The Man Who Ivented Florida (43 page)

William
Bambridge said to Chuck Fleet, "Why are all those people standing on shore? You think they're expecting us?"

Fleet sat on a plank at the stern of the old man's sloop-rigged pulling boat, one hand on the tiller, the other on the daggerboard, hoping he could steer this final reach into Mango without running aground yet again, ripping the daggerboard out of its lashing. "Is the Captain awake? He had that delivery to make. Maybe he told the whole town."

From the windy bay, the village of Mango was a pale break in the darker rim of mangrove islands: coconut palms, a few houses, a brown rind of beach. People lined the water, milling on what must have been a road. There were tables and chairs set up, and lots of cars. Like some kind of meeting.

Bambridge had torn his shirt into rags—-there wasn't much left of it, anyway—and now he reached outboard to soak a piece, then used it as a compress. Henry Short lay with his head in Bambridge's lap, eyes closed, brown skin looking gray in the sunlight, a deep gash on his forehead, more cuts on his hands, his arms, and a bad one in his side. For the last four hours, he had been bleeding through his rag bandages; now the water in the lapstrake bilge was iron red.

"Captain? Can you hear me, Captain? We're almost there! Hang on for a few more minutes. We'll get help."

The old man moaned softly, his breathing quick and shallow. The first part of the trip, Henry Short had been able to rally enough energy to rise up and point out the route to Fleet; describe to him the cuts he had to make, the oyster bars and sandbars to avoid. But in the last hour, he had lapsed into a kind of concentrated silence, as if he needed to focus all his energy on just staying alive.

To Fleet, Bambridge mouthed the words
I think he's dying.

A voice from the bilge: "Good. I hope he does die. It'll be easier for all of us. Like when a burglar breaks into your house, you're better off killing him."

Charles Herbott talking. He lay with his belly flat against the ribs of the boat, hands and feet wrapped with rope, then pulled tightly together, so he resembled a man less than he did cargo, all soiled and blood-streaked, packed for lifting. "You guys need to come around to my way of thinking. It's not too late."

"Damn you, I told you to SHUT UP!" Bambridge looked down into Herbott's dark, feral eyes. Forcing back the urge to kick the man in the face was like fighting the need to vomit. "Not another word!"

Fleet said, "Easy, Bill, easy. Just ignore him." After the insanity of the morning, then having to fight fifteen miles of shoal water, Fleet was so emotionally drained that he had lapsed into a shell of stoicism. Endurance mode, that's the way he thought of it.

A hundred yards at a time. We'll make it. A hundred yards at a time . . .

"But he'll scare the Captain, talking like that. We should have gagged him, too."

"Forget about him. We're almost there. Only about seven or eight hundred more yards."

Bambridge touched the old man's head tenderly—his hair had the texture of rough cotton. He said, "Hear that, Captain? Mango's just ahead. Smells a little like a horse farm. Or cattle? And someone's cooking food, too. But I bet they don't cook as well as I do, huh?" Bambridge sniffed and turned his head away, trying not to cry. For the last several hours, he'd wanted to. Just wanted to break down and let it all out. But he hadn't. It might upset the Captain, plus he didn't want to give Herbott the satisfaction.

Earlier that morning, Herbott had said to Henry Short, "Old man, why don't we let bygones be bygones. I don't want to ride back to civilization with my hands tied, and you three need help loading jugs and getting our boats rigged right so we can tow 'em."

Not jugs of cane syrup as Bambridge had expected, but jugs of water from the spring back in near the shack at the base of the Indian mound. In explanation, all the Captain had told him was, "There's an ol' boy in Mango, he got a taste for this water 'bout six months ago. Nothin' you need to be nosy about." Bambridge had been so busy puzzling over that, plus trying to get his notes together, that he hadn't paid much attention to Herbott. Took just enough time to whisper to Short, "Don't trust Herbott, Captain," then went ahead with his work.

About two minutes later, he'd heard a guttural shriek; a finger-nails-on-chalkboard sound that stunned him so completely that he was already running toward the source before he realized what he was doing.

