“Did we hit her?”
“Jesus Christ!” Birdy said again, then sat up straight. “No. But, goddamn, that was close!”
“I felt something,” I said. “Like a thud against the fender. Are you sure?”
“Yeah… yes, I’m sure. I got a glimpse of her in the mirror when we went off the road. That’s what you heard, a sort of thump when we hit the berm. But I saw her. Standing there like a statue-what an idiot! Ran right out in front of us!”
I said, “Let’s go back and check. What do you think?”
“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t hit her, but she has to be in some sort of trouble. Or drunk. What was she wearing? A robe maybe. It wasn’t yellow, but it looked yellow because of the lights.”
“Are you okay to drive?” I asked.
“Stood there like a statue!” Birdy said again, then took a deep breath. “Probably some redneck who had a fight with her boyfriend, out here crazy drunk or high.” She opened the glove box and took out a flashlight. “Let’s go see.”
We turned around on the empty road and retraced our path with the windows down, Birdy driving slowly, until we found the BMW’s first skid marks. The night air was dense with April moisture and vibrated with cicadas and trilling frogs. We shared the flashlight. Ditches on both sides of the road were a tangle of weeds and beer cans, but no sign of the woman.
Ahead was the entrance to Sematee Evaluation and Treatment Clinic. I was already thinking it when Birdy said, “Hospital clothes, that’s what she was wearing. Or scrubs, something like that.” She looked toward the clinic’s security lights, way back in the trees, which showed a wedge of empty parking lot and a couple of low buildings that reminded me of government housing. “Think we should go find someone?”
I still wasn’t convinced we hadn’t grazed the woman. What if she had wandered off into a field and was dying? “Let’s park and search on foot,” I said. “We need to make sure she’s okay before we waste time talking to people.”
“I just got this car,” Birdy replied in a way that told me she wanted to check for damage, too. “Let’s find that church, we’ll get out.”
We turned around again.
THE REASON we hadn’t noticed the church was because it wasn’t there. The building had collapsed beneath the weight of its own rotting frame or had been intentionally demolished-a tiny structure the size of a schoolhouse, if photographed from a satellite, that lay a quarter mile west of the clinic.
We didn’t see the cemetery, either, until Birdy babied the BMW into the drive and hit her brights. That’s when the wreckage of the church appeared and headstones began emerging from the weeds, a dozen or fewer stones at the edge of the property where vines and cattails created a wall. From the satellite photos, I knew that a section of what might be swamp, and the lake that fed it, were nearby, then miles of sugarcane and citrus beyond that.
“At least no one will see the car,” Birdy said, getting out, and I had to agree that the spot seemed hidden from the road. She inspected the Beamer for damage-there was none-then popped the trunk so I could get the flashlight and mosquito spray I’d brought. Soon she was telling me that her friend’s night vision equipment didn’t work the way she expected.
“Maybe weak batteries,” Birdy said, holding a plastic scope to her eye. “It’s one of the cheapies-can’t see crap-but I’ll bring it along anyway.” She locked the car and listened to the chirring insects before saying, “Smithie, I’m sure I didn’t hit that woman. Not even a scratch on my fenders.”
“The poor thing’s out here all by herself,” I said. “How about we jog along the road? You take one side, I’ll take the other.” I turned and started away.
Birdy had the scope to her eye again and stopped me by saying, “What the hell’s that?” She was looking in the direction of the area we had planned to search, the quarter-acre lot the Candors had changed from wetlands by hauling in fill. There was no way she could see anything, though, even if the scope had worked, because vines and cypress trees separated us from the clearing.
“You’re wasting time,” I said. “What if she’s hurt?”
“Listen!” The woman deputy appeared to crouch into a shooting stance and began backing away.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s coming!” she said, and motioned for me to return to the car.
I didn’t see or hear anything, so I switched on my flashlight-a small Fenix LED that Ford had given me. The light was blinding, and I used its beam to paint gravestones white as I probed among the weeds. Finally, the light spooked something. Bushes moved, branches crackled. I searched until I found the source: an armor-plated animal that made a squealing noise when the light found it, then bounced away in retreat.
“Armadillo,” I said, smiling. “Good thing you didn’t bring your gun.”
Birdy was explaining that animals sometimes sound like footsteps when a distant howl silenced her and caused the back of my neck to tingle. The howl climbed in pitch and became a shriek-the scream of a woman who was terrified or in pain.
“It’s her!” I said, and took off running toward the road but then stopped because the screaming stopped. I hadn’t had time to pinpoint the woman’s location but Birdy had. She was already zigzagging through the cemetery, using her flashlight to take what she thought was a shorter route through the trees.
“That might be swamp!” I yelled, but she kept going. So I followed. The cemetery had once been enclosed by a wrought-iron fence that had fallen and was hidden by weeds. Birdy stumbled over a section and went sprawling. It gave me time to catch up.
“Are you okay?”
“Shit,” she said, shining her light on a tombstone. The stone had been worn smooth by decades, and she looked at it for a second. “My ass just landed on someone’s grave. Good thing I’m not superstitious.”
I said, “Check your clothes for fire ants,” because what her ass had almost landed on was an ant nest, a sandy mound the size of a pumpkin. Fire ants like rough ground and attack in mass when their nest is disturbed. The bites burn like hot coals, so I was making a thorough search of my friend’s clothes when we heard a woman scream again and then men shouting. The voices came from the other side of the trees.
“Are they hurting her or trying to help?” I whispered.
“Before I call my dispatcher, let’s make sure,” Birdy said, then motioned for me to take the lead and I did.
WHAT I HAD FEARED would be swamp was actually the remains of a cypress strand that had been drained by a pond. The ground was soft but not mushy, and the pond appeared in the beam of my flashlight as a sheen of black that was dotted with lily pads and stars. When we were closer, though, pairs of glowing red eyes floated to the surface.
“Gators,” I told Birdy. “Keep moving.”
She did. It took us only a minute or two to cross the strand, but the screaming had stopped by the time we exited the trees. We were at the edge of the clearing we had come to search, a building lot that had been elevated with fill, then tamped flat by heavy equipment. Beyond that were more trees, then the lights of the medical clinic-but no woman dressed in a hospital gown, no sign of the men we had heard yelling.
“Sound plays tricks at night,” I said. “Maybe they’re up on the road.”
Birdy switched off her flashlight and told me to do the same. “Even if they aren’t,” she said, putting the nightscope to her eye, “I’m not walking past that damn pond again. Gators, my ass!” A moment later, she handed the scope to me, saying, “This thing’s useless,” and stepped up onto the rectangle of packed earth, her short attention span now back on the subject of artifacts.