She remembered the doctoral thesis paper she’d read about the Calusa Indians. They had been a fearless tribe. The men and women were tall. For more than two hundred years they resisted all attempts from the Spanish to convert them to the white man’s religion. And they were the tribe that killed the Spaniard famous because of his exhaustive search for the fabled Fountain of Youth. Ponce De Leon met his death at the end of a Calusa arrow dipped in poison from a beach apple tree.
Had the Calusa built this mound, she wondered. If not, who did and what happened to them?
Her thoughts were abruptly altered when the stench of death hit her nostrils. She’d smelled the odor once before when an indigent man she knew had died in his trailer home. Dead a week before he was found. And now, here it was again, in the middle of a secluded habitat. She stopped her ATV, her mind trying to comprehend what her eyes were sending to her brain. She couldn’t. The image was simply too horrible to grasp.
The graduate student, Kyle, felt faint. He said, “Dear God … what happened?”
Dr. Sanchez stepped from the ATV, trying to process the horror of what was on the ground. She stopped, clutching her throat. The man’s body was at the base of a cypress tree, positioned in a kneeling posture. His hands had been tied behind his back. He was stripped of his clothes. A stick was wedged under his chin, holding his head up. He’d been scalped, dried blood coagulated in his open eyes, dead eyes that stared up at the top of the mound. Greenish blowflies circled his head. Some were crawling in his ears and nostrils. The others were feeding on dried blood that had oozed from his skull into what remained of his hairline.
Dr. Sanchez braced herself against a cabbage palm tree, her knees weak. The wind shifted, blowing the stench of death right toward her. She leaned over and vomited, the screech of vultures circling above her.
TWO
Joe Billie drove slowly approaching his old airstream trailer. He almost always rode in his twenty-year-old pickup truck with the windows down. Sometimes he listened to the news and human-interest stories on NPR. Mostly, he listened to the sounds of nature, going deep into the Florida woodlands to harvest palmetto fronds. He spent much of his time in the fish camp, using his home as a base for his one-man business. He worked building rustic outdoor shelters, waterfront bars at marina resorts usually. When not working, he read books and carved wood.
He eased his truck off the hard packed dirt and oyster shell road that wound through Highland Park Fish Camp, stopping in front of the last vintage trailer in a remote part of the secluded camp. The once shiny aluminum exterior was stained in dried pine tree sap and age spots from oxidation after spending almost thirty summers in the harsh Florida environment.
Billie parked, glancing in his rearview mirror at the palmetto fronds that filled the truck-bed. He listened to his engine tick, cooling in the shade of large pines. He looked up at the blue sky between the limbs, the hoot of a barn owl coming from near the St. Johns River. It was a rare sound for that time of day and the time of year. Billie, a descendent from the Seminole Owl clan, thought the call of the owl was the cry of a sentinel long associated with his family. Maybe it was a warning. He lifted the machete from the truck seat. It was still sharp even after using it to cut dozens of palm fronds.
Billie got out of his truck. He carried a book he’d borrowed from the Volusia County Library in his left hand, the machete in his right hand. He was just over six feet tall, early fifties, broad shoulders, brown skin, large and powerful hands. He wore his hair in a ponytail, some of the back hair turning gray.
He stepped up to his trailer door and checked the hidden traps he always set when he was gone for a few hours. The small sliver of toothpick he’d wedged between the door and the seal was gone. Billie lowered his eyes to the base of the metal door. The splinter of wood was now at the threshold. He turned the door handle. It was still locked, but it appeared that someone had jimmied the door.
Billie stepped back. Slowly turning. Listening. There was the second hoot from the owl. And then Billie heard the cars coming.
At least three … maybe more.
As they rounded the bend in the dirt road, he could see they were sheriff’s cars. Lights flashing. No sirens. They stopped quickly, dust and pine straw caught in the drafts. A large deputy got out of the first car, his right hand resting on the butt of his pistol.
“Are you Joe Billie?”
“What do you want?”
The deputy kept the opened car door between him and Billie. “I want you to set that machete down and step to one side.”
“What’s this about?” Billie’s hand tightened around the handle.
“Drop your weapon!”
