Always a good athlete, Nick’s father had been a pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles farm system when he’d first met Nick’s mother. According to the newspaper clippings in a family scrapbook, Greg Waters’ fastball had once been clocked at 94 mph.
He never made the big leagues, so he’d gone back to college, earned a degree in business administration, and taken a desk job with a sprinkler supply company in Fort Myers. After three years of being bored out of his skull, he returned to baseball as a pitching coach for a minor-league club. He was happy, but the money wasn’t great. That’s one reason he’d joined the National Guard—the sign-up bonus had paid for Nick’s first year at the Truman School.
For one weekend every month, Greg Waters went to Tampa to train as an army soldier. The country was at peace, and neither he nor his family ever imagined that he’d be sent overseas to face real combat. Everything changed after the invasion of Iraq.
“Did they say when I can go home?” Nick’s father asked.
“It all depends. Tomorrow you start rehab,” Nick’s mother said.
“What fun.” Greg Waters blinked heavily. “I’m so damn tired.”
Nick’s gaze fell upon the rounded white knob of gauze and tape where his father’s muscular right arm had once been. The bandages were so shiny that they looked fake, like part of a mummy costume for Halloween.
His mom said, “Greg, you get some rest. We’ll come back at dinnertime.”
“You’re not gonna try to feed me like a baby, are you?”
“No, sir. You’re going to feed yourself.”
“That’s my girl.” Nick’s father grinned. “Nicky, you holding up okay?”
“I’m good, Dad.”
“It’s a rough deal, I know, but things could be worse,” he said. “I was lucky to get out of that place alive. The guy sitting next to me in that Humvee, he didn’t make it.”
Nick felt his head start to spin. “Was he your friend?”
“Like a brother.”
Nick lowered his eyes. It was almost unbearable to think how close his father had come to dying.
When he looked up again, Capt. Gregory Waters was fast asleep.
After visiting Duane Scrod Sr., who was not especially helpful, Detective Jason Marshall picked up Dr. Dressler at the Truman School, and together they went to the residence of Bunny Starch. The headmaster had requested to come along, which was fine with the detective.
Walking up the creaking steps of the old house, Dr. Dressler exclaimed, “The rat’s gone!”
“The what?” the detective said.
“She put a stuffed rat on that rocking chair,” Dr. Dressler said. “She named it after one of her former students.”
Jason Marshall looked doubtful.
“I’m serious,” said Dr. Dressler.
The detective knocked on Mrs. Starch’s door. Nobody answered. He pressed the doorbell, but it was out of order. They walked around to the other side of the house and rapped on the back door. Still no response.
“Guess I’ll come back tomorrow,” Jason Marshall said.
Dr. Dressler was disappointed. “Can’t you just break in? What if she’s ill or she had an accident or … something else happened?”
“I can’t go inside a house without a search warrant,” the detective explained, “and a judge won’t give me a warrant unless there’s cause to believe a crime’s been committed. There’s no evidence of that, Dr. Dressler.”
Frustrated, the headmaster trailed Jason Marshall back to his unmarked police car.
“That letter I got about a ‘family emergency,’ I just don’t buy it,” Dr. Dressler said. “The woman has no family that I can locate anywhere.”
The detective leaned against the fender of his car and took out a pack of chewing gum. He offered a piece to Dr. Dressler, who said no thanks.
“Libby’s told me all the crazy stories about Mrs. Starch,” Jason Marshall said. “Kids love to talk, and normally I wouldn’t pay much attention. But now you’re telling me she kept a stuffed rat on the porch—this isn’t the most normal person in the world, would you agree?”
Dr. Dressler nodded. “She’s a bit quirky, for sure.”
“Maybe she just freaked out after the fire on the field trip,” the detective speculated. “That had to be a scary experience—eventually she finds her way out of the woods and rushes to our house with Libby’s asthma inhaler. Then she drives home, looks in the mirror, and says, ‘Geez, I could have died out there! I really need some time off.’ ”
Dr. Dressler was skeptical. “Not Bunny Starch,” he said.
