[Sean O'Brien 03.0] The Butterfly Forest

by Tom Lowe

  A bombing range.

  The next morning I swallowed three aspirins with a chug of orange juice and then put on a pot of coffee. Following dinner last night on Nick’s boat, he broke out a second bottle of ouzo. The three of us raised glasses to Nick’s continued luck at sea and to my future as a short-run charter captain. It was close to 2:00 a.m. when Dave lumbered off to Gibraltar, and I found Jupiter waiting for me like a 38-foot waterbed. I crawled into the master bunk next to Max who slept closest to the large porthole window, the cool ocean trade winds blowing down on us.

  Now, with the morning sun coming through the portholes like harsh spotlights, I made three eggs scrambled with Cajun hot sauce for me, one egg mixed with cheese for Max. I sliced the toast, piled everything on two paper plates, and we went topside to the fly bridge. I rolled up the isinglass side curtains, sat in the captain’s chair and placed Max’s breakfast on a bench seat where she stood waiting. As we ate, a pelican soared by us. It was followed by two sea gulls, one of the birds pausing, circling the fly bridge and squawking in hopes of a handout. Max ate faster.

  The breeze brought the scent of saltwater and the damp smells of an incoming tide to reclaim roots and barnacle-laden dock posts. I could just hear the sound of breakers across the road and over the dunes. The pulley on a moored sailboat clanked one note as the breeze jostled it. The wind changed and brought the smell of strong, dark coffee and bacon coming from Gibraltar, across the dock from Jupiter. Dave had slept with all of the boat’s windows open. I pictured him watching the news and reading a morning paper at the same time. I glanced at Nick’s boat, St. Michael. Nothing. No movement. No one topside. Joe, the marina cat, stretched out across St. Michael’s transom. But no sign of Nick. I figured he’d sleep until noon and then get out of his bunk with a ravenous appetite and a serious hangover.

  I had awakened thinking about Elizabeth and Molly Monroe. I’d hoped that Molly was with someone at all times. I didn’t know if Elizabeth had someone to be with her. She didn’t say, and I never asked. Maybe it was because Detective Lewis said they were staking out her home, and officers were sipping coffee in her restaurant. I looked at the time on my cell phone: 8:45 a.m., then punched the number I’d stored. Lewis answered in two rings, his voice sounding tired at the beginning of day. I said, “Detective, I have an idea that might help your investigation into Frank Soto.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If you check tattoo parlors near the University of Florida, maybe between Ocala and Gainesville, you might find the ink artist who recently gave Soto his tat.”

  “How do you know it was recent?”

  “The ink looked bright. It looked new, similar to fresh paint. There was redness around the art, like his skin was sensitive.”

  “That’s a lot of speculation, Mr. O’Brien.”

  “It might be worth the effort to find the artist.”

  “Maybe. Lots of tat shops. Sometimes these fellas aren’t too eager to talk about who they had for canvases, if you know what I mean.”

  “What I know is that Soto tracked Molly from Gainesville to Sanford. He tried to take her out along with her mother. If he’s some kind of enforcer, as you said, or a hit man, it might be related to something Molly saw.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. She was recently in the Ocala National Forest doing butterfly research with her boyfriend. She thinks she saw a man hiding in the woods watching them. Molly and Mark left quickly.”

  “That’s a possibility, but seems to me like a remote one if she didn’t see this guy do something illegal.”

  “Maybe the guy thought she saw more than she did, and whoever is behind it is making an effort to keep her from telling anyone.”

  “O’Brien, I do appreciate your help. I can certainly tell you have a background in criminal investigation. Ocala and Gainesville are out of my area. I’ll let the FDLE know, they’re keeping an eye on her, at least for a few days, at her apartment in Gainesville. If they feel the need to start talking to tattoo artists, they can sure do it. Got to go, O’Brien. Late for court.” He disconnected. A laughing gull flew overhead.

