The Worst Night Ever by Dave Barry

Author:Dave Barry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2016-04-26T04:00:00+00:00

“So that’s good, right?” I said. “Now you can arrest the Bevins, or at least investigate them.”

Jon Aibel smiled, but it was not a happy smile. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “I went straight to my superiors, told them what I knew. I thought we’d get a warrant and be raiding the Bevin property within hours. I thought I’d be a hero, maybe get a promotion.” He shook his head. “That’s not what happened.”

“What happened?” I said.

“My boss told me to stop investigating.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say. I got the feeling that the order came from way above him.”

“But there was a dead guy!” said Taylor.

“That’s what I said. My boss said that was a police matter and I should stay out of it.”

“But you knew why he was dead!” I said. “You knew about the smuggling!”

“I pointed that out, and my boss said that everything was under control—whatever that was supposed to mean—and that I was absolutely under strict orders to stay away from that case.”

“So did you?” I asked.

“For a couple of days. But as far as I could tell, nothing was happening. It was driving me crazy. I mean, a guy was dead, and I felt at least partly responsible. So I went to the police on my own. I told them everything I knew. Guess what happened.”

“What?”

“Instead of investigating, the police went straight to my bosses, and I got suspended from Fish and Wildlife. For insubordination.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. And I was told that if I talked to anybody else about this, I’d lose my job permanently and get arrested for interfering with an investigation. Except as far as I can tell there is no investigation.”

“But why not?”

“It seems that Frank Bevin is untouchable. He’s a rich and powerful man, and he has powerful friends, and they’re not going to let anything happen to him. He can do whatever he wants in his compound, even if what he wants to do is collect the most lethal animals on earth in the backyard of a residential neighborhood. If something goes wrong over there, innocent people will be in danger.”

“You mean like if the mamba snakes get out?” said Taylor.

“Yup. Or the Komodo dragon. Or the deathstalker scorpions.”

“The what scorpions?”

“Deathstalker. They’re from North Africa and the Middle East, and they’re as nasty as they sound. You do not want to get stung by one.”

“No,” I agreed.

“Well, according to my late friend Luis, Frank Bevin brought in dozens of them. He also has a bunch of poison dart frogs and Brazilian wandering spiders, both of which are deadly. And then there’s something else he got, something truly weird and scary.”

“Wait,” I said. “Weirder and scarier than deathstalker scorpions?”

“Yup. I thought I knew every kind of animal that ever got smuggled into this town, but I never heard of this. According to Luis, one night the smugglers hired him for a boat transport, only this time they used a bigger boat than usual. They went out into the Gulf Stream and met a freighter, but instead of an animal crate, a big aluminum container was loaded onto their boat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.