We both turned, just as the new airboat arrived with a flourish alongside Mason’s stricken craft. The wash nearly swept the pair of us off our feet.
Half a dozen black-clad figures with machine pistols jumped from one boat to the other, their boots clattering loudly on the aluminium. They had flashlights attached to their guns and a number pointed them at Mason but he didn’t put up any resistance. In the crossed beams I could now see that one arm of his chair was slick with blood and he could hardly even raise both hands. They had to help him down.
Other hands reached over the side towards us.
“Wait,” I said. “We’ve a man injured here.”
Sean cast me a quick glance but I waded back over to Whitmarsh and between us we managed to get him close enough to the airboat for them to grab him and haul him in like a loaded trawler net. He was unconscious and bleeding but they started work on him right away with the urgency to suggest they thought he might survive.
Lonnie and Keith came staggering out of the trees then, still carrying their makeshift clubs. The FBI men were jumpy enough to insist they jettisoned the branches before they’d take them into the boat.
I waited until they’d got Trey out of the water before I accepted help. It was only then, when everyone else was on board, that Sean pushed Haines’s body close enough to be retrieved.
I thought he was being practical, logical, and then it struck me that he’d just been making sure there was no chance of them being able to revive him.
And all the time, around us in the shadows I could hear the rapid movement of the alligators, driven to a frenzy of distraction by the blood in the water. The sudden fear of what might have been bloomed and spread through my imagination faster than I could keep pace with it. And I’d always thought that rats were my biggest phobia.
The reaction started to crowd in then, setting up a trembling in my hands that I had little control over. I sat slumped in the bottom of the airboat, not caring that there were still suspicious guns held over me.
“Well, I guess you’re kinda ready to give yourself up now, missy?” said a voice over the top of me.
I raised my head enough to see Special Agent in Charge Till standing above me. His hands were on his hips.
“Not yet,” I said, with last-ditch bravado I didn’t really feel. “There’s still Brown.”
He nodded. “We’re working on that,” he said. His gaze shifted to Sean, eyeing him warily. “So you must be Meyer. Well, I have to say that for a dead guy you’re looking pretty healthy.”
Sean didn’t reply to that. He sat alongside me with his forearms resting on his knees and his hands hanging relaxed. The two of them stared at each other but maybe they were too similar in nature to ever be comfortable in such close proximity.
“Don’t tell me – you just happened to be in the neighbourhood,” I said.
Till tore his gaze away from Sean with difficulty. “We found your tape, missy,” he said. “Got the whole thing. Recording’s a little fuzzy maybe but the lab boys reckon they can clean it up some and it’ll go down a storm at the trial.”
“You can thank your Uncle Walt for that,” I said.
“Thank him yourself,” Till said, jerking his head over his shoulder.
I followed his gaze and saw that it was Walt who was driving the second airboat. The old man gave me a nod and sketched a casual salute.
“You brought your uncle on a trip like this?” I said blankly.
Till shrugged, a little embarrassed. “We found him staking out the front gate when we got here,” he admitted, “and we needed someone who could handle an airboat.”
I looked at Walt. “I told you I’d find my own way back,” I said.
He shrugged. “I had nothing else doing.”
Till ran his eye across the other faces his men had pulled out of the swamp and paused when he came to Keith.
“Although I have your confession on record, Mr Pelzner,” he said with a touch of that grim humour, “I’m kinda assuming that you didn’t actually murder your wife.”
Keith opened his mouth a few times, floundering. “Um, I―”
Till smiled. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “I kinda understand that you were under duress at the time.”
“So, like, where is she?” Trey demanded. “What happened to her?”
Keith’s shoulders bowed even further. “She really did leave, Trey,” he said mournfully. I knew he was trying to be gentle about it but it came across as self-pity instead. “She just upped and left the both of us. The divorce papers arrived from Nowheresville, Ohio. She didn’t even ask for custody.”
Trey looked down at his hands, clasped in front of him, and bit his lip. I scowled at Keith. If he’d had anything about him he’d have left out that last little piece of information, given the boy something he could still cling to.
Keith twisted and put his hand on Trey’s shoulder, gave it a pat. “I’m real sorry, son,” he said. “I know how much she meant to you, but it’s just you and me now.”
Trey looked up at him, tears forming in his eyes, and just for a second I thought he was going to fold.
“You gotta be joking,” he snapped, lip curling as he ducked out from under his father’s hand. “You were gonna sell me out. I’d rather end up in Juvenile Hall than stay with you, you bastard.”
His bottom lip began to quiver. He turned his filling eyes on me. “Why can’t I stay with Charlie?”
I put my hands up. “Whoa,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended. “That is not an option.”
“Well I’m not staying with him and you can’t make me!” Trey said, a little wildly now, but his face was obstinate. There’d be no shifting him on this one.
Till looked uncomfortable at this display of teenage angst. “Well, I guess we can call in Child Services until we get this one sorted out,” he said, his voice dubious.
Trey’s lip quivered all the more. I felt like I’d just shot Bambi’s mother.
“Don’t worry, Trey,” Walt said then. “You’re welcome to come stay with me and Harriet just as long as you need.”
I tried not to make my relief too obvious. The kid had had enough shocks and rejections for one day. Still, what was one more?
Once Till’s men had Whitmarsh, Lonnie and Mason roughly patched up, we all transferred to the undamaged airboat and took the other under tow. I mentioned the black guy Lonnie had dispatched, but it was almost completely dark out on the swamp now and, as none of us could accurately pinpoint his location, Till was reluctant to start a full-scale search.
“First light tomorrow will be soon enough to look for the remains,” he said.
I wondered if he’d chosen those particular words deliberately. The way the alligators had been going at the body, there wasn’t going to be much left to find.
Conversation became difficult once we were under way but I needed more answers out of Till, even so.
“So when are you planning on picking up Brown?” I shouted over the roar of the engine.
He glanced at me, irritated, but said, “He’s making a speech for his fancy clients at the clubhouse right now. My boys have got the place under surveillance. Soon as we get back to the dock we’ll go get him.”
“I want to be there,” I said.
“No way, missy,” Till shot back. “I am not taking civilians on an operation like this.”
I couldn’t help my gaze straying over his shoulder to where Walt was piloting the airboat with the easy skill of long association. I don’t know if he could have heard what we were saying, but the old man gave me one of his crinkled-up smiles.
Till caught the gesture. “Oh no, no,” he said quickly. “That’s way different.”
I raised my eyebrows but didn’t argue further. Not yet.
Sean was sitting next to me, staring at nothing. As I watched, his hands flexed briefly, just once, as though reliving the moment they’d finished off Haines. He still had the bloody lines around his wrists. A reminder of his captivity, his helplessness.