“Imagine spending the night all alone in the Big Cypress while it’s burning,” Jason Marshall said. “I don’t care how tough you are, it definitely would shake you up.”
“Anything’s possible, I suppose.”
“Just a theory.” The detective took out his cell phone. “What’s the number at this house?”
By now the headmaster knew it by heart: “555-2346,” he said.
Jason Marshall dialed and waited. Mrs. Starch’s phone rang only twice before an answering machine picked up.
“There’s a message,” the detective whispered to Dr. Dressler.
“What does it say?”
Jason Marshall touched the Redial button and handed the cell phone to Dr. Dressler. The headmaster listened intently to the recorded greeting on the other end:
Hello, people. I’ll be away from school indefinitely because of an unexpected family matter. You may leave a message at the tone, though it might be a while before I have time to reply. Please accept my apologies in advance. Now here’s the beep!
“Is that her voice?” the detective asked.
“Sure sounds like it,” Dr. Dressler said.
“First the letter, now the voice message on her phone. I’ve got to be honest—there’s nothing more the sheriff’s office can do. The woman is obviously alive and well,” said Jason Marshall.
“Then why no phone calls?”
“Maybe she doesn’t feel like answering questions about a ‘family emergency’ that doesn’t really exist. Like I said, she probably just needed a break, so she made up an excuse not to come to school.”
“But that’s not like her,” Dr. Dressler asserted again.
“Some people burn out on their jobs all of a sudden. I’ve seen it happen before.” The detective opened the car door and slid behind the wheel.
“Just a second,” said Dr. Dressler. He stepped quickly to Mrs. Starch’s mailbox and peeked inside. It was empty.
On the ride back to the Truman campus, the headmaster asked Jason Marshall about the arson investigation. The detective said he’d turned over the information about Duane Scrod Jr. to the fire department.
“So far, they haven’t been able to connect him to the crime,” Jason Marshall said.
“Did they turn up any clues?”
“Nothing that panned out. Near the scene of the fire they found a ballpoint pen with a name on it—Red Diamond Energy. It’s some oil-and-gas company from Tampa that has a small lease out there near the swamp,” Jason Marshall said. “Needless to say, young Mr. Scrod is not on their payroll. It’s unlikely that the pen was his.”
“So what happens to your arson case?”
“Not much, unless we catch a break.”
Privately, Dr. Dressler was relieved that Duane Jr. wouldn’t be arrested anytime soon, if at all. The ugly publicity would have been damaging to the reputation of the school. Years earlier, a Truman student had been caught driving a stolen sno-cone truck and it had made the TV news all the way over in Miami.
“Do you want me to call you when Duane returns to class?” the headmaster asked Jason Marshall. “Would you still like to speak with him?”
“Might as well—just to let him know he’s on our radar.”
“Good idea,” said Dr. Dressler, although he suspected that Duane Scrod Jr. would not be even slightly intimidated.
EIGHT
The helicopter took off from Naples Ai
rport and headed east. In the front passenger seat was a heavyset man in his mid-thirties named Drake McBride, the president of Red Diamond Energy Corporation. Sitting behind him was his project manager, Jimmy Lee Bayliss. Both men had headsets with microphones attached so that they could hear each other over the din of the engines.
Drake McBride wore a cowboy hat, snakeskin boots, and a pale silk shirt with snap buttons. He was sipping hot coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Jimmy Lee Bayliss was dressed in a tan long-sleeved work shirt and smudged trousers. A map lay open across his lap.
Within minutes the helicopter was circling the Black Vine Swamp. Jimmy Lee Bayliss pointed to a charred, crescent-shaped scar in the scruffy prairie that bordered the ancient cypress strand.
“That’s from the fire,” he said to his boss.
“None of our equipment got damaged, right?”
“Of course not.” Jimmy Lee Bayliss thought: Does he think I’m a moron?
Drake McBride shielded his eyes from the glare of the sun. “Section 22 is right below us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Section 21 is over there?”
“That’s right,” said Jimmy Lee Bayliss.
“Lemme see the danged map.”
