She nodded. “These canals are deep. Most were dug to supply fill dirt to build a roadbed that would have otherwise become submerged during the rainy season. This canal is probably twelve feet deep, maybe more. For divers, it’s zero visibility.”
“Let’s walk it, heading south the way the current appears to be flowing.”
They walked slowly examining the ground and the shoreline. The canal was at least fifteen feet wide, stretching for miles along the old road.
Wynona stopped. “I should call in to the department. They could notify Collier County and get a dive team out here. Maybe do some aerial surveillance, too. If it was a body, and it’s on the bottom of the canal, it might be a floater in a couple of days.”
O’Brien started to respond, but stopped when he heard a crow cawing from a cypress tree up ahead. “Let’s look a little longer.” They walked in the direction of the crow’s calls, batting away deer flies and mosquitoes.
There was a noise, sounding as if schooling fish were thrashing in shallow water. O’Brien started to say something, but Wynona help up her hand. She lifted a finger to her lips, signaling silence. She listened, turning her head, trying to identify the flaying sounds. She stepped over to O’Brien and whispered. “They’re feeding.”
“They, as in gators?”
“Yes. More than one.”
“Maybe they won’t notice us.”
She nodded, ducking under the boughs of a small cypress tree and following the canal. Within thirty feet, she stopped. O’Brien did the same. Neither moved nor spoke.
The sight was horrific.
Two large alligators were feeding from a human body wedged in a shallow part of the canal. The gators had eaten off one leg up to the thigh. An arm was gone. Part of the dead man’s stomach ripped open—cherry red intestines floating in the dark water. Wynona swallowed dryly. “Let’s see if we can scare them before there’s nothing left of the body to identify.” She picked up a fallen limb, slapping it on the surface of the water. The gators watched her for a few seconds, undaunted. Then the big reptiles slowly lowered their heads in the water and disappeared.
O’Brien looked at the remains, stepping closer. Most of the man’s face was still intact. “That’s what’s left of Carlos Bertoni. And I’d bet that Tony Rizzo was ordered by Dino Scarpa to kill Bertoni and dump the body out here. Omertà, a code of silence was compromised.”
“Sean, if Scarpa did this to one of his associates, that could mean he thinks you know more than you do, or maybe he thinks you’re working undercover—still a cop. I believe you’re in grave danger.”
SIXTY-FOUR
Kimi Osceola stood at the bathroom sink, running cold water over her left wrist. The blood turned the water into a light shade of red. She stood there, the water doing little to soothe the burn in her skin and the ache in her heart. She straightened up, staring at the girl in the mirror, the bathroom lights off, her face hollow and opaque, as if she was looking at her image through the reflection of black ice.
You’re ugly.
You’re ugly.
I hate you!
She lowered her head, the running water sounding distant, like a waterfall just beyond a trail bordered with thick underbrush, the sound somehow not in the enclosed ceramic and tile room of fluffed towels and a framed photograph of a sunset that her mother had hung to the right of the bathroom window.
Kimi wrapped a washcloth around her wrist, entered into her bedroom and stared for a moment at the teddy bear on her bed. She stepped to the bed, lifted the bear to her arms, cradling it before walking out the door toward the chickee in her backyard.
* * *
Wynona Osceola held the gator stick in one hand and her phone in the other. She glanced up at O’Brien. “The body was dumped in Collier County. We might as well add another police agency to the mix.”
“Before you call them, let’s talk. Let’s think about where this could go—the possible repercussions.”
She lowered her phone. “Okay. What repercussions?”
“You and I both know that a half eaten body is what’s left of Carlos Bertoni. We know a vehicle registered to Dino Scarpa stopped here. Someone got out and dragged Bertoni into the canal. They assumed the gators would take it from there. And in another hour or so the gators probably would have. So we need to decide something.”
“Sean, I’m not sure we should go there. I’m not sure we should even be having this conversation.”
