by Tom Hansen
Pancho paused a moment to think. He was still not sure if he could trust Phil and Lew, but he badly needed to release his burdens, so he decided to take a chance. “If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone. Please, it’s very important, sir.” Pancho’s pleading eyes were a dead giveaway that the Mexican man was fearing something or someone.
“Pancho, we are on your side. If you are worried about something, we will try our best to help. May we come in your vessel and have a look around?”
Pancho motioned to Lew and Phil. The two men climbed onto a rope ladder that hung inside the container, and then entered the underwater craft. Phil had grabbed a mooring line from his airboat, and once inside the container he secured the vessels together. Lew and Phil quickly skimmed the contraption and were curiously stunned by the sophisticated video navigation, propulsion and buoyancy systems on board.
Pancho interrupted their perusal of the container. “About once a week, Miguel’s job is to take Mr. Harfield’s speedboat to the Kissimmee River and tie it up to a huge old oak tree on the shore by where the river and canal come together. Right there, under the water, is this here box we’re in. Miguel then dives down and presses a button on the outside of the box and that air tank over there fills up those balloons that are stuck to the walls. The balloons make the box rise up so it floats and Miguel can get in it.”
Pancho handed Lew and Phil the remote control. “Then he uses this thing to make the box sink back under the water and he steers it down the canal to Mr. Harfield’s house. And you can see all around with these cameras, too. The canal goes underneath Mr. Harfield’s house to his driveway where it ends. Then Miguel unloads a few crates up into a truck that’s parked in the driveway. When he’s all done, he drives the box back to the river and gets into the speedboat and goes back to the house. Then, about a week later he does it all again.”
“So, why are you here tonight?” asked Phil while Lew nodded. “Why isn’t Miguel here?”
“Truth is, Mr. Phil, that I ride along with Miguel and help him out most weeks. Mr. Harfield doesn’t know about it. Miguel is afraid of Mr. Harfield and he feels safer if I come along with him.”
“Where is Miguel now? Why isn’t he with you?”
Pancho looked down at the floor of the vessel, embarrassed for what he was about to say. “Miguel is tied to a tree out by his shed.”
“What?!” exclaimed Lew and Phil together.
“I tied him there to protect him so I could take this underwater box out to the speedboat. I’m going to steal the speedboat and get way away from here for once and for all. He would want to come with me, but then if we get caught, he would be in big, big trouble. I don’t want him in trouble cuz he’s my best friend. When Mr. Harfield sees him tied to a tree he will think someone did a bad thing to him and he won’t blame him. Miguel will still have a job.”
“Why are you trying to get away?” asked Lew. “You work picking oranges, which seems pretty harmless. What’s going on anyway, Pancho? Does this have something to do with you saving Deputy Banks a few weeks back?” Lew was desperate for answers about his son’s death and what Willy Banks may know. The tone in his voice was becoming stressed.
“Yes, I think so. Some friends I work with told me they saw a man taking pictures of me at Quick Stuff. Why would someone take pictures of me? I got no relatives round here, ya know. I just got this funny feeling something bad’s going to happen to me.”
“Pancho, we’re going to help you,” promised Lew. Phil shot a puzzled look at his friend. “But first, can you tell us what is in those crates that are loaded onto the truck in Mr. Harfield’s driveway?”
Pancho hesitated, not sure if he should reveal his secret.
Lew prodded, “You know, don’t you, Pancho? Please tell us.”
Pancho remained silent.
“Pancho, you were right. You are in danger. I saw the pictures that the man took of you.”
“What? Where?”
“I’ll tell you all about it later,” said Lew. “But you need to tell me what is in those crates.”
Pancho dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a cylindrical object with green wires coming out both ends. He handed it to Lew. “Here, I took this out of a crate. I thought it was a battery I could use in my flashlight for some night fishing, but it didn’t fit. Those green wires are really strange.”
Lew and Phil examined the object closely. It was a bit wider, longer and heavier than a D cell battery. The green wires were baffling.
“You say that Miguel makes a run in this vessel once a week with crates of these?” asked Lew.
