Every Dead Thing

Automatic fire raked the trees, shattering branches and blasting foliage. After four or five seconds of concentrated firing, the order went out to cease fire and the swamp was quiet once again. The agents and police advanced once more, moving quickly from tree to tree. A shout went up as blood was found by a willow, its broken branches white as bone.

From behind came the sounds of dogs barking as the tracker, who had been kept in reserve three miles away, was brought in to assist. The dogs were allowed to sniff around Byron’s clothing and the area of the woodpile. Their handler, a thin, bearded man with his jeans tucked into muddy boots, let them smell the blood by the willow as soon as he caught up with the main party. Then, the dogs straining at their leashes, they moved on cautiously.

But no more shots came at them from Edward Byron, because the lawmen were not the only ones hunting him in the swamp.

While the hunt continued for Byron, Toussaint, two young deputies, and I were in the sheriff’s office in St. Martinville, where we continued our trawl through Miami ’s dentists, using emergency numbers from answering machines where necessary.

Rachel provided the only interruption, when she arrived with coffee and hot Danishes. She stood behind me and gently laid a hand on the back of my neck. I reached around and clasped her fingers, then pulled them forward and lightly kissed their tips.

“I didn’t expect you to stay,” I said. I couldn’t see her face.

“It’s almost at an end, isn’t it?” she asked quietly.

“I think so. I feel it coming.”

“Then I want to see it out. I want to be there at the end.”

She stayed for a little longer, until her exhaustion became almost contagious. Then she returned to the motel to sleep.

It took thirty-eight calls before the dental assistant at Erwin Holdman’s dental surgery at Brickell Avenue found the name of Lisa Stott on her records, but she declined even to confirm if Lisa Stott had attended during the last six months. Holdman was on the golf course and didn’t like being disturbed, the assistant said. Toussaint told her that he didn’t give a good goddamn what Holdman liked or didn’t like and she gave him a cell phone number.

She was right. Holdman didn’t like being disturbed on the golf course, especially when he was about to make a birdie on the fifteenth. After some shouting, Toussaint requested Lisa Stott’s dental records. The dentist wanted to seek the permission of her mother and stepfather. Toussaint handed the phone to Dupree and Dupree told him that, for the present, that wasn’t possible, that they only wanted the records in order to eliminate the girl from their inquiries and it would be unwise to disturb the parents unnecessarily. When Holdman continued to refuse to cooperate, Dupree warned him that he would ensure that all his records were seized and his tax affairs subjected to microscopic examination.

Holdman cooperated. The records were kept on computer, he said, along with copies of X rays and dental charts that had been scanned in. He would send them on as soon as he returned to his office. His dental assistant was new, he explained, and wouldn’t be able to send on the records electronically without his password. He would just finish his round…

There was some more shouting and Holdman decided to suspend his golfing activities for that day. It would take him one hour, traffic permitting, to get back to his surgery. We sat back to wait.

Byron had made it about a mile into the swamp. The cops were closing and his arm was bleeding badly. The bullet had shattered the elbow of his left arm and a steady current of pain was coursing through his body. He paused in a small clearing and reloaded the shotgun by tensing the stock against the ground and pumping awkwardly with his good hand. The barking was closer now. He would take the dogs as soon as they came in sight. Once they were gone, he would lose the lawmen in the swamp.

It was probably only when he rose that he first became aware of the movement in front of him. The pack couldn’t have got around him already, he reasoned. The waters were deeper to the west. Without boats, they would not have been able to make it into the swamp from the road. Even if they had, he would have heard them coming. His senses had become attuned to the sounds of the swamp. Only the hallucinations threatened to undo him, but they came and went.

Byron crooked the shotgun awkwardly beneath his right arm and moved forward, his eyes moving constantly. He advanced slowly toward the treeline, but the movement seemed to have stopped. Maybe he shook his head then to clear his sight, fearing the onset of the visions, but they didn’t come. Instead, death came for Edward Byron as the woods came alive around him and he was surrounded by dark figures. He loosed off one shot before the gun was wrenched from his grip and he felt a pain shoot across his chest as the blade opened his skin from shoulder to shoulder.