Another deputy emerged, pistol drawn and pointed directly at Billie. He dropped the machete and stepped backwards, closer to his trailer. The first deputy approached Billie, staying within ten feet of him. “You Joe Billie?”
“Yes.”
The deputy looked at the palm fronds in the truck. “Where’d you get those?”
“In the woods.”
“What woods? Where?”
“What’s this about?”
“It’s about murder. It’s about scalping a man … and it’s about you.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“We’re taking you to the station for questioning. If you didn’t do it, you have nothing to worry about.” He paused, stepped a little closer, studying Billie. “You want an attorney or can we go on down to the station and straighten this out?”
“I want to speak with Sean O’Brien.”
* * *
He ran hard. Stopped, waited for little Max to catch up, and then jogged. Sean O’Brien was finishing an afternoon run along the beach near Ponce Inlet when his phone buzzed the first time. Max, his ten-pound female dachshund ran behind him, stopping to sniff an occasional starfish or crab carried to shore by the pounding Atlantic. O’Brien slowed to a walk and then sat on a sand dune, cooling off, feeling his heart rate slowing. The breeze carried the briny scent of the sea and the trace of charcoal smoke coming from a beachside barbeque.
O’Brien was more than six-two, athletic build, wide shoulders, dark hair, and hazel eyes that could penetrate the lies he’d faced conducting homicide interrogations years ago. His former partner in the Miami-Dade PD used to say O’Brien had a bloodhound’s nose for sniffing out BS during questioning, often getting a confession within the first hour. O’Brien simply chalked it up to closely watching people and listening to what they said or didn’t say. How they moved in the chair or didn’t move. The physical hints to the psychological façades.
His phone buzzed a second time.
Max sat at his feet, her pink tongue showing, eyes bright watching seagulls hop between the breakers. O’Brien looked at the caller ID. It was from the Citrus County Jail. He knew no one in the jail. He knew no one that worked in the jail. He did know plenty of people in the Florida State Prison—people he’d help to send there when he was a homicide detective. There was no one in or out of the county jail that he knew. But he couldn’t ignore the call. He answered, instantly recognizing the voice, and for the first time, hearing a hint of desperation in his old friend’s speech. O’Brien felt his heart rate kick up again
“I hate to ask you this, Sean … but I could use your help.”
“Joe, why are you calling from the jail? What’s going on?”
“I’m a suspect in a murder.”
“Murder?”
“They think I killed and scalped a man. Detectives have been questioning me for hours. I finally got to make a phone call. I’m in the Citrus County Sheriff’s interrogation area. Gotta go, Sean. Maybe, you can get here soon.”
O’Brien could hear the drone of people talking in the background. And then the call disconnected. He stood, looked at the breakers crashing, the flotsam tumbling onto the beach. He watched a laughing gull fly toward the horizon over the Atlantic, it’s chortling lost to the pounding of the breaking surf. O’Brien used one hand to scoop up Max. “Let
’s go. This is the first time our friend Joe Billie has ever asked for help. And, from what he just said, he really needs it. “
THREE
O’Brien took a shortcut back to Ponce Marina. He carried Max in one arm, jogging by Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and into the marina parking lot, an area covered in gravel mixed with broken oyster shells. Blackbirds squawked in crevices of a large banyan tree that cast shade across most of the cars and motorcycles parked next to the marina’s rustic restaurant.
The Tiki Bar was a hybrid—part restaurant, part bar, but mostly a watering hole on stilts. The thatched roof was built in layers of dried palm fronds. Pelicans and gulls continually left black and white murals on the roof. The bar floor was made from railroad crossties, beer-stained. Plastic isinglass windows, when rolled up, created a cross-breeze, delivering the scent of fried seafood to boaters and people living aboard everything from houseboats to multi-million dollar yachts.
O’Brien entered the Tiki Bar with the intent of exiting out the back entrance leading to the marina docks. A whiskered, charter boat captain looked up from a sweltering can of Bud. “What’s the hurry, Sean?” The man’s face was deeply tanned, a small hoop earring in one ear, a large-breasted mermaid tattoo on his right forearm. “Hardly ever see you carry lil’ Max.”
