by Tom Lowe
“Of course. Do you like cheese on your apple pie?”
“Not really, but Max likes cheese. I don’t want her to feel left out.”
“Is she your daughter?”
“She’s my dachshund.”
“I love dachshunds! We had one when I was a little girl. We’re closed, so she can have the run of the place.”
“Half hour, okay?”
“Absolutely, bye.”
I glanced down at Max. “Ready for some dessert?” She wagged her tail then looked up at the buzzing in the clouds. The skywriter, ending his acrobatics, wrote:
G O D L O V E S U
I watched as his plane became a tiny dot in the sky. The smoke letters bled white against the deep blue like cosmic dust floating toward the darker clouds building far out over the ocean.
“Come on, Max. I feel a storm brewing in my bones.” She trotted off the dock, pausing briefly to see if I was following. I picked up her bowl as a cooler wind blew through the cypress and weeping willows, the breeze sending a ripple across the murky surface of the river.
SEVEN
He studied a sweat-stained map of the Ocala National Forest. Luke Palmer tried to superimpose in his mind, his bearings, and how the hand-drawn map, penned by Al Karpis, might fit into a detailed map of the forest today. A lot more trees. Otherwise it ought to be pretty much the same. No shopping centers. Not even a drive-in picture show.
He walked near a clear stream. There were tire tracks. Odd. Maybe hunters or campers. Maybe they’d have some food to sell. He followed the tire tracks. They led from the sand to a thick grove of oak and cypress trees. Palmer was cautious. Prison had taught him a few things, and one was to never approach anyone or a situation with your guard down.
He smelled something, a chemical, maybe bleach. Palmer thought he saw a whiff of smoke rising between the boughs and fading into the sky. Probably a campfire.
He walked a little closer, and through the opening in the branches, he saw a makeshift wooden table filled with pots and pans. Smoke rose from one pan. A man was mixing something, plastic tubes running from bottles to pans.
Palmer knew he was close enough. Just ease away. Get the hell out. As he started to turn around, he heard the unmistakable sound of pump shotgun.
“Face us real slow, dude.”
Palmer held his hands up and turned to the men. Two of them. Both young. Mid-twenties. Dirty jeans, T-shirts and scruffy faces. Faces filled with a chemical high mixed with adrenaline — a deadly combination. “Hey, guys. I got no beef with you.”
“Who the fuck are you?” asked one man, the taller of the two, sharp cheekbones, bird-like face. He pointed the shotgun directly at Palmer’s chest.
“Name’s Luke Palmer. I’m out here lookin’ for old artifacts, stuff from the Civil War. Don’t mean to be tresspassin’ if you fellas are hunting here or something.”
“The other man, a ball cap turned backward on a round head, folded his arms. He spit in the weeds. “What you really doin’ way the fuck out here?”
“I use this steel probe to poke around, see if I can find old mini-balls and stuff.”
“You poke around here and you’re likely to be blown in half?”
“Lots of graves out here, too,” the other man said. “They’d never find yours.”
Palmer nodded. He’d seen so many of their types in lock-up. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. I just got out of San Quentin after serving forty years. All my life I’ve dreamed of hunting for treasure. I’d heard this forest is full of history. I thought I might buy something to eat from you all. I’m ‘bout to turn into jerky I’ve eaten so much of it.”
Both men studied Palmer. The man with the shotgun gripped it tighter. Palmer held his breath, tightened his abdomen muscles like they might deflect buckshot. His heart beat so hard it hurt. A bumblebee landed on clover between him and the men.
The man with the gun said, “Go on and get the fuck outta here. Don’t ever come back. We’re just out camping. Nothing else. You got what I’m sayin’?”
Palmer nodded. “Got it.” He turned and walked back in the direction he came from, any second anticipating buckshot to tear a hole in his body wide enough for daylight to pass.
