“Can I see that?” Katy asked.
Buck handed the bag to her. She took a long look then handed the evidence bag back to Louis. She turned and walked away.
Louis stared at her back for a moment then brought the evidence bag up to peer closely at the pack inside. He could easily make out the brand –- Viceroy –- but it took him a couple more seconds to see what Katy had noticed. Cigarettes packs in Florida, as in all states, bore a state tax stamp on the bottom of the cellophane. This pack had no stamp and that meant one thing. It had come from the only place in the state where cigarettes weren’t taxed -- the reservation.
“I’ll be right back,” he said to Buck, handing him the bag.
He walked to where Katy stood. She had taken off her hat and wiped her face with her sleeve, leaving a dirty smear of sweat across her forehead.
“He’s not Indian,” she said.
“You don’t know that,” Louis said.
“I know,” she said. “I feel it in here.” She put her fist to her chest.
Louis took a slow breath. “Katy, I have to consider all possibilities or I’m not doing my job,” he said.
“It is not your job anymore,” she said. “I don’t need you. I don’t want you here anymore.”
He stared at her in disbelief. He knew the Seminoles, much like the illegal Hispanics in Immokalee, resented outsiders even when they wanted to help. And he respected that. But she had invited him in her world, her uncivilized world of poisonous snakes, rare orchids and panthers that perched in trees. She had introduced him to the cats and somehow, just by the way she spoke of them, she had made them almost human.
He didn’t want to walk away from this. He wanted to find Grace and he wanted to find her alive. Not just for Katy, but for himself. It was going to be his only way back in.
“Take your techs and leave,” Katy said. “I will find another investigator.”
She turned and walked away from him, her step quickening as she neared her swamp buggy.
“Katy. Stop.”
Without a look back, she climbed into the high seat of the buggy and started it up. The roar split the silence and the tech guys looked up in surprise. Then the big buggy rumbled away into the brush, leaving only the retreating growl of its engine in the sticky air.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Louis picked up the laundry basket, used a foot to slam the dryer door shut and headed back to his cottage.
He was coming around the rain-puddled yard when he saw the Game and Wildlife truck parked near the Bransons on the Beach sign. A moment later, Katy came off his porch, stopping short when she saw him.
“Oh, you’re here,” she said. “The door’s open but there was no answer when I knocked.”
“I was around back doing my laundry.” He came onto the porch. “Come on in.”
Inside, he set the basket on the counter. When he turned to Katy she was standing awkwardly just inside the living room. His radio was tuned to a classic rock station out of Tampa. Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale” was playing.
“I came here to apologize,” she said.
“What for?”
“Leaving you stranded out in the slough this morning.”
“I got a lift back with Mickey and Buck.”
She gave a curt nod. She looked uncomfortable, like she wanted to say something else but didn’t know how to begin.
“I was just going to have a beer,” he said. “Want one?”
She nodded and ventured further into the living room, looking around. “Nice place,” she said.
He nodded toward the plastic bucket he had set by the stove before he ducked into the refrigerator. “The roof leaks, there’s no water pressure and the A/C is shot. Other than that, it’s paradise.” He handed her a beer. “Let’s go out on the porch. It’s cooler out there.”
Katy settled into the old chaise so Louis took the wicker chair. She was quiet, sipping her beer as she looked out at the pale smudge of sun sinking slowly into the bank of rain clouds over the gulf.
“You’ve got a great view,” she said finally, using her beer bottle to point to the swaying sea oats.
“Like I said, paradise,” Louis said.
“Okay, this is tacky but I gotta ask. How do you afford a beach house on Captiva working as a PI?”
“Well, you are looking at the head of security for Bransons on the Beach,” Louis said. “I get all the laundry tokens I can use and a break on the rent. All I have to do is make sure the kids don’t play their radios too loud, check the locks on the empty cabins and make sure the trash can lids are shut to keep the raccoons out.”
“How come you’re working for Mobley?”
Louis took a drink before he answered. “I’m trying to get a job on the force. Your panther case is a kind of a test.”
She considered him for a moment before she took a long draw on the beer. “How long you been doing PI work?” she asked.
“About four years. Sort of fell into it after I moved down here from Michigan.”
Katy’s gaze wandered back to the water. “Man, I’d love to live near the water,” she said softly. “I share a shitty apartment with a roommates out near the Miromar outlet mall. I have a great view of I-75 from my bedroom and one shelf in the refrigerator.”
“How long you been in Florida?” Louis asked.
“Thirty-three years. I’m a native.”
This morning, when he brought up the Seminole angle Katy had almost bit his head off. He was almost sure she was Indian but there was no easy way to bring it up.
In his five years as a Florida PI he’d never had any direct contact with either the Seminoles or Miccosukees, the only two surviving tribes in Florida. All he knew was that they ran a high-stakes bingo hall on the reservation west of Fort Lauderdale and were pressuring Florida politicians to open a real casino. They also sold the tax-free cigarettes at smoke shops scattered over on the east coast. And like all tribes, they were sovereign nations, exempting them from the normal reach of the law. They policed their own, with their own cops, courts and moral codes.