O’Brien smiled, walking by the bar. “Max is tired from our jog on the beach.”
The man nodded, grinning. “Got to be those drumsticks she has for legs.”
“Don’t tell Max. She thinks her mother was a Great Dane.”
The man laughed, the laugh turning into a deep smoker’s cough, his eyes watering, face flushing red, his scarred hand lifting the can of beer to his cracked and sunburned lips.
O’Brien exited through the open back door, walking quickly across the wide boardwalk down to L dock. His boat, Jupiter, was at the end. More than three-dozen boats were moored to the long dock—one of fifteen docks in the marina. The tide was rising, a breeze coming from the east causing the secured boats to gently rock in their berths.
He set Max down, and she scampered along the edge of the wharf, near the boats, stopping to bark once at a large brown pelican standing sentry on a wooden post, the odor of drying barnacles and broiled garlic crab in the warm air. O’Brien kept walking. “Let’s go, Max. You could fit in that pelican’s pouch. Don’t bark at the neighbors. Save it for Joe the cat.”
They walked by sailboats, the halyards dinging against masts in the wind across the harbor. The marina had two waterway exits leading to the Halifax River and Ponce Inlet, a direct passage into the Atlantic. O’Brien and Max walked by a fifty-foot catamaran, a Carrie Underwood song coming from the salon, a tanned woman in a white bikini sitting in a deck chair, sipping a glass of white wine, tortoise shell sunglasses on her face. She smiled at O’Brien. “Cute wiener dog. What’s his name?”
“Her name’s Max.”
The woman tilted her head, her mouth with red, full lips. She peered over her dark glasses, pursing her lips. “Interesting name for a girl.”
O’Brien smiled. “Long story.”
There was a quick blast of a boat horn, two men in a 40-foot Viking sport-fishing boat were easing into a slip after a half-day at sea, the rumble of their diesels churning the tea-colored water, gulls shrieking and circling just above the fly bridge.
Max scurried further down the dock, toward the last few boats. She could smell the scent of fish on the grill coming from a boat tied adjacent to Jupiter. It was St. Michael, an Old World style forty-foot fishing boat with a Mediterranean inspired design, high bow, thick hull. Solid. So was the man who owned her.
Nick Cronus sat in the open cockpit, spinning new line onto one of his deep-sea fishing reels, Greek music coming from the boat’s salon. He had the shoulders of an ox, Popeye forearms, a mop of dark curly hair and a walrus moustache. He was descendant from a long line of Greek fishermen. Nick lived on St. Michael, fished half of each month and played the other half. His black eyes where lively; but when pushed into a corner, he was fearless—a trait that occasionally got him into trouble.
It happened a few years ago when Nick was in a brawl with two members of a biker gang, at night, after the Tiki Bar closed. They’d used a steel pipe on Nick’s head and jaw. One was about deliver a deathblow in the parking lot when O’Brien returned from walking Max. He’d surprised Nick’s attackers. The bikers were in intensive care for more than a week. Since that night, Nick swore a brotherly allegiance to O’Brien for life.
He sipped dark Greek coffee and looked up as O’Brien and Max came closer. “How was your run? You follow Hot Dog or she follow you?”
“A little of both.”
“Any lovely ladies on the beach?”
“We jogged so fast I didn’t notice.”
Nick grinned, his thick moustache lifting. “I never run that fast. Matter of fact, I don’t run. Bad on the knees off that hard sand. Swimming’s best. Since Poseidon all Greeks are born with gills.”
Max looked at the smoke curling from the closed lid on the grill. She barked once, shifting her gaze to Nick. He said, “No problem, Hot Dog. Uncle Nicky’s got lots of super grouper. Bet you’re hungry after the run. How ‘bout you, Sean? Wanna grouper sandwich?”
A deep voice came from across the dock. “Hey, Sean … looks like you and Max didn’t break a sweat. You sure you went for a run, or did you go for bagels and cream cheese?” Dave Collins laughed, stepping from his trawler, Gibraltar, moored directly across from St. Michael. Dave folded a newspaper in half, tucked it under one arm and approached. He was in his mid-sixties, thick chest, snowy hair and neatly trimmed white beard. He placed his bifocals in the pocket of his blue and yellow tropical print shirt. He wore Bermuda shorts and beige boat shoes. No socks. A beaded pale white scar from surgery was across one knee.