  I thought of Molly, her dead father’s gun heavy in her purse, Soto probably heavy on her mind. She would study the tiny building blocks of the planet—insects, plants, the stuff of life, and one day would march out there on the world’s stage and try to save it for audiences yet to be born. She would open boxes of butterflies pointed to the sun and release them into a new world where a Pandora’s box of trade wind pollution might send them spiraling to the ground. I thought of Elizabeth. Courage under fire. The tight, hidden pleas in her voice, as if holding back the seismic screams from the buried primal gene only planted in the soul of a mother. In my mind, I played back the look Soto gave me. He was a snake poised to strike again. When and where I didn’t know. But I knew somebody needed to do something to prevent it. Why investigate a murder or a double murder if you can prevent the crime from happening? By absolute luck, I did it once for Molly and Elizabeth. The question was, could I do it again for them before time ran out?

  I called Elizabeth. “Have you reached Molly?”

  “Yes, thank God. I should have called you, Sean. Her cell battery died, and she forgot to recharge it. Molly’s one of those rare girls who doesn’t need to be texting or talking on her phone.”

  “I’m glad she’s okay.”

  “Thank you for caring. Want to come by the restaurant for lunch…or dinner?”

  “Thanks, but I have to be on the road for a few hours. I’ll take a rain check.”

  “Okay. Bye, Sean.”

  I glanced over to Max who was licking her lips and staring at the small piece of toast left on my plate. “Okay, it’s yours.” I handed it to her. “I might be gone for a little while. I’ll leave you with Dave. The last time Nick watched you, Kim in the bar had to bring you back to the boat.”

  I SHOWERED, FILLED Max’s plastic bin with dry food and met Dave on his boat as Nick was climbing out of St. Michael like a hermit crab stepping from its shell. Nick approached us with a steaming mug of Greek coffee. “My hair hurts,” he mumbled.

  Dave grinned. “Last we saw, you began snoring so loud, Ol Joe left for a quieter area of the dock.”

  “That cat was back when I woke up ‘cause he knows I have fish heads to give him.” Nick sipped from the mug, then asked, “Where you going? I can tell you’re leaving ‘cause hotdog is sittin’ on Dave’s boat.”

  “I’m going to visit some tattoo parlors.”

  Nick squinted in the morning sun, the white of one eye strawberry red. “I need to sit.” We sat in deck chairs on Gibraltar and he said, “Let the cops do it, Sean.”

  “I offered. There’s no sense of urgency, and I believe time is running out.”

  Dave said, “Soto may be in Vegas by now for all we know.”

  “Could be, but I doubt it. He seemed much too intent on the Monroe’s. What if the tattoo is of a woman Soto knows…or knew. If we find out where he got it, we might discover why he got it.”

  “How do you mean?” Nick asked.

  “Tattoo rooms are places people talk. It’s usually a shared experience between the person getting the ink and the tattoo artist doing it. The receiver most often talks about why he or she wants the tat, what the significance of it is, and describes how they’d like to see it drawn on them…or sometimes they choose from a picture in a book and the artist replicates or customizes it. But most people receiving ink for life want something unique, something they won’t see on the next guy.”

  Nick said, “I don’t think the next guy’s gonna be wearing a fairy on his arm. Florida’s got a lot of tattoo parlors. Here in Daytona, they’re like tourist T-shirt shops, almost as many as McDonalds.”

  Dave said, “If Soto was first spotted by Molly at the butterfly facility, maybe Gainesville or Ocala would be the best places to look for tattoo parlors.”

  I stood and said, “That’s where I’m starting. I went online and printed so
me phone numbers and addresses. On the way there, I’ll use my cell to narrow down the search.”

  Dave shook his head, his eyes watching a sailboat leaving, the diesel burping bubbles in the marina water. He said, “You were the good Samaritan. You protected the women once. It’s up to the cops to find Soto.”

  “I hope they do. I’m just asking a few questions. May lead to nothing.”

  Nick folded his hands behind his head. “With you, Sean, it always leads to something. I told you how shit happens, remember?”

  Luke Palmer sat on his haunches and boiled coffee on coals from a small campfire. He opened a can of spam for breakfast, waited for the morning dew to evaporate before packing his tent. He poured black coffee from the tiny pot into a tin mug and thought about the car he’d seen a half dozen times. Dark windows in the car. It came down the sand road early morning and before sunset.

