The male cop interrupted, sounding like a wiseass, telling him, “You own a trailer park and you’re a bodybuilder. That’s a handy combination.”
What the hell did that mean?
Squires was telling himself, Stay cool, don’t let the prick make you mad, as he corrected the guy, saying, “I own three mobile home parks, not trailer parks. A trailer’s something you use to haul stuff, not live in. We offer manufactured homes and RV sites. It’s what I do in my spare time.”
“You’re the owner?” the cop asked. “I called the address in, and it came back a women named Harriet Ray Squires owns this place.”
“Same thing,” Squires replied. “But we’re trying to get out of the business, which you can probably understand, seeing the type of shit we have to put up with. Three acres of back-bay waterfront, only a couple miles from Fort Myers Beach. That’ll be some serious money once we clear these units off and sell the place.”
The cop wasn’t done badgering him, though. “So you work for mom when you’re not earning a living doing the muscle shows. What steroids are you stacking?” The cop said it, trying to sound like he knew something about the subject.
The cop continued, “The show you’re training for is in June?”
“Mr. South Florida,” Squires replied.
The cop said, “Four months away from a show, you’re still on your bulking cycle, right? Let me guess, you’re doing about a thousand milligrams of testosterone mixed with, what, D-bol? Primo? I hear anavar is big with you guys once you start cutting.”
What Squires wanted to do was tell this know-it-all asshole, Primo is for pussies, which was true, in his opinion, even if it was one of Arnold’s favorite steroids.
Instead, he calmed himself with a familiar lie, saying, “I tried that crap a few years back, but the side effects scared the hell out of me. Plus, they do urine tests now. Steroids are illegal. Or maybe that’s just for us professional athletes. I’ve got no reason to follow it. But, to me, the crap’s not worth the risk. I’ve heard it gave some guys brain cancer. If you’ve got the right genetics, who needs the shit?”
“A health nut,” the cop said, proving he really was a prick, but then the woman took over by silencing the man a look.
“Back to that problem I mentioned,” she said to Squires. “Someone robbed Dr. Ford and Dr. Tomlinson. They took almost two thousand dollars from their billfolds. Cash.”
That quick, Squires felt like he could breathe again. Hell, he’d almost forgotten that he’d hidden their damn money in his double-wide. Even if the cops had searched him and found the cash in his pocket, it was no big deal. Not compared to a murder rap, anyway, or running a steroids operation.
Squires asked what he thought was a smart question: “Did the guys leave the billfolds in their vehicle? That’s not very smart, you ask me. Not around here.”
When the woman replied, “No, they tossed them on the ground before they went into the water,” Squires let them see that he was thinking about it.
“I don’t want to sound like a racist,” he said after a few seconds, “but I’ve got a lot of Mexican tenants. And the way they are around any kind of valuable property, especially cash money, that’s just a fact of life. The little bastards will steal you blind, give ’em a chance. There’s something else to think about, too. Or maybe I shouldn’t say anything, because I’m not one to stick my nose into other people’s business. I hate people like that.”
The woman said, “Oh?”
Squires made a show of it, giving it some more thought, before saying, “It has to do with that hippie-looking dude, Dr. whatever his name is. Think about it, that’s all I’m saying. A guy who looks the way he looks, carrying that much cash.”
“Tomlinson,” the woman said. “He and Dr. Ford are from Sanibel Island. You’ve never met them before?”
“The Tomlinson dude, no, but I’ve seen him cruising my park plenty of times. About once a month he shows up. Like I said, I don’t know the guy, so I’m not making any charges here, but that’s another fact of life. The drug dealer types come through my park all the time. They know that the-”
Squires caught himself. He’d almost said the illegals.
“-they know that the migrant workers who live here sometimes have grass and peyote to sell. They bring it with them from Mexico when they cross the border. Maybe the guy, Tomlinson, is a drug dealer. Why don’t you search their vehicle? You might find something that would surprise you.”
That didn’t play too well, but Squires didn’t care. The cops didn’t know about the dead girl’s body in the lake. And they didn’t know about his steroids kitchen only a block away.
Not yet, anyway.
Harris Squires was looking through the squad car window, seeing the tow truck lower Fifi onto the bed of a truck, its big tires flattening beneath her weight. The vehicle was about the same size as the stake truck he and his buddies had used to bring Fifi to Red Citrus.
Seeing the gator, he couldn’t help but worry about what the Wildlife cops might find in the animal’s belly. Squires was also thinking, I’ve got to get my hands on that little Bible-freak girl before she goes blabbing to the law.
Half an hour later, when the cops had released him, after he’d showered and iced his bad hamstring, Squires opened a fresh pint of tequila and began to make the rounds.
The little brat wasn’t at the trailer where she usually stayed. But that was okay. The girl had left behind her only clean shirt, a ratty little book and a framed photo of what was probably her Mexican family.
She couldn’t have gone far.
The bodybuilder took a moment to study the photo. His eyes moved from the girl-who looked about eight or so when the shot was taken-to what must have been the girl’s mother, who was wearing an Indian-looking shawl over her head. The angular noses were similar, the line of their jaws.
Why the hell did they both look so familiar?
Hell… all Mexicans looked the same, Squires decided. The important thing was to find that damn girl.
SEVEN
As we walked beneath mangrove trees toward my little home and laboratory on Dinkin’s Bay, Sanibel Island, Tomlinson couldn’t help fixating on the subject of Tula Choimha.
It was understandable. The girl had vanished shortly after the ambulance hauled her friend to the hospital and we’d failed to find her even though we had spent more than an hour searching.
“Doc,” he said for the umpteenth time, “I know damn well what happened. How often am I wrong when I feel this strongly about something?”
I replied, “You’re wrong most of the time, but you only remember the times you’re right. Stop worrying about it.”
“How can I stop worrying when every paranormal receptor in my body is telling me that Squires grabbed our girl for some reason? She wouldn’t have just disappeared like that. Not without saying something to me. Damn it, compadre, we should have stayed right there until we found her.”
I said, “Do me a favor. Take a deep breath. Then make a conscious effort to use the left side of your brain for a change. Squires is a jerk, but why would he kidnap a thirteen-year-old girl? There’s no motivation, he has nothing to gain. It would be the stupidest time possible to crap in his own nest. He grabs the girl when cops are swarming all over the place?”
After a few quiet paces, I added, “We’ll check in again tomorrow morning, but we’re done for tonight. We did everything we could.”
True. After being questioned by county deputies, then Florida Wildlife cops, and after refusing interviews with three different reporters, we had spent more than an hour at Red Citrus, hunting for Tula.