by Tom Lowe
“The angle to the beach and to the perspective from where Michelle Martin’s body was found.” I pointed to an area about a hundred yards north. “See that cross of flowers erected in the sand well above high tide area?”
Wynona nodded. “Can we assume it was left there by Michelle’s family?”
“Most likely. If you were to backtrack from here, these tracks would make a beeline from the crime scene. The boot tread is knotty and appears to be like the kind found on the soles of those orange, red, or yellow rubber boots that commercial fishermen often wear. The treads help to keep them from slipping on boats, and they leave a unique imprint in the sand. There are only a couple of them here, and maybe a spot in the sand where the perp fell, making two knee imprints. I see a spot at the base of the sea grape tree that’s scratched. And it’s fresh.”
Wynona followed the visual perspective from where we stood to the cross of flowers in the distance. “Maybe, because of the wind and surf, the hundreds of footprint tracks left by beachgoers, we’re not seeing any visible signs of additional boot tracks. The ones you’re standing next to are somewhat protected from the wind by all of this foliage.” She paused for a moment, looking back toward the ocean. “Savannah was surfing right out there. We don’t know exactly what she told police, but I do remember her telling us that it looked like the man rose up from the bushes to watch her surf. Maybe he’d just tripped and fell. Savannah said he sort of popped up … then watched her on the surfboard for a brief few seconds before vanishing.”
I nodded. “Could be the same guy she saw that left these imprints in the sand. And I’d suggest he fell after the baby turtles had left because the handprint is complete … no tiny turtle holes dug through the handprint. But there is one thing about the handprint that’s not complete.”
“What’s that?”
“Come, take a closer look.”
Wynona, careful not to disturb the area, approached the circular surface. She stared at the handprint, lifting her eyes to me. “He’s missing part of a finger.”
“Yeah. If he’s a fisherman, maybe it happened in a fishing accident. Under the cover of darkness, he probably carried Michelle’s body from the trunk of his car, making a direct hike to the surf. From there he could have walked in the surf about a hundred yards north, laid the body down, posing it, and then left. Maybe he didn’t retrace his original path because he could have seen something or someone, and he wanted to leave. If he was the perp, that doesn’t explain why he’d be here at sunrise when Savannah was paddling out to catch a few waves.”
“Sometimes psychopaths who pose the bodies of their victims do so because they love to see or hear about an eyewitness reaction to discovering the body. It’s almost akin to a Broadway play director sitting anonymously with the theater audience, watching the crowd reaction to his or her play. Or maybe a movie director secretly sitting in the middle of the audience at the theater to hear and see reactions from the crowd as the film is playing on the big screen. Which brings us back to your theory that the killer is somehow connected to the movie, Atlantis, correct?”
“Yes.” I used my phone to take pictures of the boot prints and the handprint. “Maybe these will be of value to investigators. I’d like to know if they found boot prints around the body that morning. And, if so, would they match these?”
“Maybe detectives will find a solid suspect with no alibi and a missing finger on his left hand.”
TWENTY-NINE
Rex Nelson was tying down his 44-foot fishing boat, Wind Dancer, when he received the call he was waiting to hear. He stood in the cockpit, at sunset in Ponce Marina, and took the call from his daughter, Savannah.
“Daddy! I got the part. I’m going to be in the movie, Atlantis!” Savannah was driving her car, darkness falling and headlights streaking by her from traffic on the busy Orlando highway, the flashes of neon coming from hotel signs and restaurants.
“Congratulations. I’m so proud of you. Do you have a starring role? Maybe right up there with Brad Pitt or whoever they cast in the male lead?”
“Hardly. But I do have a small speaking part. A couple of short sentences.”
“That’s great. What do they want you to say?”
“I’m supposed to point to a make-believe island and say … Mother, I never want to leave Atlantis. It is the only home I have ever known. Where’s father?”
“That’s cool, sweetheart. I’m very happy for you. When do they want you to start?”
“In a couple of weeks.” She turned off the highway and into the parking lot of a high-rise condo complex, tall royal palms lit by soft lights, which shone from the ground up through the trunks and into the palm fronds. She glanced in her rearview mirror as another car entered the parking lot.
