Lowe, Tom - Sean O'Brien 08

by A Murder of Crows

  “But how?”

  “You’d first mentioned that Dakota Stone, one of the men who coached the high school soccer team with Frank Sparrow, left his wife and never came home. It appeared that Sparrow did something similar. When it comes to coincidences in a crime that’s possibly linked, I don’t believe in the word, coincidence. You have to follow the fallen … the human dominoes.”

  “But we don’t know if there’s anything criminal in Dakota Stone’s missing persons report. His wife said that he’d packed a bag and left. They were having issues, apparently. She’d be a suspect, of course, should we find anything that indicates some kind of foul play. But there’s no indication of a crime. No blood. No body. No withdrawal of money. Nothing.”

  “It was the same with Sparrow until we found it—the body that is.”

  “So you’re saying we haven’t found it yet. But you believe his body is out there, too?”

  O’Brien lifted the paper receipt from his pocket. “Yes, and we may have found a clue for this missing player.”

  “What do you mean, Sean?”

  “From Kimi’s reaction, it’s apparent that her coach, Dakota Stone, did something to her. Probably sexual abuse. If so, was it a rape or an on-going cycle of abuse? How long did it last, why’d it stop … and who knew about it?”

  “I’m at a complete loss. Numb. Kimi never reported it, at least not to us. I’d have been the first on the department to know.”

  “When we can answer those questions, we’ll have a better idea of what happened to Dakota Stone and how all of this is related. I believe Joe knew about it … or at least some of it. I think Joe would do whatever it takes to protect Kimi.”

  Wynona looked down at the badge on her belt, glanced up at the house and lowered her voice. “Are you saying you think Joe killed Dakota Stone, or maybe Frank Sparrow, or both?”

  “If it came to keeping a predator away from Kimi, I think Joe would do what he felt he had to do. For him to murder, though … that’d have to be a last resort, a desperate act from a desperate man. But that doesn’t explain the murder of Lawrence Barton in Citrus County. That’s the part that indicates some kind of collusion or involvement from others. And those others are probably the mob, Kimi’s father Charlie, or maybe Bobby Hawkins, who works security at the Tampa casino and happens to be the son of the ranch owner, Lloyd Hawkins.” He stepped closer to the fire ring, picking up a stick and lifting out the charred remains of the stuffed bear.

  Wynona stared, her mouth opening slightly. “Oh my God. That’s Kimi’s. How’d it get in there?”

  “Someone, probably Kimi, wanted to destroy it.”

  Wynona raised her shoulders, shaking her head. “She’s had that little bear since she was a baby. I saw it on her dresser a few months ago. I’d done a favor for Nita when she had the flu. I picked up her dry cleaning. Nita had asked me to hang a dress in Kimi’s closet, and I remember seeing the bear. It’d been years since I last saw it. The brown teddy bear was about all that remained in a teenager girl’s room from her early childhood days. I remember Kimi, as a little girl, always talking to the bear, taking care of it. I can’t believe she would try to destroy something that she’d cherished so much.” Wynona looked over to O’Brien. “What did Dakota Stone do to her, Sean?”

  “I don’t know. I have an idea, but I don’t know.”

  “This is not like Kimi. If she decided to part with the bear, she’d be more likely to give it away, not cremate the poor thing.” Wynona glanced up at the house. “I think you should put it back where you found it. Kimi is seething with anger. Maybe, somehow, I can get her to open up and talk with me.”

  “You said Kimi, as a child, always took care of the bear. She played more of a mom role than that of the bear’s companion. I believe what she’s going though now is a deep psychological form of self-punishment. She’s blaming herself for something way beyond her control. She’s a victim but has been told otherwise. The self-inflicted punishment results in causing pain to herself because she feels guilty—the feeling of absolute worthlessness. A gut-wrenching sense of insignificance. Shame. Sometimes brought on by trauma, by the mental and physical torture from a pedophile. By destroying the bear, she destroys part of herself because she feels at fault.”

  Wynona exhaled. “We have to find Dakota Stone. If you sit in your Jeep, wait for me, maybe I can get Kimi to open up.”

