Death Among the Mangroves (22 page)

“I know the case,” Juan said. “And we're smarter than that.”

“They probably thought that too. We'll send this stuff up to FDLE anyway. Now let's get back to the searching.”

“Right. I'm searching. High and low. You're eating scones and drinking tea.”

“I think they're just biscuits.”

At four p.m., Milo Binder relieved Juan and sat with Martha while Troy searched. Troy thought any search should, ideally, be done by two people independently. Different eyes and brains saw different things.

At six, Judge Hans Stider and Mark Stider stormed in the front door. The judge demanded to know what Troy thought he was doing. Troy explained what he thought he was doing. The judge tore up the warrant. Martha tried to become invisible. Mark's face had turned red. He left the living room and Troy let him go. They were done with the house search anyway.

“That's childish, Judge,” Troy said, looking at the pieces of paper on the living room floor. “It's just a faxed copy. You, of all people, would know that.”

“They're only looking for something to do with Mark and that missing girl,” Martha said. “I'm sure they'll be on their way soon.”

“Shut up, Martha. Stop babbling,” Hans Stider shouted. “I'll deal with you later.”

“What are you going to do, Judge? Beat her black-and blue again? Maybe break a rib?” Troy said.

Judge Stider looked at Troy. “You are going to regret this to the day you die,” he said. He didn't raise his voice but he hissed his words through his teeth. “I'm going to see if I can have you arrested. And I have friends in the legal community. I'm going to bury you in lawsuits.”

Troy didn't answer. He stared at the judge. Mark Stider came back into the room. “They took our computers.”

“Is that true?” Judge Stider said to Troy.

“Routine. We'll check the two computers for anything to do with the disappearance of Barbara Gillispie. You'll get them back. And now that you're here, Judge, I'll take a look at your .357 too. The one on your right hip under your coat.”

“You'll take my gun out of my cold, dead fingers,” Judge Stider said.

“Works for me.” Troy took a step forward. Stider reached back for his gun. When he lifted his suit coat Milo, standing behind him, nimbly pulled out the gun before Stider could grab it. Mark Stider stepped in and threw a punch at Troy. Troy turned his left shoulder into it and then backhanded Mark across the face with his left forearm. Mark staggered back and Troy spun his entire body into a short right to the kid's solar plexus. Mark went down gasping and lay on his side on the carpet. The judge was standing still with his hands in the air. Martha Stider sat in her chair, holding her hands together and shaking.

“Why do you have your hands up like that, Judge?” Troy said. “We're not having a stage coach robbery here.”

“Want me to cuff them both?” Milo asked.

Troy shook his head. “There will be a time for that.” He thought he saw just a flicker of fear in the judge's eyes. “Give me the gun.”

Milo handed Troy the judge's pistol. Troy flipped open the cylinder and shook out the cartridges. He put the cartridges into his pocket and laid the gun on the living room table. Martha looked down at it and slid even farther back in her seat.

“We have what we came for,” Troy said to Milo. “Let's go.”

“You…you beat up my son.” The judge bent over Mark and tried to help him up.

“Well, it's not my fault that I'm not some little girl. Or your wife. He'll be fine in a few minutes.” There were noises from the floor as Mark Stider threw up. “Oops. Sorry about that, Judge. I wouldn't wear those shoes again.”

Outside, and beneath the house in the parking space, they searched the Mercedes SUV. Milo had simply picked the judge's keys up off the small table by the front door. No one came out of the house to stop them.

“Why take the judge's gun if you were just going to hand it back?” Milo said as he felt under a seat. “Could have kept it. Maybe run a test. Fired off a sample bullet and saved that. Just in case.”

“We have no reason to do that,” Troy said. “No legal reason. Mostly I just didn't want to get shot in the back leaving. They were a little emotional.”

The canoe was there too and Troy examined it. Milo took the keys back upstairs. No one would open the door at his ring so he used the house key to let himself back in and left the keys on the table by the door.

“Why didn't we just arrest those idiots?” Milo said as he drove them away. “Kid hit you.”