“Will you have time to be in the movie, get ready to go back to school, and apply for that job at Weeki Wachee you were hoping to get?”
“Of course. Dad, you taught me time management, remember?”
“I do.”
“Also, my experience playing a mermaid in a movie should help me land a job at Weeki Wachee.”
“No doubt about that. I’m sure they don’t find applicants with real-world experience as mermaids, strange as that sounds.” He laughed and stepped off his boat onto the dock, a brown pelican sitting on a post. “I wish your mama was alive to see all this. She’d be so darn proud of you. If there ever was a woman who could have been a mermaid, it was your mom. She sure took to the ocean like a starfish. Where are you now?”
“Orlando. I’m going to hang out with Angela for a little while.” Savannah parked, got out, using one hand to keep the phone to her ear as she picked up a mermaid tail and opened her trunk, setting it inside. “The movie people are so nice, but I’m not so sure I made a great first impression with the casting director. His name’s Sebastian Gunter. He has a slight German accent. When I told him that his name reminded me of Sebastian the crab in the Disney movie, The Little Mermaid, he just shook his head like he had a twitch or something.” Savannah closed her trunk as headlights from a car raked across her face. She held up the palm of one hand, shielding her eyes from the bright lights.
Rex looked toward the Ponce Lighthouse, the structure a silhouette in the ebb of twilight, the light rotating. “Those Hollywood types will soon find out that you are the real deal, baby. Maybe your honesty will be refreshing to some of ‘em.”
“I hope I don’t get fired by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Maybe they all aren’t so persnickety.” Savannah paused. The driver in the car made no effort to keep driving, the headlights still in her eyes. “What the crap,” she mumbled.
“What is it, Savannah? Are you all right?”
“Someone drove into the lot to Angela’s condo and their car lights are shinning in my eyes. From this angle, I can’t tell if the driver is trying to back into a parking spot or if he’s just being a jerk.”
“Don’t hang up. Stay on the line until the driver leaves, okay?”
“Okay. I think that the driver saw me put the mermaid costume in my trunk, and it sort of freaked him out.”
“What’s happening, Savannah? Is he parking his car or what?”
“I can’t tell, Daddy. Wait a sec … the car is going.”
The headlights shifted from her face as the car moved. The elderly woman behind the wheel drove slowly by Savannah, her window down, stopping. The woman kept both hands on the wheel, her fingers bent and knotty from arthritis. She looked up at Savannah and made an attempt to smile. “Excuse me. I’m searching for C-building. My daughter and grandchildren moved in last week. I’m afraid I’m a bit lost. Kathy told me she lives in a ground-floor unit. She’s going through a divorce. Not good.”
“It’s a large complex and can be confusing. C-building is to the right, toward the very end of the parking lot. There’s a lot of light back there and a directory next to the main entrance.”
“Thank you, dear.” The woman put the car in gear and slowly drove away.
&n
bsp; Savannah lifted the phone to her ear. “Dad, did you hear that?”
“Yes. Glad you could help her.”
“I feel weird. Rarely am I afraid or paranoid, but after what I found on the beach … it changes you.”
“I understand. Sounds like you took the advice Sean O’Brien gave you. Be cautious. Be observant … but be you.”
“I love you, Daddy.
“Love you, too.”
“Hey, if you don’t mind, call me when you’re on your way home, all right?”
“Okay.”
THIRTY
Wynona and I set a date to sail. It would be in two weeks. I wanted to haul Dragonfly out of the water, clean and repaint the hull, inspect the propeller and shaft. I needed to do the exterior and interior maintenance before we left Ponce Inlet. Then we’d be good to raise the sails and head southeast through the Atlantic Ocean toward St. Lucia and a harbor on the island where I wanted to reposition Dragonfly.
It was late in the afternoon when I walked down the docks toward the marina office to make arrangements to get Dragonfly hauled from the water and prepped for the trip. As I rounded a corner of the rustic, whitewashed building, heading for the dockmaster, Rex Nelson was coming my way, a grin on his tanned face, billed fishing cap pulled low on his lined forehead. “Sean, I have some good news.”
