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Mysteries of the everglades
While some stories bring laughter, most of our fiction delves into the captivating world of mysteries. Many are uniquely set in the Florida Everglades, a landscape brimming with secrets, where every twist and turn of the environment adds depth to the intrigue. If you enjoy stories that make you think, you'll love these.
First published by Flash Fiction Magazine
Hurricane Party
April 3, 2022 Published first in Flash Fiction Magazine.
By Jessica Ramer
Every time I get drunk and drive out to Loxahatchee to wrestle alligators, Edna throws a hissy fit. If she doesn’t have PMS, she’ll say, “What about your daughter? Who will take care of her if something happens to you? Don’t you want to be there for Tiffany?” If she does have PMS—and boy is that a killer, especially since she popped out the kid—she’ll say, “I hope that alligator does bite you. And when it does, I’ll drive out there and feed it a whole chicken every day for a week as a reward.” And if she really, really has PMS, she says, “I hope you die out there so I can get the life insurance money”—she took out a policy after the rug rat was born—“and social security survivor benefits. I’d have more money than I do now. And I wouldn’t spend it on beer.”
I tell her, “Babe, don’t worry. I’ve done it at least a dozen times, and I haven’t lost a finger yet. I haven’t even been bitten.” Once I almost got caught by the cops, but I lied real good and told him I dropped my gold chain in the water and was looking for it. He let me go. The alligator slipped away when his car pulled up, so he didn’t know what I was doing.
The cool thing about seeing alligators at night is that their eyes glow red in the dark. It’s both beautiful and scary to see those eyes reflect the flashlight beam and know the gator has one thought in that walnut-sized brain lying behind them—to do anything it takes to survive.
What you need to know about alligators is that they’re as scared of you as you are of them. As soon as they see me coming, they slink into the water. That is, if they’re not in the water already. They feed at night. The only thing to watch out for is not to let them put you in a death roll. Then, you drown.
Anyway, there was this hurricane blowing in. I forget its name because it was the fourteenth named storm this year. Nellie. Nina. Nancy. Nola. Something like that. Anyway, Edna had the worst PMS ever and the kid was cutting a tooth, and I’ll be damned if I was going to spend a whole hurricane locked up in that tiny apartment with those two.
So I got me some cash I hid in my jock strap in the bottom drawer—Edna doesn’t like to touch that—and I drove down to the Pick n Pay to buy a case of beer and dropped by my buddy’s place. He’s got three kids and wanted to get out of his house, too.
It was about dusk, and palm fronds were all sticking straight out from the wind. We drove west on Jog Road, past all the horse corrals and plant nurseries that had left their potted palm trees outside like a bunch of idiots.
Me and Charlie drove as far on the levee as we could until a chain across the gravel road stopped us and we got out. We drank almost half the case in less than two hours. When I finally got a good buzz on, I took my high-power flashlight, shone it on the water, and spotted me a pair of gator eyes. Close to shore, too. Its body was underwater, so I couldn’t see how long it was, but judging by the size of its skull, it was bigger than anything I’d wrestled before.
The wind was blowing up good, and it was starting to rain, so I waded into the water and grabbed that thing by the snout. Gators clamp down real hard, but they can’t open their jaws if you hold them closed and if you’re strong. That old bull was bigger than I thought, and even though he couldn’t bite me, he did put me in a death roll. I was so drunk it made me even dizzier than it would have otherwise, and I ended up puking all over its back. I guess it scared him ‘cause he dove under the water. That was the only time I was afraid because I couldn’t see where he was. I high-tailed it up the side of the levee while Charlie laughed so hard he farted.
We was too drunk to drive home, and we didn’t want to go anyway, so we broke into one of the stables and spent the hurricane with beer and the horses.
