Текст книги "Cross Current"

Автор книги: Christine Kling

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

XIX

I leaped up to the second step, and my sneaker slid in a puddle of something wet. Blood. I didn’t stop to examine it but took the rest of the steps two at a time, calling out Jeannie’s name as soon as I hit the landing. The alarm was still whooping, but I heard Jeannie’s voice inside.

“I’m in here,” she shouted.

The screen door was shredded and part of the wood frame hung in splinters. Where was Rusty when I needed him? I wondered if Jeannie was alone in there or if somebody was with her holding a gun to her head.

“Everybody okay?” I called out before approaching the door.

“Yeah, we are,” she said. “Not sure about the other guy, though.”

When I went to reach for the handle to open the door, I realized there was no handle left. I grabbed a piece of the dangling wood and made an opening between the screen and the shredded door frame big enough to climb through. Just inside, to the right of the door, the plaster was blown off the wall, the bare cinder block exposed. Jeannie was standing on the far side of the room, staring at the alarm system’s control panel, the shotgun still cradled in her arms. She turned to look at me, her eyes slightly out of focus, as I came through what had been the door.

“Damned if I can remember the code right now,” she said.

All three kids were standing in doorways in the hall, their eyes huge. One of the twins called out the code to his mom, and soon the alarm shut down. No sooner did it stop than the phone started ringing. In the distance, a siren wailed.

Jeannie took a few steps into the living room and looked around for the portable phone. “Geez,” she said as she stared at the damage to her door and wall. Her hands still gripped the shotgun tight across her body, and her fingers, wrapped around the stock, looked white and bloodless. I peeled her hands open and took the gun from her so she could answer the phone. As she lifted the phone, she winced and reached up to massage her shoulder.

The door frame scraped open, and Rusty slipped into the room, holding a handgun down low with both hands. I started to tell him that everyone was okay, but he swept past me, running in a sort of simian crouch, checking every room down the hall. Jeannie finished talking to the alarm company on the phone and hung up about the time Rusty came back into the living room, tucking his gun back into its holster on his hip.

“What happened, Jeannie?” I asked.

Rusty crossed to the front door and looked down into the yard.

“The bastard cut the screen with a machete,” she said. “I grabbed the gun when I heard the alarm go off. When I got into the hallway, he was coming through the door swinging that big old blade. I guess he heard me pump the action on the gun. He must have jumped back and to the left, behind the wall. I’m pretty sure I winged him, though.”

“The cops are here,” Rusty said, looking through the remains of the screen. He turned around and looked at Jeannie. “You definitely grazed him. I followed the guy through the backyard, over the fence, and into the street, but he must have had a car waiting back there. He was losing blood all the way. Anyway, get the kids settled back down. The cops will be up to talk to you when I’m done.” He started out through what was left of the door.

Jeannie made coffee after the kids got settled, and we sat in the living room, wired on caffeine and adrenaline but too tired to talk. A couple of uniformed cops had searched the apartment, examined the torn-up doorway, then just stood there, hands clasped behind their backs, staring at us, waiting. For what, I wasn’t sure. I should have known that a call that involved Solange and me would end up getting to Collazo. I shouldn’t have felt surprise when the raggedy screen door scraped open, and I heard his voice saying, “Miss Sullivan ... again.”

After Collazo, more uniformed officers came through the door, followed by several folks in plainclothes. I didn’t know if they were detectives or technicians. The living room was getting damned crowded. Rusty brought up the rear. They all huddled around the door and mumbled, examining the damaged wall and wood.

Collazo pointed to the shotgun lying where I had left it. He looked at Jeannie. “That weapon belongs to you.”

“You asking me?”

“Jeannie, that’s just his way,” I said. “He doesn’t ask questions. You get used to it after a while.”

She shook her head. “Yes, that shotgun is registered to me, and I am the one who fired it tonight at some dirtbag who was trying to break into my house, waving a machete around.”

“He was entering through the front door.”

Jeannie glanced at me as though to say What is this guy’s problem? I just shrugged. I was enjoying the fact that his non-questions weren’t aimed at me.

Jeannie told the story with the accuracy that one would expect from a lawyer. Her description of the guy made me certain it had been Le Capitaine.