  “If she talks, it might lead us to this place.” He handed the crinkled paper to Wynona.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a receipt from a store for a pair of ostrich skin boots.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “Someone had tossed it in the fire-pit here. It probably bounced off a log. It didn’t burn, and I spotted it in the ash.”

  She shook her head. “So you’re going to make me ask what’s the significance, right?”

  “Do you know where to find that store?”

  “Yes, it’s near the rez, maybe twenty miles.”

  “After you talk with Kimi, if she’ll talk, we can go pay the clerk a visit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he or she might remember the sale. Whoever bought those boots could have placed them on the feet of the body we found in the glades.”

  “The body? That was Frank Sparrow’s body. He wore cowboy boots all the time.”

  “Frank Sparrow also wore his college ring on his right hand. I saw a photo of him in the local newspaper. He was speaking to a group, and he was holding a microphone in his right hand, and that’s where he wore the ring. When we located the body, the FSU college ring was on the left hand. I have a feeling that whoever we found out there in the glades isn’t Frank Sparrow.”

  “Then who could it be?”

  “Maybe the missing coach, Dakota Stone—the man who coached Kimi Tiger.”

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  It took less than ten minutes for Wynona to walk out the front door. O’Brien sat in his Jeep in the driveway to Charlie Tiger’s home when Wynona exited, moving quickly to the Jeep. “Kimi wouldn’t talk. She said there was nothing to say, and she’d already said enough. Before I left, I spoke quietly with Nita in her kitchen.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “Not a lot. I asked her whether she had any reason to believe that Kimi is or had been the victim of sexual abuse. She seemed taken back, as if she had no clue. And maybe she doesn’t. Nita’s a good mother, but she’s an artist—always painting and showing her work. That’s all fine, but through the years I couldn’t help feeling that it was her art before the art of raising kids. But then what do I know about raising kids? Not a lot. Let’s go. Or we can stay here and wait for Charlie Tiger to show. I’d like to sit him in an interrogation room, take off his hat, look him in the eye and ask, where were you when Kimi needed you?”

  “Maybe he was here, at least after it happened, and that’s one of the reasons this thing is complicated. Did Charlie Tiger share information with Joe? Did both of them conspire to bring justice for Kimi and harm to Dakota Stone? Or did Charlie cut a deal with the Genovese family—specifically Dino Scarpa. I have no doubt that it was Scarpa who had Carlos Bertoni turned into gator food. Let’s go find the western store.”

  “Head east, toward Clewiston. I have some calls to make on the way. When we get a few blocks from the store, you’ll see giant horse first.”

  “Giant horse?”

  “None bigger, even in Texas. Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later O’Brien came around a corner in Clewiston and saw a horse’s head higher than an adjacent one-story building. Wynona was on her third phone call to her office. She looked up. “That statue is in the front of the parking lot.”

  O’Brien started to reply as Wynona held up her hand, listening to a voice on her phone. “Erica, it’s Wynona. Any results on the dental forensics?”

  “Your ears must be ringing.” Erica Wilson sat behind a glass partition at her desk in the Seminole Police CID office
, looking at a computer screen. “I was about to call you. Jimmy Stillwater was just in here asking the same thing. He also asked me if I’d seen you. Where are you, Wynona? You missed our standing Wednesday lunch at Brick ‘n Porter.”

  “Sorry. I completely forgot. Things are getting crazy. I’m in the field following leads. What do you have on the body in the glades?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not Frank Sparrow.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Dental record wasn’t a match. Using your contact with the FBI, I’d already asked for a rush on the DNA profile. It doesn’t match Sparrow either. So our dead body is an unknown soldier at this hour. Unless we can get an ID, the remains, after holding in the morgue, will be buried in the county’s cemetery of the unclaimed bodies, or Potter’s Field.”

  “Let’s do a dental match with a guy by the name of Dakota Stone.”

  “Why’s that name ring a bell?”

