[Sean O'Brien 03.0] The Butterfly Forest

by Tom Lowe

  As he worked on the sketch, he told me about his niece. He told me about the first time he saw Mark and Molly in the forest. “They just looked to me like two kids, kinda scared. It was getting darker, and I think they were in a hurry to get outta there. I saw them lookin’ over their shoulder like they thought they were being followed. I didn’t see anybody comin’ after them, I did see rangers stop and give them a ride.”

  “What did the rangers look like?”

  “Only one got out of the car, medium height bushy eyebrows, dark hair. I’d seen the guy around the forest. I think I’ve met most of them that work there. All of them pretty much left me alone. This guy was a little different.”

  “How so?”

  “He was nice, but seemed to play the ranger thing strictly by the book. Like the screws in the joint that are counting their days ‘til they get their pension and spend the remainder of their lives gettin’ fat on Busch beer, fishing on Saturdays and watching stock car races on Sundays. This guy let me know I wasn’t wanted in the forest.”

  I watched him work in the detail around the eyes and cheekbones. “Why was the deer blood on your clothes?”

  “I told the detectives. I heard the deer thrashing through the woods, bleeding like a stuck pig. It had fallen to its knees when I walked up on it. Felt sorry for the poor animal. I killed the buck to put him out of misery and pain.”

  “Were you going to butcher the carcass?”

  “I was damn hungry. Stomach was hollow. When I was a teenager, I hunted with my old man in the Texas hill country. Killed my first four-point buck when I was seventeen. Pops taught me how to field dress right then and there.”

  “So why didn’t you dress the deer meat?”

  “‘Cause I found a bullet in it. Looked like it might have been from the same rifle the dude used to kill the college kids. My stomach turned sour as old milk.”

  “What’d you do with the bullet?”

  “It’s in the inside lining of my knapsack.”

  “Did you tell detectives this?”

  “No. You’re the first to ask me. Okay, I’m done.” He held up the sketch. The detail was sharp. Amazing. He’d captured the man’s look. And even through pencil lead on paper, I could see the image of absolute evil.

  After I left the county jail, I stopped at a Kinko’s and made three dozen copies of the image Luke Palmer had drawn. Driving to the sheriff’s office, I thought about the last thing Palmer had said: “If anything happens to me, would you mind sending my niece a note to let her know Uncle Luke tried his best?”

  “How do I reach her?” I’d asked.

  As one of the guards came for Palmer, he said, “Give me your address. I’ll send it to you.”

  “No time to write it down. Can you remember it if I tell you?”

  “No problem.”

  I gave him my mailing address at the marina. Palmer nodded as they lifted him from the chair and escorted him beyond a gray steel door.

  I OPENED THE LARGE WOODEN door leading to Sheriff Clayton’s office. His secretary of eight years said he wasn’t in, and she didn’t know when to expect him. I smiled and began writing a note: Sheriff Clayton, here is a sketch of the man Luke Palmer says he saw shoot Molly and Mark. Palmer drew it from memory. Maybe someone can identify this guy if you can get it to the media. Thanks, Sean O’Brien.

  I placed the note in an envelope with a copy of the drawing. I said, “Please make sure Sheriff Clayton gets this when he returns from the D.A.’s office.”

  Her eyebrows arched over the rims of her glasses. “I don’t know if he’s coming straight back. Might have to wait ‘til the morning.”

  “It’s urgent.”

  “I understand.” She dropped the envelope in a wooden in-box and continued working a Sudoku puzzle on her desk.

  “Where’s the detective’s office?”

  “Down the hall. Third door on the right,” she said, not looking up at me.

  DETECTIVE SANDBERG SAT IN a cubicle office, phone pressed to his ear, writing notes across a yellow legal pad. He glanced my way as I approached and motioned for me to sit in one of the two metal chairs in front of his desk. Other detectives worked phones and leads in cubicles scattered across the cavernous room. Behind Sandberg, on a white board, were pictures of Molly Monroe, Mark Stewart and Nicole Davenport. To his right was a calendar of Texas hill country, a barn, blue bonnets and a windmill.