Drake McBride was not a Texan, although he tried to dress like one and talk like one. It annoyed Jimmy Lee Bayliss, who was from Houston and had spent twenty-six years of his life drilling for oil and natural gas. Drake McBride, on the other hand, was from upstate New York and therefore had no business saying words like “danged.”
However, being a fairly intelligent fellow, Jimmy Lee Bayliss knew better than to disrespect the person who signed his paychecks.
“Take us down to two hundred feet,” Drake McBride told the pilot.
The helicopter spooked some snowy egrets from the treetops and flushed a deer across the dry prairie.
“Any sign of that danged cat?” Drake McBride asked Jimmy Lee Bayliss.
“No, sir. The gunshots scared it off for good, I’m sure.” Jimmy Lee Bayliss dug into his pants for a roll of Tums. Ever since he’d been assigned to the Big Cypress project, his stomach burned like he’d swallowed a hot coal.
Drake McBride said, “Wouldn’t have broke my heart if you’d blasted that hairball to smithereens.”
“The law’s pretty harsh when it comes to killin’ panthers. The feds got no sense of sport, sir.”
“Panthers—ha!” Drake McBride snorted. “Out west they’re just plain old cougars, and you can shoot ’em down like coyotes.”
He pronounced “coyote” with a long “e” on the end, which made Jimmy Lee Bayliss cringe. He wasn’t fond of phonies.
“If that cat comes back here and somebody spots it, we got a problem,” Drake McBride said. “Last thing we need is nosy game wardens trampin’ all over our project site—you follow?”
“The panther’s long gone, sir. I fired two rounds over its head with a deer rifle, and you never saw anything run so fast in all your life. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s still runnin’.”
“Hope you’re right, friend.”
I hope so, too, thought Jimmy Lee Bayliss. Panthers were Florida’s most famous endangered species, and public sightings attracted lots of attention. If some overeager wildlife officer decided that Red Diamond’s drilling activities were disturbing panther habitat, the whole project could be delayed or even shut down.
The helicopter pilot made one more pass over the scene of the fire. Gazing down at the scorched grass and trees, Drake McBride slurped his coffee and said, “Well, it’s the dry season.”
Jimmy Lee Bayliss wasn’t sure if his boss was trying to be funny.
“Just go on doin’ what you’ve been doin’,” Drake McBride told him, “and get us ready to rock-and-roll.” “Yes, sir.”
“And don’t forget—”
“I know,” Jimmy Lee Bayliss said. “Keep a low profile.” “Lower than a rattlesnake’s belly,” said Drake McBride.
Nick and his mother arrived home from Washington, D.C., on Sunday night. He got up early the next morning to get his arm taped.
When he asked his mother for help, she looked doubtfully at the Ace bandage and said, “What are the other kids going to say?”
“I don’t really care,” said Nick. “I want to go through the same thing as Dad.”
“He won’t be home for a while.”
“I need to get a head start.”
“Nicky, please.”
“Just wrap me up, Mom.”
As usual, Marta sat next to him on the school bus. She asked what had happened to his right arm, which was bound tightly behind his back, beneath his shirt. The right sleeve of his blue school blazer hung limp.
Nick said, “From now on, I’m doing everything lefthanded.”
“Writing, too? What about baseball and lacrosse?”
“Everything.”
Marta arched an eyebrow. “And there’s nothing wrong with your other arm?”
“Nope.”
“That’s really whacked, Nick. That’s, like, making fun of crippled people.”
His cheeks flushed. “No, just the opposite,” he said sharply. “My dad got hurt real bad by a rocket in Iraq. He lost his right arm all the way past the shoulder.”
Marta gasped softly. “God, I am so sorry. Is he gonna be all right?”
Nick nodded tightly. “But he’ll be a lefty the rest of his life.”
“So that’s why you’re switching.” Marta smiled and pinched the empty sleeve of his jacket. “Pretty cool.”
“Whatever.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “When’s he coming home?”
“Pretty soon, I hope.” Nick told her about the trip that he and his mother had made to the Walter Reed military hospital. “That’s why I wasn’t in school Thursday and Friday.”