Cops and technicians had been coming and going, and none of us paid them much mind, but when Agent D’Ugard arrived, there was a noticeable straightening of the spines of all the men in the room. She nodded to Collazo and then headed straight for Rusty. When the two of them disappeared into Jeannie’s bedroom in the back of the house, my imagination went into overdrive. I was still staring down the hall when I heard my name.

“Miss Sullivan, your story.”

I blinked. “Oh, okay. Well, I need to back up a little and tell you about what happened earlier this evening. Then, maybe all the rest of this will make sense.” As I told Collazo what had happened in Pompano, I kept glancing down the hall, wondering what they were doing back there. Collazo took in the dead chickens and Voodoo rituals without so much as a blink. Unlike Rusty, this man knew his home turf. “I thought I had really paid attention on the drive back from Pompano, and I didn’t see anybody follow us back here. I don’t know how he knew where to find us.”

“That’s the problem with amateurs,” Collazo said.

” I have to agree with Detective Collazo.” It was Agent D’Ugard, with Rusty close at her side. They’d just come out of the bedroom. I checked for disheveled clothes or hair, then felt silly for doing it. I cursed my own dirty mind and wondered why I would even care.

“The events of this evening,” she continued, “as related to me by Agent Elliot, are proof enough that you cannot guarantee this child’s safety here.” She turned to Rusty. “You mentioned a group home where you house alien children.” Jeannie opened her mouth and started to protest, but Rusty jumped in and through sheer volume took control of the conversation.

“We need to move them all. Not just the child. None of them are safe here tonight. Even if we remove the girl, there’s no way of being certain they won’t come back here later looking for her. We need a safe house where we can keep this entire family protected.”

Collazo turned to Rusty, a faint smirk dancing around his mouth. “Mr. Elliot, nobody at the department is going to authorize taking all of them to a safe house. There is no evidence Ms. Black is in that kind of danger.”

“Look at my door,” Jeannie shouted.

“Ma’am, there are break-ins in this neighborhood every night.”

“Oh, so you think this was just some crackhead looking to make a score? With all the million-dollar waterfront homes less than two blocks away, you think some whack with a machete is going to choose this dump to rob?” Jeannie threw her hands into the air and began walking in circles, talking to herself. Collazo was right, though. There wasn’t really any way to prove that this incident had been directed at Solange.

“Listen, Maria, Detective Collazo”—Rusty nodded at them each in turn—“what about this idea: I have a little condo down on Hollywood Beach. What if I take them down there? It’s a three-bedroom unit. We could ask the Hollywood PD to keep an eye on the place, and I’ll sleep there tonight. What do you say?”

Agent Maria D’Ugard shook her head and whipped out a tiny cell phone. She walked over to the kitchen as she dialed.

Collazo wandered over to the door frame. The crime scene team had finished with their photos and the removal of several pieces of shot from the wooden door frame. He picked at the plaster with his fingernail and looked outside through the gaping screen.

When Agent D’Ugard finished her call and snapped her phone shut, I said, “May I speak to you for a minute?”

She jerked her head in the direction of Jeannie’s kitchen. Once out of earshot of the others, she crossed her arms and said, “Go ahead, Miss Sullivan.”

I didn’t think she looked too receptive, but I dove in anyway. “There’s something I found out tonight about this alien smuggling ring. Something I thought you and the DART people ought to know about.”

“Why not tell this to Collazo or Elliot? Why me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re a woman? I know that doesn’t make much sense, but what I am going to tell you is going to sound far-fetched. I’m certain the guys in there would dismiss it. You’re my best bet. Anyway, here’s the deal. It seems these people are importing kids and placing them as restaveks in homes here in the States.”

“And what are restaveks?” Her tone of voice couldn’t have been more mocking.

“In Haiti, when a family has too many kids, and they can’t feed them all, they send off some kids to live with and work for other families. They are basically child slaves. Now they are importing this practice to the United States.”

“So you think they’ve started up the slave trade again? Haiti? The first country in the Americas to outlaw slavery?”

“Yes, strange as that sounds, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. There are child slaves working in the suburbs of Fort Lauderdale, right under our noses.”

“Miss Sullivan, why don’t you leave the investigating to the professionals? That’s preposterous.”

“Think about it. They double their money. The family in Haiti pays to have their children taken to the U.S., and the families in the U.S. pay the smugglers to get a domestic worker who needs no Social Security or even wages. They don’t even send these kids to school. Remember the two girls who drowned off the Miss Agnes? Don’t you think it’s odd that we’re seeing so many more unaccompanied minors?”