They had been in the mangroves, near the tunnel that hid the boats. Herbott was bent over the Captain, hacking at him with a machete.

The roots and trees were so thick that the knife had hit mostly limbs, but each time it struck flesh, Bambridge knew, because it made a distinctive sound—a butcher shop sound, like a cleaver piecing chicken.

"Charles, stop it! You're killing him!"

Shouting as he ran, Bambridge had kept on running until he tackled Herbott from behind, then Fleet was mixed up in it, trying to wrestle the machete out of Herbott's hand.

"Goddamn it, Charles—you're
insane."

Bambridge had kept punching and scratching and screaming at the man until he'd heard Herbott yell, "Okay! Enough," all three of them wheezing, spent and winded in the muck.

But the instant he and Fleet had loosened their grips, Herbott had bolted away, trying to escape, and they had had to do the same thing all over again.

"Hit him over the head with something! Find a limb! Kill him!"

Had he, Dr. William Bambridge, really said that?

Yes, and he had meant it. But instead of a tree limb, Fleet had found a coil of rope, and the first thing they had done was pull a noose around Herbott's neck so they could control him. They'd tied his hands and feet tightly, then tumbled him over the side, into the Captain's antique boat. He and Fleet both so loaded on adrenaline that they'd walked and talked with the exaggerated control of drunks.

"We have to stay calm, Bambridge."

"Yes, calm. Exactly right."

"He left us only one option."

"Our actions are entirely justified. That
son of a bitch!"

After that, things were a blur. Bambridge had tended to the old man while Fleet rushed around trying the portable VHF radios each of them had stored in their skiffs, just on the chance there was another boat in range. But the batteries were dead. So he had cut their own boats free and waded the sailboat away from the mangroves far enough to get the raw wood mast stepped and the sail up.

The whole time, Herbott had been yelling, "Let's think about this. We can make a deal here. Cut me loose and we'll talk about it. I have connections!"

Calm despite his wounds, Henry Short had sat on the bow, directing them through the first narrow cuts toward Mango, his shirt and pants sopped with blood. To Charles Herbott, all he had said was, "Short'un, you had no call to throw my side-by-side into the bay. I'm gonna miss that gun."

Which had caused Herbott to laugh hysterically. "You know the funny thing, boys? The gun! That fucking gun! It wasn't loaded!"

What got Angela Walker's attention was someone down by the water yelling, "Call an ambulance! A doctor! This is an emergency!"

She turned and saw a decrepit-looking boat with a peeling gray hull and a leaf brown sail moving slowly, slowly toward shore.

She had noticed it earlier, farther off, but had dismissed it as just another sailboat.

The man doing the yelling had matted hair, a scraggily beard, and his shorts were belted with a rope. He looked like a shipwreck victim . . . and that's when it dawned on her.

My God . . . it's them.

She had been hunting around for Tucker Gatrell; wanted to congratulate him before she pinned him to the wall and made him admit that he had wasted her whole day just to demonstrate how clever he could be.

As if she didn't already know that.

Maybe confront Ford, too—find out whether he had been helping his uncle from the start. But hoped he hadn't been. For some reason, she kept imagining herself in that jade-colored boat of his, learning how to water-ski.

But then she heard the man yelling, and she fell in with a group of people jogging toward the boat.

"Someone find a doctor. We need an ambulance!"

The scraggily man kept repeating that, even as he jumped into the shallows and pulled the boat ashore. "Somebody get to a phone and call the police!"

Walker pushed her way through the crowd, hesitated at the water, then slogged through the mud to the boat, saying, "I am the police," as she started asking questions, trying to place the two men who stood there gaunt as scarecrows, looking at her.

The one at the back of the boat was Chuck Fleet, the surveyor. He was burned copper by the sun, and had a reddish beard, but it was him. She could tell from the photographs she had studied every night—for how many nights?

But when the shirtless man said he was William Bambridge, she couldn't believe it. The Bambridge she knew from the files had a pork-chop face and a professorial smugness. This man was hollow-cheeked and wild-eyed. The skin flopped around on his bones as he continued to swing his arms, shouting orders. "We can't stand around talking. The Captain's hurt bad! Someone get his legs. We'll carry him to land."

