The car seemed ordinary on the outside, but it had been upgraded inside. It had quality upholstery and a phenomenal motor; it was a tiger in lamb"s clothing, and a wonderful pleasure to drive. She tested it briefly on a lonely highway, but her nerve gave out at ninety miles per hour, not close to its limits. Thereafter she drove sedately.
She drove to Canada and did her research and turned in her report. It was negative; what might have seemed like a promising investment was deceptive, and was no bargain. She hoped he would not be disappointed.
She drove back home and phoned the 800 number which was hers: 0618, the date of the founding of the T"ang dynasty. "Mission completed," she told the answering machine. "Where should I leave the car?"
A day later Mid called back. "Keep the car." That was all. By this time she knew him well enough, for all that she didn"t know him at all, to understand that this was her reward for saving him a bundle; he had avoided a bad investment that could have cost him millions, and he rewarded well those who served him well. This beautiful machine was hers.
She had been working for Mid for two years now, and would be satisfied to continue indefinitely. She had all the independence and luxury she wanted, and was doing the kind of work she liked. The current a.s.signment was like a southern vacation, combined with the delight of challenge and mystery.
A man"s body had turned up, Mid had advised her, on his estate in central Florida. He had been reduced to skin and bones. There had been evidence of similar treatment of animals before, but this was the first human being. Her a.s.signment had two aspects: first, to find out exactly what this was; and second, to keep his name and property out of it.
May understood. This was one of Mid"s private retreats, where he could retire in perfect privacy at will. A local, state, or national story about mysterious bodies would bring a horde of curious folk, ruining it. He had probably sunk a million dollars or so into setting up this retreat, and he didn"t care to have some freak scandal nullify it. Her experience in setting up her own false ident.i.ty gave her empathy; one bit of news in the wrong place could destroy all that she had made.
She intended to get the full story, and to keep Mid"s name and property out of it. All else was secondary.
She had researched carefully, of course, but there was little advance information to be had from afar. She would have to get close to it and develop her own leads. Meanwhile, she had three names: George Demerit, caretaker of the Middle Kingdom Ranch, who had found the body; Frank Tishner, local deputy sheriff who was investigating the matter; and Jade Brown, who had made the most recent report. One down, two to go. Already it was growing more intriguing.
She had fathomed something of the pattern of animal deaths. They had started perhaps three months ago, in the vicinity of the juncture of three counties in Florida: Marion, Sumter, and Citrus. The earliest known was in the Seven Springs vicinity, largely covered by one of the big private ranches whose proprietors discouraged intrusions by the public. She had discovered why: hunters liked to boat up Gum Slough and poach what they could along its banks, and litter along the way.
Since it was legally an open-access waterway, so that boaters could not be barred, and the poachers did not do their poaching while the authorities watched, it was a problem. May"s sympathy was with the property owners; they, for whatever selfish reasons, were at least protecting the environment and the wildlife. Fencing had appeared, and trees had mysteriously fallen across the river, making it barely navigable, while legal action continued. There were unverified stories of guns going off, further discouraging camping. This was a lovely wilderness region, but no place for a casual visit. It was, in fact, a subtle war zone.
Thus it was not surprising that the number or antiquity of the early animal deaths was unknown. It could have been happening for a year before the first was spied. So she knew of only the recent episodes, which were scattered and uncertain. However, there did seem to be a pattern.
Some predator, whether animal or man, had come up the river, and when the river ended in a spring, it had migrated to land. It had taken what prey it could, gradually moving as the region was depleted, and broadening its appet.i.te. It had moved closer to the main river, the Withlacoochee, then crossed it. Now it was marauding in the wilderness regions of the Tsala Apopka chain of lakes and marshes, and had come at last to the Middle Kingdom Ranch. Where, it seemed, it had graduated to larger prey: man. Evidently it still did prey on animals too; to it, man was merely another animal. That was a bit chilling in itself. She knew already that Mid had suffered a stroke of blind misfortune. The chances of keeping a man-killer out of the headlines were virtually nil. The best that could be hoped for was a swift stop to the depredations so that no hue and cry developed. That meant identifying the killer and locating it and nullifying it-soon. Was it possible? She would do her best to find out. This had the promise of being her most challenging a.s.signment yet, which was an encouraging indication of Mid"s confidence in her. She would try her best to live up to it.
