He mumbles something I can’t make out.
He doesn’t have long.
“What?” I ask. “Who hired you? Why’re you doing this?”
He shakes his head. “Got . . . no . . . answers . . . for you. I’m . . . not in the . . . answer . . . There are . . . no . . . answers.”
Blood gurgles out of the hole in the side of his neck.
He says something else but I can’t make it out.
“What?” I ask again.
“Tell my . . . daughter . . . I . . .”
71
Then
* * *
Days pass.
Then some more.
Then some more.
Heather holds the Cuddeback camera viewer as if a holy object, as if a reliquarium, as if it somehow houses Remington’s soul.
Upon returning to his tree stand to check his scouting camera, Jefferson Lanier had discovered Remington’s recordings, retrieved the hidden memory card and turned everything over to FDLE. After transferring the video from Lanier’s Cuddeback unit, the agency had returned the camera to him. He had then taken it directly to Heather, making a gift of it to her.
The gift, Remington’s final words.
Cheating death. Like a message sent back in time from beyond the grave.
How many times has she watched the messages? Hundreds? Thousands? She’s not sure. She no longer needs to watch it. She has every word, every pause, every breath, every expression, every inflection etched in her brain, continually playing on the memory card viewer of her mind. When she’s awake, when she sleeps. But she watches it anyway. It gives her something to hold, a tactile bond, her hands where his hands had been, creates a stronger link, a more direct connection.
Huddled in the corner, holding the camera away from himself with one hand, lighting himself with a flashlight with the other, he talks to her, his dry voice and weary face unwittingly revealing his pain, shock, fatigue, fear, but also his heroicism—is that a word?—and bravery.
—My name is Remington James. My camera trap captured images of a game warden named Gauge killing a woman deep in the woods between William’s Lake and the Chipola River. She is buried not far from a watering hole on the back edge of the James hunting lease. Gauge and his friends are trying to kill me—probably succeeded if you’re watching this. I’m trying to make it to the river—either the Chipola or across Cutoff Island to the Apalachicola—to flag down a passing boat.
He holds up a corner of the blanket.
—I’ll hide the memory stick somewhere near an easily recognizable landmark—manmade, a tree stand like this one, a houseboat, if I can find one—probably in the ground, and I’ll cut off a piece of this blanket to flag the spot.
—I hope you find it. Hell, I hope I survive and can take you back to it, but . . . These are dangerous, soulless men who need to be stopped.
Which is exactly what you did, she thinks.
—Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t make it home last night—or at all, I guess, if you’re watching this. I really tried. But more than anything else, I’m sorry for letting you down. You entrusted me with your camera, you charged me with taking the pictures you no longer could, and I stopped. I let making money—money of all things—get in the way of what I was meant to do. You and Heather were right.
—Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I realize that now and that I took some amazing shots tonight that I hope you somehow get to see. I really think you’ll like them. Sorry I didn’t bring you more, but I’m just glad I rediscovered what I was meant to do—even if I don’t make it out of here. A little late, but I did it.
—You and Dad were the best parents any kid could have. Thanks for all you did for me—in spite of being sick and fighting so hard just to survive. I’m fighting hard to survive tonight. I learned that from you.
—I love you so much.
—Dear sweet Heather, I’m so sorry for everything. You were right. I was wrong—about virtually everything, but especially how I had gotten off my path. See my message to Mom about that.
—If I get through the night, it will be because of you. I can’t stop thinking of you. I love you so much. Everything about you. Everything. You’ve been with me tonight in ways you can’t imagine. I’m reliving our all-too-brief time together.
—I took some extraordinary shots tonight, but my favorite photographs will always be the ones I took of you, my lovely, sweet, good, beautiful girl.
—I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband. You deserved me to be. Don’t mourn for me long. Find someone who will be as good to you as you deserve.
—I finally love you like you should be, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to tell you in person.
Tears.
Thick voice.
—Just know my final thoughts will be of you.
Each time she cries as if hearing his words for the first time.
Each time she caresses the camera and viewer, then holds them close to her heart.
72
Now
* * *
The only request Heather made from her hospital bed was to have the old Cuddeback camera viewer with Remington’s messages on it, which Mike and Jean Thomas found in her things in their guest bedroom and promptly brought to her.
She lies clutching it to herself now in her hospital room at Bay Medical Center in Panama City, a Gulf County deputy on guard just outside.
Reggie is still in surgery, and we haven’t received an update lately.
I’m lying in a hospital bed of my own, after having had x-rays to ensure what I and the ER doctor suspected—that the projectile that pierced my leg hit only muscle and not bone during its short pass through my quadriceps.
I’m on the phone with Anna, and though there is a Gulf County deputy posted outside my door, Merrill is seated in a chair next to my bed, his hand never far from his holstered .45.
“He was just a hired gun,” I say.
