The crows came closer, their caws louder, another one arrived. Bobby cut his eyes up to the limbs. He glanced at O’Brien. “If they get near, it would be easy to take one out, even with this revolver.”
“Is that the gun you used when you shot a crow near the place where Barton was killed?” O’Brien caught a slight reaction from Hawkins, a red mark bloomed on the side of his neck, breathing quicker through his nostrils.
“Dude, you’re really startin’ to piss me off.”
O’Brien went for the jugular with the bluff. “An avian vet did a necropsy on the dead crow. He said the crow died near the time that Lawrence Barton died. So whoever shot the crow … shot Barton. And that person plucked a feather from the dead bird’s wings, wiped it in Barton’s blood, and dropped the feather inside Joe’s truck. That person, Bobby, was you. Now, I want you to tell me why you did it? Who are you working for?”
Bobby rose off the ATV seat and stood just as his father came around the mound in his pickup truck.
ONE HUNDRED TWO
Lloyd Hawkins parked his pickup truck and went back to the truck bed. He reached in and lifted what looked like a large, dirty-yellow pillowcase. O’Brien watched it closely as Lloyd approached, the pillowcase moving. Something was inside, squirming to get out. O’Brien knew it was one of Lloyd’s snakes—probably a rattlesnake.
Lloyd, now wearing his sweat-stained Stetson, came to within fifteen feet of O’Brien. Bobby stood to Lloyd’s right. He looked at his father. “This asshole thinks I killed Lawrence Barton and set Joe Billie up to take the fall.”
Lloyd stared at his son and then turned his head toward O’Brien. The brim of the hat cast a dark shadow across half of his face. He grimaced, glanced down at the writhing pillowcase. “Mr. O’Brien, we take great offense in that accusation. I’ve known Joe Billie almost all of his life. His daddy and me used to hunt and fish out here.”
“Then you’ve shamed the memory of Joe’s father, and you’ve come close to getting his son put on trial for a murder he didn’t commit.”
Lloyd pushed back his Stetson. O’Brien was glad he could now look him in both eyes. It’s easier to see the signal and anticipate the next move. O’Brien knew it was coming any second. He hoped the trail camera was picking up everything.
Lloyd said, “It’s one thing to come in here and start accusing my son of something, it’s damn well another to prove it.”
“It’s not only your son ... it’s you too, Lloyd. Your ranch is off the market because you accepted mob money to kill Lawrence Barton and frame Joe. Your taxes, long in arrears, were just paid, and you’re trying hard to move money out of the country. But every electronic transaction leaves tracks. Sort of like these hog tracks from pigs like you two.” And now the bluff. “The trail camera one of your hunter pals hid so well on a pine tree captured more than game movement. It captured video of Lawrence Barton held at gunpoint and forced to drive in here to be slaughtered by you two.”
“Fuck you! You don’t have shit.” Bobby shouted.
“I do have shit … all left by you guys. And I have video of both of you going to the mound to meet the guy who kidnapped Barton. He was your pal, Carlos Bertoni, the guy who followed your suggestion and bought a pair of boots from the same store you bought yours, Bobby. Dave’s Western World. I know Carlos. He won’t take the wrap alone. He’ll cut a deal with the DA, a deal to bring down Dino Scarpa and you two.”
Bobby shifted his weight between feet. “It was that fuckin’ dago who shot Barton. His boss, maybe this Scarpa guy, I don’t know … was the one who wanted it to look like Joe killed the guy in some revenge fight.”
“Shut up, son.” Lloyd’s chest swelled. He glanced down at the wriggling pillowcase. “O’Brien, I told you we do catch and release. It’s the right thing to do. Return to nature.” He slowly began untying the top of the pillowcase. “Snakes play a role in God’s kingdom. Some folks are scared of ‘em. Find serpents frightening. Maybe it’s on account that serpents crawl on their bellies.” He untied the knot, looking down in the pillowcase. “Maybe it’s because the serpent slithered into the Garden of Eden and caused mankind to sin from that time ‘til now.” He held the top of the pillowcase tight, looked up at O’Brien. “I often wondered if the asp, a snake found in Egypt, is more poisonous than a diamondback. Back in high school, a gal I dated was in the play, Anthony and Cleopatra. Funny, but about the only thing I remember from it was a line by Shakespeare that went something like this: ‘With the sharp teeth this knot is genuine, it ate of life at once to untie … poor venomous fool … be angry and dispatch!’”