When the hurricane was over, we went outside and tried our car. It started right up. We were afraid to go home—Edna’s scarier than any alligator—so we drank the last two cans of beer and picked up a woman airboat pilot who took us to her house. We told her we were brothers and lost our place when our folks died, and that we were saving money for a place in Pompano. I guess she believed us or else she wouldn’t have gone to bed with me. I got lucky. Everything was closed down because of the hurricane, and it gave me someplace to be besides home with Edna. Even if an alligator bites your finger off, it doesn’t come back to bite you again. But Edna can put you in a death roll for the rest of your life.
Another story set in the Everglades:
Bassackward Santa
Lance Rattner looked like the illegitimate son of Mrs. Claus and one of her husband’s elves with his scarlet trousers and Christmas-green shirt. His fleshy, sagging lower lip made his mouth appear half-open.
I was surveilling this man or, since I don’t have a PI license, I should say that I was researching him, an activity not regulated by Florida law. My client, Wayne Conroy, had accused him of stealing his dogs earlier that morning.
Rattner glanced at my shih-poo. “Great dog you’ve got.”
I smiled at him. “I’m Alexandra. And this is Bosco.” Dog walking is the perfect cover. It doesn’t arouse suspicion and it encourages people to talk.
“You live around here?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do?” he probed.
“Well, I graduated from law school last December, but right now, I’m doing research for a lawyer.”
“What’s the matter? Didn’t pass the bar exam?” His smile reminded me of a butterfly collector pinning a prized specimen to a mounting board.
“I scored in the top half of one percent.” Covid had all but put a stop to hiring of new lawyers, but I didn’t tell him that.
He had started to say something else when a tan Mercedes pulled into the driveway across the street. A tall, shapely woman wearing a skirted suit and pumps got out of the car. Rattner smirked, raised his voice, and said to the whole neighborhood, “I’m having an affair with her, you know.”
The woman laughed and batted her hand at him. “Oh, Lance, stop that.”
After pinning her to his mounting board, too, he swaggered inside his house.
I introduced myself to the woman and told her I was looking for Wayne Conroy’s missing dogs. Anger surged through her eyes. She motioned to a patio swing. “Let’s sit down.”
I picked my dog up before he could relieve himself on her lawn and held him on my lap.
“I’m Beth Ford, by the way.” She glanced toward Lance’s house. “Poor Conroy. He’s so attached to those dogs. He says they saved his life when he was in Iraq.”
“Do you know something about them?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think I know who did it. That man you were talking to. Lance Rattner.”
I glanced at her wedding ring and wondered how she felt about Rattner’s 100-decible claim that she was an adulteress. “Why do you think so?”
“Because Lance wants to sell his house and is afraid two large dogs next door might discourage buyers, especially if they have kids.” She clicked her fingernails together rhythmically and leaned closer to me. “He asked my teenage son to dump Conroy’s dogs in the Everglades. My son said no, but he could have gone to prison if he’d let that jerk talk him into it. Lance is a dirty coward who uses other people as cats’ paws.”
I felt a surge of hope followed by dismay. The dogs might still be alive. But searching the Everglades’ gazillion acres of swampland with no manpower but mine would be impossible.
I thanked Beth and strolled around the cul-de-sac. As I passed in front of Lance’s house, I pretended to trip over Bosco’s leash.
“Oh, flip!” I shouted, clutching my ankle. The sprain was fake. The scrape on my palm was not.
Rattner rushed outside. “What happened?”
“I tripped on the leash.”
“Come inside. I’ll get you some ice.”
I sat at his kitchen table while he wrapped some ice in a towel and put it on my ankle. “Can I get you something to eat?”
“No, but I could use a ride to the walk-in clinic. My boyfriend will pick me up after he gets off work.”
“You got it.” He helped me to the car.
“Let me sit in the back so I can elevate my foot.”
I got in, clutching my dog, who wriggled free and stood on his hind legs to look out the window. When we reached the clinic, I insisted on wiping Bosco’s hair off the backseat with a tissue. I sat down on an outside bench. Muting the incoming sound, I called my answering machine and left a message asking my boyfriend to come watch the dog while I got treated and then drive me home. After Lance drove off, I limped through the back parking lot—in case he circled back—to my apartment behind the clinic.