She arrived at the entry to the ranch, which was not that far from Jade Brown"s house; both were off State Highway 200. She drew up to the closed gate and touched the call b.u.t.ton. In a moment the gate swung open, which meant that the caretaker, George Demerit, was on duty. As the one who had reported the dead man, he should be her most important source, if he was communicative.
The drive was beautiful. It was fenced throughout, with young pine trees crowding close in against the road. She spied a big box tortoise scrambling along beside the asphalt. She had always liked that kind, perhaps because of its habit of minding its own business when challenged, closing up in its sh.e.l.l. There was also a magnolia tree, with a single lovely bloom; she hadn"t realized they bloomed this late. Live oaks extended their branches over the drive, forming a canopy. Mid certainly had taste in his private retreats; she would love to live in a place like this!
She rounded a curve, and the house came into view at the top of a slight hill. It was large, with two stories, and the fence which had paralleled the road looped around it to form an immediate yard at the crest of the hill. There was a small barn beyond, and there appeared to be a pool enclosure behind. Not palatial, but certainly beyond the means of a middle-cla.s.s family.
A man stood at the front door, waiting for her. He looked about thirty, with spa.r.s.e brown hair and a thin body, but healthy: the runner"s torso. He wore sneakers, blue jeans, and a short-sleeved gray shirt. Not used to people; even as he waited for her, a stranger, there was a certain diffidence, almost a fear. A loner. She would be able to bully him to a degree, but would have to watch it; loners could be dangerous when pressed too hard.
Her background information confirmed it. He had been pretty much isolated all his life. The one intelligence score on record indicated an IQ of 90, but there could have been a foul-up in the testing. Some schizoid tendency. Not aggressive, just odd. Mid must have seen qualities in the man that others had not, exactly as he had in May herself.
She parked the car and got out. "I am looking for George Demerit, the caretaker."
"Here," he said guardedly. He seemed ill at ease.
"I am May Flowers. I am a journalist. I work for Mid." Her last sentence had effect; she saw him tense, then relax. "How?" he asked.
"I investigate things for him and make reports. At the moment I am investigating bags of bones."
He gazed at her, his gray eyes seeming to focus for the first time. She knew he had told n.o.body but Mid, so now he knew she was legitimate. But he didn"t seem to know what to do.
She prompted him. "May I come in? I"m not used to this heat."
He nodded, and opened the door. She walked in and felt the chill of the air conditioning. What a relief!
Inside there was an entry hall, with a carpeted stairway up and access in three directions. The floor was teak parquet of a vintage style; either this house was older than she thought, or Mid had picked up an odd lot. She turned to the left and entered the carpeted living room. There were vertical blinds on the windows, sandalwood moire, and the carpeting was sculptured berber. The chairs and couches were of knotty pine with rust-colored cotton cushions, except for one chair upholstered in blue; what had happened there? Overall, not as fancy as she might have expected of her employer, but it was possible that he hadn"t paid attention, and had allowed the builder to put in whatever was most readily available. Men were like that. It would do, for an unoccupied domicile.
She sat, more or less forcing the man to do the same. It was evident that he was not comfortable in this part of the house; he was more of an outdoors type, leaving the interior alone except to make sure it was in good condition. "Mid told me you found a man."
"Yes."
"There seems to be a pattern of animal deaths of this nature, but this is the first man. What did you do with him?"
"I hid him."
He certainly wasn"t unduly communicative! "Where?"
"Put him in the mine."
"An abandoned mine shaft?"
"Open pit."
"Won"t that be seen by someone?"
"No."
"How did you deal with his truck?"
"Took it to the river, tossed the key in."
She nodded. "So the police would a.s.sume he drowned."
He nodded.
"I think I had better see the body." She hardly relished the notion, but she knew that she would see details that others did not.
