"You were saying why you didn't shoot the girl."
"Maybe I didn't shoot her," Ray said quietly, "because I wanted our business partner to do it."
"Why's that?"
Ray looked around again. Nobody paying any attention.
" 'Cause now we got something on him."
"Got what? So he shot somebody. What're we gonna do, testify against him? Guys like us putting our word up against a guy like him?"
Ray reached down and pulled out his carry-on bag. He unzipped one of the compartments, reached in and came out with a little plastic container. He rattled it in Orlon's face.
"What if . . ." said Ray. "What if the dead girl, just before she died, happened to capture a bad deed on extra-fine Kodak film? Got a photo of a man shooting a rare animal out of a tree. Would that interest anyone?"
Orlon reached out and took the film container.
"Where the hell did this come from, man?"
"That first little while when you guys ran off looking for Allison," he said. "I took a second and frisked the dead girl. Found this little thing in her breast pocket."
Orlon peeled open the lid, looked inside. He capped it, handed it back.
"Shit, for all we know it could be snapshots of mosques or some other tourist bullshit."
"I don't think so," said Ray. "This girl's out there in the jungle with her two cameras around her neck, plus she's Allison's daughter. So I don't think she's there to take tourist pictures."
"All right. So, tell me, Ray. Why the hell would we want to get anything on that guy? He's our business partner. We reap major financial benefits from knowing him. Goose that's laying our golden eggs."
"You're asking me why we'd want to get anything on him?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Think about it, Orlon. I want you to spend the next twenty-two hours — Singapore to L.A., L.A. to Miami with a change in Dallas-Ft. Worth — thinking about it."
***
The orangutan with the silver streak was in the dark cargo hold. It was cold and noisy. The crate he was in had been partitioned off into six compartments, like a liquor box only larger. His cubicle was just big enough to wedge his shoulders into crosswise. For the most part he had to stand up, but with some effort he could dip his knees slightly and lower himself into a half squat.
Across from him there was one small hole in the wood. Out of it he could see things. Not much, but a few things. Dark shapes out in the cargo hold.
The plywood dividers came up only to his neck, so he could peek into the adjacent compartments and see his traveling companions. The orangutan on his right was smaller, while the one on his left was larger than he was. Both apes were fit into their compartments upside down, their arms pinned to their sides.
They'd each vomited several times, and now both of them were very still. The orangutan twisted his head back and forth, trying to see out the hole in the wood crate. There were things out there, but it was hard to see them clearly. Boxes, other crates, luggage that shifted and creaked. The plane was only half full tonight, the cargo hold even less than that.
He had been offered food back in the bird store, but because he was still young, he was used to eating only things his mother provided, so even though he was very hungry, he didn't eat.
He peeped a few times. Small sounds.
He continued to peer out the hold. It was almost the only thing he could do to entertain himself. When he grew tired of that, he looked down at the upside-down apes' faces, first one, then the other. They appeared to be asleep.
Sometime later, he found he could lean his head to the right and could bring his nose close to the feet of the ape next to him. He could smell the ape's toes. They still smelled like the jungle, trees and leaves. Smelled like the young ape's mother.
He brought his head back, and squinted out the hole in the crate some more. He was hungry. He was thirsty too. The plane was very bumpy, very very cold.
The vomit at the bottom of the crate was starting to smell good. But there was no way he could get to it. He wrestled against the tight fit, but he couldn't loosen himself.
So he looked out the hold some more. There might be food out there somewhere. Maybe there was water too. It sounded like it was raining. Sounded like a storm going on all around him. If he saw food outside the hole, maybe he would be able to get out there and eat it.
Beside him one of the other apes groaned loudly. Then there was a slurping noise. The ape with the silver streak bent his head to the side to see. The upside-down ape next to him was licking up its vomit. Licking it very slowly till it was gone.
CHAPTER 6
November the fourth, Friday, nine days after Winslow was murdered, the funeral service was held at the Plymouth Congregational Church, a one-hundred-year-old coral building on Main Highway in Coconut Grove. One of Harry's partners was a deacon there, which made it as close as the Farleighs came to having a church affiliation.
