Lowe, Tom - Sean O'Brien 08

by A Murder of Crows

  “What do you mean?”

  “If someone is found dead, and you are on the property near the time of death, that can be judged an unfortunate fluke. But when the victim is someone you knew … not only knew but also found desecrating a burial mound like he was apparently doing before he was killed, that’s not coincidental. That’s planned. You didn’t plan it. I want to know who the hell did. Besides the dead guy, the only ones I’ve met that have a connection are Lloyd Hawkins and his son, Bobby.”

  Billie shook his head. “Lloyd Hawkins would not say anything about me unless he was directly asked. I have known him since I was a teenager. He has always allowed me to cut palmetto from the land. His father and my father were friends. Parts of that property are very sacred places.”

  “What can you tell me about Bobby?”

  “Bobby changed after serving in the Middle East. He became more reclusive and less hospitable when I would see him on the property. Bobby makes extra money harvesting the palmetto berries. He calls them swamp grapes. There’s a lot of money in palmetto berries because of their medicinal properties. The Seminole have used them for centuries to help treat urinary problems.”

  “Since you’re out there harvesting fronds while he’s hunting for palmetto berries, could Bobby Hawkins see you as a threat to his business?”

  “He strongly suggested that I am destroying the palmetto by removing a few fronds. I never cut enough to harm the tree. It’s actually good for them. It prunes and adds to a fuller growth. He knows that, but for some reason he doesn’t want me out there. So I try to avoid him when I go, and that’s easy.”

  O’Brien leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the smell of wood smoke coming across the river from deep in the national forest. “When Bobby’s not harvesting saw palmetto berries he works security at the Seminole casino near Tampa. Did you know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Considering Bobby’s military background, his training, skill with weapons, he may be doing some free-lance mercenary work. If he is, and if he took out Lawrence Barton, the question is why make it appear that you did it?” O’Brien studied his friend. “What do you know or what does someone think you know that would make them want to set you up for a very hard fall? It’s as if someone wants to make an example out of you.”

  Billie stood. “It’s nothing. I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s no alibi because I was cutting fronds near where a killer was cutting a man’s throat. But because I wasn’t killing and scalping Barton there is no physical evidence that police can use against me. None.”

  “None found yet. And by that I mean something planted. That could happen. And we have to be prepared for it. You mentioned Sun Tuz. He also wrote about the importance of knowing your enemy to defeat your enemy. We have to know who that is in order to beat him. Let’s have a chat with the Seminole police officer you spoke of, Jimmie Stillwater. Maybe there’s something he can tell us, something that goes back to that night five years ago. Maybe we can find some subtle insight into Barton’s killing.”

  Billie said nothing. He used his right thumb to massage the hard calluses on his left hand. “Although Big Cypress Reservation plays host to tourists, behind the scenes the rez is a pretty close-knit and closed society. Don’t put too much stock on finding anything in there. But I know you, Sean. We can leave in the morning.”

  “Can you meet me at the marina? Dave and Nick will keep an eye on Max.”

  “I can do that.” He touched Max on her head, turned and looked at O’Brien. “Thank you for helping me. It means a lot. Maybe everything will work out.”

  “I’m betting on it.”

  Billie nodded, stepped down a short wooden ladder to his canoe, which was tied to one of the dock poles. He untied the rope, sat in the stern and paddled silently out into the center of the river, heading west toward the wide oxbow.

  O’Brien and Max watched Billie paddling, the canoe sailing into infinity, an illusive spot found where the river flowed into the heavens, beyond manmade borders and entering a freeform purple horizon. The flicker of an orange sun pushed far back into the shadows, limbs and hanging moss of the cypress trees lining the riverbank. There was no wind, and the canoe sliced through the water, causing ripples in the form of a long V across the river. Billie was a silhouette, a lonely figure in a small boat bound for an unknown port of change, the canoe becoming a speck in the distance, a particle moving in sync with the laws of the universe. Right before Billie disappeared in the flow of water and distant shadows, a crow called out once from the top of an ancient cypress tree, which was long dead after a lightning strike. The bird flew from the tree, heading toward the horizon and into the heart of a sky darker than its feathers.