EIGHT
The Red Clover Restaurant was a converted old southern gothic home on the fringes of the antique district in Sanford, Florida, about twenty miles north of Orlando. Bright red bougainvillea grew up one side of the building. The grass parking lot was large enough for a dozen cars. Only one, the same Ford Escape I saw in the Walmart lot, was there. Max and I walked to the door, pink impatiens and purple lavender bordered the path, the sweet scent of magnolias in the air. A blue butterfly darted around the flowers. Wind chimes tinkled from the limb of a mimosa tree.
As I opened the door, Max trotted in the restaurant like she had a reservation. “Oh my god!” came the high-pitched words from Molly Monroe who untied the apron around her waist and bent down to pet Max. “She’s adorable. What’s her name?”
“Max.”
“Hi, Max. I’m Molly.” Max almost nodded, her nose picking up the smell of baked bread. When Molly smiled, I could see her mother’s smile.
“Well, hello,” said Elizabeth, stepping out from behind a counter lined with pies and cakes. Max ran to her. “So you’re Max. It’s nice to meet you. I hear you have a thing for cheese. I have some aged cheddar. Do you like that?”
Max snorted.
“No begging, Max,” I said as Elizabeth picked up a pot of coffee and Molly brought a whole pie and a plate of cheese to a table.
“Please, have a seat,” Elizabeth said. She cut the pie, placed a single piece on each of three dishes, poured the coffee and sat down.
Molly lifted a small slice of cheese. Max stood on her hind legs. “She’s precious. Will she catch it?”
“It’ll never hit the floor,” I said.
Max caught the cheddar in a snap and swallowed it before Molly could sit down. Molly smiled and asked, “If she’s a girl, why’d you name her Max?”
“My wife named her Maxine. After Sherri died, I reduced it to Max.”
“The name seems to fit her personality,” Elizabeth said.
I took a bite and sipped the dark roast coffee. “Excellent pie.”
Elizabeth beamed. “I’m glad you like it. Thank you so much for coming. I thought it important that Molly hear any suggestions you have.”
I nodded. “The best advice is to be aware of your surroundings. Be cautious. Watch where you park. Keep an eye in your rearview mirror to see if you’re being followed. Try to do things in pairs. But don’t become obsessed or a slave to fear.”
Molly picked at her pie with the tip of a fork. “This is so, like, weird. This crazy man coming out of nowhere.”
I said, “Unfortunately, it happens. Can you recall ever seeing him before?”
“No.”
“Maybe here in your restaurant, a customer. He’s someone who would keep to himself. He might bury his face in a newspaper when he’s eating. You’d catch him staring at you. Lingers a little longer than most after he’s finished eating.”
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “That describes some of the customers we get. But, like Molly, I haven’t ever seen that man in here. Molly only works in the restaurant when she’s home from school.”
I sipped the coffee as Molly handed Max a second piece of cheese. “What are you studying at college?” I asked.
“Botany and entomology. I work in the butterfly rainforest lab at school. It’s a perfect place for butterflies, predator free. Lots of flowers and vegetation in a world that looks like a giant aviary for butterflies. In the lab, we raise and release butterflies. With the changes in our environment, my teacher says they are today’s ‘canaries in the mine.’ We’re open to the public. And we post our butterfly release days online.”
Elizabeth said, “They’ve been successful at reintroducing rare, almost extinct butterflies back in the wild here in Florida.”
Molly n
odded. “We raised and released some Miami Blues down in the keys. These are like the rarest butterflies in Florida. And they’re soooo beautiful. I’m going to have a chance to release some atala butterflies in the Ocala National Forest.”
I smiled. “My old house is across the river from one part of the forest.”
“Well, if you see any dark blue butterflies with a red tummy, remember to shoo them back toward the forest. They can only survive by laying their eggs on one species of plant called a coontie. It’s like a primitive fern.”
“Coontie, never heard of it.”
She smiled. “Lots of people haven’t. They used to grow wild all over Florida. Development has made them scarce. It’s like the only plant the atala can lay its eggs on because it’s the only plant that its caterpillars can eat. The atala is even rarer than the plant. But we did find a lot of them growing in the Ocala National Forest, so that’s where we're doing a release soon.”