  He hung up the phone, looked at me and leaned back in his chair. “O’Brien, give me some good news. I have two search teams out there with twelve men each. Twenty-four of my best combing the Ocala National Forest looking for a pot farm. So far, we’ve found a couple of former meth labs and a few animal skeletons—looked like goats, and an abandoned Corvette that was stripped to the paint. Nothing near where we found the bodies.”

  “It’s in there somewhere. You saw the pictures. If it’s gone, might be because whoever’s growing the stuff harvested it quickly and left.”

  “We only have about another five hundred square miles to search. That forest is perfect for growing pot because the whole damn forest is green and weedy. The marijuana would blend in like green paint on green paint.”

  I was silent.

  “We sent a chopper up. Burned a thousand dollars in fuel crisscrossing the forest. Nothing.”

  “You’ll find it.”

  “Wish I had your optimism.”

  “I have more than that.” I handed him a copy of the sketch Palmer had drawn.

  “Who’s this?”

  “I think it’s the man who killed those three people on the board behind you.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Luke Palmer drew it. He says this is the face of the man he saw pull the trigger. Palmer said he saw him once before, in the back seat of a car heading into the forest.”

  Sandberg said nothing. He leaned in and studied the image.

  “I dropped this off to the sheriff’s secretary and asked her to give it to him.”

  “You think Palmer’s telling the truth, or is this some image he concocted in his head to take some of the heat off him?”

  “If I hadn’t met Frank Soto in the Walmart parking lot, I’d be skeptical, too. But I did, and I’m not. You should release this. See if someone knows who this guy is.”

  “That will be up to Sheriff Clayton. I don’t know if he’ll feel comfortable releasing an image done by a man who we’re holding on murder charges.”

  “An eyewitness to a shooting is an eyewitness. Where’s your evidence room?”

  “Why?”

  “Is Luke Palmer’s backpack there?”

  “CSI pulled the blood stains from the deer off Palmer’s clothes and anything else they could find.”

  “Did they find the bullet?”

  “Bullet?”

  “It’s in the lining.”

  Detective Sandberg glanced at the images on the board behind him. “Let’s take a look.”

  In the secure evidence room, Sandberg had Luke Palmer’s backpack delivered to a metal table. A portly deputy left the knapsack with us and said, “Clothes are still in the lab. You need them, too?”

  “No,” Sandberg said. The deputy nodded and walked away. The backpack had been tagged. Date in. Contents. Owner. Slipping on gloves, Sandberg opened it, felt along the lining near one of the straps. “Think I’ve got something.” He turned the backpack over, shook it, and used gravity to help dislodge the small object. It rolled out on the table. Metal against metal. Sandberg used a pair of tweezers to lift the bullet.

  “Looks like a .30-30,” I said. “Very little fragmentation. Must have missed most of the deer’s bones. Tore through vital organs and lodged in muscle.”

  “I’ll run ballistics on it and tell the sheriff what we found.”

  “I’m betting it will match the bullet lodged in the tree near Molly and Mark’s grave. And traces of blood on it will match the deer’s.”

  Sandberg set the bullet on the table. “It’d be nice to find the
weapon.”

  I held up one of the sketches. “If you find this guy, you might find that rifle.”

  “We’ll do what we can to locate him. In the meantime, Palmer’s going to face a large bond, no doubt. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “But, right now, I am.”

  “Where’s that, O’Brien?”

  “Sadly, a funeral.”

  COLLEGE STUDENTS, FRIENDS AND family streamed into the small church as the funeral service for Molly Monroe began. I walked past the TV news satellite trucks where fervent reporters prepped for their live shots in contrast to somber mourners who came to pay tribute to the dead. Mark’s funeral was scheduled for the following day.

