Free A Hard Death by Jonathan Hayes

but stopped when he saw Jenner open the bathroom door. He jumped back onto the bed, and when the shower turned on, burrowed halfway under the sheets and gummed one of Jenner’s pillows.

C HAPTER 18
    A fter pushing the dog out of his cabin, Jenner walked through the parking lot; Rudge’s Taurus was still there, parked under the slash pines. Rudge had the driver’s seat down; in the moonlight, Jenner could make out the round white billow of the detective’s shirt as it rose and fell with his breathing. As he got closer, he heard ghastly, throat-plowing snores, and decided to let the man sleep. He walked on to his own car, feeling vaguely noble, and then sorry for himself and his aching head—and face and hand.
    He stopped at the 24-Hour Super Wal-Mart. At the ATM, he cleaned out his checking account, and then bought a pair of waders and a flashlight. He pounded down a cup of black coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter, and when that kicked in, walked the bright space until he found the bug spray. As he was passing the ammo counter, it occurred to him that he’d left his gun at the motel; too late to go back. He picked up a gallon jug of water from a stand near the cash register.
    As Jenner drove north up I-55, Port Fontaine gradually faded away. The housing developments, hidden behind tonsured bushes and landscaped terraces, grew farther apart, then the McDonald’s and Waffle Houses and Taco Bells died out, and soon he was driving through the night, the Gulf somewhere off to his left, the Everglades to his right. The moon, low in a cloud-streaked maroon sky, flooded the low expanse of grass and scattered islands of gnarled trees choking in undergrowth. In the silver light, the dark trees were sharp-edged and vivid, shapes of cypress and palm punched out of tin and stuck into the marshy ground.
    He rolled down the window, felt the air stream against his face, warm and humid. He was sober now. Mostly sober.
    He rolled the window back up and turned on the radio, skippingacross evangelical talk radio and Golden Oldies and Latin music until the twanging sitar of Tom Petty’s “Don’t Come Around Here No More” welled out of the speakers. He sang along a few lines, even turned it up, but his head throbbed, so he turned the radio off and watched the road in silence, feeling the onrushing ribbon of floodlit asphalt disappear under his hood, the trees and bushes whip past.
    Half an hour out of Port Fontaine, Jenner sailed past High Lock Road, braking too late for the turning. The highway was empty, so he reversed slowly along the shoulder and took the turn. For a while he drove through orange groves, the land on either side carved into slabs by drainage canals, each block filled with hundreds of rows of low, dark citrus trees, thousands upon thousands of them. He drove through the groves for about five minutes before he saw high fencing that marked the line where the reclaimed farm land stopped and the marsh began; a Department of Parks and Fisheries sign identified the land beyond as part of the Everglades National Park.
    There was a bump, and the road abruptly turned to gravel. He rolled forward slowly, headlights flaring the rising clouds of dust. On either side, scrubby bushes pressed in on the road, and beyond the arc of his high beams Jenner could see nothing, just immense darkness.
    He ran out of road. The roadway ended in a small turning oval, a low black-and-white-striped metal retaining barrier protecting vehicles from a foot and a half drop down into the River of Grass. Jenner slowed to a stop, heard the crunch of the gravel under his tires.
    He peered into the night, but couldn’t see much beyond the barrier in the glare of reflected light. He turned his headlights off, and was plunged into darkness.
    The heat soaked him as he climbed out of the car, swallowing him, immediately wet on his air-conditioned skin. He walked to the metal barrier, sat, and stared out into the