“I’m always ready to hear good news.”
“Savannah got a part! She’s gonna be a mermaid in the movie, Atlantis.”
“That is great news. I know she’ll do well. When does she start?”
“In a few days. She told me they’re gonna be shooting scenes over at Canaveral National Seashore, the Daytona Marina, and a no name island off the Keys. They’ll also be shooting stuff at sea from boats and helicopters and with state-of-the-art drones. I told her to tell ‘em if they needed to hire guides with boats, I’m their guy. If I can put up with clients from the great Northeast, I can put up with movie people, too, don’t you think?” He grinned.
“Absolutely. You’d be great for the job. Maybe they’ll hire you as well.”
“Yep, but right now, it’s all about Savannah. She says they’re probably only gonna need her for a few days. After that, she’s tryin’ out for a mermaid position over at Weeki Wachee when she goes back to college. My daughter is a go-getter. Couldn’t be prouder.”
“We’re all proud of Savannah. She’s been part of the Ponce Marina community for a long time.”
Rex nodded, looking down at his wide, calloused hands for a moment. When he raised his eyes back at me, I could see the change in them. Happy eyes with a cloud of worry over the blue irises. I said, “Savannah will do well in both roles, the movie and Weeki Wachee.”
“I got no worries there.”
“Then what are you worried about, Rex?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You’ve always been a guy who wears his feelings on his shoulder. Today, you have emotions on both shoulders, good on one and troubled on the other.”
He looked out at the boats in the marina, a dock worker fueling a 45-foot Grady-White fishing boat, four brown pelicans sailing over the marina, wings motionless. “Savannah’s had trouble sleeping because of what she saw on the beach. She can’t get the dead girl’s face out of her mind, especially when she’s tryin’ to drift off to sleep. She’s wakin’ up most nights, scared. And that’s not like my daughter.”
“She found a horrific crime scene. Those images won’t go away anytime soon, but they will fade somewhat with the passage of time. It’s bad enough to discover the body of a murder victim, but had she actually witnessed the crime, chances are her trauma would be even worse than right now. In witnessing a horrible event, it’s not unlike being present during a gruesome war combat. The horror, the smells, it all sears into your memory banks and doesn’t fade much with time.”
“That’s what I hear. PTSD is a nasty ghost. I never served in the military. Sometimes I regret that. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do. Don’t regret it, Rex.”
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans, the slight scent of diesel fumes and blackened grouper in the humid air. He looked up at me. “I heard you served in the Army. What division of the Army and where?”
“Delta Force. The Middle East, mostly.”
He sucked in a chest full of air. “Well, I hope you were able to leave most of it over there.”
I nodded and said nothing.
“You asked me what got me concerned. Part of it is the trauma Savannah experienced on the beach, and the other part is the guy the cops are questioning … the dead girl’s ex-boyfriend.”
“What about him?”
“What if it was him that Savannah saw early on the beach that morning, and he thinks she might be able to identify him in one of those police lineups? He might try to do something bad to her if he feels she can say it was him on the beach.”
“But why would the person who killed the victim—Michelle Martin, stick around the beach after he left her body there. Why watch Savannah surf?”
“Because he’s insane. Maybe he didn’t want to look suspicious, just causal, watching a girl ride a wave before vanishing over the sand dunes and getting into his car to leave.”
“That’s possible, but not probable.”
Rex pulled his hands out of his pockets, ran one of his thumbs across the four-day growth of whiskers on his chin and lowered his voice. “Sean, Savannah’s gonna have to testify in a murder trial when they find the killer, and that’s got her antsy, too. She’ll do it because she’s made that way. It needs to be done—assuming, of course, the cops do solve the case and arrest the killer. But, for the time being, do you think my daughter is in real danger, or will this thing blow over after the killer’s caught and prosecuted?”
“I don’t know what police know, so I can’t give you an accurate answer.” I thought about the scenario I might create if I said what I really didn’t want to say. But looking into Rex Nelson’s anxious eyes, I decided to say it. “The lead detective, his name is Dan Grant. I know him.”
“You do?”
