Dead of Night (28 page)

Conversation stopped the obsessive worrying. I was glad I’d read up on the sugar industry, because our route took us along the edge of vast cane fields and it gave me something to talk about.

Lake was interested. Tomlinson, too, because the subject provided him opportunity to go off on one of his antisugar tirades.

He’s not the only one who hates Big Sugar. Self-styled experts have blamed the industry for every environmental ill imaginable—often justly, sometimes absurdly. But Big Sugar has remained politically immune because it really is big. It’s a multibillion-dollar business that provides thousands of jobs, and donates millions to both political parties. It’s also big in terms of geographical area.

The state’s sugarcane region, or Everglades Agricultural Area as it’s named, consists of more than seven hundred thousand acres. Disney World is diminutive in comparison. The EAA’s acreage partitions the Everglades from its own headwaters, including Lake Toho, and the two smaller lakes where guinea larvae had been found. Because the region had to be drained before it could be planted, it is now latticed with canals, levees, and dams, all linked to seven massive pumping stations.

Many billions of gallons of water are diverted to keep the EAA dry, all under the direction of the South Florida Water Management District. Because fields are heavily fertilized, outflow contains high levels of phosphorus. Over many decades, the fertilizer has caused a cancerous spread of exotic plants. Cattails, melaleuca, and Brazilian pepper have obliterated ever-broadening sectors of the Everglades.

A few years back, legislators approved a plan to restore natural order. The plan may have teeth, depending how courts and future legislators lean. The plan requires that forty-five thousand acres of cane fields be transformed into treatment areas for phosphorus removal. Another sixty thousand acres must be used for water storage. At least one hundred thousand acres of Big Sugar’s growing area must also be restored to its natural, pristine state.

From what I’d read, Big Sugar was now eager to clean up its own mess—but in its own way. It explained why Tropicane had hired an independent scientist like Applebee, and invited the environmental watchdog, EPOC, to monitor.

Most of this information was at least vaguely familiar to me. The article from the Dutch financial newsletter, however, was a shocker. Doubly so when I found a recent article in the
Palm Beach Post
that confirmed that Big Sugar was aware that it was doomed. It couldn’t compete with the global market, and the cost of all the environmental mandates was killing it.

Owners were already considering options. Selling off a hundred thousand square miles of Florida’s interior to developers was among them.

Driving along a horizon of golden sugarcane, I told Lake, “When there’re billions of dollars involved, and the survival of a major industry’s at risk, some people are capable of anything.”

“Like murder,” he said.

I told him, “Oh, that’s just for starters.”

 

 

Thanks to Rona’s map, we had no trouble finding the spot where Frieda had been killed. Interpreting what we saw wasn’t as easy.

Law enforcement had used blue spray paint to mark the impact point where vehicle and pedestrian met. The road ran north-south, and there was an
X
on the eastern edge of the road. Next to the X was an arrow that pointed north and a small blue circle.

They’d found one of her shoes at the point of impact, Rona had told us. The arrow indicated the direction the car was traveling when it hit her.

Thirty-three paces up the road, a few yards from a canal overgrown with cattails, they’d used white paint to mark where the woman’s body had come to rest. It was a vague oval outline sprayed on sand and weeds, encircling a mottled black stain.

My friend’s life had seeped away here among the sand-spurs, bleached McDonald’s wrappers, busted beer bottles, and other automotive jetsam—a clinical indignity that now coated the weeds. The oval seemed much too tiny to contain the enormity of what had occurred. To see it was to feel an existential jolt.

Disturbed, I looked at my son and said, “Are you okay? There’s no need for you to deal with this.”

Lake’s face had paled in the morning sunlight. He cleared his throat over and over, eyes fixated on the death spot, yet he behaved as if he was surprised that I’d asked. “I’m fine. This is interesting. I’ve never tried to piece together something like this before.”

Tomlinson and I exchanged looks before Tomlinson said, “Tragedy’s always interesting. That’s because it scares us so much. If you’re upset, your reaction’s healthy.”

My friend gave me another look before adding, “Lake-meister, even if you’re not upset, would you mind going back to the van and starting the engine? We’ll need your help later, but what I keep forgetting is that the little refrigerator shuts down when the engine stops. Unless I start the generator. We don’t want all those delicious drinks getting warm now, do we? Plus, I’ve heard that mayonnaise can do strange, chemical things in the heat.”

My son shrugged. “Sure, if you want. But this doesn’t bother me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh, I can see that. What I’m worried about is my veggie burger and bad mayo. I’m not used to being nauseous this early in the day.”

We watched Lake walk toward the van that Ransom had bought him, a Volkswagen Euro van camper. It was painted in paisley shades of pink, green, and blue, and there was a white peace sign on the door. Tomlinson had strapped two surfboards to the roof, including the refurbished Vector, just in case we had time.

At first, he’d called the van his “Pimpmobile.” He later changed it to “Chimpmobile” because he said that’s what he was doing, behaving like a trained monkey to make money.

I felt ridiculous riding in the thing.

When Lake was far enough away, I said, “Thanks. I shouldn’t have brought him.”

“Compadre, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. The conversation we had last night, my dumbass lecture about karma, was totally off the mark. Telling him he might be obligated to stay—idiotic! He wouldn’t be here, if it wasn’t for my big mouth. I realized it this morning when I sobered up.”

I said, “We’ll let him work on the Applebee code. He’ll be good at that. But from Central America. He flies back tomorrow no matter what.”

“I agree. I’ve been doing that more and more, lately—saying dumbass, stupid things. What I need is that shock collar I mentioned. Give myself a little zap every time I do something dumb.”

