by Tom Lowe
From a limb, hanging at the end of a rope, the lifeless body of Luke Palmer rocked eerily in the breeze.
SEVENTY-EIGHT
Joe Billie said nothing for a few seconds. Then he said, “The killers sure wanted to make a statement.” He shook his head and stared at the body, his face unreadable. He cut his eyes up through the boughs of the old tree to see turkey vultures silently riding the air currents in a slow circle.
The rope had twisted Palmer’s neck at an abnormal angle, the skin now swollen and the color of a ripe plum. Two blowflies crawled in blood that had spilled and dried in the corner of his mouth. My heart hammered. I’d worked plenty of crime scenes in my life, but this slaughter hit me in the adrenal glands so hard I felt nauseous. Not from the site of the body, but from the horror and pain the killers had inflicted on Palmer. I looked away, fighting the urge to vomit, trying to find a horizon to focus on, pushing back motion sickness.
I saw movement.
Less than fifty yards from us stood a doe and her fawn. They moved slightly, brown eyes wide and wet even from the distance. I thought about the wounded deer that Luke Palmer had put out of its misery, the bullet he’d removed from the buck’s stomach, animal blood running down his arms and hands. All I had suspected was true. Palmer’s murder, his corpse twisting in the wind, was testament to the fact that he never buried the deer in that grave with Molly and Mark. He never dug the hole nor had he filled it with death.
Billie pointed to something on the side of the tree. We walked around the body and over to the tree. About ten feet from the ground, carved into the trunk was what appeared to be a butterfly. In the center of the left wing were the initials or letters, MA. In the center of the right wing were the letters, ME.
I thought about Molly and her efforts to release endangered butterflies into this forest, this dark place where a man’s stiff and bloated body swung from the end of a rope. What did the butterfly carving mean? Why was Palmer killed here and hung from this tree? I looked closer and saw that the head and body of the carved butterfly, the image between the wings, was more like the “&” symbol. MA & ME carved in two hearts now grown together like butterfly wings.
I remembered the story Palmer had told me about the Barker Gang, the cache of loot hidden in the forest, the FBI shootout with Ma Barker and her son, Fred, in their home near Ocala. I knew what the MA and ME letters meant. Letters carved by Fred Barker into this tree in 1936.
I looked back at Palmer’s body hanging from the old tree in a horrid, swollen silhouette with a blood-red sky painted behind passing storm clouds. I remembered his eyes misty and remote as he spoke of his niece and how he’d hoped to help pay for a kidney transplant. Luke Palmer’s own midsummer’s dream now was a nightmare after spending four decades in a prison to walk as a free man in pursuit of ghosts — two tragic figures in American crime history, Ma and Fred Baker, and their fortune hidden in the forest. But what Palmer uncovered was the grave of a teenage girl, the murders of two college students, and the same evil that could never be contained behind the high walls of prison.
“Do we cut him down?” Billie asked, touching the knife strapped to his thigh.
“No, this is a crime scene. I’m calling Marion County — now maybe Detective Sandberg will get it.”
Billie nodded and stood near the tree as I used the satellite phone to make the call. I was transferred twice and placed on hold for a minute. When Detective Sandberg came on the line, I told him what we found. He said, “Jesus, all right, O’Brien, looks like you’ve substantiated your theory.”
“Never was a theory, Detective. All the evidence pointed away from Palmer. You told me a few hairs discovered on Nicole Davenport's body didn’t have roots for DNA testing.”
“That’s right.”
“And, you said it was dyed dark black.”
“Where you going with this?”
“To U.S. Forestry Ranger Ed Crews.”
“What?”
“I saw him today, in daylight. The roots are growing out in his hair. He’s going to have another dye job soon, no doubt. Check him now, today. If the coloring chemicals in the hair match the ones found on the hair from Nicole’s body, you have him as an accomplice.”
“Accomplice to what?”