“Let’s put this killing in perspective. This hit is mob on mob. Carlos Bertoni was a very bad man. He worked for even worse men—men who came out of the womb evil. What value would an investigation by Collier County CID, or any other agency mean to clearing Joe Billie? Nothing. This killing will never be traced back to anyone in the Genovese family. We only managed to find it because I put the GPS tracker on the car and Dave followed the signal. The car will be wiped clean, maybe burned.”
“What if Bertoni killed Frank Sparrow?”
“Maybe he did. Maybe he killed Lawrence Barton, too. We just have to prove Bertoni was following orders to make those kills. That’s how we bring justice to the victims and closure to the families. And we have to prove that those orders came from someone who would kill for a piece of the tribe’s gambling profits, or someone who wants to partner, expanding the business. Are you comfortable with calling Detectives Jimmy Stillwater or Henry James and telling them about this body—especially since we found the first one?”
Wynona shook her head. “I understand your reasoning, but this goes against protocol. It goes against everything I was trained to do.”
“What does protocol have to do with real justice? Sometimes it will prevent it, or cause an innocent person to be arrested, tried and convicted. It happens. It can’t happen to Joe. You weren’t trained to use a dozen rounds on a suspect when the first couple did the job. But you delivered justice, and you made a statement to others who might do the same damn thing.”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
“I said it because you did what you thought was right at the time. I’m not saying it was wrong. Stopping the murder of that girl was the right thing to do. You made a judgment call—and you made a point. No father can do that to his daughter. And my point right here and right now is this: Joe will soon be tried for first-degree murder.”
“Sean, we can’t—”
“To have the cavalry out here will do nothing to help Joe. If we team up with investigators we can’t trust and, quite frankly, people who can’t move quickly enough because the system won’t let them or because they don’t have the experience, we’ll be second-guessing our next move. And when you do that with the mafia, you don’t get a second chance.”
Wynona looked at Carlos Bertoni’s body, his bloated face pointed toward the sky. “I feel weird walking away from a crime scene, although I know if a fisherman or someone else called this in, CID would eventually chalk it up as just another one of hundreds of bodies dumped into the biggest dumping ground in the nation for murdered corpses—the glades.”
“I have no doubt that the mob’s web stretches from the palm hammock where we found Frank Sparrow’s body to here, and most likely the mound in Citrus County where Lawrence Barton’s body was found. We just have to prove it, and it’ll be hard with a salad mix of agencies claiming turf.”
“All we need is the FBI coming in and demanding federal jurisdiction.” She smiled. “I’m sorry. I guess a shitty attitude goes with the job when you’re dealing with overlapping layers of jurisdiction and bureaucracy.”
O’Brien nodded, glancing back at the body. “Members of the mob aren’t the sharpest knives in the felon drawer. They just have a history of criminal mergers and acquisitions from a period when law enforcement didn’t have the money, manpower or sophistication to combat the emergence at a pace faster than how they could multiply like an epidemic disease.”
They watched a large gator come to the surface, speckled sunlight through the cypress tress wedged in the ani
mal’s yellow eyes. Wynona dropped the stick to the ground. She slipped her phone back in her pocket and exhaled, her nostrils flaring slightly.
There was a long cry of a white curlew wading in water flowing through the patches of saw grass. The gator swam over to the body, opened its toothy mouth, clamping down like a steel trap on Bertoni’s remaining leg. The gator pulled the body from the shallows into deeper water, the legs and torso submerging first, the head and shoulders still above water, moving like a grisly plastic water float animated by an underwater puppeteer. A second gator appeared. It whipped its thick tail and submerged. The force of the strong tail creating a wake that moved to the edge of the canal, the small wave bringing black water to the tips of Wynona’s shoes.
Seconds later, as if a string-puppet was yanked, the pale and lifeless head of Carlos Bertoni jerked backwards and then slipped beneath the dark water.
SIXTY-FIVE
When they pulled into the driveway leading up to Charlie Tiger’s house, Wynona was relieved. She looked over at O’Brien behind the wheel and said, “Charlie’s car isn’t here. He’s probably not home.”
“Maybe Kimi and her mom are inside.”
