by Tom Lowe
Sheriff Clayton arrived with Detective Sandberg and two other men that I didn’t recognize. I stood behind the media throng, in the shade of the trees but close enough to hear. Clayton leaned down towards the microphones. “Here’s what we know so far. A bullet taken from a tree at the crime scene matches the one found in Luke Palmer’s backpack. It was a bullet he said he’d removed from a deer that had been shot. The deer in question was buried with the bodies of Molly Monroe and Mark Stewart. We don’t have a DNA match with the saliva found on the cigar. However, a team of deputies found a dozen marijuana plants growing in the vicinity of the killings. We suspect these may have a bearing on the case. Mr. Palmer is to face a bond hearing tomorrow. Any questions?”
I felt my pulse kick. Clayton opted to ignore the information about Elizabeth and focus squarely on Palmer. I started walking to the dais as a reporter asked a question, “Investigators in Seminole County are now saying that Molly Monroe’s mother, Elizabeth, was the victim of arsenic poisoning. How does this impact your investigation?”
I kept advancing.
The sheriff said, “We’re thankful Miss Monroe is out of harm’s way and recuperating. This tells me Luke Palmer was not alone. We’re working with Seminole County in a joint task-force operation. This might be connected to the man who first attempted to abduct the Monroe’s, Frank Soto, who is still at large—” The sheriff stopped in mid-sentence when he saw me. I could see Detective Sandberg’s eyes pop.
I pulled the sketch out and walked up to Sheriff Clayton and quickly said into the microphones, “Or it could be connected to this man.” I held the sketch up and could see camera operators raising their lens and focusing on it. “Sheriff, I just spoke with Luke Palmer. He said the man in the composite was the one who shot Mark and Molly. Palmer actually drew this composite from his eyewitness sighting.” I could see the veins pounding in the sheriff’s thick neck, ears glowing, his skin hanging over his tight collar.
I said, “I wanted to share this new and timely information with the media, sir. I hope you don’t mind. Palmer said he first saw this man a few days before Molly and Mark were gunned down. He saw him in the back seat of a dark SUV entering the Ocala National Forest. He said the man lowered his window and tossed out a cigar. Palmer says the man in the picture almost caused a forest fire. The last time he saw him was when this man put a bullet in Molly Monroe and Mark Stewart. Palmer said he fled from the secluded area where he witnessed the murders. Later, deeper into the forest, a critically injured deer came by and Palmer was going to use his knife to put it out of its misery and field dress the meat. He said he couldn’t when he cut the bullet out of the deer and figured it came from the same gun… and the same man.” I held the picture toward the horde of media, cameras clicked and zoomed. I heard a siren in the distance and a mockingbird in the oaks behind the media.
“How’d you speak with Luke Palmer?” asked a newspaper reporter.
“Sheriff Clayton granted me a few minutes with him because of my long background as a homicide detective with Miami-Dade. I’m retired and anxious to volunteer where my service might be needed.” I smiled and looked over at the sheriff. The media waited for him to speak.
Sheriff Clayton cleared his throat and said, “Mr. O’Brien was on the scene when the suspect was first apprehended. He was the sharpshooter who took out the alligators after our deputy was hit by a moccasin. In view of Mr. O’Brien’s background, I thought he might offer some extra experience in this area. Ocala wouldn’t, in fifty years, equal the number of murders Miami-Dade gets in one year. As you can see, he brings results.”
“Can we get copies of the composite?” asked a CNN reporter.
“Absolutely,” said the Sheriff. “Detective Sandberg would you pass them out?”
Sandberg raised an eyebrow. He was at a loss for words. The sheriff asked, “How many copies do we have, Mr. O’Brien?”
“More than enough, Sheriff.” I smiled and looked up to the top floor of the county complex to the windows behind the steel bars and wondered if Luke Palmer was looking down.