“Arrest for what? Bruising the police chief? If I needed them out of the way for a day I would have done it. But we already had all we were going to get today.”

“You knew I'd get the judge's gun.”

“Yep. Quick move, there, Slick. No point in making a deal out of that, either. The judge would only say he was trying to hand it to me.”

“Waste of time all around,” Milo said as he drove Troy to the Gulf View Motel where Troy would serve his next search warrant.

“That's police work,” Troy said. “Mostly, we wanted the sports car and the boat. And the Stiders got rid of both before we could get the search warrant delivered. But we did get the computers. Those are things we just always want to grab. Investigate them at our leisure. Might be useful. People leave the darndest things on their computers.”

“Usually an assistant state attorney's office can get us a warrant in an hour,” Milo said. “Odd how this one took so long.”

“Well, it's the holidays. A judge can work the system to kill, or at least slow down, a warrant that's being served on him. And our fax-delivery system at the town hall needs work. Realistically, none of that matters because they got rid of the car and the boat so quick.”

“Why are we hoisting up the boat? I know you want to do that.”

“We will. Got that arranged. The experts say that any blood evidence in the boat might be pretty much ruined by now, from exposure to salt water and the current carrying it away. But if some got into any cracks or holes, anywhere like that, it might still be useful.”

“How long will it take for FDLE to research the GPS from the boat, the thing you recovered?”

“The chart plotter,” Troy said. “It's much fancier than a GPS. They're looking at it today, they told me. It's similar to recovering files off a computer.”

Milo looked at Troy a moment, then back at the road. “I notice that you never mentioned that to the judge. He doesn't even know you have that chart plotter.”

“Must have slipped my mind.”

“Nothing ever slips your mind, Chief.”

Troy looked over at Milo. “Talked to Kyle Rivers the other night at the town hall meeting. He told me your name had come up to the top at the sheriff's but that you had turned them down to stay here. You ever planning to tell me?”

Milo looked at Troy and back out the windshield. He was pulling into a parking space by the Gulf View Motel. “I guess I didn't think of that. What's the big deal?”

“Doesn't going on the sheriff's pay better? I wouldn't know, seeing as nobody over there ever offered me a job.”

“It's a little more. But I'd have to work odd hours and drive a long ways from my house here to wherever they assigned me.”

“And I always thought you found the Mangrove Bayou Police Department a little…confining. And then to top it off I made you pull night shifts. First day I met you, you told me you were only with us until you could get hired on at the sheriff's.”

Milo smiled. “I was sort of a jerk, okay? And Chief Redmond, he let me
be
a jerk because he was afraid of my uncle.”

“Lester Groud, mayor and fishing guide
par excellence
.”

“Yeah. Sure. I got any other fucking uncle?”

They both laughed. It was an in-joke with June Dundee.

“You're not afraid of my uncle. You respect him, I know that. He respects you too. He never respected Chief Redmond. Anyway, you made me think, Chief. About being a police officer. I wasn't a police officer before. I was a kid with a badge and a gun and an attitude. Now I'm a police officer. Six months ago, would you have trusted that I would grab the judge's gun back there.”

“No. You have come far, Grasshopper. But now you also have a live-in girlfriend. How did Wanda Frister like the idea of you joining the sheriff's?”

Milo got out of the Suburban. Troy got out his side. Milo looked at Troy across the roof. “She had a shit fit. Said she owed you her life and I was abandoning you. How did you know that?”

“I'm the police chief of Mangrove Bayou. I know everything.”

“I hate it when you go all Zen on me.”

Troy laughed. “So, did Wanda talk you into staying here?”

“No. I was already staying. I just let her carry on like that so she wouldn't be able to blame me later for not taking the better-paying job.”

“You're learning,” Troy said. “Fast.”

“Got a good teacher.”

Chapter 35

Monday, December 30

At the Gulf View Motel, Troy found Loren Fitch in his office. He handed Fitch the warrant to search Room 101. The manager was not happy to see Troy.