O’Brien nodded. “No bagels. And we did run, but I carried Max the last lap past the lighthouse to the marina.”
Nick looked at Max. “Give my gal pal some slack. She’s got three-inch legs.”
“I carried her because we had to cut our run short. I needed to get back to change clothes and head to the Citrus County jail.”
Dave raised his gray eyebrows. “Okay, you got my attention. What’s at the county jail?”
“It’s who’s at the jail. An old friend of mine, Joe Billie, called. He’s being questioned about a murder. Sounds like he’s their prime suspect at the moment.”
Nick set the fishing rod down and stood. “Shit … how’d that happen? I remember when we all had coffee with Joe a while back … not too long after they were shooting that Civil War movie and all the crap that happened because of that crazy re-enactor.”
Dave cleared his throat. “Joe’s a good man. Sounds like he’s in bad trouble. Do you have any details?”
“Only that the victim was scalped.”
Nick let out a low whistle and shook his head. Dave said, “I remember reading about that killing, maybe a week ago. They found the guy dead near an Indian mound in a very isolated area of Florida. Many acres of swamps and palmettos. I read they thought maybe it had been tied to some kind of satanic ritual.” Dave glanced over to a charter boat leaving the marina, and then he cut his eyes back to O’Brien. “Joe’s your friend, I know he’s opened up to you … but how well do you really know him? Is he somehow connected to that dark kind of thing?”
“Joe’s a spiritual man … we’ve talked about his Seminole heritage. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a more honest man. If he killed someone, he’d admit it.”
Dave nodded. “He’s Seminole, he’s a minimalist, but he carries baggage like all of us. Maybe less, but it’s there. Whoever did it, the killer wanted to send a ghoulish message when he or she took a souvenir—a human scalp.”
“Can I ask for two favors?”
Nick grinned. “I’ll watch Hot Dog while you’re gone.”
“Thanks. Dave, maybe you can send me links to any news stories about the murder. Who was the victim? His background? And at this po
int, I’m wondering whether Joe knew him.”
FOUR
They took turns going at Joe Billie. Two detectives playing good cop bad cop. The senior investigator, Detective Robert Edwards sat to Joe’s left across a small table in one of the interrogation rooms. Edwards wore the dispassionate expression of a tired basset hound graying at the temples and jowls. He was in his mid-fifties, African-American, wire framed glasses magnifying his black eyes. Sleeves on his starched white shirt rolled up two precise turns. Red, white and blue suspenders over his shoulders and hitched to neatly pressed trousers.
He pushed back from the table and released a deep sigh. “C’mon, Joe … make it easier on yourself. Maybe this guy owed you money … maybe he’d been crapping in your sandbox for years and you finally couldn’t take it anymore. You’re human. There’s only so much crap a man can take before reaching his breaking point. Every man has one. Maybe you reached yours, too. What happened out there in the forest?”
Joe looked up at the video camera on the wall and then lowered his eyes to the detective. “I did not kill that man. When I go there, it is to harvest palmetto and palm fronds for my work. I never saw him.”
The second detective, Rob Stinson, was younger, late thirties, thick in the neck and forearms, loosened tie, and plump rosy face. His wide-eyed expression resembled a high school basketball coach who couldn’t believe his star player missed two free throws in a row. He leaned closer to Joe and said, “Looks like you decided to harvest a lot more than palm branches. What did that guy do to piss you off so much you slit his throat and scalped him?”
Joe said nothing. He stared straight at the younger man. Unblinking.
The detective looked away. His face flush, a light shine of perspiration on his cheeks and above his top lip. “Here’s the deal, we got a witness that puts you on that property the time the crime went down. What are the odds that, in one of the most remote places in the whole state of Florida, two people, you and the deceased, were at the same place at the same time? This isn’t like a drug dealer’s corner in Miami where any pimp, gangbanger, or other assorted lowlifes could have done it. Hell no! There wasn’t another human for miles in the proximity of where Lawrence Barton was killed. No one but you. The property owner says you were there.”
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