Линкольн Чайлд: Crooked River

“I want a checkpoint at the mainland end of the Sanibel Causeway, and a second at the Blind Pass Bridge. The second is to allow access to Captiva residents and renters only. Notify the Office of the District Twenty-One chief M.E., and get them out here, ready to handle significant human remains at Turner Beach.”

“Sir,” Priscilla said a third time.

“Get on the horn to the Coast Guard command in Fort Myers. Tell them to send a cutter ASAP; I think the USCGC Pompano is temporarily berthed in Station Cortez. Have the command staff liaise with me directly. And TFR the airspace above Captiva for emergency operations only, no media helicopters. Got all that?”

A brief silence in which Perelman heard the scratching of a pen. “Roger.”

“Good. Now, once the islands are secure and checkpoints up, have every free officer report to me here at Blind Pass. Perelman out.”

He replaced the radio and glanced again in Laroux’s direction. The officer was moving as fast as he could now, plucking shoes from the sea, but the seagulls were swarming in force, screaming and wheeling, and Laroux was outmanned. Distantly, Perelman was aware of how impossibly strange the situation was, but despite that, his attention was fixed on getting things under control. Twenty-five shoes, twenty-five feet , washed up on his beach, and from the looks of it plenty more coming in with the tide. It would be easier just to pile them together, but Perelman knew every clue here would be important and that the shoes should stay as close as possible to the point where they came ashore.

He pulled his departmental camera from his pocket and, ranging down the beach, took pictures and short video clips of the scene. Then he glanced back at the eyewitnesses, now behind tape, a small, spectral-looking group. He badly wanted to interview them — although he doubted there was much he’d learn — but for now his task was to stabilize and protect the scene until reinforcements arrived.

More seagulls were converging, the air thick with their cries. Perelman saw one land beside a shoe.

“Henry! Fire at the gulls!”

“What?”

“Shoot at the gulls!”

“There’s too many, I can’t bag—”

“Just fire in their direction! Scare them off!”

He watched as Laroux broke leather, pulled out his Glock, and fired up and out toward sea. A huge cloud of screaming gulls rose wheeling into the sky, including the one that had almost snagged a shoe. Looking farther down the shore, he saw with a sinking feeling that even at a distance there were shoes rolling in. The entire western shore might need to be taped and locked down as a crime scene.

And now Perelman began to see figures appearing at intervals along the top of the dune. They did not try to approach; they simply stared without moving, like sentinels. More rubberneckers. His heart sank. These weren’t tourists; these were locals. People whose homes were on Captiva Drive, whose beach was being violated by this strange and awful tide. Glancing at them one after another, he realized he knew at least half of them by name.

Death’s a fierce meadowlark... The mountains are dead stone...

There was a sudden commotion; a yell and a curse, followed by furious barking. Looking around, temporarily disoriented by the unmanageable scene, Perelman saw a blur of copper: a dog had just darted past him, a shoe gripped in his mouth, headed northeast toward the preserve — an Irish setter named Sligo.

Son of a bitch .

“Sligo!” he shouted. “Sligo, come back!”

But the dog was running flat out away from them. Running with a mouthful of evidence: human remains. If Sligo reached the preserve, they might never see that evidence again.

“Sligo!”

It was no good: the dog, excited by all the activity, hunting instincts fully aroused, was beyond obeying.

“Sligo!”

Maintain the chain of evidence , his training practically shouted in his ear. At all costs, be respectful of human remains . The ultimate responsibility stopped with him as chief.

Perelman drew his service piece.

“What are you doing?” shouted a voice from the line of observers.

“No! No way!” someone screamed.

Perelman aimed; took in a long, quavering breath; held it; then — as the dog was about to plunge into the brush — he squeezed off a shot.

The dog flipped over without making a sound, landing on his back, the shoe tumbling out of his mouth. A terrible moment passed and something like a groan rippled through the people standing atop the dune.

“Oh my God,” someone said breathlessly, “he shot that dog!”

Perelman slipped his weapon back into its holster. Son of a bitch .

More shots echoed behind him: Laroux was chasing away the seagulls as he worked desperately to grab more shoes. Robinson was now jogging over to help him. In the distance, Perelman could hear the whir of a helicopter and the thrum of a marine engine cutting through water.

“Hey you, mister !” came a loud, accusatory voice. Perelman looked over toward the row of onlookers.

“You shot that dog!” It was a woman, about fifty years old, her finger pointed at him, shaking accusatorily. He didn’t recognize her; perhaps she was there for the season.

He said nothing.

The woman took a step forward, to the edge of the tape. “How could you? How could you do it?”

“I couldn’t let him get away with the evidence.”

“Evidence? Evidence? ” The woman flapped her arm at the beach. “Isn’t there enough for you already?”

Abruptly, something — maybe the way the woman pointed so contemptuously at the motionless lumps of flesh placed here and there across the sand, maybe the very absurdity of the comment — made Perelman issue a bitter laugh.

“And now you think it’s funny!” the woman cried. “What’s the owner going to say?”

“No, it’s not funny,” Perelman replied. “Yesterday was his birthday.”

“So you knew the dog!” The woman stamped furiously. “You knew him... and you shot him anyway!”

“Of course I knew him,” the chief replied. “He was mine.”

After leaving Miami, the FBI helicopter dropped low over the blue-green water of Biscayne Bay, heading south, then trending west as it reached the long green finger of national park marking the upper terminus of the Florida Keys. Assistant Director in Charge Walter Pickett, strapped into the copilot seat of the Bell 429, traced the route on a map he’d set atop a thin briefcase, which in turn rested on his knees. It was not quite two in the afternoon, and the brilliant sun, reflecting off the placid water below, was overpowering, despite his sunglasses and the tinted glass of the chopper. Sea plants and coral reefs gave way to a skinny chain of tropical islands linked, like beads on a string, by a single four-lane road. Groomed driveways appeared, then quite suddenly, mansions and yachts. These in turn gave way to what appeared to be a picturesque fishing village, then rows of identical condominiums, and then ocean again. And then another island; another thin ribbon of highway, surrounded only by water; yet another island. Plantation Key , ADC Pickett guessed: the speed of the chopper, and its low altitude, made it difficult to follow along on the map.

Now the chopper veered sharply east, heading away from the string of keys and out over open water. They flew for so long — ten minutes, maybe more — Pickett began to wonder if the pilot was lost. Ahead lay only blue, stretching out to the sea horizon.

But no — that was not quite true. Squinting through his dark glasses, Pickett could just make out a tiny speck of green, appearing now and then almost coquettishly over the most distant waves. He looked a moment longer, then reached back into the passenger compartment and grabbed the heavy marine binoculars. Through the glass, the speck turned into a self-contained oasis of greenery, a tiny ecosystem amid the ocean.