“I’d prefer a smile to an apology. Come on, you’ll like this.” He reached, almost put his hand on my shoulder, then decided against it.
Back into the greenhouse we went.
It gave me time to recover what little poise I had left.
NINETEEN
The greenhouse smelled of earth and fertilizer and the fruity odor of white-blossoming vines that snaked their way up a trellis. On a bench was a plastic pan with a Plexiglas cover. Snap locks suggested something important resided inside. Suspended above was a bank of LED grow lights. Kermit switched on the light, then popped the lid. Inside, on a growing mat, were a dozen seeds, several of which had sprouted. “These are late bloomers,” he said. “I’d about given up on them.”
“Everything inside here looks healthy enough,” I said. “Someone’s been watering, at least—or is it on a timer?”
Kermit shook his head. “Just me. I’ve driven past that gate a dozen times. It was always locked, so, every few days, I’d park and hike across the pasture to check on my plants. Always after dark, of course, and I’d take home what I could in a bag. Today was the first it was open, so I thought, What the hell? Dodging police couldn’t be any worse than dodging that big-ass bull Mr. Chatham bought.”
“Jessie James,” I said, and smiled for the first time in a while. I moved closer to the sprouting pan. “Are these from our citrus orchard?”
“The oldest trees your great-grandfather planted. Use this.”
He handed me an inexpensive magnifying glass. Beneath the lens, the seeds ballooned with detail. From each seed protruded three delicate, fleshy sprouts. Two of the sprouts grew in opposition on the pointed ends. From the belly of the seed grew a shorter, more delicate sprout.
Kermit said, “Oranges—it’s weird the way they propagate. Trees in isolation, too remote to cross-pollinate, they continue to produce seedlings that grow into exact clones. A hundred years, a thousand: it doesn’t matter, if conditions remain stable. The mother tree will continue to reproduce perfect genetic replicas of itself.”
“Mother tree,” I repeated in a murmur.
“You probably know all this.”
“Some, but it’s better than arguing,” I said.
“Okay . . . These two sprouts”—he used a pencil to indicate the seed’s pointed ends—“one is a root, the other is a shoot that will produce a clone. This one”—he indicated the fragile middle sprout—“doesn’t grow, not usually, because it’s a genetic mix. It only grows if there’s a fertile tree near enough to cross-pollinate. The birds and the bees, you know how that works.”
“Keep going,” I said, “I’m interested.”
“The third sprout is key. It’s smaller and weaker than the clone sprout. It’s the same with all the seeds from your oldest trees. That’s not what I was hoping. My theory is, after a several hundred years in isolation, the weaker shoot should also produce a clone. A way of adapting to the inability to cross-pollinate. Or, quite possibly, split into twin shoots. It’s a stretch, but one single seed might produce three perfect clones. Here . . . have a look at what came from your orchard.”
In the wheelbarrow, in plastic pots, seedlings had broken through the soil. One seedling tree in each.
I said, “The seed stock you’re after should produce triplets. That’s quite a theory. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Twins at the very least, if I’m right. Either way, there has to be an older, purer strain of Spanish citrus out there somewhere.”
I knew where the conversation was headed but remained silent while he selected a pot and held it close to his eyes. “I had a friend do the genotype by sequencing for known markers. I couldn’t afford to have him run the whole genome, but I found out enough to know a couple of things. What your great-grandfather planted isn’t an exact match of any citrus my friend’s ever come across. It’s close, though—very close, genetically—but different enough to keep me working on this project. A year or two from now, if you’re willing, after I’ve experimented with various grafts, the combination might be more resistant to HLB disease. Who knows? Until then—”
I interrupted, “I get it. The trees in our grove aren’t original Spanish rootstock. I know what you’re asking me, Kermit, but I can’t. A couple of my fishing clients are in the biotech field, and there’s a woman I went to school with, a plant pathologist—”
“Roberta Daniels,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. “I know. She’s good, and she’s smart. The biggest grove owner down her way is Elmer Ogden. He’s a tough old buzzard, and his new wife’s a talker. Hannah”—Kermit touched my arm and gave it a squeeze—“that’s why I don’t want you going back to that place alone. There’s more to worry about now than just snakes. I heard a python, or boa—one of them—bit you. How bad was it?”
