By now Jimmy Lee Bayliss had steadied himself. As he examined the photograph of Duane Scrod Jr., an idea took root in his mind.
“He got into a hassle with one of his teachers,” the fire investigator went on. “The next day there was a school field trip to the swamp, but our boy Duane didn’t show up for the bus. We’re trying to find out if he snuck out here and set the fire.”
“As payback, you mean,” Jimmy Lee Bayliss said.
“That’s the theory,” said Torkelsen. “Apparently this kid is somebody you definitely don’t want to piss off.”
Jimmy Lee Bayliss beheld the photo of the student as if it were a gift from the heavens: a real arsonist was exactly what he needed now.
Never had Jimmy Lee Bayliss expected anyone to figure out that the blaze at the Black Vine Swamp was intentional, because he’d worked so hard to make it look like a wildfire.
The purpose was to scare off the kids on that field trip before one of them blundered into Section 22 and spotted Red Diamond’s mud pit and drilling equipment. The students were never in serious danger, in Jimmy Lee Bayliss’s view. It was a controlled burn, with a dirt berm and a watery slough providing a barrier between the flames and the hikers.
A whiff or two of smoke had done the trick; the teachers had lined up the kids and filed out of the swamp in less than ten minutes. Jimmy Lee Bayliss had watched through his binoculars, a red bandanna covering his mouth and nose.
Afterward he’d stayed until the fire burned itself out, and then he cleared the scene of all evidence—or so he’d believed. He was furious at himself for having dropped that stupid ballpoint pen while setting the fire. How could he have been so careless? Drake McBride would blow a gasket if he found out.
“You’re sure it was arson?” Jimmy Lee Bayliss asked Torkelsen.
“We found a suspicious line of flash marks in the under-brush,” the investigator said.
Jimmy Lee Bayliss was glad that he’d taken the trouble to throw his butane torch into a canal along Route 29 on the way home that night. As a result, the only direct evidence linking him to the arson was now rusting in thirty feet of muddy, alligator-infested water.
The best news of all, however, was that the fire department had zeroed in on a suspect other than Jimmy Lee Bayliss. This Scrod boy was obviously a bad egg—maybe he was the one who’d attacked poor Melton, thought Jimmy Lee Bayliss. Getting a goon like that off the streets would be a public service.
“Well, what do you think?” Torkelsen nodded toward the photograph in the oilman’s hand, which was now barely shaking at all. “Ever seen that young man hanging around out here?”
“I believe I have,” Jimmy Lee Bayliss said, furrowing his brow in fake concentration. “Matter of fact, I’m sure of it.”
THIRTEEN
Nick spent most of the teacher work day exercising his free arm, washing his mother’s car, and helping her scrub the oven. Luckily, she didn’t ask how he and Marta liked the movie that they never went to see. Later Nick rode his bike to the public library and checked out a book by Edward Abbey, the writer mentioned by the stranger who’d caught Nick and Marta inside Mrs. Starch’s house.
The afternoon was sunny but cool, so Nick practiced pitching left-handed into a net until dark. His arm felt like cement by the time he went to bed. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep after reading only a few pages of the book, which was called The Monkey Wrench Gang.
He woke up early the next morning and called the army hospital in Washington, D.C. He was eager to know if the infection in his dad’s injured shoulder had gotten better. A nurse who answered the phone in the hospital room told Nick that Capt. Gregory Waters was gone, but said she wasn’t allowed to give out any other information.
Nick immediately tried to reach his mom at work, with no luck. Deep in worry, he sat by himself on the bus to Truman, barely mumbling hello to Marta and his other friends.
All morning Nick remained so preoccupied that he was unable to focus on his schoolwork, including the topic of “punctuated equilibrium.” That was the featured term on page 329 of Nick’s biology book, and on Thursdays Dr. Wendell Waxmo always taught page 329, and only page 329.
Punctuated equilibriums had something to do with how animal species change over time, but even Libby Marshall was having difficulty explaining it. Wendell Waxmo scanned the room for a fresh target and called not once but three times on Nick, who was in a fog.