“I don’t care,” Anna says.
I’ve already told her what happened and that I’m okay. Now I’m trying to convince her not to come home early.
“Whoever hired him is still here. We haven’t gotten him or her or them yet.”
“I realize that, but there’s no way I’m not coming home to check on you, be with you.”
“Give me just a little longer,” I say. “I want it to be safe for you and Taylor. And it’s not yet.”
“Then it’s not safe for you.”
“Merrill’s here,” I say. “There are cops everywhere. I’ll be okay. Promise. But between Chris and whoever’s behind this, I’d feel better about you and Taylor and Johanna being far away from here right now.”
She doesn’t say anything at first, but then, “Are you saying not only are we safer up here, but you are, too, because you don’t have to worry about protecting us?”
“I just want you safe and this is almost over. I can tell we’re close.”
She sighs. “I’ll stay but only because it makes you safer.”
“I love you.”
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” she says. “Let me speak to Merrill.”
I hand him the phone.
They talk for a few minutes, during which he confirms for her everything I’ve told her about my wound and assures her he’s not leaving my side until we catch whoever’s behind all this.
He hands the phone back to me.
“Okay,” she says. “Now, listen to me. I don’t care what’s going on, it’s not worth your life. It’s not. Not even close. Don’t forget that. Don’t do anything to . . . Just take care of yourself. Stay safe. Promise me you will.”
“I promise.”
“Are you sure Chris didn’t hire him?” she asks.
“Yeah. I thought he might have at first, but the guy, Alec Horn, was easy to identify. He’s a professional from Miami—where the drugs from here are going—and Heather recognized him as one of the men who threatened her and Caroline in the gallery after the opening of Remington’s show.”
I do.
“I love you,” she says. “More than anything. Don’t make me a widow before I’m officially and legally your wife.”
* * *
“You really close?” Merrill asks. “Or just tell her that so she stay put?”
“I really think we are. There’s something flittering just at the edges of my consciousness.”
“You figure out Wilson’s involvement?”
“I didn’t, but Reggie did,” I say. “He and his men weren’t involved in what happened to Remington. They were probably getting skim from the operation and probably didn’t conduct a thorough investigation, but didn’t have direct involvement in Remington’s death.”
He nods, but doesn’t say anything.
“Knowing that helps,” I say. “Less to think about, can focus more on . . . other things like . . . where did the massive operation we found go? And how the product is being transported out of here to South Florida and other places. That’s the one I think I’m close to like a word on the tip of my tongue I . . . just . . . can’t . . . quite . . . get.”
“Well, you just lay there and have one of your little thinks on it,” he says. “All this shit out here is under control.”
I do.
While Merrill is so still and quiet it’s like he’s not even there, I think about everything we’ve uncovered so far, everything we’ve learned, but all that we haven’t found, all that we didn’t uncover.
We haven’t found any drugs. None. Just a site where they used to be produced.
Where are they being produced now?
And how are they getting to Miami and other places?
Growing and shipping and killing for pot—who, how, where, why? Over and over I roll it around.
Think about where it was being grown—up that slough, back in the swamp.
Of course.
It’s being transported by boat on the river.
Has to be.
The river isn’t really patrolled, isn’t really watched like highways. A handful of game wardens aren’t able to do much—and they’re looking more for wildlife violations than anything else.
Traffic along the river is rarely stopped or checked.
That’s it.
They boat it down the river to Apalachicola Bay and load it onto ships that then take it to Central and South Florida.
I fall asleep.
I dream of drugs.
When I wake, I feel like maybe another element of the solution was in my dreams, but I can’t remember what it was.
I feel slow and sluggish, thick and groggy.
And my leg hurts like hell.
Through the window I can see that it’s daylight. I only intended to have a think, maybe take a nap. I slept through the night.
I look over at Merrill. “Would you find me some crutches?”
“She already did,” he says, nodding toward the other side of the bed.
I turn to see Anna in a chair on the opposite side, a pair of crutches leaning against the wall next to her.
“I couldn’t stay away,” she says. “Sorry.”
“Don’t ever be sorry for that.”
“I left Taylor with Mom, so . . . she’s safe, but I had to see you.”
“Come here,” I say, lifting my arms.
She stands up, takes a step, and then leans down over the bed. We embrace for a long moment.
When we finally let go, Merrill says,“We leaving?”
I nod. “Yes we are. I can’t take another minute of this place.”
73
Then
* * *
Spring.
North Florida.
Gallery.
Hardwood floors. Squeaking.
Hushed crowd. Awe. Reverence.
Wine. Cheese.
Opening night. Posthumous show.
Last Night in the Woods by Remington James.
Enormous prints. Framed photographs. Color.
Incandescent.
Luminous.
Radiant rain.
Arcing sparks.
Falling drops of fire.
