Mangrove Bayou

by Stephen Morrill

  “Got to go back and get her clothes,” Milo shouted.

  Troy looked at the trailer, it was shaking like a washing machine with an unbalanced load. He could see one tiedown had already broken.

  “No. Too dangerous,” he shouted. “We’ll take her to your house. I’ll drop you both off.”

  Milo shrugged out of his yellow raincoat and, struggling in the wind, wrapped that around Wanda. He and Wanda got into the truck and slid across. “What about him,” Milo shouted, pointing at the body on the ground in front of their one headlight.

  “Leave him. He won’t mind.” But Troy realized that Billy was floating in the shallow water and he crawled back and towed the body to the trailer and handcuffed one tattooed wrist to the wrought-iron railing on the concrete steps. Just above him the trailer was already disintegrating.

  The Suburban still ran fine. Troy drove them back to Barron Key, fishtailing in the wind, the truck trying to float at times when they crossed some lower spot, and dropped the lovebirds off at Milo’s house on Barron Key.

  “Get her story, if you can,” he shouted to Milo. “Write it down. Give her some of your clothes. You are still on duty. Stay with her. I’ll come for you or send for you when I need to. Until then, you keep her safe.”

  Chapter 41

  Wednesday, July 31

  By nine in the morning Donald had moved on to make more people miserable on the other side of Florida. Winds had dropped to thirty and were still dropping. The rain had ended.

  Bubba had called in twice during the night, once to say they had found the lost people and their wrecked boat, later to say he was at Faka Key and had used every line on the town police boat to lash it to a lot of mangrove trees. Troy had sat up, cleaning his pistol, at first because it had been in salt water, and then just worrying about Bubba. Until he heard that second message, Troy had not realized how tense he had been about it. It was only then that he had lain down beside his desk and tried to get some sleep.

  With the morning light and lessening wind, people around Mangrove Bayou were poking their heads up, like gophers sniffing for danger before venturing back to the surface. The cells in the back of the police station were a mass of snoring people scattered every which way. June was at the front desk and Juan Valdez and Tom VanDyke were the only staff out on patrol.

  Outside, on 5th Street in front of the town hall, Troy talked with the mayor. Lester Groud looked gray with exhaustion. In the distance Troy could already hear a dozen chainsaws and generators running. Faint in the distance he could now hear the town’s big generator rumbling out on Government Key, still pumping power to the emergency grid.

  “Some damage,” Groud said. “Mostly on Snake Key. Some trees down and a lot of limbs came off.”

  Troy nodded. “Nothing like a hurricane to clear out the deadwood up in those oaks.”

  “Yeah. I got the public works guys on it. First business is to clear the streets.”

  “I had Juan Valdez make a run out to the Forty-One intersection,” Troy said. “Road’s not bad. Only low bushes along there and he says what’s in the road won’t stop any traffic.”

  “Had a run-in with Calvin Smith last night,” Groud said.

  “Oh? Hadn’t heard. What happened?”

  “I got it all stifled, I think. He went into the Gulf View Motel, lined up all the tourists staying there, and had them write their social security numbers on each other’s foreheads.”

  “I told all the officers to do that if the tourists would stand for it. It was just a scare tactic, along with a form I had for them to fill in.”

  “Well, Calvin scared them all right. At one point he pulled his gun and he was not giving them any choice. When they were not terrified of him they were pretty angry about it. I got an earful last night and more this morning. I apologized to everyone and told them all I’d have the officer fired. So I want you to fire Calvin Smith. Pronto, before he waves his gun around any more.”

  Troy was silent a long moment.

  “What, you’re not going to do it?” Groud said.

  “I don’t like, on principle, for you, the mayor, to be ordering me to fire people. Or hire either. Should be a mutual thing at the least.”

  “All right. Mutually speaking, what are you going to do about this?”

  “First thing, right now, is to go over to the Gulf View and talk to some of the people there.”

  “You do that. I’m tired of talking to them. Get back to me on it.” Groud looked down the street to where the town bulldozer was slowly trundling along from one job to the next. “Most houses around here are concrete block and used to getting whacked around a little,” Groud said. “North end of Barron Key and over on Airfield Key the hoity-toities are all newer construction and up on stilts or built-up ground to meet the new code. Might need some roof fixing here and there. Trailers are a different story. Snake Key is pretty beat up. I drove through there earlier.”

  “Why do so many Snakers live in trailers in a hurricane area?”

  “Too poor to afford houses,” Groud said. “And every time the trailer gets blown off into the mangroves, they’re poorer still, so they get another used trailer.”

  “That reminds me, we need Doc Vollmer,” Troy said. “He doubles as the local assistant medical examiner.”

  “Don’t tell me that someone died.”

  Troy nodded. “Billy, William Poteet. He’s out at Wanda Frister’s place. If he’s still there, and if the trailer is even still there. I’ll send out Vollmer and the town ambulance.”

  “You do that. What happened to Billy Poteet? Did he drown?”

  “I blew his head off last night.”

  “Oh. That would do it. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Want to tell me the story?”