Walker knew she had to assume control, and she did. She caught Bambridge by the elbow, swung him around, saying, "This woman says she's an off-duty paramedic." She motioned toward a woman who was already leaning over the injured man. "So you let her take care of things while we talk, okay?"

"But he's my friend—"

"He's a kidnapper!" Some unknown voice calling from what seemed to be the bottom of the boat.

The paramedic called to Walker, "This guy's lost a lot of blood. We need air rescue, a chopper."

To the crowd, Walker said, "Someone go find a telephone. Say Special Agent Walker is requesting a helicopter. Now!" as she leaned to look into the boat for the first time.

What
in the hell was going on here?

A wiry old man—with his parchment brown skin, he could have been a hundred years old—lay unconscious, bleeding, bandaged in an assortment of rags. On the floor beneath him was the third missing man, Charles Herbott. Herbott was roped up tightly, belly to the deck, but he could still look up at Walker by arching his neck. Actually managed to smile at her as he said, "You really are a cop? Great. Then arrest these three men. The old man for kidnapping. The other two as accessories. Now, get a knife and cut me loose!"

"Why is Mr. Herbott tied?" She was looking at Fleet, who hadn't said a word so far. }ust stood there with a mild look of relief on his face, stretching his arms and neck as if he was very tired.

"Because he attacked Captain Short with a machete, that's why. So we had to restrain him, tie him up like that. Self-defense. He'd've done the same to us. I think he needs some psychiatric help."

"That's a lie!"

The way Herbott screamed out the words made Walker think that Fleet was probably right about the last part.

"But the old man, he did kidnap you?"

"No. Absolutely not." Bambridge talking again—she couldn't get over how skinny he was.

Fleet said, "It's complicated, but, no, he didn't kidnap us."

"No one hijacked your boats? The old man? No one else?"

"They broke down, all three. Captain Short helped us."

"Then why did Herbott attack him with a machete?"

"That's complicated, too. But the attack was unprovoked—"

From the boat: "They're out to get me, I tell you. He's lying!"

"No, I'm not lying. I saw the whole thing from the bushes. The entire chain of events. If anything, you should arrest Herbott for attempted murder."

"Talk to the governor, lady, and see how far you get with that. Hah!"

To Walker, Herbott was sounding crazier and crazier.

Walker said, "Okay, one at a time, one at a time. I'm not arresting anybody. No one's going anywhere till I hear the whole story. Mr. Fleet, first you. Privately. Dr. Bambridge, you just stand there on the beach. Wait until we're done."

Herbott from the boat: "Goddamn it, untie me! You're detaining me illegally."

"I'm not detaining you, Mr. Herbott. I just don't have time to set you free. Be patient."

Walker listened to Fleet, then to Bambridge; felt sorry for the men—they were so exhausted, they were weaving. Once she had to interrupt Fleet, tell people in the crowd to step back, stay away from the boat. Another time to point Tucker Gatrell to the injured man as Gatrell came splashing up, demanding, " 'Scuse my language, Miz Walker, but what the deuce is goin' on in my bay?"

She paused long enough to watch Gatrell kneel over the man; heard him say, "Gawldamn, Henry, you back down every bad actor in these islands, only to let one of these pencilheads get the drop on you?"

Every now and then, Walker would think to herself,
I found them.

By the time it was Herbott's turn, the helicopter was dropping down, scattering sand and throwing water as it landed on the beach. The thing was going
whap-whap-whap,
and Walker had to hold her skirt down as she ducked beneath the blades. She identified herself to the pilot; asked him to radio the Sheriff's Department and have them send a detective unit to help her get this mess sorted out. From her purse, she took one of her cards, and wrote on the back, "I've got the three missing boaters."

But when she got back to the sailboat, she realized that was wrong.

A man was standing there, one of the gawkers, a sheepish expression on his face. "The man in here?" he said to her. "When I untied him, he just shoved me out of the way and ran off. No thanks or nothing. That's him—see him up there? The one running up the road toward that white van."

TWENTY-ONE