“Yes, sir.”
“Does the same truck pick up the crates, or is it a different truck each week?”
“Same truck and same driver.”
Lew remembered the license plate number for the semi that was parked in Oliver Harfield’s driveway. He turned to Phil and asked, “Do you have any idea how we can track down the owner of a license plate without raising suspicions?”
Phil replied, “Nope, not really. Why ya asking? Do you know the plate number of that truck?”
“Yes, I saw it clearly earlier today. The plate was RJCORP, registered in Florida.”
“Well, I ain’t no Dick Tracy, but I’ll bet your bottom dollar that the truck is owned by Roy Jackson. RJ is a dead giveaway. And I’ll double that bet that this here battery ain’t something that should be going places by that truck!”
“I think you’re right, Phil. Roy Jackson has gone to great lengths to build this canal to obviously hide the transport of whatever these dang things are.” Lew turned the object around in his hand trying to find a way to open it and get a better look. Then he gazed back at Phil. “We need to find Miguel before Oliver Harfield does and get him out of there fast.”
“What makes you think Harfield suspects Miguel of anything? He’s just his gardener.”
“Someone tying him to a tree will be very suspicious, and when he finds out his speedboat is missing, I don’t think he’ll mess around long with a Mexican laborer. You said yourself that Seminole Bend has suffered some shady deaths lately and no one will miss Miguel when he’s gone.”
“Nobody ‘cept me,” interjected Pancho.
“Except Pancho, of course,” nodded Lew in reply. “We need to find Willy Banks. Why was he fired? He must know something we don’t. He must! Let’s get Miguel untied and go find him.”
“What about fixing your patio door?” asked Phil.
“The glass is gone so the damn door will just have to wait. We need to move this container back to where it’s supposed to be down at the Kissimmee so no one suspects anything. Pancho, you take it down there, close it up and wait for us in the speedboat.”
“But you said it yourself. If the speedboat is missing from Harfield’s estate, that will be a problem,” stated Phil.
“Hopefully, he won’t notice it missing until we’re far enough away. But Harfield will certainly suspect that Miguel stole it and call the police. I think it’s best we drive it a long way from here and ditch it so it looks like Miguel was escaping to somewhere else, which will lead the police on a wild goose chase. Any idea, Phil?”
“Well, we could drive it across Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River and dump it somewhere in Fort Myers. Then, we could send Miguel somewhere up north in the opposite direction.”
“How long would it take to get the boat to Fort Myers?”
“Let’s say the boat’s got an average-sized motor. Guessing it cruises around forty miles per hour. Probably ‘bout a hundred miles to the Gulf, so should take about three hours, four if we need to stop along the way for gas. We need to bring the airboat to get us back, so I’ll need to fuel up, too.”
“Well, times a wasting, my friend. Let’s get moving!”
Lew and Phil boarded the airboat, fired up the powerful engine and gunned it towards the Seminole Golf Course Estates. Meanwhile, Pancho sealed up the container and submerged Harfield’s vessel. Using the remote control and peering at t
he video screens, he navigated the boxed craft to its destination at the end of the canal. With excitement, fear, determination and adrenaline flowing through their systems, the three men were intensely focused on their new mission.
No one noticed the Piper seaplane descending below the dark, cumulonimbus clouds a few miles away. Nor did they see it land momentarily on Roy Jackson’s swampland, and then take off again heading northwest into the thunderstorm that was brewing up on the Gulf coast.
CHAPTER 42
Wednesday, March 10, 1982
9:30 p.m.
A grass-stained, low-top Converse tennis shoe attached to a bloody brown foot and hairy fibula was all that was left of the twenty-three foot, 200 pound Burmese python’s dinner. The scaly carnivore appeared very content as each swallow moved his human feast closer to his stomach, and the breaking of bones could be heard from the dock on the other side of the shed. Lew and Phil thought the sound was twigs being snapped, and they guessed that Miguel must be loose from the tree and getting ready to start a fire. The men crouched and skulked one-by-one quietly around the back of the shed trying to ensure that Oliver Harfield, or anyone else in the mansion, would not see them.