At home, I leafed through my hair and fiber identification textbook—I had majored in forensics as an undergrad—pulled out my old microscope and identified hairs from the tissue that were definitely canine and definitely not Bosco’s. I called Conroy.
“Could you bring over a sample of your dogs’ hair?” I gave him my address. He arrived in ten minutes carrying a dog brush. The hairs matched.
I called the lawyer I work for, who called Rattner and made him an offer: tell him where he dumped the dogs, and if they are found alive, no charges would be filed. Faced with a possible criminal record, Rattner admitted he had drugged the dogs and dumped them in the Loxahatchee Nature Preserve.
An airboat pilot my boss had once done pro bono work for ferried us all into the Everglades. Every hundred yards or so, he turned off the airboat engine. Conroy called, “Beau! Artemis.” He pulled out a squeaky toy and squeezed. Five times. Nothing.
It was almost nightfall when, at the next stop, dark shapes emerged from the brush and paced at the water’s edge. Wayne called again. The animals barked with what could only be called ecstasy. Conroy leaped off the boat and waded to shore. “I’ve got them!”
He leashed them and carried them one at a time to the boat. Their paws bleeding, the old, arthritic beasts lay next to him on the boat, a canine nose resting on each foot.
Conroy reached down to pet his dogs, wiping his eyes on his sleeve as the airboat bucked over sawgrass
The Lavender-Scented Trash Bag
By Jessica Ramer
Using the glass pane next to his waiting room door as a mirror, Michael Barber smoothed his thinning hair and straightened his tie. “My mother was a schoolteacher and never slept well the night before the first day of school,” he said to me in his North Florida accent. “None of my law professors told me that every new client is like the first day of school.”
This new client was Hunter Kramer, a Heisman Trophy contender accused of rape. He had surrendered the afternoon before and had been bailed out by his mother within hours. According to Michael, the kid had brought his team from a second-to-last place finish—the year before he started—to third in his division last season. Barring injuries, next season would be even better.
“I didn’t know you followed football,” I said.
“Why Miss Alexandra,” he said, deepening his southern accent for comic effect, “you know all boys who grow up in the Florida Panhandle love football and dream of playing it. It’s just that my dream got derailed the first time I got the wind knocked out of me and discovered that I hated lying on the ground unable to breathe.”
Footsteps sounded in the outside corridor. A tall blond male opened the door to the waiting room and entered behind an older woman. He appraised the room and everyone in it. His eyes flitted past me and landed on Michael. Muscular and blond, Hunter carried himself with the arrogance of someone who had been Big Man on Campus since kindergarten. Not even the ankle monitor bulging beneath his pants leg lessened his self-confidence. I would have bet money that he was both homecoming king and prom king in high school.
Michael introduced me as a lawyer who would also be working on his case. Now that he knew I could benefit him, Hunter looked me in the eye as if I were the only person who mattered to him and proffered a thousand-watt smile.
Beth Ford, his mother, wore a gray skirted suit and, judging from her tidy figure, a body shaper that held her stomach in and breasts up. Every strand of brown hair with blond highlights had been sprayed or gelled into a shape that reminded me of a Roman battle helmet. She sized me up, her disapproval evident. I thought maybe she disliked my frayed denim skirt and cheap sandals but when her eyes lingered on my face and her lips twisted into a sneer, I knew she disliked me.
Michael ushered us into his private office where Hunter gave his version of the story. Natalie Aster had started to feel sick at a fraternity party. He drove her to the drugstore for medicine. The car ride made her feel sicker, so she gave him money and he went inside to buy something for an upset stomach. No, he did not tie her wrists with the bungee cord in his car and leave bruises. No, he did not know why she would make a false allegation against him.