“All right, Mr. Waters, stand up,” Wendell Waxmo barked finally, “and sing along with me.”
Jarred into alertness, Nick was too mortified to move.
“Even with one arm tied behind your back, I’ll bet you can carry a swell tune,” said Wendell Waxmo.
“No, I can’t. Honest.”
“ ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’?”
“I don’t know all the words to that one. Sorry,” Nick said. The whole class was watching him except for Smoke, whose nose was buried in his textbook.
“ ‘White Christmas’?” the crazy substitute said. “For heaven’s sake, every human over the age of three knows ‘White Christmas’ by heart.”
“Please don’t make me sing. Not today.”
Nick had the strange sensation of physically shrinking at his desk, growing smaller with each agonizing moment. He thought: If only I could make myself disappear …
“Well?” said Wendell Waxmo.
“I just can’t do it.”
“And why not, Mr. Waters?”
“Because … I just … I …”
“Because why?”
“Because he’s not in the mood!” It was Marta, shooting to her feet. The other students sat stunned and gaping.
Even Wendell Waxmo was briefly flustered. He fiddled with his bow tie—today’s color selection was lime green—before collecting his wits and boring in on Marta.
“Miss Gonzalez, it’s nice to have you participating, finally, in a class discussion. Would you mind telling us how you happen to know that Mr. Waters isn’t in the mood for singing?”
Marta glanced sideways at Nick, who nodded for her to sit down. He appreciated what she was trying to do—spare him from an incredibly awkward moment—but he didn’t want her to get in trouble.
“I’m waiting, Miss Gonzalez.” Wendell Waxmo brushed at the lapels of his tattered old tuxedo. “Kindly tell us why your friend doesn’t feel like belting out a song.”
“Because his father got blown up in Iraq,” Marta said quietly, “and nearly died. So leave him alone, okay? Just leave him alone.”
Wendell Waxmo looked as if a bowling ball had been dropped on his toes. His mouth froze in the shape of an “O,” and the sound that emerged was a long faint hiss, like a tire going flat.
Nick didn’t know what to do. Most of the kids were looking at him with expressions of sympathy and sorrow; even Smoke had closed his book and was studying Nick from across the room.
Marta sat down, her eyes glistening with tears. She scribbled a note and thrust it at Nick: I want Mrs. Starch to come back!
Gradually the color returned to Wendell Waxmo’s face, and he cleared his throat much too loudly and moistly. Once again he’d been upstaged in his own class, only this time the circumstances didn’t allow for a witty retort.
“Mr. Waters, our sincere prayers are with your father, and your family. War is a tragic event,” the substitute said, “but life does go on. So, people, please return your attention to page 329 and the theory of punctuated equilibrium.”
Nick raised his left hand.
“Yes, Mr. Waters?”
“My dad’s going to be okay,” Nick declared in a strong voice. “The doctors say he’ll be fine.”
Wendell Waxmo hoped the boy’s upbeat attitude would energize the rest of the class. “What good news!” he said. “I think that calls for a round of applause!”
The students stared at the man as if his pants had fallen down. Wendell Waxmo looked at the clock on the wall: nine long minutes until the bell.
“One piece of
unfinished business,” he said briskly. From his battered briefcase he removed the essay written by Duane Scrod Jr., upon which the brutal grade of D+ had been scrawled supersized with a bright red marker. It was painfully visible to all members of the class, even those in the back row.
Wendell Waxmo waved the paper in Smoke’s face and said, “Pimples indeed, Mr. Scrod.” The essay was covered with crimson slashes, circles, and scribbles.
“It wasn’t even my idea,” the boy said. “Mrs. Starch is the one who made me write it.”
“Well, she’s not here, is she?”
“But how’d I mess up so bad?”
“In a word: scholarship, or lack thereof. I’m going to leave this disaster in Mrs. Starch’s desk so she can see for herself.” Wendell Waxmo returned to the front of the class and placed the pimple paper in Mrs. Starch’s top drawer.
