Randy White - Dead Silence

An arrow?

From the adjoining dock, I heard a momentary splashing. I didn’t look, assuming it was Hump. But then we all turned when we heard a boy’s voice ask, “Where’d I hit him?”

Will Chaser!

Will was no longer dressed like a cowboy, as when I’d first seen him. He was nearly naked, face smoke-smudged, blood-crusted, carrying a bow and withered quiver as he approached, his hair tied back Apache style with a blue wind band.

His black eyes reflected a momentary red-sparked gleam when he looked at me, a look of recognition.

Beneath lights at the dock’s edge, where a kayak was tied, Hump, dog-paddling, was now calling, “Dr. Navarro, be careful! Devil Child is back!”

Barbara had sagged against me. I disentangled myself from her arms, saying, “Call nine-one-one. We need an ambulance now.” Running toward the horse stable, I added, “Then cancel the ransom flight.”

When I entered the stable and knelt beside the body of Shelly Palmer, I saw that we could cancel the ambulance, too.

Farfel had used the drill.

The morning of the deadline, Sunday, January twenty-fifth, I got five hours’ sleep, put my skiff on a trailer, then rendezvoused with Tomlinson near Southwest Regional Airport.

“Any news?” he asked, swinging his backpack into the bed of my old Chevy pickup.

I told him I was too tired to talk, for him to sit back and I’d share everything telepathically. After a few beats, I added, “But the kid’s okay. He’s not too fond of me, but he’s safe.”

Tomlinson had already seen news bulletins on CNN while waiting for his flight. But he must have read the weariness in my face because he told me, “The kid’s a solid judge of character. Tell me the rest later,” then dozed most of the trip.

At two p.m. we met Jibreel Sudderram and two fellow FBI agents at Falcon Landing and chauffeured them to Tamarindo Island. Because it was my boat, I had asked Sudderram earlier to play the bad guy and inform a U.S. senator there wasn’t enough room for her aboard.

Legally, it was almost true, even though my skiff has carried as many as fifteen. But Barbara had been on a combination power binge and talking jag since she’d seen blood pumping from the Cuban interrogator’s neck. I didn’t want to listen to her endless cell-phone conversations or babysit her questions.

The agents were trained to be patient with civilians. I was not.

The lady’s protests were neutralized by the fact that one of the agents was female. Besides, as I rationalized for our little group, Barbara had already acknowledged that Tomlinson was a credible psychic by attending one of his lectures, so she had no choice but to accept the decision that he might be useful.

The agents didn’t consider Tomlinson a psychic, nor did I. It was a concession I would never have made but that the senator had, so it was excuse enough to bring him along.

“Right?” I asked Agent Sudderram.

The man looked as tired as me, but the news about the boy had improved his mood.

He replied, “Why bother her with details?”

Will Chaser had been taken to a Sarasota hospital. Procedure and common sense mandated a physical exam and that he be interviewed by child psychologists before he could be questioned by police.

It had been only fourteen hours so it was possible the boy was still in shock, but he appeared to be handling everything okay, Agent Sudderram told Tomlinson and me as I maneuvered the skiff through mangrove cuts, then down the winding channel toward Tamarindo.

Five minutes later, Sudderram was still briefing us as I dropped off plane and idled toward the island’s narrow dock, NO TRESPASSING signs freshly guano-streaked as cormorants, spooked from pilings, then struggled toward laborious flight.

“I’ve worked with the hospital staff before,” Sudderram told us, “so the doctor let me stick around as long as I didn’t ask any questions. Will said he didn’t mind. He seemed fairly cheerful, considering what he’d been through.

“Will told the staff he couldn’t remember much after his coffin started flooding. He said he didn’t feel scared, just sort of sleepy and dreamy. Maybe he blacked out -his words.”

A doctor told Sudderram that a blackout was consistent with the results of an EEG test, which measures brain cell activity, and an MRI scan, which doctors said revealed strokelike indicators visible in the boy’s brain tissue.

For a short time, apparently, Will had gone without oxygen. Damage appeared to be minimal, however.

“Next thing the boy says he remembers was crawling through sand toward a cabin. He says he also remembers being pissed off at the Cubans. But not crazy mad-he made that point over and over.”

Sudderram smiled at me as I secured the skiff. “It seemed very important to the kid that we believed he was only sort-of mad. You know, that it was no big deal listening to his kidnappers stab the limo driver and then bury him alive.”

Tomlinson was standing with his back to us, staring at the remains of the cabin, seeing the charred shutters and broken glass, smoke still tunneling up from the collapsed roof.

“Sort of mad, huh? I’d hate to see what happens when the kid get seriously pissed off.”

I was picturing Farfel’s lead-glazed eyes, the razor edge of the hunting arrow creating a pyramid of skin beneath his Adam’s apple, blood-circled like a third eye.

I asked, “The boy admitted starting the fire?”

Sudderram said, “Too early to talk about that. But if he did, who could blame him?”

We walked single file along a path lined with whelk shells through a heated space of uplands and cactus to the beach. There was the coffin, lid closed, lying next to the remnants of a hole, and a knotted pile of clothing-Will’s filthy jeans and western shirt.

The hole was filled with sand that had collapsed, loosened by the last high tide. The coffin had been made from an industrial crate and modified with a plywood lid. As the female agent took pictures, the other agent used a measuring tape.

A three-inch hole had been augured through the plywood lid, then patched over with a chunk of what looked like pine flooring. The hole was cleanly bored. The patch was a sloppy job but nailed tight.

A second hole had been cut into the side of the coffin. It angled vertically at about twenty degrees. Another sloppy job. As Sudderram made notes, I took notes of my own.

Tomlinson, I noticed, was wandering around the area, a familiar Om -dazed look on his face. I watched him walk into the remains of the cabin.

Sudderram stopped writing long enough to ask me, “Does he always behave this way at a crime scene?”

I replied, “No. Sometimes he acts sort of weird. I’m warning you in advance.”

We both laughed too loud, a symptom of exhaustion.

The agents and I discussed the coffin. Sudderram guessed that the Cubans had planned to bury the boy on Long Island in the horse pasture, but attention from the police had changed their plans.

“The hole in the lid would fit the sort of galvanized pipe they used at the stable when they buried an animal,” he said.

Because they’d had to improvise, the Cubans-Hump, who was now in jail-had sealed the first hole with a chunk of flooring, then used a screwdriver and hammer to create a second breathing hole. A six-foot length of PVC tubing lay nearby.

It explained how Will had stayed alive while buried, but it didn’t explain how the boy had escaped. Judging from the way the tide had sucked sand into the hole, it was possible the rising water had also lifted the box free.

“The box looks solid enough,” Sudderram offered. “Bury a small boat in sand, the same thing would happen. Water exerts pressure as it rises, the hull displaces water, which increases buoyancy. It was a fairly shallow hole-Will told doctors only about four feet deep. A foot or two of lift could have displaced enough sand for the kid to kick the lid open.”