After listening to Hunter explain the incident, Michael asked, “Did you have consensual sex with Ms. Aster and make her angry by brushing her off afterwards?”
“I didn’t have sex with Natalie at all. She’s too ug . . . .” His mother coughed and gave him that look teachers give errant students. “I mean she’s not my type.”
“My guess is that Natalie is pregnant and wants an excuse that will gain her sympathy,” Ms. Ford said.
She turned toward me. “Michael mentioned you on the phone yesterday. Since then, I’ve done my own research, Ms. Alexandra Lermontov.”
I struggled to keep a neutral expression.
“I know that when you were fifteen, you persuaded three of your girlfriends to lure your stepfather into cybersex. Then, you turned him in. Investigators found kiddie porn on his computer. He claims you planted it. You’re clever, Ms. Lermontov, but you’re dangerous.”
I bent forward in an abbreviated bow as if the president himself was placing the Medal of Freedom around my neck. I lowered my eyes modestly and mouthed “Thank you.”
Her lips twisted into a second sneer. “I hope you will prove as good at keeping people out of prison as you are about putting them in.”
I smiled. She glared. I gave her my iciest, blue-eyed stare until she averted her gaze. Mrs. Ford gave me the willies. My name had never been made public in the stepfather’s case and if she knew about it, she had contacts in the courthouse. And not with the custodial staff, either.
Michael said, “Miss Alexandra has a bachelor’s in forensic science and a law degree. If anyone can keep your son out of prison, she can.”
Mrs. Ford’s eyes flitted in my direction until she focused them again on Michael. “I need this matter resolved before football practice starts. This is the last year my son is eligible to play and . . .”
Hunter interrupted her. “I don’t want to let the team down. That would hurt everybody’s chances of turning pro. But the school says I can’t play with these charges hanging over my head. I can’t even be on campus. Or take classes.”
“The administrators are afraid of a lawsuit if something happens,” Mrs. Ford said.
“All the scouts will be looking at me next year. If I don’t play, I’m less likely to win the Heisman and to be a first-round draft pick, or a pick in any round. Oh, and I’d really like to get my stuff out of the frat house.”
The last problem was easily solved. Michael called the dean in charge of campus security, who granted permission for Hunter to retrieve his stuff if a campus police officer remained with him the whole time.
At Michael’s request, I followed mother and son to the school. “Stay with him the whole time,” he said before I left. “If anything happens, I want a witness who isn’t drawing a paycheck from the university.”
#
Even though Hunter knew I was following behind him, he drove at high speeds, riding car bumpers and darting in and out of lanes without signaling—like a wide receiver dodging corner backs when his team is three points behind with twelve seconds left on the clock. I caught up with him only because a truck carrying a large palm tree dropped its load on I-95, slowing traffic to a crawl. We both reached the exit ramp at the same time and drove the quarter mile to the university entrance.
An armed policeman met us at the gate and followed us to the frat house. He stood outside the door shifting from one foot to another as Hunter packed a college student’s detritus: graphic novels, condoms, hair products, shaving equipment, and a cell phone charger. The job done, Mrs. Ford and Hunter drove off, followed by the policeman.
I stayed to interview a fraternity brother. Jeremy Bennett described Natalie with a young man’s candor. “She’s not exactly a beauty. Darby was dating her for a while, but Hunter teased him so much he stopped. That’s why I know Hunter didn’t rape her. He can have any girl he wants and doesn’t need to rape someone like Natalie. Besides,” he continued, “next year, we have a good shot at a bowl game—a big one—and I know Hunter wouldn’t mess that up to rape anyone, especially her.” He uttered that feminine pronoun with vehement disdain.
To prove his point, he pulled up a social media site on his cell phone and showed me pictures of a gangly girl with asymmetrical ears set low on her head and crotaline eyes that reminded me of the pygmy rattler that almost bit me while I was hiking in the Everglades. I disliked her at once, which proves that the bio-mom’s talks on loving one’s neighbor as oneself fell on stony ground. Or was it thorny ground?