“Yes—it’s not like we’re fishing buddies, but we know each other, and he’s aware that I used to be a detective in Miami. I can call him, see if he’ll give me an update. He might hold his card’s close to his chest and tell me he can’t say anything. That’s the way it usually works. But I’ll make the call.”
Rex nodded, his eyes misting for a second, the clouds of worry seeming to momentarily vanish. “Thanks, Sean. I owe you one.”
“You owe me nothing.”
He started to walk away, turned back to me and smiled. “When the movie comes out, the one Savannah’s gonna be in, maybe you and Wynona can join us. It’ll be my treat.”
“Sound good.”
He nodded. “Speaking of Wynona … Savannah really liked talking with her at the table in the Tiki Hut. If it’s not putting Wynona out any … maybe she can go to lunch with Savannah. You know, just to talk. Woman to woman. My daughter respects and likes her. Maybe there’s something that Wynona can tell her that’ll make the image of the dead girl’s face go away … at least at night.”
I nodded. “Give me Savannah’s number. I’ll make sure Wynona gets it, and I’ll let her know what you suggested.”
THIRTY-ONE
For Savannah, now it felt so real. Three days later, she and seventy young women her age, as well as a dozen men in the same age group, were about to begin rehearsals for their roles in Atlantis. The excitement inside the aquatic center was palpable as the extras were moved from their dressing rooms to the edge of the Olympic-sized swimming pool. They all wore swimsuits and carried the mermaid or merman tail costumes with them. A half-dozen people from the wardrobe department and a few production assistants carried some of the accessories to the costumes.
“I’m like so nervous,” a tall blonde girl whispered to Savannah as they made their way to the pool.
“Me, too,” Savannah said. “What’s your name?�
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“Nicole Banard.”
“I’m Savannah Nelson. You live around here?”
“Not too far from Tampa. It’s a small town, Temple Terrace.”
“I know where it is.”
Kristen Morgan took her place on the other said of Savannah, smiled and said, “I don’t want to be the first in the pool.”
Savannah smiled and said, “Me neither.”
“Do you know how long the rehearsals are supposed to last today?”
“No.”
A man with wire-framed glasses and spiked black hair stood on the opposite side of the pool with more than a dozen other people and said, “Okay, listen up everyone. First of all, congratulations. You all made the cut. Welcome to the first day of basic rehearsals. Sort of like basic training. I’m Mark Myers, the first assistant director on Atlantis. Our primary goal today is to get you all more familiar with your roles, your costumes, and how to realistically swim in the water. Not so much like human beings, but more like some of the best swimmers in the sea … dolphins.” There was a murmur among the extras, nervous smiles.
“We are, however, continuing to cast for more extras. Atlantis is a movie with a large cast, especially in the roles of the general population of the continent and the parts you will play, mermaids and mermen. We’ll do some rehearsals here in the pool today. Our production assistants will help each of you get into the costumes and into the water. Any questions?”
One of the girls standing next to Savannah, Nicole Banard, raised her hand.
“Yes?” said Myers.
“Will we perform our roles in the ocean or somewhere else?”
“That’s a good question. Most everything will be shot on location, in the sea, in coves along the coastlines, on beaches and underwater in the Florida Keys, the Bahamas and West Africa. You all will have call-time production schedules and ample time to schedule your lives around your roles in the movie.” He smiled. “Many of you may have met some of the people around me here. If not, I’ll make the introductions. However, there is one thing I do want to address today, and in saying it, please know I speak for every crew member here and everyone at the studios. We’re deeply saddened about the death of the young woman, Michelle Martin, who auditioned for a role in Atlantis. We want you all here to know this … her unfortunate death was a horrible but isolated incident, not in any way connected to anyone involved in the production of Atlantis. We have more than two hundred crew members here. Most of the crew are from Southern California and lots of us are pulling twelve-hour days. I’ve personally worked with the majority of them for years on movies and TV shows. You become a big, traveling family during productions. Many of us have children your age, or younger back home. We’re convinced that police will find that the person who killed Michelle Martin is someone not at all associated with the movie or any company linked with the movie. I just wanted to get that out in the open. You are all safe on our sets. Okay? Any questions?”