Field of fireflies.
Black and white.
High contrast.
Palmettos, hanging vines, fallen trees, untouched undergrowth, unspoiled woodlands.
Bounding. Loping. Barreling.
Black as nothingness.
Buckskin muzzle bursting out of a forest of fur, chest ablaze.
Shy eyes.
Florida black bears.
Looking up from a small slough, rivulets of water around large, sharp teeth, dripping, suspended in midair.
Heather, teary. Caroline in a wheelchair at her side, wiping tears of her own.
—He could’ve lived a long life and never taken any shots better than these, Heather says.
—I keep thinking about what Ansel Adams said, Caroline says. Sometimes I get to places when God is ready to have someone click the shutter.
—Exactly, Heather says. That’s it exactly.
They are quiet a moment, each looking around the large room at all the people who’ve come out to see Remington’s work.
Every shot, every single one draws intense interest, but none more than the stunning, seemingly impossible images of the Florida panther captured by Remington’s second camera trap—the one discovered by two hunters a week after his death.
Sleek.
Dark, tawny coat.
Flattened forehead, prominent nose.
Spotted cub.
Crouching.
Red tongue lapping dark water.
Playful cub pouncing about.
—He did it, Heather says. He did what so few of us do. He became who he was supposed to be.
—I know it had to be unimaginable for him, but he managed to live a lifetime and do some real good in the world by surviving the night, stopping those men, saving these images, Caroline says.
Heather nods.
—He did what so few of us ever do—found out the meaning of his life, rediscovered real passion, purpose, rededicated himself to love.
—He did, Heather says, nodding. You’re exactly right. It’s . . . I’m . . . I just wish he could be here.
Caroline looks around the room, her trained eyes taking in each astonishing image with the peerless pride of a mother.
—He is.
Beyond the women, on the far wall behind them, hangs the only image not taken by Remington or one of his traps. Just a snapshot, but one that, in its way, completes the exhibit.
Taken by a grieving, but grateful mother, with a son’s new camera, just before being rescued by a passing fisherman, the image is that of a cypress tree trunk on the bank of the Apalachicola River, the letters MM carved into its bark.
A monument.
A memorial.
A remembrance.
The artist, by his own hand, reminding his many admirers to make preparations, for they, too, will soon experience their own dark night of the soul, waking to the full weight of their mortality, journeying to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
74
Now
* * *
“Any word on the victim found at the crime scene?” Anna asks.
We’re coming into Wewa. Anna is driving. Merrill is in the passenger seat beside her holding a shotgun. I’m stretched out in the backseat, my bad leg extended out, the crutches lying across both floorboards.
I shake my head. “Not much. Only that she wasn’t Cassandra Hitchens, the missing DEA agent.”
“So we’re no closer to knowing who she really was.”
“I’d say we’re closer than we were this time last week,” I say.
“What happens if there’s no DNA match?” she asks.
I shrug. “Usually they try to use clothes, jewelry, anything personal buried with her,” I say. “But in this case it’s all too deteriorated to be useful. All except part of a tarnished silver bracelet. It’s char
red and part of it is missing, but it’s a very distinctive pattern, may even be one of a kind. It’s got a pattern etched into the flat piece and three short, narrow prongs that stick out.”
“I want to see it,” Anna says. “See if I can help identify it or locate who made it.”
“Sure,” I say. “We’ll have it back from the lab soon. But it’s going to be tough. It’s in very, very bad shape.”
“Some questions never get answered, do they?” she says. “Some identities never identified.”
“Far too many,” I say, shaking my head. “I hope this isn’t one of them.”
“Remington died without knowing, didn’t he?”
“I’m pretty sure. Based on what he said to his mom out in the swamp that morning.”
Before we left the hospital, we checked on Heather and Reggie. Reggie is in critical but stable condition. Her chief deputy or undersheriff, Langston Costin, is in charge of the department. Heather should be able to go home in a couple of days.
Anna is driving slowly, cautiously, though there is very little traffic—a few cars, a few pickups, some pulling boats, log trucks, most of them loaded and headed to the mill, others returning empty, a couple of flatbeds pulling trailers, both the trucks and trailers loaded down with bee boxes.
“Heard it was a terrible tupelo season,” Anna says.
“We had no winter this year,” Merrill says. “Blooms were confused as fuck. Opened early. Closed. Opened again. Closed too soon. Climate change fuckin’ with our ability to have biscuits and honey.”
I think of Charles Masters and his family’s bee business and wonder how they’re going to make it.
And then it hits me. Hard.
“You okay?” Anna asks, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “Wait, I know that look.”
Merrill turns in the seat toward me. “Whatcha got?”
“A little theory I want to test.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“We’re gonna need a boat.”
“Not a problem. What’s the theory?”
The Remington James Box Set Page 39