Blood Reckoning, page 3
I call dispatch and let them know what’s going on and how out of character this is for Carla. I request a BOLO be put out for her, the deputy in her zone to begin to search for her and conduct a canvas, and a subpoena sent to her cell phone carrier so we can ping her phone for its location. Since we believe she’s on the river, I also notify FWC and Search and Rescue so we can get more boats in the water looking for her.
“It’ll take a while to get to Tupelo Creek,” I say. “Don’t want to give my mind the opportunity to go to darker and darker places on the way there. Tell me what’s goin’ on with you. How’s Za?”
Zaire is Merrill’s wife and a doctor at Sacred Heart in Port St. Joe.
“She’s good. Things leveling off some after the worst of the pandemic. Lettin’ that brain of hers work on other things.”
“Such as?”
“Writing a book and adopting a kid.”
I smile. “So you’re going to be a daddy?”
“Not gonna take in every stray like your ass does, but, yeah, I might be about to give a small child the benefit of my wisdom and experience.”
“Lucky kid,” I say.
“I’m actually kinda excited about this shit.”
“How’s work?” I ask.
Merrill is an investigator with the Potter County Sheriff’s Office where my dad is sheriff. He has the same job as me just in a different county.
“What’s happenin’ with—”
“That’s something I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you about,” he says. “You think your pops is gonna run again?”
“Not sure,” I say.
Dad is one of the oldest sheriff’s in the state, but he hasn’t mentioned retiring.
“I’ve got a lot of people asking me to run,” he says.
“You should,” I say. “You know he’ll endorse you.”
“Thing is . . . they pressurin’ me to run whether he retires or not. I wouldn’t even consider it, but . . . they’re sayin’ they gonna run somebody against him and feel like they can win—because of his age and . . .”
By they I’m sure he means the leadership of the Democratic Party. If Dad runs again, he’ll run as a Republican, so even if he has opposition in the primary, whoever runs as a Democrat will face him in the general election. And no matter who runs in either primary, I think Dad and Merrill would win and face each other in the general—and it’s possible they wouldn’t even have opposition in the primaries.
He says, “Say they’d rather it be someone like me than . . . someone less qualified or . . . good-looking.”
I laugh.
But the laughter quickly fades as I think about the possibility of my dad and my closest friend in a political race against each other.
“I’ve been lookin’ for a time to talk to him about it, but I wanted to mention it to you first.”
“I appreciate it,” I say.
“I ain’t decided anything yet, but . . .”
I nod. “I wouldn’t wait to talk to him. You know how small town gossip is. It’ll get back to him soon—if it hasn’t already. I’m happy to talk to him if you want me to.”
“I’ll do it,” he says. “I need to. Needs to come from me. Will try tomorrow.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
We launch at Tupelo Creek and head down the Miccosukee toward the Hayes’s camp.
Tupelo Creek is a small community of mostly mobile homes and fish camps around two landings on the Miccosukee River. The upper landing, where we launch from, is paved and more commercial than the lower, which is a smaller, more secluded one at the end of the short dirt road that connects them.
Before leaving, I took pictures of the vehicles parked at the landing just like I had at Gaskin Park.
The Miccosukee River is a tributary of the Apalachicola, veering off and cutting a seven-mile channel before rejoining the Apalachicola on route to the bay.
The river looks even more mysterious in moonlight, its twist and turns far more difficult to navigate.
The nearly full moon is so bright the surface of the water is dappled with the shadows of the canopy of cypress trees leaning inward from the damp-slick banks.
The sound of frogs, gators, crickets, cicadas, and other nocturnal creatures is so loud our boat motor can’t be heard above it.
Merrill sits in back, steering the outboard motor while I sit in front holding the powerful Goodsmann handheld search light. Moving slowly, we follow the circular beam of light around downed trees and other debris in the water.
I can’t help but think about all the people the river has swallowed up and refused to return and how most of them were out here at night.
Eventually, the river opens up some, its widening waters filled with fewer obstacles, and we’re able to move faster.
The mid-August night is so hot and humid our shirts are soaked through in spite of the breeze produced by the speeding boat.
When we reach the Hayes’s cabin we find it dark and empty, no boat moored at the little wooden dock where we tie up.
It’s obvious no one is here, but I want to have a look around anyway.
Before getting out of the boat, I shine the beam of the powerful spotlight on the dock and the path leading away from it up to the cabin.
There’s nothing on the old, weathered wood of the dock, but in the damp clay of the bank and in the mud of the little trail connecting the dock with the cabin there are fresh footprints.
I study the prints for a few moments. There are at least two different sets and maybe more. One looks to have been made by boots, the others by sandals or flip-flops or sneakers. The boot tracks are not only bigger but deeper, as if the person who made them is heavier than the other person or people he was with.
When I climb out of the boat onto the dock, I withdraw my phone and take pictures of the tracks on the path.
