When we finished gawking, we returned to the ranger's boat and tied a line to the canoe for towing. Griggs motored slowly down the narrow upper river, the sound of his engine sending most of the river animals I would normally see this early in the day into hiding. But just as he cleared the canopy and pushed the throttle up, I caught a glimpse of the long lazy wings of a blue heron, its yellow, sticklike legs not yet folded from its takeoff. I watched it keep time with us, then circle back toward the west and finally disappear into the distance.
CHAPTER
3
I waited until I was on the road in my truck before calling Billy on my cell.
"Jesus, Max," was his response when I filled him in on the morning's events. "Are you going to file a report?"
"What? And have cops crawling all over my stuff?" I knew the kinds of useless messes cops made. I'd made them myself.
"Besides, what good would it do? It's not like you're going to find footprints out there. And contrary to popular belief, the bad guys really don't leave torn pieces of their shirts on the thornbushes that often."
"So what you're saying is, you'll investigate on your own."
"Yeah, if waiting to see what happens next is investigating."
"Good. Then you've got two cases to work. You're pretty busy for a new businessman."
Several months ago, after sliding into two different sheriff's cases and pissing off the local law enforcement brass, I'd caved in to some not too subtle suggestions and applied for a Florida private investigator's license.