The Death Box(77)

Leala spun to escape but the pimp was on her, one hand clamped over her mouth, pulling her to his body, his dirty breath against her cheek. Yolanda grabbed the pimp’s arm, pulling with all her might, but the pimp grinned as his fist caught Yolanda in the mouth. She tumbled backwards to the pavement.

“NO!” a voice screeched. Leala felt the arms loosen on her throat. She struggled loose as the pimp staggered backwards, the black junkie hanging from his neck and stabbing wildly at the pimp’s face with the little knife. The cowboy hat tumbled to the pavement.

“She’s ours, bitch,” the junkie yelled. “WE SAW HER FIRST!”

The pimp swatted the junkie away, blood streaming from torn cheeks as he lurched back to find room to swing the bat. The white junkie stumbled to his feet and stood in front of the pimp, pulling the trigger on the pistol. All it did was click. He hit the pimp across the face with the gun, which broke into pieces, the magazine tumbling one way, the frame another. The pimp slashed with the bat, catching the junkie’s arm. A scream. The black junkie sunk his knife into the pimp’s forearm, the blade breaking off as the bat rolled into the street. The pimp roared as the white junkie began kicking at the pimp’s groin. The pimp caught him in the nose with a fist as a kick landed. Both went down. The junkie, nose pouring blood, screeched and fell atop the pimp, slapping desperately at everything in reach as the black junkie furiously kicked at the pimp’s legs.

Leala staggered to her feet and looked at Yolanda, moaning on the ground but alive, beside her the grunting, screaming, furious tangle of pimp and junkies. Yolanda waved her away.

“Run, Leala,” she gasped, blood streaming from her nose. “Run to save your soul.”

Leala turned and ran. She was too frightened to look back and did not see the black junkie break from the tangle and turn after her with a phone in his hand.





39





There were still a couple hours of daylight, so I opted for the cistern site, one reason being its potential for opening up the case, the other being that the locale was peaceful and rural and after this afternoon’s mayhem, some quiet was called for. I also liked that the landscape made it hard for anyone to sneak up on us.

With the column dismantled and carted to the lab, all that remained was a forlorn rectangular depression with the bottom now swampy from the afternoon rain and, it being Florida, probably breeding mosquitos the size of fruit bats. Beside it was the mound of excavated earth. The construction would begin anew on Monday and I hoped the first job was filling the grave.

I parked a dozen paces from the pit. Somehow on our journey a six-pack of Newcastle Brown Ale had fallen into Gershwin’s lap and we exited with bottles in hand. “You think the answers are here?” Gershwin asked, looking out over low, gnarled trees and desert-brown soil.

“One of them, at least.”

“How do we find it?”

“We feel strongly and it finds us.”

Gershwin gave me a look but said nothing. I waited until my bottle was emptied and meandered into the brush to stand on a rotting few inches of stump. A black clot of vultures broke from a nearby tree and tumbled to a further one, content to watch and hope for death. Gershwin walked up with a two-foot length of iron.

“Where’d you get the shillelagh?” I asked.

He swung it like a ball bat. “Poking from the ground.”

I jumped from the stump and kicked at sandy soil studded with prickly pear, my mind seeing the agonized swimmer in the stone. I pictured her stroking free of the earth, face breaking the ground as her hands pulled desperately toward the light. And then she disappeared into crumbled dirt and a walnut-sized locknut pushing from the land. I kicked it free and picked it up, thumbing dirt from the hole, ready to launch it toward the vulture tree, send the bastards fleeing.

But stopped. In my wandering around the former tent, I’d picked up a couple other locknuts and a bolt or two. A shard of tempered metal.

What were they from? How did they get here? When?

I fixed my eyes on the dirt and walked circles. After a few minutes I saw a rust-colored vine coiling from a clump of weeds. I pulled … not a vine, a section of baling wire that left a slender furrow as it tore free. Gershwin walked up bouncing a rusty, heavy-duty clamp in his palm.

“You know, Big Ryde, I’ve been thinking …”

“Me too,” I said, pulling my phone. “What else is down there?”

The forensics folks showed up within an hour, led by Deb Clayton, her day to pull a double. The sun was turning the western sky to layers of pink and purple and the trees grew long shadows.

“You have the metal detectors?” I asked.