The Whistler (The Whistler #1)(55)
Billy’s law enforcement résumé was rather thin, but then he really didn’t need one. He had worked for a short time in casino security, before being elected, and he had volunteered for the rescue squad before it had been upgraded with full-time personnel.
During the second day of his new job, the police in Foley called with some interest in arresting Berl Munger, the man in the video who helped steal the Dodge Ram. Since the Foley police could not cross the state line to make the arrest, and since the Tappacola police had no jurisdiction off their reservation, the situation was a bit complicated. Billy promised to contact the police in DeFuniak Springs and enlist their help. He did no such thing; rather, he called his father, who passed along the word. Berl Munger soon knew there was an Alabama warrant for his arrest.
Billy couldn’t find the video the Foley police were talking about. He searched the police offices, all its files and computers, and found nothing. He suspected that Lyman Gritt had somehow hidden the video or taken it with him. He called his father again and said they might have a problem. He called Foley and asked for the video, but the police there were already skeptical and asking themselves “what the hell those Indians were doing over there.” They said they would send the video but were in no hurry to do so.
Berl Munger vanished. Billy and the Chief paid a visit to the home of Lyman Gritt. In a tense meeting, Gritt swore he knew nothing about a video. He had no idea what the cops in Foley were talking about. The Chief offered the usual threats, but Gritt was not easily intimidated. He finally asked them to leave his property. As constable, he had found the Chief meddlesome and dishonest. Now that he was unemployed, he despised the man, along with the rest of his family.
The video was hidden in Gritt’s attic, along with a copy of the one from Frog Freeman’s store. Gritt considered himself an honest cop who’d been fired by politicians who had been compromised. If the day of reckoning ever arrived, he might need some leverage.
Honest, and also quite capable. Two days after the accident, as the questions were piling up and the answers were proving elusive, Gritt had driven, alone, to the scene of the accident. He was stumped by three obvious puzzles. The first: Why would a car thief steal a vehicle worth at least $30,000 and drive it three hours to a remote spot on an Indian reservation? The county road where it came to rest was in the middle of their tribal land and, literally, went nowhere. It began on the back side of the casino property, snaked its way deeper into the reservation, and was used by only a handful of Tappacola who lived in the boondocks. With bloated budgets, the tribe kept it paved and well maintained, but the same was now true for almost every pig trail and field road on the land. Judging by his actions on the video, the thief had experience, and veterans like him usually sold their stolen wheels to chop shops within hours. They did not roam around strange places at midnight sipping Jack Daniel’s and driving recklessly. To Gritt’s knowledge, there were no fencing operations in Brunswick County. He found it impossible to believe that the driver, drinking or even drunk, could survive a head-on collision, even with a small Prius, absorb the blow from the air bag, and simply walk away. And where would he go? The reservation was half swamp and uninhabitable. The higher land was covered in thick woods. The only decent land had been taken by the casino. At midnight, an intruder wandering around the depths of the reservation would get hopelessly lost in five minutes. If the guy with the busted nose in Frog’s video was indeed the driver of the stolen truck, then he had an accomplice, one driving another truck with fake Florida plates.
This was the first puzzle and none of the pieces fit.
The second one was even more confusing: What were two lawyers whose jobs were to investigate judicial misconduct doing on the reservation at midnight? They were not trespassing—try as they might, Native Americans had so far been unable to wall off outsiders—but the two had absolutely no jurisdiction. The Tribal Court had three members, well paid but thoroughly lacking in legal education. The Florida Board on Judicial Conduct couldn’t touch them.
The third puzzle was just as obvious: How did the wreck happen? There was apparently no other traffic, just the two vehicles on a dark, flat stretch of road. The weather was clear. There was no posted speed limit, but with the twists and turns any driver would struggle to safely exceed fifty miles per hour. Even under the influence, the missing driver should have been able to stay in his lane.
Standing at the exact point of impact, and looking at the asphalt scarred with the stains of engine fluids and littered with debris, Gritt had admitted he was stumped. This was not an open-and-shut case of a deadly collision and a fleeing driver. There was obviously much more to it.
A dozen emergency vehicles had left a maze of tire marks on the shoulders and even in the ditches and the flat field to the east. If the second truck, the one with the fake Florida tags, scooped up the driver, then where would it go? Perhaps it would stay off the road and avoid being seen by a Tappacola leaving the casino after the late shift. So far, Gritt had spoken to every resident in the area and no one saw anything; most had been asleep. Only Mrs. Beale had heard the sound of the impact.
In the dirt beyond a shallow roadside ditch, Gritt had noticed tracks that led away from the scene. Wide tires, wide body, heavy traction, probably a pickup truck. He followed them for fifty yards, and in a thicket of cockleburs found a wad of paper towels, four sheets crushed into a ball and held together by a dried substance that could only be blood. He didn’t touch it, but returned to his patrol car and from the trunk removed a plastic ziplock bag. Using a stick, he gently placed the paper towels in the bag, then continued following the tracks. He lost them in some brush and grass and picked them up again a quarter of a mile from his car. They crossed an empty creek bed, continued on for about a hundred yards, and turned left onto a gravel road he’d never seen before. At that point, the tracks were impossible to follow. The road curved back and forth for half a mile, passed only one home in the distance, and ended at a paved road called Sandy Lane. Gritt had then slowly backtracked to the accident scene and got in his car. From Frog’s video, he had a clear shot of the guy’s face. Now, with some luck, he had a sample of his blood.