Night Moves (27 page)

The photos alone, I’d hoped, would be enough to convince my cop pals that Deano was stalking his own sister-in-law—a woman who wanted to protect the family name and was too frightened to file a formal complaint. Lt. Kerry Brett was a rational man and a total pro. Same with his partner Moonley. Show the cops the photos and suggest they give Deano the option of leaving the island or face charges. No rough stuff, no intimidation, just an honest warning that videoing unsuspecting citizens wouldn’t be tolerated on our happy little island.

Convincing Kerry Brett had been key—and not just the key to scaring off Deano. At first Dan Futch had refused to honor my agreement with Diemer. No surprise. So I’d spent ten minutes on the phone arguing the wisdom of banishing an enemy quietly but without admitting my plan required breaking and entering and theft. “No headlines, no harm, no FAA,” I had assured him. Then even Tomlinson had balked at sharing the Bone Field with an outsider until my nonviolent approach finally won him over.

The success or failure of the plan all came down to a fifteen-minute meeting that took place around midnight in the jewelry store parking lot. Brett and his partner Moonley were on duty and had some time on what they’d said was a “very quiet night”—good news in itself after I’d just helped burgle a house.

The two cops had listened to my story, and they’d studied the photos while their squad car’s computer turned up something I didn’t know: Dean Arturo had a police record—misdemeanor assault and resisting arrest—that added weight to my claim the man was mentally unstable.

Friends of mine or not, though, cops are rightfully guarded when dealing with civilians who try to tell them how to do their jobs. Sanibel is among the most desirable billets in law enforcement, and I was dealing with top hands, not affable good old boys who were easily manipulated.

The Post-it note Diemer provided had made finding Deano almost too easy for them to refuse. On it, written in a woman’s hand, were initials and an address:
DA West Wind, Rm 243-244
.

The obsessive Cressa Arturo had done the last of the drone work for me.
DA
was Dean Arturo, and he was staying at a beachfront hotel, rooms 243–244. To me, booking two rooms suggested Deano’s affair with Cressa hadn’t ended. I could think of no other reason, so it didn’t strike me as odd—although it
should
have. A dangerous man books two adjoining rooms? But I was too preoccupied . . . no, too self-satisfied with what I’d accomplished to bother exploring the implications.

Which is why on this gray and stormy morning in the West Wind parking lot, while watching my nonviolent brain child come unraveled, I stepped away from my truck and whispered, “You bumbling dumbass. You idiot!”

Meaning me, Marion Ford.

—

W
HY DOES A DANGEROUS MAN,
operating alone, book an adjoining room?

The bumbling dumbass got his answer less than a minute after Deano sprinted toward the beach: because he wasn’t operating alone. A second man had appeared in the shattered doorway, looked both ways, then stepped out into the parking lot. I recognized him: triathlete muscles on a rangy frame, maple-colored hair, and close-set Bambi eyes. It was the man in the photos Cressa had e-mailed. All along she’d been misleading us, protecting her brother-in-law.

Tomlinson spotted him, too. “Christ A’mighty,” I heard him say. “It’s the spear hunter—freaking pig killer, man!” As he said it, Bambi scanned the parking lot, found my truck, then me, while Tomlinson muttered, “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

The man glared at us for a moment, then turned away.

“Stay here,” I told him, then hesitated. “Call Cressa—find out who that guy really is.”

“‘A quiet little warning,’” Tomlinson replied, mocking me. “‘The peaceful approach,’ he says. Marion,
you
try weathering this bullshit with acid in your brain!”

I went after Bambi who had turned toward the street, not the beach as I’d expected. He was carrying a camera case and an overnight bag—all packed and ready to go—leaving Dean Arturo to his fate.

Loyalty wasn’t part of their tribal code, apparently.

One glance over his shoulder, Bambi walked faster. So did I. After another look, he set off at a jog, taking long triathlete strides. Even though I wasn’t carrying luggage, I had to push to keep up.

22

DEANO’S PARTNER WAS TRYING TO ESCAPE ON FOOT?
To
where
? Taxis don’t cruise the island, and the hotel’s main bike rack was empty.

