Shallow Grave

by Karen Harper

  Darcy hefted a basket of food they were taking to Duncan’s mother, Marta, and Claire carried a clear plastic sack with some new clothes for the boy. They skirted the workmen’s two trucks in the driveway and walked to Darcy’s minivan parked on the street.

  “Actually,” Claire shouted, “with all that noise, we could use some hand signals right now. And it might come in handy for me to tell both Lexi and Nick sometimes when they should cool it or too much is just too much.”

  “I know what you mean. I could scream when Drew and Jilly keep hounding me for something. I hope there’s a cut-it-out-right-now-or-else sign for weary moms.”

  The shrill sound of drills and pounding hammers from the backyard did not let up. Bronco was there during the construction, which Nick somehow managed to plan to have completed in one day.

  They smiled at each other as they got in the minivan. Sometimes the two of them could finish each other’s sentences. Claire was happy that she and Darcy resembled each other facially, because physical similarities stopped there. Claire’s hair was long and red compared to Darcy’s blond pixie cut. Darcy was much thinner, even when Claire didn’t sport a baby bump. Claire was older, but they had depended on each other for years.

  As she snapped on her seat belt, Claire thought that maybe a bad father and tough childhood was another reason she felt so attached to Duncan. He’d be at school today when they visited his mother on her day off from work, but this food and clothing would help him anyway.

  As they drove out of the cul-de-sac, Darcy nodded at the panther sign. “That Crossing Danger warning reminds me of something I meant to tell you.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t have time right now to help out on your Save Our Wildlife committee, though I think it’s a great cause—especially lately.”

  “No, not that. Maybe after the baby comes and you start getting house fever, you can join. But I was going to tell you there’s a better new way to warn traffic when Florida panthers are near. It’s a motion detector with wireless sensor networks. When the detector spots a large, low, moving form, the road signs blink BEWARE! BEWARE! Pretty cool, huh? Installation would cost a fortune, but it’s saved lots of wild cats out west.”

  “Wish Nick and I could have something like that installed around our property instead of a tall wood fence.”

  “At least things are looking up now,” Darcy said, and reached over to touch her arm. “We are already doing something else to help save the panthers. You know, for years Florida has done flyovers to monitor the radio collars they put on the cats to locate and document them. Telemetry flights, they call them. Small airplanes have to cover over twenty-six thousand acres, and they could really use help from expert pilots.”

  “Jace, you mean? He’s doing double duty now with Zika virus and citrus spraying. Besides, he’s not mine to suggest things to anymore, and with Ben Hoffman’s death, he has plenty on his mind.”

  “Is he going to work with you and Nick to help Brittany and the BAA?”

  “I’m sure he’ll just focus on her and not get involved with the legal end of things, if there is a legal end, which we’re hoping there is not.”

  “Good. After all you’ve been through, best if none of you get pulled into a ‘death by tiger’ case.”

  * * *

  Jace had been tempted to call in for a personal day off to be with Brit, but he had more than dedication to his job in mind today. After swooping low to spray acres of grapefruit and orange trees east of Naples—and track some guys who might be bringing in drugs—he headed toward the big citrus grove inland, the one that abutted the Backwoods Animal Adventure.

  But that wasn’t his real goal either. He’d already seen the BAA from the air, had even taken Brit up in a brief flyover before they soared over the Glades. Maybe he should have proposed to her that day. He’d been thinking about it lately, but with this mess now—not the time.

  Today he planned to do an aerial recon of the Trophy Ranch, because Brit had mentioned that the owner/overseer, or whatever his title, had been putting pressure on her father to sell BAA land. The monster ranch not only abutted the BAA, but looked, even from the ground, as if it could swallow the little place whole. Ben had been stubborn about selling, and Jace wanted to take a survey of the ranch—to do something to help out in Ben’s honor. If he had to make a list of suspects who wanted to hurt Ben, the people behind the ranch would be at the top.

