“Do you have a card?”
Edwards reached in his coat pocket and produced a business card. The other detective didn’t offer a card.
The news crew came through the front door, the camera operator already rolling.
The reporter eyed Billie, her hand gripping the microphone. She seemed torn as to whether she should pounce and start asking Billie questions. She leaned closer to the cameraman, whispering something in his ear. And then they made a beeline toward Billie. The reporter said, “Excuse me. What was your relationship to the murder victim?” O’Brien motioned for Billie to follow him to the front door.
O’Brien said, “That’s a presumptive question. Come, Joe.” They walked around the news crew, the camera lights in Billie’s face. The walked across the lobby, past framed photos of the sheriff, department heads, state attorney general, and governor. The woman sitting in the chair looked away, her face a shade paler.
As O’Brien approached the front entrance, he could see the news crew in the reflection off the glass, the camera trained on Billie the entire time, the detectives in the background, the reporter approaching them for her interview.
O’Brien and Billie walked out into the bright sunlight, the humidity rising, air hot. He watched a second news van pull into the lot. “Joe, it looks like they want you to be their prime suspect. Let’s get out of here. They’re circling like vultures. I need to hear what the hell’s going on.”
SEVEN
They took a back table in a café in Inverness, Florida, a few miles from the sheriff’s office. Driving into downtown, O’Brien kept an eye on the Jeep’s rearview mirror, watching for a tail, looking for an unmarked car following Billie’s truck from a distance. He felt certain that they hadn’t been tailed in a vehicle. Before entering the Euro Café, he glanced up at a traffic light camera at the intersection.
O’Brien sat with his back to a wall, in a corner, full view of the entrance. Joe Billie sat on the opposite side of the small table. Billie ordered tea. O’Brien sipped black coffee. The quaint restaurant smelled of grilled-cheese sandwiches and fresh ground coffee beans. A dozen people sat at various tables eating and talking. O’Brien looked from left to right across the room. No eyes in their direction. “The news media didn’t just show up back there, at least not two TV stations arriving at the same time. They were called.”
“You mean tipped off?”
“Maybe it was one of the detectives. Could be someone else. If those detectives had something tangible, you wouldn’t have walked out of there. There’s no reason to put your face in the news unless they have another suspect in mind, and they’re using you as a Red Herring—a decoy, so the real bad guy lets his guard down. But somehow I don’t believe that’s the case. What happened? Start from the time they showed up.”
Billie sipped his tea. He didn’t blink as the steam rose from his cup, his dark eyes pensive. “I’d just returned home from cutting palm fronds when they came to my place.” He told O’Brien what had occurred as he was questioned at his trailer and then at the sheriff’s office. He told him how he knew the dead man, how he’d originally found him digging in sacred Seminole burial grounds five years earlier.
O’Brien listened closely and blew out a long breath. “That’s not good. Admitting that you knew the victim has established a history, and the fact that when your paths first crossed it was a volatile confrontation. You said you had your machete in your hand when you caught the guy five years ago. A machete is a persuasive reason for him to comply with your demand to return the bones, rebury them, and leave.”
“I didn’t threaten to kill him. He was scared, and it looked like he was about to vomit. He could not bury the bones fast enough. I made no threat, and I never saw him again.”
“They’ll say it was an implied threat, and they’ll try to say what happened back then escalated into a killing today.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Of course it didn’t. But we may have to prove it because they’re going to try hard to prove otherwise. Let’s take it from that time, five years ago, when you first found this guy digging in the graves, and now he’s discovered dead next to an Indian burial mound. He’s not only dead but he’s scalped. A declaration was made. On the surface, the vic had probably violated something. In this case, it was the purity of the mound by digging in it. Why him? Why there? And how will prosecutors try to connect this to you?”
Billie nodded. “It could have been any sick person or people.”
O’Brien leaned back from the table, watching the parking lot through the windows. “Joe, does anyone else know that you had a run-in with the victim that time you found him sacking the burial ground?”
Billie was quiet for a few seconds. Someone’s cell phone rang across the restaurant. Billie pushed his empty cup aside. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Because there are too many parallels between the past and the present, from a warning in one burial ground to a death in another. It’s either a hell of a coincidence or someone else, maybe a psychotic killer or some pagan cult involved in human sacrifices, did this killing. But I’ve never put too much stock in coincidences. Who knows that you had a history with the dead guy?”
“Maybe a lot of people on the reservation.”
“Which reservation?”
“The largest in the Seminole Tribe, Big Cypress.”
“Was anyone there that night when you found this guy digging?”
“Not immediately. It was the first few months that I ever carried a mobile phone. I called in to tribal police and reported the guy. One officer, a man I know, Jimmy Stillwater, arrived. He warned the poacher about trespassing laws and how the tribe will not tolerate theft of human remains. He arrested him for desecration of graves. The guy pled guilty and paid a small fine.”
“I assume the officer, Jimmy Stillwater, filed a report. Do you think he would have told anyone about it?”
“I do not know. I haven’t seen him much since then. He is one of the higher ups on the force now.”
O’Brien said nothing. He sipped his coffee, now cold.