On a run, I followed the man under the check-in canopy, where he veered right into a second parking lot, only a few vacant spaces showing puddles from a recent rain, and populated by a family of six, twin girls wearing Mickey Mouse ears, pillows in their arms.

When I hollered, “I want to talk to you!” the father looked up, correctly read the faces of the two strangers, and ordered his kids, “Get in the van—
now
.”

Bambi slowed, then sprinted into the cluster of children, shoulder-butting the father while the mother screamed. The move created a temporary shield that forced me to detour around a Winnebago while he beelined through the bushes toward an adjacent hotel, where there was a tennis court and another parking area.

A rental car, that was his destination. A white Jeep wagon, Florida plates, that Deano and Bambi had been smart enough to park a safe distance from their rooms. They’d also daubed mud over the plate. Bambi was in the Jeep, stabbing a key at the ignition, when I reappeared from an unexpected angle. Didn’t notice until I had a hand on the passenger door, which he tried to thwart by slamming his hand down on the electric lock button. But too late . . .

“I want to talk,” I said again. I was standing in a puddle of crushed shell, the door open, but then swung into the passenger seat when the engine started.

“Get out!” Bambi ordered.

I shook my head. “Your friend has some serious mental issues, you know that.”

I didn’t expect the rage the comment sparked. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me! Or about Deano. So shut your mouth! I’ll call the police if you don’t get out right now.” Didn’t expect a Boston accent, either, but it made sense.

“The two men chasing your buddy
are
cops . . . so, yeah, I think that’s a good idea. I’ll come along, you can tell them all about it.”

Looking straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard, Bambi scowled, then put his hand on the gearshift as if to drive away. I was deciding whether to go for an arm bar or just go along for the ride when, instead, he used the hand to turn down the music—tribal rap, it might have been, drums like electronic thunder that kept pace with the chanter’s piercing hip-hop.

“You buy that in Africa?” I asked.

Arturo’s partner ignored the question for several seconds, then turned to me. “Those assholes had no right to question Deano! Not after all the garbage he’s been through. And he’s trying, man, he’s really trying to get it together! Then the cops pull a stunt like this.”

I said, “It’s not like they accused him of attempted murder,” and watched how he reacted to my double meaning.

He didn’t. Bambi stayed on track by continuing to transfer blame. “I heard the way they came into his room—pretending like they wanted to help, then started right away with the questions. Shrinks and cops, we’ve talked about it, they’re always trying to trap you with questions. Well, bullshit, that’s not the way you deal with someone like the Deanster. Force an alpha lion into a corner, man, how goddamn dumb you got to be not to know what’ll happen?”

Eyes straight ahead again, the man’s jaw muscles flexed. “They’re lucky he didn’t have a weapon, you know,” he confided. “We don’t need firearms. We do it the
real
way.”

A threat. But I let it go, asking, “What’s your name? Mine’s Ford.”

Finally, a reaction. “I know who you are. We saw you almost every day in Boca Grande during tarpon season—the guy who was going to ruin it for everybody. We had a cable deal all lined up until word got out.”

I said, “Word got out about what? Deano’s brain injury?”

Bambi’s brown liquid eyes flared. “No, you prick! That the state might shut it down once your study comes out. Sponsors are going to take a risk like that? Jesus Christ, and we had everything all set to go, then you come along. Must make you feel real important, huh? Fucking up other people’s lives? I was surprised when Deano gave you another chance.”

Another chance at what? “He might still be willing to work something out,” Bambi said, “if you’ve actually found something. Just one hit on cable, just one goddamn break, that’s all we need. We can’t pay the ten thousand—never could. But if you had just given us a chance, none of this bullshit would have happened.”

What the hell did that mean?

Bambi looked at his watch, his mind working on something, then explained in a tone so suddenly optimistic I felt a chill, “Dean’s really good, you know. So am I—not that the networks give a shit about talent. The project we’re working on now, though, just wait until those hacks see it. Millions we’re going to make . . . because it’s timeless!”

I was thinking,
Big ego, built-in excuses
, and baited him, saying, “Then you’re better off. We found something—but a few pieces of airplane wouldn’t make much of a show. Cressa didn’t give you the latest update?”