Lloyd flung the rattlesnake out of the pillowcase at O’Brien.
O’Brien could see Bobby going for his pistol—the snake twisting, biting the air. The rattle buzzing. O’Brien drew his Glock, shooting the snake in midair. His second shot hit Bobby in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. The snake fell at O’Brien’s feet, a hole blown through the animal’s midsection.
Lloyd reached for his son’s revolver. “Don’t do it!” O’Brien ordered. He held the Glock directly at Lloyd’s face. Bobby moaned, a red flower of blood expanding from the hole in his gut.
“Daddy … I’m dyin’ … help me.”
“Call an ambulance!” Lloyd screamed.
O’Brien shook his head. “He might make it if he’s air-lifted out of here. The chopper can set down on the mound.”
“Call them!” Sweat dripped down Lloyd’s frantic face.
“Only when you admit your role in Lawrence Barton’s death. You do that and I’ll call for an air medevac. You don’t, Bobby dies not far from where you killed Barton. You can fold that pillowcase and press it to his stomach if you agree to tell me what happened.”
“Do it, Daddy!” Bobby’s voice was quaking. “Do it!” He coughed.
O’Brien used one hand to lift out his phone. He hit the key for a live stream directly to Dave Collins computer, pointed the lens at Lloyd and Bobby. “Who killed Lawrence Barton?”
Lloyd looked up, his face pinched, red. “I did.”
“How’d Barton get to your property?”
“He was kidnapped.”
“By whom?”
“A mafia guy, Carlos Bertoni.”
“Why? Why’d they want Barton killed?”
“To set up Joe Billie ‘cause Joe had the goods on ‘em. That’s all the hell I know. Now call a damn ambulance!”
“Who shot Barton?”
“Bertoni.”
“Who slit Barton’s throat and scalped him?”
“I did.”
“What did Bobby Hawkins do?”
“He put the crow’s feather in Joe’s truck.”
“Do you swear that everything you said is the truth so help you God?”
“Yeah, now you call the paramedics, asshole. If my boy dies, so help me, I’ll break out of prison to find you. Or I’ll have somebody on the outside do it.”
O’Brien spoke into the phone, “Dave, can you get a medevac chopper out here stat?”
Dave said, “Just made the call.”
“Thanks. I’m calling Detective Edwards to come pick this mess up. Send the confession to attorney Lana Halley. Thanks.” He disconnected.
O’Brien looked at Lloyd. “Fold the pillowcase, place it on the wound and use the palm of both hands to apply pressure.” He picked up the revolver and then tapped the number to Detective Robert Edwards. He answered and O’Brien said, “I’ve got something to add to that trail camera video I sent you.”
“What’s that, O’Brien?”
“A full confession from the men who actually killed Lawrence Barton.”
“Who’s that?”
“Lloyd Hawkins and his son, Bobby. We’re at the mound on the ranch. Close to where Barton was murdered. A medevac chopper is on the way.”
“What’d happened?”
“Lloyd tried to kill me by throwing a rattlesnake at my face. Bobby tried to shoot me. I managed to be first. Self defense. It’s all on video. I’m s
ending it to you.”
“You don’t go anywhere until I get there. I’m coming up from Sarasota.”
“Can’t wait that long. I’ve just given you a statement. You have a video confession from Hawkins. I’ll stay until you get a deputy out here to cuff Lloyd. But then I’m leaving to try to save a life that shouldn’t be in the crosshairs. Joe Billie’s life.”
“We only followed the evidence, O’Brien.”
“Keep following the evidence, and it’ll lead you into the dark heart of the mafia. You see, Detective, the Hawkins’ were working for the mob as it tried to leverage muscle and contacts to get a piece of the Seminole gaming operation. Joe Billie was in their way. And now he’s in great danger. Check your email for the video. In the meantime, Lana Halley, Joe’s attorney is filing for an immediate dismissal of all charges against Joe.”