As Katy looked out over the water, Louis took the moment to study her.
She was dressed in baggy white linen clam-diggers, orange flip-flops and a blue t-shirt so faded he could barely make out the lettering on the front -- BOB SEGER AMERICAN STORM TOUR 1986.
There were no angles to her profile, except maybe the high plateau of her cheekbones on her round face. Her skin was smooth and almost the same light brown tone as his own. He hadn’t really seen her hair before now because she had always stuffed it up in her ball cap. But he could see it now, a long straight black sweep as magnificent as a thoroughbred’s tail. Except for her hair clip, the only adornment she wore was a bracelet made of small blue and red glass beads.
He focused on the bracelet as she raised the beer to her lips.
“I like your bracelet,” he said. “Is it Indian?”
Her eyes, when she turned to him, were as black and still as the slough water. “Yeah, it’s Seminole,” she said. “So am I.”
Louis took a drink of beer. “I didn’t mean to offend you this morning.”
“You didn’t.”
Lightening zigzagged silently over the gulf. It was quiet except for the music coming from the radio inside.
“Oh man, I love this song,” Katy said.
Louis strained to listen but he couldn’t recognize it. That’s why he liked this Tampa station. It played the obscure stuff.
“What is it?” he said.
“‘Pretty As You Feel’.”
It took him another full stanza before he recognized the singer’s distinctive contralto. And another minute before he understood.
“Grace Slick,” he said.
Katy looked over at him with a sly smile.
“And the other panther is named after Bruce Springsteen?” he asked.
She raised her beer in a salute.
Louis sat back in the wicker chair, propping his legs up on the table. “W
hy do you name them?” he asked.
She gave a small shrug. “So they aren’t just numbers.”
They were quiet until the song ended.
“I was reading about panthers today,” Louis said. “I saw something that said they are sacred to the Seminoles.”
It was getting dark and he couldn’t see Katy’s face. But she had relaxed some, her body sort of melting into the lounge. Whether it was from the beer or from being more comfortable around him he didn’t know.
“Sacred,” she said softly.
He waited.
“My great aunt used to tell me stories,” she said. “They were like our fairy tales or like the Greeks making up stories to explain things that couldn’t be explained.” She looked over at him. “You want to hear one?”
“Please.”
“Well, the Creator made all the animals but he loved the panther best,” she said. “The panther would sit beside him and he would pet its soft furry back.”
Katy took a drink of beer, her eyes going back out over the darkening gulf.
“When the Creator was making the earth, he put the animals in a large shell, telling them that when the time was right they would all crawl out,” she went on. “He told the panther that because he was the most majestic and patient of all animals that he was the perfect one to walk the earth first. Then he sealed up the shell and left.”
“What happened?” Louis asked, when she didn’t go on.
“A tree grew next to the shell and its roots cracked the shell open but no animals came out,” Katy said. “The panther was patient, too patient. So the wind, which knew the Creator wanted the panther to come out first, blew on the shell so hard the crack grew larger and the panther came out. Then all the other animals came out too.”
She laid her head back on the lounge.
“The Creator watched all this and decided to put all the animals into clans,” she said. “For being his faithful companion the creator gave the panther with special qualities. Your clan, he said, will have knowledge of all special things. You will have the power to heal.”
Louis had a vague memory from his research this morning, something about the Seminoles being divided into clans.
“Do your people still have clans?” he asked.
She seemed surprised by the question. “Yeah, we do,” she said. “Your clan is inherited through your mother. There used to be more clans but many went extinct. There are only eight left -– panther, bear, deer, wind, bird, snake, otter and Big Town.”
“Big Town?”
“It was created for non-Indian women. The myth is that during the Seminole wars in the eighteen-hundreds, two white girls were found wandering in the woods. The Seminoles took them in but because they didn’t have Indian mothers, they could belong to no clan. So one was created for them.”
It was dark now. The signal from the Tampa station had faded, the music a dull murmur of static drowned out by the surf’s whisper.
And then, a plaintive meow.
Louis sat up, looking to the screen door. Issy’s black form was just visible outside. He rose and held the door open. The cat came onto the porch, pausing to look up at Katy.
“You have a cat?” she said.
“I told you I did.”
Issy came to her, arching her back against Katy’s leg. Katy set her beer bottle down and bent low, running her hand over the cat’s sides.
“What’s her name?”
“Issy.”
The cat suddenly bounded off into the cottage.
“Well, I think it’s time for me to go,” Katy said.
When she awkwardly tried to extricate herself from the lounge, Louis rose quickly and helped her to her feet. He reached inside the door and slapped the porch light switch. When Katy headed toward her truck, he followed.
She paused at her truck’s door, turning toward him.
“I thought you were bullshitting me about having a cat,” she said.
“I’m not much of a bullshitter.”
Her face, reflected in the porch light, was unreadable. She got in the truck but turned to him, elbow on the open window.
