Free Legally Dead by Edna Buchanan Page B

deep in the Glades. Through the years, as Miami’s urban sprawl crept west, it had been improved and added on to and was now a rambling one-story four-bedroom house in a relatively isolated area now on the fringe of the great swamp. The property backed onto a wide canal with a wooden dock. It was fenced in, too, with room for Scout to run and roam.
    He bought an eighteen-foot bass boat with a shallow draft hull that could float in eight inches of water. It had a small windshield, a seventy-five-horsepower engine, and locked compartments with deck hatches to store equipment. He and the dog took daily trips into the wild. No danger he’d become lost. As a boy he’d hike as far as he could into the woods, then find his way back. As a Force Recon Marine he aced courses in land navigation, and Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE) Training. He was a scout sniper. What he enjoyed most now was being out on the boat among the tree islands, surrounded by birds, sky, and water. Nothing else interested Michael Venturi. He felt stalled in a holding pattern, and he hated feeling aimless. At early ages, he and Danny had become part of something larger than themselves, had learned the value of teamwork, discipline, and tradition.
    Now, he felt part of nothing except this ancient sea of grass. He was waiting, watching for a signal that would point the way to a new direction in life.
    The day it happened, he took sandwiches, water, and the dog to an area he wanted to explore further.
    He anchored near a placid lake and listened to the wind and the birds, mesmerized by low-hanging clouds and his vast surroundings. He baited a hook but paid little attention to the line.
    He thought they were alone. The low moan he heard first could have been the wind astir in the saw grass. The louder anguished human groan caught him off guard. He stood to get a read on the direction. The dog got to his feet, as well, stiff-legged in the small wooden boat, whimpering under his breath. Another groan was followed by an almost inhuman cry of despair, then a gunshot.
    Scout leaped from the boat and splashed barking in the direction of the sounds.
    Venturi cursed. It was too dangerous for the dog. There were pythons and alligators out here—and somebody with a gun.
    He called the dog again, then picked up his own gun and went after him.

CHAPTER NINE
    Venturi found the dog at a small campsite, barking furiously at something in the serene woodland lake. A man floated facedown in the water, his unbuttoned white shirt billowing around him as he drifted farther from shore.
    There was no one else in sight.
    Venturi cursed, stripped off his own shirt, yanked off his boots, and waded into the tea-colored lake. When his footing dropped off into deep water, he swam out to the man, trying to avoid the reeds, vines, and aquatic grasses reaching like tentacles to entangle an unwary swimmer.
    The man never moved as Venturi came up behind him. He turned him over in the water, wrapped one arm around his neck and under the armpit, then saw blood on his arm, swirling in the water, everywhere. The man’s throat was cut.
    Gators roamed the lake. Venturi knew the creatures normally fed at night but were hungry now. The drought had shrunk their hunting habitat during mating season, forcing them to forage farther and hunt longer for food and sex. He had seen them here before. He saw one now.
    An alligator at least twelve feet long had been sunning itself on the muddy shore just a moment ago. Now it slid swiftly into the water about a hundred feet away.
    Scout was also in the lake, gamely dog-paddling behind him. Venturi tightened his grip on the man and shouted at Scout to get out of the water: “Go! Go! Go!” He swam as hard as he could, using a sidestroke, hip pressed against the man’s back to keep him above the surface so he could breathe, if he had any breath left in him.
    Behind him, a muffled splash signaled the entrance of a second, slightly