O’Brien disconnected, watching Lloyd holding the pillowcase to his son’s stomach. He glanced back at the dying snake, the rattle trembling, the snake’s mouth opening and closing. He looked at Bobby, mouth open, his chest rising and falling. The heat and humidity bore down thick. A blowfly alighted on Bobby’s forehead. O’Brien stared at the ruts and tracks left by the wild hogs in the sandy soil. He thought of the sands of Afghanistan, the tracks left by herds of goats that walked through pools of blood from the slaughter of his men.
In the distance, he heard the incoming sound of a helicopter, like he had so often in field combat. It became louder as the rattle from the snake grew softer, finally stopping. O’Brien would wait just long enough for deputies to take Lloyd Hawkins into custody and to load Bobby onto a gurney for a quick flight to the trauma center hospital in Tampa.
And then he’d drive hard and fast to the reservation to pick up any pieces of information or clues left behind by Joe and Kimi. Maybe the task force would find them before he got there. If not, he’d find them by going straight to Dino Scarpa.
But he knew he’d have to enter the gates of hell to get there.
ONE HUNDRED THREE
O’Brien drove between ninety and a hundred miles per hour en route to the reservation. He picked up his phone and made a call to a detective he’d worked with at Miami-Dade PD. Ron Hamilton had been O’Brien’s partner in homicide investigations for three years. He answered, “Hamilton, homicide.”
“Ron, it’s Sean. I’ll be in your neck of the woods soon.”
“Are you still up there running trotlines on the river?”
“I prefer a cane pole, bobber, and a fat worm.”
“Good to hear your voice, Sean. Is your Miami trip business or personal?”
“Business. Unfortunately, serious business.” O’Brien told him what had occurred and added, “I may need your help. Or some backup from SWAT. If you were looking for Dino Scarpa, where would you start?”
“Probably a strip club on South Beach. He’s a frequent flyer in those places. The mob family still owns the restaurant, Casa Manzoni.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“You believe Scarpa’s boys snatched the girl as some kind of retaliatory move?”
“Yes. I just have to find her before her uncle does. Joe Billie’s as honest as we all hope to be. I don’t want to see him or his niece hurt, or worse.”
“Gotcha.”
“If you could have your guys on stand-by, let me birddog around places they might have the girl, that would give us more of an undercover advantage.”
“Officially, Sean, I’m not supposed to agree to this kind of working arrangement, if you will. Unofficially, you and I have a solid history together. If we can drive a nail into their business in South Florida, and if you can find them, let me know what you need before you need it.”
“I can do that. Thanks.”
“The more lead time you can give me, the better. I’m not that young anymore. I’ll keep my phone with me.” He disconnected.
O’Brien called Wynona Osceola, told her what had happened and said, “I should be there in a half hour. Where do you want to meet?”
“The department’s parking lot will work.”
“Any idea from Charlie Tiger or his wife where Joe may have gone?”
“No. Charlie’s in the hospital. He can barely talk after the beating. Nita told me that Joe briefly visited Charlie. She said he whispered a question in Charlie’s ear, and then Joe placed his ear near Charlie’s mouth to hear the answer. With the disappearance of her daughter and the near death of her husband, Nita looks bad. The poignant and sad irony in all of this, Sean, is that it didn’t have to happen to them or Joe … or to Lawrence Barton. The charges against Joe are being dismissed, yet he’s now a one-man vigilante trying to bring his niece back alive. Maybe we’re fortunate in that he probably doesn’t know where to search.”
“He might.”
“How?”
“What if Charlie told him where to look?”
ONE HUNDRED FOUR
Joe Billie glanced in the truck’s rearview mirror, leaving the reservation, heading east on Alligator Alley toward Miami. He thought about his brief meeting with Sam Otter, the old man speaking in Seminole, reminding Joe of the day he held him as a young boy near the coals of a chickee fire, the smoke from bay leaves and snake root billowing around his body. Sam had said this would protect him the first time he ventured away from camp as a man.