  “Huge!” he muttered, as he circled the contours of the vast property, following the tall wire fence below, doubled up where the land abutted the BAA. He noted that the entry gate to the ranch, which on the road seemed a ways from the BAA parking lot, was really quite close to the BAA land since the ranch road curved. There was a small building near the ranch entrance, maybe a guard house or service center, though it might be hidden from the road.

  The magnificence of the sprawling wilderness awed him. “Man, the boundaries stretch clear to the Glades,” he said aloud, wishing he had someone here to tell. “Looks like footage I’ve seen of Africa.”

  After passing above the clustered roofs of small and large buildings and a swimming pool near the ranch entrance on the road, he was once again over grasslands, some standing in shimmering water in the sun. He saw a pack of wild boar running free near a stand of slash pines. And near the road, he glimpsed the distant cell phone tower, which seemed to stick out like a sore thumb in all this natural beauty. He figured that would work for calls at the compound, but not many miles back into the wilds.

  He dipped lower, then realized too late he’d spooked about twenty whitetail deer that fled from a small woody area, chased by the shadow of his plane. He tilted his wings to skim a lagoon that appeared to be loaded with alligators, looking like scattered tire treads, lying along the banks in the late-afternoon sun. What must be a flock of wild turkeys took flight beneath him, so he went higher to avoid a collision. Surely black bears and even Florida panthers roamed down there somewhere under the sporadic cover of thick, green foliage. And, of course, those damn, dangerous breeding pythons Bronco used to hunt.

  He noted on the farthest inland reaches of the ranch there might be shooting platforms in trees, called stands. He’d seen those for snipers in basic training years ago. Or were those the wooden roofs of buildings under trees or even in the trees?

  He banked again and headed back toward Naples. In the stripes of sunlight on cypress and sawgrass below—did he see two zebras? No, that couldn’t be. It was just that the shading and his speed made him think that what must be wild horses were zebras. A lot of these Florida ranches used to herd cattle by horseback, and some still did.

  He soared even higher when he saw what looked like a swamp buggy break from the trees. So that was what had scattered the deer and horses. He glanced back to see three men in the open-sided, canvas-top vehicle with the huge balloon tires. Yes, they were chasing the deer herd. Two men in the back seat stood to shoot. He saw a glint of gun barrel in the sun. One antlered stag crashed down, two, then three. Their huge racks of horns made them topple into grotesque shapes.

  He made a quick turn but not before he saw huge vultures just below him, circling, just like he was. Not looking back again, muttering, brooding, he headed for the Marco Island airport.

  He had never been a hunter, except of America’s enemies in Iraq. Hunting animals for sport made him angry. Besides, he couldn’t help but think that poor Ben must have gone down as fast as those poor deer. Only a bullet hadn’t brought him down. Had he been hunted and surprised just the same, though? Ben had been well trained. Could someone have sneaked up on him? Jace would bet it wasn’t just a tiger and somehow—though he didn’t intend to tell Nick or Claire so they would warn him to steer clear—he was going to prove it.

  * * *

  Marta Glover and her son, Duncan, lived in a trailer park, one ridiculously called Paradise Acres. Darcy drove into the area, which had nothing “paradise-y” a
bout the single-or double-wide trailers crammed in on streets with names such as Sunset Court and Palmetto Lane. But she could see why Marta, for more than financial reasons, had wanted to move from the house where her husband had beat her and killed her young social worker guest while Duncan hid under a bed.

  “I hope,” Darcy said as they parked a short walk away, “she doesn’t take this wrong—like it’s a guilt-gift or a handout, especially since Nick helped send Irv to prison for that road rage attack.”

  “I don’t think she will. She’s grateful we want to help bring Duncan out of his shell, and she knows there are other kids involved, so it’s not just charity for one boy.”

  “You think you can get her to start calling him Duncan? You’re pretty good at manipulating people.”

  “Not manipulating, sister mine, but encouraging them to change!”

  “Okay, okay. I guess you’ve managed to ditch Lexi’s bad-seed imaginary friend—and you did help raise me. I hear loud music, even though the front door’s closed.”