  He heard the sound of a diesel engine coming closer. Palmer stood and peered through the underbrush as a green forestry truck came toward his camp. He could run. Why? He hadn’t done anything illegal. But trouble has a way of raising its ugly head, he thought.

  The truck came to a stop forty feet from his camp. The man who got out of the cab spoke into his radio, wore sunglasses and looked toward Palmer. Probably a gun in the truck, he figured. He recognized the man. He’d seen the ranger giving two hikers directions a few days ago. The ranger reminded Palmer of a screw he knew in San Quentin. Tall. Strong forearms. Sun baked skin from years of watching prisoners pick trash up from California’s scenic highways.

  “Good morning,” said ranger Ed Crews as he approached, his eyes scanning the small camp.

  “Mornin’.”

  “This your camp?”

  Palmer glanced over his shoulder. “Nobody else is here.”

  “You have a permit to camp?”

  “Yep.” Palmer reached in his shirt pocket for the paper.

  “Nobody has a permit to camp in this part of the national forest. You’re in a designated bombing range. Navy could have dropped a bomb on your camp.”

  Palmer grinned, played the dumb act he had to manufacture so many times with the screws in prison. “Sorry, sir, it was late when I set up. Thought the place where they bombed was a lot farther in there. Guess I’d better move on.”

  “Can I see some ID?”

  “Why? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Anyone trespassing in a designated bombing range must produce ID.”

  “I don’t have an ID with me.”

  “Driver’s license will do.”

  “Don’t have one.”

  “How’d you get a permit without a driver’s license?”

  “Show’d a birth certificate, but I don’t have it with me.”

  “How’d you get here?”

  “Caught a ride. Trying to get back to nature, you know.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Luke Palmer.”

  “Mr. Palmer, you just released from prison?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thought so. I worked prisons in the Army. I can usually tell.”

  Palmer said nothing.

  Crews added, “You need to vacate this area immediately. You only have a few days left on your permit. The national forest isn’t a place to call home.”

  “I’m not homeless. I’m here ‘cause I hadn’t smelled a pine tree in forty years.”

  “What’s with the steel rod? Is that some kind of primitive weapon?”

  “I heard there’s lots of Civil War artifacts, you know, mini-balls and what not in this forest. Just sort of prod for ‘em. One day I might afford one of those devices I’ve seen in pictures, a hand-held metal detector.”

  “You can’t be digging up the national forest without a permit.”

  Palmer filled his lungs with air, swallowing back a rise in his temper. “If I turn a spade of earth, I’ll put it back in the hole.”

  “Whereabouts do you plan to do your hunting for Civil War stuff?”

  “Oh, maybe open fields, places that could have been a battlefield.”

  “Stay away from destruction of endangered plants, our flora and fauna. You do, and we catch you, you will be fined. I’d suggest you confine your hunt over toward the St. Johns River. It’s in the eastern boundary of the national forest. Lots of Indian arrowheads and probably Civil War things in that area since the river was about the only way anybody could get in and out of this place back then.”

  “I’ll do that. Speaking of endangered plants, I saw a bunch of plants that looked like they were old as dinosaurs. Kinda fern-like things. Saw ‘em way back in there.”

  District Ranger Ed Crews studied Palmer’s face for a moment. He said, “Those are most likely coontie. Don’t start diggin’ around them. The forest is one of the few places they still live. We’d like to keep it that way. St. Johns River is about a mile east.”

  By the time I crossed the Volusia County line into Marion County, I had made calls and eliminated three tattoo shops in Gainesville and four in Ocala. A receptionist, who worked part-time as a body-piercing artist at Den of Ink, answered the last call. She said one of the best artists, “A dude who could really capture fairies,” used to work at The Art House, but she couldn’t remember if he was still there. She told me his name was Ron something, and was called Inkman. I dialed The Art House. After the tenth ring, I was about to disconnect when a voice from the sixties came on the line, “Art House…picture it on you…peace.” The words sounded as if they crawled through vocal cords thick with nicotine and mucus.

  “Is this Inkman?”

  “It could be…who’s callin’?

