“This could mean a lawsuit,” Harry protested.
“It might have, but it isn’t going to,” Jesse said.
Harry was still glowering. “It’s my place. I need to be apprised of everything that happens here.”
“Harry, chill. The complaint has been dropped. Lorena told me everything I needed to know. There was no reason to upset you.”
Harry stared hard at Lorena. She tried to decide if he looked worried or not. Mostly he just seemed concerned about his place. And angry with Jesse. “You’re not doing your job right, Jesse Crane,” Harry said angrily. “Cutting corners, kidnapping my nurse.”
Lorena was instantly aware that Harry had said the wrong thing. Jesse stiffened, and the look in his eyes turned chilling. “Harry, two good people have been shot to death, a tribal member has been killed by an alligator, and you’ve got a security guard in the hospital, hovering between life and death. Drop it,” he said icily.
Harry backed down, instantly. “I, uh, I just checked on Roger. He’s still in a coma,” he said gruffly. “You found out anything else on the murders?” he asked.
“No,” Jesse said simply. “Nor can I tell you anything else about Billy Ray. But we’re going out gator-hunting from here tomorrow evening around six. The office will set things up with the guys who run the licensed hunts. I’ll be needing Jack Pine and Hugh. We know we’ve got a man-eater out there, and it’s got to be put down.”
“Now you’re going to take my handlers?” Harry said incredulously. “Like hell! This is a business.”
“And you can do business tomorrow. You’ll just be minus a couple of handlers come six o’clock.”
“Dammit, Jesse—”
“How many tourists do you think you’re going to have if this rogue gator attacks more people?” Jesse demanded.
Harry waved a dismissive hand. “Are you going to need my nurse again, too?” he demanded.
“Hopefully not,” Jesse said calmly, not raising his own voice to meet Harry’s indignant tone.
“You coming in for dinner?” Harry asked Jesse, clearly changing the subject to avoid an argument.
Jesse glanced at Lorena. “If there’s still dinner, might as well,” he murmured.
Harry made an unhappy snorting sound, and they walked together toward the main building. As they went, they could hear the bellowing of the alligators in their ponds.
Soon they reached the cafeteria. “I’ve eaten,” Harry said curtly. “You two go on.”
Lorena murmured, “Thank you,” and stepped in ahead of Jesse.
Sally was seated at one of the tables, with Jack Pine and Hugh.
Hugh rose when he saw them enter.
“Well, that took a while,” he said dryly.
“We got to talking, that’s all,” Jesse said.
Sally set a hand on his arm. “Jesse, how are you doing?” she asked, real concern in her voice.
Jesse frowned at her. “I’m worried,” he said flatly.
Jack Pine waved a hand in the air. “Jesse, there may be one big gator out there, but face it, Billy Ray was a drunk. Do we really want to cause a panic out there when for all we know he passed out, fell in the water and drowned, and then got eaten by that gator?”
“No panic. Just a hunt,” Jesse said.
“Let me get you all some food,” Sally said sweetly, flashing a smile at Jesse, then Lorena. “It’s late, they’re closing down, so I’ll just make sure you two get to eat.”
“Thanks, Sally,” Jesse said, smiling back at her.
Lorena found herself remembering how Sally had talked about Jesse earlier. Devastated, but not dead! She felt at a loss for a moment, realizing that she knew so little about him. The night had been strange. Intimacy had been sudden and yet…she felt as if it had been something that, unbeknownst to herself, she had actually been awaiting. But she didn’t know anything about whatever might have gone on with him—and Sally?—before she got here. She did know that he’d had a wife, and that she was dead….
And that she’d been a crack shot.
“Harry teed off about the hunt?” Hugh asked.
Jesse shrugged.
“Harry’s all about the bottom line,” Jack said. “He doesn’t even give a damn about Michael’s research. He just wants to please the tourists, grow the gators, harvest the meat and hides.”
“Yeah, but if we catch the rogue that killed Billy Ray, he’ll want it on display, don’t you think?” Sally said, returning to the table. One of waiters was behind her, carrying two plates piled with something Lorena couldn’t identify.
“Jesse won’t be letting Harry have that old gator, will you, Jess?” Jack said.
“Why not?” Harry asked.
“It should go to the village, to the Miccosukee,” Jack said flatly.
“Let’s catch the thing first,” Jesse said.
“Hey…you’re not going soft, are you? Thinking it’s just a good ol’ predator doing what comes naturally, and planning to transplant it somewhere deeper in the Glades?” Hugh asked.
Jesse shook his head. “No. It’s dangerous. We have to put it down. There’s one thing I’m really hoping, though.”
“What’s that?” Sally asked.
“That it is an ‘it.’ That we’re not searching for more than one really dangerous alligator.”
“There’s one thing I’m wondering,” Jack said.
“And what’s that?” Lorena asked.
He stared at her. “Where the hell did a bugger that big and vicious come from?”
There was silence at the table. Lorena found herself intensely interested in her meal.
The conversation never really recovered after that.
Jack left the table first, a few minutes later. Then Hugh. Sally didn’t seem to want to leave, though.
But finally Jesse stood. “Ladies, I’ve still got some work to do, so I’ll bid you good night.”