It had. Many times through the years. Would it continue to offer protection? Joe looked at the pale scars on the inside of his right forearm. They were left from a blood cleansing done at the first Green Corn Dance years ago, the tiny scars scarcely visible, carved from the teeth of a garfish Sam Otter had in his deerskin medicine bundle.
The old man had left a smudge of medicine on Billie’s forehead an hour ago. And he left him with something else. It was a mentor’s reminder of the courage known to their ancestors entering battle. The Seminole had never been conquered. That legacy, Sam told him, still flows in Billie’s veins. The elderly medicine man reminded him to use concealment when approaching the enemy.
Walk within the shadows.
Smell the wind.
Feel the vibrations of movement that could only come when the hunter stood motionless, like the great oak.
Billie heard his cell phone buzz on the seat next to him. He picked up the phone. Sean O’Brien calling. Billie wanted to answer, but his concern for O’Brien prevented it. “I’ll fight the good fight, old friend. You have helped enough.”
Billie set the phone back on the seat, pressing his foot to the accelerator, the truck climbing to more than eighty-miles per hour, rattling, as Joe Billie left the expanse of saw grass in the Everglades and headed to Miami, and the deadly heart of the city.
* * *
Kimi Tiger opened her eyes to an unknown world. She didn’t recognize anything. The room was lit from a smudge of daylight coming through a grimy window. She was lying on her back, on a small bed in the corner of the room. Her arms were tied to the wrought iron headboard with rope. The discolored sheet stunk of sweat and urine.
She listened for people. For the noise of traffic. Nothing—nothing but the hammering of her heart. She could hear the white noise of blood and adrenaline flowing through her veins. Her head pounded. Her mouth like cotton. A feeling of nausea swept over her, bile in the back of her throat.
Where am I?
Did my parents die?
Will I die?
The door opened. It was the same man that had entered her bedroom. The punishing eyes, the beaded scar above his left eyebrow. He carried something in his beefy hand.
It was another needle.
“No! Stay away from me! Please!” She tried to back up in the bed, the damp, sour smell of body fluids on the yellowed pillowcase. “Please! Don’t! What did you do to my parents?”
“Shut up, bitch.”
His words stung. She pulled at the restraints, the ropes digging into her wrists.
He grabbed her right leg. She tried kicking. He was too strong, pinning her legs down to the grimy mattres
s. The needle entered her upper thigh, close to her vagina, the liquid burning. She kicked hard, the man now standing and looking at her. His dark eyes amused.
Run! There was nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.
He bent down, his unshaven face next to her lips. She could smell cigarettes and rancid aftershave lotion on his skin.
The feeling of queasiness was ending, a rush of warmth throughout her body as she sensed herself rise from the bed, toward ceiling tiles that were dirty from age. Her body may be trapped, but her soul was free, flying away.
Never to be conquered.
ONE HUNDRED FIVE
O’Brien called Joe’s attorney, Lana Halley. He briefly told her the circumstances around the Hawkins’ arrest and the confession. “Did you get the video Dave sent?”
“Yes. The video from the trail camera corroborates it all. Joe’s off the hook. It doesn’t show that you strong-armed or coerced a false confession out of Lloyd Hawkins. He and his son, along with someone named Carlos Bertoni, committed the murder. And Hawkins spilled his guts with the details to substantiate it. Sean, they tried to kill you. I can’t believe he threw a rattlesnake at your chest, and his son drew a pistol and was aiming directly at you before you somehow managed to shoot first. Hawkins admitted the facts of the crime with specific details and indicted the mafia, too. Placing that trail camera up in the tree and getting a confession … I’m impressed. I have to admit, that’s pretty amazing, Sean. This heinous crime was all about the number one evil in the seven deadly sins … greed. Where are you now.”
“On the road.”
“That narrows it down. I’m calling a news conference. We’ll have all charges dropped. I’ll offer the video to the media as well as the DA’s office. Joe was a victim for so many horrible reasons. His history with Lawrence Barton was the bridge that built an arrest and could have resulted in a conviction had you not been so vigilant.”
Lowe, Tom - Sean O'Brien 08 Page 37