Lew saw the repulsive spectacle first and froze in his tracks. Phil accidently bumped him from behind, sending both men face first to the muddy ground. They scrambled to their knees and gaped at the reptile six feet in front of them who was trying to dislodge a rubber tennis shoe sole stuck in his curved fangs. When the python opened his mouth, Lew and Phil gazed terrifyingly at the shredded remains of Miguel. The Miami Dolphins t-shirt had been regurgitated and was lying on the ground trapped under the nightmarish slimy skin of the massive snake.
Slowly, Lew and Phil rose to their feet and crept gently away from the beast, carefully eyeing the python with each vigilant step. Although not Catholic, Phil nonetheless made a sign of the cross to ensure that he and his buddy were not the next course on the reptile’s banquet menu. But just as they were about to make a mad dash back to the airboat, Lew caught a glimpse of something hanging from a large hook on the exterior of the shed, and he grabbed Phil’s arm.
“Wait,” whispered Lew. “Look at that.” He pointed at a long, sturdy rope hanging from the hook.
“Yeah, it’s a rope,” replied Phil. “So what? Let’s get the hell out of here.” He started to move again towards the boat, but Lew wouldn’t let go of his arm.
“Pancho said he tied Miguel to the tree with a rope and I didn’t see another one near the snake, did you?”
“I wasn’t looking for a rope, Lew. I was looking for a fast exit and we found it. Now let’s get the hell out of here!”
“I think that must be the rope that Pancho used to tie Miguel to the tree.”
“And who cares if it is, damn it! Come on, let’s go man!”
Lew turned Phil around so he was staring directly into his eyes. “Think about it Phil. I seriously doubt a Burmese python is skilled enough to untie a human from a tree, and I know the slimy thing isn’t considerate enough to tidy up before devouring whoever the rope was tied to!”
“Are you implying what I think you’re implying, Lew?”
“Someone untied Miguel from the tree and fed him to the snake. It’s the only explanation I can think of.”
Phil was shocked and scared. “But why Miguel? He was just a nice, quiet gardener. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Miguel drove the underwater container back and forth from this mansion to the Kissimmee River for Oliver Harfield. He was more than just a gardener and he had to know that something deceitful was happening.”
Lew motioned for Phil to step inside the shed so they could talk safely. The python’s mouth was now closed but the men could make out Miguel’s frame inside the snake’s overstretched digestive innards. They peered out the shed’s door and gasped in horror, then turned their heads away from each other and puked.
“The snake doesn’t appear to want any more to eat,” murmured Phil, still nauseous from the gruesome scene in front of him.
Recovering a bit, Lew replied bluntly, “Probably not hungry. Most likely will take a month or so to fully digest Miguel.”
“So, you think Oliver Harfield killed his own gardener?” asked Phil.
“Seems rather likely, don’t you think? And by feeding him to a python, all the evidence would be lost.”
“Lew, I got a bad feeling inside my brain. Remember I told you ‘bout Governor Daughtry in the same newspaper photograph with Harfield and your son?”
“Uh huh, and I know what you’re thinking Phil. You’re thinking that Oliver Harfield, my son Brett, and the governor may all be in cahoots and doing some unlawful things, right? And that means the sheriff and this asshole Roy Jackson are also involved.”
Lew wiped a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Brett was a good boy, Phil. I know I’m biased, but I still can’t see him involved in something so wrong.”
“We don’t know that yet my friend,” said Phil as he gave an affectionate pat on Lew’s shoulder. “Let’s pick up Pancho and get going down to the Caloosahatchee. I don’t know how were going to tell him ‘bout his best friend Miguel. Maybe we should just say he’s missing, what d’ya think, Lew?”
“I think he needs to know the truth, Phil. I’ll give him the bad news.”
* * * * *
“Where is he, dang nab it?!” exclaimed Phil as he navigated the airboat back and forth along the foliage that separated the irrigation canal from the Kissimmee River. Lew and Phil located the underwater container but could not find Oliver Harfield’s speedboat, or Pancho.
