Cooler Than Blood

by Robert Lane

  Morgan stood in the kitchen rubbing fillets with olive oil. Lucinda Williams was in the air asking someone to make her moan at the ceiling. I raised my hand, but she kept singing as if I weren’t even there. Perhaps she didn’t hear me.

  “Fillets or sauce?” he asked.

  “What do you got?”

  “Trout.”

  “Go out yourself?”

  “Guy I met at Fish Head. What will it be—grill or stove?”

  “I’ll do the sauce.”

  He brushed past me with the fillets on a large plate in his right hand. Salt and pepper shakers the size of bananas hung out of the pocket of his cargo shorts. In his left hand, a bowl-shaped wineglass sloshed red wine.

  “Where’d you get the glasses?” I asked. Another one rested on the counter.

  “Little joint at Santini Plaza,” he answered without turning and padded out the door, his bare feet slapping the tiled surface. I poured a glass of wine. I put the glass down, reached into the refrigerator, and took out a beer. I swigged half in one act. I tossed down four Oreos. A handful of cashews. Devoured a chunk of Welsh cheddar. When I’m hungry, I’m random.

  I put on a pot of water and turned the burner to high. On another burner, I heated olive oil in the skillet. I diced half an onion and a whole tomato and dumped them into the skillet. It registered their arrival with a nasty hiss. I added oregano, salt, pepper, tapenade, freshly squeezed lemon, and basil. The water in the pot convulsed in a boil. I gently placed a pound of royal red shrimp into the frothing surface, being careful not to splash—I had no shoes on, and I had experience in how painful it could have been. I added a sprinkle of garlic, and at exactly four and a half minutes, I took the reds out. I stripped them of their shells and legs, cut each one into three sections, and mixed them into the skillet. I had held two back and ate them. Like a dog, I nearly burned my tongue. I rinsed it with the rest of the beer.

  I poured the sauce into a white ceramic bowl that had permanent scratch marks on its bottom, stuffed two bottled waters into the pockets of my shorts, snatched a loaf of bread, and started toward the door. I returned and added forks, plates, and a wad of paper towels to my collection.

  Morgan and I claimed a front-row wooden cabana. The cushions were stored away for the night, and the canvas was laid down. The moon hung over Sanibel as if it was tethered to the island. As the sea drank the sun, we took in the wine and the fillets buried in the Mediterranean shrimp sauce. To our right, three cabanas down, a couple sat with their arms draped over each other. Directly in front of us, a man with a metal detector and headphones waded in the shallow waters. A late-day jogger ran north to south along the beach. I marvel at the courage and audacity of people who exercise during the hours of the day that are biblically ordained for drinking. Do they not fear divine retribution? Have they not read the Old Testament? You do not want to piss that guy off.

  “It’s a super moon,” Morgan said as he tore a piece of bread from the loaf, dipped it into the sauce, and paused, as if in anticipation of the moment. “Thirty-two thousand miles closer than its farthest point out.” He stuck the bread into his mouth. “It won’t be this close for more than another year”—he paused to swallow—“or about fourteen moon cycles.”

  I followed his cue, broke off a piece, and buried it in the sauce, letting the bread get a good soak. “Thirty-two K isn’t noticeable, though.” My phone rang. I abandoned the bread in the dish and walked away from the cabana. It was a blocked number.

  “This is Jake.”

  “How are you, cowboy?” Special Agent Natalie Binelli asked.

  “Fine, Vassar.”

  I had accused her, in Escobar’s kitchen, of being a blue-blood Yale FBI recruit. That didn’t sit very well. “Fuck Yale. I’m from Vassar,” had been her flat reply.

  I asked her, “Anything on the Coleman clan?” I had given the background in my voice mail.

  “Still full speed ahead, aren’t we?”

  “How’s the family?”

  “Fine.”

  “Kids?”

  “Swell.”

  “We done?”

  “What do you know about meth labs?” she asked.

  “Illegal breed of retrievers?”

  “Close. Try again.”