“The girlfriend he’s got now is a babe,” Jeremy added. He showed me her picture, too.
“Does the babe have a name?”
Jeremy scrunched up his face as he searched his memory. “Abby. But I forget her last name. She’s nineteen,” he added.
#
I spent the rest of the afternoon in Michael’s office researching Natalie on the internet, but her privacy settings had been set to the highest level. I couldn’t access anything that she had posted herself. The only things I did find had been posted to her sorority web page by others. According to it, she spear-headed a book drive for poor kids and broke the campus record for fundraising and book donations. A photo taken in her room showed her chatting with friends in front of a bookshelf lined with Barbies. A wall poster depicted Tinkerbell; the text beneath it said something about pixie dust. My initial dislike gave way to a twinge of pity for this awkward young woman just out of girlhood who clung to a belief in good magic and a standard of beauty she could never attain.
#
Two weeks later, the DNA analysis of the sample taken during the rape exam came back a match. At a strategy session to deal with this new development, Hunter said, “But DNA tests can be wrong sometimes, right? I mean, science is done by scientists and scientists are human and humans make mistakes.” I wondered if he had thought up that tidy syllogism himself or had copied it from someone else. He answered my question with his next sentence. “That’s what Alan Kunstler says, and he’s the greatest lawyer ever.”
Michael ignored the implicit insult to his legal skills. “Right now, your best tactic is delay,” he said. “If enough time elapses, Natalie may not want to go through a trial. And if she does, her memory will be hazier and her testimony less credible.”
Like a mother bear protecting her young, Mrs. Ford put both Michael and me in her line of sight as if she were preparing to charge. “I want my son proven innocent and I want Ms. Aster,” she said, elongating the s in that plaintiff’s surname into a hiss, “exposed for the liar she is. A rape charge even without a conviction can ruin his career. Hunter’s got too much potential to have his life destroyed by that schemer.”
Mrs. Ford returned her attention to Michael alone and demanded an independent DNA examiner.
#
Again, the DNA analysis came back a match.
I sat with Michael in his office as he made a conference call to Hunter and his mother about the latest results.
“I want to take a lie detector test,” Hunter said.
Michael exhaled. “They’re not admissible in court.”
“But if Hunter passes a lie detector test, maybe you will believe he’s telling the truth and fight harder to clear him,” Mrs. Ford said.
Michael shrugged. “It’s your money.”
#
Eight days later, Hunter took a lie detector test with Paddy Mockler, an ex-priest and the best polygrapher in South Florida. He passed. He took a second one at police headquarters. He passed again.
“Sociopaths lie. Good science doesn’t,” I told Michael when he called me with the results.
“It’s pretty hard to fool Paddy,” Michael said.
On a whim, I asked to see the DVD of Hunter’s police interrogation. “If that’s what you want to spend your Friday evening doing, have at it. But it’s standard stuff. Questions met with repeated denials.” Protective of client confidentiality, he refused to send the file over the internet. Instead, he made a DVD and dropped it off at my place on his way home.
#
I curled up on my futon with my dog and watched the interrogations on my laptop. Three times. Hunter seemed nervous, but his account had the right amount of believable detail. He denied having sex with her and demanded—twice—to take a DNA test. Hunter was no Einstein, but he was smart enough to know the risks if the test found his genetic material.
I closed my eyes and listened to his voice. He sounded truthful. By the end of the interview, I wasn’t sure Hunter was innocent, but I wasn’t sure he was guilty, either. I fell asleep pondering the best way to determine the truth.
#
Abby flashed through my mind when I woke up at 5:32 the next morning. Hunter’s girlfriend. On Monday, I called Michael, who arranged a meeting between us.
#
Abby and I met in a sorority house lobby filled with the noise of slamming doors and chatter about midterms and term papers. “Can we talk in your room?” I asked her.