“Who are we?” I asked.
“Me and my boyfriend, Mark. He’s studying biology. We had kind of a creepy experience there recently.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we were scouting the forest for coontie plants. A ranger gave us directions to some places where we could find them, but we could never find them there.” She glanced at her mother for a moment. “We sort of got lost… I mean like really lost. After a while, Mark and I were convinced somebody was following us… no, more like they were stalking us. We did find the coontie plants and took lots of pictures of them and the area so we could remember things to get back there.”
“Did you see anyone follow you?” I asked.
“No, but I swear I could feel it.”
Elizabeth said, “Molly’s very insightful, a true free spirit and often more perceptive than you’d think for someone her age.”
Molly smiled and said, “I can tell you are, too, Mr. O’Brien.”
“Please, call me Sean.”
“Okay, Sean. I can tell you’re somewhere beyond insightful, as Mom calls it. I’ll bet you can come close to reading thoughts.”
I smiled. “I’m not so sure I’d like that. It’s more fun to discover things.”
Molly cut a small piece of cheese. “Can Max have more cheese? I don’t even think she’s blinked.”
“Sure, maybe one more piece.” Max caught it and licked her lips. “Your boyfriend, Mark, has he noticed anyone following him?”
“I don’t think so; at least he hasn’t said anything. He’s on a short vacation with his family.” She paused and looked at me, not moving her head, only her big doe eyes. “Can you read my mind… tell what I’m thinking?”
“I think you like Max.”
“I do. But that’s not what I’m thinking.” She grinned. “I think my mom likes you. Maybe it’s because you’re now our hero.”
Elizabeth cleared her throat, her face flushing and said, “Sean is here to give us some advice on how to handle this situation.”
Molly looked above my shoulders, her face filled with reflection, and then she lowered her eyes to mine. She said, “That man with the gun… I’m not certain, but I might have seen him before.”
NINE
There was a knock on the restaurant door. Elizabeth’s eyes popped wide, her body jumping like a balloon had burst in the room. “Sorry,” she said. “A little stressed out, to put it mildly.” She got up, glanced out the restaurant window and unlocked the door to open it. “Hi, Harry. I forgot you were making a delivery today.”
“I’m like the postman, always delivering,” said the man as he stepped inside, pushing a handcart filled with bottled water. “I’ll put it in the kitchen.”
He nodded at me as he wheeled the supplies into another room. Molly scratched Max behind her floppy ears. Cheese and a head massage, now they were bonded for life.
The deliveryman left, and Elizabeth locked the door. She sat down and said, “I’ll be so glad when this is over… when they catch him.”
I asked, “Molly, where do you think you may have seen Frank Soto?”
“I’m trying to remember. It’s like a dream. No real reason to hang on to something so fleeting it didn’t make sense when you first experienced it.”
I nodded. “Where might you have seen someone resembling him? Maybe a guy at the university… could have been a groundskeeper… maybe someone who works in the rainforest, doing maintenance?”
There was a spark. A tiny flicker in her memory banks projected onto her eyes. Something trapped in her pupils, like the afternoon light through the restaurant window, as she tried to remember an image she never knew she would need to know.
I touched the top of her hand. “You see something, don’t you? A man, right?”
She shook her head like awakening for a second. “I knew you could see stuff.”
I smiled. “Lots of practice. What is it?”
“It’s probably nothing. I do remember one guy, but I didn’t really get a good look at his face. It was crowded that day. We were doing a release, some beautiful swallowtails, a few days ago, and lots of school kids were there. I noticed a man who seemed to be a little off by himself. The guy wore a baseball cap and large, shiny mirror-like sunglasses. I could see the yellow swallowtails reflecting from his sunglasses. But that’s not what made me remember him. A little while later I was taking a Fed Ex delivery of monarch eggs, and I saw one of the school kids point to the man’s arm. The kid seemed a little embarrassed because there was a tattoo on one arm that looked like a naked woman or maybe a fairy with butterfly wings. The guy left right after that.”