Sally watched him go, obviously appreciating the view.
Lorena cleared her throat. Sally glanced at her, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Well, I see that you’re coming to enjoy our local…wildlife, shall I say?”
Lorena ignored the other woman’s teasing tone. “What happened to his wife?” she asked.
Sally didn’t seem to mind dispensing information. “She was a cop, too. Some coked-up prostitute she was trying to help walked up to the back of her car one night and—on the order of her pimp—put a bullet into the back of her head.”
Lorena let out a long breath. There was really nothing to say except “Oh.”
“She was something, I’ll tell you. An heiress determined to make the world better through law enforcement.” Sally assessed Lorena carefully. “Don’t go getting any ideas. He’ll never marry again.”
Lorena forced a smile. “Sally, I barely know the man.”
“But you know enough, don’t you?”
Lorena rose. “Like I said, I barely know the man. Thank you for making sure we could eat.”
“He’s interested in one thing, and one thing only. So you’d better play like a big girl, if you intend to play.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Lorena said lightly. “Good night.”
As Lorena started walking away, Sally called softly after her, “Be careful.”
Lorena spun back around. “Why?”
“Well, hell!” Sally laughed. “Old Billy Ray—eaten. And Roger…Just goes to show, you can never trust a gator. Believe me, I’m going to be very careful myself.”
“Are you suggesting that Roger was helped into that pit?”
“Good God, no! He must have thought he heard something. Then leaned too far over the edge.”
“So you think he fell in?” Lorena asked.
“Of course. Who would have pushed him?” Sally demanded.
“Hey, you’re the one who warned me,” Lorena said lightly, then smiled and left.
On her way to her room, she paused at the door to Michael Preston’s lab and started to test the knob. Then she hea
rd his voice from inside and stopped, listening. She thought maybe he was on the phone. His voice was low but intense.
She tried desperately to eavesdrop, but she couldn’t make out his words. Nothing other than giant and hunt. There was nothing suspicious about that. By now everyone knew that Billy Ray had been killed by an alligator, a big one, and that it had to be hunted down and destroyed.
Still, she lingered, listening, until the sound of footsteps down the hallway warned her that she’d better get going. Worried that he might eventually have said something useful and now she was going to miss it, she gave up and hurried on to her own room.
Jesse took the airboat back to headquarters and checked in with his staff.
Brenda Hardy was there, doing paperwork. She perched on the edge of Jesse’s desk. “I don’t care what anyone says. There’s more going on here than just some big gator. Billy Ray had a shotgun with him, he could shoot dead drunk. I’d bet cash money you’re thinking what I’m thinking. All this happening at one time is too much to be coincidence.”
Jesse nodded to her, then excused himself as his cell phone rang. It was Julie.
“Jesse.”
“Julie. You all right?”
“Yeah…yeah. You know what I’ve been doing? Playing bingo out at the casino. I bought about a million cards. You can’t think when you’re trying to put little dots on a zillion numbers at once.”
“Good, Julie. I’m glad. Anything that works for you is what you need to be doing.”
“Right, I know. I had to tell you, Jesse. I drove out by the house before, and…and I drove back here as quickly as I could. I didn’t go in. I didn’t even get out of my car. But I saw the lights. I saw lights…like my mother said. I know why she thought aliens were landing. It was creepy…the way they seemed to come out of the swamp and the sky at the same time.”
“Julie, don’t go back there. Stay at the casino, stay in the bingo hall, at the machines, or locked in your room, all right? And don’t tell anyone you drove by the house.”
“All right, Jesse. I just thought you should know.”
“I should, and I’m glad you called me. But you have to keep yourself safe. You understand?”
“I will, Jesse. I guess I thought I needed to go back to believe it. But I’ll stay away.”
“Promise?”
“I swear.”
Jesse hung up. As he did, George Osceola walked over to his desk. Jesse looked up.
“You’re not going to like this,” George warned.
“What?”
“Dr. Thiessen, the vet, just called,” George said.
“And?”
“He went back into his office tonight to get some notes. He’d decided to send the specimen and his samples to the FBI lab.”
“And?”
When he got there, his night security man slash animal sitter was out cold in the kennel area.”
“And let me guess. The alligator specimen and all the tissue and blood samples were gone?” Jesse said.
George nodded. “I’m meeting some of the fellows from the county out there now.”
“I’ve got a drive to make,” Jesse said. “Then I’ll meet you there.”
He got in his car and started speeding along the Trail, only slowing as he neared Julie’s parents’ house. He turned off his lights before he entered the drive, knowing that, even for him, that was foolhardy, considering the terrain.
He parked on the embankment that bordered the property. The crime tape still hung limply around the house itself and the place where Maria had died. The whole area seemed forlorn, desolate.
Whatever Julie had seen, Jesse realized after about twenty minutes of watching from the front seat, it was gone now. Tomorrow night, if Lars couldn’t send a man to keep watch, he would send one of his own men, or even keep watch himself.
He got out of the car, carrying his large flashlight, and walked toward the water. As he reached the wet saw grass area that fell away from the hummock toward the water, he saw that the long razor-edged blades were pushed down. Once again, someone had been through with an airboat. He looked around but didn’t see anything else suspicious.
