out, I followed. “There’d been a lot of talk since the child killings started. Some of it working off the same whiskey-inspired threats that had gone on for years about stopping the western flow of the suburbs,” Sims said as he opened the back doors of the van and hauled out the ice chest.
“It was crude stuff at first. Like ‘It’s about time’ and ‘More power to ’em.’ But then the investigators and agents started questioning people at their camps and ranches and folks started getting nervous.”
He set the chest down in the dust about ten yards away and came back to the van. I watched the lid like it was going to pop open like some jack-in-the-box.
“They would have loved to have an outsider like you get blamed. But then we heard about you and Gunther. And as far as I know, it was Gunther who said you’d been in law enforcement up north. That’s when Nate Brown decided we ought to talk to you ourselves.”
I watched as Sims reached into the van and pulled out a golf club. A putter I thought at first. Then I looked closer at the head and saw that the shaft had been sheared off and the end had been bent to form a hook.
He walked back to the cooler, and using the hook, flipped open the lid. I could hear a bone rattle echoing inside. The snake had warmed up. Sims stepped closer and probed in the cooler for a few seconds and then lifted the rattler out. Its body was cupped on the hook about one-third of the way down its length. The tail was curling and twisting in the air with a motion independent of the head, which stuck out straight as a stick from Sims’ club.
With the animal dangling, he walked it closer to the edge of the road. The embankment dropped several feet down into the water weeds and mangroves. When he set it down, the snake curled into an immediate coil and the rattle intensified.
“He’ll probably just set there awhile until the sun warms him up,” Sims said, standing far too close to the beast if its strike range really was the ten feet that I’d read about. “This is about the spot that we found him a couple of days ago. So we’re just hoping he’s close to home.”
We stood watching the snake’s tongue flick the air and listened to the click of the rattles. Finally, it began to unwrap itself. We watched as it then slid softly into the grass and down the embankment. First the body disappeared, and then the rattling sound went quiet. I stood behind Sims as he walked over and peered over the edge.
“Gone,” he said, and then turned to me. “I still don’t know why they had any interest in the snake venom.”
I was still looking into the grasses and mangroves, a bit amazed at how quickly the animal had simply disappeared.
“The first dead child,” I said. “Died from an injection of rattlesnake venom.”
I looked up at Sims. His mouth was slightly open, his face was caught in a mask of pure, dumbfounded thought. Yes, he had computer access. Yes, he had a van and enough knowledge of the Glades and enough expertise with tracking devices to make a GPS seem like a toy. He even had size-nine feet. But the look in his eye told me he hadn’t known about the snake venom. He might have been in on it at some point, but not when the real killing began.
CHAPTER 19
My truck was waiting for me in the lot when the cab dropped me at Billy’s tower. The new glass was shining but the three gouges in the paint brought up a taste of anger I couldn’t keep down. My keys were at the lobby desk and the assistant manager cleared me to the penthouse. I made a pot of coffee, drank half of it while I put my bags together and then poured the rest in a huge, wide-bottomed sailing mug. I threw the bags in my truck and drove out west to the ranger station.
When I pulled into my usual parking space, I could see Cleve and his assistant had pulled the Boston Whaler out of the water on a trailer and were washing the hull, scrubbing the algae and dirt stain from the water line. Cleve tossed his brush into a galvanized pail, wiped his hands on his trousers and greeted me with a handshake.
“Max. Good