“To multiple murders, and to turning his head, aiding and abetting a marijuana operation in a national forest. Gonzales probably paid Crews more than he’d make in a lifetime if he’d help them get in and out of the forest, help them divert the law. Crews was there when we pulled Molly and Mark from the grave. He was present at the first murder. He told me he’d been there for two hours, yet I saw mud on his truck that was glistening wet. It would have dried or almost dried in two hours. The men we were tracking, those who hung Palmer, left shoe imprints with no tread or patterns on the soles of their shoes. I saw a piece of duct tape on Crews’ boot this morning. Duct tape soles wouldn’t leave imprints.”
Sandberg said nothing.
I heard a wasp fly next to me. Sandberg said, “Okay, we’ll question him. I’ll get paperwork for DNA testing.”
“Ultimately, the man who made Palmer’s bond, probably Pablo Gonzales, which I suspect is the king puppeteer, is responsible for Palmer’s murder and the other three.”
“They hung Palmer to send a message, O’Brien. Drug lords invented terrorism. Palmer on ice can’t testify against his nephew Izzy. Neither, obviously, can Molly and Mark. Izzy, assuming we could ever pick him up, walks away.”
“Maybe not.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We found Palmer, maybe we can find Izzy Gonzales.”
“You might have to track him to Mexico. And who the hell’s we?”
“A friend of mine. He’s Seminole. He can track almost anything that leaves a trail, even to Mexico.”
“I’ve kept Sheriff Clayton at bay because the media have let up some. But now that there’s another killing in the forest, and this one’s a former suspect in the other three murders, we might have to stretch crime-scene tape around the whole fucking Ocala National Forest. You and your Indian pal need to get your assess outta there now. Where exactly is the body? We need to roll units.”
“It’s the intersection of Highways 40 and 19. Go north on 19 one mile. You’ll come to an unmarked spur road on the left. Take it as far as it goes and then you’re on foot for about a half mile due west heading northwest of Juniper… Sandberg… Sandberg can you hear me?”
Nothing but static. “Did you get the directions, Sandberg?” No response. I looked at the satellite phone. The picture symbol for battery was gone, replaced with a weak pulsating dot. Then the phone lost all power.
“Let’s move on, Joe. We have a few hours until nightfall. I bet this place gets darker than the bottom of a deep cave.”
SEVENTY-NINE
Billie and I’d walked about a half mile when he said, “Over there, I see some coontie plants.” I looked in the direction where he pointed and still had a hard time distinguishing the coontie from surrounding foliage. We approached it, and I griped the shotgun a little tighter. Billie knelt by one of the plants. He reached in and lifted a caterpillar from a leaf. The caterpillar was blood orange red with two rows of bright yellow dots like match flames along its back. “Birds won’t eat it.”
“So I hear. How’d you know that?”
“One way is the bright color. Also, these caterpillars emit an odor. Nature warns the birds that this caterpillar, and the butterfly it will become, is not to be eaten. I think the songbirds develop a sixth sense, too.” He set the caterpillar back on the coontie leaf.
I thought of Molly, thought of her smile that day in the restaurant and what she said, “Have you ever held a live butterfly on the palm of your hand, Sean? They like the human touch… the warmth that comes from our hands, and maybe our hearts.”
I felt Billie tap my shoulder. “Ready?”
“What?
“Ready to move on?”
“I was just thinking… yeah, l
et’s keep moving.”
Billie nodded and walked between a few of the coontie plants, heading deeper into the forest. We hiked through scrub oak and dry sandy soil. Billie pointed to a gopher tortoise digging a hole, its front feet and claws tossing sand. Then, there were more coontie plants and a wall of oak and pines that seemed to go on forever.
Billie stopped. I thought he’d spotted a rattlesnake. He studied the landscape directly in front of us for a few seconds, and looked to our far right. “The springs are to the east,” he said.
I saw what he’d found. We both knelt down at the same instance, his brown hand touching the hose. It resembled a typical garden hose. Olive green, blending well with the surroundings. But more than two feet of it was visible. An animal, maybe an armadillo, had dug up the soil around the area exposing a few feet of hose. I lifted the uncovered part and could see it ran from the direction of the spring to the north.
“It’s roto-rooter time,” I said, handing Billie the shotgun. Pulling gloves from my pocket, I slipped them on and used both hands to lift the hose from the few inches of soil that covered it. I headed the opposite direction from the springs, uprooting the hose as it led me toward another shadowy section of the forest.
