“The return trip to his home in Florida would have taken Coyle south, passing close to Charleston where his mother, Sarah, lived. With the war over, Coyle may have known about his mother’s ill health and taken the opportunity to stop and visit before heading home to Amelia Island. By this time, Sarah had already composed and mailed the letter, dated April 7, two days before the war ended, when Coyle showed up unexpectedly, sometime in early May. Sarah then told Coyle in person everything she already conveyed in the letter, which had by now reached his home in Florida. Coyle’s wife never opened the letter, since it was addressed specifically to her husband.
“Father believed Coyle headed for New York immediately after visiting his mother in Charleston in May 1865 to retrieve Osceola’s head. He based this assumption on two factors: first, travel time was very long back in those days. It was further complicated by the fact he was a Confederate soldier venturing north. Although the war was over, bitter feelings between the Union and the South lingered for years after the Civil War ended. This made his journey through the northern states perilous. We know the telegram to his wife was sent from New York on June 12, barely two months after the conclusion of the war. Given this short timeframe, there was no way he had time to return to Florida then make the trip back north.
“Second, the telegram itself is most telling. It said, ‘In New York. On my way home with a promise. Love, Coyle.’ Father reasoned—and I have to say I agreed with him—the tone of the telegram was to let his wife know where he was, that he had gone there to keep his word, and that he was now coming home. Notice he didn’t go into details recalling what promise he’d kept. He was probably fearful of alerting authorities that he had the skull of Osceola. If, in fact, he had returned to Amelia Island before making the trip to New York, the note would have said something as simple as, ‘Achieved task, coming home.’ ”
Fawn cut in. “Okay, let’s say Coyle made it to New York after visiting his dying mother in Charleston and hearing her final request to obtain Osceola’s skull and move the rest of his body to Florida soil,” Fawn began. “You said the head of Osceola was lost in a fire that consumed the museum that same year.”
“That’s how history tells it,” Elizabeth responded.
For a few seconds, neither woman spoke.
“You think the fire was a cover-up?” It was a question more than a statement from Fawn.
Elizabeth spoke with conviction. “What better way to conceal a robbery than to make the authorities think that the very item you took was destroyed?”
“Any proof?” Fawn asked.
“The telegram. On my way home with a promise.”
“No disrespect, Ms. Courtland, but as a journalist, we call that soft evidence.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion.” Elizabeth’s words had an edge of defiance.
Fawn thought for a moment. “So why didn’t your father tell anyone in 1969 of your family’s ancestral tie to Osceola when he found the envelope and telegram in the book?”
“This was right about the time father slipped mentally. Shortly thereafter, the murders occurred; the same murders that father confessed to me he committed during our conversation when I was 16.”
“I know this must be hard for you,” Fawn began, “and I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but did your father ever tell you why he did it? Why he…killed those people?”
Elizabeth lowered her head. She spoke softly. “That is the hardest part of his story to reconcile. He said he didn’t know why he had killed two people in cold blood.”
Fawn could feel the woman’s pain. It was an insensitive question, and Fawn silently chastised herself for asking it. She thought for a long moment. Her mind was racing with questions. Then she changed direction. “Why do you think the letter and the telegraph were stuck in the pages of a book? Why didn’t Coyle ever open the letter upon returning to Amelia Island?”
“Because Coyle Courtland never made it back home. He died on the return trip. His wife must have tucked the letter and the telegraph in the pages of a book. Maybe they were too painful to consider. We’ll never know. They became lost and forgotten over time, until father stumbled upon them in 1969.”
Fawn nodded slowly. “I agree. It makes sense, merely by the fact the letter was never opened, that Coyle may not have returned to Florida, but how do you know he died on the way back?”
“Father’s research of old newspapers turned up some interesting facts. He believed he’d uncovered information about Coyle Courtland’s return to Charleston, where he had planned to dig up Osceola’s bones and return the entire skeleton to Florida, thereby fulfilling Osceola’s wish of being buried in Florida soil.”
Elizabeth paused, taking a breath that sounded more like a sigh. “Father found an obscure article in a Charleston newspaper dated September 9, 1865, referencing the body of a man found not far from Fort Moultrie that bore a strong resemblance to Coyle Courtland. The man had been shot in the side. Although the bullet had not pierced a major organ, the wound had festered, resulting in the man’s death.”
“Again, no disrespect, but the facts are circumstantial,” Fawn remarked.
“Circumstantial? Perhaps. But there are three undeniable truths. First, the man found dead from the bullet wound was remarkably clean shaven. In those days, most men had some sort of facial hair. Even if they didn’t, they seldom shaved every day. So it was highly unusual to find a man with such a smooth face, especially a man who had been wounded for some time.” Elizabeth paused to catch her breath again. She seemed to be growing weary.
“But, what does that—” and then Fawn’s words broke off as she realized the significance. “Facial hair…Native American Indians don’t have any facial hair. It’s a hereditary trait.”
“And as a direct descendent of Osceola, that trait had carried to Coyle,” Elizabeth said.