Sean sat on one side of Allison, Harry on the other, neither of them touching her. Sean was weeping quietly, Harry sniffling from time to time. But Allison was quiet. She'd already done her mourning. She'd wept until she was empty, then wept more. Stayed in her darkened bedroom for the week since returning from the Far East. Couldn't eat, couldn't lift her body from the bed. Only that morning, for the first time in days, she'd pulled herself together, gotten showered and dressed. Shuffled on her sprained ankle out into the sun.
Allison took a long breath, inhaled the halo of expensive cologne that was wafting from the other side of the aisle, where Harry's colleagues sat, a half dozen lawyers from Barker, Hoff, Taylor, and Stern.
Harry had joined the firm a couple of years before, after retiring as assistant undersecretary of state for Asian affairs. Fourth man down from the secretary, rubbing shoulders with senators, even receiving an occasional phone call from the president. They had a condo in Georgetown that Allison tried to make into a home for a year or two. But it hadn't worked. The dreary dust of bureaucracy settled into her pores, Washington's chalky air suffocating her. She moved back to the Gables house, and Harry commuted back to Miami for long weekends now and then. Less and less as time went on.
Now he was a registered lobbyist, paying calls on his old friends in government, working deals. Barker, Hoff, Taylor, and Stern's main client, possibly their only client, was Rantel Industries, an international construction company based in Miami. High-rise office buildings, glitzy malls, sports arenas, domed stadiums, colossal hotel complexes. At Rantel the investors drove stretch limos to the job sites, wore gold-plated hard hats.
Harry refused to discuss his work, but Allison assumed he was doing what other career diplomats did, trading on a lifetime of quid pro quos. Using his knowledge of the Far East to broaden the financial horizons of Barker, Hoff, Taylor, and Stern.
The rest of the funeral party was made up of a few of Sean's college friends, some members of Allison's Wildlife Protection League, a couple of young women from the photography studio where Winslow had worked since graduation. An aspiring photographer, for the last year and a half Winslow had been developing other people's snapshots, going out to endless weddings and anniversary parties.
Dr. Kurt Franklin sat in the front row along with Thorn and a couple of people Allison didn't know. Kurt was Winslow's fiancé. He was a vet at Metro Zoo, two years older than Winslow. He'd met her months ago at a Wildlife Protection League barbecue Allison had sponsored. He and Winslow hit it off, talked the evening away. A narrow-faced young man, extravagantly polite.
The minister began by admitting that he'd never actually met Winslow, but he had been told by all that she was a truly wonderful soul. He urged the mourners to console themselves by recalling the young woman at her happiest moments, and by praying to God to help them grow through their hour of grief. For surely Winslow Farleigh played some important role in God's plan. It had to be so, even though it was beyond our ability to understand. By helping each other to accept God's mysteries, surely we would reach our own wisdom and grace.
When Reverend Ruark finished reading the twenty-third psalm, he closed his Bible and took a seat off to one side of the altar. In the front row Kurt Franklin cleared his throat and pushed himself to his feet. He trudged across the stone floor and climbed the steps to the pulpit. Earlier this week Kurt had asked the Farleighs if he could give the eulogy for Winslow, and Harry said yes, yes, of course.
Allison watched as Kurt steadied himself, a thin hand on each side of the pulpit. He drew in a couple of labored breaths, then took some papers from his pocket, unfolded them, flattened them out before him. He stared down at them for a moment, then refolded them carefully. He cleared his throat, looked down at Sean, then Allison, then Harry. Back at Sean. Tears shone on his cheeks.
"I can't do this," he said. He swallowed deeply, looked down at the first row. "Thorn? Would you?"
Kurt came out from behind the pulpit and held out his speech. Hesitantly Thorn stood up, let out a sigh, then crossed the stone floor and took the pages. Kurt went back to his seat, slumped over and put his face in his hands.