  “Just the basics. Easy businesses to set up in a garage. Thousands get busted every year.”

  “Therein lies the problem,” Binelli said. “You need to dispose of the toxic waste. The government cut back on the funds they allocated to the states for that purpose, so local authorities don’t actively search and destroy anymore. They don’t want to find a lab. They have no means to dispose of the chemicals, or precursors, used to manufacture the drug.”

  “Does that mean even more local labs?”

  “One would think. But the Mexican drug cartels are believed to have created meth super labs, even though the drug’s key ingredient, pseudoephedrine, is illegal in Mexico and now restricted in the US.”

  “Where does the cartel get the precursors from?” Before I finished, I deemed the question inconsequential.

  “China imports to Mexico; the cartel manufactures and ships to the US. Prices have fallen over the past few years, despite the Mexican government’s war on the cartel. This tells us—”

  “How are the Colemans involved?”

  “If you don’t want to know, Slick, don’t ask.”

  The man with the headphones packed it in for the night, and the jogger ran south to north. She was likely forced to turn around, as it was high tide, and access to the last half mile of the beach was blocked, unless one was willing to get wet or pick his or her way through the mangroves. Either was an unlikely choice for a runner. At least she hadn’t turned into salt. I had moved toward the mangroves and realized I was close to where Jenny had done a number on Billy Ray Coleman.

  I tucked under a branch and made my way toward my target. “What else might help me?”

  “Have you talked with the local law boys in the Colemans’ county?”

  “They won’t play with me.”

  “Not everyone succumbs to your unique charm.”

  “You did.”

  “You slammed me into a wall and threatened to break my wrist.”

  “‘Slam’ is a little harsh.”

  “Would you have?”

  “What?”

  “Broken my wrist, cowboy. For some reason, that’s the only thing that bugs me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was quiet except for a wave that broke on the shore. I didn’t know Agent Binelli that well and was prepared for the line to go dead. I wanted to ask her again how the Colemans fit into this but decided to let her reenter at her own pace.

  She started in, and I was relieved to hear her voice. “I assumed you’d irritated the locals, so I made a few calls. The Colemans are wannabes. They’re suspected of teaming, or attempting to team, with organized crime in Tampa.”

  “Who?”

  “We’re not sure. But we—”

  “Do you have names? Locations?”

  “Neither. We think a Chicago group is trying to make inroads into Florida and have a presence in Tampa. But with the lack of funding, there’s no incentive to chase them. What’s the prize here?”

  I expanded on what I had left in my voice mail. “A young woman’s been abducted. She killed the youngest Coleman when he attempted to rape her, and now, two days later, she’s AWOL. Because she’s eighteen and had just skipped out of her childhood home a few days earlier, the police only have mild interest. Problem is she left her phone behind.”

  “Signs of struggle?”

  “None.”

  “How long has she been missing?”

  “Couple days.”

  That busted the pace. I knew what she was thinking. She cracked the silence. “Who’s investigating?”

  It was a meaningless question, designed to kick-start the conversation. “Sheriff’s detectives. Guy named McGlashan and his partner Rutledge. I haven’t met Rutledge, but
McGlashan shoots straight and feeds me what I know. Keep looking. If you find who they—”

  “Name sounds familiar.”

  “McGlashan played football.”

  “And I would know? I majored in theater, remember?”

  “Ever do Virginia Woolf in the nude?”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “Touché.”

  She disconnected. Guess we were done conversing. I found myself entangled in the mangroves. The area where Jenny had been attacked and successfully defended herself was still roped off. There was nothing there but sand and sticks. I made my way back to Morgan and threw my saturated piece of bread on the sand. Dinner was cold.

  That night, somewhere between the sheets of sleep and consciousness, I remembered I wanted to hear—or at least read the transcript of—Rutledge’s interview with Jenny. I wanted to talk to Rutledge directly; I sensed McGlashan was tiring of me. Maybe Rutledge could lend some fresh insight into Jenny’s state of mind.

