He was glad his business with Doc was all over. His only problem now was getting up enough gator skins for Moody to keep gas in his boat and buy the supplies he needed to get by. He looked into the boat and frowned at the thick brown bloodstain on the rear seat and on the floor just in front of the seat, where Doc had leaked out. He’d clean it up later.
He was enjoying the steady breeze and the overcast when he heard the unmistakable sound of a boat, a good distance off yet, but definitely coming in his direction. It wouldn’t be a fisherman or trapper passing by, because the only channel into the area ended not far from Leland’s cut-through, and most everybody knew to stay out of his territory.
As the boat drew closer, the sound of the motors grew louder. A flock of disturbed blackbirds rose into the sky approximately where the channel formed a Y, the left fork heading for the mouth of his inlet. Any boat coming in would effectively block him in. Leland went into his cabin in order to prepare a proper welcome if that boat happened to contain trespassers.
80
Alexa thought the swamp both surreal and eerily beautiful. Above them, pelicans, egrets, cranes, and other birds of unknown denominations flew north below the clouds. Deputy Kip Boudreaux explained that the birds felt the drop in pressure and knew that their normal habitat was going to be inhospitable in a few hours, and they were leaving. He commented that it was too bad the people living around here weren’t a tenth as smart as birds.
Alexa sat beside Manseur on the bench in front of the console where Boudreaux, a pleasant young man wearing aviator sunglasses and a baseball cap, stood piloting the boat. Manseur had his windbreaker positioned like a photographer’s hood, shielding the laptop’s screen from the daylight so he could see it. As he pointed to the position of the blinking dot, Boudreaux translated the direction into turns.
It seemed to Alexa they had traveled miles into the maze of narrow waterways. Tall reeds, bushes, small trees, weeds, and grasses lined the banks. Often the channel they were using would open into a large body of water, usually with several possible channel exits to choose from. She saw cranes with their skinny legs in the water, turtles sliding off logs, and alligators slipping from the banks into the water, spooked by the intruding vessel.
Before they’d left the launch, Boudreaux told her that he had heard stories about Leland Ticholet and his moonshiner daddy for years, but he wasn’t sure exactly where the Ticholet fishing camp was located, or even if it was still standing. The swamp, he explained, tended to lay claim to any building left uninhabited for long.
They passed by several small cabins built on poles, on floats, or constructed on barges. The deeper into the swamp they went, the fewer they saw, but more of the ones they did see were abandoned and in some progressive state of ruin.
Alexa wasn’t accustomed to speedboats. The fast turns and tight banks made her feel like the boat would keep sliding sideways and end up on dry land, but she did her best to lean against the turns and tried not to close her eyes when she became alarmed. She had no choice but to trust that Deputy Boudreaux knew the limits of his craft, and would not lose control of it or slam it into a submerged log. Although the confident deputy seemed to know the lanes, Alexa couldn’t imagine how anyone could differentiate one of the waterways from another.
“The Ticholets are barn-burners from way back,” the deputy told them. Alexa knew the expression meant that they got even with people for slights. “Leland’s grandfather was executed for murdering another fisherman in a bar, then Leland’s daddy was killed in a shootout with his common-law wife about ten, twelve years ago. Hell, they shot at each other all the time. That particular fight lasted all morning, and she got hit several times before she put a fatal round into his heart. She lost her left hand and a leg below the knee. I see her some, riding around town in her scooter chair. Her place got burned to the waterline, and she claimed Leland did that. He was fifteen or sixteen at the time.
“I was in on arresting Leland a couple years back. He thinks and acts like a wild animal, in most respects. You sure can’t reason with him. He isn’t exactly stupid, just primitive.”
Alexa, sitting with the Mossberg in her lap, found herself wishing they had brought along more manpower. She looked down, taking in the absurdity of Manseur’s rolled-up suit pants, his exposed ankles sheathed in thin nylon dress socks, and the wingtips on his small feet. This Ticholet was a wanted fugitive fleeing from an assault and abduction, kidnapping, and if Tinsdale had died from Casey’s bullets, a murder. And it sounded like he was a volatile and dangerous man under normal circumstances. She knew Manseur was a good detective, but she wasn’t all that confident that the group in the boat constituted a SWAT team.
Alexa was an adequate handgun shot, but her shooting experience was on a range, punching holes in paper. She didn’t know, but she hoped Kennedy and Bond were more experienced than she was. Sure, they were hunters, but deer didn’t return fire. Boudreaux was an unknown element, because a sheriff’s deputy might not have adequate training, or even could be with the department simply because a cousin was the sheriff. In Alexa’s mind, they were all just investigators.
Leland Ticholet was completely at home in this inhospitable world, and she and the others were just passing through it.
Well, hopefully just passing through.
81
Deputy Boudreaux cut back his boat’s motors as soon as Manseur’s receiver registered that the tracker’s location was within a few hundred yards, and they started looking for the channel that they thought would lead them to the briefcase’s present location. Bond had dropped one of the floating markers at the last turn. Although nobody said so, it would allow any one of them to pilot the boat back out if Boudreaux wasn’t able to navigate. It was always good to be practical.
A waving wall of cattails extended between two fingers of ground, breaking the water like quills. There was a wide-enough gap in the reeds to allow a boat to pass through. The deputy pulled to the bank and Bond and Kennedy climbed from the boat, their boots disappearing in the muck. They made their way slowly in the direction of the tracker, rifles slung on their backs.
As Boudreaux began to move the vessel, Alexa caught sight of a tin roof visible above a line of reeds. He cut the wheel hard to the left and gunned it, plunging into an inlet protected by a V of land covered with bushes, trees, and waist-high foliage. The listing cabin was hemmed into the back corner by a floating wood dock that was grounded on either side. A boat was tied to the dock, just to the left of the cabin.
Manseur had put on his windbreaker and stood at the bow, with the shotgun at port arms. Alexa scanned the area, watching for movement.
The small structure, with corrugated metal walls, was listing about ten degrees. The steel pontoons beneath it-which may have once been LP gas tanks-were rusting, and the one on the low side was three-quarters submerged. The edge of the roof was peeled up like some giant had lifted the corner to peer inside. It rose and fell with the breeze.
A large fish broke the choppy surface beside the boat, startling Alexa. She racked a shell into the chamber of her shotgun and fed another double-ought round into the gate at the bottom of the receiver. Alexa had never killed anyone, but if Leland Ticholet or Andy Tinsdale made it necessary, she would kill either of them, and she would do so without hesitation.
The deputy pulled back the power lever and allowed his boat to drift toward the cabin. When it was almost to the pier, Alexa and Manseur jumped onto it. With shotguns aimed at the building, they moved toward the door. As she passed Leland’s boat, Alexa saw dried blood in the stern. She stepped over the carcasses of four skinless animals. Flies swarmed above their wet skins lying side by side on the weathered wood planks.
“Leland Ticholet! Police!” Manseur yelled out. “Come out with your hands up!” His command was answered only with the sounds of insects in the trees, a fish breaking the surface of the water.
Under the porch roof, chicken-wire crab traps served as tables for jugs with thick monofilament line wrapped