Thorn climbed the steps, went behind the pulpit, and spread the pages out before him and looked them over. He was an inch on the other side of six feet, medium build, long arms, scruffy hair that was tortured by the sun to a bright blond. His skin was coppery, eyes somewhere between blue and turquoise. He walked in a loose-gaited way, almost a saunter, though there was nothing insolent about him. He was in his early forties, roughly Allison's age.
She'd known Thorn for thirty years. Allison's father used to take Allison fishing with Thorn's adoptive mother, Captain Kate Truman, young Thorn acting as first mate. And twenty years later when Sean and Winslow were ten and eleven, Allison hired Thorn to take the girls out a few times, teach them about the water, fishing, boats. The girls found Thorn deliciously eccentric, so totally unlike anyone else from their city existence. Sean started calling him Nature Boy, a nickname that seemed to please everyone.
Over the years Allison and Thorn had stayed vaguely in touch, bumping into each other once a year or so. And in all that time, she had never seen him in any clothes but shorts, T-shirt, and old tennis shoes. But today he was wearing white jeans, creased as stiff as sheet metal. A black-and-white checked cowboy shirt with black pearl buttons. He had on a pair of white-soled boat shoes that looked hastily and inexpertly polished.
Last spring Allison heard about Thorn's most recent loss. The woman he'd been living with had drowned in a diving accident. Since he had no phone, Allison called his best friend, Sugarman, to see how Thorn was doing. Not good, he told her. He's holed up in his house, hardly ever goes out, grieving. Depressed. But Thorn is always holed up, Allison said. No, not like this, Sugarman said. This is serious.
A few days later Allison drove down to Key Largo and dropped in on Thorn. She claimed she was looking for someone to fill in for her at Parrot Jungle while she was away at various conferences. Maybe a week out of each month for the next few months. Could he do it? The job involved cleaning cages, and helping to feed the primates and the hundreds of birds that were housed there.
A job? Thorn said. He'd never had one of those and didn't want to start so late in life.
Not even to help out an old friend?
They shared a bottle of wine out on his porch, gazed out at Blackwater Sound for a quiet half hour. Then he turned to her. You got twenty people you could ask to fill in for you, don't you, Allison? At least that many, she said. But you drove down here to ask me 'cause you heard I was housebound. That's right, she said. Your friends are worried about you. Well, we can't have that, can we, Thorn said. Can't worry my friends. No, sir. And then to her great surprise he said yes, okay, he'd help her out, just as long as they didn't call it a job.
For years Thorn had had a mild interest in orangutans, ever since he'd steered Allison to that tawdry roadside zoo on Lower Matecumbe Key, where a one-year-old orangutan had been caged in a cramped, unventilated plywood box. It was Allison's first success at rescuing an ape, and Thorn had been with her at every step.
For the last few months, since he'd begun subbing for her at Parrot Jungle, Allison had loaned Thorn books, articles, magazine pieces on orangutans, fed him information every chance she got. In that short time he seemed to have mastered the subject, and Allison suspected that by now he knew almost as much about those apes as she did.
During the two weeks that Allison was in Borneo, Thorn had brought his boat up to Miami, found a marina a mile from Parrot Jungle. He'd even begun giving the ape talk to park visitors. From what she'd heard, he'd done an excellent job. Perhaps he was a little low on social skills from years of living a hermit's life. Thorn didn't tolerate fools. There had been a few incidents with park visitors, she'd been told by Crystal Slayton, one of the park workers. Incidents? Allison asked. What kind? Well, let's just say this, Crystal told her. Our friend Thorn is not real good at taking random shit.
Allison watched as Thorn finished looking through Kurt Frankin's pages and refolded them and put them in his pocket. He glanced down at Kurt and gave a small apologetic headshake. Then he looked out at the assembly, cleared his throat, but said nothing. A couple of Harry's partners on the other side of the aisle mumbled to each other.
Thorn glanced around the sanctuary as if he were absorbing the cold grandeur of the room. He looked over at the lawyers from Harry's firm, then at a few of the stained-glass windows. He brought his gaze back to Sean and Allison. He seemed comfortable with the silence he was creating, more at ease than anyone else in the room.
