Scat (32 page)

"I can't believe I paid five grand for that wacko dog," Drake McBride said to the stranger, " 'cause they said he got eaten by a panther. I wish he had."

"You want him back?"

"After he chased me up a tree? I don't think so."

The man seemed amused. "I guess Horace got bored and chewed through his rope."

Drake McBride was rattled. "How do you know his name?"

"Horace and I go way back. Who are you?"

"I'm Drake W. McBride."

"Well, how about that for luck."

Drake McBride stuck out his right hand. The stranger didn't shake it, though he was smiling broadly.

"You know who I am?" Drake McBride asked with surprise, and a creeping sense of dread.

The man said, "Yup. You're the boss of the two-bit oil company that's drilling an illegal well in this state wildlife preserve. Or should I say,
was
drilling."

Drake McBride dejectedly wondered how much worse his day could possibly get.

"And who are you?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"I'm the one who called the Fish and Wildlife agents about the panther and glued your man Melton to a tree and sprayed him orange and gutted his truck and ripped off that load of pipes. I'm the one who's gonna shut you down." The stranger took out a cell phone and dialed a number. "The fog's lifting. Get the chopper up and come out here right away," he instructed someone on the other end.

Drake McBride considered making a dash for freedom, but knew he would only get himself more lost than he already was. Besides, it would be easy for the athletic-looking stranger to outrun a chunky, out-of-shape guy with fractured ribs.

"I'll give you five thousand dollars to forget about all this and let me go," Drake McBride said.

The stranger laughed so sharply that Horace looked up from the mulched remains of his Quarter Pounders.

"You remind me of my old man," the man said to Drake McBride.

"That doesn't sound like a compliment."

"It's not."

"Then how about ten thousand?"

The stranger grew serious and swatted a fly on his neck.

"Mr. McBride, I'll let you go for free," he said, "but there's not enough money in the world to make me forget what you did here."

"Twenty thousand, if I can hitch a ride back to town on your helicopter. Twenty thousand, cash!"

"Sorry, man. The chopper's full."

"Now, wait-"

"Come on, Horace." The stranger jogged off into the Black Vine Swamp, the bloodhound loping at his heels.

"Hey, where are you going?" Drake McBride shouted after him. "What about me? How do I get out of here?"

EPILOGUE

More than a month after Mrs. Starch vanished, her third-period biology students filed anxiously into the classroom. Their expressions reflected a mix of excitement and uncertainty, for it was rumored that the most feared (and surely the most famous) teacher at the Truman School would be returning for the first time since the fire at the Black Vine Swamp.

By now all the kids knew what had happened-Nick and Marta had told the panther story about a hundred times.

Nick's account of his daring climb to meet the big cat ended with him jumping from the tree and passing out. He also vaguely recalled waking up in a helicopter and seeing a hound dog, of all things, drooling on his shoes.

Marta's necklace of vulture beaks was a big hit at school. Her version of the panther adventure recounted how she'd stood guard with a high-powered rifle, warding off a crazed intruder while Nick was high in the branches, reuniting the cub with its mother. She also provided vivid details of the helicopter rescue, including a hairy landing on the hospital's roof.

It was a good story, no matter who told it.

When the school bell rang, Dr. Dressier walked into the classroom. He looked more crisp and unflappable than usual, with good reason. The board of trustees had just given him a new five-year contract to remain as headmaster of Truman. They had sweetened the deal with a generous raise, based on a wave of positive publicity that the school had recently received.

Bunny Starch and three of her students had saved the life of a rare panther cub, and in the process had helped expose a crooked oil-drilling operation in the Big Cypress Preserve. It was huge news all over Florida, and was even featured by Anderson Cooper on CNN.

As a result, the Truman School was being flooded with enrollment applications and, more importantly, donation checks. While Dr. Dressier had nothing to do with the heroics of Mrs. Starch and her pupils, he was pleased to bask at the edge of the limelight.

"I have two brief announcements," he said to the biology class. "First, the suspension of Duane Scrod Jr. is hereby suspended. I am proud and delighted to welcome him back to Truman."

