Not Now, page 12
She came through a thicket of what looked to be kudzu and saw Palmer. She also saw what had happened to him.
He'd slipped from a bank that was hidden by the curtain of kudzu vine. It wasn't a sheer drop off, but it was slanted enough to cause him to slip down it; the mud certainly didn't help, either.
He was two feet below her, on his ass in muddy, black water. At first, she thought he was injured. After all, he wasn't moving. He wasn't even turning to look at her as she toed along the edge of the little drop-off. Instead, he was looking straight ahead.
Camille followed his gaze and her blood went cold.
The top half of an alligator was bobbing in the water less than five feet from him. More than that, it seemed to be slowly gliding towards Palmer. It wasn't a big one, but certainly not a baby, either. She guessed it to be about four feet long from snout to tail.
She saw him reaching for his sidearm, a totally logical reaction to the situation...but a reaction that she also knew could be deadly.
Don’t do it, she thought. Don’t you dare…
She thought about something she'd heard many years ago as a girl at Deanna's house. It was the same bit of advice she'd often heard in regards of what to do if you were ever attacked by a shark.
Slowly, she eased herself into the water. The gator's nostrils were flared; it let out a brief grunt as it turned its attention to her.
She inched towards it, raising her right hand slowly and shaping it into the form of a palm-strike. As the gator's eyes took her in, she couldn't believe she was doing this. She felt a bit like she was invincible but also like she may piss her pants.
Too late to crawl out now, she thought.
With a lunge to the right, out of the direct line of the beast's jaws, she shaved her hand forward. Her palm struck the gator directly in the snout. As soon as she connected, she drew back and delivered it again.
The gator whipped itself around in retreat, ducking its head underwater and slapping its tail all around. The moment it reared away, Camille reached down and helped Palmer to his feet. They both hurried back up the bank, crashing through the kudzu.
"Are you kidding me?" Palmer said. "You...Grace, you just punched an alligator."
"No, I struck it on its snout. Big difference." She had to make a joke out of it because her nerves were still rocketing out of control. What in the hell had she been thinking? If she'd slipped the slightest bit in the muck at the bottom of that water, she may be missing a right hand right now.
"I don't even..." Palmer said. He ran a shaking, muddy hand through his hair. "Thanks, Grace. That was...well, that was pretty amazing."
"Let's get out of here, though," she said. "If it comes back, I don't have the nerve to try it again."
"You get Simpson?"
"Yeah, he's a hugging a tree right now."
"He's...what?"
"Just come on."
She led him back the way she'd come, looking back over her shoulder at the murky water for any sign of the gator. And even though it was nowhere to be seen, every muscle in her body wanted to get the hell out of those woods as soon as possible.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
The adrenaline that came with punching an alligator had worn off by the time Camille and Palmer made it back to the Hen Creek police station. The sudden absence of adrenaline left Camille with an odd sort of weariness, almost as if she could take a nap.
Bradford took Simpson from them when they came into the station, allowing Camille to retreat to the little coffee station in the far back corner. Bradford gave her a cringing stare, noting that both she and Palmer were soaked, and that their shoes were very muddy.
In the back, Camille ran the darkest brew they had through their instant-cup maker and chugged about half of it down.
"You okay?" Palmer asked her.
"Yeah, just wiped out. And soaked."
"You punched a gator in the face. You're allowed to be wiped out."
"Don't expect that sort of treatment in the future," she said. "Looking back on it, it was a pretty bone-headed move."
"Bone-headed, bad-ass...whichever works for you," Palmer said. "So, are you ready to go speak with our new friend?"
"Might as well," she said, chugging more of the bitter coffee.
They found Bradford waiting for them at the door to the interrogation room. "You guys good?" he asked.
"Sure," Palmer said. "Hey, this one right here," he said, nudging Camille, "punched a gator in the face."
"What?"
Camille shook her head and opened the interrogation room door. Palmer followed her in and after closing the door, they looked down to Miles Simpson. He had the look of a kid that had just been caught looking at a dirty movie.
"Why'd you run?" Camille asked him.
"And why'd you run in the direction of where there were gators?" Palmer asked, irritated. "It almost seems like you did it on purpose."
"I ran because I didn't want to get into trouble."
"And why do you think you would have been in trouble?" Palmer asked.
"Well, you two are clearly detectives, or feds, right?"
"Feds," Camille said. "Agents Grace and Palmer, with the FBI. So again...what have you done lately that might warrant a visit from us?"
She felt almost optimistic. Was it going to be this easy? Was Simpson their guy? Was he seriously about to cop to all of it this easily just because a visit from two federal agents had spooked him?
Simpson eyed them with that same guilt in his eyes and then gave a defeated shrug. "I violated my parole two different times."
"Your parole?" Palmer said. And then, realizing he'd nearly showed their ignorance about his past, he quickly recovered. "And how did you do that, Mr. Simpson?"
"The restraining order on my ex-wife." Scant understanding started to show on his face. "Wait...you weren't there for that?"