She uncrossed her arms and smoothed out the fabric across the front of her skirt. “I’ll certainly keep it in mind.” She turned and left the room, and I heard the sound of the screen opening.

When I stepped into the hall, I saw Collazo standing in the dark at the doorway to the kids’ room. He was watching Solange sleep, and he looked up, surprised when I joined him.

“Isn’t she sweet?” I asked. “She’s got nobody, you know. Do you really want to send her back to the streets of Port-au– Prince?”

“You get them settled into Elliot’s condo. Tomorrow”—he turned and looked straight at me—“I want to talk to the child about this captain.”

We piled toys and clothes and sleepy kids into the back of Jeannie’s van. It took me several minutes to convince Solange that she couldn’t go with me in the Jeep, that she needed to stay in the van with the other kids. Looking like a regular caravan, we pulled out of Jeannie’s driveway—the van, then me in the Jeep, and Rusty taking up the rear in the Border Patrol Suburban. When Agent D’Ugard had left earlier, Rusty walked her down to her car, and although I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I did hear their raised voices.

When we exited Sailboat Bend onto Broward Boulevard, Rusty had us divide up and drive around in some convoluted routes while he backtracked behind each of us, checking for any possible tails. It was nearly two in the morning when we met up in the parking lot at the Howard Johnson’s on the beach. Jeannie and Rusty were there ahead of me, and a Hollywood cop pulled into the lot at the same time I did. Rusty went over and leaned into the car to talk to the officer.

I jumped out of the Jeep and went over to the window of Jeannie’s van.

“How’re the kids?” I asked.

“They zonked out in the first five minutes. I’d like to do the same. What’s Mr. Green Jeans doing, anyway?”

I was trying to come up with a clever remark, but my brain was too exhausted to even approach the realm of slightly amusing.

Just then Rusty stepped away from the cop car, and he motioned for us to follow him. We drove another three blocks north and parked in the lot of a condo building on the Intracoastal side of US-1. The complex wasn’t huge, just a single building four stories high with a rustic wood sign out front that said “Heron Heights Condominiums.” There was no ground floor; the building was built over a covered parking area. Rusty waved as the Hollywood cop cruised slowly past the building, and we each took a sleeping kid and carried them up to the fourth floor.

The door to Rusty’s condo was at the end of the hall, facing north. When I stepped inside his unit, I realized it stretched to both sides of the building, overlooking the Intracoastal to the west, and when I crossed the living room to the sliding glass balcony doors, the ocean loomed as a distant dark mass,beyond the rooftops of the low apartment bungalows between US-1 and North Surf Road.

Rusty flicked a switch and the soft light of a ceramic lamp lit the room. The lamp rested on a dark wood table next to a big leather reading chair.

“Wow,” I said. The place was like something out of an old Key West magazine photo—hardwood floors, ceiling fans, built-in bookcases, and a few perfectly placed antiques.

“In here,” Rusty said, carrying Jeannie’s son Adair into one of the bedrooms. He laid the boy down on the queen-size bed and unfolded the armchair, which was then transformed into a single futon. I knelt down and placed the girl’s thin body on the futon mattress, though it took me several minutes to get her to let go of my neck. Even in her sleep, she was clinging to me in a way I found both unsettling and reassuring, as though whether or not I believed in myself, this child believed in me. Jeannie and I covered all three kids with the sheets and blankets Rusty provided, while he fiddled with the air conditioner to clear out the stale air. He pointed Jeannie to the second room, promising to bring up the rest of the luggage. Jeannie just waved a limp hand in the air and closed the door behind her.

“You can have the bedroom. I’ll take the couch,” Rusty said.

“Nah, I’m not staying.”

“But you must be exhausted.” He rested his hand on my shoulder, and I felt the muscles beneath his touch tighten. “You shouldn’t drive anywhere.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ve got the dog at home and—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I looked at him, saw the way his shaggy hair fell across the tops of his ears, the way the light made his blue eyes appear iridescent. I had enjoyed that kiss earlier, and the prospect of another wasn’t exactly unappealing. B.J. and I had agreed to a break. There really wouldn’t be anything wrong with it, would there? My brain felt foggy.

