Jonathon King - The Blue Edge of Midnight

But I also knew reporters weren't all slaves to the news cycle. Someone would have seen Hammonds and his team at the hospital and made a connection: What's the lead investigator of the child killings doing interviewing a guy who crashed a plane in the Everglades? Television might not care, but the newspapers would question whether or not to make a hero out of a guy being questioned about serial killings. The media didn't like stories that didn't fit into pigeonholes. How do you portray a cop who gets shot in the line of duty but kills a twelve-year-old in the process? I knew the drill. They'd back off to see "what develops." They might eventually move on. I hoped Hammonds would be smart enough to let them.

For a full, quiet day it had worked. I'd lain here, stretched out in the warm morning sun and then through the shady afternoon. Billy had mixed up some kind of hydrating mixture of watered-down fruit juice and vitamins. I'd been able to eat, bowls of brothy soup and then some thin pita bread. I drifted in and out of sleep with the ache in my ribs and the one in my dreams taking turns waking me.

This morning my body was stiff, but my head wasn't going to let me rest any longer. I got up and went inside and poured myself a cup of coffee, washed down a prescription Percocet with it, and looked out through the wall of windows at the thin line of the horizon. The coffee cup shook when I tried to raise it and I needed both hands to steady it. I was still wobbling despite the sleep and the medication. My skin was dry as paper and my lips were still swollen and cracked. The hot coffee stung them but I couldn't deny my habit. Diaz's card lay on the counter and I picked up the phone.

"You have reached the desk of Detective Vince Diaz, if you would like to leave…"

I waited for the damned beep.

"Look, Diaz. This is Max Freeman. I've been able to locate your piece of electronics. If you want to pick it up, call me." I left Billy's cell phone number, even though I knew the detective bureau would have a caller I.D. readout and probably already had Billy's private number. I looked at the digital clock on the stove. Diaz called back in eight minutes.

"Hey, Mr. Freeman, that's great. I'd like to come up as soon as possible. Get moving on that particular thing, all right?"

I gave him the address and told him he could call from the lobby when he arrived.

"Yeah, you kind of surprised us leaving the hospital so soon."

"About an hour?" I said.

"Yeah, sure, an hour."

I punched him off and dialed again.

"Ranger Station twelve, Cleve Wilson."

"Cleve. Max Freeman."

"Good God, Max. Where the hell you been?"

It might have been a question, or a statement of wonder.

"I've been a little busy Cleve, I'll fill you in when I get out there but I'm not sure when that will be."

"You know those detectives were back out here with a warrant. I had to show them to your place," he said and this time I could hear the apology in his voice. "But I went in with them, you know, just to watch if they messed things up."

"It's all right, Cleve. I appreciate it."

"And boy, they do not miss anything, if you know what I mean."

Cleve was a pro at understatement.

"Anything interest them in particular?"

"Well, they did perk up a bit when they found that nine millimeter of yours in the bottom of your duffel."

I had forgotten about the gun and sat there in Billy's kitchen wondering how I'd been able to let it slip far enough into the back of my mind as to finally let go of its memory, the feel and smell and sound of it echoing off the brick and glass of Thirteenth Street.

"But they didn't take it," Cleve said quickly, breaking the silence. "I heard one of them wondering if it was your old service issue. Then they put it back."

"Yeah? Well, thanks, Cleve. Like I said, I'll see you when I get back out there. I was actually calling to check on my truck."

"It's sitting here. The boy come back with it and since the scratch was gone and it was all shined up, I figured he was telling the truth about you letting him use it. But I've got the keys back in my desk."

"Thanks, Cleve."

I punched the phone off and finished my coffee while I watched the beginning of an afternoon rainstorm drive the sunbathers off the beach below.

I met Diaz in the lobby. I was carrying a small gym bag and a traveler's cup of coffee. I'd taken a shower and dressed in a pair of light cotton trousers and the loosest long-sleeved shirt I had. My skin was still tight and had started to flake off my forearms, either from the salve for the mosquito bites or from the dryness of dehydration. The Percocet had taken the edge off the ache in my bruised ribs.

Diaz was waiting under the watchful presence of the tower manager to whom he'd presented his I.D. before having me called. The manager bowed slightly when I thanked him, but continued his careful vigil as we drifted to a sitting area in an anteroom off the main entrance hall.

"Nice place," Diaz said, sitting down on the edge of a wingback chair while looking up at the vaulted ceiling.

I took a seat on the adjoining couch and put the bag between my feet on the marble tiled floor.

"That for me?" he said.

"Look. I'll be straight with you. I don't want any of this coming back on Billy Manchester. I've got this and it's going straight to you. No one else in the middle or with knowledge," I said. Diaz was looking at his hands.

I'd been too paranoid and a hell of a lot more distrustful of the investigators to give up the GPS before. It was perfect evidence for a case against me, even if I was the one who handed it over. Now they were scraping, and more people, including me, were in the target zone. But I didn't want concealing evidence coming back on a man of Billy's position.

"I don't think that's going to be a problem. No one seemed to know your attorney around the shop, but when we started asking around the law world, everybody seemed to know him. Connected and smart were the words that kept coming back. And I think this is smart too," he added, looking up into my face.

I reached into the bag and brought out the GPS unit. It was rewrapped in plastic, and I told him how I'd found it, the cut mattress and the filmy footprint I'd found in my shack.

"All the locations of the bodies are logged into it," I said, passing the machine to Diaz. "That's how you found them, right?"

The detective looked up and I could tell he was turning a corner, and doing it behind Hammonds' back.

"You know what this is like. I saw your file out of Philly," he started. "This guy's been playing us and we're scratching at anything we can. It got to the point we were left waiting for a break, a mistake. And when you came paddling up out of the river we figured, hoped, you were the mistake."

I knew he was holding my eyes to see how I might react.

"Maybe we won't get anything off this by tracking the supplier and seller. Maybe it comes up empty again. But it's better than sitting around waiting for another kid to disappear."

"And maybe he's through with that," I said. "Maybe he's got a new target."

Diaz let the thought sit for a few empty seconds.

"Yeah, well. No offense, but if that's true, if he's after you instead of another kid, a lot of folks aren't necessarily going to see that as a step back."

I was still holding on to the straps of the gym bag, hesitating. When Diaz started to get up I reached in and took out a baggie containing the bent aluminum tag from my canoe and handed it to him.

"I think it's more true than you guys are willing to admit," I said, reaching into the bag for my second bit of concealed evidence.

Thirty minutes later we were in Diaz's unmarked sedan heading for the river. He'd been pissed when I told him what the tag was. It was the first time I'd seen him angry and he let some Spanish slip into his voice.