The man who’d killed a pig with a spear smiled, letting me know he was too savvy to fall for it. But then revealed more than I’d hoped. “Don’t ever trust that bitch. She even came on to me one night, and Deano hates her. If his old man ever stops thinking with his cock, she’ll be out the—” Bambi caught himself, stopping midsentence, then switched off the ignition for some reason. Or was he baiting me . . . ?

Apparently not, because he popped the trunk and got out, explaining, “I’m going to check on Deano. But I’m taking a camera—cops act almost human with a camera around.”

Sirens—
a chainsaw warble that found its way inside the Jeep. More than one squad car, sounded like, coming fast from the direction of the Rum Bar on Rabbit Road. I got out and spoke to him across the roof. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The Bambi-eyed glare again from the back of the Jeep. “I don’t give a damn what you do. Unless you want to make a film with a couple of first-rate shooters, stay away from both of us.” Then leaning into the vehicle, he appeared to fumble something, and I heard, “Shit . . . right in the water,” before he disappeared from view.

A setup of some type, my guess. Rather than wait, I hurried to the back of the Jeep in two fast strides, hoping to catch him unprepared. Bambi had thought it through, though, and was ready. As I came around the rear fender, he stood and swung a bamboo staff that whistled with velocity, but I got a shoulder up in time or it might have killed me. He lunged and swung again. I tried to step inside the staff’s power radius, crouching as I threw out my left hand and tracked its path. The bullwhip smack of bamboo on skin wasn’t as piercing as the pain, but I caught the tip of the staff and managed to hang on when he tried to pull it free.

“I think you’re both insane!” I heard myself shout. The pain was numbing, but I wasn’t in shock—I was mad. What I wanted to do was bust the bamboo over my knee, then use it to spank the bastard. Which is why I yanked too hard and why I went backpedaling into the bushes when Bambi suddenly let go and sprinted to the driver’s-side door. It was still open—just as he’d planned, I had no doubt.

Mud! He or Deano had used it to camouflage the license plate. Two letters—
RK
—was all I could decipher before the Jeep spun out of the shell parking lot onto West Gulf Drive, then was gone.

I got to my feet, momentarily heartened when a Sanibel squad car braked out front, lights flashing. Before I could get the officer’s attention, though, he accelerated to the West Wind and turned. Seconds later, another blue-and-white followed, then a big diesel EMS vehicle. It confirmed what I had suspected: Kerry Brett or his partner Moonley had called for backup. But why the ambulance?

—

I
PICKED
UP
the bamboo shaft and rushed back to the West Wind. Beneath a covered walkway, next to a coin laundry, I scooped ice into a bag and held it in my throbbing hand as I jogged past the pool, relieved the area hadn’t been emptied by some bloody clash nearby. Then stopped among sea oats on the path to the beach.

No . . . not a bloody scene, but damn ugly. Beyond a gaggle of tourists who’d gathered to watch, I could see Tomlinson standing at a distance as my friends Kerry and Moonley were joined by uniformed cops who came on a run to form a restraining semicircle around Dean Arturo.

They, too, maintained a guarded distance. It was because of Arturo’s behavior and the mad dog look on his face. He was handcuffed and shirtless on his knees, the Gulf of Mexico behind him, but continued to fight by lunging and gnashing his teeth . . . then spearing his legs at anyone who got close enough. My first reaction was pity. A strapping big man with a healthy body who’d been felled by an accident and a brain injury—it could happen to anyone. Could alter the behavior of the most stable among us.

But then Deano’s threats, which reached the ear as a sustained flow of profanity, began to register, and my pity was replaced by a clinical interest. Soon, that changed to disgust. Brain pathology might exacerbate anger, but it is not the source of hatred. Dean Arturo’s contempt for people originated from within, the plane crash had only released his hatred into the world. The man raged, spittle flying, in barbed sentences that were vicious, vile, full of self-pity, but he crafted his insults with
purpose
,
methodically targeting the physical flaws of his enemies.

“Hillbilly genetics from a used rubber!” Deano screamed at a woman cop, then ridiculed her teeth, her body, her “white trash” income, then her chances of happiness, before aiming his venom at a new target. The woman bore it stoically, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, but I noticed when she touched a hand to her mouth, took a slow, involuntary step back, then folded her arms as a shield against another attack.