“What are you, Sherlock Holmes?”
Another mile went by.
“These are really hurting my wrists.” The woman shifted in her seat, arching her back to relieve the pressure of the handcuffs behind her. Marlin tried not to notice the way her breasts strained against the front of her turtleneck. He hadn’t wanted to cuff her, but after the coffee, he’d wanted to make sure she was restrained, at least until he had a bead on her companion, Mr. Scruffy. That guy had turned out to be the placid one, merely sneering-apparently a trademark of his-while Marlin read the woman, one Inga Karin Mueller from Minnesota, her rights.
Marlin pulled to the shoulder of the highway and put the cruiser in neutral. He held the handcuff key up for Inga to see. “Gonna behave?”
She snorted and rolled her eyes.
Marlin started to put the key back on his belt.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Can’t you take a joke?”
She twisted toward the window and Marlin removed the cuffs. She rubbed her wrists as Marlin pulled the cruiser back onto the road.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No problem.”
They crossed over Miller Creek, which was barely more than a slow-moving mud puddle despite last night’s brief rain.
“What’s the deal with your friend, anyway? Did he take a mail-order course on the fine art of sneering?”
Inga laughed. “Oh, that’s just Tommy. Not a real happy guy, but he’s pretty harmless.”
Marlin wasn’t sure he agreed. Thomas Collin Peabody had been arrested three times for destruction of property and twice for trespassing. A typical rap sheet for an aggressive activist. Unfortunately, when Marlin had radioed him in, there were no warrants. He had to watch the mousy little guy get back in the Volvo and drive away.
“He’s a very intelligent man, actually,” Inga continued. “Has a bunch of degrees. Philosophy. Government. History. Went to Harvard for about a zillion years. And now he wants me to marry him.” She gave Marlin a sidelong glance, but he just nodded.
“So you’re not going to share your secret with me,” Marlin said, “tell me why you wanted to get busted?”
Inga gave him a hard stare for several seconds, as if sizing him up. Finally, she said, “Unlike some people, I love nature. When I see people shooting animals, dumping sewage in creeks, destroying forests, I do something about it.”
Marlin was tempted to chastise her for putting hunting in the same league with polluting and deforestation, but he held his tongue.
She went on: “When I see a guy like Rodney Bauer blasting away at beautiful, defenseless birds, it just makes me so angry-” She shook her head in frustration.
He gave her a few moments to continue, but she stared out the window at the passing countryside instead.
Marlin said, “Surely you didn’t drive two thousand miles to get Rodney Bauer all hot and bothered and then vandalize his truck.” He was hoping to make her grin, but had no luck. He was certain she had a wonderful smile.
“Nope. We drove down here for a different reason entirely.”
“And that would be-?”
She paused, seeming reluctant to let Marlin into her confidence. But he must have passed some sort of test. “Let me ask you something. Have you ever heard of the red-necked sapsucker?”
The sapsucker again.
“Sure,” Marlin replied. “Endangered species.”
“And obviously you know about all the brush-clearing that’s going on around here. But I don’t think most people even realize the effect it’s having, that they’re wiping out the last of a species. If all the cedars are removed, that’s it, end of story, the red-necked sapsucker is gone. I’m here to change that.”
“Meaning what?” Marlin had already admitted to himself that he liked the woman, despite the coffee stain on his chest. But if she was going to get out of hand, he knew he’d have to do something about it.
“I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure everyone knows exactly what they’re doing. I just can’t believe that these ranchers will continue clearing land if they know they’re removing an animal from the face of the Earth forever.”
Thinking of Thomas Peabody, Marlin said, “Maybe you know birds better than you know men.” Marlin hadn’t meant it as an insult, but the woman got red in the face. Marlin could tell that Inga had a temper.
“Oh, I see. You probably agree with them, right? That they can do whatever is best for man regardless of the consequences. Just cut all the trees down, who the hell cares. What’s one less bird, anyway?”
Marlin let her finish, then handed her a copy of the
Inga read it through, then looked at Marlin sheepishly. “Sorry. Guess you’re not one of the bad guys. My mistake.” Marlin decided now was not the time to mention that he was an avid hunter. That would surely set off some fireworks. “Guess this Susannah Branson has the hots for you, huh?” Inga said in a teasing voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, God, it’s obvious. Listen to her opening line: ‘Beneath John Marlin’s rugged good looks lies the sensitive soul of a nature lover.’ See that? She managed to get ‘Beneath John Marlin,’ ‘rugged good looks,’ and ‘lover’ all in one sentence. The woman is shameless.”
Marlin started to speak, but couldn’t come up with anything, just sat there with his mouth open. Inga responded with an impish smile. He saw that his guess was correct; it was a wonderful smile.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At four o’clock on Monday afternoon, a tall, muscular young man with a purple birthmark on his neck walked into the Save-Mart two miles north of Johnson City. He was browsing in the Lawn amp; Garden section when a clerk approached him.
“Can I help you find anything, sir?”
“Yeah, I need a shitload of rat poison,” the young man said with a pronounced East Coast accent.
An elderly woman in the same aisle gave the young man a glare and scurried away with her shopping cart.
“Well, let’s see…if you’ll follow me, I believe that’s in the next aisle over. How much do you need, exactly?”
“Enough to kill a small army of those fuckers. We got rats everywhere.”
“Indoors or out?”
The young man shrugged. “Some in, some out. What’s the diff?”
The clerk picked up a yellow box and read the label. “It’s just that some of these poisons are pretty strong, so you have to make sure other animals don’t get to it. Yeah, like right here, it says to keep it away from pets and livestock.”
“What, so, a cow could accidentally eat that stuff and croak?”
“I believe so, sir. You have to be very careful.”
“Gimme a box of that, then. That should do the trick.”
“I’m sure it will. Anything else I can help you with?”