Merrill says, “’Bout all that thing is good for out here.”
I nod. He’s talking about using my phone as a camera because there’s no cell service.
“I’m gonna take a look around,” I say.
“Take your time,” he says. “I’ll be here.”
I follow the narrow path up toward the cabin, careful not to step on the footprints already there.
The path is covered with the overhanging branches of cypress and water oak trees and bordered on both sides by tall weeds, bushes, fallen limbs, and cypress knees.
Like most of the camps on the river, the cabin is small and rustic, its boards unpainted and sun-warped.
The cabin is built up several feet on stilts for when the river floods. Up five rickety wooden steps, a screened-in porch holds three mismatched rocking chairs and a whiskey barrel table with a large pair of binoculars on it.
I shine the search light around the exterior of the cabin, then go inside.
The smell of must and mildew greets me as I open the door.
Though there are lights in the cabin, they can only be powered by a generator, which most campers bring with them when they come to their camp and take with them when they leave.
The bright handheld spotlight reveals a large open room with a random assortment of mismatched furniture. Four beds—a queen, two doubles, and a twin—are scattered throughout, their cheap headboards pressed against the walls. Around them are various chairs and tables, and in the middle of the room a couch, a loveseat, two recliners, and two high-back chairs form a circle.
In the back left corner is a simple kitchen consisting of a few wooden shelves, a short counter, an old white oven, a sink, and a couple of ice chests.
Some of the camps on the river are like second homes with all the amenities and comforts you’d expect, others like this one are old, rustic hunting and fishing cabins used mostly by men who spend most of their time in their boat if they’re fishing or in the swamps if they’re hunting.
I step inside and look around, open the back door, and shine the light around out back.
As in the front, there is no yard, just a small clearing. A wooden outhouse is about fifteen feet away, beyond which is a dense, nearly impenetrable river swamp.
I close up the cabin and walk back down the trail to the dock.
“Anything?” Merrill asks.
“Nothing to say for sure Carla was here tonight,” I say, “but someone was. Two or three someones.”
“If she was here,” he says, “she wouldn’t’ve had any signal.”
“True,” I say, “but why haven’t we heard from her since she got back?”
“Phone could be dead.”
I nod. “And why hasn’t Mason called me back yet? He’s clearly not here, and his vehicle wasn’t at the landing, so he should have service by now.”
“He ain’t the only one you haven’t heard back from,” he says. “Suspicious Easton ain’t called back either.”
“Still don’t know why Bailey included him.”
He’s about to say something when we hear the approach of another boat.
We turn to look and in another few moments can see the bright searchlight mounted on a bow and the boat behind its spill.
As they slow and pull over toward us, I can see that it’s Phil and Patty, a middle-aged couple who volunteers with Search and Rescue.
Patty cuts the light, and Phil cuts the engine as they drift toward us.
“Figured we’d be the first out,” Phil says. “What can we do?”
“Could you patrol up and down the river for a while just to make sure they aren’t broken down somewhere?”
“You got it. The others should be here soon.”
Without wasting any more time, he reverses his craft, turns, then takes off farther down river.
CHAPTER
NINE
As we near the landing and I get cell service again, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
I pull it out to see that Ellen Messer, one of our deputies, is calling.
“Hey, Ellen,” I say.
“I thought you said Mason Hayes and Carla Pearson were on the river together.”
She’s a gruff, middle-aged white woman with a voice that sounds like she chain smokes unfiltered cigarettes and subsists on a diet of broken glass.
“We think they may have been—earlier. Don’t know for sure. Why?”
“His truck and boat are parked in his driveway,” she says. “But his house is dark, and I can’t get him to come to the door.”
“Thanks. I’m on my way. And please keep looking for Carla.”
I back the trailer down into the water, Merrill drives the boat onto it, and after securing it we are racing back toward town.
Now that I have signal again, I check my missed calls, messages, and texts.
Still no word from Carla, Mason, or Easton, but there are some missed calls from numbers I don’t recognize.
I call Miss Minnie again.
It takes her a while to answer, and when she does her words are slow and her voice is thick with sleep.
“Sorry to disturb you,” I say, “but I was wondering if Carla had come home yet.”
“Ain’t heard from her.”
“Would you mind looking to see if her vehicle is back or if there are any lights on in her apartment?”
“Still ain’t heard nothin’ from her.”
“Would you mind checking?”
“Give me a minute.”
It takes her more than a minute.
“Still no sign of her,” she says.
“Okay. Thanks. Please call me if you hear from her.”
When I end the call, Merrill says, “Maybe they were never together.”
“Would explain why he’s home and she’s not,” I say. “Why her car was at the end of the road and he was at the cabin, but . . . the footprints indicate he wasn’t alone.”
CHAPTER
TEN
Will and Beth Hayes have a huge gray and white Cape Cod style home on about ten acres near a small pond just outside of town.
