Lowe, Tom - Sean O'Brien 08

by A Murder of Crows

“That right?”

  “He’s trying to help Joe beat this thing, this dark cloud that’s following him after the killing.”

  “Looks like the cops ought to be the ones makin’ sure they get the guy who did it.” Bobby leaned up against a support beam and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out the screen porch. He looked at O’Brien. “No disrespect intended. But friends sometimes just get in the way of the cops doin’ their job. All those CSI TV shows have given citizen cops a warped sense of reality. C’mon, how the hell can cops get DNA results between the damn commercials?” He took a deep drag off the cigarette. “Hell, it don’t matter. They got nothin’ on Joe. He isn’t gonna leave shit behind. Joe’s too slick.”

  O’Brien studied the man for a moment. “So you believe Joe did it?”

  “I didn’t say that, but I sure as hell wouldn’t blame him if he did. We get all kinds of people sneakin’ on the ranch and diggin’ pot holes on the mound lookin’ for gold and silver. Maybe Joe ran up on the dude, caught him with Indian bones, and decided to avenge his kinfolk. Shit happens.”

  Lloyd said, “Joe didn’t do it, Bobby, and you need to be careful what you say. Joe wouldn’t lower himself to kill a grave robber. You going to work?”

  “Off today.”

  “Sean and I are heading to the mound. You want to come or you got some other plans?”

  He grinned. “Nothing to be found. And it’s not a place for an Easter egg hunt. Cops could be out there again.”

  “They’ve cleared it. Yellow tape’s down. You’re right about the fact there’s not much to see. It looks pretty much like it has for the last thousand years or so.”

  Bobby lowered his eyes to Max, the cooing chant of a mourning dove coming through the forest. “Sure, I’ll go with you. I got nothin’ better to do at the moment.”

  Lloyd stood. “Good. Let’s go in the truck. Sean, since you got that Jeep, you’ll be fine out there. Follow me.”

  * * *

  O’Brien followed about fifty feet behind the truck, Lloyd Hawkins keeping the speed to fifteen miles-per-hour driving through thick hammocks of palms and live oaks. He crossed a wide creek, the dark water coming up to the truck’s running board, puffs of steam rising from the hot exhaust pipes. O’Brien watched Bobby Hawkins flip a cigarette butt out the truck window into the water.

  Before attempting to navigate the creek, O’Brien waited until the truck had crossed, looking for any indication of sinkholes in the creek bed. Then he drove the Jeep into the creek. Turtles eased off logs, disappearing into the dark water. A young alligator slipped behind the safety of cypress roots. Max stood on her hind legs, her nostrils taking in the rich scent of muck, fish on the bed, wet moss, decaying palm fronds and blooming honeysuckles—the sweet and vinegary compost of earth itself.

  They drove through a scrub oak clearing, flocks of jays squawking like blue confetti flittering in and out of the dwarf oak trees. O’Brien saw a gopher tortoise retreat into a dark hole dug in the sandy loam. Across the wide field, beyond a tree line of sabal and cabbage palms, the vista radically changed.

  A massive mound appeared.

  In the far horizon, arching over the foliage, the mound could have been a slumbering humpbacked leviathan from the Stone Age. It was the closest thing to a foothill in Florida. Even from a distance, O’Brien could tell the mound would cover nearly the length of a football field, and close to forty feet high. He followed the pickup truck through palmettos and cypress, branches slapping the sides of the Jeep. Bromeliads with ruby red centerpieces, hung in the nooks of cypress as if someone had decorated with green and scarlet holiday ornaments. Spindly air plants clutched like motionless crabs to the host trees.

  Within another minute they entered a clearing that was the land of the ancient mound. Lloyd Hawkins drove around the eastern section of the mound and parked under the deep shade of towering sabal palms. He and his son got out of the truck, Bobby lighting a cigarette. O’Brien parked on the opposite side of the truck, keeping the driver’s side of the Jeep further away from father and son. He reached in the console and removed his Glock, slipping it under his belt in the small of his back. And then he opened the Jeep door and stepped out.

  SIXTEEN

  Max scampered out of the Jeep, sniffing the grasses and exposed tree roots. O’Brien walked up to Lloyd and Bobby Hawkins standing next to the pickup truck, the rapid call of crows in the distance.