When he got back to his car, he put a call through to Lars Garcia, despite the time. Lars already knew about the break-in at the vet’s and was on his way out there.
When Jesse arrived at Doc Thiessen’s, he found that the CSI team were already working, dusting for fingerprints, looking for footprints, searching for tire tracks, seeking any small piece of evidence.
Doc Thiessen had been born into a family of fruit-and-vegetable farmers in Homestead. He’d earned his veterinary degree at Florida State University and determined to come back to his own area to work. Now he had a head full of snow-white hair and a gentle, lined face. He worked with domestic as well as farm animals, and was known in several counties for his abilities to help with pet turtles, snakes, lizards, birds and commercial reptiles.
He was standing with Lars and the uniforms who had apparently been first on the scene when Jesse arrived. He shook his head as Jesse approached. “Jesse, I’m damned sorry. I was trying to prepare my samples properly, study them myself…I should have sent them straight out.”
Jesse placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen. What about your night man? Jim? Did he see anything?”
“He’s over there,” Lars said, pointing. “Go on. I’ve already spoken with him.”
Doc’s night guard was a man named Jim Hidalgo, half Peruvian, half Miccosukee. He and Jesse were distantly related. They shook hands, and Jim looked at him, wincing. “Jesse, I didn’t even see it coming. We’ve got a few dogs in the kennels, you know, belonging to folks on vacation. I heard something, went to check on the pups. One little beagle was going wild, and I walked over to it and…that’s the last thing I remember until Doc was standing over me, taking my pulse.”
“Thanks, Jim.” The man had a bump the size of Kansas on the back of his head. Jesse stared at it and whistled softly. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”
“They’re insisting I go to the hospital,” Jim said.
“Yeah, well…that’s quite a bump. Let them keep an eye on you, at least overnight.”
Jim sighed. “All right. If you say so.”
Jesse walked back to Lars, who was waiting for him. He told him about Julie’s call and his trip out to the house.
“I had officers out there last night,” Lars said with a sigh. “It’s just that the department only stretches so far. But I’ll send some men out again, twenty-four-hour watch. Anything else? You find your rogue gator?”
“Not yet. We’re doing an organized hunt tomorrow night.” He hesitated. “We may be on to something, though.”
“What?”
“I need someone else to explain it to you.”
Lars’s partner, Abe, walked up then. “You know something, Jesse? If so—”
“Know something? Let’s see. A couple is murdered, and there’s an alligator limb at the scene. A man is attacked and killed by an alligator. A guard falls or is pushed into an alligator pit, and now the vet’s guard has been attacked and specimens have been stolen. Gee. Think anything might be related here? Does the word ‘gator’ mean anything to you?”
“Go to hell, Jesse,” Abe snapped. “I want to know what you’ve got to go on. I’m Homicide. I look for human killers. You’re the alligator wrestler.”
“An alligator is a natural predator, Abe.”
“My point. I can hardly arrest one.”
“If an animal is trained to kill, that makes the trainer a murderer, doesn’t it?” Jesse asked dryly.
“I just said that if you’ve got something—”
Jesse ignored Abe and turned to Lars. “How about lunch tomorrow? The Miccosukee restaurant? On me.”
“Yeah, we can make it,” Abe answered for Lars.
Jesse shook his head. “I have someone who may know something. But she won’t talk if we make this too
big a party. Abe, just let Lars handle it.”
“Who is she?” Abe said angrily. “We can just bring her in.”
“And do what? Issue a lot of threats and get nothing back?” Jesse asked angrily.
Lars set a hand on Abe’s shoulder. “Partner, whatever I get, you know we share. So…”
Abe glared at Jesse. Jesse glared back. “Dammit, Abe, I’m not asking Lars to hide anything from you, and I’m not trying to hide anything myself. Hell, I’d invite anyone who could bring justice for Henry and Maria. But, Abe, you’re not a guy with a gentle touch. Let Lars take this one. He can call you the minute he leaves.”
“Fine,” Abe grated.
With the crime-scene people busy at the vet’s, Jesse knew there was nothing he could do there for the night. “I’m going to have a last word with Jim,” Jesse said. “Lars, see you tomorrow.”
They were almost ready to take Jim to the hospital for observation. He was being laid out on a stretcher.
“Jim?”
“Yeah, Jess?”
“You walked back to the beagle. You were hit on the head. Then nothing, nothing at all until Doc was there?”
“Nothing, Jesse. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right.”
“Does Doc usually come in at night?”
“No, but he’d been worrying about finishing up the work you wanted, ’cuz he hasn’t been able to get to it during the day. We’ve been really busy lately. It’s a bitch, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s a bitch.”
Then the med tech gave Jesse a thumbs up and rolled Jim into the vehicle.
Jesse waved and headed out.
Lorena should have been dog-tired, but she was nervous. Television couldn’t hold her attention. She found herself prowling the room as the hour grew later.
He had said he would be here.
Irritated with herself, she sat down and tried staring at the television again. She thought she was just blanking on the screen, since she didn’t understand a word that was being said.