“Got bad news, I'm afraid,” Fitch said.

“And that is?”

“The Stider kid yelled at one of the maids and she cleaned his room and changed the bedding.”

“How did you let that happen?”

“I told them, both maids, not to do his room. But yesterday he was yelling at her and she was right there with her cart, cleaning the next room anyway, and she got scared. He's pretty big and he sort of threatened her.”

“She wash that bedding yet?”

Fitch stared with his mouth open. He looked down at his desk. “I guess so. Didn't even think of that. Sorry.”

“Doesn't matter,” Troy said. “Any defense attorney would make hash of the evidence there, mixing those sheets in with others. But Loren, you have seriously let me down here.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I'll try to make it up to you.”

“How? Give me a free room? I live a few blocks away, for God's sake.” He turned to Milo. “Take us back to the station, Officer Binder, before I lose my temper and make a mess out of Loren, here.”

Troy walked into the stationhouse through the back door, waved to Norris Compton in the lobby, and went back to his office. Norris followed him. Troy sat behind his desk. Norris stood and looked down at Troy.

“Yes?” Troy said. “More bad news? This is the day for it.”

“Hope not. While you were wasting time up at the Stiders' I was busy next door at town hall.”

Troy stared. Norris was enjoying this. “And just what were you doing in the town hall?” he asked because that seemed to be what Norris was waiting for.

“I was registering to run for town council.”

Troy stared at Norris and raised one eyebrow just because he knew how. “Aha. And the one town councilman up for reelection this time around is our very own Doctor Councilman Principal Howard Parkland Duell.”

Norris smiled. “Election is at the January town hall meeting. I'm the only opponent. I have a month to campaign. Get in major Hollywood stars, buy a lot of television ads. Stir up controversy. I may ask Duell for his birth certificate and past ten years of tax records.”

Troy grinned. “Suppose it would be no secret that you'd have my vote. I believe the usual thing is to spend upwards of twenty-seven dollars on homemade yard signs and maybe two of those magnetic signs you stick on your car doors.”

“I can manage that, between my handsome retirement plan and what you pay me to sit at June's desk now and then and look over your books occasionally.”

“I pay you nothing. You do get to attend the monthly Bad Words Jar party when we use that money to buy pizza and beer.”

“Which, I notice, you never attend.”

Troy shook his head. “It's for the troops. Let down their hair a little. It's the one night a month they can swear in here and not have to put money into the jar. They not only don't need me around, they might want to talk
about
me. I take over the patrolling that night.”

“What happens at Bad Words Jar Party stays at Bad Words Jar Party?”

“Something like that. There's a problem with you being a candidate for doctor-all that stuff-Duell's job. You can't go on working here, at least not while running for office. Maybe not after.”

“Why not?”

“Conflict of interest. Not on your part, on my part. Paid or not, people will think you're my staff member and that I put you up to this. So, you're fired.”

“Hadn't thought of that. Is it all right if I finish out my shift?”

“Sure. Then you need to escort yourself to the door. Wouldn't want you swiping the stapler or anything.”

Chapter 36

Tuesday, December 31

Cord MacIntosh always drove an old white van with plain windowless sides. Nobody ever noticed those, parked on a street or following along behind. There was room also for his tools, of which he had many, and for nautical odds and ends, of which he had even more. There was even a cot to sleep on, which he had been using because there was no place to stay in Mangrove Bayou, a set of drawers for clothes, and a small porta potty. Perfect for the private investigator with a big sailboat to maintain. When one old white van wore out he bought another from some used-car lot.

Just past breakfast time Cord swung his van in off the street and parked in a small area in front of the gate and office at the Naples-Storage. Inside the office, he rented a unit from an elderly retiree eking out a pension. Cord signed in on the log, the clerk opened the gate, and Cord MacIntosh was in business. He hadn't seen any monitors in the office other than the television on which the retiree was watching his daytime talk shows. As Cord drove slowly down the lane between green-painted metal storage units, he saw no cameras.