She led me upstairs. Except for books piled on the desk, the room was in perfect order: furniture dusted, bed made, carpet vacuumed, garbage deposited in a trash can lined with a light purple, lavender-scented plastic bag.
We went through the timeline of that night. “Do you think he might have done it?” I asked.
She paused, then spoke slowly as if weighing each word. “I never saw even a hint of violence in him. But there’s the DNA. I just don’t know.”
“What do you know about Natalie Aster?”
“She’s my sorority sister.” Facing the door, she pointed to her right. “She has the room closest to the trash bins at the end of the hall.”
“What’s your gut feeling about her?”
“She’s always been nice to me. And everyone else likes her. After I spent a semester helping her with college algebra, she bought me this.” She picked up a stuffed animal. “It looks just like the dog I have at home.”
“I heard she was dating someone in Hunter’s fraternity.”
“That didn’t last. She was very upset when it ended.”
“Does she blame Hunter for the break-up?”
Abby sighed as she picked up her cell phone. “I found this last night.” She showed me a video posted two weeks before the alleged rape. In it, Hunter and his buddies appeared drunk, and Hunter can be heard saying, “Darby, if I was dating Natalie, the only necklace I’d buy her is a flea collar.” Raucous laughter drowned out the rest of his comments.
“Does Natalie know about this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. She lives on social media.” Abby stood up and walked over to her desk. “I’m sorry, but I have to study for an exam.” She slid textbooks into a backpack and slung it over her shoulders.
As we left the room, Abby pulled the plastic bag out of the wastebasket, tied it shut, and headed toward the trash bins.
I looked at her, the trash bins, and Natalie’s door. And I remembered a story one of my forensic science professors told the class. Videographers for a cop show had followed a police unit for a week and filmed a drug bust. When the defense attorney reviewed the video, she saw a cop toss something through the van’s window. The defendant was acquitted. More than a hundred cases were reopened.
I caught up to her. “Abby.” She turned to me. I glanced around the empty corridor and dropped my voice to a whisper. “I wouldn’t ask such a personal question if it weren’t important, but did you and Hunter ever make love in your room, and did you use condoms?”
She blushed and nodded.
“The night of the party?”
“Maybe two hours before.”
“Did you take the trash out before the party?”
Our eyes met. She knew. “In case my mother paid a surprise visit, I didn’t want her to see that.”
She deposited her trash bag in the bin and headed downstairs. She turned to me before she reached the front door. “Thank you.”
#
I called Michael. He sweet-talked a lab tech into a rush DNA test on the purse, which had been held as evidence, and a re-examination of the sperm collected during the rape exam. Results indicated both lubricant and spermicide in the semen sample. An inner pocket of her purse had traces of Hunter’s sperm. Natalie had fished a used condom from Abby’s trash and stored it in her purse to use after she had been alone with Hunter and then transferred the semen from the condom to her person before submitting to the rape exam. She probably bruised herself with Hunter’s bungee cord when he left her alone in the car while he bought medicine.
#
Presented with these facts, the state’s attorney dropped all charges, citing the complainant’s lack of credibility. Michael spoke to the press, detailing the rape hoax without revealing Natalie’s name. Always generous, he gave me full credit for cracking the case.
#
Mrs. Ford hosted a victory dinner for Hunter, Michael, and me in a Michelin-rated restaurant. “Go ahead, dear, order whatever you like,” Mrs. Ford told me. “It’s the least I can do for the girl who kept my son out of prison and saved his football career.” I thanked her and ordered the lobster, amused at having been promoted from “dangerous” to “dear” in a few weeks.
#
I saw Hunter one last time when he and his mom filed a lawsuit against Broward County and the State of Florida. Deep pockets. The government had money. Natalie had none. Hunter informed me that Abby had dumped him. He didn’t know why. Girlfriendless and randy, he asked me out. I told him I never date clients.
The End
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