  I dreamed there was a cross with Jenny’s name on it. Queen Anne’s lace was crowding it out. The wild plants towered over it, dancing and taunting—like the sailboat’s spinnaker flirting with the sun—and I thought it was total bullshit that Queen Anne’s lace would know the difference between dancing and taunting, but it did, and it made all the difference.

  CHAPTER 15

  McGlashan hit me a little after eight the following morning. “Rutledge’s back from Vegas.”

  “Hand in his resignation?”

  He let out a huff. “I don’t think he clears a plug nickel there. But it’s not due to lack of effort.”

  “He roll the dice often?” I find Vegas about as attractive as being stuck in an elevator with overweight, inebriated transvestites. I speak from experience.

  “Moved down from your neck of the woods little over a year ago. Since then, every opportunity he gets. He lives from one trip to another.”

  “You sound as if you disapprove.”

  “Don’t give a flying crap either way. He likes hot concrete and pushy people palming titty cards.”

  “You’ve been there.”

  “Twice, for conventions. That was three times too many. I like to fish and got a fifty-seven Chris-Craft I’m restoring with my son. That’s the far side of the moon from Vegas.”

  I had finished my beach run, sweated my weight, and seated myself at a table next to the sparkling waters of the resort’s pool. When McGlashan had called, I was getting ready to open an e-mail from Mary Evelyn. The subject line read, “Ta-Da!”

  “When can I talk to him?”

  “He’s not as cooperative as I am.”

  “Meaning?”

  A man carrying a beach bag entered the pool area through the white gate and headed toward the hot tub. Two children, a boy and a girl, took turns diving to the bottom of the pool and bringing up a large rubber dog bone. The girl barked.

  “You’re a civilian, and the department doesn’t think we should be chasing Ms. Spencer.”

  “What are we going to do about that?”

  “We? I don’t think there’s really a—”

  “You know”—I stood and started pacing—“that an eighteen-year-old doesn’t split without shoes and her cell.”

  “There’s only so—”

  “No cell. You know—”

  “I’ll tell you what I know.” He came in with force, and I got out of the way. “Two thousand people—about a hundred every hour—are reported missing in this country every day. Most of them are under twenty-one. That’s too big to chase. The case is closed at our end. We know who killed Billy Ray. We know he killed at least one other girl. Ms. Spencer should get a sticker by her name. She’s from a troubled childhood, ran once, and now she’s slipped out again. And since the day she vanished, several thousand others have joined her club. You think I don’t care? I do. You think I’ve got time? I don’t.”

  Jenny’s decision to leave home without notifying her parents—Angie and Boone—was coming back to hurt her. I wouldn’t gain anything by alienating McGlashan and whipping him into a frenzy. The man in the hot tub eyed me as he took out a bottle of champagne and poured himself a glass.

  I took a deep breath. “I need to listen to the interview tape.”

  “I’ll see what I can arrange. What did you find in the timberland? This isn’t a one-way street.”

  “Tall pines, bugs, and leftover paraphernalia from their chem lab. And this: Jenny spent a day on a boat with Zach Coleman last summer.”

  “The hell, Travis? You going to keep that to yourself?”

  “No time, remember?”

  “I can turn you off right now.”

  “It was a dead end,” I said. “She never saw him again, and according to my source, it was her older brother, Orry, who invited Zach. Orry didn’t even know him that well. But you might want to tell the Hocking County elves about it so they can—”

  “You find something like that, you call me. Understand?”

  I deserved his attitude. I should have notified him immediately about the encounter between Zach and Jenny. Maybe I didn’t trust him, but Susan deserved a better effort than that. So did Jenny, dead or alive.

  “You’re right,” I said quickly. “My source was certain it was only a chance meeting.”

  “Your source?”

  “Jenny’s stepfather.”

  He paused. “You leave him breathing?”

  “Against my better judgment.”

  “Okay. That might be enough to put a manhunt on for the Coleman boys, but we’ve already looked. As far as we know, they’ve vanished. The sheriff up there interviewed their known associates, and none of Jenny’s relatives were on that list.”