I retreated a step. “How in the world did you find out?”
“I just told you, Elmer’s wife, and probably a dozen other people by now. I’m serious. Keep the seed stock for yourself, I don’t care. I’m volunteering, or take someone else, but please don’t go back there alone.”
“That’s what I do for a living, Kermit, drive a boat, usually by myself. You don’t know anything about me to say such a thing.”
“I know there’s a race going on, Hannah. That’s what you don’t understand. Big ideas travel fast, once they’re loose. Not just in Florida. All along the South American coast, the Spaniards planted seeds; Mexico, too, and into California. Somewhere, the original rootstock exists. The Brazilian citrus people have more money than God; the Chinese, all the major producers, will get in the hunt just on the chance your idea has merit. Trust me, if a clone of those original trees exists, someone will find it.”
“More power to them,” I said, “as long as they leave me alone.”
He removed his hand. “Why are you so damn stubborn? That’s what I’m worried about. Some of those people are ruthless. They might see you as an easy target. That tailing you, or conning you, is the fastest way to jump to the front of the parade. You need to be careful.”
I replied, “I’m not naïve. It’s possible I have more reasons to be careful than you realize.”
The man wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Then you know about the GPS?” In response to my blank look, he added, “I’m talking about the GPS on the plane you and Roberta rented. I heard someone stole it or got inside and copied the numbers. You didn’t know?”
“How long ago?” I’d forgotten that Roberta had saved the location.
“Yesterday, supposedly.”
I almost did it again, asked a question that was unfair to ask: Why didn’t you tell me? A distant siren stopped me before I could.
Kermit’s head panned toward the door, then to me. “Damn it. I’m not leaving without my plants. Will it be okay if you talk to the cops?”
I said, “That’s not what you’re hearing. There was a reason I asked when you last saw Reggie. He’s dead, Kermit. Lonnie told me. That’s an ambulance. Or the police.”
“Him? Oh no . . .” The man turned, hands on his hips, and took a few steps. “This is bad, Hannah, worse than you think. How’d he die? In his own house?”
I was startled by the stricken reaction. The two men hadn’t been close. “You didn’t notice the lights when you drove in. I know because I saw you. I was in my SUV, just leaving. Lonnie said it was suicide, but I don’t know for sure. The emergency people have been there a while. I couldn’t bring myself to look.”
“Suicide . . . Geezus, that’s awful. How’d she say he did it?”
“That he hung himself. One of the workers found him. It had to be within the last hour or so.”
He stood as if he hadn’t heard, then came toward me. “Suicide, my ass. Hung himself from what? You ever been inside that little trailer of his? I had to duck to get in, that’s how low the ceiling is.” He began pacing. “No . . . no way it was suicid
e. Lonnie had him killed. I’d bet on it. Come on. I’ll get the wheelbarrow, you hold the door.”
As he hurried past, I tried to grab his arm. “Tell me what this is about.”
“When we’re someplace safe to talk.” He placed the young tree among the pots and rushed around, gathering more things. “She’ll have us killed, too. It’s possible. I think it’s because of what happened the day we met. Of what you might have seen. Her screwing that guy in the boathouse.”
“I didn’t see anything. Reggie didn’t see anything, either, you know that. If she’d wanted to kill me, I was just with her at the ranch.”
Kermit, pushing the wheelbarrow, said, “Tell that to Reggie. I didn’t believe she was crazy enough, my god. Or that damn vicious.”
“You don’t know that it’s true.”
“Nope, but I’ll find out. Goddamn right, I will. Open the door.”
I followed him out, where he dropped the Chevy’s tailgate, then reconsidered. “Where are you parked? I’ll finish loading this stuff once I’m sure you’re off the property and safe.”
