said, “Some minister lets a thirteen-year-old girl, a stranger, get up in front of the whole congregation? Why?”
“It happened,” Melinski replied, sounding impatient, “that’s all that matters. I talked to the priest myself. He’s worked in Immokalee for nine years, which means he’s heard every possible combination of bullshit story. According to him, the girl walked in and said she had something important to say, so he let her talk. He described her as happy and relaxed, which is not the way a kidnapped kid acts.”
“The priest,” I said.
“Along with several local women, too. They offered her a place to stay, but the girl refused. Squires may have something to do with the dead body we found, who knows? But the girl’s with him because she wants to be with him. End of story.”
I said, “Harris Squires wouldn’t lift a finger to help anyone-not unless he expected to get something out of it.”
Melinski told me, “We’ll find out more when they get back to the trailer park. The girl told the priest that was their next stop, so we’ve got some uniforms there waiting.”
I had to ask, “Did your hostage-rescue people call his cell?”
“That’s the only part that bothers me,” Melinski told me. “They tried but no answer. Reception’s bad around Immokalee, which could explain it. The priest said, at first, he didn’t like the idea of a Guatemalan girl being with a gringo guy that age. He tried to talk her into staying, but the girl was so sure of what she was doing, he decided it was okay. At least for the hour or so it takes them to get back to the trailer park. Red Citrus? Yeah, Red Citrus. Maybe a little longer because the girl told the priest they might get something to eat first.”
“What time did they leave?” I asked. “I hope you have cops checking the local restaurants.”
Melinski told me, “They pulled out at little before eleven, so they should be at the trailer park in half an hour or so.” With exaggerated tolerance, he then added, “Have you heard anything I said? You can stop worrying. The priest told me some pretty wild stuff about the kid. So, finally, I maybe understand why you’ve taken an interest. You didn’t tell me the Latinos consider her some kind of saint or something.”
“The priest said that?” I asked.
“The guy sounded a little in awe of the girl, in fact. He said there were women crying, people waiting in line to ask the girl’s blessing. ‘God has taken the girl by the hand’-this is the priest talking, not me. But the man was serious. So there’s no need to worry, according to him. The priest’s exact words almost, and more than nine years he’s been working with immigrants.”
I said, “If God took missing girls by the hand, there would be a lot fewer missing girls. Please tell me you’re not buying into this baloney.”
I was relived that Tula and Squires had been spotted. But I was also feeling too restless to allow myself to be convinced. I didn’t admit this to Melinski, of course, and pretended to be satisfied when he promised to call when he got word the girl was safely back at Red Citrus.
After I hung up, I checked the luminous face of my dive watch: 11:25 p.m. I was approaching the intersection of Immokalee Road and what I guessed was Route 846, where Squires owned the four hundred acres. Continue straight and I would take yet another lap through Immokalee, then north to home-or maybe Emily’s place, if I could get her on the phone. Make a right, I would have to drive at least forty miles, round-trip, out of my way-and probably for no reason.
In my mind, though, I suddenly pictured the Mayan girl looking through the window of Squires’s trucking, seeing a sign that read IMMOKALEE 22 MILES, then texting the information to Tomlinson, a man she trusted. The image was so strong that I actually shook my head to get rid of it.
As I neared the intersection, I hesitated, my intellect telling me one thing, my instincts telling me something else. Normally, that’s seldom a cause for indecision-which is why I was a little surprised when I found myself following my intuition. I turned right onto the narrow two-lane that vectored eastward into the Everglades.
Something else my intellect and instincts argued about was whether I should call Tomlinson. If he had gone to Red Citrus, as expected, I should tell him to wait there to make sure Tula arrived.