I turned and stepped out of his reach, trying to get the weight of that hand off my shoulder before I did something really stupid. “You got a Coke or something with caffeine? I think I just need a little fresh air.” With barely a touch of my hand, the balcony doors slid open with a soft whoosh, and the moist sea air blew into the opening. I stepped outside and sucked in what a yoga instructor years ago had called a “cleansing breath.” I exhaled loudly through my mouth. Rather than revived, I felt even more dizzy. I was hyperventilating.

Rusty joined me at the balcony rail and handed me an icy soda can. I drank so much, so fast, my chest hurt. Out on the horizon a small pinpoint of light appeared and then disappeared, then came back and grew steady—a small vessel crossing the current, heading for Port Everglades. There was no other traffic in sight, which was unusual for this stretch of the coast. I wondered then, how many boats were out there running dark—running drugs or human cargo?

“This is really a nice place you’ve got here, Rusty. View’s sure spectacular.”

“Yeah, I like it, but I don’t get to use it enough. I keep my boat at the dock out back on the Waterway, and most times I just go out fishing, come back, and never even make it upstairs.”

“I hope you’re going to be ready for three rowdy kids in the morning.”

“Bringing them here solved the problem for tonight, but this is not a long-term solution, you know.”

“Why’d you do it? Invite us over like this?”

He tried to laugh, but it came out a single “Ha,” without humor. “Good question.” He leaned his arms on the balcony railing and stared out to sea. He seemed to be struggling to find the words to say something. I was afraid of what that might be.

I drained off the last of the soda. “Well,” I said, and turned to head for the door.

He reached for my shoulder and slid his big hand around the back of my neck and under my ponytail. He pulled me to him, saying, “It took inviting the entire crew over just to get you here.”

“Now that’s funny, because they’re going to stay and I’m not.” I must not have sounded very convincing at that point because he kissed me. Again. And again, I didn’t protest. In fact, my body became a regular cheerleader for the idea. All kinds of little nerve endings were shaking their pom-poms.

But then I pulled away. “Rusty, it’s late and we both need to get some sleep.”

He tried little kisses then, down the side of my neck, around my ears, and that came very close to making me forget everything.

When I got to the door and had my hand on the doorknob and was almost out of there, he called my name softly. “Seychelle.”

“Yeah,” I said, but I didn’t even turn around.

“Are you sure you won’t stay?”

I couldn’t answer him. My voice would have given too much away.

When I got back to the Larsens’ place and saw Abaco crawl out all sleepy from under her bougainvillea bush, I sat down on the bench outside the cottage door and gave her a good body rub. She groaned in contentment. I patted the bench next to me, and she hopped up and sat there panting. I looped an arm around her and buried my face in the soft fur around her neck. I pulled back quickly.

“You need a bath.” I looked down at my clothes, the dark smudges from the chicken blood still apparent on my shirt. “Me too, I guess.” I scratched her silky ears. “Girl, do you think we’ll ever understand men?” She just smiled her doggy smile.

I started to tiptoe past Pit snoring on the couch, but then I stopped and stood there for a while in the dark, watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. In the face of the man I could still see the features of the boy I had grown up with. The hair at his temples reflected what little light there was in the room. He was going prematurely gray. We were all growing older—Maddy was already quite gray. We had tried to gather as a family at least once a year as long as Red had still been alive, but now we were forging our own lives and seeing less and less of one another. I tried to memorize every small detail of Pit’s features because I knew he was already itching to leave.

I crawled into my bed after a quick rinse in the shower. I was too tired to sleep and still tossing and turning as the sky began to go gray. Rusty’s words, the sound of his voice, the feel of his touch. I kept going over and over every minute of the night, from the restaurant to Jeannie’s to his gorgeous condo. And I kept trying to avoid the question that my mind couldn’t let go. How does a Border Patrol officer afford a half-million-dollar condo on the Intracoastal Waterway?

XX

I’d slept about an hour when I woke to the noise of an exceptionally loud outboard motor headed downriver, and I knew I wasn’t going to get back to sleep. It was not yet six o’clock, but I threw back the sheet and swung my legs to the floor.

My head felt like it was stuffed with dirty gym socks. I knew because I could taste them. After a bathroom trip, and pulling on shorts and a T-shirt, I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and locked up the cottage, my brother still snoring contentedly. I noticed the dining table and floor were covered with charts, and my plotter and dividers were on the bar next to several empty beer bottles. Pit had been hard at work.

