Electric Barracuda (35 page)

The Barracuda angled toward the shoulder of the road.

“Why are we parked?”

“To check the next stop.” Serge pulled a small laptop from his backpack and opened it on his legs. “This one isn’t just location but a sensitive time window.” He tapped the keyboard. “Here’s their website . . .”

“Then what was it?”

“What?”

“In the hot tub.”

“I love chemistry.” Serge scrolled down the screen. “The really fascinating thing is that normally stable compounds react vigorously upon innocent contact with air or water. Individually, the products from the hardware store wouldn’t do that. And for some crazy reason, nobody will sell me a pre-mixed batch. So I had to put on my chef’s hat in the motel . . .” He leaned toward the screen. “Oh, pleassssssse!”

“Found something?”

“This website says we might still have a day or so, unless misfortune strikes in the meantime.” Serge handed Coleman the computer and pulled back onto the highway. “I’ve been waiting to see this my whole life! It’s one of those things that should be on every true Floridian’s Life List, like the elusive Flash of Green at sunset.”

Coleman held the computer’s screen to his face, then did a double take at Serge. “You’re shitting me.”

“About what?”

“This looks like something chicks would force us to do, much worse than guest towels.”

“Coleman, Dendrophylax is a spiritual experience.” A highway sign: Exit 111. Serge took Immokalee Road inland, passing under I-75 ten miles north of the tollbooth to Alligator Alley. “Sometimes you just have to stop and get in touch with your feminine side.”

“You mean beat off?”

“Jesus! No!— . . . Well, actually we’ll be in the presence of some pretty intense natural Florida beauty, so I can’t guarantee it won’t come to that.”

“We’ll have to take turns standing lookout.”

The Barracuda left civilization and blazed across barren flatlands. “It’s getting late. Let’s put up someplace cheap and hit it in the morning.”

Coleman chewed a peyote button. “What was the almond business back at the hot tub?”

“Still on that?”

“You never let me stay to see them croak.”

“Like I said back at the resort, that sweet, nutty fragrance is my favorite part.”

“Why’s that?”

“Once you start smelling almonds, it’s already too late.”

Sanibel

Hundreds of rubber-neckers lined the side of the road, pointing and gossiping.

Officers from multiple jurisdictions taped off the resort and held back the curious.

Distraught guests got free drink tickets.

And the press. Satellite trucks arriving nonstop. Some correspondents had already set up along police lines, going live under floodlights that turned night to day.

“. . . Four confirmed dead . . .”

“. . . Police releasing few details . . .”

“. . . Unnamed source said all were top executives of embattled GUE . . .”

“. . . Apparently attending a secret luxury retreat . . .”

One of the national cable channels was already taking an audience poll, overwhelmingly in favor of the day’s events.

A Crown Vic rolled up. Agent White flashed a badge out the window, and an officer raised the crime tape for the car to pass.

More vehicles arrived.

“. . . Reportedly found in a hot tub . . .”

“. . . The seashell capital of the country . . .”

A commotion on the side of the road. A loud roar as a man with long yellow hair gunned a chopper.

TV people stampeded with cameras and microphones.

“Doberman! We’d like a word! . . .”

“Are you after the killers? . . .”

The bounty hunter climbed off the bike. “I’m after justice, American style.”

The kickstand gave way and the bike fell on him.

Back behind the resort, three state detectives approached the hot tub. A crime scene in top gear. Photos, fingerprints. Two victims already bagged on gurneys.

The medical examiner swabbed foaming saliva from the mouth of the recently late Hunter Bleadoph. He dropped the sample in a clear bag, then tilted the victim’s head back and pulled up eyelids.

“Excuse me . . .”

The examiner turned.

“I’m Agent White from the FDLE. These are Agents Lowe and Mahoney. I know you’re busy but it’s important for a case. Are we looking at homicide?”

“Give me another second.” He opened the mouth cavity and shined a penlight, then up each nostril. Individual hairs carefully harvested to preserve follicles. A scraping of skin. He dipped a plastic bottle in the tub and capped it.

The examiner stood and handed the samples to an assistant. “The lab ASAP. Gas-chromatograph mass spectrometer.” He turned. “Now how can I help you?”

“This is completely off-the-record because we don’t need a panic, but we’re tracking a fugitive who may be a serial killer.” White looked down at the tub. “He could be involved here, if this wasn’t an accident.”

“It wasn’t.” The examiner snapped off his gloves. “We thought so at first, since no signs of trauma. Today it’s a rarity, because manufacturers now isolate all the wiring, but some older tubs get a short circuit in the pump system and you’ve got electrocution.”

“But it’s not?”

The examiner shook his head. “Tip-off is musculature, quick acidic buildup in the fibers. This was something else. Won’t know for sure until we get test results.”

“But you have your suspicions?”

“Let’s step aside.” They walked behind the poolside bar. “What I’m going to tell you now is definitely off-the-record.”

“Understood.”

“When those spectrometer results come back, I’ll bet my life we find spikes in heavy earth alkaline metals. I’m guessing compounds with barium or calcium.”

“This is all Greek.”

“If the compound also was mixed right, it would react aggressively with water, giving off a highly lethal hydrogen-cyanide gas.”

“They didn’t notice?”

“The tub’s massage jets create turbulence and bubbles that would have masked the reaction in the water. And since it was cool last night, the rest was probably concealed in steam coming off the surface.”

“Wouldn’t it have stunk? That’d get me hopping out of the tub.”

The examiner shook his head again. “Actually it’s quite pleasant. The last thing they would have smelled was almonds . . . Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

White walked back to the other agents. “Mahoney, how’s Serge with chemistry.”