  TWENTY-ONE

  An hour later, O’Brien locked his river cabin, set the invisible locks, and drove the fifty minutes east to Ponce Marina. He parked in the gravel lot, the soft sound of the breakers coming ashore beyond the sand dunes, the evening breeze humid, and the scent of the sea crawling over the dunes.

  Max followed him through the Tiki Bar, her nostrils working overtime. A family of tourists, who were finishing their meal, pointed as she trotted over the wooden floor toward the bar. The bartender, a barrel-chested man in his mid-forties, gray and white whiskers, sleeves rolled up, and a tattoo of a wolf head on his right forearm, drew a beer from the tap. “Hey, Sean, you’re just in time to have one before our second happy hour ends.”

  He set the frosty mug of beer in front of a tanned deckhand seated at the bar, his baseball cap on backwards.

  O’Brien said, “Thanks, Dusty. Maybe a little later.”

  The big man grinned. “Final happy hour ends at midnight. You just missed Nick. He was in here with a helluva hot thing. They put away a couple dozen oysters. Ol’ Nick’s a chick magnet. Must be his accent.”

  O’Brien smiled. “It’s a Greek thing.” He opened the screened back door, stepped out onto the marina pier and made his way to L dock. Max took the lead, head high, scampering down the dock, the smell of fish scales coming from the fish cleaning station. It was a small, open-air, A-frame structure with running water and a stainless steel sink.

  The thatched roof was made of dried palmetto fronds, partially stained from pelican poop. Joe Billie was hired by the marina to build a new cleaning station more than three years ago. The roof had another three to five years of use left. There were five of these stations across the marina, all constructed by Billie.

  O’Brien thought of that, remembering the days Billie had worked shirtless, bandana around his head, body dripping in sweat as he labored methodically to build structures that fit the character of the marina and would stand the test of time under the hot Florida sun.

  Max trotted toward Nick’s boat, St. Michael. O’Brien approached, the sound of Greek music coming from the salon, the lights low. “Hot Dawg! What you doin’ out there?” Nick came through the open sliding glass doors. He wore faded swim shorts, a white tank top, a gold cross hanging from a chain around his neck, his arms thick with muscle. “Hey, Sean, you and Maxine just strolin’ down the dock for some fresh air? How ‘bout a drink?” He held up a glass of ouzo.

  A shapely woman came from the salon. Her long, brown hair hung to her lower back. Tanned. Full lips and cheekbones. She wore small, cut-off blue jean shorts, bare midriff, a green T-shirt stretched across ample breasts that read: Kiss me, I’m Irish.

  Nick grinned. “Sean, meet my friend Kristie Gallagher. Kristie this is my BFF, Sean O’Brien. He saved my life a few years ago. I never forget that.” The soft glow from the dock lights danced in Nick’s dark eyes.

  She smiled. Dimples popping. “Nice to meet you, Sean O’Brien. I guess you can’t get more Irish than that. Have you ever been to Ireland?” She had a slight southern accent.

  “Yes. It’s a beautiful place.”

  “Nicky and I might go there, but it’ll be after we visit Greece. Right, Nicky?”

  “That’s right. Come aboard, Sean. Have a drink.”<
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  O’Brien could smell the ouzo on Nick’s breath, mixed between the Old Spice cologne, sweat, testosterone, and beer. “I have to pass, Nick. Got to hit the road early in the morning. Between you and Dave, maybe you can keep an eye on Max.”

  Nick grinned. “You don’t have to ask. Miss Maxie spends lots of nights on my couch. Sometimes I wind up on the couch, and she burrows under the covers in my bed like a lil’ gopher.”

  Kristie leaned over the stern, looked at Max and said, “She’s so cute.” The music coming from Nick’s salon changed, Chris Stapleton belting out the lyrics to Tennessee Whiskey. “Come on, Nicky, let’s dance.” She led him to the center of the cockpit, where they slow danced under the stars, the muffled rumble of motorcycles pulling into the Tiki Bar’s parking lot.

