The Snake and the Spider

  “Now, the electric chair isn’t some sort of Club Med vacation, Mr. Spider. It’s a very serious place, the kind of place where every last living cell in a person’s body becomes fried meat in front of a room of witnesses.”

  “Enough, man!” Spider shouted suddenly, looking up at Ziegler with hateful eyes. “I don’t wanna hear that. I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  Ziegler shrugged indifferently. “Not my problem, Smith. You’re the one who’s playing games—a piece of the story here, another piece there.” He stopped and stared at Spider.

  “What’s the truth, Smith?” His voice exploded throughout the room, echoing off the walls. He had Spider’s attention now, and when Ziegler spoke again his voice was barely more than a whisper. “Because just like Mr. Brown told you, we’re going to get the truth one way or the other. And by the time that happens, you’ll be headed for the chair.”

  “Don’t threaten me, man!”

  Ziegler moved his face inches from Spider’s. “That, Mr. Spider, is not a threat. It is a promise.”

  Spider squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “What about the deal?”

  Ziegler laughed. “No deal for a guy like you, Smith. You aren’t talking truth, you aren’t talking the whole story. We only make deals with people who tell it like it is.”

  “I never said I wasn’t interested in making a deal, man.”

  “The question is whether we’re interested in making a deal with you.”

  Bob stood up at this point and moved to the other side of Spider. He was enjoying this questioning immensely, almost like having a front row seat at a very exciting movie. None of his past cases had involved anything close to murder and his heart was racing with the intensity of the situation. He cleared his throat.

  “Like I said, Smith,” Bob spoke in his usual calm voice, “we need to know everything. And if we happen to find out that you’re not telling us the whole story, any deal we might make would be off.”

  “Okay, man, I understand.” Spider stared at his feet. “I want the deal. ‘Cause ain’t no way I deserve the chair for this, man. Ain’t no way. I didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

  Ziegler leaned back against the table and Bob pulled a chair up in front of Spider. “Okay,” Ziegler said. “Let’s talk.”

  “Tell us about the boys,” Bob said. “They’re dead, right?”

  Spider shook his head wildly as if he had suddenly remembered something. “No, no, I never said nothing like that, man. I said they might be dead. Might be alive, might be dead.”

  Bob shot a disgusted glance at Ziegler and then turned toward Spider again. “That’s a lie, Smith, and you know it.”

  “No, man, you just didn’t understand me. I don’t know what happened to the boys. But I just thought you should know they might be dead.”

  “What else might have happened, Smith?” Brown said. “If they’re dead, how did they die?”

  “Oh, man.” Spider leaned back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. “Maybe they were gassed.”

  “You’re putting me on.” Bob wanted Spider to know that he was skeptical at best.

  “No, man, they were probably put in a tomb and then they were gassed.”

  “And if this was the case,” Bob began, “did they suffer?”

  “No, they were probably asleep when it happened.”

  Bob took a deep breath. “You know, Smith, you sure sound like you’re keeping an awful lot of the story to yourself.”

  Spider was silent.

  “You know what happened to those boys, don’t you?” Ziegler cut in.

  “All right, man,” Spider said. “I know what happened. But listen, man. I want to know if I’m guilty of something before I go spillin’ my guts. Understand?”

  Bob’s pulse quickened and he reached for a pen and paper.

  “You tell us what happened and we’ll tell you if you’re in trouble,” Ziegler said. “That’s the best we can do.”

  “Well . . .” Spider seemed to be searching for the right words. “Let’s say there were two people in a boat. You know, the water is real deep.” Spider glanced up to see if the detectives were listening. When he saw that Bob was taking notes he continued.

  “Okay, and let’s say that these two people are locked up down in the bottom of the boat, in the hold somewhere. And let’s say the boat catches fire. Now, is it a crime to stand by and watch ’em die. Is a person guilty for that even though they didn’t do nothin’ wrong?”

  Bob looked at Ziegler and put down his pen. Then he turned toward Spider once again. Bob was a patient man but he was nearing his limit. “Is this what happened to the boys?”

  “Let’s say it is,” Spider said, tilting his head back in a cocky manner.

  “If you want to know about guilt,” Ziegler said, standing up straight and moving closer to Spider, “yes. A person who stood by and watched something like that would be guilty. No doubt about it.”

  Spider seemed discouraged by Ziegler’s words. He hung his head and appeared to be thinking. “Okay,” he said, lifting his head after nearly a minute. “Let’s say a person watched two boys being locked into a tomb and then that same person simply stood by and allowed those boys to be gassed. Is that a crime?”

  Ziegler shook his head angrily and picked up his things. “Listen, Spider, I’ve heard enough. I’m through playing games here. You aren’t getting anywhere with these scenarios and I’ve got better things to do than sit here and play make-believe with a scummy, no-good loser like yourself.” He turned around and headed toward the door, motioning for Bob to join him.

  Bob looked once more at Spider. “You know, Smith, when this is all over with, don’t say you didn’t get a chance.”

  Then the two detectives left the room and conferred in the hallway.

  “He’s lying,” Ziegler said.

  “About some things.”