Marta said, “Nobody told us. I thought you had the flu.”
“I wish,” he said glumly, and stayed quiet for the rest of the ride to Truman.
His first class of the day was English. The teacher, Mr. Grunwald, was giving a lecture about a famous short story called “The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane. Nick had finished reading it on the flight home from Washington.
When he tried to get his binder out of his book bag, the zipper on the book pocket got stuck. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if Nick’s right arm hadn’t been strapped behind him, but his weaker left hand couldn’t loosen the zipper by itself. Every time he jerked on it, the backpack rose off the floor and he lost his leverage.
Mickey Maris, who was behind him, saw what was happening and reached over to help. Nick waved him away. With grim determination he planted both his feet on top of the backpack to hold it in place. Then he yanked with all his might on the zipper hitch, which instantly snapped off in his fingers.
Nick grumbled under his breath. He tugged the book bag onto his lap and, using the tip of a ballpoint pen, separated the teeth of the broken zipper to open the stubborn book pocket. He removed the English binder, slapped it open on his desk, carefully positioned the pen in his left hand, and prepared to take notes.
“This famous tale of a shipwrecked crew,” Mr. Grunwald began, “was based on a true episode in the young author’s life.”
Writing left-handed felt weird, like having a crab claw on the end of his arm. Nick tried hard to guide the pen smoothly. He was trying to spell out the words “based on a true story,” but on paper the line came out looking like blue worm tracks—and a dizzy worm at that.
Mickey Maris, who’d been peeking over Nick’s shoulder, whispered, “It’s okay, dude. You can borrow my notes and scan a copy after school.”
Nick firmly shook his head. “Thanks anyway.” He wasn’t about to give up so easily.
By the end of the period, the letters he was stringing to gether with such difficulty actually began to resemble those in the English language. The next class was algebra, and its quirky formulas presented a different kind of challenge. Happily, Nick found the numerals and symbols easier to
master with an untrained hand than the alphabet.
By the time he got to biology, his left arm throbbed and his fingers were cramping. A substitute teacher stood writing on the board, his back to the students.
“Still no Mrs. Starch?” Nick whispered to Marta.
“She took a leave of absence—you believe that?” Marta said. “Dr. Dressler made an announcement on Friday.”
Strange, Nick thought. “Did he say why?”
“ ‘Family emergency,’ whatever that means.” Marta’s cell phone began to vibrate and she turned it off. “He did say that the old witch would be coming back, unfortunately.”
Nick wrestled the biology book out of his backpack. “What about Smoke?” he asked.
“Nobody’s seen him. He must’ve quit school, or else Dressler kicked him out,” Marta said. “Either way, no great loss.”
“Maybe he got busted for setting the fire.”
“Libby says no. Her dad’s assigned to the case, so she would’ve heard about it,” Marta said. “Hey, how’s the arm feel, Lefty?”
“Excellent,” Nick lied.
The substitute was spelling out his name in large block letters: DR. WENDELL WAXMO.
Marta inhaled through her teeth. “No way!”
“Not him,” Nick murmured.
Wendell Waxmo was a legendary wacko. Nick and Marta had never had him as a teacher, but they’d heard all about him. Everybody had.
Because of his peculiar behavior, Wendell Waxmo had been banned long ago from the public school system. However, since private schools such as Truman were usually desperate for substitutes, Wendell Waxmo still got the occasional call.
The students let out a collective giggle when he turned to face them. Wendell Waxmo was wearing a faded black tuxedo with a bright yellow bow tie.
“All right, you little termites, what’s so bloody funny?” he asked in a squeaky, brittle voice that was impossible to take seriously. He looked half as tall and twice as wide as Mrs. Starch, and his wispy red hair was arranged in a failed attempt to cover a bald spot the size of a dinner platter.
“Now please rise and sing the Pledge of Allegiance,” he said.
The students glanced at each other uncertainly. Nobody stood up. When Graham raised his hand, Wendell Waxmo called on him with an impatient snap of the fingers.