  Elizabeth stood just inside the front door area, people hugging her and offering condolences. Through swollen eyes, she persevered. Her body and mind drained of everything but the command that kept her heart beating. When she turned and saw me, she attempted to smile. She fought back tears. “Thank you for coming, Sean…I’m in a place in my life I never thought I’d be, and I don’t know what to do or say. I’m numb. No one can ever prepare a mother for the burial of her only child.”

  She reached for my hand and then hooked her arm around mine as we began walking down the aisle to the front pew. I thought of the small church I’d just visited. Preacher Paul’s smiling eyes, the blackbird on the tombstone.

  Elizabeth almost stumbled. I didn’t know if she would make it all the way down the aisle. I reached over and gripped her shoulder to give her more support, ready to catch her if she fell. She sucked in a deep breath and held her head higher.

  Molly’s body was in a closed casket. A large picture of her stood on an easel to the right of her coffin. Flowers lined the immediate area. I could smell hibiscus, lilies and roses as people listened to Molly’s favorite song, We Are the World.

  The minister thanked everyone for coming, talked about the nobility of a good life and how we can’t ever make sense of a senseless murder. He was followed by some of Molly’s friends. Most spoke through broken sentences, tears flowing as the words about Molly reinforced what everyone who knew her must have been feeling.

  A senior at the University of Florida, a petite woman who’d roomed with Molly said, “She had a way about her that was magical. All who knew Molly know what I’m talking about.” There was a murmur in the crowd. “Molly was one of the most unselfish people I’ve ever met. I remember one time a mosquito got trapped in my car. Molly lowered her window to make sure it flew away safely. She said everything has a purpose in life. Molly’s life ended too soon for us to ever see all the things her purpose-driven life would produce. We can only imagine.”

  Elizabeth gently cried, her body radiating heat while she tried to hold in the emotion.

  The girl looked across the congregation and said, “Molly was more than my friend. In all the ways that mattered, she was there. Molly had a way with people and animals that made you feel better about yourself just by being around her. She loved horses, birds and butterflies. She said the butterflies were little winged angels darting around the flowers.” The girl looked at the casket, picked up long-stemmed red rose and said, “Molly, here’s a flower from all of us to you. When we see fields of flowers, when we see birds and butterflies in the summer, we’ll always think of you, because you always thought of us.”

  Elizabeth rested her head on my shoulder as the girl stepped to the casket and set the rose on top of it. I could feel the heat, the dampness from Elizabeth’s silent tears, seep into my shirt. Even from the back pews, the sobbing and soft sounds of people weeping carried like distant church bells on an abandoned Sunday morning.

  The last car left the cemetery about forty-five minutes after they lowered Molly’s casket into the grave. Elizabeth wanted to stay. The cemetery workers loaded all the metal folding chairs except for the two that Elizabeth and I occupied.

  The funeral director nodded, squeezed Elizabeth on the shoulder, shook my hand, crunched a breath mint between molars, and left. Elizabeth and I watched the backhoe operator scrape dirt into the open grave. When he finished, another worker used a shovel to smooth the mound of dark earth. Within minutes they had loaded their equipment and were driving down a long, winding road. I watched them drive away, the truck and trailer kicking up dust, hazing the horizon with its setting sun and purple sky backdrop.

  A soft breeze blew across the cemetery, ringing wind chimes that hung from a gray and weathered headstone adorned with faded plastic red roses. The air smelled of damp earth, moss and orange blossoms. Mimosa seeds floated through the trees and across the open spaces as if tiny parachutes were landing in the graveyard at dusk. I looked at Elizabeth staring at her daughter’s grave. She said nothing, her thoughts masked, and eyes swollen and filled with a pain, her expression as lifeless as the cemetery. She held a yellow violet plant in her lap.

  Slowly, she stood and walked to Molly’s grave. I followed her. A hawk called out in the distance, its cries mixing with the groan of a long-haul diesel far away. A soft breeze caressed the music from the wind chimes. “The violet was Molly’s favorite flower.” She turned to me. “Do you know why?”

  I looked at the potted flower in her hand. It was rooted in a small cup with dark soil around the base. “Are butterflies attracted to violets?”