  O’Brien smiled and walked toward Dave’s boat, Gibraltar. He could see Dave sitting in the salon, the news on his television. The trawler’s windows were all open, doors to the salon yawning wide. O’Brien said, “You keep watching that and you’ll have to restock your bar.”

  Dave stood, holding the business section from the Wall Street Journal in one hand, his bifocals perched oa the tip of his prominent nose. “Come aboard. What’s the latest with Joe Billie?” Dave muted the sound from the news broadcast.

  O’Brien sat in a deck chair across from the leather couch. Max jumped up and curled into a ball next to Dave. O’Brien told him about delivering the shell casing to the detective and his conversation on the river with Billie.

  Dave stepped over to his bar, filled two glasses with ice, pouring scotch into the glasses. He handed one to O’Brien. “It’s McCallan, more than eighteen years old. Distilled in sherry oak casks. Cheers.” Dave sat back down on the couch and placed his bifocals on the coffee table. “Although the vic was shot, the apparent murder weapon isn’t the gun, but rather the knife. However, police haven’t recovered either. They may match the casing with the round. And if we’re really lucky, they might lift a print from the shell. The detective told you the evidence chain is broken. The question is how much, if any, stock would their crime lab place in what the casing might or might not prove. Although it was indeed a gift from mother nature.”

  “If the crow hadn’t dropped it from a tree, and if I hadn’t picked it up, it would have laid out there in the weeds forever. What it could prove is that the vic was shot with a round from that cartridge, and the casing was somewhere in the vicinity of the body. Given time, nature and animals always play a role in the aftermath of an outdoor death, from the first responders—the flies, to scavengers gnawing at bones, to ants feeding colonies. A crow lifting a shiny shell isn’t out of the ordinary. What I did find extraordinary, though, was the apparent recognition a flock of crows had to Bobby Hawkins. It sort of gave a whole new meaning to angry birds.”

  Dave chuckled and sipped his drink. He glanced out the salon doors at the hundreds of boats anchored and bobbing in the marina, the rotating light from Ponce Lighthouse sweeping toward the dark Atlantic. “There are on-going studies with crows and their cognitive recognition abilities. Scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle did one where some of the researchers wore rubber masks. They captured seven crows, banded them and then let them go. When the scientists would don the same masks again and go outside near the university campus, the crows not only recognized them, but they approached the scientists, scolded, and even dive-bombed them. So not only was the recognition factor extremely strong, they learned that crows hold grudges.”

  O’Brien said nothing for a few seconds. He sipped the drink. “So the question is what did Bobby Hawkins do to the crows?”

  “Something that really ruffled their feathers. You’d mentioned Max finding the dead crow. Maybe Hawkins had shot it. Here’s something else interesting that scientists discovered. Even if only one or two crows actually witnessed the shooting of the crow that died, the birds can communicate. They have their own language—a dialect or a crow vocabulary that they understand. So the other birds could simply have told each other who the killer was, and they all began to single out Bobby Hawkins and to chastise and scold him from the air. Crows in captivity have been known to mimic sounds and languages that rival the ability of most parrots.”

  “Too bad they simply can’t tell us who killed Lawrence Barton.”

  “No, but one crow might have dropped a clue at your feet. Here’s a little poetic irony. Who knows if the crows witnessed the victim’s murder, but a flock of crows is really known as a murder of crows. The term murder, as in a group, goes back to fifteenth century England when crows and ravens would often be spotted near battlefields, medieval hospitals, or even execution sites. The Brits would sometimes refer to a tombstone as a raven stone. So these raucous, highly intelligent black birds—the crows, often are perceived in folklore, and superstitiously, as associated with dark times. But the fact is crows are cool.”

  “They’ve just suffered some bad PR through the centuries.”

  Dave grinned. “They don’t repeat the same mistakes. They learn by doing. They never forget a face in the crowd. They’ll tell their pals about you, even their youngsters. So it’s best to cohabitate with birds that set the standard for cohabitation, then to do otherwise, especially if you take aim at a crow, you may be looking over your shoulder for generations.” Dave gently swirled the scotch around the ice in his glass. He glanced at the TV screen and reached for the remote, unmuting the sound.