SIXTY-NINE
As the sheriff did a one-on-one interview with CNN, Detective Sandberg took me aside and whispered, “If Clayton doesn’t have you arrested for impersonating an officer and a slew of other improprieties, I’ll be surprised. What the fuck was that all about, O’Brien. What grandstanding! You running for the sheriff’s job?”
I could smell mint and stale coffee on Sandberg’s breath. I smiled. “Me? Oh, no. Looks like he’s getting plenty of exposure. I’m betting his job’s safe.”
“But you aren’t making my job any safer.”
“Look, Detective, I think you’re probably a damn good investigator. You figure out who’s really responsible for the triple killing in the forest and you’ll be talked about at FBI profiling classes for years to come. And now your job just might be a little easier. Somebody out there knows whose face that is on the composite. He or she’s going to call. I hope you’re in the office to take the call. Your legacy will be around Ocala long after you’ve retired to a farm in Texas.”
“How’d you know I wanted to retire in Texas?”
I started to walk away and said, “The calendar behind your desk. Lots of pictures of Texas hill country. You wear an Aggie ring. The phones might be buzzing now.”
* * *
I drove a half hour into a time warp to the Highland Park Fish Camp on the St. Johns River north of DeLand. Some of its residents are seasonal. Some year-round. All seem to want to be left alone. It was the perfect place for a Seminole Indian to live. Joe Billie lived there part-time. Where he resided the rest of the time, nobody really knew. What I did know is that he saved my life two years ago when I was shot in the gut and left to die in my own waste.
I pulled onto the long shell driveway, past clapboard cabins with small screened-in porches, and past aged Airstream trailers until I came to the one closest to the river. It was bordering the river, but farther away from the rest of the residents. I got out of the Jeep and smacked a deerfly that immediately attacked my arm. There was no car in front of the old trailer, its aluminum exterior tarnished after decades of sitting in the same spot. I didn’t know if Billie drove a car. I’d only seen him walking and paddling a canoe.
I stepped to the door and knocked.
“It’s been a while.”
I turned to my right as Joe Billie stepped around a clump of cabbage palms. He was my height, six-two. Coffee colored skin. He wore his salt and pepper hair in a ponytail. I said, “Good to see you, Joe. I didn’t hear you approach.”
He said nothing for a moment. Then he smiled. “What brings you back to our little fish camp?”
“I need to find a couple of things. And I thought I could search for them by myself, or I could see if you’d come along and cut a few weeks off my search time.”
“What are you looking for?”
“It’s worse than a needle in a haystack. It’s a cigar in a forest, the Ocala National Forest. We’d be looking for a particular saliva-soaked stogie that’s somewhere in those 700 square miles.”
“Guess that narrows it down some.” He grinned. “You said a couple of things. What’s the other?”
“Marijuana. Lots of it. Three people were killed in the forest, and I believe it’s because some primetime marijuana growers have a big operation somewhere back in there. But nobody seems to be able to find it. I suppose the FBI could find it by flying one of their satellites over and taking pictures, but by the time the red tape is cut, this year’s crop of pot would have been harvested, sold, shipped and smoked.”
“Did you know the people killed?”
“One of them. She was a college student, a young woman who was very close to nature. She was in the forest to release rare butterflies back into the wild.”
“I like that idea. Did she release them?”
“I think so. A butterfly box was found, empty. Blood on it.”
“Okay, Sean, when do you want to start this search?�
��
“Soon as possible?”
“Today’s Monday. I can help you all day on Wednesday.”
“I’ll come pick you up. Seven a.m. Thank you, Joe.”
He smiled and nodded. “Bring the coffee.”
* * *
On the drive back to Ponce Marina, I called Detective Lewis in Seminole County. “Did you get any results from the arsenic test on the pills?”
“Matter of fact, we did. Four of the twenty-five pills were refitted with arsenic. If Elizabeth Monroe had taken two of them, she wouldn’t be here.”
“Any indication it was Soto?”