"No, Mr. Simpson, we weren't," Camille said. "We came to visit you because of a very specific threat you made when you had that bit of trouble a few years ago with your ex. A comment about gators. You know what we're talking about, right?"
He nodded and looked back down to the table as he recited the line. "I should have just tied the bitch up and fed her to the gators in my backyard."
"That's the one," Palmer said.
"Have there always been alligators that close to your property?" Camille asked.
She watched as Miles Simpson tried to understand why he was sitting in an interrogation room. Now that they'd told him their visit had nothing to do with his wife or an apparent restraining order against her, he seemed very confused. Sure, it could all be an act, but Camille didn't see anything particularly calculated about his behavior.
"Yeah," he finally answered. "And it gets worse when it rains. They come a little further outside of the swamps after a heavy rain."
"And it doesn't bother you to live that close to them?" Camille asked.
"They'll shy away after a while."
"After what?" Palmer asked.
"After they've had their fill of whatever they're after... or if they get bored. Gators aren't very smart. They might try to get up on your deck or your patio, but they always give up after a while."
"But it doesn't bother you?" Camille asked.
"I've lived here my whole life. Gators are part of the landscape. I see one from my porch all the time. I've never had one try to get in."
"Ever had a dangerous run-in with one?"
"A few times. I damn near stepped on one as a teenager. But even then, it didn't attack."
"Mr. Simpson, I'm going to give you three names," Camille said. "I need you to tell me if any of them ring any bells. Can you do that?"
"Sure." He seemed instantly relieved that the interrogation was taking a turn that led further away from his ex-wife.
"Wendy Pullman. Earl Stewart. Gary Anderson."
"I know who Gary Anderson is, but I don't know him, if you know what I mean. But that mean old bastard, I guess everyone knows of him, at least. And the name Earl Stewart...that sticks out for some reason but I couldn't tell you why." He shrugged and said, "I mean, it's a small county. You're bound to hear just about everyone's name after a while, you know?"
Based on the ease at which he'd answered and the lack of any sort of facial expression at hearing the names, Camille was all but certain Miles Simpson was not their killer. But she also wasn't quite ready to let him go due to his admission of violating a restraining order, as well as the hell she and Palmer had gone through to bring him in.
“And if we asked you, would you be able to provide proof of your whereabouts over the last few nights?”
Simpson thought about this for a moment and shrugged. “I don’t know. Depends on what you need. I’ve literally been sitting around my house, drinking beer and watching TV.”
“What have you been watching?” Palmer asked.
“There’s a show on National Geographic where they drop Gordon Ramsey off in these random places and he cooks with local ingredients.” He seemed perplexed that they’d ask him this, chuckling as he came to a stop.
Camille knew that a quick trip through his Recently Watched would be able to back up the story. And even if that failed, they could send in a request to find out where his phone had been resting for the last few nights. But really, she didn’t think it would come to that.
"Mr. Simpson, thank you for your time," she said. "We're going to have Officer Bradford come in and ask you some questions about your whereabouts over the last few days."
He still seemed a little confused, but he nodded all the same. Camille exited the room, wondering how they'd so quickly come to yet another dead end. Idly, she figured that they'd eventually run out of people that had some sort of connection to alligators. And then what?
Palmer joined her out in the hallway. He also looked a little tired and run down. The filthy clothes certainly didn't help.
"Well, he's no killer, that's for sure," Palmer said.
"Yeah, I'd say it's doubtful."
"I do think we may be on to something with looking in that area, though," Palmer said. "There was a whole lot of nothing, sure, but it would be the perfect place to stash bodies. It's like a whole other world out there. However, I don't know about you, but I intend to change out of these clothes first. Did you pack a change?"
"I did. And that's actually a good idea. Maybe if I can get out of these mucky clothes and grab a shower, it'll be easier to find a new approach."
"And I'd like to have this thing solved and be back on our way home for good before Captain Beecher decides he wants to suddenly be involved again."
"And at this rate," Camille said, "there's just no telling when another body is going to pop up."
"Yeah, that, too."
Camille left the hallway to find Bradford, her feet squishing in her wet shoes the whole way. Frowning, she thought the feeling and the sound of it was a pretty good summation of this entire case up to this point.
***
Grabbing a shower back at Newcomb's Motel did indeed help her a bit more than she'd expected. Before getting in, Camille kicked off her shoes, dried them out as well as she could, and left them out on the little walkway outside of the rooms to dry off in the thick Louisiana heat.
When she was out and dried off, she got dressed and realized that showering so early on such a humid day may be counter-productive. But at least she had the feel of the swamp from behind Miles Simpson's house off of her.
She stepped out onto the walkway to check her shoes. They were still damp, but a vast improvement from before she'd kicked them off. They'd surely start stinking in a few days but hopefully she'd be back in New Orleans by then.
