Double Whammy

Decker sat down at the kitchen counter. "Start at the beginning," he said. Gruffly Skink summarized the facts of the disappearance, closing with a neutral explanation of Ott Pickney's alter ego, Davey Dillo.

"They say he was very convincing," Skink said, by way of condolence.

Decker had a hell of a hard time imagining Ott in an armadillo costume on a skateboard. He had a harder time imagining Ott dead.

"Maybe they just took him somewhere to put a scare in him," he speculated.

"No way," Skink said. "I'll see you soon. Oh yeah—when you get to Harney, don't check in at the motel. It's not safe. You'd better stay out here with me."

"I'd rather not," Decker said.

"Aw, it'll be loads of fun," Skink said with a grunt. "We can roast weenies and marshmallows."

Decker drove all night. He shot straight up Interstate 95 and got off at Route 222, just west of Wabasso. Another ninety minutes and he was in Harney County. By the time he got to Skink's place on the lake, it was four-thirty in the morning. Already one or two bass boats were out on the water; Decker could hear the big engines chewing up the darkness.

At the sound of Decker's car Skink clumped onto the porch. He was fully dressed—boots, sunglasses, the orange weathersuit. Decker wondered if he slept in uniform.

"That's some driving," Skink said. "Get your gear and come on inside."

Decker carried his duffel into the shack. It was the first time he had ventured beyond the porch, and he wasn't sure what to expect. Pelts, maybe. Wallpaper made from rabbit pelts.

As he pushed past the screen door, Decker was amazed by what he saw: books. Every wall had raw pine shelves to the ceiling, and every shelf was lined with books. The east wall was for classic fiction: Poe, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, Mark Twain, Jack London, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, even Boris Pasternak. The west wall was for political biographies: Churchill, Sandburg's Lincoln, Hitler, Huey Long, Ei-senhower, Joseph McCarthy, John F. Kennedy, even Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson, though it looked like a book-club edition. The south wall was exclusively for reference books: the Britannica, Current Biography,the Florida Statutes,even the Reader's Guide to Periodic Literature.This was the wall of the shack that leaned so precipitously, and now Decker knew why: it held the heaviest books.

The shelves of the north wall were divided into two sections. The top was philosophy and the humanities. The bottom half was for children's books. The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Dr. Seuss. Charlotte's Weband the Brothers Grimm.

"What're you staring at?" Skink demanded.

"These are great books," Decker said.

"No shit."

In the middle of the floor there was a bare mattress and army blanket, but no pillow. The Remington was propped in a corner. The Coleman lantern hung from a slat in the ceiling; it offered only a fuzzy white light that would flare or dim as the mantle burned down. Decker thought Skink must do his reading in the daytime, or else he'd go blind.

Another car pulled up outside the shack. Decker glanced at Skink. He looked as if he were expecting somebody. He pushed open the screen door and a cop walked in; a state trooper. Stiff cowboy-style hat, pressed gray uniform (long sleeves of course). On one shoulder was a patch shaped like a Florida orange. The cop was almost as big as Skink. He was younger, though—a wedge of muscle from the waist up.

Decker noticed that this state trooper was different from most.

Most were big, young, lean, and white. This trooper was black. Decker could not imagine a more miserable place than Harney County to be a black cop.

"This is Jim Tile," Skink said. "Jim, this is the guy I told you about."

"Miami," Tile said, and shook Decker's hand. Skink dragged a rocker and a folding chair in from the porch. Tile took off his hat and sat down in the rocker, Decker took the chair and Skink sat on the bare pine floor.

Decker said, "What happened to Ott?"

"He's dead," Skink said.

"But what the hell happened?"

Skink sighed and motioned to Jim Tile. "Yesterday morning," the trooper said, in a voice so deep it seemed to shake the lantern, "I was on road patrol about dawn. Out on the Gilchrist Highway where it crosses Morgan Slough."

"Some of the guys fish the slough when the water's up," Skink cut in. "You need a johnboat, and no outboard. Ten minutes from the highway and you're into heavy bass cover."

Jim Tile said, "So I see a pair of headlights back in the scrub. I can tell it's a truck. I pull off and park. Ten minutes go by and the truck hasn't moved, though the lights are still on. If it's two kids screwing they wouldn't be leaving the headlights on, so I go to check it out."

"You're alone?" Decker asked.