A twenty-something server approached, her auburn hair pinned up. Colored contacts that made her dark brown eyes look a catlike chemical green. “Can I get you anything else?”
Billie shook his head, “No thanks.” He pulled folded money from his pocket.
O’Brien reached for his wallet. “I have it. Just the check, please.”
She handed him the check, smiled and left.
Billie placed his large brown hands on the table, palms down. O’Brien glanced at the back of his friend’s hands. They were scarred from years of hard work, years of harvesting palmetto limbs and building hundreds of chickees across the state. He lifted his eyes up to meet Billie’s stare.
“What is it, Sean? I’ve seen that look on your face before. What do you know, or what do you think you know?”
“I don’t think your alleged connection to this murder is coincidental. It may have been deliberate. I think you’re being set up. The question is why?”
“By whom? My rancher friend, Lloyd Hawkins? That seems unlikely.”
“Maybe. Is there anyone who would have a reason to make you seem like a murderer?”
“No.”
“It takes a lot of planning to stage a murder scene, to kill someone and try to shift the focus to an innocent person. And that would require a strong reason—a reason the perp feels is justified.”
“If someone were to do that, why kill a man to get to me? Why not just kill me instead?”
“Maybe because the killer, or whoever he or she works for, wants to send a message to others.”
“What message? Who are the others?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll have to pursue that option quickly. I think it’s just a matter of time before the investigators find something concrete. Whoever the killer is, he’s not relying only on the testimony of a rancher to place you in the vicinity. I’m betting the killer’s done something else,
too. And when police locate it, you’ll be looking at first-degree capital murder charges. And in the state of Florida … it often means the death penalty.”
EIGHT
The next day the package arrived at the forensics division of the state crime lab in Tallahassee. A twenty-three-year old graduate student, four days worth of stubble on his narrow face, handed the package to a female forensics technician sitting next to a desk with a large microscope at one edge. “This just came. Got your name on it.”
“Thanks.” Her inquisitive brown eyes moved over the return address. “I’ve been waiting for this. It was pulled from the truck of a suspect they’re questioning in Citrus County. It’s connected to that murder where the victim was scalped.” The technician, a petite woman with her dark hair pinned up, slipped on rubber gloves.
The intern folded his arms, his white coat wrinkled, a small coffee stain near the first buttonhole. “I heard about that. Even in all the criminology classes I’ve taken in college, I can’t recall reading about any recent murders involving scalping the victims. Lots of that stuff went on in the cowboy and Indian era.”
She looked over at him. “It happens more than you might think. Sometimes in tandem with murders involving genital mutilation. There are some weird people on the planet.” She smiled and opened the sealed envelope, removing a plastic evidence bag. She read the information that accompanied the single black feather, corroborating some of what the detective had told her on the phone.
She opened the bag, using extended tweezers to lift out the long feather, holding it under the light from a gooseneck lamp on her desk. Then she looked through a magnifying glass, carefully examining the entire feather, especially the tip of the quill.
The intern watched her, waiting. “Is that feather from a blackbird?” he asked.
“Maybe. Looks more like a crow or a raven.” She studied the feather and then examined the tip of the quill under an electron microscope. “This is interesting.”
The intern stepped forward. “What do you see?”
“Blood. More than I’d expect on the tip of a quill feather.”
“Human?”
“Don’t know that yet.”
“We’ll run DNA testing, of course. We’ll see if we get a match from the sample taken during the autopsy.”
* * *
Sean O’Brien walked down L dock, the setting sun like a smoldering crimson match beyond the mangrove tree line across the Halifax River. The breeze from the beach to the east was briny, carrying a slight trace of lighter fluid and hot charcoal, white smoke rising from the deck of a houseboat moored to M dock, glowing Japanese lanterns looped from a railing around the cockpit.
O’Brien thought about his conversations with Joe Billie over the last twenty-four hours. Either there was something that Joe wasn’t telling him, or Joe was unaware of a trap he stepped into, not fully cognizant of how potentially close he was to being trapped for life. Maybe even put to death if hard evidence could place him directly at the murder scene.
O’Brien planned to get Max and head back to their old cabin on the banks of the St. Johns River, about fifty miles west of Ponce Inlet near the Ocala National Forest. He wanted to think about his next moves to help Joe Billie. He thought about Joe’s reference to the Seminole police officer that answered the call when Joe found and ordered the man to rebury the bones of their ancestors.
Nick Cronus’s boat, St. Michael, was dark. No sign of Nick or Max.
Until a quick bark.
She was aboard Dave’s boat, Gibraltar, Max standing on a deck chair in the trawler’s wide cockpit, Dave and Nick playing cards. Gibraltar was moored with the bow closest to the main dock, the transom facing the marina water and N dock. O’Brien went down a smaller ancillary loading berth, stepping over cleat lines and ropes, until he’d walked the full length of the big trawler. He could smell the cigar smoke coming from the card game.
Dave looked up, a cocktail in one hand, cigar in the other, cards fanned out on the table. “Come aboard, Sean. Perhaps your presence shall bring me good fortune. Lady luck seems to have abandoned me.”
Nick grinned. “That’s ‘cause I treat her better. Treat her like a lady.”