I thought of the man in the parking lot, the tattoo on his arm of a nude woman with fairy-like features and butterfly wings. I felt my stomach tighten, the taste of pie now like cardboard in my mouth.
“Sean,” said Elizabeth. “What is it?”
“I believe it’s the same guy.”
“What!” Elizabeth’s voice went up an octave.
“When he was lying cold in the parking lot, the sleeve on his T-shirt had ridden up his arm. I saw a tattoo. At first I thought it was a tattoo of an angel. But I could make out that it was really an image of a nude woman with butterfly wings.”
Molly held her hand to her throat, pushed away the remains of her pie and stood. “So this creep followed me, right?”
“It appears that way,” I said.
“I’m getting a chill.” She hugged her upper arms.
“Why?” Elizabeth asked. “Why would some sick person follow my daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please, Sean.” she said. “You’ve got to help us.”
“The police are better at that than me.”
“But you’re here. That says something.”
“I’m here because you asked me to come by, and that’s—”
“That’s what? Please! What if he comes back? What do we do?”
“You need to tell the detectives working this case everything we've discussed here today. You need to call them right now and give them this new information.”
Molly fed Max another little piece of cheese. “He’s gonna come back.”
I said, “Maybe not. For some reason, it appears this Frank Soto had followed you from Gainesville to your home here in Sanford. The question is why?”
Elizabeth said, “Because he’s a pervert, one of those predators who stalk young women like Molly. He could have seen her come and go from the restaurant.”
“You may be right,” I said. “But I think it’s something deeper than that. When do you return to school, Molly?”
“I’m supposed to go back tomorrow. I’ve got classes and need to be at my lab job, too, on Monday.”
“Maybe you should stay here for a few days. Give police time to sort this out.”
Her eyes lifted toward the open window where she focused on the limbs of a mimosa tree blowing in the breeze and the tinkling of wind chimes coming into the room. Her face filled with thought. “Have you ever held a live butterfly in the
palm of your hand, Sean? They like the human touch… the warmth that comes from our hands, and maybe our hearts.”
“It’s been a long time since I held a butterfly, not since I was a boy.”
Molly smiled, her eyes darkening. “I’m not going to let some jerk cause my brain to freeze with fear. Mom, remember you kept Dad's .38 pistol after he died? He taught me how to use it. I’m gonna take it back to school with me.”
Her mother’s left eyebrow rose. “Molly, maybe that’s not such a good idea. And you don’t even have a permit.”
“I don’t care! He pulled a gun on you and me. If he comes around again, this time I’ll have a gun, too.”
Elizabeth looked up at me, searching for words.
I said, “Remember this, Molly: if you have to use it, you won’t have time to think about it. You’re a young woman with noble ideas and ideals. People like you are the glue to save the planet. That quality is what makes you do what you do, and what you do with the butterflies is very special. Before you put a pistol in your purse, answer this question: if you had to shoot a man in the heart… to shoot to kill… could you do it?”
TEN
Luke Palmer warmed up a can of beans over an open fire. It had been more than a week since the drums stopped. He stared at the yellow flames and thought about the first night he heard the drums. It was his first night in the forest. He wondered if the girl and her commune had moved on to some other desolate place. He thought about her smile, brighter than the moon that dark night.
* * *
He ducked under a low-hanging limb, pushed through Spanish moss, and walked toward the drumbeats in the distance. Mosquitoes followed him, buzzing in his ears, biting at his exposed forearms and neck.
Within fifteen minutes, he’d reach the site. A few dozen old cars and vans were parked in a small field off one of the dirt roads. Palmer hid in the shadow of trees under a bold moon and watched as people moved in and around the parked cars. The scent of burning marijuana caught his nostrils. He saw the tiny moving orange dots as the pot was passed among two women and one man.