  Claire climbed the three metal steps and knocked on the door. Duncan’s bike, a beat-up-looking two-wheeler, leaned against the side of the trailer, and some Star Wars figures were scattered nearby. The dish-towel curtain flicked as someone evidently looked out, and the music stopped.

  “Oh, hiya!” Marta called when she opened the back door so only the screen door stood between them. “I know the weather’s good today, but I keep it locked up anyway.” She unlocked the screen door too. “Got to teach Duck to use his key, not leave things unlocked, not after what we been through. Come in!” she said, gesturing, and her light blue eyes went wide when she saw the food basket and clothing. She whispered, “Oh, my!” and ran her hand through her frizzy, long blond hair as she stepped back to let them in.

  They gave her the gifts and tried to ignore the fact she cried silently as she put the food in the fridge or single kitchen cabinet and the sack of clothes on the countertop. She wore cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that read GIVE BLOOD! American Red Cross, so maybe she’d been the recipient of help from that organization.

  GIVE BLOOD snagged in Claire’s brain. Poor Ben Hoffman and all that blood... Then those clawlike cuts on the alligator’s throat in the pool...

  Sitting around the small table, after the three of them had chatted a bit over cups of tea, Claire didn’t even have to bring up Duncan.

  “The boy says you all wanta call him Duncan, ’stead of Duck.”

  “Yes, I hope you don’t mind, Marta, but I thought it might remind him of better times, and that he has a very fine real name and doesn’t need to be defined—I mean labeled—by his father. The kids sometimes tease him for the nickname—‘quack, quack’ and all that.”

  “Hard to not say Duck, for a coupla reasons,” she told them, biting her lower lip. “Used to it, plus his daddy insisted. He’s still out there, see. Even though he sends us near fifty dollars every two weeks from Tennessee, he—well, it feels to me like he’s still out there.”

  “You haven’t seen him, have you?” Claire asked. “Or any sign of him?”

  Marta shook her head but shrugged, kind of a mixed message. But Claire figured, as scared as Marta and Duncan were of Irv Glover, they’d be on the run if they thought he was near.

  A chill racked her, but, trying to sound upbeat, she said, “I heard about the money from Tennessee going to your old address and that the post office and police are nice enough to be sure you get it.” She reached out to cover the woman’s hand with her own. She could see Marta had not only chewed her fingernails, but she’d been picking at her cuticles and several were bleeding. GIVE BLOOD, the words on her shirt seemed to shout again.

  Darcy put in, “It shows he does have a conscience, some feeling for you and the boy—the money he sends.”

  She nodded jerkily. “Never want to see him in the flesh, nor his name in the paper ever again. But you’re right, least that helps pay the rent—that and my Taco Bell job. He was so diff’rent when I met him, handsome, big talker, had a steady job at that Trophy Ranch near where you took Duck—I mean, Duncan—last Saturday, where Gracie Cobham’s tiger hurt that man.”

  “Your husband used to work at the Trophy Ranch?” Claire asked, sitting forward. “And—do you mean you also knew or know Gracie Cobham?”

  “Why, sure. Irv, he worked there years ago, driving a swamp buggy for guests out hunting. Didn’t pay much, so he left. But Gracie—seen her off ’n’ on for years, eighty if she’s a day. My momma knew her. I carried an orchid from her little backwoods store when we got married,” she said, and started to cry more openly. “You know, years ago she used to sell Glades orchids when it was legal from her little place out near the Seminole Village, past the road to Marco. Now she just grows her own. Why, just saw her and her boys at Taco Bell the other day. She said she’d be at the craft show Saturday at Cambier Park, and I should come by and she’d give me one. Don’t quite know how selling orchids mixes with that tiger she had, but this is the crazy wilds of deep South Florida.”

  As if that said it all, Claire thought as she exchanged a sharp look with Darcy.

  * * *

  Nick took the phone call at his desk when his secretary said it was Grant Manfort.

  “Hey, career criminal counselor,” Grant said, “how about a jaunt to the Trophy Ranch this Saturday?”