The single-story gray-painted wood house is framed with wide white boards and white wooden shutters. Its steeply pitched roof features a large white stone fireplace.
Mason has a much smaller version of the same house located on the front right corner of the property near the street.
Beth’s signature chili-red Mini Cooper Countryman is parked in the drive in front of her home, and it appears as if every light in the house is on, while over at Mason’s place it’s so dark that his gray Silverado and the trailered fishing boat hooked to it can barely be seen.
When we pull up, Ellen Messer walks over to us.
She’s a middle-aged white woman with short, curly gray hair and a squarish build emphasized by her uniform.
“I’ve banged and banged on the doors and windows,” she says in her distinctive gravelly voice.
“Okay, thanks,” I say. “Keep trying. We’ll check with Beth. He may be there or she may know where he is.”
We pull down the drive to Beth’s, hop out, and knock on her door.
“Hey, John,” she says. “Merrill. Is everything okay?”
She’s a mid-forties woman whose money affords her the lifestyle, products, and procedures to appear a decade younger. Her shoulder-length blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail, her big blue eyes are wide and awake, and her smooth skin is unvarnished by makeup, untouched by lines and wrinkles. Her dark-gray yoga pants and light-gray fitted muscle tank show off her firm, athletic figure.
In high school Will had been awkward and overweight, and Beth had barely noticed him—and never in a good way. When Will moved back to the area, he had grown up, shed some weight, and become a successful dentist. And Beth had noticed.
After several drinks at one of our class reunions, a friend of Beth’s and a classmate of ours had explained to us that there are reachers and settlers. To her way of thinking, reachers marry out of their league and settlers marry below it. Her shallow theory was based mostly on outward, physical characteristics, but it does crudely sum up how many people see Will and Beth—including, sadly, Will and Beth.
Will pampers Beth and Mason, lavishing them with an indulged lifestyle few can fathom, and in return he expects allegiance, loyalty, and for them to follow his rules.
“We’re looking for Mason,” I say.
“Yeah, Will called and told me you were. I saw him briefly when he came in and told him to call you. Did he not?”
“He did not,” I say. “Is he at his house? We can’t get him to come to the door.”
“Yeah. Let me call him. I can’t believe he didn’t call you.”
She turns and disappears down the hallway. When she returns, she’s on her phone.
“Honey, the police are here. I thought you were going to call them.”
She waits.
“Oh,” she says. “Well . . . Okay. But . . . Your father told you to call John. Well, but . . . you can talk to them now.”
She lifts the phone from her mouth, looks at us, and says, “He fell asleep.”
When she moves the phone back to her mouth, she says, “Meet them at your door. I’m sending them down there now. Don’t fall back asleep. Get up now, okay? Okay.”
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
“Sorry,” Mason is saying. “I fell asleep.”
He rubs his eyes and yawns in what seems like attempts to bolster his assertion that he has been asleep.
He’s leaning in his doorway, his head down, not making eye contact with us.
He’s wearing a pair of blue jeans with no shirt, his pale, thin upper body on display. There’s a little definition as if he spends some time working out, but he’s so skinny it barely registers.
“Where have you been tonight?” I ask.
“Huh? Why?”
His hair is longish and unkempt and obscures much of his downturned face.
“Why what?” I ask. “Are you unwilling to answer my questions? Is there some reason you don’t want to tell me where you’ve been?”
“No, but . . . I know my rights. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not gonna be harassed. I just asked why you wanted to know where I’ve been. If I ask you where you’ve been, wouldn’t you want to know why?”
Though his attitude is defiant, his voice remains calm and pleasant in a good ol’ boy kind of way.
“Maybe we should finish this conversation at the sheriff’s office,” I say.
“Not unless you’re arresting me.”
The low rumbling of thunder rolls in the distance, early warnings of an approaching storm.
“So you’re refusing to answer our questions and refusing to come to the station?”
“Look, all I’ve done is ask why you’re interrogating me. I have a right to know.”
Merrill says, “This is nothing like an interrogation. Promise you that.”
I say, “I’m asking because I’m looking for Carla. She’s missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s ain’t missin’. She’s late as usual or laid up drunk somewhere, but she ain’t missin’.”
“Carla doesn’t drink,” I say. “You know that. Do you know where she is?”
He shakes his head. “I do not.”
“Any ideas where she might be?”
He shakes his head and shrugs.
The distant thunder rolls again, this time followed by the flickering of lightning on the horizon.
“Have you seen her?”
“’Course I’ve seen her in the past, but you’re lookin’ for her now, and I don’t know where she is now.”
The longer we speak, the more drawl he adds to his southern accent. He uses it as camouflage to hide his intelligence and to sound affable and folksy.
“When was the last time you saw her?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“Was it today?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah, guess I saw her today.”
“When? Where? Where was the last time and place you saw her?”
He shrugs.
“Is there a reason you’re being so vague and uncooperative?” I ask.