“Like falling off a log ringing a bell.”

White exhaled hard and stared out at the sea. The Doberman crawled up the sand toward the resort like a stealth navy commando. Surrounded by TV camera lights that lit up the entire beach and drew a crowd of late-night strollers.

“We have to find Serge fast.” White turned back around. “Any hunches in that gut, Mickey Spillane?”

Mahoney removed a matchstick. “Ghost rider.”

Chapter Thirty-four

The Next Morning

F
orty miles southeast of Fort Myers, at the upper edge of the Everglades, sits the scorched landscape of an outpost called Immokalee.

In the sticks.

Immokalee is a quiet agricultural community of migrants near the poverty line. It was originally named Gopher Ridge, but changed to an Indian word that translates “my home.”

“Downtown” consists of a few small blocks that look like a place where you’d stop and ask directions to downtown. Cowboy hats, Spanish signs, taco stands, horseflies.

Our Lady of Guadalupe.

An inland pocket of Florida with no breeze. Stagnant heat that feels like it’s pushing down on your shoulders. People sit on curbs and aimlessly walk streets in withering defeat. The chief source of entertainment is boredom.

The late Miami author Charles Willeford set a novel in Immokalee, where a farm boss locks the doors of a boardinghouse before each payday and fumigates the workers.

The Seminoles just put in a casino.

On the eastern side of town, across Lake Trafford, is a place even more remote where nobody farms. There is a parking lot but few cars. Today, a ’69 Barracuda had its choice of empty spaces.

Three people got out. More windless heat, vicious humidity and the sizzling buzz of insects. Nothing but scrubland in all directions except a wooden building with visitor information, nature exhibits and a gift shop.

“We’ve arrived!” Serge pulled hard against a straining chain leash.

“Where?” asked Coleman.

“The Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. I love the Corkscrew!”

Coleman took a slug from a flask. “What’s to do here?”

“Take sanctuary.”

The flask went back in a pocket. “Still don’t understand why you wanted to come here just to look at a single flower.”

“Not just any flower,” said Serge. “The ghost orchid. They attach themselves to trees in swamp forests.”

“Ghost?”

“Most elusive orchid of all, immortalized by Susan Orlean in
The Orchid Thief
.” Mikey began pulling Serge toward the building like a sled dog. “Can only be found growing wild in the wetlands of southwest Florida and Cuba. The most rabid flower freak can live ten lifetimes without seeing one. And not for lack of trying. These people gladly march miles in hip-deep water just to stake out a tree at two
A.M.
, waiting for a flower that blooms only one night a year. But the holy grail is the ghost orchid, whose sighting is so rare it makes the newspapers. And this is my big chance!”

“Hold it,” said Coleman. “I can understand bird-watchers, but you’re telling me there are people that just stand around watching a flower doing nothing?”

“And with a passion that eclipses the Frog Listening Network in Thonotosassa, who go out at night with tape recorders to cut CDs for easy listening in their cars.”

They headed for the building. A deep motorized sound cut through the insect drone. Serge turned around. “Here they come now.”

A giant air-conditioned tour bus pulled into the parking lot and stopped next to the building. Doors hissed open.

Off they poured, grouping together by the side of the bus. All white-haired seniors with uncharacteristic tans. All adhering to an unspoken dress code. Fanny packs, cargo shorts, straw hats, pith helmets, hiking boots, binoculars, long-range cameras and novelty T-shirts from their club chapter: I’d Rather Be Resupinating, I Brake For Epiphytes and Orchid Lovers Do It Perennially.

The driver opened the luggage bay.

Coleman scratched his head as the collection of enthusiasts reached into the compartment, unloading telescopes, tripods, video equipment, camera cases, collapsing sun canopies and folding canvas tailgating chairs with drink holders.

“This is a bonus,” said Serge, getting out his wallet. “Seeing a ghost orchid
and
testing my next fugitive ‘Out’ technique.”

“Flowers are an ‘Out’?”

“All these clubs have lines of merchandise for fund-raising. Watch and learn.” He approached the gang. “Excuse me? Who’s in charge of marketing? I’d like a whole bunch of your crap!”

“That’s me,” said a red-faced man with a British accent, knee-high socks and white nose cream. “What are you interested in?”

“Everything!”

The man pulled a styrene bin from the luggage compartment and opened the lid.

“Oooooooo!”
said Serge. “I’ll take three of each: T-shirts, tote bags, water bottles, laminated species guide, sun hats with roll-down neck protector, field glasses, can coozie for Coleman and that big souvenir button with a picture of a ghost orchid on a milk carton that says
Have you seen me?
”

“Our best customer,” remarked the Brit, pocketing currency. The club went in the building for tickets.

Serge, Coleman and Mikey donned their new T-shirts and hats in the parking lot and followed the others inside.

They reached the ticket counter. “Two adults, one child.”

“Here’s a map,” said the park employee. “You go out back here—”

Serge held up a hand for him to stop. “Don’t need a map. Know the place by heart: two-and-a-quarter-mile, round-trip boardwalk through eleven-thousand-acre preserve of wet prairies, cypress marsh and pine flat woods.” Serge reached. “I need a map for my files. How’s our ghost orchid?”

“You’re in luck. Just got a new bloom.”

“Not the one I saw on the Internet?”

He shook his head. “The orchid they reported in the press fell off the tree a few days ago in the middle of the night. And wouldn’t you know we got a ton of people the next day.”

“Must have been a full-scale riot,” said Serge. “Flower people torching the gift shop and tipping over police cars.”