I kicked the A.C. up and the outside temperature on my dash readout said 79. Farther west I pulled into a plaza grocery and loaded up with supplies: coffee and canned fruit, a few vegetables and thick loaves of dark bread. Sometimes I stayed out at the shack for a month at a time without coming in. But I had the feeling I'd be back to the city soon enough. When Billy got onto something, he was relentless. If he wanted me in on this, whether to prove or disprove his suspicion, he'd have a plan.
By the time I reached the boat ramp the sun was on its downward slide. A ragged ceiling of high cloud was drifting over the Glades, its edges already glowing with streaks of pink and purple. I flipped my canoe and started loading. I was lacing a small waterproof tarp over the groceries in the bow when I heard the crunch of footsteps on the shell growing louder behind me.
"Mr. Freeman?"
I turned to face the new ranger, a man in his thirties with thick blonde hair and creases at the corners of his eyes from hours of squinting into hard sunlight. He was about six feet tall, lean and tanned and dressed in uniform. His hand came up with an envelope as he stepped up and stopped.
"The Park Service wants a copy of this to go to you, sir."
"And what might this be?" I asked, taking the white business- sized letter, but not looking down from the ranger's eyes.
"You'll have to read it, sir. A copy has also gone to your attorney. My understanding is that the state is attempting to break your lease on the research station, sir."
"And why would the state be interested in doing that, Mr., uh, Griggs?" I said, reading from the nameplate mounted above the ranger's pocket.
"I don't know, sir," he replied. "I was only asked to deliver the mail, sir."
Still I did not move my eyes off his. Everyone knew of the incident surrounding the death of the former ranger and his apprentice. They were killed with my gun. The shooter, who had been dubbed "the midnight murderer" by the press, had been after me and had later been stabbed to death on the river. The violence put a stain on this pristine place that I could not deny.
I held the new ranger's gaze for a moment longer before folding the letter and stuffing it into my back pocket.
"Thanks," I said.
Griggs turned without a response and walked unhurried back to his office. I locked my truck, scraped the canoe down the ramp and pushed off onto the dark water. Twenty minutes out I stopped stroking and drifted, my paddle dripping a trail of water on the flat surface like beads slipping off a string.
The air was damp and still. I had stopped just at the point in the river where the tidal change pushed and pulled at the fresh water flowing from the Glades. The smell was unique, like moist, fresh- turned soil, and I breathed deep and closed my eyes, trying to wash away the feel of the city. But the mental grinding that was my constant companion was back at work. I couldn't pull an image of Billy's dead women into my head. I'd seen too many bodies in my ten years as a cop on the Philadelphia streets: gunshot wounds and beating victims, suicide jumpers and elderly people who simply died from heat stroke in their choking tenement buildings. I'd had enough. But if he was right, could I turn him down?
Billy had a way of picking up all the linear facts while the emotional parts sometimes slipped by him. Maybe I could just talk with Billy's client, the one who'd lost her mother. Hear her out, get my own feel before dismissing my friend's theory. McCane sure as hell wasn't going to gain anything from the relatives. People with a past in it can smell racism on a man. He would get no further than the fake politician, the shop foreman or the field boss. The stink was on him in ways he probably didn't know. I might not be anymore successful talking with the grieving daughter, but I was sure I couldn't do worse.
I shifted in the canoe, the movement sending out a ripple off the gunwales as I reached into my back pocket for the envelope. Tearing it open made an odd and unnatural sound out here, and a Florida red-belly turtle reacted, sliding off his spot on a downed tree trunk into the water.
I unfolded a legal notice of a filing by the State of Florida against the lessee of property lot #6132907 in sec. 411. The petitioner was filing to break the ninety-nine-year lease of said property and all special conditions set within, claiming an intrusion on said, property contained within the boundary of a designated state park and possible deterrents of such included property and riparian areas contiguous to said property.
The suit was copied to Billy. He'd know the legalese. But I could translate well enough. They were trying to kick me off my river.
5
That night I dreamed of sleeping in the old brass bed with a down comforter pulled up against the cold. The baseboard heater was ticking as its metal expanded and then contracted in its nightlong work against leaky windows and weather stripping. But the shrill ringing was a different, jarring sound. I fumbled with the phone and muttered into the receiver and my father's graveled, booze-laced voice was on the other end.
"Get the fuck up, patrolman. There's an officer down three blocks from your damned town house at Camac and Locust."
In my dream I am up on the side of the bed pulling on a pair of jeans, my father's command like a whip crack that has snapped me into motion since early childhood. I yank my boots over bare feet and clomp down the narrow staircase, pulling on a sweatshirt and banging a knee on the wrought-iron railing at the bottom. What the hell is he talking about? Camac and Locust. Christ, what time is it? Officer down?
I fumble with my keys, unlock the bottom kitchen drawer and pull my holster and 9mm out and strap the leather on. I grab my police department jacket off the hook and when I open the back door to the courtyard the winter air stings my face and I am running and still shaking the sleep out of my head when I hit the curb on Alder.
It's dark and I can tell by the empty street that it is well after 2:00 A.M. Doc Watson's on Eleventh is closed. Bar stragglers are gone. The street lamps on the corners near the Jefferson Hospital Library are glowing a soft orange and the block is silent but for the one urgent yelp of a siren growing louder in the distance.
I manage the corner of Locust and look to the west toward Broad and four blocks down is a patrol car, light bar spinning, sitting across the one-way street, its headlights painting two bright globes on the wall of the one-hour dry cleaning place. I start running along the edge of the parked cars when the ambulance from Jefferson comes wailing around the corner and the second, no, third, patrol car screeches up on the scene and I see two officers jump out with weapons drawn and I reflexively reach down for my own.
Another block closer and I see the other patrol car, dark against the corner, a knot of guys on their knees at the trunk, their hands busy with something on the ground, their faces bobbing up into the light, their voices sounding too anxious for cops. One gets up and starts directing the ambulance and his wet hands are glistening in the headlights and now I'm thirty feet away.
"Christ, hurry up, man, hurry," one is snapping. "Get the goddamn stretcher."
"Keep pressure on the chest, pressure," says another.
"You're cool, Danny. You're cool, man. We got you, man. You're cool," says another.
The paramedics are out with their bags. When I get twenty feet away the backup cops standing at the other side of the group pick up my movement and their guns come up and I am in three sight-irons.
"Cop. I'm a cop," I yell, palms going up and wide so they can see my empty hands and my jacket. The other officers and paramedics look up only for a second and then are back to their focus. On the ground behind his squad car I see Danny Riley. He's on his back, his eyes shut, skin gone white in the lamplight. Another officer has ripped open his jacket and is pushing a reddening towel into his chest and the medics are trying to take vitals and one is saying, "Fuck it. Let's get him to Jeff. We're only four blocks away-let's go."