The other students remained silent, but the mood was definitely hostile. Nick saw Marta trying to write another note, the veins in her neck pulsing with anger. Finally she crumpled it and mouthed the words “I hate him!”
Nick, too, felt bad for Smoke, who seemed floored by the D+ grade. Crazy Dr. Waxmo should have waited until after the bell to return the essay instead of embarrassing the kid in front of everybody.
Smoke raised his hand.
Wendell Waxmo called on Graham, who wasn’t expecting it. “Mr. Carson, tell the class how punctuated equilibrium relates to the concept of speciation.”
Graham stood up and confidently gave a totally wrong answer, as usual.
Smoke raised his hand higher. Wendell Waxmo looked the other way and called on Mickey Maris.
Nick couldn’t stand it. He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Duane has a question, Dr. Waxmo.”
“What?” The substitute wheeled around and speared Nick with a glare. “Are you interrupting me, Mr. Waters?”
Nick gestured toward Smoke. “Duane’s had his hand up.”
“I’m not blind, am I?”
“No, sir.”
“Whatever Duane wants to ask can wait, I’m sure.”
Nick said, “That’s not right.”
“Yeah, answer his question,” said Marta.
Wendell Waxmo’s ears turned pink and his bald spot began to tingle and his tuxedo shirt began to itch. What had gotten into these kids? It was unbelievable!
He banged a pudgy fist on the desk and said, “Quiet, you little termites—”
At that moment there was a firm rap on the door, and Dr. Dressler entered the room. He pointed at Nick and said, “Mr. Waters, I need to see you in my office. Right away.”
Twilly Spree had been born in Key West thirty-four years before the Red Diamond Energy Corporation came probing around the Big Cypress. Twilly’s father was a gung-ho real estate salesman; his mother grew bonsai trees and wrote a dreadful romance novel that she published under the pseudonym Rosalee DuPont.
When Twilly was eighteen, his grandfather had died suddenly, leaving the young man a generous inheritance of $5 million. Twilly had invested wisely and was now wealthy enough to buy his own private jet, if he wanted one.
He didn’t. He seldom left the state of Florida, a place that he loved, a place that was breaking his heart because it was disappearing before his very eyes.
Twilly Spree had good intentions but a rotten temper, which occasionally got him into hot water. He didn’t like high-rise buildings and freeways and ugly housing subdivisions named after nonexistent otters or eagles. He didn’t like concrete and asphalt, period, and he especially didn’t like the people who were burying the wilderness under concrete and asphalt.
And although he gave away thousands of dollars to conservation groups, Twilly Spree sometimes got personally involved in the causes in which he believed—too personally involved. One time Twilly witnessed a driver tossing hamburger wrappers from a car, and he followed the man a hundred and three miles down the turnpike, all the way to Fort Lauderdale. That night, the litterbug was flabbergasted to find four tons of raw garbage on top of his red BMW convertible. Twilly, watching from the top of a pine tree, wasn’t the least bit ashamed of himself.
While he could easily afford to book penthouse suites at the finest hotels, Twilly preferred a pup tent under the stars. For a month or so, he’d been camping east of Naples, in a marvelous cypress strand known as the Black Vine Swamp.
On the day of the fire, Twilly had been deep inside the tree line, observing a group of school students on a nature hike. An unexpected turn of events had prevented him from chasing down the arsonist at the time, though Twilly was confident he would eventually catch the culprit.
The helicopter now circling above the swamp didn’t concern Twilly, because his campsite was so well concealed that it could not be seen from the air. He was aware that the chopper was leased to the Red Diamond Energy Corporation, and that Red Diamond was preparing to drill for oil in the wetlands. Twilly did not approve.
As a first warning, Twilly had captured one of Red Diamond’s workers, stripped off the man’s clothes, and then glued him to a tree trunk. The fellow had not been harmed, but he’d been made to feel extremely unwelcome. The iron pipes that he had been unloading were already on a freighter bound for Haiti, where they would bring much-needed water to the vegetable fields of poor farmers. Twilly had the funds and the connections to make such miracles happen.
