Trapped (38 page)

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.”

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* * *

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 hur-

ricanes 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.”

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“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 some-

where 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?”

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“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 primi-

tive. 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

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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 conse-

quence 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 indi-

cation 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

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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 abduc-

tion 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 forbid-

den from entering the reservation. Investigations have to be

carried out under the authority of tribal police. Federal au-

thorities 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.

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Chris Jordan

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 fugi-

tive—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 helicop-

ters, all those people searching?”

“No. I’m not suggesting that. They’ll find his lair eventu-

ally. But the sun is almost down, so the air search will

suspend until first light. That leaves the tribal police, coor-

dinating 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 periph-

ery 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.”

Shane pivots the laptop, points to the screen.

“See this? That’s a Google Earth view of the Everglades.

This little corner up here, that’s the Nakosha reservation, but

it borders wilderness on two sides, all of which is part of

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either Everglades National Park or Big Cypress National

Preserve. That’s over three million acres, and the only human

occupation is around the edges—and that’s only within the

area officially designated as parkland. The actual wilderness

is at least five times larger. Very few roads, and most of those

are on the periphery. There are hundreds of square miles that

can only be accessed on foot or, in a limited way, by airboat.”

“So it really is hopeless. He could be anywhere.”

“No, no. He’s somewhere, a definite somewhere,” Shane

strenuously insists. “That’s my point. We need to find a way

in to Ricky Lang’s world. Either by locating one of his

partners in crime, or an individual who knows him intimately

and is willing to talk.”

“Whittle or this Fish person.”

“Precisely.”

Suddenly Shane puts the laptop aside and leaps up, as if

he’s got ants in his pants. Or, given our location, roaches. But

it’s his cell phone, which he left on vibe, and soon enough

he flips it open.

“Agent Healy? We’re fine, any news? I see.”

He shakes his head at me, restarting my heart.

“Good, excellent,” he says, using his eyes to let me know

the information isn’t life or death. “Let me get a pen, I want

to write this down.”