I’d been caught staring at Richards’ legs.
This time it was busier. A long folding table had been brought in and was stacked with new phones and laptop computers and half-empty Styrofoam cups. Three young men wearing the same careful haircuts and cinched ties were working the phones, all of them standing but bent to the task of typing in notes. Diaz gave the secretary outside the high sign and she picked up her own phone. None of the federal agents looked at us when she signaled back and we went into Hammonds’ office.
This time the government had made no attempt to cover its encroachment into Hammonds’ space. In front of his bookcases was a South Florida map showing the vast Everglades and the color-coded counties and municipalities along the east coast. There were plastic pushpins jammed into the map board in a variety of places. The red ones I recognized as the spots were the first four bodies had been found. There was one stuck in my river. There was also a yellow pin downstream at the location of my shack. Along one wall the office furniture had been shoved out of the way and the space was now occupied by a table with two laptops, an exterior modem, a zip drive and a spaghetti pile of wire dripping down the back. Hammonds still had his chair, but I could tell that even that was in jeopardy.
Two FBI types were in the room, gathering up files, logging off one of the computers and looking unusually put out for FBI types. Hammonds sat behind his now cluttered desk, his fingers steepled, waiting. Richards was also there, half sitting, half leaning on the edge of the computer table. She was again dressed in a business suit of light gray material with a white blouse that had a prim, close collar. She had her legs crossed at the ankle and I noticed a thin gold bracelet there. I moved my eyes to the floor until the government boys were gone, then looked up at Hammonds when the door clicked shut. His eyes were closed.
“Let’s be up front, Mr. Freeman,” he started, his voice trying to reach a tone of authority that he was maybe beginning to lose. “You may not have been much of a cop in Philadelphia, according to your record, but you’re smart enough to know the drill.”
I silently agreed on both points.
“Proximity made you a suspect in the Gainey child’s homicide. We never found anyone near the others. Your psychologicals from Philadelphia made you as unstable. There was the shooting incident up there with the minor involved.”
I had to force myself to stay locked onto his eyes, which were now open and painful-looking in their swollen tiredness.
“When you came across with the GPS and the canoe tag we tried to reassess. Your input the other night at the scene was an acquiescence.” He pushed himself away from the desk and crossed his arms over his chest.
“But dammit, Freeman. Your name keeps coming up in this godforsaken mess and I do not like that coincidence.”
So I was wrong about the voice of authority.
“What do you want to know?” I said. If they were actually going to lay their cards out, it was probably time for both of us to play straight.
“How do you know this Rory Sims?”
I told them about the Loop Road meeting, arranged by Gunther, whom they had obviously interviewed at the hospital after the plane crash.
“You must have asked Gunther enough questions about me to make them assume I was trustworthy, in a suspect sort of way,” I said.
“Loop Road’s a tough place to have conversations for an outsider,” Diaz cut in from behind. “We never get shit out there but nasty looks and Cracker drawl.”
I didn’t bother looking around.
“Who was at this meeting?” Hammonds resumed.
I gave them the names.
“Blackman we know about,” Richards finally said. “He’s a disgruntled guide who has a few minors, mostly tiffs with clients. But he’s never been vocal or threatening to residents that we know of. But you actually talked with Nate Brown?”
The amazement in her voice made me turn around. For the first time she looked at me as if I was a human being instead of somebody in a lineup.
“Yeah,” I said. “Crusty old guy who didn’t say much but was obviously the man behind the meeting.”
Richards filled in the others on Brown’s criminal and military history, adding that he had been suspected by the DEA for using his knowledge