Lost (32 page)

“Yes, sir,” I say, feeling like one of his young recruits. Ten minutes into his charm-dog spiel, I know enough to shut up and salute.

We’re talking to Roof, or rather he’s talking to us, because Shane wants to follow up on the Whittle brothers, see if they have any connection to Ricky Lang. Could be they’re just taking advantage, trying to fence a stolen aircraft, or it might be that they’re acting as agents for Lang, in which case they might have knowledge of the abduction. A notion that Detective Sydell dismisses as improbable.

“Smugglin’ drugs like their pappy done is more likely,” he says. “From what I know, this Ricky Lang individual don’t have much to do with white folk. First ever I heard of him, he was raising hell with the Sheriff’s Department, trying to enforce a no-alcohol regulation on the reservation. Long-established cracker business, trading moonshine with the Indians, and Mr. Lang made it pretty clear he didn’t like ‘shine and he didn’t like crackers. Man was a real crusader.”

“What happened? What changed him?”

Roof shrugs happily. “Money and politics, I guess. You think them boys up in Tallahassee play fast and loose? Young lady, I refer to our noble state legislators. Tallahassee ain’t
got nothing on a tribal council, from what I hear, not once they got a dollar to fight over.”

“Either of the Whittle brothers have a record?” Shane wants to know.

“No more than the usual juvenile hijinks,” Roof responds airily, putting his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair. “As I recall, young Dug—spells his name like what gets dug with a shovel—young Dug was brought up on charges for tormenting an alligator. Dragged it behind a vehicle for a few miles, as I recall, and got caught by the game warden. Must have been about twelve years old at the time. Then there was neighbors complained of a missing dog and a pet raccoon, blamed it on Dug. So we kept an eye on him. Any more pets went missing, I never heard about it. Roy keeps a watch over him, too, is my guess. Dug ain’t what you’d call full-on retarded but he’s pretty dim.”

“The pickup truck was brand-new,” Shane points out. “Is Roy Whittle gainfully employed?”

Roof laughs. “You mean like a paycheck job? Not that I’m aware, no. That don’t mean nothin’ in particular. There’s ways to earn a living around here don’t involve criminal activity.”

From Shane’s tight smile I can tell he thinks Detective Sydell is playing him. “You’re not concerned they were on an unregulated airfield with an aircraft used in an abduction?”

In his friendly, corn-pone way, Roof remains dismissive. “Out of my territory. Took place on the reservation, correct? Seems to me, if the Whittle boys were trespassing, so was you, which makes you not much use as a witness, was it ever to come to that. That said, somebody from a law enforcement
agency develops evidence or hands us a warrant, we’ll pick ‘em up, rest assured. But from what I know, an abduction scheme would be a big leap for Roy Whittle. Never struck me as that ambitious. So if you and all your associates in the federal guvmint don’t mind, let me check up on the Whittles. This is my little slice of the world, I prefer to strut my own stuff.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” says Shane, standing up. He adds, stiffly but politely, “Thanks for your time.”

“No problem, I try to be helpful.” Roof says cheerily. He takes my right hand in both of his, gives me a reassuring squeeze. “Young lady, I hope this all works out. Terrible thing when a child goes missing. We hear anything from the search parties, anything at all, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

He stops us at the door, pretends to have an afterthought. “Mr. Shane? Young lady? It just come to me, that if you’re looking for a local connection to Ricky Lang, might be you’re barking up the wrong tree. There is a connection, come to think, but it ain’t the Whittles. Man you want to see is a fella goes by the name Leo Fish.”

Shane perks up, interested. “Leo Fish. He’s associated with Ricky Lang?”

Roof smiles like a toad with a nice fat fly in its mouth. “There’s a blood association ‘tween ‘em. Ricky had children by Leo’s sister. Used to be real friendly, Leo and Ricky.”

“Used to be?”

Roof shrugs elaborately. “Heard they had a falling-out.”

“Where do we find this Leo Fish?”

If Roof’s smile got any wider he’d swallow his own head. “Now that might be a problem, if Leo don’t want to be found. Guess you best ask around, see what falls out of the tree.”

The Glade City Motorcourt Inn looks to have sprung up from the moldy wet ground in the 1950s, and the various hand-lettered signs posted around the office—No Fishing Off The Dock Past 10 PM, No Bait In Rooms, Ice For Beer Only—indicates a clientele of visiting anglers. That probably accounts for the slightly fishy smell to the place. The scrawny, curly-haired blonde in charge looks like a product of the same decade as the decaying motel, but can’t be more than thirty years old.

