"I didn't notice," Decker muttered. All this way for a goddamn fishing lesson. Didn't these people ever just come out and say something?
"Fifteen-pound test Trilene," Skink went on. "You know how much weight this stuff'll lift?"
"No idea," Decker said.
"Wellthere we go!" Skink's fishing rod bent double. Instead of setting the hook, he pumped slowly, putting his considerable muscle into it. Whatever it was on the end of the line barely moved.
"You're snagged on a stump," Decker said to Skink.
"Don't think so."
Slowly it was coming up; somehow Skink was pulling the thing in. He pumped so hard that Decker was sure the rod would snap, then Skink would slack up, reel fast, and pump again. The line was stretched so tautly that it hummed.
"You're almost there," Jim Tile said.
"Get ready!" Skink's voice strained under the effort.
He gave a mighty pull and something broke water. It was an iron chain. Skink's fishing lure had snagged in one of the links. Jim Tile knelt down and grabbed it before it could sink back into the slough. He unhooked the fishing lure, and Skink reeled in.
By now Decker knew what was coming.
Hand over hand, Jim Tile hauled on the chain. The wrong end came up first; it was an anchor. A new anchor, too, made of cast iron. A clump of hydrilla weed hung like a soggy green wig from the anchor's fork.
Jim Tile heaved it on shore. Wordlessly he started working toward the other end, the submerged end of the chain.
Instinctively, R. J. Decker thought of his cameras. They were locked in his car, back at Skink's shack. He felt naked without them, like the old days. Certain things were easier to take if you were looking through a camera; sometimes it was the only protection you had, the lens putting an essential distance between the eye and the horror. The horror of seeing a dead friend in the trunk of a Seville, for example. The distance existed only in the mind, of course, but sometimes the inside of a lens was a good place to hide. Decker hadn't felt like hiding there for a long time, but now he did. He wanted his cameras, longed for the familiar weight around his neck. Without the cameras he wasn't sure if he could look, but he knew he must. After all, that was the point of getting out of the business. To be able to look again, and to feel something.
Jim Tile struggled with the chain. Skink knelt beside him and loaned his weight to the tug.
"There now," Skink said, breathing hard. The other end of the chain came out of the water in his right hand.
"Get it done," said Jim Tile.
Tied to the end of the chain was a thin nylon rope. Skink's massive hands followed the rope down until the water was up to his elbows. His fingers foraged blindly below the surface; he looked like a giant raccoon hunting a crawfish.
"Ah!" he exclaimed.
Jim Tile stood up, wiped his hands on his uniform, and backed away. With a primordial grunt Skink lifted his morbid catch from the bottom of Morgan Slough.
"Oh God," groaned R. J. Decker.
Ott Pickney floated up dead on the end of a fish stringer. Like a lunker bass, he had been securely fastened through both lips.
They were driving back toward Harney on the Gilchrist Highway.
"We can't just leave him there," R. J. Decker said.
"No choice," Skink said from the back seat of the patrol car.
"What do you mean? We've got a murder here. Last time I checked, that's still against the law, even in a shitbucket town like this."
Jim Tile said, "You don't understand."
Skink leaned forward and mushed his face against the grating. "How do we explain being out in the slough? A spade cop and a certifiable lunatic like me." And an ex-con, Decker thought. From under the flowered shower cap Skink winked at him. "It's Jim I'm really worried about, Miami. They'd love a shot at State Trooper Jim Tile, am I right?"
Decker said, "Screw the locals, then. Go to the state attorney general and get a grand jury. We've got two dead men, first Clinch and now Ott Pickney. We can't let it lie."
"We won't," said Jim Tile.
Terrific, Decker thought, the three musketeers.
"What are you so afraid of?" he asked the trooper. "You think they'd really try to frame us?"
"Worse," said Jim Tile. "They'll ignore us. Clinch was already ruled an accident."
"But Ott's floating out there on a fish stringer," Decker said. "I think somebody might legitimately raise the question of foul play."
Jim Tile pulled the car off the pavement and stopped. They were a mile and a half outside the town limits. A pair of headlights approached from the other direction.
"Duck down," Jim Tile said.
Skink and Decker stayed low until the other car had passed. Then Skink climbed out with his fishing rod. "Come on," he said to Decker, "we'll hoof it from here. It's best that nobody sees Jim with the two of us."
Decker got out of the car. The sky in the east was turning a metallic pink.
"Explain it to him," Jim Tile said to Skink, and drove away.
Decker started trudging down the highway. He felt a hundred years old. He wished he were back in Miami, that's how rotten he felt. He was trying to remember if Ott Pickney had any kids, or an ex-wife somewhere. It was entirely possible there was nobody, just the orchids.
"I'm sorry about your friend," Skink said, "but you've got to understand."
"I'm listening."
"The body will be gone by noon, if it's not already. They'll be back for it. They saw Jim Tile out by the slough, and that was that."
Decker said, "We should've stayed there. Jim could have called for help on the radio."
Skink marched ahead of Decker and turned around, walking backward so he could face him directly. "The sheriffs office scans all police frequencies. They would've picked up the call and sent a couple marked cars. Next thing you know, the locals grab jurisdiction and they're questioning you and me, and they're calling Tallahassee about poor Jim Tilehow there's all these irregularities in his report, how uppity and uncooperative he is. Whatever bullshit they can make up, they will. You know how many black troopers there are in this whole state? Not enough for a goddamn basketball team. Jim's a good man and I'm not gonna let him get hung by a bunch of hicks. Not over a fish, for Christ's sake."
Decker had never heard Skink say so much in one breath. He asked, "So what's the plan?"
Skink stopped backward-walking. "Right now the plan is to get offthe road."
Decker spun around and saw a pickup truck coming slowly down the highway. Rays from the new sun reflected off the windshield, making it impossible to see who was driving, or how many there were up front.
Skink tugged Decker's arm and said, "Let's stroll through the woods, shall we?"
They left the pavement and walked briskly into a stand of tall pine. They heard the truck speed up. When it was even with them, it stopped. A door slammed, then another.
Skink and Decker were twenty-five yards from the highway when the first shots rang out. Decker hit the ground and pulled Skink with him. A bullet peeled the bark off a tree near their feet.
Decker said, "I'm sure glad you're wearing that orange raincoat, captain. Bet they can only see us a mile or two away."
"Semiautomatic?" Skink asked through clenched teeth.
Decker nodded. "Sounds like a Ruger Mini-14." Very popular with the Porsche-and-powder set in Miami, but not the sort of bang-bang you expected upstate.
The rifle went off again, so rapidly that it was impossible to tell the fresh rounds from the echoes. The slugs slapped at the leaves in a lethal hailstorm. From where they huddled Decker and Skink couldn't see the truck on the highway, but they could hear men's voices between the volleys.
"Will they come for us?" Decker whispered.
"I expect." Skink's cheek was pressed against a carpet of pine needles. A fire ant struggled in the tangle of his mustache; Skink made no move to brush it away. He was listening to the ground.