  “He’s listed in a missing person’s report. The guy’s a coach at the high school. His wife said he packed his bags and left. But his family isn’t so sure. Do me a favor and pull the MP report. His home address and wife’s contact information is in there. Maybe Stone went to a local dentist. He probably has medical insurance through the school system. I’d bet his wife has a hairbrush this guy used if you need to hunt for follicles with roots.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Thanks ... and Erica, let’s keep this between us. No need to bring too many chefs into the forensic kitchen. Call me as soon as you hear something. Thanks, bye.” Wynona looked across the Jeep to O’Brien. “It wasn’t Frank Sparrow that we found in the glades. And you managed to figure that out. How’d you do it?”

  “Just lucky.” He drove below the posted speed limit through the small town.

  Wynona leaned her head back against the Jeep’s headrest a few seconds. “I felt weird about Bertoni’s death. Not so much his death, but not making a report on what we saw happen to the body. But not anymore. We have some crazy, sadistic killer out there that’s screwing with the tribe, and that really bothers me. I’m resigned to the mob eating its own. But I’m not going to let them leave bodies on the rez and cause Joe Billie to take a fall for some kind of heinous power play—murder and scalping the dead, swapping bodies. We have to find this guy.”

  “It may be one guy, but he might be guarded by a pack of wolves.”

  SEVENTY

  O’Brien thought about the crows. With Wynona riding in the passenger seat of his Jeep, his mind played back the sequence of events he’d seen since Joe Billie was taken into questioning for the murder of Lawrence Barton. O’Brien knew that none of the situations he’d come across, if placed in the order he’d found it, would fill in the picture puzzle with any sort of a linear image. The crimes happened, but in what order? Did Frank Sparrow and Coach Dakota Stone vanish before Barton was murdered … or at the same time?

  He thought about the crows recognizing Bobby Hawkins, and then scolding him from the lower limbs of the trees near the mound. What did Bobby Hawkins do to be reprimanded by crows? Was one of those in the flock the specific crow that found the shell casing from the 9mm? Why didn’t police and detectives find it first? And then his thoughts played back the events, conversations, and body language on the rez. There was something about Charlie Tiger that was more than it seemed. Was he defending his daughter or cutting deals with the mafia … or both?

  O’Brien pictured the burnt teddy bear, the lingering smell of melted plastic, singed cotton and fabric, and the gutted damage to the girl’s soul. He tried to visualize what Kimi did the second before she threw the stuffed animal into the fire. Did she stay and watch the flames destroy it. Did she weep? Or had she cried out. Nothing left to give. Dry. Spent.

  “You haven’t spoken in a while?” Wynona checked a text message and looked over at O’Brien as he drove. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  “I’m not sure they’re worth a penny right now. My thoughts are as jumbled as a poorly edited movie. I’m trying to make sense out of what we’ve seen so far.”

  “You were the first to doubt that was Frank Sparrow’s body vanishing on that remote hammock in a place no one had looked or probably would have looked. After a short period, even the bones would have deteriorated out there, or something would have chewed them up. The glades won’t give a body the chance to make an ashes-to-ashes cycle.”

  “I made a deductive guess based on what we’d talked about and seen. Now we know it wasn’t Sparrow. But we don’t know where he is, assuming he’s dead, too. And we’re not sure whose body was picked away by the vultures and ants. Who staged it? Who the hell took the time and effort to swap out a college ring … maybe boots too?”

  “If it is Dakota Stone, then why the hoax?”

  “Because someone really wanted him dead and gone, and they probably took out Sparrow at or near the same time. If Dakota Stone, as Kimi’s coach, abused her, Charlie Tiger has a motive, or Joe Billie had one. If there’s some collusion between Tiger and Joe, I didn’t pick up on it when I saw them interact. But then again, we had two members of the mob sitting in Charlie Tiger’s chickee like it was Club Med, puffing on the peace pipe of conspiracy. Or maybe they were working on a business deal, offering to take out a potential roadblock like Frank Sparrow and the deal evolved into a two for the price of one. Maybe the proviso would be to let them get their nose under the gaming tent. That kind of money is the mob’s field of wet dreams.”