  “Yes,” she said, kneeling down by the freshly turned earth atop the grave. Elizabeth used her hands to scoop out some soil. She lifted the violet from the pot and planted it near Molly’s headstone.

  I heard her gently weeping, using her palms to smooth the soil around the base of the flower, tears falling onto the freshly tilled dirt. She stood and watched the small flower toss in the breeze. “The florist told me it would bloom into more flowers. Maybe they’ll attract the honeybees and butterflies. Maybe on the long and lonely days, they’ll come around and visit with Molly.” She choked, eyes filling. “Sean, I can’t believe my baby…my little girl is lying under that dirt. Dear God…why?”

  Elizabeth buried her face against my shirt, her tears warm, breath hot and quick. Her hands clenched into small fists. I simply held her. There was nothing I could say to ease her pain. I could only be there, hold her as she wept, crying at the horror, the loss and the inexplicable questions that no one could answer. She looked up at me, and I used my thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks. We turned and walked to the car. The breeze kicked up a notch, and the sun churned buttery clouds in shades of gold and lavender.

  I ignored the phone vibrating in my pocket.

  I pulled my Jeep into Elizabeth’s driveway and shut off the engine. During the drive from the cemetery, I told her about the sketch Luke Palmer had drawn, his story about why he was in the forest, the bullet in his backpack, and the search for the marijuana grove in the heart of the national forest.

  “Sean, I want to sell my home. My business, too.”

  I said nothing.

  “This home was mine and Molly’s. It’s where she grew up, learned to ride a bike. It’s where she nursed baby birds that left the nest too early. I bought the business so that Molly and I could do something together. She’d come to the restaurant after school, do her homework, help with cleaning, and we’d be together.”

  The phone vibrated in my pocket.

  I reached for it and looked at the caller ID. The window displayed: Unknown Call. I answered.

  “O’Brien, this is Ed Sandberg. Sheriff Clayton said he wants to hold off releasing the sketch that Palmer drew.”

  “Why?”

  “He says, and I’m quoting here, in his twenty-eight years in law enforcement, he’s never seen a composite drawn by an inmate and then released to the media. And this inmate is being held on three counts of murder. The boss calls it a smokescreen, a conflict of interest, and to release it would set a precedent and break all kinds of investigative protocol. He did say it’s good jailhouse art, though.”

  “Palmer’s not been sentenced. He’s being held in connection with his alleged involvement in the crimes. We don’t kno
w for sure that he did it. I think he didn’t. How can the sheriff call it a conflict of interest if you have an eyewitness to a crime, a man who can not only describe it, but can draw the image of the person who could have committed the murders?”

  “I’m an investigator. He’s the sheriff. I didn’t have to call you, but since you were a former homicide detective, as a courtesy, I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Did you match the bullets, one from the tree and one from Palmer’s knapsack?”

  “We’re using a spec scope and 3D rendering on the bullet from the tree. It was pretty fragmented. We might be able to do a match if they came from the same gun.”

  “They did.”

  He was quiet a moment. “We haven’t found the pot field. The teams worked until sunset. They’ll be back in the morning. Later, O’Brien.”

  He hung up and Elizabeth asked, “Was that the police?”

  “Detective Sandberg. He says they haven’t found the marijuana field and the sheriff is refusing to release to the media the composite Luke Palmer drew.”

  “Why?”

  “He says that since Palmer is being held and charged with the killings, it’s a conflict to have a composite sketch drawn by him and released to the media.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Because of the intense national publicity, I think the sheriff is looking for a quick resolution. He’s out of his comfort zone, and he’s afraid of making the slightest mistake. He sees what he believes is more than enough evidence, and he’s ready to lock the cage.”

  “Where is the drawing Palmer did?”

  “Here, between the seats.”

  “May I see it?”

  I reached down and lifted the file folder with the remaining copies of Palmer’s sketch. I started to turn on the interior light for her, but thought that we’d make a good target. “Let’s go inside.”