“The second clue the body found near Fort Moultrie in 1865 was Coyle’s was that a Confederate captain’s bars were discovered in his pocket. Remember, Coyle had been a captain for the South.
“And third is the timing of the newspaper article on September 9, 1865. Traveling discreetly by foot, and based on the telegraph he sent his wife from New York on June 12th, that would have given Coyle almost three months to travel to Charleston. He could have easily traveled that distance in that amount of time. These three facts make for a compelling argument that the man found dead not far from Fort Moultrie was Coyle Courtland.”
Fawn spoke, “That still doesn’t tell us what happened to Coyle Courtland in 1865 between the time he took Osceola’s skull from the museum in New York—if in fact the fire was a cover-up for a theft—to when his body was discovered in South Carolina with a gunshot wound. And what became of Osceola’s head?”
“Osceola’s head never did turn up, but my father became consumed with understanding Coyle’s fate. No offense, but you might say he developed a reporter’s obsessive curiosity. He continued with his research tenaciously. Understand, it was 1969, long before the Internet, so Father spent countless hours researching microfilm of old newspapers. He concentrated on any stories in the geographical corridor between New York and South Carolina during 1865, hoping to get lucky.
“He eventually came across a story about three murders near a lake in southern North Carolina. The first occurred in mid-August, and the last occurred six days before the body, what we’re assuming to be Coyle’s body, was found in Charleston.”
Fawn pressed the question, “What does that have to do with Coyle?”
Elizabeth continued without responding. “On January 30, 1838, in captivity at Fort Moultrie and very ill, Osceola went through a ritual. Sensing the end was near, he asked to be attired in full war dress: moccasins, belt, bullet pouch, knives, three ostrich plumes, a turban, and silver spurs. Then he painted half his face and his knife red. Shortly afterward, he lay back upon his bed, placed the knife on his chest, and died.”<
br />
Fawn shook her head, confused. “But what does—”
“The murder victims found in 1865 near Lake Sutton in North Carolina each had half their faces painted red when the bodies were discovered.” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. Her words were surprisingly unemotional.
Fawn nodded mechanically. Her thoughts swam with Elizabeth’s words, and she took a moment to collect herself. She suddenly understood the connection Elizabeth was making with the dates. “That doesn’t prove Coyle Courtland had anything to do with the murders.”
“No, but Father found mention of a manhunt immediately after the third killing. A posse was formed and a suspect tracked through the North Carolina woods heading south. One of the men fired on the fleeing suspect from a great distance. The shooter swore he’d hit the man, but neither a body nor the suspect was ever found. Afterward, the killings stopped.”
Elizabeth lingered for a moment. “Coincidence? Maybe, but it’s a strong one.”
“Ms. Courtland, why did your father suddenly tell you all this? And only after he was convicted and put away for murder?” Fawn asked.
“Why, indeed? That’s exactly what I was wondering as a teenager in 1972, as I stared at my father behind a pane of glass while his words spilled through the speaker. I asked him that very question.” Elizabeth paused reflectively as the room fell momentarily still. Then she let out a long breath. “I can still hear his response, as if he’s mouthing the words at this very moment. It echoes in my ears.”
“He said, ‘I marked those I killed, and I have no idea why I did it.’ ”
“Marked?”
“I assume you read the morning paper?” Elizabeth said without pause.
“Yes,” Fawn fumbled.
“There was a murder,” Elizabeth began.
They had already discussed her article. “Yes, I know. I wrote—”
“I don’t mean the murder on the island yesterday. I’m referring to the one that occurred last week in Callahan: a hunter.”
Fawn suddenly recalled the story and the small town on the outskirts of Jacksonville, not far from the island. It had been in the paper last weekend. A hunter, Russell Doyle, had been found dead in the woods, but at the time authorities had not confirmed the cause of death. “He was murdered?”
“Yes, the body found yesterday makes two killings within the last two weeks in Northeast Florida. Two murders where the bodies were marked in the same peculiar method.” The older woman’s face tightened, and she leaned toward Fawn. “Just like Osceola when he lay down to die in 1838, both victims had half their face painted blood red. Just like my father did to the poor souls he murdered in 1969.”
Fawn’s thoughts roared, remembering the red substance that had rubbed off on her fingers after touching the face of the homeless man. If what Ms. Courtland said was true, it was an incredible story. “How do you know about the victims? There was nothing in the news.”
“I’ve lived on the island a long time, my dear. I have friends. One works in the coroner’s office.”
As surprised as Fawn was at hearing the information, Elizabeth was the polar opposite. The older woman paused a moment, and her face stiffened, as if she were fighting some unseen, internal force. Then she said, “A few minutes ago when you asked me why my father had killed, I said he didn’t know. The truth is, I didn’t know…but he did.”
Fawn looked at the woman, confused.
“Father told me the reason; a reason that had absolutely convinced him; a reason I have disbelieved all these years. Based on the three people murdered by Osceola’s half-breed son, Coyle, in 1865 in North Carolina, and then his own murderous activity in 1969, father said there was a curse on the male descendents of Osceola, a curse of retribution toward white men.”