  “In the worst way. But let’s wait until I can have you, the doctor, and maybe someone from the state attorney’s office. Save a lot of repetition. And we both have things to do today.”

  “I reckon Poteet won’t mind a little delay,” Lester said.

  “Got another problem,” Troy said. “Sort of a special request that only you can help with.”

  “Well, I am the mayor,”

  “No. You’re a fishing guide. I got a fellow who needs to learn to fish. You know how to fish.”

  “Can’t say I like taking out clients who don’t know how to fish. They get mad at me when they don’t catch anything.”

  “He wouldn’t be a client. He’d be sort of a mate. Give him the dirty jobs. Make him earn his place. But teach him to fish.”

  “Why am I doing this?”

  “Personal favor. It’s not forever, just until he gets the hang of it.” Troy explained about Norris Compton. “And look on the bright side. If you ever fire me, you can get rid of him too. Make your day doubly delightful.”

  “You are a serious pain in my ass, Chief Adam. You know that?”

  “I do. Proud of it. It’s good to have ambition.”

  Troy walked over to the Gulf View Motel and talked to some very angry visitors, some with numbers still on their foreheads. He took down some statements. He was still damp and wrinkled and tired. He walked to the Sea Grape Inn. His condo was dark. He had forgotten that it would have no electricity. Mrs. Mackenzie or one of her staff had come in and closed off heavy storm shutters across the windows and sliding glass door to the balcony. The outside table and two chairs were now sitting in his living room where they would not become flying missiles.

  He took the flashlight off his duty belt. With that and some fumbling around he was able to undo the latches and open the storm shutters and push them back to the sides of the balcony. Now at least the living room had some light. The shower worked and he took a shower. It started off hot because there was still hot water in the tank but cooled quickly. He shaved by flashlight. It helped a lot. He put on a clean uniform. His apartment-sized stacked washer and dryer unit wouldn’t work yet so he hung the wet clothes out on his balcony rail.

  When he was dressed he walked downstairs and
out to the pool area to look over the water between him and the islands out on the horizon. The wind was still blowing but not very hard now. Mrs. Mackenzie’s staff had neatly solved the issue of dangerous flying poolside chairs and tables by simply heaving them all into the pool.

  He walked back around Sunset Bay to the police station parking lot and let himself in, using the prisoner door by the cells. He felt like a very clean guy who hadn’t had much sleep.

  The cells and floor were still covered with sleeping people. “Everybody up,” he shouted. There were muffled groans and heads popped up. “Breakfast time. Storm’s gone. Angel, you and Jeremiah relieve Juan and Tom. Clean up first and change uniforms. We’re serving and protecting and looking STRAC doing it. The rest of you, you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here. All except you, Norris.”

  “Do we gotta do that hour of exercise?” Angel asked.

  “I think we can skip it for today,” Troy said.

  Troy took one of the trucks and drove back to Snake Key and to Wanda Frister’s place. Half the trailer still sat there, one tie-down strap holding that end in place. But even that was a gutted shell. Wanda’s belongings, her life, were strewn for a hundred yards, mingling with debris from other homes or what had washed in with the storm surge. The concrete steps were still there, the steps now leading to nowhere, and Billy Poteet was still lying beside the stair, one wrist extended upward and handcuffed to the iron rail. Troy and Dr. Vollmer bundled him into a body bag and then the town ambulance and Vollmer headed back to the clinic. Vollmer would have an assistant take Billy on to Naples for the county medical examiner.

  Troy drove down to the boatyard. Bubba had radioed to say he was inbound. The boatyard had surprisingly little damage, but then, people there really knew how to look after boats in storms. Looking down the Collier River, Troy saw the RIB come out of a side channel between some mangrove islands and turn toward the town, bucking some in the chop, a lot of spray flying over it. He located the police boat’s trailer, hooked it up to the hitch on the back of the Suburban, and backed the trailer down the boat ramp. One thing he was really good at, Troy thought, was backing up boat trailers. Maybe if this job didn’t work out he could get on somewhere as a truck driver.

  Bubba eased up gently to the pier next to the ramp and tied off the boat. There were four people, two men and two women, all in their fifties and all Hispanic, in the boat along with Paul Ronson and Bubba Johns. Paul Ronson handed them up to Troy, one by one, onto the pier. Ronson had traded in his blue blazer for his foul weather gear, yellow bib overalls with a hooded rain jacket over and some waterproof boots. Ronson got off too and Bubba untied the boat and backed it away. He drove the boat right up onto the trailer. Troy hooked onto the bow eye and gave the electric winch a few taps to pull the boat up tight and then hauled the boat and trailer out and over near the fence.

  Troy walked back to the pier. Their four refugees were all soaking wet and the men and women never stopped shaking Ronson’s hand, hugging him, thanking him. They had come over from Miami, rented a boat for some fishing, and then gotten lost when trying to return it, Ronson told Troy. While they were looking through the mangrove islands for the right channel, a larger wave had caught the boat and hurled it into the trees. One man had known how to use the radio and also the onboard GPS and could relay their position to the Coast Guard.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” Troy said.

  “What do you mean?” Ronson said.