“Look,” she said. “I spent all day thinking about this. I still don’t think a Seminole would harm a panther but I am willing to let this investigation go where it needs to go. I want to find Grace and I want you to stay on the case. Do you want to?”
“Yes,” Louis said. “Call me in the morning and we’ll talk about our next move.”
She gave him a nod and started the truck.
“Your cat is really thin,” she said.
“I know.”
“How old is she?”
“I don’t know.” Louis hesitated. “I’m worried she dying.”
“Old cats get thyroid disease,” Katy said. “She’ll probably be okay with meds. Have her tested, okay?”
Before Katy could leave, Louis put a hand on the open window.
“Can I ask you something personal?” he said.
“Sure.”
“What clan do you belong to?”
She hesitated. “Snake.”
“Not my first guess,” he said.
She gave him an odd smile and jammed the truck into drive, pulling out of the yard.
Louis watched until the tail lights disappeared down Captiva Drive then went back into the cottage. Issy was waiting by her empty bowl in the kitchen. He poured a bag of Tender Vittles into her bowl and sat at the counter, watching her as she ate.
When she was finished, he picked her up, grabbed a fresh beer and went back to the porch. There he sat, watching the silver curtain of rain move in from Gulf and stroking Issy’s thinning fur.
CHAPTER NINE
The thing was lying in the middle of the road.
At first Louis thought it was a big log but after he slowly moved the Jeep ahead, he hit the brakes hard.
Alligator. It was a damn alligator.
It was at least twelve feet long and it was sprawled straight across the width of the dirt road.
Louis inched closer until the fat tires were almost touching the thing. It didn’t move.
Louis stood up in the seat and scanned the sides of the road but the brush was too thick and soggy so there was no way to turn around. And by his calculations he had left the paved road at least five miles back so he wasn’t about to go back all that way in reverse.
He had been out here for almost two hours already, driving around in circles in the open vehicle. He had a headache from the sun baking his head and his kidneys felt like they were going to fall out from all the jostling. He wasn’t sure he was even on the right road.
He looked back at the gator and laid hard on the horn.
The thing still didn’t budge. Didn’t even move a slitted eye in his direction.
Fuck!
He looked in the back for something he could throw. Nothing but a big empty Coleman cooler. He had a water bottle but he wasn’t about to sacrifice that. There was probably a jack and crowbar somewhere but he’d be damned if he was going to get out and look. He glanced down at the holster on the passenger seat. With one eye on the gator, he slipped out the Glock, pointed it at the dirt and fired.
The alligator gave a loud hiss and slithered off into the brush.
Louis holstered the Glock, sat back down behind the wheel and continued down the rutted dirt road.
This trip had seemed like a good idea this morning when he went into the station to pick up the four-wheel drive Mobley had promised him.
The cop manning the desk in the garage was named Sergeant Sweet, but he had given Louis the same sour look all the cops had been giving him. The rogue PI, riding his way into the department on an EEOC horse. That’s what they all thought. Sweet asked Louis if he was “working the panther thing.”
When Louis said he was, the sergeant said his ten-year-old daughter had started a petition in her class to get the Florida panther named the state animal and she was sad about the one that had gone missing.
“Find the damn c
at,” the sergeant said. “I don’t want to have to tell my kid the thing is dead.”
Then he handed over the keys to a souped-up Jeep that had been commandeered from a drug raid and told Louis that he should check out “the weirdos out in the swamp camps.”
There were hundreds of hunting camps on private land in the Everglades, the sergeant explained. After the federal government created the preserves in the seventies, the camps were grandfathered in and a handful still existed, handed down from one generation to the next.
Most were down south of I-75 but there was one just a few miles from where Grace had disappeared, the sergeant said. It was called Hell’s Hammock.
Be careful, he added, they’re all mouth-breathers who love their guns and hate the government. And that includes anyone wearing a badge.
Louis hadn’t told anyone else where he was going. He hadn’t even called Katy.
It wasn’t just the fact that the swamp camp men were bound to be hostile to a strange black man let alone a woman ranger. He was shutting her out for now because this was his world – going after dirt bags in a possibly dangerous situation. She didn’t belong here.
He would tell her later. His plan right now was simple: just quietly look around and check these guys out.
If he could find them.
Sergeant Sweet wasn’t sure exactly where Hell’s Hammock was. The directions were vague, just landmarks mainly. About halfway across I-75, he was supposed to watch for a gravel service road just past the first rest stop. Louis had found the road but deep into a jungle of palmetto palms it began to narrow. The brush created a tunnel so thick and close Louis had to shift in the seat toward the middle to keep from getting scraped.
The road forked and dead-ended a couple times, forcing Louis to back up and look for landmarks he had missed. The sergeant had said to watch for an American flag tied to a tree and turn left, but the only thing hanging from trees out here was Spanish moss.
Damn. Another dead-end. And this one looked like he wasn’t even going to be able to back out. He glanced down at the police radio on the seat but the signal had died miles ago.
He downshifted and eased the Jeep forward. There was a patch of sunlight ahead. And a tatter of a faded old flag hanging limp from a tree.
Claw Back (Louis Kincaid) Page 5