Billie followed behind me. I saw vultures riding air currents high above the forest. When we were within fifty feet of the next bank of trees, I dropped the hose.
I looked to my right and stopped. I recognized the area.
The image was trapped in my memory. Unlike a digital picture, it couldn’t be deleted from my mind. This was where Molly and Mark had taken the photos. The adrenaline poured into my bloodstream. I held up my hand. “What is it?” Billie asked.
I whispered, “This is the place. It’s where Molly and Mark first took all of the pictures.” I didn’t want to turn my body, only allowing my eyes to scan to the right and left, aware that a rifle bullet could come from the shadows. “Let’s go this way.” We crouched behind a strand of pines and looked through the bushes and scrub.
There they were. Tall as stalks of corn in an Iowa field.
Marijuana. Hundreds of plants. And many were harvested, drying and ready to be stripped of leaves.
EIGHTY
We saw no one. The only movement came from the wind stirring the marijuana leaves. There was no sign of human activity. But there were signs they’d been here. Open bags of fertilizer. Empty and broken bottles of pesticides and fungicides. Shovels, axes and discarded cans of refried beans littered the ground.
The growers had done a good job tucking the marijuana plants between the native vegetation. Spacing just right. Sporadic enough to keep from forming any kind of discernible pattern. Some of the crop was cut and hanging upside down on a long wooden rack, like tobacco leaves drying under the hot Florida sun.
The water hose was connected to a pump that was coupled to a large diesel generator. The hose was fitted with three splitters from the pump, feeding the base of each marijuana plant in a drip irrigation method. The generator and pump were turned off. I looked just above the generator and saw the shimmer of heat rising from the steel casing. If they were gone, I knew they hadn’t been gone very long. “Let’s have a closer look,” I whispered, reaching for my shotgun. “You want my pistol?”
Billie shook his head, his eyes seeming to scan the very air in front of us. We walked quietly with the only sounds around us coming from the humming of bees, the scamper of field mice, and the flutter of hidden birds in the trees. Billie knelt down beside shoeprints in the damp earth. He examined them. “They were just here. They left quickly. One man running, but they’re not gone.” Billie touched one of his fingers to the moist soil at the toe of a print. He looked up at me. “Odd shoe patterns. Almost like moccasins. Same prints we found leading to the body. No tread.”
I thought of Ranger Ed Crews, thought of his lopsided grin, his dyed hair, his left boot with a tiny piece of duct tape on the right heel. “They may know we’re here. They’re probably watching us.” I considered Dave’s satellite phone in my backpack, its low battery. Maybe I could charge it back at the Jeep. I crouched down beside Billie, the smell of earthworms, pesticide and refried beans welling from the ground. “We have to get better cover. Let’s stay down, hang on the fringe and do a zigzag run to the generator. It’ll be more difficult for them to aim, less chance for bullets to hit us. On three, let’s go. Got it?”
Billie nodded.
I said, “One… two… three.” We ran about fifty feet. Billie to my right. He stopped in a dead run, quickly grabbed my arm, and pointed directly in front of us. “That’s not the way a vine grows.”
I saw a long, thin vine stretched about two inches above and completely across the path. It was almost camouflaged with the natural undergrowth below it. The only reveal was that the vine grew in a straight line. We dropped down to inspect it. One end of the vine, which was actually twine painted in shades of green and brown, was tied to a small sapling. The twine stretched across the path to another sampling where it made a simple half loop and was lost in the brush.
I knew what it was attached to.
“Don’t move,” I said, looking up to see if there was a gun locked and pointed in our direction.
There was. A shotgun, almost hidden. The opening of the barrel, resembling a large black hole in the universe, and its vortex of spinning buckshot, heat and velocity, was in a position to remove our heads. The gun was concealed beneath honeysuckles, the stock not visible. “Move to your far right, Joe. The spread pattern of double-aught buckshot from the tip of the barrel to where we’re standing is about twelve inches. But let’s take no chances. Move at least ten feet to your right.”