  “Helping people who really need it.”

  Ronson looked at the four bedraggled survivors. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

  “You risked your life for four strangers. No one would have thought the less of you if you had stayed safe ashore.”

  “I would have thought less of me,” Ronson said. He looked at the four survivors standing together at the other end of the pier. “One man told me that they had given up. They were in water armpit-deep and rising and hanging onto trees for their lives. They knew they would die. Then, out of the rain and wind and flying tree branches, impossibly, they saw the police boat coming, coming straight at them. Said it was like a miracle. That they had been reborn.” Ronson turned to look at Troy. “I will never forget how that made me feel to hear that.”

  Troy nodded. “And that’s why I like being a policeman.”

  “I might have been a volunteer, but you ordered Bubba to go out and then stayed here ashore yourself.”

  “That’s what leaders have to do sometimes. Tell others to take the risk. But Bubba and I talked it over first and he was the one who decided it was possible. I would have preferred to go out myself but Bubba, and you, are better at what needed to be done. And these people needed the very best help I could send them. It’s not easy, standing safe in the back and watching others take the risk, but I have an entire town to look after.”

  “Humm. Maybe that’s some sort of courage in itself.”

  “Maybe. But anyway, as for these four, I’ll take them off your hands. We can get them sorted out at the station.”

  “I can handle it. My car’s still here. The yacht club has showers and a laundry. I can feed them, clean their clothes, give them some cash to get by and have someone run them up to Marco Island later. That’s where their car is.”

  Troy looked at Ronson a long moment. “All right. I’ll leave them in your capable hands. You seem to have adopted them, or perhaps they adopted you.”

  Troy drove himself and Bubba back to the station. “He seems to have had some of the corners knocked off his personality,” Troy said as he drove.

  “Ronson? I suppose so. He and those four gabbed all night long. Don’t think he had ever really talked to people from that culture before. We were on the backside of a hill out there and the noise made it impossible to sleep even if we could have in that place. Middle of the storm we had to scramble around to the other side of the hill. Thought I might lose the boat then, but it held up good.”

  “It’s some kind of miracle you saved the boat too, Bubba. That wasn’t necessary, but I appreciate it.”

  “Luck. And a lot of line. Spiderwebbed it off to red mangroves. They actually make pretty fair tie-offs, if you can wedge in-between two nearby clumps, because they bend with the wind and with the rising tide.”

  Troy dropped Bubba off at the station and told him to take the rest of the day off. He drove over to Milo Binder’s place. Milo’s house was a small block ranch and looked all right this morning. Wanda was wearing one of Milo’s shirts and one of his khaki uniform shorts. Milo had apparently cooked them some breakfast on a small camp stove, electricity still only being supplied to major buildings by the town generator.

  Troy was brief and blunt. “Wanda, your trailer is gone. So is Billy now. I don’t know if your car is still where you left it or if it runs. If you want to go look, you can.”

  “Got no shoes, sir.”

  “Oh. That’s right. Don’t try to walk around without good shoes. Too much junk on the ground out there. Whatever shape the car is in, it will be the same later today or tomorrow. No hurry. I think you’re better off staying here for the time being. Milo, I need you back at work. Now. Got an important task for you.”

  “OK, Chief. Wanda, you stay here. You keep my cell phone. Call the station if you need anything. Otherwise stay off the phone. No way to charge the battery once it dies.”

  Wanda nodded. “Thank you, Milo. And you too, sir. For everything.”

  Back in his office Troy called Milo and Angel Watson into his office. “Got a job for you two. As you know, before the storm hit we found a dead man halfway out Barron Road, in the south side canal. I’ll drive you out to the Forty-One intersection. You each take one side of Barron Road and walk back here. I want you looking for clues, anything at all out of the ordinary.

  “That’s a five-mile walk,” Milo said.

  “I know. Take your time. Go slow. Expect to be at it for as long as it takes. Angel’s on the clock, Milo gets OT, lucky stiff.”

  “Good
thing we got the new lightweight unis,” Angel said. “We’ll take along a couple water bottles.”

  “Whatever.” Troy had never understood the need for people to walk around clutching water bottles all day. “I found a can of white spray paint in the storage room. Feels full. Every time you spot something that could be important, leave it there but spray a circle on the road on that side. Walk side by side, opposite sides of the road. When you get to town, keep walking on the streets leading to the bridge to Airfield Key. Call me when you reach the bridge.”

  On the way out to the main highway Angel spotted the break in the power line. The heavy-duty wire was down between two of the steel towers standing off to one side in the marsh. Troy called Mayor Groud to report it.

  “You’ve been up and down this road for days now,” Angel said when Troy had ended the call.

  “I know. Walking is slower and better. And storm surge and high tides have a way of moving things around, rearranging things.”

  “It’s called police work,” Milo said.

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Doing all kinds of boring and useless things because we don’t know ahead of time what’s useless.”

  “Milo, I do believe you have the makings of a police chief. All you’ve got to do is keep on doing meaningless and boring things for a lot of years. It’s kind of a Zen thing.”

  “You didn’t do it a lot of years. You lucked into this job.”