“We’ll soon find out.”
They parked and walked up to the front door. Wynona looked back over her shoulder as a car drove slowly by, tinted windows up, the breeze carrying the sweet scent of orange blossoms from a tree in the front yard. She glanced up at O’Brien. “What are you going to ask Kimi?”
“It’s what I’m going to tell her. Her reaction, I hope, will give us the answer.” O’Brien could feel the sun’s heat on the back of his neck and forearms. He knocked on the door.
Wynona started to say something just as Nita Tiger opened the door, a surprised look on her face. “Hi, Wynona … Mr. O’Brien. Charlie’s not here.”
Wynona smiled. “That’s fine, Nita. We’d like to speak with Kimi. Is she home from school?”
“Yes. She’s in her room. Come in. I’ll tell her you’re here. Is everything all right? Have you found something?”
Wynona stepped inside. “Things are falling into place. We won’t be long.”
O’Brien smiled. “It’s a beautiful day. I’d like to sit under the shade of the chickee in your backyard. Maybe Kimi could join us there.”
Wynona nodded. “Sounds like a good idea. I’ll bring her outside.”
O’Brien walked toward the driveway and then around the side of the house, entering the backyard. He approached the chickee, ducked under the palmetto roof, looking at the charred logs and ashes inside the circle of stones. The smell of burnt wood and campfire smoke clinging to the thatched roof.
There was a slight trace of white smoke coming from the center of the partially burned logs. O’Brien stared at it, the smoke snaking out of the blackened wood. He could see something burned beneath that didn’t appear to be charred wood. He looked around, picking up a short stick. He used it to poke and separate the burnt logs.
There, in the thick ash and charcoal, were the charred remains of a small teddy bear. O’Brien leaned in closer and looked at the scorched face of the stuffed animal, ears singed, the eyes like black marbles covered in a dusting of soot, stared up from the rubble.
A breeze blew across the campfire, stirring the smoke and blowing it into O’Brien’s face. The bear’s eyes transformed into the eyes of Sam Otter, darker than the charred wood. O’Brien watched the old medicine man’s long draw from the pipe, the furrowed cheeks, craggy brow, lips the shade of ripe plums, the exhalation of smoke into O’Brien’s face. He stared into Sam Otter’s unblinking eyes and saw movement—the reflection of carrion birds in the sky.
O’Brien looked away from the smoke. He stepped back, inhaled clean air, feeling sweat pop on his brow. He noticed something standing out among the gray ash on the perimeter of the campfire ring. He spotted a small piece of white paper wadded into a ball. Someone had tossed it into the fire, probably rebounding from a log, missing the flames. And the paper, tightly compacted, didn’t burn.
O’Brien looked at it a moment. The small round ball was like a single egg in a nest of ashen gray. He knelt down, reaching into the soot, lifting out the object. O’Brien smiled and whispered, “Maybe this was laid by the Phoenix, and it’s supposed to hatch and rise up from the ashes. What’s inside?” He stood and carefully unfolded the ball of paper. It was a handwritten receipt from Dave’s Western Apparel. It was for the purchase of handmade ostrich skin boots. The total came to $399.38. The buyer had used a credit card. But there was no signature on the receipt.
O’Brien thought about the moments before the gator pulled Bertoni’s body underwater. He glanced down at the receipt again, his mind playing back events on the reservation. He saw the bead of dappled sunlight in Charlie Tiger’s right eye when Tiger cocked his head and looked up, the hat pulled low on his forehead. O’Brien thought about the smirks on the faces of Bertoni and Rizzo under the chickee, the discovery of Frank Sparrow’s body in the glades, the night Bertoni came for O’Brien at the campground, the blood inside the airboat, Frank Sparrow’s wife weeping. He visualized the marks made from the heels of shoes or boots on the muddy road next to the canal.
And he remembered the boots on a dead man’s feet.
They were made from ostrich skin. They seemed too new at the time. The boots were inconsistent with the murder scene—a shiny penny amongst tarnished coins. Especially considering the skeletal remains of Frank Sparrow’s body.