  Lloyd adjusted his Stetson, the brim of the hat casting a veil of shade over part of his face. He said, “Well, here’s the place,” pointing toward a second clump of sabal palms. “Over there is where we found the body. I’ll show you exactly where.”

  O’Brien nodded, waiting for Bobby to follow his father, O’Brien watching the body language of both men as they approached the spot where the victim had been killed. They walked another seventy-five feet, Bobby, holding a cigarette in one hand, using his left hand to shield the direct sunlight from his eyes as he came closer.

  Lloyd pointed to a fallen tree, the remnants of a large oak that appeared to have been collapsed by lightning and age. “There … he was propped up against that downed oak, sort of in the kneeling position, hands tied behind his back. There was a stick between his chin and chest, holding his head up. The killer made it appear the poor guy was lookin’ out at something.”

  O’Brien nodded. “Which direction? Which way exactly was he facing?”

  Bobby stepped to the far left, and Lloyd pointed to the summit of the Indian mound. “Right there. Like he was staring at a sunset over the peak. Looked to me like he’d died with his eyes open. By the time we got to him, flies had already been there. Damn maggots were everywhere.”

  Bobby moistened his lower lip, tossed the cigarette on the ground, using the heel of his boot to crush the ash.

  O’Brien said, “You might want to pick that up.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Police may return. If they find that butt on the ground, test it for DNA, they could come knocking on your cabin door.”

  Bobby spit on the grass. “Let ‘em come find that.” He squatted down, picked up the cigarette butt, dropping it into his jean jacket pocket, his left hand index finger yellowed from nicotine.

  O’Brien looked at the mound and then back to Bobby. “You see the crime scene, too?”

  “No. I was at work. Cops had cleared the body and taken it away by the time I got out here. I never made it beyond the yellow tape until now.”

  O’Brien turned his head to Lloyd. “And you said earlier that police found no signs of a vehicle, so we don’t know how the victim got here.”

  “That’s right.”

  O’Brien crouched by the log. He studied the scene, looking for anything out of a natural setting. The area had been worked over by investigators, boot and shoe tracks in the soil. O’Brien examined dried blood that had soaked into an area of the log bare of bark and worn by insects and weather. Neither Lloyd nor his son spoke, both men watching him. Max scampered around the scene, sniffing and snorting, her tail straight up, ears cocked.

  O’Brien stood, his eyes scanning in and around the log. He walked slowly, moving to about fifteen feet from where the body was found. He knelt down, pulling back moss adjacent to a split in the log. He picked up three of more than a dozen pupas. Each one was the color of a dark red grape. He stood and looked back at the blood on the log near the tree roots.

  Lloyd Hawkins hooked his wide thumbs in his belt. “What you got there?”

  O’Brien walked back to them. He opened his right hand, the pupas in the center of his palm.

  “What the hell’s that?” asked Bobby.

  “At one point, in the larva stage of the maggots, it ate some of the victim’s DNA. Now it’s a pupa, a blowfly pupa to be exact. It’s the next stage in the life before they hatch into blowflies. Under these conditions, it should happen soon. With most murders in Florida, during the summer, these hatch in about a week after feeding on a corpse. They usually gorge and then crawl away to
a dry place to enter the pupa stage. It’s sometimes the last live physical evidence we find to date the time of death.”

  Lloyd snorted and said, “I got a feeling you’ve been on a helluva lot of murder scenes. You tracked down the damn maggots.”

  Max barked. She’d ventured off, at least seventy-five feet from where O’Brien and the men stood. She paused, looking back at O’Brien, trotting a few more feet, stopping, sniffing and barking twice more.

  Bobby crossed his arms. “Looks like your wiener dog found something.”

  O’Brien said nothing, walking toward Max, the Hawkins’ following.

  Lloyd raised his voice slightly. “Maybe she found something tied to the murder. Or maybe she’s run up on a rattler. Plenty of ‘em out here. Be damn careful.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Max scurried a half circle around something in the grass and weeds. O’Brien approached. “What’d you find? What do you want to show me?”