  Wynona smiled. “Up ahead. Get ready to turn.” She glanced out the Jeep’s window and then looked back to O’Brien. “Those are good scenarios, but it still doesn’t explain someone setting Joe up for the killing of Lawrence Barton in Citrus County.”

  “That murder tells us something that the killing of Frank Sparrow and the presumed death of Dakota Stone doesn’t tell us.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Joe’s the only one publically associated with it. Although his connection is through the planting of false evidence, it ties him to a crime he didn’t commit. And that, in my mind, exonerates him from the other deaths. So the question right now is … what did Joe know and what was he going to do with the information that made him a prime target for, most likely, the mafia?”

  “We need to talk with Joe.”

  “Since he’s in the Citrus County jail, everything he says to us, in person, or on the phone, is subject to being recorded.”

  “He’s up for a bond hearing. And if he makes bond, then he can share it with us.”

  O’Brien slowed down, glanced over at Wynona and said, “That’s a landmark.”

  The western apparel store made a statement before O’Brien drove onto the parking lot. The horse sculpture, reared high up on its hind legs, towered over twenty-five feet in the air. It was in the middle of a lot that hadn’t had the parking spaces repainted in years.

  “As a little girl, we came here when I got a horse. I have fond memories of this place. I’m not sure if the statue is made from wood or metal. About every five years they’d repaint it. That horse has been everything from a palomino to a black stallion.”

  The sign near the horse read:

  Dave’s Western World

  Today’s special: Tony Lama boots & Cobra Cow Whips

  O’Brien drove across the parking lot, looking for surveillance cameras, glancing at his rearview mirror. “Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll match that receipt to a face. And maybe the boots found on the body came from here.”

  SEVENTY

  The store was built like an old barn, the wooden siding faded from years in the Florida sun. O’Brien parked close to a security camera on the side of the building, the camera pointed toward the lot. They entered the store, the smell of tanned leather, saddle soap, and sawdust greeting them.

  O’Brien spotted three surveillance cameras, most blending in well with the décor of wooden barrels, hanging kerosene lamps wired for electricity, handmade rocking chairs, animal
mounts—deer, antelope and bear heads hung from the roughhewn walls. A bobcat, back arched, fangs extended, stood rigid in one corner next to a pot-bellied stove, the bobcat’s yellow-green glass eyes staring at the horse in the parking lot.

  Wynona pointed to a section of the store in the rear. “There’s a huge selection of boots back on that side of the store.” They approached the area, a bearskin rug in the center, and three chairs for sitting and trying on boats. The signs quietly shouted the brand names: Tony Lama, Nocona, Old Gringo, Dingo and others.

  “How ya’ll doin’ today,” drawled a man behind a long wooden counter. He got up from a stool, pushing a small calculator to one side, grinning. He had the youthful look of Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy mixed with the swagger of a drugstore cowboy in the 1950’s Hollywood westerns. He wore a black Stetson perched on his head, his face sporting a handlebar mustache waxed tighter than a Cuban cigar. His tanned, gym rat body was tucked into a black western shirt and jeans. Belt buckle shaped like Texas. He wore a large turquoise ring on his right hand, sleeves rolled up revealing a tattoo of a bare-breasted Native-American woman riding a horse bareback.

  He smiled at Wynona and nodded at O’Brien “We got some of the best boots in the world for ladies. I peg you for a designer boot kind of lady. You might like to see a pair of Tony Lama’s. You’re probably a size five in the boot department.”

  She stopped at the counter, smiled. “Size matters in the boot department.”

  He grinned. “Yes ma’am. In every department, I’d say.”

  She opened her handbag and lifted out her badge and police ID. He leaned back, grin fading, the handlebar moustache drooping. He nodded. “I’ll tell you what, size really matters when it comes to hats. You wear a Stetson that’s a quarter inch too small and you can get dizzy as a blindfolded kid tryin’ to hit the piñata.”

  Wynona smiled. His moustache lifted up. “Maybe you can help us.”

  “Always ready to help the police.”

  “Good.” She handed him the receipt. “Maybe you can check your records. Tell us who bought those boots.”