  “Yes. But until he’s ready to tell the whole story we’re wasting our time.”

  “He’s closer than he was before, Ziegler. Believe me. I think your little word picture about the electric chair really got him thinking.”

  Ziegler shook his head in frustration. “It’s not enough, Brown. He’s got to tell us everything. All that garbage about what if this and what if that. Just a bunch of lies. Nothing we can go on.”

  “Might be worth checking into.” Bob wanted desperately to remain hopeful. There had to be something, some workable lead, that could come from everything Spider had said.

  “Well . . .” Ziegler looked at his watch. “I’ve got four other cases that need my attention. What we really need is Spider’s charming associate, Mr. Snake. Then we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

  “You think they’re dead, don’t you?” Bob asked softly. Even though he had figured as much weeks ago, he tried to cling to a glimmer of hope that somehow the boys might be alive.

  “Listen, Brown,” Ziegler said, a softness showing in his eyes, “Sheriff Duff asked me if I would personally make this case a priority. Now, Brown, I’m a homicide detective. And someone like Sheriff Duff doesn’t give me a case unless there’s a body involved.” He paused a moment. “To answer your question, yes, I think they’re dead. But that weasel in there isn’t doing one thing to help us put the pieces together.”

  Bob nodded. For the time being he was on his own again. “Keep in touch?”

  “Every day.” Ziegler paused. “Hey, Brown. I read the file, stayed up late Friday going over all the work you’ve done.” He shook his head in awe. “You’re one heck of an investigator. You ever want a job at the department, let me know.”

  “Thanks. But you can keep your office job, Ziegler.” Bob laughed. “We private investigators don’t do too well working by your rules.”

  Ziegler raised one eyebrow and held up the file. “Obviously.”

  CHAPTER 31

  While the Barbers and the Bouchers spent yet another day in the fog of not knowing the whereabouts of their sons and
Snake Cox spent the day touring about the country making product deliveries as if he wasn’t perhaps the prime suspect in what had now become a homicide investigation, Bob climbed into his white sedan and drove toward the beach. There were still four hours of daylight left and he wanted to know one way or another if there was any truth to the bizarre scenarios Spider had suggested.

  His first goal was to check the docks. Along Daytona Beach there were only a handful of places where one might even find boats, let alone dock them. If he moved quickly, Bob knew he could check each of those places.

  “You know the docks around here?” Bob would ask once he found someone who seemed familiar with the area.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I need to know if there’s been any fires here in the past four months.”

  “Fires? On the docks?”

  “In the boats. As far as you know have any of the boats burned up in the past four months?”

  “Not around here they haven’t.”

  “Fine, thanks anyway.”

  Then Bob would find ten more people and ask the same question. When he was reasonably certain that there had not been a fire he would leave and head for the next dock. Then he would ask the same questions of at least ten people there.

  No one had heard of a boat fire anywhere near Daytona Beach until he reached his final location. He approached a teenage boy who was selling bait at a concession stand near the docks.

  “Any boats around here catch fire in the past four months?” he asked.

  The boy’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, pretty bad fire, too,” he said.

  Bob felt his heart skip a beat. Could Spider have been telling the truth? Could the boys have died out here in a fire without anyone even having known they were aboard the boat?

  “Listen, young man, I need to find out more about the fire. Who can I talk to?”

  The boy searched the water where dozens of speedboats and sailboats were anchored. “There,” he said, pointing to an older man with a red baseball cap. “It was his boat. He can tell you everything you need to know.” The boy looked at Bob curiously. “You with the insurance company or something?”

  “Something,” Bob said. He thanked the boy and headed toward the man in the red cap.

  “Bob Brown, private investigator,” he said, offering his hand.

  The man was fishing and he smiled kindly in return. “Joe Greenwald,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to ask a few questions about that boat of yours. The one that burned down.”

  The man looked puzzled. “The Berkeley Bear? Why, she didn’t burn down.”

  Now it was Bob who looked puzzled. He pointed toward the concession stand where the teenager was working. “The boy there said your boat burned down.”

  The man laughed. “Youth,” he said. “Make a mountain out of a molehill. The Bear didn’t burn down, sir. She had a little engine fire a few weeks ago but we fixed her up nice and sound.” He pointed toward a blue-and-gold yacht anchored a few feet from where he was sitting. “That’s her, right there. A beauty, eh?”

  Bob felt his body slump with the letdown. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Beautiful. Sorry about the trouble.”

  By four o’clock he had ample reason to believe that there had not been a boat destroyed by fire anywhere in the vicinity of Daytona Beach for at least the past year. Bob looked at the sun. It was setting fast but there were still two hours of daylight left. He walked back to his car and headed for the old cemetery. It was time to check out the tombs.

  As Bob drove he replayed Spider’s words in his head:

  “Let’s say a person watched two boys being locked into a tomb. . . .”

  Bob thought about all the places around Daytona Beach that might serve as a tomb. It was possible Spider was referring to an underground cavity in the sand somewhere, or perhaps the closet of a house. But the most obvious tombs in town were those that were right out in the open, in the old cemetery across the street from the Boot Hill Saloon: the place where—until Jim Boucher and Daryl Barber came to town—Snake and Spider spent most of their spare time.