“Pancho must be in trouble,” declared Lew. “You think Harfield got to him?”
“Well, he sure ain’t here. What do we do now?”
“We must find Willy Banks. And we must tell the FBI what we know.”
“The FBI? You think that’s the best thing, Lew? They ain’t got no FBI office anywhere near Seminole Bend, ya know.”
“I’m meeting with the FBI in Miami tomorrow. I wish we had a camera to take a picture of that container, though.”
“I got a camera back at the shop. Should we get it and come back?”
“Too dangerous, Phil. But let’s get back to your store so I can pick up my car. Maybe Deputy Banks is at home now. We need to find him!”
Phil maneuvered the airboat slowly through the shrubs and mangroves out onto the Kissimmee while Lew struggled to keep branches away from his face. Once on the river, they gunned the engines to full throttle and headed towards the lake.
Just past Angler’s Delight Marina, at the mouth of Lake Okeechobee, they heard a deafening explosion in the skies above them. Phil disengaged the throttle and both men looked up in time to see an enormous flash blasting through the rain clouds. They knew it wasn’t lightening.
CHAPTER 43
Thursday, March 11, 1982
12:30 a.m.
O tis met Willy around 12:30 a.m. at the phone booth in the Dixie Food and Drug parking lot. No one was in or near the phone booth and an old Buick with a flat tire was the only car around. But Willy noticed that the Buick was rocking a bit, which was unusual because the winds were calm.
Willy wasn’t planning on giving back his forty-five caliber Colt M1911 pistol that was issued to him by the sheriff’s department until Al Bonty came and got it in person. He wanted to look the sheriff in the eyes while giving him a final piece of his mind! Willy rarely even carried the sidearm along with him. He knew his massive biceps were a deterrent to most criminals and he really didn’t have much love for guns after four bullets were removed from his body in Vietnam.
Willy decided to bring his weapon with him to Dixie Food and Drug after closely considering the rampage of deaths in Seminole Bend that had occurred over the past three months. After telling Otis to wait by the phone booth, he pulled it out of his belt holster and gradually shuffled up to the parked car. Willy could not see through the back windows as they were covered in fog and it didn’t take a detective t
o know what was going on in the back seat of that decrepit Buick. Willy tapped on the window with the barrel of his Colt. The rocking stopped. He tapped again, this time a bit harder. Nothing.
“Police officer. Get out of the car with your hands up!” Willy exclaimed, even though the small lie about being a police officer rattled his moral fiber a bit.
The door of the Buick slowly creaked open. Willy pointed his pistol at the emerging couple who were both naked as jail birds. A tall man with a long, scraggly mane and nose hairs about down to the top of his lips came out first. He raised his left arm at Willy’s request while his right hand was clasped with a lady’s left hand, and the man gently pulled her out of the back seat. When they had fully materialized outside the car, they raised all four hands high towards the sky. Willy bit his lip to keep from laughing. What a sight! But he did detect a whiff of cheap wine on their breaths.
Willy motioned with his gun for the couple to move away from the car. After they shuffled sideways a few feet, Willy reached in the backseat, grabbed their clothes and tossed them to the embarrassed duo.
“Get dressed,” Willy said, then put his gun back into the holster. He leaned on the car hoping this wouldn’t take too long. “What’s your names?”
“Lance Billips, and this here’s my lady friend, Ev Pritchard.” Lance was thinking about bolting now that Willy had holstered his gun. But he wasn’t sure if Willy would chase him or Ev, and he didn’t want to risk being the one wrapped up in those monstrous black arms.
Willy looked over towards the phone booth. “Otis, come on over here now,” Willy shouted. Otis started trotting over to the car.
“What the hell,” exclaimed Lance, as he noticed his drinking buddy coming at him. “What’s going on?”
“Hey dude,” Otis uttered as he reached out to shake Lance’s hand. “I see you met my bro Willy!”
Lance was too startled to return Otis’ handshake offering.