He shrugged.
She stood, seizing the initiative again. "How far is this mine?"
"Mile."
"Can we drive there?"
"Halfway."
"Then let"s drive halfway." It was a ch.o.r.e getting anything out of this tight-lipped man; he seemed to want only to be left alone. It would be pointless to ask him for a full description of the body; he would just say, laconically, "Dead," or something similarly obvious. "I"ll drive."
She walked to the door, and he followed. The heat smote her again as she opened it. How had anyone lived here before air conditioning?
Demerit hung back. Then she realized that he was punching in the security code, arming the alarm system so that no one could enter the house in his absence without setting it off. That was, of course, his job: to see that nothing happened to Mid"s property.
There was a whistling. Then the man stepped out and drew the door closed, and the sound stopped. He brought out a key and locked the door. That made a triple defense in his absence: the distant front gate, which had to be keyed open, and the mechanical lock, and the security system. She would feel safe in a place like this, even if it was isolated.
She got into the driver"s seat. Demerit walked around and took the other seat. The car was an oven; five minutes could do it in weather like this. She started the motor, and in a moment the car air conditioning came on, delivering a wonderfully cold blast of air.
She pulled the car around the paved loop. "North?"
He nodded. So she drove north, back along the lovely lane. This would be very much like paradise, if only it weren"t so hot! Probably it was very nice, indeed, in the winter season.
"Here," he said as they approached the right-angle turn half a mile along, near where she had seen the tortoise.
She drew to the side at that corner, leaving room for another vehicle to pa.s.s hers, though she doubted there would be any other. How would it get in? She turned off the motor with regret. She knew she wasn"t going to enjoy a half-mile walk in the heat, but duty was duty.
They got out. Demerit led the way north, squeezing through an almost invisible gap in a hedgelike fence and forging onward. She tried to follow, but the p.r.i.c.kly foliage caught at her suit. She definitely wasn"t dressed for this, but was determined to see the body. "Slower!" she called, lest he travel blithely on out of sight.
He paused while she hauled herself through. It hadn"t occurred to him to wait, before she called to him, and it didn"t occur to him to try to help her now. She realized that there was no malice here; he just didn"t seem to relate to others well. She had not encountered a man quite like him before.
"I am not used to this pace or this heat," she said. "You will have to proceed slowly enough to accommodate me."
He nodded, and set a slower pace.
This was better, but still her feminine shoes slipped in the bare batches of sand, and burrs caught in her stockings. She was going to be a mess before this was done! Well, she had asked for it; she should have come prepared. It was no good deciding that Demerit should have warned her about the roughness of the terrain; he simply didn"t tune in to the needs of others.
"You like this work?" she inquired a bit breathlessly.
"Yes."
"You are mostly alone?"
"Yes."
"With the animals?"
Now he smiled. "Yes."
"It must have been horrible, finding that rabbit."
He considered. "I like them, but I like the fox too."
"Oh, I"d love to see a fox!"
"There"s one, but I hardly ever see her. The rabbits are out all over he road, in the morning."
"So you accept nature"s way. Rabbits are nice, but the fox has to live too."
"Yes." But though the word was brief, his att.i.tude had warmed. She had shown some understanding and appreciation of his interests, and so had made herself more companionable. It was elementary-but she did wish she could see those animals. If only they weren"t out here in this oppressive heat and these awful burrs. Now there were deerflies buzzing her, actually banging into her face in a most annoying fashion.
Then something huge circled her head, causing her to stop moving, alarmed.
Demerit looked. "Dragonfly," he said. "They"re okay. They eat deerfly." He held up his hand, and the dragonfly perched on it as if tame.
May stared. "Why, yes, it"s beautiful!" she breathed. The insect was several inches long, with a dark blue torso and four spread translucent wings. Its monstrous eyes shone like polished metal, moving around. "How did you tame it?"
"I guess they see me around a lot, so they figure I"m one of them," he said, pleased. "I like them, and the fireflies at night."
"Oh, it"s been years since I"ve seen a firefly flash!"