O’Brien heard the back screen door to Charlie Tiger’s house snap shut. Wynona and Kimi walked toward the chickee, Wynona talking. Kimi’s body language told O’Brien she was skeptical, hesitant, and frightened. She wore jeans and a long-sleeve navy blue blouse.
He watched her walking toward the chickee, and he knew she had every right to feel afraid.
SIXTY-SIX
Kimi Tiger followed Wynona into the chickee and asked, “Why am I here?”
O’Brien smiled. “We thought it might be better to talk outside than in the house.”
“Talk about what?”
“Anything you want to talk about. Maybe what’s going on as it relates to your Uncle Joe?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Okay. But are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Kimi, your Uncle Joe is a man I respect very much. I owe my life to him.”
Kimi said nothing. She crossed her arms, a breeze jostling her long hair.
O’Brien nodded. “Joe could go to prison for the rest of his life. Or worse, he could be sentenced to die for a crime I know he didn’t do. And you know that too.”
“Uncle Joe told me they can’t prove anything, and he’ll be fine.” She looked across the backyard.
“They’ll let him out of jail if we disprove something.”
She turned her head, eyes probing O’Brien. “What?”
“Someone’s setting Joe up to take the blame for killing a man. And whoever is behind it placed phony evidence in Joe’s truck. It was a crow’s feather with blood on it. The blood came from the victim—the man murdered and scalped. We have to prove who’s the real killer.”
Kimi swallowed dryly, taking a deep breath. She bit her bottom lip. Her fingernails chewed to the quick. No polish. Dark circles under her eyes. She turned to Wynona. “You told me I didn’t have to say anything if I didn’t want to. I need to finish my homework.”
“I did say that, but something tells me that deep down you’re hurting and you want to talk about it. Kimi, I’ve known you all of your life. Joe’s your uncle, but he’s always been like a big brother to me. We must help him. People on the rez have to stick together—like family.”
O’Brien watched Kimi’s reaction. She subtly flinched at the word family and then looked into the dead campfire, her eyes as cool as the ashes. After a moment she gazed up at O’Brien. “Why would somebody stick fake evidence in Uncle Joe’s truck? Can’t police just prove it’s fake?”
“Not unless we can prove who planted that bogu
s evidence. Someone is going to great lengths to send your uncle to prison. Kimi, we need to know why?”
She said nothing.
O’Brien stepped a little closer to her. “When Wynona and I were here earlier, we saw those men meeting with your father right where we’re standing now. These are very bad men … men who have no conscience about right and wrong. Wherever they go, they leave a dark stain on people. Kimi, tell me … why were they here?”
She looked up at O’Brien. “I don’t know.”
“Did Frank Sparrow hurt you?”
“No.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“No.”
“He was killed. Left for the scavengers out in the glades. I think that whoever killed Frank also killed the man your uncle is accused of murdering.”
Kimi stared at O’Brien and then looked away, a swarm of gnats hovering in the humid air near a large weeping willow in the backyard. He studied her eyes and softened his voice. “I hear you’re a good soccer player.”
She turned from watching the throng of gnats, locking eyes with O’Brien. “I don’t play anymore.”
“Did you like it?”
“I liked playing, yeah.”
“Why quit if you enjoyed it?”
She said nothing, her hands flexing, tightening.
“Someone hurt you, Kimi. And your Uncle Joe is protecting you.” O’Brien took another step closer to her. “What happened to Coach Dakota Stone?”
Kimi recoiled. She inhaled quickly, her nostrils flaring. Her hands changed to fists before she hugged her arms, eyes watering. She turned to O’Brien, a single tear rolling down her brown face. “I have to go.” Kimi stepped backwards, turning around and quickly walking to her house, the lonesome call of a mourning dove coming from somewhere behind the weeping willow tree.
SIXTY-SEVEN
After the back screen door slammed shut, Wynona turned to O’Brien. “I feel so bad for Kimi. How did you know?”
“I didn’t. I had a hunch, though.”
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