One of Harry's partners coughed. Allison looked over. A couple of the younger ones were grinning at each other.
Thorn took a long breath and stared down at the podium.
"I knew Winslow since she was little," he said, with a blend of Georgia cracker and the languid vowels of the Caribbean. A Florida Keys drawl that let lots of space accumulate between the words.
"I watched her grow into a damn fine lady. Graceful, kind, very smart. She was a quiet woman. She watched, she listened. She paid attention. She learned to catch fish pretty well, too, knew how to stay alert to any twitch of her line. Same skill a photographer needs, I suppose. Knowing just the right second to react.
"What I'm saying is, I liked Winslow. Liked her a lot. Respected her. I think her family did a damn good job raising her. It's a horrible shame we're here now, doing what we're doing."
The electronic warble of a cellular phone sounded over in the lawyer's gallery. One of the young men drew a small unit from his breast pocket and began to murmur into it. He fiddled with the antenna and continued to talk. One of the older lawyers sitting behind him thumped him on the shoulder and shook his head sadly at the boy, but the young lawyer raised his hand helplessly, and kept on speaking into the phone.
"One more thing and I'll get down from here." Thorn looked at the young lawyer chatting on his phone. "Lately I been to more funerals than is good for a person. And it seems like at every one of them, sooner or later somebody gets up and says that thing about God working in mysterious ways."
Thorn took a long, peaceful drink of air.
"Well, in the last few years I've also had the bad luck of encountering one or two killers. And I can tell you this with some confidence. If there's a God up there that uses people like the ones I've met to kill people like Winslow Farleigh, then take me off his damn mailing list. I don't want any part of that God's mysterious plan."
Reverend Ruark was staring up at the ceiling, as if he were carefully weighing Thorn's theological argument.
Thorn came off the dais and walked down the aisle. He stopped at a pew halfway down, leaned over a couple of lawyers, and twisted the phone away from the young man's ear. He held the small black phone in both hands, lifted his knee and banged the phone down against it, cracking the thing in half, then dumped the pieces in the young man's lap and walked down the aisle and out of the church.
Reverend Ruark came back to the podium, thanked the gentleman for his heartfelt words, and began to read anothe
r psalm as if he were trying to purge the air of Thorn's paganism.
Beside Allison, Sean was staring down at her lap, breathing hoarsely. Allison reached over and picked up her hand, and held it in her own. It was cool, lifeless. Sean kept her eyes down, and in a moment she drew her hand away.
Reverend Ruark was just starting his benediction when Sean came to her feet and called out that she wanted to say something too. He stopped mid-phrase and looked down at her.
Sean stood very straight, arms at her side. She was wearing a simple black sheath. No hat, no jewelry. Her body tense. Straw-blond hair parted on the side; her tan, a roasted almond. Legs with chiseled calves, arms alive with muscles. A pretty girl who'd never fussed about her looks. Thought of makeup as a major nuisance. Never seemed bothered that when the boys began to line up at the door, most of them were coming for Winslow. Sean had never shown much interest in flirting or romance. She had plenty of friends who were boys. But it was always Winslow who had the boyfriends.
For the last year she and Winslow roomed together in an apartment in Coconut Grove. Sean was studying for her LSAT's, working nights as a waitress in a health food restaurant in the Grove. Winslow doing her photographic work nine to five.
Sean stood for a moment, holding the silence around her. Then she stepped past Harry and moved out into the aisle. She looked around at the gathering, her eyes resting briefly on Allison, then moving on.
"We have no business being here," she said. "Winslow never liked churches."
Harry reached out for her, but she stepped away.
"And Winslow had no business being where she was, out in that jungle. That wasn't her crusade. She didn't care about monkeys, apes, any of that. She didn't care one goddamn bit."
Sean turned her head toward Harry and Allison, but kept her eyes focused on the distance.
"I miss my sister," she said. Her voice was cold and rigid. "I miss her very, very much. My life isn't ever going to be as good as it was when she was alive."
Gone Wild (Thorn Series Book 4) Page 6