  I thought about Daniel’s comment about Randall driving from the motel and asked, “Can you check and see if the Colemans have, or had, any property in Florida?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  My phone buzzed, indicating another call. “They were regular visitors to a motel on the northern end of the island, the Buccaneer. Guy there says he thinks Randall took off to a familiar place and returned the same day. Might have met a person named Wesley.”

  McGlashan came in slowly. “When did you have this conversation?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You keep me up to speed. Got that?”

  “We’re talking about someone’s life.”

  “And I’m talking common reciprocity.”

  “I want to hear the tape,” I told him.

  “I’ll see what—”

  “Every minute she’s gone, it’s less—”

  He hung up on me. Just like Binelli had.

  I retrieved my voice mail. It was Applegate from MacDill Air Force Base. He said he had nothing on the Colemans and didn’t leave any other comment. He wasn’t getting involved.

  Liquid salt dripped down my face. Before McGlashan had called, I had swum hard in the Gulf for thirty minutes, emerged from the surf like a fish testing its evolutionary legs, and run for three miles. I’d tried to kill myself the final half mile. At the end I was bent over, hands on my knees, staring at a coquina shell that marked the water’s farthest encroachment upon the land. It had intense orange color at the edge, as well as rings of lighter shades toward the middle. A set of toes in need of a pedicure had obliterated my little buddy. I’d lifted my head, and a lady with a floppy wide hat and John Lennon sunglasses inquired if I was okay. I gave her toes a dry heave and told her I was fine. I like to go to the edge every morning. It enhances life.

  I grabbed my shirt, which I’d left on the white fence when I’d first come down from the room, and went to the pole with faucets on it. I stuck my head and shoulders under the upper one and let the water carry the heat away. I wiped my face with my shirt. A woman with blushed cheeks and dinner-theater red lips joined the man in the hot tub. They both held condo-stocked wine glasses high above the steamy water. The man laughed. The little girl in the pool let out a series of woofs then dove headfirst into the deep end. I wished I had
something that simple to retrieve. I remembered Mary Evelyn’s e-mail and sat down to read it.

  Wesley. She’d solved the puzzle. I stood up.

  “Hey, mister. Can you get my bone?”

  The little girl gazed at me from across the pool. “My bone went in the deep end. Can you get it?”

  Why not? I was at the shallow end and wondered whether I could cover the pool with a flying leap. I took a few steps back, vaulted, and stretched for the sky. I wanted to land directly over the bone, but I crashed several body lengths short. I dove for the rubber bone and brought it to the side of the pool. The girl squatted. I handed her the bone.

  “You forgot to bark,” she said with a trifecta of disbelief, disappointment, and hurt.

  “Woof.”

  “Woof, woof!”

  Cute little tyke.

  Still wet, I took the stairs up to the condo. It felt like a walk-in cooler. I snatched a towel from Morgan’s bathroom, dried off, and entered the kitchen. Morgan was making his way to the balcony with a bowl of scrambled eggs. He glanced back at me and said, “Get the toast and coffee.”

  Two slices poked out of the red toaster. I snatched them along with a jar of cherry jam and the pepper grinder. The coffeepot and two mugs were next, and I managed to get it all to the screen porch without losing anything overboard.

  “The Colemans have a property about a half hour north of Tampa,” I said while I peppered my eggs. “We eat and drive.” I didn’t let the grinder rest until my eggs were covered with a gray, lumpy sheet. I cannot consume eggs without pepper on them. Eggs without pepper will never happen.

  “You need to stop by and see Susan before we leave.”

  I had told him yesterday about my aborted encounter with her. “I don’t have much to share with her,” I said.

  Below and out on the beach, men were finishing setting up their business for Jet Skis, kayaks, and paddleboard rentals. They had started before sunrise. It would be a tough day—thin summer crowds and a high sun. Morgan glanced at me and said, “That’s not the point.”