****
Several hundred feet away, parked by the side of the road, a man had just finished listening to Elizabeth’s and Fawn’s conversation via a listening device implanted in the table lamp in the den.
Before Fawn left Elizabeth’s house a short time later, the figure started the car and sped away.
CHAPTER 5
Detective Michael Mayes sat at his desk examining the autopsy report on the homeless man, Claude Agater. It had taken him nearly a minute to open the folder. Even after three years, he still could not shake the image of Lyle’s face every time he read a coroner’s report.
The lead forensics examiner at the crime scene had noted the red on the victim’s face, but it had not been determined how precise the anomaly was until the body was examined at the morgue. The red hue had shaded exactly one-half of Agater’s face, the left side, with a clear separation from the uncolored skin on the right side. The delineation ran from the top of the forehead, down the bridge of the nose, across the lips to the edge of the chin, splitting the face in two. As an eight-year veteran of the homicide unit, working his first six years in Simi Valley, California, Mayes was used to the rigors of the job. He had seen murder victims with incongruous markings, tattoos, and pasty-white makeup, but all of these cases had one curious difference to the red that covered one-half of Agater’s face: in every other instance the make-up or markings had been on the victim prior to the murder. The coroner, by examining pigment colonization and cell deterioration of the skin underneath the red coloring, had definitively concluded it had been applied to Claude Agater’s face post mortem: after death. Someone wanted the police to see the grotesquely decorated face as if the murder were an artist displaying his work at a gallery.
Then came the real kicker: when the discoloration was cleaned away, the coroner found the word Seederman written underneath, inked onto the cheek. Technically, there was no such word in the English language other than possibly in the context of a last name. Had the murderer been crazy or arrogant enough to sign his or her name? Mayes had performed a simple Internet phone listing search of Florida and Georgia for the name “Seederman.” Not one person returned with that last name. He was now having a complete database search performed of any known criminals with that name.
A short time ago, Mayes had been on the phone with Detective Jack Bicker. Bicker worked in the nearby town of Callahan. The body of a hunter had been discovered in the woods over a week ago, and Mayes had heard through the grapevine that little progress had been made. Like the homeless man, the hunter seemed to have been killed randomly by a blow to the head with a large branch found nearby. None of his personal effects had been removed from the body, which included a wallet containing $85 in cash. Yet rumors had surfaced that there were bizarre circumstances surrounding the murder. Mayes wondered if there might be other similarities between the two murder victims beyond the apparent randomness of the killings.
He was astounded to discover the Callahan murder victim bore the identical half-red face. Also, the top of the head of both the hunter and the homeless man had been mutilated. Each had the top of their skull bloodied, which contrasted to the lighter shade of coloring on the left side of the face. To Mayes, this was indisputable evidence the two crimes were linked. The problem was, beyond the red-faced signature, there were no commonalities between the victims that stood out. The hunter was a 34-year-old, middle-class businessman from the north, visiting relatives. The homeless man was 56 years old, barely surviving on whatever money he begged or found. The hunter was an African American of large stature: over 260 lbs. The homeless man was short and Caucasian, weighing less than 140. The hunter had been bald. The homeless man appeared to have had hair, based on the sideburns.
The desk phone rang. “Detective Mayes,” he answered, leaning back in his chair on two legs.
“Mayes, this is Tommy. We found the top of your victim’s head.”
Mayes brought the chair forward, and it smacked the tile floor. “Where?”
“A teenage girl was on the beach yesterday afternoon with her dog. It washed up in the surf. We’ll still need to run a DNA match, but based on the blood type, hair
color, skin tone, and the fact no one has reported losing the top of their head at the beach lately, it almost certainly belongs to your victim. What’s odd is that it was cut off the skull as if someone were making a wig. The hair was left embedded in the layer of skin, perfectly intact. What kind of sick shit does this to another human being?”
“Tommy, was the skin and hair removed pre- or post-mortem?”
“Post.”
Just like the red coloring on the face.
“Any fingerprints?” Mayes asked hopefully.
“None.”
Damn. Forensics had already notified Mayes that the murder weapon, the piece of wood found on the roof caked in Agater’s blood, had yielded no prints.
“I can tell you, though, the red on the face is from a marker.”
“Marker? As in a Magic Marker?”
“Haven’t determined the exact brand, but yes.”
When Mayes hung up from the coroner, he looked at his notes from the conversation with the Callahan detective. Less than a minute later, he made another call to the detective, Jack Bicker.
“Jack, Detective Mayes again.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Your victim, the hunter, you said he was bald, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And the top of his head was mutilated. Can you describe it?”
“Jesus, it was a mess. The skin was sliced from the forehead, down along the top of the ear, low on the neck and then continuing the same path on the other side of the head. It appeared to be one continuous cut. The skin had been peeled off.”
“Did you find the skin that was removed?” Detective Mayes asked.
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