She introduces herself as Trishy, has the same wide-apart flat-gray eyes as Rufus Sydell, which makes me wonder if they’re related, but frankly I haven’t got the nerve to ask. Maybe everybody “hereabouts” has a blood connection, as good old Roof implied. I’m not exactly a world traveler—life intervened, as the saying goes—but in my few excursions have never felt so in need of a passport.

Not that Trishy is the least bit unfriendly. On the contrary, she’s very chatty and curious. “Welcome to Glade City,” she says, handing us separate keys. “You’ll notice it’s not exactly a city. Heck, it’s barely a village. Used to be called just plain Glade and added the city part when the developers come down from Naples. Then the developers got flooded out by the hurricanes and left the name behind. You here for the fishing?” she asks doubtfully, checking out my slacks and shoes.

When Shane explains, her eyes widen. “Oh gosh! The search! I just this now heard about it. Wondered about the helicopters, figured it was somebody lost. We get the kayak folks, sometimes they misplace themselves, can’t find their way back. Your daughter, she was took by Indians, you say?”

“Looks that way,” I say.

“The suspect is Nakosha,” adds Shane. “We don’t know who else might be involved.”

“I heard they’re on the hunt for Ricky Lang, is that true?”

I’m getting the impression that at least some of Trishy’s eagerness is about keeping Shane in the room. The batting of the eyelashes, the deep breathing that draws attention to her modest little chest. Maybe he reminds her of her father or a boyfriend, or both. An unkind thought—she seems totally sincere in her concerns—but I’m cranky and on edge, wondering why we’ve gone so far afield from the search area.

Wanting it to be over, wanting Kelly so bad my bones ache. Shouldn’t we be with the copter crews, or at least somewhere on the reservation, awaiting news? Shouldn’t we be doing something other than chatting up the locals?

“That’s right,” says Shane, warming to his fetching little inquisitor, or at least giving the impression of great interest. “Do you know Ricky Lang?”

“Me?” she giggles prettily. “Are you serious? No way! Not personal, but he’s real famous in these parts. Everybody’s heard of Ricky Lang. When he made all them Nakosha instant millionaires, folks around here started searching their family trees. You got old boys as white as cake flour claiming some Nakosha uncle, trying to get at the money. Nobody did, though. They had it sewed up tighter than a …” She hesitates, thinks better of what she was about to say. “Um, you know, real tight.”

“This is very helpful,” Shane says, leaning slightly closer. “Give me the lay of the land, as the saying goes.”

“Mmm. That surely is the saying.”

Batt-batt-batt of the long lashes. Who does she thinks she’s kidding? Okay, she’s probably capable of kidding every heterosexual male on planet Earth, but I’m not buying.

“How about Leo Fish?” Shane asks, very casual. “Do you know Leo?”

“Sure, a course. Everybody knows Fish. He’s a character, Fish is. One of the best fish and hunting guides ever, till he quit guidin’ and went back to the country. Oh!” she exclaims as a happy thought arrives. “Fish knows Ricky Lang! They’re practically related. That’s why you asked about Fish, right?”

“You’re quick, Trishy. Can’t fool you.”

If her smile was any more coy, some director would be yelling
cut!
“Oh, I can be fooled,” she says, entirely focused on the big guy. “Depends who’s doin’ the foolin’, if you know what I mean.”

Shane strokes her hand where it lays ever so fetchingly on the counter between them. “Trishy, you are a treasure,” he tells her. “Any idea where we can find Leo Fish?”

“Oh,” she says, melting. “I might.”

5. Another Way In

“The lay of the land? Trishy, you are a treasure?”

“Interrogation takes many forms,” Shane says archly.

Luggage has been dragged to our adjoining rooms, Trishy thoughtfully providing units sharing an interior door, with shoddy latches on both sides. The place is clean but primitive. Faded linoleum on the floors, peeling wallpaper with a fish motif. An old AC unit is noisy but it blows cold air—a great relief from the muggy heat of the fading twilight. The bath has cracked tiles but looks and smells recently scrubbed.

Not the Europa, certainly, but better on the inside than the out.

“Depends on who’s doin’ the foolin’, if you know what I mean,” I say breathily, batting my stubby little eyelashes.