The bed of the truck was empty but for the detritus of hay, straw, and tools typically seen in the vehicle of a working man. I’d already started placing gardening pots in a row. “This won’t take long.”
“What if Lonnie is up there, waiting, and locks us in?”
“Tell me why you’re so sure about her? I don’t want to believe it either, but Reggie had been depressed. Working for Mr. Chatham was that man’s whole world.”
Kermit took me by the shoulders in way that was gentle enough to seem caring, yet my guard remained in place. “Stubborn,” he said again. “It’s dangerous, me even telling you about it.”
“You’d better. If the police show up, you’ll need help explaining why you’re stealing a truckload of plants.”
“Geezus,” he said. “Okay. Lonnie and Mr. Chatham, they had an infidelity clause in their prenup. I don’t remember all the details, but he told me one eyewitness, that’s all it would take, and she’s out of his will. I’d bet anything that’s what this is about. Firing me was a way to get me off the property. One suicide could be explained. Not two. So she must have something else in mind.”
“Mr. Chatham told you that himself?”
Kermit, looking into my eyes, confirmed it was true. “Text me when you get home. I’ll stop by tonight and we’ll talk. Around eight, but it could be later. I’m helping some local growers get their smudge pots ready in case of a freeze. Is that okay?”
“Call first,” I replied, which came out kinder than intended, but it’s what I felt. I was tired of fighting. I couldn’t fault a man who was a good father and cared about saving his plants.
At my car, I gave him the barbecued ribs as a peace offering, and even acquiesced to his arms; a brief hug that might have lingered, had I allowed it.
I did not.
Halfway home, though, I was quick to answer when Kermit’s name flashed on my phone.
“Something just crossed my mind,” he said.
“Are you still at the greenhouse?”
“You’ll think I’m an idiot. I went off and left those damn seeds. The late bloomers in the growing box. Guess I got flustered, seeing you, and everything else going on. Now the gate’s locked, so I’ll have to sneak in through the pasture. If Lonnie notices those pots missing, she’ll padlock me out of the greenhouse, too.”
It was nearly sunset. Clouds were glaciers of charcoal and rust on this, the eve of a cold front.
“I can try and talk to her,” I said.
“Don’t you dare. Stay away from that woman. But that’s not why I called. I have an idea, if you’re willing to listen.”
I was willing.
We were still discussing the subject when I pulled into the shell drive, relieved to see that Loretta was not on the porch. Sit there with a phone too long, my mother’s witching powers might divine the marital status of my caller.
TWENTY
What Kermit wanted to discuss was the python that bit me—and the weather. It was an odd combination until he connected the two, saying, “When the temperature drops near freezing, reptiles hole up. Dormant might be the wrong term, but this cold front could give you a one-day window. Possibly, two, according to my weather service. If you’re worried about snakes, why not go tomorrow? I’m not asking where, but I am offering to help. No strings attached, and whatever we find belongs to you. Think it over. No matter how cold it gets, you shouldn’t go alone.”
The idea had merit. Gators, as I knew from experience, become lethargic when the temperature falls below fifty. The same might be true of pythons.
Or was it?
I had two hours before Kermit arrived. I used the laptop on my boat and did research. A few years back, after a cold snap, “experts” predicted that more than half the exotic reptiles in the Everglades had been killed. Field surveys proved them wrong. Two years later, similar experts estimated the python population had grown to more than three hundred thousand. Some theorized that gradual exposure to cold weather might have created a stouter, more weather-tolerant hybrid.
There was other information I scanned through.
Pythons are the world’s third-largest snake, commonly growing more than twenty feet long, although a thirty-five-foot Burmese had been captured and killed in India. It weighed nearly three hundred pounds.
They were ambush hunters, equally at home on the ground or in trees. Excellent swimmers, too, which wasn’t news to me, but I was unaware they could lie submerged for thirty minutes or more while they awaited passing prey.