“No prints outside of yours and Elizabeth Monroe’s. We’re searching for Soto.”
“Now you can search for the face in the composite, too. Sheriff Clayton finally provided copies to the media.”
“Why’d he change his mind?”
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I need to take this call, O’Brien.”
I drove for another mile through the back roads leading from DeLand toward Ponce Marina. I wanted to call Elizabeth, but I thought she might be resting, sleeping off the effects of the poisoning.
My phone vibrated. It was Detective Sandberg. His voice was flat. “We did get that call, O’Brien.”
“I’m listening.”
The anonymous caller said the composite is the face of Izel Gonzales. His nickname is Izzy.”
“So, who is Izzy?”
“Let me put it this way, he’s a punk, but his uncle, Pablo Gonzales, is a real badass. O’Brien, when you did your impromptu news conference with the sheriff and told the world Luke Palmer told you everything he saw, then you hung Izel Gonzales’ picture out there, you may have hung yourself out to dry, too. You need to be real careful.”
SEVENTY
I swerved to miss a fat raccoon that waddled across the narrow highway. Sandberg asked, “Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I‘m here. Okay, tell me more about Izzy and his Uncle Pablo.”
“The caller, a woman with a Hispanic accent, said Izzy is the only nephew to Pablo Gonzales. I asked where I might find Izzy and the caller said he can’t be found. But a good place to look would be in the Tampa Bay area. Then she hung up. You ever hear of Pablo Gonzales?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I called an old pal with the DEA in the Tampa office and got a little more information. Gonzales is considered the smartest and most ruthless head of a big drug family out of Mexico, but he’s actually a transplanted Argentine who relocated to Mexico City nineteen years ago. He graduated from Harvard Business School, but that was after he received his masters in history from UCLA. He took over the family drug cartel biz after his older brother was shot and killed. Pablo Gonzales is fiercely loyal to eight men. He expects absolute loyalty in return. If he suspects otherwise, heads literally roll. His specialty is decapitation. He’s got hundreds of Mexican cops on the take. He owns jets, helicopters, an arsenal of weapons and even rocket launchers. The Mexican president has a five-million dollar bounty on Pablo. It’s rumored that Pablo put a ten-million dollar bounty on the president.”
“Does your DEA contact think Pablo and his nephew are in this country?”
“They don’t know for sure. Izzy has been seen here. Except for his connection to his uncle, there are no outstanding warrants for him. Pablo used to come in and out of the country. He speaks fluent English, as does Izzy. At one time, Pablo ran a legitimate exportation business. Sold all things Mexican: sombreros, blankets, original and fake Aztec trinkets. Then he began stuffing blow and heroin into his trinkets. He moved sales into Arizona, Texas and California. Now he’s tagged as supplying gangs with drugs, distributing to most of the states.”
“Frank Soto is suspected of being an enforcer for these gangs. Why would Izzy Gonzales be found growing pot in the Ocala National Forest?”
“It’s a lot easier for the Mexican drug families to grow it here in the states and sell it. They don’t have to worry about trying to sneak it across the border. They pay half-dozen low-level grunts, usually illegal aliens, to tend the farm. These growers often live out there in some woods, and their pot farms are rigged with booby traps. They cut, dry and harvest the pot. Someone higher in the chain negotiates with gang members who take the packed marijuana to places like New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Atlanta, Philly, any city.”
I said, “So the person higher, in this case, most likely is Izzy.”
“Probably. My contact says Pablo cuts no one any slack. Izzy will have to prove himself in order to earn higher positions within the family. However, because Izzy is Pablo’s only nephew, and his father was Pablo’s only brother before he was killed in a turf war, you can bet Uncle Pablo is going to be protective of his nephew.”
“Your contact said Izzy might be in Tampa. Maybe that’s where they do their packaging, storage and shipping. The city has a lot of the old cigar warehouses. It was the cigar rolling capital of America at one time, maybe still is.”