Shane grins ruefully. “Okay, maybe I overdid it. But we’ve
got a place to start looking. That’s more than we got out of Detective Sydell.”

“Maybe if you had patted his little hand,” I suggest.

“Maybe if you had, young lady,” he rejoins, mimicking the cop.

The bantering runs out of steam, leaving an awkward silence. The elephant we’re ignoring is what’s happening on the reservation, out of our control. The manhunt for Ricky Lang, and what might happen to my daughter as a consequence of those actions. Has she already been maimed? Is she even alive? Seth Manning was clearly the target, the means of forcing Edwin Manning to act on Lang’s behalf. Why keep another, relatively useless hostage alive?

I keep thinking of that ugly phrase,
collateral damage.

Shane sets up his laptop, connecting a phone cord to the jack. No wireless of course. And nothing much to report, other than a credit report for Roy Whittle, the owner of the new pickup Shane spotted at the hidden airfield.

“Interesting,” says Shane, studying the screen. “No indication of a lien on the vehicle. Therefore no loan. I guess Roy must have saved his pennies, huh?”

“You mean how did he get the money?”

“Exactly. From what Sydell said, the family is dirt-poor. Fully equipped Dodge Ram is thirty grand, easy.”

Shane is seated on the bed because the cubbyhole desk is way too small to accommodate his long legs. I take the only chair in the room, force myself to stop pacing because the constant motion seems to make things worse.

“Why do we care about these guys?” I ask. “Why are we here, instead of with the FBI?”

Shane listens, considers, then formulates a response. “Okay, a couple of things. The agency will shut us out of the
search. They’ll be very polite about it, but they absolutely do not want you—or me, for that matter—in the vicinity of their tactical teams. The Nakosha cops are likely to be even less inclusive. So we need another way in. That’s point one. Point two, Lang almost certainly has accomplices. He’s hanging out in Cable Grove, thirty miles from his old stomping ground. Somebody has to be looking after Kelly and Seth.”

“Maybe he hid them in Cable Grove. An apartment somewhere in Miami. Why not? Why does it have to be the reservation?”

“Good question. Theoretically the captive location could be anywhere. But the likelihood is that he’d use somewhere on the reservation not only because that’s where the abduction took place, but because it would be, from his point of view, much safer. No need to transport captives over public roads. Even better, state and local law enforcement is forbidden from entering the reservation. Investigations have to be carried out under the authority of tribal police. Federal authorities like the FBI can swoop in, demand cooperation, but how long did that take? Two days? Means he’s had a lot of time to find a hidey-hole and he’s operating in a familiar area. His homeland. An example of how that might be a factor, you may recall the pursuit of Eric Robert Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber. Goes to ground in the Appalachians. FBI knows he’s in there somewhere, living off the land, but it takes years to apprehend him.”

“Great. Glad to hear it. You mean the man who took my daughter could do the same thing, run around the swamp for years.”

Shane looks rueful. “Sorry, no. Rudolph is simply an example of fugitive thinking, and a bad one at that. Unlike the Army of God bomber, Ricky Lang is mentally unstable.
He’s unraveling. He thinks he has superpowers. Eventually he’ll make a mistake or deliberately reveal himself. Plus we know he has an agenda that involves the tribal council. That’s our hope, that the captives he abducted are no longer central to whatever is motivating him. Everything he’s done so far is an effort to get back what he lost—power, prestige, his place in what amounts to an extended family. Manning, your daughter, they’re just means to an end. What he wants is to reconcile with his tribe. Granted, he’s done it in a way that ensures he’ll never be reconciled—he’s now a federal fugitive—but that was his game plan. My impression, he’s mentally unbalanced, but there’s a certain logic to his actions.”

“Are you saying they won’t find Kelly? All those helicopters, all those people searching?”

“No. I’m not suggesting that. They’ll find his lair eventually. But the sun is almost down, so the air search will suspend until first light. That leaves the tribal police, coordinating with FBI. But the ground effort will be limited by darkness, too. Maybe they’ll find her tonight, maybe they won’t. You have to pick your battles, Mrs. Garner, and my battle isn’t with the search parties, it’s out here on the periphery of the investigation, trying to find another way in.”

“You said that, find another way in, but what does it mean?”

“Pursuing intelligence. Locating someone who may have knowledge of Ricky Lang’s secret places. Where he’d go if he was hiding from the world.”