Joel was right-but how did he know I wasn’t on Sanibel? I had told him I wanted to pull over, so he could have assumed I was driving and had yet to reach Dinkin’s Bay. I had also told him I was supposed to be there by eight, but how had he known I hadn’t crossed the bridge onto the island?
Was I being paranoid? I argued it back and forth while still on the interstate. Maybe Joel had used the word Sanibel as a synonym for Dinkin’s Bay. Maybe he had heard the whoosh of fast traffic and knew the speed limit on Sanibel is thirty-five or slower. That was possible, too. But what if Joel Ransler was, in fact, stalking me?
It was a crazy idea that seemed less crazy when I thought it through.
Joel claimed that Loretta had told him Ford was out of town, but I hadn’t confirmed that she had. As a special prosecutor, he would also have access to the GPS devices that police use to track suspects. Maybe he had hidden one somewhere on my vehicle. He could have done it at the junkyard or at the funeral.
On the other hand… there was someone who’d had an even better opportunity to plant a GPS: Mr. Chatham, or his driver, Reggie, while the limo was parked behind my SUV. Joel could have convinced one of them he wanted to protect me. Or maybe… maybe it was Harney Chatham who wanted to follow my every move. Either was possible if my paranoia wasn’t paranoia. It depended on which man was telling me the truth.
That was why I had been prepared to speed away when I saw truck lights in my mirror.
Now, sitting alone on a dark asphalt road, I contemplated getting out to have a look: use a flashlight to check the undercarriage of my SUV, then pop the hood and search the motor area, too.
No… not here, I decided. When I rendezvoused with Deputy Birdy Tupplemeyer, that was the time to look. Pick some nice bright spot, not this lonesome place where my headlights isolated weeds growing in the ditch, the silhouettes of trees miles beyond.
BEEP!
A text from Birdy. She was replying to my invitation to meet for a glass of wine-what a relief to pick up a phone that linked me with a familiar person. Can’t Smithie, almost home. Call U tomorrow.
As I read, the relief I felt turned to disappointment-then a creeping suspicion. Why the smiley face? It was an affectation she used, but usually when sending a cheery message.
I reread her earlier text:
On way home, no luck. Will call when reception better. Sorry!!!
Same thing-a smiley face that didn’t fit. I fanned through a dozen previous texts to confirm the oddity and I was right.
I tried calling Birdy again but got voice mail on the first ring. I became more suspicious. Reception was good in the Fort Myers area. She should have answered if she was nearly home. Unless… unless she was still in Sematee County and someone else was using her phone-someone who had read our previous texts and was trying to convince me to turn around.
You’re hyperventilating, I realized. Calm down. No one but Birdy calls you Smithie. It has to be her.
There was an easy way to confirm that my fears were groundless-a seemingly safe way, too. The cemetery where Birdy would have parked was only three miles down the road.
Keep your doors locked, pull in, take a quick look, then drive home.
I did it. Put my SUV in gear and continued down the road but took the precaution of leaving a long voice mail for Tomlinson.
I wanted someone to know.
26
At the caution light, where the Hess station was still a beacon for migrant teenagers, I turned right. No traffic either direction, but, suddenly, car lights appeared behind me. I was doing a comfortable sixty and the lights were gaining on me fast-a car, not a truck. No reason to be alarmed, but I did pay attention. I slowed a bit, expecting the car to pass. Instead, it rocketed to within a few car lengths, blinding me with its high beams, then dropped back to a safer distance.
There was oncoming traffic now: an eighteen-wheeler behind a vehicle with only one headlight-a motorcycle, I thought at first. No… it was a commercial van, the kind used to haul migrant workers, with a bad light on the passenger’s side. Maybe the driver behind me was fooled, too, because he chose that moment to pass. Bad decision, because the semi and the van were both flying. There was a foghorn blare; the van swerved, but the car was fast enough to make it with fifty yards to spare. I noticed that the van was towing farm machinery but didn’t get a good look at the car until it was in front of me, rocketing away. It appeared to be a Mercedes sports model, not an Audi A6, which put me at ease again.
For the next two miles, I had the road to myself, but soon slowed to forty because I didn’t want to miss the turn into what had once been a church. In the far, far distance, I could see the illuminated sign of the rehab clinic, so I knew it was close. Even so, I missed the turn. Too much foliage and moss-heavy trees to notice that small opening. Normally, I would have said Shit but didn’t because the clearing within appeared to be empty. My headlights would have surely sparked off the BMW’s red reflectors, so Birdy’s car wasn’t there.
Good!
To make certain, I pulled to the side of the road and checked my mirrors, ready to turn around. Half a mile down the road, from the direction of the Hess station, the van with the bad headlight was already returning. That puzzled me until it slowed and disappeared north up an unseen lane, so maybe the driver had missed his turn, too-a migrant worker, possibly, towing machinery for a local farmer. There were tomato fields and citrus north of the cypress strand, as I had seen on Google Earth.
Even so, when I swung my SUV around, I kept my eyes on where the van had vanished while also watching for the overgrown entrance to the church. I was going to pull in only long enough to confirm that Birdy’s car was gone but didn’t want anyone to see what I was doing.
That’s not the way things worked out.
I TURNED into the church, my headlights panning along the wooden wreckage… illuminating trees and then gravestones that protruded like vertebrae from a tangled hide of vines-all the dark elements I expected to see, plus something unexpected: Birdy Tupplemeyer’s car.
The BMW was parked in the same hidden spot, facing the cemetery, the foliage so thick, I hadn’t seen its reflectors from the road. The reflectors were glittering now as I tapped at my high beams-which were already on-and pulled closer, seeing the convertible from behind, the car’s top up, engine off. I continued to creep closer until I was only a car length away, and that was close enough.
My god, I thought. What have they done to you?
I should have called 911 before doing anything else, but I couldn’t. It was because Birdy was still in the car. Through the rear window, I could see the silhouette of her head. She appeared to be slumped forward, face against the steering wheel. I knew she wasn’t sleeping, but, absurdly, I rapped my horn a couple of times.
When my friend didn’t move, I jumped out yelling her name-“Birdy!”-and ran to her, my cell phone in hand… didn’t stop, in the glare of my SUV’s headlights, until I had reached the little car. I yanked at the door handle, expecting it to be locked, but the door flew open, banging hard on its hinges. When it did, I knelt inside and put my hands on her shoulder, saying “Birdy… Birdy, are you okay?”
The interior lighting of a BMW is muted, but the overhead console is a triad of bright LEDs. The LEDs flared when I opened the door, but it wasn’t until the woman lifted her face and leered that I realized my hands were not comforting my friend Liberty Tupplemeyer.