  Max looked up at him, and then tipped her head toward the ground. O’Brien stepped up and stopped. Less than two feet from him was a dead crow. The bird was on its back, feet out and curled, almost in a surreal postured death. O’Brien knelt down and studied the crow. He could tell it had been shot once through the neck. Maybe from a .22 rifle. Or maybe a single pellet of bird-shot from a shotgun. There appeared to be a single feather, the longest one, missing from its left wing.

  The men approached. Lloyd grinned. “Could be that your little dog’s got the makings of a bird dog. But a pointer is supposed to spot live birds, not dead ones. Nobody hunts crows.”

  O’Brien looked up. “Somebody did. The bird was shot through the neck.”

  Bobby said, “Good riddance. Crows are good for nothing scavengers. To kill a crow is a good thing.”

  O’Brien stood. “To kill a crow, or any animal, just to watch it die is a bad thing.”

  Bobby grinned. “Crows are thieves. I gotta take a leak.” He walked away, heading in the direction of the trees, opposite from the burial mound.

  Lloyd blew air out of his cheeks. “Bobby means well. He simply sees things in a black and white world. If he thinks something doesn’t have much value, and I don’t mean monetarily, he dismisses it too quickly.”

  O’Brien motioned toward the mound. “Did police find evidence that the victim was digging in the mound?”

  “They found fresh holes up there. Don’t know what, if anything, was found because it looked like after the dig, he put the dirt back in the holes. If he took something out, like a bone or artifact, cops didn’t find it with the body. At least they didn’t share that with me.”

  “Do you mind if I take a look?”

  “That mound has been there for a thousand years … maybe more. Help yourself. But I have to get going. If you can track maggots, I guess you can find your way out.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Hope you can find something that’ll help Joe. He doesn’t deserve to be a suspect in this mess.”

  There was a sudden sound of crows calling out. Loud. More like they were angered. O’Brien watched the sky and tree line. At least a half dozen large crows circled in the east and flew toward the trees directly above where Bobby Hawkins was urinating. The birds squawked, some making rapid calls as fast as they could inhale and shriek. One of the larger crows dropped from the tree limbs, coming within a few feet over Hawkins’ head, screeching. Then the bird flew to a lower limb, perching and rocking back and forth, cocking its head at Hawkins and crying, caw … caw … caw…

  Lloyd shook his head. “What’s got those birds so excited? Last time I saw a bunch of them yellin’ like that was when an owl came too close to a crow’s nest. The crows sort of ganged up and gave the owl hell. Looks like they’re pissed off at Bobby. Maybe there’s a nest in the tree above him.”

  O’Brien said nothing. He watched Bobby walk back to the truck, the crows staying in the trees, continuing their oral assault, Bobby lighting a cigarette. Lloyd slapped at a deer fly and started toward his truck. One by one the crows stopped their calling and it was then that O’Brien remembered something Dave Collins had mentioned about a scientific study with crows and cognitive recognition.

  O’Brien reached in his pocket for his phone to call Dave. No signal. He walked up the mound, hoping the higher elevation might be the trajectory he needed for a cell signal. At the summit, he glanced down at his phone. No bars. Max scampered up the hill, her brown eyes animated, nostrils quivering from the profusion of smells.

  A breeze came from the west, carrying the primal scent of marshlands, decaying leaves and black soil. O’Brien felt as if he could see the curvature of earth in the horizon, vast stretches of thick palms, bald cypress trees wading motionless in black water, roots anchored by the ages in an grove of the ancients. A large wood stork rose from the bogs, the beat of its wings reminiscent of a pterodactyl, soaring over the mound. Its exit was followed by massive flock of white ibis rising from the wetlands, taking to the sky and partially blocking the sun for a moment, gaining altitude. It was a lost Florida, a place somehow linked to the umbilical cord of Eden.

  O’Brien walked slowly along the mound, looking for signs of digging. Max scouted to his right. He thought of the history underneath his shoes, a thousand-year old ancestry of native people who lived and died here. Edited from the pages of time by European diseases and the conflict of conquest—the Conquistadors who camped here more than four centuries ago. Their ghosts traced to glass beads, silver pendants and a restless pursuit to own precious metals in a land of prized sunsets that can only be shared.