After the glue incident and the pipe disappearance, Twilly had expected Red Diamond to beef up security. There fore the appearance of the helicopter was no surprise. As soon as the aircraft flew away, Twilly slipped out of the trees and made his way across a grass prairie until he reached the precise longitude and latitude of a way point that was logged on his handheld GPS. There he sat down cross-legged and amused himself by watching a line of bull ants carry off a dead cricket.
Within minutes a different helicopter flew in from the south and stopped to hover directly above Twilly, the backwash from the rotors disrupting the ant parade and making the soft grass dance and flutter crazily.
It was a helicopter paid for by Twilly himself. He waved to the pilot, who opened the door and pushed out a bundle that landed with a damp thud ten yards from where Twilly waited.
With a pocket knife, he sliced open the thick outer binding and pried off the slatted lid to make sure that the important contents of the package weren’t damaged. Inside, he counted two dozen small plastic bottles, each filled with a whitish liquid. The bottles had been packed on a bed of dry ice, to keep them cold.
Twilly Spree smiled and thought: Hope springs eternal.
He flashed an “okay” sign to the pilot and the helicopter buzzed off, leaving the prairie silent in the slanted morning light.
Nick didn’t want to hear bad news about his father from Dr. Dressler, who was practically a stranger, but why else would the headmaster have pulled him out of class?
Dr. Dressler didn’t say a word as they walked to the administration building. Nick felt like turning around and running away as fast as he could. If his whole life was about to fall apart, he wanted to be at home when it happened. He wondered if his mom had already been notified. If so, where was she? And who was there to comfort her?
“Have a chair, please,” the headmaster said when they got to his office.
Nick needed to sit down. The room seemed to be spinning, and Dr. Dressler sounded as if he were speaking into a bucket.
“Can I call my mother?” Nick asked.
“Why?”
“Oh. So she already knows.”
Dr. Dressler looked puzzled. “Knows what?”
Nick had never fainted, but he was pretty sure that he was going to keel over any second. With his free hand, he clutched the arm of the chair to keep himself upright. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that the room would stop moving.
Is my dad dead? He couldn’t make himself ask the question. He was too afraid.
“Are you all right?” the headmaster asked.
“No, sir, not really.”
“Is your arm bothe
ring you?”
Nick said, “There’s nothing wrong with my arm. I strapped it up this way because I’m training to be lefthanded.”
“That’s an interesting project.” Dr. Dressler was trying to sound supportive, which didn’t make Nick feel any better.
“Still, you look pale,” the headmaster said. “Let me call the nurse—”
“Please don’t. I’ll be okay.” When Nick opened his eyes, he saw that Dr. Dressler was holding an envelope.
“This came to the school, Nick, addressed to you.”
“From who?”
“Read it closely. Then I have some questions,” Dr. Dressler said.
When Nick took the envelope, he saw that somebody already had opened it. That’s not cool, he thought angrily. What if the letter was personal?
Sensing that Nick was miffed, the headmaster said, “It’s just a precaution. We have to make sure that undesirable persons aren’t trying to contact our students on campus.”
“So you read my letter?”
“We’re just being careful, Nick. As you can see, there’s no return address.”
That was the first thing Nick had noticed, too, and with huge relief. He was sure that the Army National Guard wouldn’t send a death notice in an unmarked envelope, especially a lavender-colored envelope. He unfolded the letter:
Dear Mr. Waters,
I’ve learned that you and Miss Gonzalez have taken a strong interest in my health and well-being. Let me assure you that I am just fine, and I intend to return to my teaching duties at the Truman School as soon as possible.
You and Miss Gonzalez are the only students to express any concern for me, and I’m grateful for that. However, I must firmly ask you not to probe any further into my personal affairs or to visit my home without a proper invitation.
Instead, both of you should focus on your academic studies (which, as I recall, could stand some improvement).
Sincerely, Mrs. Starch
The message had been typed on stationery bearing Mrs. Starch’s name. If it was fake, Nick thought, the imposter had done an excellent job of imitating Mrs. Starch’s stern tone. In any case, Nick was overjoyed that the letter had nothing to do with his father’s medical condition.