Before sticking her feet back into them, she found herself thinking of her father. Seeing him had still not quite registered with her; it had almost been like watching a movie and recalling certain scenes. But at the same time, she thought it might be a movie worth watching again.
She headed back inside and grabbed up her phone, intending to call him. But as the phone was in her head, it was Deanna she suddenly found herself thinking of. Deanna had kept two alligator statues on one of her many bookshelves...not ceramic statues, but wood carvings. Camille could remember, even from her childhood, that the etchings and carvings along the back to represent the scaly skin had always sort of unnerved her as a young girl. Deanna had said she kept the wood carvings because, while she thought gators were cool and sort of mystic in a way, she was always terrified of them.
Curious, Camille pulled up Deanna's number and called her. The woman had always been a well of information on the most random things. Maybe she knew a thing or two about gators, too. And maybe getting insights from someone three hours way from the current crime scene would offer a fresh perspective.
Deanna answered on the second ring. She sounded slightly out of breath when she said, "Hello?"
"Hey, D. It’s Camille."
"Oh, hey! How are you?"
"I'm good."
"I was starting to wonder, seeing as how you haven't bothered to call a single time after your initial call to tell me you were back in Louisiana."
"Sorry about that. I've been setting up the new office and all, and then got put on this case."
"Anything fun?"
"Fun isn't quite the word I would use. But some of the details did bring to mind those two old gators you used to have on your bookshelves. The wooden ones."
"Oh, I still have them. And....you're on a case concerning gators?"
"Yeah, it's a long story. But I just need...I don't know. I need a different angle on this whole thing. I remember you were really scared of them but also thought they were beautiful."
"Yeah, and that still very much remains the same."
"Can you walk me through that? How can you feel two ways about them? And is there anything you know about Louisiana gators that might not be in textbooks or nature reserves?"
She could hear Deanna smile on the other line. "Okay. Well, gators were very big in Louisiana culture, especially in the Deep South. They were seen as a symbol of power and strength not too long ago, you know. I don't know all the history, but from what I heard from grandparents and aunts and uncles, the Native Americans respected gators as the protectors of their homes and the land. There's this whole spiritual connection to it. The swamp and the swamp's reputation for hiding everything, including people, also played a part in it. But seeing as how they are a symbol of strength, it was thought that seeing one showed you had a very strong, watchful guardian."
"What about maybe as a means of vengeance?" Camille asked.
"I don't think I've ever heard of anything like that. Jesus, what kind of a case is this?"
"I'll tell you some other time. It's currently open and there are three bodies. it's pretty bad."
"Three bodies? God, what's going on? And where are you, anyway?"
"Hen Creek."
"Oh. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's way out in the sticks. Makes Upping look like New York City."
"That's pretty accurate."
"Is this some kind of hazing thing?" Deanna asked. "Did your new bosses send you down there to deal with gators as some sort of punishment?"
"No, it just happened to—"
Camille stopped here, replaying Deanna's previous comment. Some sort of punishment…
"Yeah?" Deanna said. "Just happened to what?"
"D, I have to go. But you have my word...I'll call you back as soon as the case is over."
"You'd better. And you need to get over to see your Dad."
"Already ahead of you on that. And we can talk more about that when I call, too. Thanks, Deanna."
"Same to you. Be careful out there...you know...around all those gators." She said it with a sarcastic edge, as if she thought Camille might be pulling her leg a bit in terms of what the case was centered around.
"Some sort of punishment," Camille said. She thought of Deanna being scared of gators but respecting them in her own way by keeping her woodcarvings on the bookshelf. What if someone else felt the same way about them? What if their killer feared them and, as such, felt that a fitting punishment for someone they thought deserved judgement of some kind was to feed them to gators?
It was messed up on multiple levels but, given the nature of this case, also made a small bit of sense. If their killer had once been attacked by a gator at some point in their life and was experiencing hardship or troubles from it, wouldn’t it only make sense that they would view gators as a means of retribution or even judgement?
A knock on the door broke her concentration, but that was fine; the gist of a possible new approach was already there. She answered the door and found Palmer standing on the walkway. His hair was still slightly wet, and she saw that he'd also shaved away the tiny growth of stubble that had accumulated on his face. Standing in the sun and giving her a casual smile, he looked quite handsome.
"You good to go?" he asked.
"I am. And I think I figured out a new approach we can take. Maybe a way to narrow down the search for our suspect."
"That's great."
She stepped outside, locking the door behind her. She slipped her feet into the still-damp shoes.
"Back to the station?" Palmer asked.
"For now, yes, I think so."
"Okay. Oh, and Grace?"
"Yeah?"
"Do something about those shoes, will you?" he said, the smile on his face growing wider. "They're really starting to reek."
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
He knew it was too early to start drinking. it wasn't even 3:00 in the afternoon yet. And he had some work to do later in the night.
But Christ, it was hot. Some days it just got so humid that you had to drink. he knew the Budweisers he'd been pounding lately did nothing to hydrate him, but he felt as if they did. Also, drinking steeled up his nerves.
