Shadow Men by Jonathon King

Author:Jonathon King
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Freeman, Everglades (Fla.), Mystery & Detective, Ex-police officers, Fathers and sons, General, Max (Fictitious character), Suspense, Roads, Missing persons, Fiction
ISBN: 9780451411815
Publisher: Onyx
Published: 2005-04-05T00:51:27.180487+00:00

I woke with the sound of screeching metal train brakes in my ears and came up shivering in my bunk. The shack was still dark, and I swung my heels to the wooden floor and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and half expected to see my breath steaming in the air.

I got up and this time tossed some kindling into the wood- burning stove and started it. I watched the flames dance and build and then set my coffeepot over an open port on top. I stepped outside while the water heated and drew in the night air to wash the remembered smell of subway rot from my nose. For several days after the slasher’s arrest the other detectives gave me the razz.

“Yo, you Freemans ought to start a Mounties’ division. ‘We always get our man,’ eh, Max?”

“Chip off the old block, eh?”

“Or off the old bottle,” one stage-whispered.

By then my father was existing on the good ol’ boy network. His alcoholism was being covered by friends in the department. His abusiveness was kept in the family. His reputation was now the fodder of jokes, but never to his face. I heard the rattle of the coffeepot and went back inside.

By nine I was at Billy’s, sitting in his immaculate study, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling book cases filled with law volumes, history and nonfiction collections as diverse at the owner. I was facing two computer screens and was using Billy’s hookup to the Internet and LexisNexis to run through religious listings and church locations throughout South Florida. We were banking on Nate Brown’s recollection that Jefferson’s grandson had become a minister and hoping that he’d stayed in his home state. I was also hoping that his isolated, rural upbringing would have kept him from taking a position in a big city like Tampa or Orlando. By e-mail, Billy was coordinating with me from his office and guiding me to Web sites while he worked his own independent sources.

At noon I took a break from the air-conditioning and stood out on the patio. Out on the ocean I watched a sailboat at the horizon as it moved south, heeled over on a windward tack, its genoa sail pulled tight and its rails dipping into blue water. Before I loaded my canoe at sunrise I’d sat at my table in the weak light and cleaned my 9 mm. The gun had been wrapped carefully in oilcloth and stashed in the false bottom of one of the armoires. There were spots of brownish rust showing along the barrel and the trigger guard where the humid river air had gotten through. I found my cleaning kit and broke the weapon down on the table and meticulously rubbed and oiled each piece. I did not search for a motivation for what I was doing. The fire, the tracking devices, the helicopter, the blown-out windshield or even the psychotic eyes of the subway killer. There was something moving in my veins when I

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