The headmaster turned toward the open door and motioned with two fingers. As soon as Smoke entered the room, everybody began to applaud except Nick, whose right arm was still encased in plaster from his fingers to his shoulder. Instead of clapping, Nick slapped the palm of his left hand against the top of his desk.

Smoke seemed mortified at the attention, and he hustled to seat himself as fast as possible.

Marta passed a note to Nick:
He looks thinner!

Nick noticed it, too. Smoke had spent the past fourteen days in the county juvenile hall, which was not famous for serving hearty and nutritious meals.

His classmates had been outraged that Smoke was locked up, after all the good he'd done. Without his keen tracking skills, the missing mother panther might not have been found. And without his muscles, Mrs. Starch might never have made it alive to the emergency room after being shot.

Although the arson case against Smoke was dropped-a Texas oilman named Jimmy Lee Bayliss confessed to the crime-the state prosecutor had insisted on punishing the boy for fleeing from the police. At the time, Smoke had been on probation for the two arsons he'd committed when he was younger.

Even Jason Marshall thought two weeks behind bars was too harsh, considering the circumstances. Libby had persuaded her father to make a call on Duane Jr.'s behalf, but the prosecutor wouldn't budge.

So Smoke had served his time without complaint, a model inmate.

"My second announcement deals with another rumor flying around campus," Dr. Dressier said. "This one happens to be true: Today there will be no substitute biology teacher. Mrs. Starch, do you need some assistance?"

A familiar icy voice from the hallway: "I certainly do not."

She clomped briskly and with purpose into the classroom. The crutches didn't make her look frail and wobbly; in fact, she seemed taller and more imposing than ever.

Her bleached hair was piled into an exceptionally steep slope, and the violet shadow on her eyelids appeared to have been applied with an industrial paint roller. The anvil-shaped scar on her chin showed up like a fresh bruise against the hospital paleness of her skin.

Yet the students responded to her arrival in a spontaneous and unexpected way: they all rose from their desks, cheering and whistling and clapping. Dr. Dressier, to his own mild surprise, joined in.

For once, Mrs. Starch was speechless.

She crutched to her desk and fiercely began organizing her teaching materials. It looked to Nick as if she was trying not to cry.

Eventually the students settled down, and Dr. Dressier smoothly excused himself. After an awkward silence, Mrs. Starch cleared her throat and said, "Good morning, people. Please open your books-we have lots of catching up to do."

Graham Carson's arm shot up. Naturally, Mrs. Starch ignored him. Nick smiled and thought:
Some things never change.

"Who's prepared to tell me about Watson and Crick's model for DNA structure?" Mrs. Starch asked. The usual squirming silence followed. "Anybody bother to read Chapter 11?" she said. "If you're having trouble finding it, try looking between Chapter 10 and Chapter 12."

Graham alone waved his hand. Mrs. Starch pivoted toward Mickey Maris and said, "Well... ?"

Mickey Maris swallowed and began pawing frantically through his textbook. "Watson's crickets?" he asked.

"It's Watson and
Crick,"
Mrs. Starch said testily.

"Please?" Graham Carson beseeched from across the room. "Please, Mrs. Starch?"

She turned back and sighed in surrender. "All right, Graham, let's get this over with."

He popped to his feet and composed himself. "Watson and Crick were two scientists who came up with a model of DNA called the double helix. It shows two strands of nucleotides twisting around each other. The outside of the helix is made up of sugar phosphates and the inside is nitrogen bases."

The other students sat stunned and gaping. Mrs. Starch herself rocked back slightly on her crutches.

"Well done, Graham," she managed to say. "This is an historic day."

Nick snuck a peek at Marta, who didn't appear even slightly nauseated, as she often was in Mrs. Starch's class. Marta smiled back and whispered, "I memorized the whole chapter, too."

Having recovered from the shock of Graham's correct answer, Mrs. Starch told him he could sit down.

"But I've got a question. A really important one," Graham said.

"It had better be."

"How are you?"

"What?"

"I mean, are you gonna be okay?" Graham asked. "Everybody's been worried."

Mrs. Starch seemed overwhelmed. Her eyes flickered first to Nick and Marta, and then over to Duane Scrod Jr.

After a moment of fluster, she said, "Thank you for your concern, Graham. I'm going to be fine."