Max twirled in a circle as O’Brien reached down to lift her and stand next to the card table. “Speaking of ladies, do I need to walk this little lady, or have either one of you taken her on a hike recently?”
Dave nodded. “We went on a brief sojourn across the parking lot and into the woods, or perhaps the sea oats is more descriptive, just a little while ago. She’s fine, however, I will surmise from your demeanor that Joe Billie is not so fine. Have a seat. We’ll deal you a hand. Nick and I are having Hendrick’s gin over ice with a squeeze of key lime. Join us. Let’s hear what’s happening with Joe Billie. I assume he hasn’t been saddled, officially, with the murder. I’ve been monitoring the news feeds online. So far, nothing public. Have a drink, and bring us up to speed.” Dave puffed his cigar, closing his left eye, the smoke drifting up.
O’Brien took a seat and told them what had occurred. “I think it’s just a matter of days, maybe less before the other shoe drops. I have a sense that Joe is being set up. He doesn’t know why, if that’s the case, or at least he’s not telling me why.”
Nick swirled his drink over melting ice in his glass. “You told us Joe pretty much keeps to himself. I know, based on some of the firestorms you and he have gotten out of, he can kick ass and take names, but he doesn’t act like the type to make enemies. He doesn’t seem to give a shit about material stuff like new cars, clothes and crap you can’t take to your grave. You said he lives in a small trailer in that fish-camp that looks like a page from the fifties. Why would anybody wanna take him down?”
Dave nodded. “Maybe it’s an angry lover’s triangle. Some sort of bizarre paganism or revenge killing that’s aimed to be as offensive as it was deadly. However, the parallel you mentioned, Sean, from that time years ago when Joe Billie caught the scoundrel violating the graves of his Seminole ancestors, to the victim’s death at an Indian mound, is highly suspect to say the least.”
O’Brien watched a sixty-foot white Hatteras enter the marina from the inlet, the captain slowing to a no wake speed, running lights glowing, the big diesels burbling in the dark water. “I need to visit the crime scene.”
Dave puffed his cigar and sipped the icy gin. “At this point, what’s the point? I’m sure it’s been raked over and all visible evidence collected.”
“I want to speak with the rancher, Lloyd Hawkins, as well as visit the crime scene.”
Dave pushed back from his chair. He looked up at the clear night sky, the stars fiery high above the manmade light—the sweep of the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse rotating out into the dark Atlantic. He lowered his eyes to O’Brien. “Your friend, Joe Billie is certainly an anomaly, especially among members of the Seminole Tribe. They rake in billions a year from casino gambling. They own all the Hard Rock restaurants and resort hotels. And I read recently they pay the state of Florida an annual billion-dollar license fee, if you will, to keep that casino gambling exclusive to them. Maybe Joe, a guy who seems to shun that sort of thing, has somehow created an acrimonious relationship with someone who doesn’t mind going to drastic measures to send him to state prison or even worse. Does Joe accept the monthly payments the tribe issues to its members, profits from its gambling business?”
“Joe lives on what he earns. He reads a lot, goes to the reservation occasionally to be with family. His wife died a few years ago.”
Dave nodded. “So you both share that tragedy.”
O’Brien said nothing.
Nick finished his drink and said, “Looks like Joe’s facing another tragedy if he winds up with a first-degree murder charge in this thing. Maybe the cops will get it right. But it looks like they got their sights set on Joe.” He shifted his black eyes to O’Brien. “I know you, Sean, and I know you won’t wait for them to put an orange jumpsuit on Joe and try him for a murder he didn’t c
ommit. But what the hell can you do?”
“Whatever I can.”
Dave puffed his cigar, leaning his head back, blowing smoke up into the night air. “I don’t thank it’s rained since the murder was reported. Who knows, you may come across something no one else saw. Too bad you can’t take Joe. That wouldn’t look good, though. Like you, he has a good eye for detail.”
“I can take him to the second place I want to go.”
Nick tossed Max a sliver of cheese and asked, “Where’s that?”
“The Seminole Big Cypress Reservation. I want to meet the only other man who spoke with the guy who was pilfering through a burial site. I want to see what Jimmy Stillwater remembers about that night.”
NINE
It was getting close to midnight when O’Brien and Max boarded Jupiter. The 38-foot Bayliner was what O’Brien called his ‘liquid therapy.’ He’d bought the boat years ago in a DEA sale and scrubbed out the smell of drugs from the master berth, the odor of marijuana, the dust from cocaine, dark rum soaked into the wooden floor, the remnants of an illicit business left over from the height of Miami’s drug wars. He spent hours rebuilding the diesels and rehabbing the boat until it gleamed.
O’Brien had enlarged the master berth and the shower in the head. He’d remodeled the galley and salon. The boat came with a wide cockpit. At one point, he’d commissioned Nick to help him start a charter fishing business, but after a season of mediocre results, he realized that Nick possessed far greater talents for finding fish. And so O’Brien was pulled back into the world he knew well—finding people. Sometimes finding things that people lost or things stolen. He used the skills honed in the military—tracking the enemy, and the skills he’d sharpened in Miami, tracking criminals—to become a private investigator.
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