“These are perfect, Clyde. Absolutely delicious,” Sneed said as if he were chewing into savory barbeque ribs. “When I show these to the DCF agent, she’ll yank Mariella outta there so fast Moni will think a tornado swept through.”
“I don’t much like bouncing Mariella between homes like a ping pong ball,” Harrison said. “But Moni hasn’t done a thing to help the girl snap out of this. She hasn’t made a break in the case all this time and the bodies keep piling up. She’s protecting the girl and a lot of people are paying for it…”
Harrison didn’t need to mention Nina. Sneed understood that he constantly worried about his partner.
“She’s not awake yet,” Sneed said. “They’re keeping her out until the swelling goes down and they can perform the surgery. Her spine is cracked, but it ain’t broken all the way. When she gets back, we’ll have to anchor her behind a desk.”
Harrison stared at the empty car seat beside him. Nina wouldn’t fill it again. No one could kick a running suspect’s knees out or subdue a piece of trailer park trash like her. He couldn’t think of another soul he’d rather bust up a dope house with.
“Nina’s not gonna be the same in a cubicle,” Harrison said. “How could a fucking pelican take her down?”
“I don’t have the foggiest idea, son. Only the Lagoon Watcher knows, and without Mariella’s testimony about how he killed her parents, we don’t have enough evidence for a conviction.”
“You think she saw him do it?”
“She must have, but we can’t know for sure until we make that girl put all her cards on the table,” Sneed said. “If you wanna make yourself useful, you could join the DCF agent as she removes Mariella from that house of horrors and takes her in for questioning.”
As Harrison considered the offer, he watched Moni’s house. He saw Mariella peering out the bright window into the night. It appeared like she looked right at him for a minute, but that must have been a coincidence, he thought. She couldn’t see through his tinted windows into his darkened car, especially at night. Harrison felt a chill down his spine and a sudden urge to get the hell out of there. He obeyed his gut and rolled the car down the street.
“Was that an offer or a command?” Harrison asked about the DCF raid.
“More of the latter,” Sneed replied.
“That’s what I thought.” Harrison couldn’t hide the disappointment on his voice.
The killer couldn’t hide much longer. Once Sneed made Mariella crack, and he jarred the evidence loose, he’d have all the ammunition he’d need.
Examining the photos of that child abusing ex-con entering Moni’s house, Sneed rubbed his round belly. It felt satisfied from a ham sandwich on top of the impending scrumptious triumph in this case. How about it, he thought, that Moni said she didn’t push Mariella hard so she could protect her, but she ended up exposing her to the most dangerous person in her life.
The forthcoming “I told you so” moment would have tasted sweeter if it didn’t have a barge full of corpses tagging along with it. After a phone conversation with Brigadier General Alonso Colon, Sneed realized that the body count would climb even higher if he didn’t wrap this up soon.
“I’m telling you this with the upmost confidence that word won’t get out to the general public,” Colon said. He waited for Sneed’s agreement before continuing-making sure the police officer knew who the higher authority was. “Late last night, some explosive ordinances were taken from Patrick Air Force Base. I don’t think I have to tell you that the circumstances were unusual.”
“And probably related to this case I’m working.” Sneed stressed that he’s working on the case, and not the military or the fed. Both of them have kept their ears on things without acting or, it appears from this little incident, sufficiently ramping up security.
Noting that Colon didn’t respond to his last comment, Sneed pressed on. “When you say ‘some’ explosives, what exactly are you talking about here?” Given that Patrick hosted bombers that flew around the world dropping haymakers, anything coming from there would dwarf any explosives domestic terrorists could assemble in their basements.
“One of these bombs would be enough to level a four-story building. You might know them as bunker busters,” Colon said. “They got away with sixteen.”
“Sixteen! Are you shitting me?” Sneed nearly burst a heart valve. “How do you lose sixteen high grade bombs?”
“We suspect they were dragged towards the lagoon. Whether they were submerged or transported by boat, we don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? If you couldn’t guard them, you should at least have the heist on camera. Hell, even gas stations get that right. You’re a fucking air force base!”
“I know what we are, Mr. Sneed,” Colon snapped. “I’m more furious than you that our security was compromised. Three soldiers left their posts for unexplained reasons. One of them said he forget he was on watch and called his mother because he suddenly worried about her. The other two had even worse excuses. As for the cameras, well, it’s not unheard of that a bird accidently strikes one and takes it out. That happens. But what shouldn’t happen is five cameras getting destroyed by birds-all the ones near where the explosives were stolen.”
“I’d call you crazy as a coyote if I didn’t know better,” Sneed said. “On the same night you had a flock of birds committing burglary, I had a pelican foil a car chase that could have bagged our lead suspect.”
“I heard about that. I wish Officer Skillings a speedy recovery.”
Realizing that he hadn’t even mentioned her condition, Sneed coughed and cleared his throat. He saw no use in dwelling on people who couldn’t help him solve the case any longer-especially with the stakes raised sixteen times higher.
“Do you want me to send a team to Patrick to sweep the scene?” Sneed asked.
“We’re bringing down federal agents for that. You’re about to have some more company in our task force meetings.”
Sneed loved when investigators from the federal alphabet soup of agencies got together and tore a case in 50 different directions. His team already had a thick case file and they could benefit more than anyone from adding to it with the evidence on Patrick.
“How about we join those agents on base?” Sneed asked. “We can tell you if it matches the prior crime scenes.”
“No can do. We can’t give you access to classified areas,” Colon replied staunchly.
“I got news for you. Those ‘classified’ areas of yours were visited more than Disney World last night.”
“There was a crowd all right, but not like you’d see in a theme park. We found unusual tracks along the path where the bombs were dragged toward the lagoon. We’ve got gators, horses, dogs, bare human feet and stuff I just plain don’t recognize. A whole section of fence along the lagoon whittled away from acid burns. That’s how they got in.”
“Horses, huh? I reckon I heard about some missing horses over the past few days. One rancher in West Melbourne said a horse leapt the gate, jumped down into a canal and followed it all the way to the lagoon. I didn’t buy that shit then. Now maybe I do. Somebody’s stocking a zoo down there.”
“A zoo capable of reducing sixteen buildings to rubble,” Colon reminded him. “If the Lagoon Watcher’s motive is to protect the lagoon, then he’s upped the ante. He thought that several murders and a plague of bacteria would make us adopt his demands-those 150 steps to clean the lagoon on his Web site. Nobody listened, so he figures that if he blows up some buildings, he’ll force us to comply.”
“Americans never cower to terrorists,” said Sneed, fully aware that he sounded like a patriotic country music song. “Doesn’t he know that our colors don’t run?”