The Larsens have a shed full of water toys, and they don’t mind if I use them from time to time. And alternating running, paddling, and swimming did help keep the exercise regimen from getting too boring. I pulled the red, sit-on kayak down to the dock, gritting my teeth as the plastic slid across the gravel. Holding on to the bowline, I tossed it into the river. Getting onto the thing from the dock ladder without capsizing was a feat, but once settled, I paddled upriver, pulling against a river current made weak by the rising tide.

The hour of morning after the sky first starts to turn gray but before the sun’s top curve peeks above the trees and homes of my neighborhood is the part of the day I cherish most. I hadn’t seen much of it recently. Along the banks of the New River, the early morning is when the animals relinquish the world to the humans. The raccoons scurry across backyards and hightail it up trees to their daytime sleeping roosts. The herons stand regal and still on the seawalls, their bills pointed down at the slow-moving water, their dark, sharp eyes their only moving parts.

After I’d passed through the heart of downtown, where the cars were already moving over the drawbridges and aproned men were out sweeping between the waterfront tables, I heard a sharp exhale as I approached the fork where the river split in two directions. I slowed my paddling and watched the surface ahead. Circles again on the surface. Finally, I saw the nostrils blow off my port bow. Our late-season manatee was making her way downriver, and now that the sun was nearly up, the water around her reflected the pink clouds, making it look like she was swimming in a bubble-gum-colored river.

The morning air was still and heavy with humidity. No more than ten minutes after I’d slowed to watch the manatee, the sunlight’s reflection on the river ripples seared laserlike into my eyes. Soon, the sweat was dripping off the tip of my nose, and I was starting to wake up.

I paddled up the north fork of the New River where it meandered undeveloped through some of the poorest neighborhoods of Fort Lauderdale. The riverbanks were thick with trees and grasses, but I knew that less than one hundred feet beyond those wooded banks ran some mean, tough streets. At least it was quiet up there, and there was only the occasional friendly fisherman waving to me from the riverbanks.

The railroad bridge was down, and I was paddling in slow circles, waiting for the freight train to pass, when I sensed a boat approaching me closer than I would like from astern. I turned around and saw Perry Greene’s white blond hair as he leaned over the side of his Little Bitt with his arm outstretched, reaching for my ponytail.

“Don’t even think about it, Perry,” I said, keeping an eye on him.

“Hey, babe, what you doing in that little bathtub toy?”

“It’s called exercise, Perry. Not that you’d understand the meaning of that word.”

He put his boat into reverse and I stopped paddling. We both eased to a stop, side by side and still in the water, but traveling slowly with the tide. The last car of the freight train rumbled over the trestle, and it grew much quieter as we waited for the automated bridge to reopen.

I grabbed the gunwale of Little Bitt. While he was here, I might as well ask him a couple of questions. “Perry, I saw you in Flossie’s yesterday. I’m guessing you were there talking to Gil Lynch.”

He pressed his lips together like he was getting ready to spit, and I cringed. He turned his head aside and blew a mouthful of spittle into the water off the stern.

“God, gross, Perry.”

“So what if I was talking to Gil. It’s a free country.”

“No big deal. I’m just curious what you guys were talking about, and why he ran when Mike and I tried to talk to him. Do you have any idea why he took off like that?”

“He’s crazy. You do know that, don’t you? But the thing is, he’s still got connections. We was just shooting the shit. I told him about towing in your friend Mike and then I was asking him about the owner of that Eye-talian boat we worked. He was just starting to tell me about that dude when he split. So I went back to Flossie’s last night.”

“Perry, you’re at Flossie’s every night.”

He nodded. “Nearly. Anyways, when Gil showed up, he was acting real skittish. Said he didn’t want to have nothing to do with that one-legged cop. Meaning Beesting, of course.”

“That’s kind of weird. What’s he got against Mike?”

“Hell if I know what goes on in that dude’s head. It’s all scrambled in there.”

The railroad bridge sounded the buzzer and the span began to rise. Perry said, “Much as I love chatting with you, sweetheart, I got a Hatteras down at Bahia Mar waiting for Perry to make his magic.”

The rest of the trip downriver hadn’t taken nearly as long since I had the current flowing with me. That was fortunate because the last half hour on the main river, with all the Saturday-morning boating crowd who were jockeying like it was rush hour on the Interstate, churning up the water and impatiently revving their engines, had come close to making me seasick.