  “You going out there?”

  “I am now. Talked to Stan who said, sure, bring you along. He’s got some German guests, and some Japanese investors are next on the docket, but we’re welcome to the clubhouse, a swamp buggy tour of the grounds, though not the far reaches of the spread where there’s supposed to be some sort of private goings-on this weekend.”

  “Sure. Should I come out to your place or meet you there?”

  “Meet me there at the gate. We’ll make a day of it. Might want to wear boots in case we get out and walk around. You want to bring your snake-and-gator guy, go ahead. Actually, those pythons—and fire ants—are what the boots are really good for. See you bright and early at 8:00 a.m. at the gate.”

  “Thanks, Grant. The place just looks so intriguing.”

  “More than an outsider could imagine. See you there.”

  12

  After dinner that evening, Lexi was so exhausted that she fell asleep on the couch with a rerun of Dora the Explorer on the TV. Claire and Nick tiptoed outside to the patio, where they could look through the glass doors and watch her. They sat cuddled on a wide lounge chair, admiring their new oak fence.

  “The yard’s safer,” he said.

  “I agree. But, you know, I’d like to buy some native orchids and hang them from the fence to soften the effect, to make it more natural.”

  “In other words from Gracie Cobham on Saturday, where you would just happen to talk to her about the tiger and who knows what else.”

  The minute he’d walked in the door, Claire had told Nick about the two interesting facts she’d inadvertently gathered from Marta Glover. Not that she thought they were really important, except for the fact that she now had a chance—a great excuse—to interview Gracie Cobham in a public, controlled setting, a downtown park, where she’d be selling her “homegrown” orchids.

  Nick had been adamant that Claire not get near the volatile old woman and her crazy sons, but he’d okayed her plan since it seemed the safest way to approach her. She would go to the park when the craft show opened at 11:00 a.m. before heading home to host the Comfort Zone kids at her house where a friend of Darcy’s would teach scuba diving hand signals in their newly walled backyard pool. Nita was bringing the snacks for after the kids splashed around in the shallow end of the pool.

  “But still take someone with you to the park,” Nick told her as the daylight faded around them on the patio. Claire craned her neck to check on Lexi again; she hadn’t moved. “Take Nita maybe, since Darcy can take care of Lexi then. Bronco’s going to be w
ith me at the Trophy Ranch. Safety in numbers for both of us, okay?” he added and took her hand.

  “Okay, boss, as Bronco and Heck always say. You know, it’s a start on questioning Gracie at least. Who would imagine that tiger-loving, tough old woman would grow orchids? But then, as Marta said today when I told her I was surprised about her knowing Gracie and that Irv had worked briefly at the ranch, ‘this is the crazy wilds of deep South Florida.’ I guess you just never know who knows who or is going to turn up where.”

  “True,” he said and squeezed her hand, then lifted it to his lips to kiss the back of it. “At least this eight-foot fence will help keep the wilds out of our backyard and give us more protection and privacy, even this close to the house.” He sighed and shifted closer to her, pressing his hard thigh to her hip. “I hated to order the fence and apologized to both of our next-door neighbors, but they understood, with Lexi and the baby coming. As for the gator in the pool, I did not tell them it was dead on arrival with its throat slashed.”

  “At least we don’t have a third neighbor behind us to worry about too.”

  “Yeah, but with that empty lot back there, I’ll bet that’s where someone hauled in that gator, right through the thicket of ficas and invasive melaleuca trees. I should take Bronco in broad daylight and see if there are drag marks through there.”

  “I just hope nothing weird happens at the memorial service for Ben on Thursday. I’m sure Brit would like to put a fence up around that to keep out the press and the gawkers.”

  “And I hope we’ll be able to be a buffer for her. I know Jace will. After my visit to the ranch, I’m tempted to ask him to do a flyover, especially if I note any parts of it that seem to be off-limits when Bronco and I visit. There’s a lot of thick foliage cover out there, but Jace might spot something from the air.”