This caused me to think back. Had the snake that attacked Roberta been underwater, hunting, when it heard her wild splashing? The monster python we’d seen later might have been hiding on the bottom, too. If not thirty-five feet long, it was well over twenty. And two hundred pounds, at least, judging from its girth.
An image came into my head I did not want to linger. I continued reading.
Pythons were voracious feeders. They chose ambush spots based on the size of their preferred prey but were opportunistic. Hungry or not, they would strike and kill anything they could swallow. Proof of this was in a 2012 report done for the Department of the Interior regarding the Everglades. In areas where pythons were well established, foxes and rabbits had disappeared. Ninety-nine percent of raccoons and possums had been destroyed, and the white-tailed deer population was down by 91.4 percent.
According to the report, the problem began in 1992 after Hurricane Andrew destroyed a python breeding facility near Miami. Also to blame were pet owners who, after tiring of their snakes, had released them into the Glades.
The results were catastrophic. It was as if a nuclear bomb had been dropped, said one field scientist. Pythons—apex predators—were running out of food, so they were moving north, or seeking new varieties of prey.
The only reassuring certainty I found was that hunters—men who actually knew the woods—agreed the best time to find and kill pythons was during a cold snap. The snakes were sluggish and slow-moving. Their reptilian hearts required them to find a sunny spot in the open if they were to survive a drop in temperature.
Choking Creek. The name had stuck with me. I’d hoped never to go back. After reading what I’d just read, I definitely didn’t want to, but I had no choice. “The race is on,” Kermit had said. The Gentrys had implied the same thing, as had Lonnie.
I phoned Roberta and explained the situation. “I’m not asking you to get out of the plane, but can you land there and wait for me and another passenger? It has to be tomorrow, or, possibly, the day after. This could be the last cold front of the season.”
Roberta understood, but she had obligations at work. “It’s too bad you can’t get in there by boat.”
“That’s another option,” I said. “I think I can, if I carry a saw, and some heavy clippers. Or”—I had a chart i
n front of me—“we could hike in from the bay side, but that’s through a couple hundred yards of mangroves.”
“I don’t even want to think about it. As long as you don’t try it alone. Who’s going with you?”
I hadn’t made up my mind about that. My first choice was Marion Ford, if he’d returned from wherever it was he’d disappeared to. His pal Tomlinson was another possibility, although I doubted the man’s skill with firearms.
“I’ve got a friend who’s a deputy sheriff,” I said, referring to Birdy. “If not her—she usually works Mondays—there’s someone else. Do you remember me mentioning Kermit Bigalow? He’s offered to come along, but . . . I don’t know him that well.”
When I said this, part of me hoped Roberta would offer a glowing endorsement and thereby settle the matter.
Instead, she responded, “Take a shotgun no matter who you choose.”
Good idea.
In the attic of Loretta’s house, I found my uncle’s footlocker. I returned to my boat carrying a heavy pillowcase. Inside was a sawed-off double-barrel and a box of twelve-gauge shells I hoped weren’t too old to fire, if needed. I made another trip and came back with Jake’s ripsaw and the stout hedge clipper he’d used to cut the original tunnel. Behind a drawer was a lockbox containing another of Jake’s treasures. From it, I took an exotic-looking pistol, a rare 9mm Smith & Wesson that had been customized by Devel. It had clear Lexan grips and a chromium stainless finish. Since shooting the man who’d attacked me, I’d fired several hundred of rounds through it at gun ranges.
The pistol and holster went into my shoulder pack. The other stuff went into a canvas bag that could be stored aboard my skiff. As I packed, I made phone calls, and also kept an eye on the clock. I was nervous about Kermit’s visit and the decision I had to make.
The choice was quickly narrowed down. Birdy had to work. Tomlinson was en route to a Zen meditation retreat in Polk City. The biologist’s phone went instantly to voice mail. Seldom do I leave long messages, but, this time, I did. Lots of details.
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