  A news anchor sat at a desk and said, “The latest development in the gruesome murder of college professor Dr. Lawrence Barton. That’s next on Channel Two Eyewitness news.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  After a commercial break, the TV news anchorman returned. “Police investigators in Citrus County say they’ve found a nine millimeter shell casing near the gruesome murder of anthropologist Dr. Lawrence Barton. Investigators say it matches a bullet found in the victim’s body during an autopsy. Police have yet to recover the gun or the knife used in the killing. Although no one has been arrested and charged in the murder, police were seen questioning fifty-year-old Joe Billie, and we understand he is a person of interest.” The images cut to video of Billie in the lobby of the sheriff’s department. “Joe Billie is described as a member of the Seminole Tribe. He’s said to work in construction, and he knew the murder victim, their histories apparently going back five years. There are no further details. Your five-day forecast is up next.”

  Dave muted the sound. “Any member of a potential jury who saw that just had the seeds of doubt planted in their fertile cranial soil. Let’s hear it for journalism. Unless they found another shell casing, it looks like the detectives made a match with the one you delivered. That can only help Joe’s case. You said he doesn’t own a gun.”

  “Joe’s all about the philosophy behind the Art of War.”

  “Ah, yes. The ying and yang of balance illustrated by Sun Tzu.”

  “Tzu’s work was an influence a little later in Joe’s life. A lot of that natural balance that he understands was taught to him by a Seminole medicine man.”

  “Most of the Indian medicine men made the study of the natural forces their life’s work. Complementary opposition is the thread woven through the fabric of all existence. The competing forces predict the outlines of change. An astute observer, as in the case of Tzu, taught that we can predict changes in nature because the balancing forces between matching opposition, the cycles, expand and diminish with time. For example: day follows night. Age follows youth. Booms can come from busts.”

  “Joe manages to compartmentalize the forces of change. It’s as if he has his fingers on the pulse of the natural world, able to read the subtle signs. He once told me the engine of all life forces has a sort of automatic gear that kicks in during the marathon race and that is the ultimate controller of excesses. It’s about cycles, steadiness, and the yin and yang of life’s natural balance.”

  Dave said nothing for a few seconds. He lifted his glass to his mouth, crushing a piece of ice between his bac
k teeth. “Maybe Joe knows the universe won’t slip into chaos because the one constant—the dynamic balance between all things naturally corrects excesses.”

  O’Brien finished his drink. “That’s why this murder is so out of character to Joe’s mindset, his philosophy of life itself. In my mind, the yin and yang is synonymous with good and evil. So the natural corrective forces of the universe can become sidelined when free will, often influenced by greed or jealousy, becomes criminal. Whoever slit Lawrence Barton’s throat and peeled his scalp from his skull is pure evil, and he has to be stopped.”

  Dave nodded. “Maybe it’s Bobby Hawkins, or maybe Hawkins is working for someone else. Or maybe Hawkins has nothing to do with the murder. Perhaps the only witness was a crow. Makes you wonder, did the crow tell his pals about the murder after the murder?” Dave smiled and got up to refresh his drink. “Care for another?”

  “No thanks. Joe will be here early in the morning. We’re heading down to Big Cypress Reservation. He’s a reluctant participant, to say the least.”

  “Why? Why doesn’t Joe want you to cross the bridge that will take this case back to where the first appearance was made, the time when Joe found Barton shoveling up the dirt in Indian burial grounds?”

  “Maybe when I cross that bridge, I’ll find the answer.”

  * * *

  The sun was just peaking above the sand dunes to the east, the tops of sailboat masts catching the morning light when Joe Billie walked quietly down L dock. O’Brien was pouring his first cup of coffee as Max lifted her ears, jumping from the couch in Jupiter’s salon and scurrying into the cockpit.

  “Good morning, Max,” Joe said, standing next to the transom.

  O’Brien stepped out, lifted his mug. “Top of the morning, Joe. How about some coffee?”

  “Can I get it in a travel cup? We have a long haul.”

  “Absolutely. Come aboard. You still drink it black?”