"They"re here. I can show you one field where they congregate, so you can see twenty at a time."
"If I"m here long enough, I"ll take you up on that." Even sweltering as she was, she realized how much she missed the occasional delights of her childhood. This estate was a kind of paradise. She wondered whether Mid came here often, just to appreciate the quiet sights.
They went on. May was sweating to an unladylike degree, but there was no help for it. She followed the man under copses of oaks, past palmettos, and through more stands of growing pine trees. It was only a few minutes, but she knew that hours of reserve energy were being expended.
They came to the mine. This turned out to be a monstrous and awesome pit, frightening in its abrupt depth. She could see the tops of trees at the outside ground level, as if they had just fallen in alive, swallowed by an abrupt sink-hole. She had become accustomed to the generally flat terrain or gentle slopes of Florida, and this was a shocking contrast.
There was a way down, however, where the old mining wagons had gone. They walked down it, May finding the descent no easier than the approach had been.
Finally, in a thicket in the depths, where the shadows made a premature dusk, there was the body. Demerit pointed it out, then stood back, letting her wedge in between the saplings to get a good view.
Even in shadow, it was an awful sight. Much of the body was obscured by the clothing, but this was in sufficient disarray to show some of the torso, including part of the pelvis. It was as though the man had opened his trousers to urinate and never closed them again. Now there was no genital region at all, just a thin film across the bony structure. Similarly there was no abdomen, just the webbing over the backbone and ribs. But the head was the worst: filmed eye sockets and nose holes and jaws, as if the man had been inhaling a large soap bubble. Overall, she would be hard put to it to imagine anything more grotesque.
What had happened to the flesh? Skin of a sort remained, translucently thin, and bones, and clothing, but no muscles, fat, organs, or brain. It was as if the man had been dipped in a vat of acid that dissolved all living tissue and nothing else. How was that possible?
She sniffed. There was a faint, peculiar odor, not unpleasant, neutral, interesting. Not rot; there seemed to be nothing remaining to rot. But not perfume either. The residue of the acid?
She found herself thinking of s.e.x, incongruously. This was odd, because her interest in this aspect of human endeavor had never been strong, and her experience in marriage had done nothing to enhance it. Certainly she could live without it. Why should the subject occur to her now? Because the boneman"s fly was open? She was no curious adolescent! Yet it persisted, making her wish she could get into bed with a handsome man and become completely physical.
She backed away from the body, getting clear of the thicket. As she did, the unwelcome subject faded like the chimaera it was.
But her keen investigative instinct would not let go. Was her stray thought coincidental? Or did it somehow relate to that smell? She disliked the notion, but she had to check; it could be important.
She forced herself to approach the body again. She put her face close and sniffed, harder than before.
A heady feeling coursed through her. She definitely craved s.e.xual expression! The man wasn"t important, just the act. No romance, no subtlety, just p.e.n.i.s and v.u.l.v.a. She wanted wild abandon.
She withdrew again-and again it faded. There was little doubt now: there were pheromones here, setting off whoever got close enough to inhale them. Did they have an effect only on females, or on males too?
She had to know, because her report would be incomplete without it, so she set herself and asked. "Mr. Demerit, when you got close to the body, did you experience a reaction?"
He looked at her, evidently dismayed. He did not answer.
"I am not trying to embarra.s.s you," she said. "It is my duty to ascertain exactly what is going on here, and to report to Mid. This could be important. For example, something could have been used on the hunter, to attract him s.e.xually, luring him into a trap. Some of that substance may still adhere to his body. It may be a danger for any other person. We have to know. Did you feel it?"
Reluctantly, he nodded. "But it"s wrong," he said.
"Wrong to lure a person to his death that way. I agree. But knowledge of the danger could save your life or mine."
"No. Wrong because-" He did not finish.
He was really distressed, and now she realized that it was not simply because he disliked talking about s.e.x with a woman or a stranger. There was more, and she had to go for it, objectionable as the matter was to her.
"Because why, Mr. Demerit? I do have to know, and Mid has to know, but no one else does."