She plucked a yellow Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil from the cup on her desk and tapped the eraser against her left hip.

"The bullet entered right here, below the joint," she said, "and passed all the way through my leg. Luckily, it missed the femoral artery, though barely."

With a skeptical eye she scanned the rapt faces of her students. "I don't suppose anybody besides Libby Marshall can describe the role of the femoral artery in the human circulatory system."

Libby's cheeks flushed. Mrs. Starch said, "Relax, young lady. There's no shame in being smart."

Because of her injury, Mrs. Starch didn't cover as much territory as when she paced before. However, as always, she stayed in motion.

"Before we discuss the features of the double helix," she said, moving down the center aisle, "I have one small piece of unfinished business."

She stopped at Smoke's desk and handed some papers to him. He examined them closely, his brow knitted.

"That's your acne essay," Mrs. Starch said.

"Right." He brushed a shock of black hair away from his forehead.

She said, "The title is quite clever: 'The Curse of the Persistent Pimple.' A nice touch of alliteration."

"Thanks," Smoke murmured warily.

"I knew you had a sense of humor, Duane. Didn't I tell the whole class? A wicked sense of humor."

He looked up at her. "But it says here I got an A-minus."

Mrs. Starch nodded. "Correct. If you hadn't misspelled 'endocrine,' I would've given you an A."

Marta whistled under her breath. Mrs. Starch was notoriously stingy with As.

Smoke said, "But Dr. Waxmo gave me a D-plus."

"That's because Dr. Waxmo is hopeless," said Mrs. Starch. "A dim bulb, if I may be so frank."

The cruel red slashes from Wendell Waxmo's pen were as vivid as ketchup stains all over Smoke's essay. So, too, was the supersized A- that Mrs. Starch had scrawled on the top page to block out the substitute teacher's grade.

"I never got an A before," Smoke said. "This isn't some kinda joke, is it?"

Nick hoped it wasn't. He hoped Mrs. Starch wasn't messing with the kid, not after he'd helped Twilly lug her out of the boonies and rush her to a hospital so she wouldn't bleed to death.

Balancing on her crutches, Mrs. Starch said, "Duane, I don't joke about academic matters. Not ever."

"Do I still have to read it aloud?"

"Not unless you want to."

"Nope," Smoke said.

"You wrote a solid, well-researched paper. I learned a few things about pimples that I never knew before." Mrs. Starch reached over and waggled the tip of her yellow Ticonderoga at the A- she'd marked on the essay. "You earned this," she told Duane Scrod Jr.

"I guess," he said. Then he casually chomped the pencil in half, chewed up the splinters along with the graphite, and downed the entire mouthful with a crunchy gulp.

The classroom fell quiet as a tomb; nobody could believe what they'd just seen. Nick was vaguely aware that his own jaw was hanging open. From the corner of one eye, he noticed Marta clutching her head in gloom.

Mrs. Starch narrowed her eyes and ominously studied the moist stump of wood in her fingers. Then, slowly, she broke into a rare grin.

"You got me that time, Duane."

"Totally," he said, returning the smile.

That same morning, Jimmy Lee Bayliss posted bail at the Collier County Jail. A female guard named Waters escorted him from his cell to the front desk to collect his belongings.

"Did he turn up yet?" Jimmy Lee Bayliss asked.

He was referring to his ex-boss, Drake McBride, who'd been missing in the Big Cypress since the day he'd run off into the fog. In the meantime, to avoid a long prison hitch, Jimmy Lee Bayliss had agreed to plead guilty to setting the illegal fire in the Black Vine Swamp. He'd also promised to testify against Drake McBride, who faced a pile of serious charges, including the attempted killing of an endangered Florida panther.

"Funny you should ask," Officer Waters said to Jimmy Lee Bayliss. "Mr. McBride turned up yesterday at a fancy hotel in Miami Beach. He'd grown a goatee and shaved his head and was using a fake name."

Jimmy Lee Bayliss was astonished that the moron even made it out of the wilderness, considering his lack of survival skills and lame sense of direction. The jail guard said Drake McBride had lost twenty-two pounds while hiking in circles through the Black Vine Swamp. Eventually he'd stumbled out on Route 29, where a sympathetic trucker had picked him up.