  “Name’s O’Brien. I heard Inkman is the go-to guy when it comes to body art.”

  “Well, lemme see…depends on what kind of art you’re lookin’ for. We got three very talented dudes here. And Stacey, she’s a chick. Man, she can blow you away with color, got the feminine touch with a bold flair. Know what I mean, dude?” The man coughed and cleared his throat.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. What I have in mind was something for my ol’ lady, you know…we go to so some of those medieval events, reenactments. They have lots of knights, ladies and a few smelly warlocks. Follow me?”

  “Yeah, you pretty much described a lot of our customers. Inkman’s the artist for you, bro. He’s the best when it comes to drawin’ witches, bitches, warlocks and killer fairies. I’m Gary, I was just puttin’ on some coffee.” There was a long, rasping cough. “You wanna make an appointment, or just let the wind blow ya in here?”

  “I can put the wind to my back and be there in an hour.”

  “You got it, and it’s a good day ‘cause Ron—I mean, Inkman, don’t look too hung over. Just messin’ with you. In an hour, buddy.”

  The Art House was a 1950’s bungalow-style home, squatting beneath two large banyan trees. The building had white side panels, big front windows, and in one window a neon sign flashed OPEN in blue letters with the O burned out. To the right of the sign were the words: TATTOO • PIERCINGS. The second window read: SMOKE SHOP • JEWELRY • INCENSE. Four cars were in the small lot.

  I stepped to an alleyway where a new Corvette was parked next to garbage cans. I picked up a crumpled cigarette package from the ground, lifted the lid off one can and looked inside before dropping in the trash. The top plastic bag was ripped open. I spotted two used syringes among a box of chicken bones spilling from a Popeye’s carton.

  At the front door, the smell of burning incense met me as three people, all in their late teens, walked out. None seemed excited about new tattoos or piercing. Maybe they were shopping for incense. Doubtful.

  The guy who I believed had answered the phone sat on a stool behind a glass counter filled with body piercing jewelry and Indian turquoise necklaces, bracelets and rings. A cigarette hung loosely from his mouth, the smoke making a near perfect trail by his nose and left eye as it rose toward the sagging ceiling. A Led Zeppelin song blared from hidden speakers. He wore a train enginee
r’s striped hat, flannel shirt with overalls. He looked up from a Rolling Stone magazine and grinned. A silver ring looped through his lower lip. A metallic dot, the size of a thumbtack, seemed to be screwed into his left nostril. He glanced at his watch and said, “One hour. You gotta be O’Brien, right?”

  “Right. And you’re Gary.”

  “Yep.” He looked over my shoulder, his eyes pushing through the screened door. “Where’s your old lady?”

  “Lady Thunder?”

  “Yeah, man, I guess.”

  “She’s back at the shack.”

  “So who’s gettin’ the tat, you know, the one with the fairy?” He took a deep drag off his cigarette.

  “Me.”

  “You?”

  “Anything wrong with that?” I stepped closer to the counter.

  He looked up, an edgy grin spreading. Black tar filled between each of his lower front teeth like pencil lead. He blurted, “Oh, no. Hell no. Matter of fact, we had an ol boy in here not long ago. He got one. Turned out great…sort of like an angel in stained glass. Some of Inkman’s best work.”

  “Where’s Inkman?”

  “He’s back in his room. Each artist has his own set up. Different styles. You know, different strokes for different folks. C’mon back. ” He sucked the last quarter inch of cigarette down to the filter, held the smoke deep in his lungs before exhaling through his nostrils. I followed him down a hall. A woman was coming our way. She was thin. Red, blue and yellow hair. Face filled with metal. Wide, deep-set blue-green eyes. Long sleeves. A wet stain the size of a dime on her right sleeve. She smiled at me and said. “Are you here for a piercing?”

  “I have too many scars already.”

  She grinned. “And I have eight years’ experience. Very gentle, and specialize in doing genitalia and nipples.”

  I smiled. The Led Zeppelin song, A Whole Lotta Love, seemed to ricochet down the hall lined with poster art. In the corner of the hall, I saw a dead cockroach lying on its back. Looked at the woman’s fingernails painted black and said, “Maybe next time.”