  Was it possible, Bob wondered, that Snake and Spider had met up with the boys, stolen their car and traveler’s checks, and then taken them to the cemetery to kill them? Bob shuddered at the thought. Maybe they had found an old grave site and forced the boys inside. And maybe that’s where the boys had been gassed and left to die.

  Bob drove as quickly as he could and then parked the car. Of course, he told himself as he climbed out of the car, the whole idea of the boys dying in a tomb might just have been the first thing out of Spider’s mouth. In all likelihood there was probably nothing more truthful about it than there’d been about the boating-fire story.

  Either way, Bob had to find out the truth. He made his way up a small dirt hill toward the field of tombstones. The cemetery grounds formed a perfect square. Starting at the top right corner of the square, Bob knelt down and read the tombstone.

  MARTHA D. JOHNSTON

  1845–1923

  LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER

  Bob took a deep breath and pushed on the tombstone, trying to see if it would move or give way. It didn’t budge. Then he stood up and walked around the stone looking for soft areas in the dirt, places where there might have been a cavity in the earth—somewhere someone like Snake and Spider might have buried two teenage boys moments before gassing them. The ground was solid.

  Meticulously, Bob moved to the next stone and did the same thing. He continued on this way, picking up speed as he went. Darkness was beginning to cover the cemetery and he wanted to complete his search while he could still see what he was doing.

  About midway through the grounds, Bob pushed on a large stone and lost his balance as it lurched unevenly and toppled over. Bob gasped.

  Under the stone was an area of dirt that had given way, leaving behind a sizable hole. Bob looked inside, unsure of what he would find. Placing his head partway in the hole, he reached down into the hole and felt the soft outer wood of a well-polished coffin. He moved his hand around the hole until he was convinced there was nothing, and no one, inside. Then he replaced the fallen tombstone and read the inscription.

  BENTSON HODGE

  JANUARY 2, 1911–NOVEMBER 30, 1978

  IN LOVING MEMORY

  Bob backed away in disgust. The man had just died a few days ago and his burial had probably taken place over the weekend. Now here he was digging his way toward dead people who’d only just been buried. Bob steadied the tombstone and shook his head. He would have to talk to the cemetery grounds people about doing a better job filling in the holes when people were buried.

  He finished the final two rows of grave sites and then headed back toward his car. If Spider had been referring to a tomb in that cemetery, he had been lying. At the end of his tiring search late that afternoon Bob was certain of the fact.

  Throughout the evening, even after his wife, Lois, cooked a mouthwatering roast beef dinner, Bob could not stop thinking about Spider’s words. The burning boat and the tomb. Trapped by fire, death by gas. He longed for the days when his cases didn’t haunt him as this one did. But at the same time he was driven to solve the case. He was getting closer. He could feel it.

  That night Bob dreamt he was trapped in an underwater tomb which was slowly being filled with poisonous gas and fireballs.

  THAT SAME EVENING SNAKE WAS HAVING A CELEBRATION dinner in Barstow, California. He had successfully delivered all of his product loads and now was about to make the trip back to Florida.

  The man next to him was smoking a cigarette and asking questions. This was something Snake had not enjoyed about being on the road: the way the truckers all seemed to nose around in other truckers’ business.

  But tonight he was feeling especially good and he was midway through his fourth beer. Maybe there was something to this trucking business. Maybe he could be a law-abiding citizen now and make a legal living this way. Maybe not.
But at least he could make a living even if he couldn’t quite manage to be law-abiding.

  Snake was probably thinking these things over when the man next to him looked his way.

  “You been on the road long?”

  “Yeah, pushing three weeks now,” Snake said, sounding proud as if it was something of an accomplishment just to have held the job that long.

  “Where you from, man?” The other trucker was several years younger than Snake, and in some ways he reminded him of his good friend, Spider. Wherever he’d disappeared to.

  “Tampa,” Snake said flatly. Maybe a conversation would be good now, what with the beer and the empty truck and the whole country spread out before him like a life-size atlas. Why not make a little time for a bar-side chat?

  “Got a long drive ahead of you, man.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  The younger man snuffed out his cigarette and took a swig of beer. “My name’s Fred. Truckin’ for ten years now. How ’bout you?”

  “Snake. And this here’s my first run.”

  The other man looked surprised. “What’d you used to do?”

  Snake laughed out loud. If only Fred knew. “You really want to know?”

  The man nodded and Snake felt his importance growing. There were times when people like Snake bragged about things that other people might just as soon keep to themselves. Not that it mattered much. Most people didn’t believe the things that people like Snake bragged about. And even if they did, they never got enough information to do anything about the tall tales. Besides, there was something almost enjoyable in watching the surprise on people’s faces when they heard some of the stories Snake liked to tell.

  He looked at the younger man, still waiting for an answer. This would be a wonderful opportunity to tell such stories. Snake turned his stool a bit to face the other trucker.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, man,” he said, lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag.

  “Go on.” The other man laughed. “Can’t be that bad.”

  Snake raised an eye and ran his hand over his long, uncombed hair. “Don’t bet the farm on it,” he said.