Sandberg said, “The Gonzales might do their pack and ship somewhere over there. And maybe the gang that buys it then drives the U-Haul truck to a warehouse door where the stuff is loaded.”
“Tampa’s about an eighty-minute drive from the forest. But all this is assuming they’ve cut and dried the marijuana and taken it out of the forest.”
“All we found were those twelve plants.”
“That’s all they wanted you to find. And judging from what you told me about the height of the plants, compared to the ones in the photo from Molly’s camera, I’d say harvest is any day now. Maybe a good way to meet Izzy is during the harvest.”
“What do you have in mind, O’Brien?”
“I’m taking a little hike into the forest.”
“You’re not going to find anything. We had twenty-four men in there.”
“Maybe they were looking in all the wrong places.”
“Call me if you uncover something under any rocks, but watch your ass. If Izzy Gonzales is connected to this, you can bet he’s got a machete-carrying team with him. It makes Pablo’s specialty easier.”
I hung up and drove to the hospital. I met the deputy outside Elizabeth’s room. He was reading a sports magazine. Under it was a clipboard with half dozen names on it, mine included. “I need to see some ID,” he said, standing. I showed him my driver’s license. “She might be sleeping, but you can go on in.”
“Thanks.”
I entered Elizabeth’s room. Her eyes were closed, breathing slow and steady. I looked over to the single window. The sun was setting and the soft light cast a warm radiance in the room and across Elizabeth’s face. I bent down and kissed her cheek. She stirred and opened her eyes. She saw me and smiled. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better, now that you’re here. I’m a little woozy but thanking God I’m still alive. Sit down on the bed, Sean. That way I know you’re here because I can reach out and touch you. I’ve been having horrible dreams. Maybe it’s the drugs they’re giving me to get the arsenic out of my system.” She smiled and touched my hand. “Did you meet my young Beefeater guard out in the hall?”
“I did.”
“He doesn’t look much older than Molly. I miss her so much.”
I said nothing for a moment as a single tear rolled out of one eye and down her cheek. I held Elizabeth’s hand and told her about the Mexican drug family’s connection, and how Molly’s killer was most likely Izzy Gonzales or someone related to him. “That explains why Frank Soto was sent on his first mission to find Molly. Soto is a hired gun to protect Izzy, to protect the marijuana field. So, you can bet he’d get paid well for each day that both are still standing. I need to go back in the forest.”
She said, “This is like living someone else’s horrifying nightmare. What if something happens to you?”
“It won’t.”
“But you don’t really know that, you can’t.”
SEVENTY-ONE
Dave cracked a fresh stone crab claw, dipped it in garlic butter and ate, savoring the taste of fresh-caught crab. “Sean, you were right. It’s much bigger than an ex con wandering around in the forest killing college kids. If it’s tied to the Mexican drug cartel, it’s a big cash crop for them. That would explain Elizabeth Monroe’s arsenic poisoning. In the wake of her daughter’s death, the grieving mother commits suicide. A non-suspicious death wouldn’t warrant an autopsy. These drug families are exceedingly secretive and protective of the locations they grow their cash crop, marijuana. Much of it, to the chagrin of the U.S. Department of Interior, appears to be in our national forests. Ocala National is perfect. It has a year-round growing season, heavy native foliage, and it’s very remote.”
“I’m hoping Izzy and his gang haven’t made the harvest yet.”
“Sean,” Nick said, pulling crabmeat out of the shell with his teeth. “You said the cops couldn’t find anything in there. Don’t go back in that forest. You do, and you might not ever come out.” His eyebrows pulled down, butter on his lips, eyes heavy and filled with worry. Max sat at his bare feet waiting for dropped food or handouts. She got both.
Dave said, “So Luke Palmer is the only living eyewitness to the killing of two or three people. If they ever do find this Izzy, our former San Quentin inmate, Mr. Palmer, becomes the star witness in a murder trial with large-scale international ramifications. He needs to be held in protective custody.”