My arms burned and my palms were blistered when, finally, I feathered my paddle to ease the kayak into the dock off Gorda's stern. When I reached up to grab the cleat on the dock, I saw a pair of familiar handsome brown legs walking toward me.

“Morning, Miss Sullivan,” Joe said. He was carrying two covered paper cups and a grease-stained brown bag. “Your cappuccino’s getting cold.”

“Where’s my brother?”

“Nobody here but the dog when I arrived. I knocked on your cottage door and was about to drink your coffee when I saw you come paddling this way.”

“I’m surprised Abaco let you back here.”

“Onion bagels are her favorite. She wouldn’t have done it for honey wheat. I tried that first.”

“Ah, so, do you always bribe women to get what you want?”

He grinned. “I usually don’t need to.”

I was attempting to execute the rather complicated maneuver required to climb off a kayak alongside a dock, and I nearly went into the river at this comment. The tide was high, so very little of the ladder was left above water, and I made an extremely ungraceful landing by sliding onto the dock on my belly. After tying off the kayak’s bowline, I dusted off my hands on my shorts and stood up. Joe’s mountain bike was propped against the trunk of an old oak tree, and he was again dressed in Lycra bike shorts, this time with a baby-blue tank top. He handed me a cardboard coffee cup.

“Thanks.” I inclined my head in the direction of the wood picnic table closer to the Larsens’ house. “Let’s get a ways back from the river. I’ve inhaled enough exhaust this morning.”

“So how’re things?”

I didn’t say anything, just looked into the bag he’d brought, pulled out a cinnamon raisin bagel, and spread the cream cheese on with a plastic knife. I knew what he was doing. Joe was trying to get back on my good side by bribing me with bagels. I’d take the bribe, but as for forgiveness, he was going to have to work for it.

I bit off a big piece and chewed slowly. “Hmmm. These are really good. The coffee, too. Thanks.”

“So, how’s that kid?”

“Fine.”

“Have you been to see her?”

“Yup.”

He tried to wait me out, make me need to fill in the silence. Not this morning. Not after what he’d said yesterday.

“Seychelle, look, I want to help you. I like you. I’m a retired cop and I’m bored, so I’d like to help out any way I can. You’re not experienced. You should use me. Use me and abuse me.”

“It’s nice of you to offer, Joe, but...”

“You’re still pissed off at me, aren’t you. First my daughter, now you. I seem to piss off all the women I try to help. This is about yesterday, isn’t it. About what I said about your old man.”

“Don’t call him my ‘old man.’ ”

“Okay, this is about Red, then. Hmm. I thought you were better than that, Sullivan.”

I glanced quickly at him, frowned, and turned away. The bagel tasted lousy all of a sudden.

“You said you were going to find that kid’s father,” he said, “and you sounded like you meant it. I believed you.” He balled up his napkin and crushed his empty coffee cup. “But now you’re so hung up on some old news about what did or didn’t happen more than twenty years ago, you’re gonna turn down a chance to use thirty years of investigative experience because you’re pouting over your daddy.” He stood and collected the bag with the remaining bagels.

I sighed. “Sit down.”

He stood there, waiting.

“Would you sit already?” I said.

“Why?”

“You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you. Okay. Maybe I could use a little help. There. See, I kinda screwed up last night. Somebody followed me, and it nearly got ugly. I thought I’d made sure I didn’t have a tail, but I guess I’m not a very good Nancy Drew after all. I don’t want to make that mistake again. So, yeah. I’ll take you up on your offer.”

He sat down on the wood bench. “Okay, so you need to find this kid’s father.”

“Yeah. She says her father is an American, and she thinks she was being brought to America to join him. I figured the place to start, then, was the boat that brought her to America. I’ve set up a meeting today with someone who knows something about the Miss Agnes."

“Would you mind if I tag along? I could watch your back.”

I looked at his bike shorts and clean blue tank top. “I don’t know that you’ll still want to when you hear where we’re going.”

“Where’s that?”

“The Swap Shop.”

What we now know as the Swap Shop started life back in the sixties as the Thunderbird Drive-in Movie Theater. When the owner began running a flea market on the blacktop expanse on weekends, the concept grew and grew, eventually becoming an indoor/outdoor collection of permanent booths with a food court and full-time entertainment including a circus, complete with elephants, rides, and an outdoor carnival. The place still showed movies at night, but the main business now took place during the day when the Swap Shop resembled the outdoor markets of third-world countries more than an American shopping mall.