  O’Brien found the first sign of excavation in less than thirty seconds. The hole was about the circumference of large pizza, covered in dirt that had settled somewhat, a slight bow on the surface. He knelt, picking up a bit of dark earth between his thumb and finger, and then releasing it. No sign of tracks. No visible evidence—nothing but a pockmark on the back of antiquity, a fresh puncture wound on the graves of the dead. He found a second and third excavation. All covered in dirt. No footmarks. Nothing.

  Max scampered a few feet away, stopping and snorting once.

  O’Brien looked at her. “Hope you didn’t find another departed bird.” He walked over to her. It was one more dig area, the hole covered in dry soil. But this one was different. Near it, less than two feet away, was a bare spot of ground between the grasses. And close to the edge of the loam, next to the grass, was a partial imprint of a shoe or boot. O’Brien crouched down and examined it. The print appeared to be from the sole of a boot, near the toe. The patterns were a series of V’s around a triangle.

  O’Brien used his phone to take a picture. When he returned to his Jeep, back to the spot where Bobby Hawkins crushed the cigarette under his boot, O’Brien would snap a picture of that. The photos would prove what he already knew.

  Bobby Hawkins either dug these holes, or he was with someone who did.

  O’Brien heard a crow call out from the top a cypress tree near the mound. The crow was larger than most. It perched on a dead limb cloaked in dark gray moss. The bird watched O’Brien and Max, cocking its head to one angle and then looking from the perspective. He walked along the limb, stopping at the end. O’Brien could tell the crow had something in its beak. He watched the bird for a moment, Max stopping to peer in the direction O’Brien looked.

  The crow dropped the object. “Come on, Max. Let’s go see what fell from the sky courtesy of our avian friend.” They walked less than fifty feet to the base of the tree. The crow surveyed them. Silent. Slowly turning its head, looking down with each of its brown eyes. O’Brien spotted the object. Something shiny. Dappled sunlight struck one edge of the brass. He used a twig to lift the spent shell from damp earth covered in decaying Spanish moss and rotting cypress limbs.

  Max watched him examine the shell. She made a low whine. O’Brien looked up at the crow, the bird studying him. “Where’d you find this? It’s a nine-millimeter. Can you tell me where the bullet went?” The crow stared at him, silent. O’Br
ien pulled a small Ziploc bag from his pocket, dropping the shell inside, sealing it.

  The crow scrutinized him a few more seconds, shifting weight on it’s feet before flying from the limb, calling out three times, soaring over the mound and turning east. Within seconds it had flown beyond the tree line, now a tiny black dot in the hard blue sky.

  O’Brien looked at Max. “Let’s go. The news reported the victim had his throat slit and was scalped. I’m wondering if he was shot too.”

  EIGHTEEN

  O’Brien could see him from the hard-packed dirt road. Bobby Hawkins was in front of his cabin crouching near his motorcycle, doing something with the engine. O’Brien pulled into the drive, scanning the perimeter for Lloyd Hawkins. The old truck was there, parked in the shade of a mimosa tree. The chickens were back in the yard, strutting, pecking. O’Brien thought of the crow, the bird’s IQ undoubtedly much higher than the barnyard fowl.

  Bobby looked up and stood. O’Brien parked his Jeep twenty feet away from the motorcycle. O’Brien glanced at Max. “Stay in the Jeep. I won’t be long.” He got out and approached Bobby who was wiping his hands on a gray rag. “Triumph. Nice bike. Looks like a classic.”

  “Bonneville. I restored it. I’m changin’ the oil.”

  O’Brien glanced down at the man’s boots and then looked up at him. “The one I had years ago used to leak oil. But life’s a compromise. It’s art on two wheels. I know you said you couldn’t visit the crime scene during the time it was still active and under investigation.”

  “That’s right. What are you gettin’ at?”

  “Those riding boots you have. They’re really combat boots. Made by Panther. The company incorporates a unique tread. That tread is on the sole of your boots, right under the ball of your foot. Just behind the big toe. Those grooves in the sole really help in jungle terrain. But they also leave a print that’s easy to follow.”

  Bobby folded his arms across his chest, forearms thick with muscle. “You following me?”