Then we heard the terrifying and unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun as a shell is fed into the chamber. “Drop your gun motherfucker! Raise your hands and slowly face me. When I kill a man, I like to look him in the face.”
I dropped the .12 gauge and Billie and I turned around at the same time to look into the feral eyes of Frank Soto.
EIGHTY-ONE
They almost circled us. Six men total. Four looked like they might have been farm workers in any field or orchard in the world. Brown-skinned men. None smiling. All carrying machetes. To Soto’s right stood a giant. I estimated he was at least six-six, skin strawberry-red from the sun, a Viking blond beard flowing from his moon face. His eyes were blue flames ignited behind two slits of pinched skin and fat. He wore a T-shirt with cut-off sleeves. His chest was solid, an iron shield under the stretched cotton. He held a semi-automatic rifle, which looked like a toy in his big hands.
There was a seventh man. He stepped from the concealment of stacked pot plants and walked to us. Even before he came close, I knew that I was watching Izzy Gonzales approaching. He juggled a .45 caliber pistol in his right hand. A gold wedding band and matching gold watch on his left. Then he came near enough for me to see the faint acne scars on his face. Despite the scars, he had a swarthy, handsome look and moved with the bravado of a matador, daring and taunting. He said, “You two have some pretty big cojones to walk in here. But the element of surprise was not yours to be had, eh?” He grinned.
I said, “That’s because Ranger Ed alerted you.”
He smiled, and then turned his head to me, reminiscent of a parrot, a bead of sunlight in one eye, heat spilling from the other. He waved the pistol recklessly and looked around to his men. “Ranger Ed, he has been a most useful person. Give that cocksucker a raise!”
I watched him glance to his far right. I cut my eyes in that direction and saw a weatherproof video camera secured to the side of a pine tree. A cord ran down the tree to a car battery and something locked in a metal box. A satellite dish, no bigger than a large pizza, pointed to the blue sky.
I opened my arms, gesturing and taking a small step backward at the same time. Billie followed my lead. “I know who you are, Gonzales. Your face has been all over television lately. As a matter of fact, I doubt that you could walk in any airport in America and get a flight back
to your Uncle Pablo’s hacienda. You’d be picked up.”
His nostrils flared and he stepped closer, eyes red and dilated. “If my uncle was standing here, he’d have those men cut off your head and take it down to the river so the gators could play water polo with it ‘till your head got the size of a golf ball. So you think I would be arrested? For what, huh? You believe that old fucker, the one they arrested on triple murder charges is gonna testify he saw me do anything? He’d have to resurrect himself like Jesus Christ to do that, comprenda? I know about you, dude. Ranger Ed filled me in. You’re Sean O’Brien, an ex cop who’s shackin’ with the mama of the gal I smoked. So you got a hard on for me, Izzy Gonzales, a simple businessman, trying to be left alone to run his business without interference. We fulfill a vast need. Now, you and your friend here are making it most difficult for me. No one’s gonna fuck up my business.”
“You brought the heat when you put a bullet in Mark, Molly and Nicole.”
“Dude, you give me too much credit where it is not due, okay? I didn’t waste that bitch.” He looked over his shoulder at Soto. Billie and I took another step backwards. I glanced down and saw the green and yellow twine less than a foot behind us. Two more feet and we’d have Gonzales in range of the hidden shotgun. He laughed and said, “That was Frank’s gal, the one with the butterfly wings. After he finished fuckin’ her, Tiny over there got a turn, and later on Ranger Ed wanted his turn. But there was a little problem, butterfly babe was still alive. Now Ranger Ed is one sick fuck.” He looked at Soto. “Tell these gringos, Soto. Tell them how Eddie gets his rocks off.”
Soto grinned, touched his dark glasses and said, “He fucks dead girls.”
I glanced at Billie. In the split second that our eyes locked, I knew he was in sync with what I was about to do. And I hoped he was fast enough not to get caught in the crossfire. “Gonzales, we know you enjoy killing innocent girls, people like Molly Monroe who was only in this forest to release endangered butterflies. You didn’t have the balls to get close enough to look her in the eye when you shot her with a rifle. You’re a punk and a coward trying to impress your psychotic uncle.”