I was looking at the stained weeds. “I know the feeling.”

Tomlinson watched Lake slide the van’s door open. “Let’s finish up and get the hell out of here. This place gives me the willies. There’s the stink of something dark here. Evil.”

I told him, “I don’t smell anything but the canal and hot asphalt. What you just did, though, was confirm your own bias. Which could be useful. Let’s walk through it again, but, this time, you take the side opposite your bias. Point out anything that suggests Frieda’s death was accidental. Try to convince yourself-that’ll make you think it through. I’ll argue the other way—that it’s murder. We give it our best shot and see where it takes us.”

Frieda had been hit on an open stretch of road, in good weather, so Tomlinson said the driver had to be impaired—poor eyesight, old age, alcohol, or drugs. Also, the car had to be traveling so fast that Frieda didn’t have time to jump out of the way.

Combine those elements, he said, and her death was accidental.

We’d returned to the blue
X
at the point of impact. Waited until Lake had rejoined us to talk it through.

“Dr. Matthews was on the asphalt when she was hit. The sand’s soft here, so there’d be tire marks if the car drifted onto the shoulder and clipped her. She went flying. So did everything she had with her—cell phone, and the missing laptop. Was she carrying her purse, too?”

I said, “I don’t know. I’ll ask Rona. I should have thought of that.”

Tomlinson was silent for a moment, eyes panning the area, visualizing what might have happened. “Okay. There had to be a heck of a lot of speed to knock her more than a hundred feet. She landed near the canal. The stuff she was carrying was lighter than her body, so it traveled farther. If the death was accidental, her phone and the computer went into the water, or got buried in the cattails. A less likely possibility is that someone arrived on scene before the cops and robbed her.”

He began walking toward where the body had come to rest. “The fact that there’re no skid marks before the point of impact supports my idea that the driver was either half-blind or very screwed up. But why aren’t there skid marks
after
the point of impact? Even if a person’s old and senile, that kind of collision would have to make a terrible noise. Don’t most drivers jam on the breaks automatically when they’re scared or surprised?”

I said nothing, waiting for him to draw his own conclusions.

“So that narrows it down to a driver who was so crazy drunk he didn’t know he hit something. Probably didn’t remember it the next morning, either. A guy on a binge. Which we might be able to prove.”

He had a map, and showed me where the road deadened a few miles away at the Kissimmee Canal.

“There should be a bunch of dead soldiers on the ground there—crushed beer cans or an empty liquor bottle or two. A dead-end road that overlooks water is every drunk’s friend.”

“Smart,” I said. “Let’s go have a look.”

We loaded into the van. I slid in behind the wheel because Tomlinson drives like a man who really does believe in life after death. He combines the wandering inattention of a child with a teenager’s love of speed. Terrifying.

He no longer argues with me about who drives.

After slightly more than four miles, the road ended at a littered turnaround near the water’s edge. It was a quiet place where the canal was wide and straight, and where people sometimes fished, judging from paths cut along the bank.

Among the scrub was the trashy spoor of lowlifes who’d used it as a handy garbage dump: rusted washing machines, stained bedding, sodden magazines. On asphalt and sand, there was also a glitter of broken bottles and squashed cans—but no fresh beer or liquor bottles.

We searched for ten minutes or so before Tomlinson said, “Okay, so maybe they had a bottle of vodka; a jug so big they couldn’t finish it. Or they tossed them in the water. My scenario is still workable. It could’ve been accidental. Let’s hear you convince us that it wasn’t. That it was murder.”

 

 

The case I made wasn’t any stronger than Tomlinson’s. My argument was based on the absence of evidence, not the presence of evidence. I listed what those absences implied:

There were no skid marks before or after impact. Someone wanted to hit her.

On a fast, narrow road like this, Frieda would have walked facing traffic. If she’d heard a car coming, she would have turned to look as it swerved toward her.

“She would’ve jumped for cover,” I said. “Not stand there on the road waiting to get hit.”

This was the only open stretch where her killers would be able to spot traffic approaching from a mile or two in either direction—the perfect place to wait as an accomplice drove by at speed, before giving her a push.

“The reason her cell phone and the laptop are missing,” I said, “is because she was abducted from her car. After the killers futzed with her battery. They have the laptop, but they probably dumped the cell phone at the first place handy.”

Lake asked, “Why?”

I said, “Because cell phones are risky. You can hit the redial button accidentally, or accept an incoming call. Plus, they can be tracked electronically. That’s a biggie.

“My guess is, they’d have dumped the phone first thing. Tossed it into the closest water, someplace murky, near where she was parked. I think we should go look.”

My son said, “Just like Tomlinson’s empty beer bottles, if we find it.”

“Uh-huh. Except for what it would prove. It means they took the woman off and killed her in cold blood.”

We’d already located the dirt service road where Frieda’s car was found. We’d passed it on our way to look for empty beer cans. It was a rutted lane that followed a power line swath bordered by oaks, poison ivy, and swamp maples. I drove with my window open. High-voltage wires hummed overhead.

After half a mile or so of bouncing along, I braked to a stop, surprised to see another vehicle parked near a section of canal: a white pickup truck, recent model. According to our map, this was the approximate spot where they’d found Frieda’s disabled SUV.

As we got closer, I could see that the truck was empty. There were words stenciled on the door in black letters:

“I rest my case,” Tomlinson said. “Providence and God are steering us. You said you need to talk to the Tropicane people? Here they are. It’s very fortuitous that the Big Sugar goons are here waiting.”