by Tom Lowe
I flipped on the Jeep’s high beams as I came around the last curve in my drive. The headlights panned across the house. I looked for a moving shadow or anything that appeared out of place. A fat raccoon scurried across the oyster shell drive. After I shut off the ignition, I sat and listened. There was the ticking sound of the motor cooling, the crescendo of frogs, and the whine of mosquitoes. I moved the dome light button to a manual off position, reached under the seat for my pistol and slowly opened the door.
Stepping from the Jeep, I heard the deep-throated grunt of a bull alligator across the river. Under the moon, the live oaks were solid, shadowy giants with dark beards of Spanish moss that hung straight down. There was no breeze and the night was warm and humid. I could smell smoke from a campfire in the national forest. A cloud drifted across the moon, drawing a curtain of black. Mosquitoes orbited my face in a halo of whines that screamed in my ear for blood.
I silently walked up the three steps leading to the screened door on the porch. I could feel that it was slightly ajar. Had I left it that way? I backed down the three steps and walked around the outside of my house.
I unlocked the front door and heard the pulsating beep of the twenty-second delay on the alarm. Max barked and scampered down the hall to greet me. “Hello lady!” I said. Her tail was a blur. “Come on, Max, let’s see if you can make it outside.”
I opened the door and Max bolted between my legs in a mad dash for some earth. I flipped on the floodlights and would have laughed if I hadn’t felt so bad for leaving her home alone for hours. She squatted and peed for a full minute, looking up at me through eyes that seemed to ask, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Chow time, Max.” That’s all it took to see her charge across the threshold and beat a path to the kitchen. I poured a cup of her favorite dog food into her bowl. For me, it was leftover chili. I pulled a cold Corona out of the refrigerator, managed to fit the bottle in my back pocket, picked up my chili bowl and Max’s bowl and together we headed out to the back porch to dine.
As Max ate, I took a long swallow from the beer, sat the food on the table beside my chair and looked at the moon’s reflection across the river. I reached for the bowl of chili and noticed something on the far end of the table.
I recognized it. The black flint arrowhead I saw Joe Billie pull out of the river. It was lying on the table like a black diamond. The arrowhead was fitted into a long wooden shaft, trimmed with eagle feathers and notched at the end.
NINE
The next morning, the St. John River was a late sleeper. No visible current moving. No ripple across the surface. The humidity was already building, and it was a little before eight A.M. The beards of Spanish moss hanging from my live oaks were wet, stained with dark smudges from heavy dew. They seem to sweat under the rising sun.
A shaft of sunlight crept around a tree and broke through the screen directly hitting the black arrowhead on the table. In the light, I could see that the arrowhead still retained its edge. I glanced down at Max, and she looked up at me.
“So where do you think that arrowhead came from, Max, at least originally? We saw Joe Billie pull it out of the river, but how did it get there?” Max wagged her tail and half barked and half whined, a signal she uses to encourage me to let her outside for her morning ritual. “Just a minute, I have an idea before we heed nature’s call.”
I got a plastic trash bag from the kitchen and a pair of barbeque tongs, carefully lifting the arrow into the bag. I sealed it. “Max, we’ll have the lab see if Billie left any prints on it. What lab?” I wanted to call Ron back, to send the arrow to him for processing, but at that moment I didn’t feel like a lecture.
Something moved down by the river. Through my kitchen window, I could see a small boat chugging in the river. It belched smoke from the engine like puffs of blue fog.
I poured a cup of coffee and escorted Max down the steps and into the yard. We headed toward the dock. I’d seen the man, usually very early in the morning. I figured he was a commercial fisherman. I waved, which caught his attention, and signaled him to come to my dock. He made a half circle in the center of the river and steered the boat toward Max and me.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Mornin’,” he said, killing the small motor.
He was in his mid sixties. His face and hands were dark, basted by sun, work and water. The left side of his pewter beard was streaked a dark eggplant color. He leaned over and spit tobacco juice.
“Toss me a line. Want some coffee?” I asked.
He tossed the line. “No thanks. Got me a thermos in the boat.”
“I’m Sean O’Brien. I moved here a few months ago. Thought I’d introduce myself. I’ve seen you on the river. Usually at the crack of dawn.”
“Name’s Floyd Powell. I was lookin’ at stringin’ a trot line from near here to the opposite side. But the river’s too deep. Catch nothin’ but cats and rays.”
“Are you a commercial fisherman?”
“Yep.” Another spit. “Cute dog. Keep him away from the river’s edge. Even at the end of the dock, dog's too close to the river. He’s a little bit, but he’s big time gator bait.” Floyd used a paddle to lift the top off a cooler in the center of the boat. Dozens of large catfish and one bass thrashed in the sunlight. “That’s what I done so far this mornin’.” He placed some Red Man in his cheek and listened, his eyes constantly looking back toward the river, scanning. Watchful.
I remembered seeing a photograph on a fish camp wall of a man twenty years younger than the man in front of me. In the photo, he was barefoot and shirtless, in front of a shack with a girl about age five or six standing on his shoulders. His arms were outstretched to help her balance. They stood next to a monstrous alligator that was tied by the neck with chains and suspended high in the air from the blade of a front-end loader.
“Are you the same Floyd Powell in the picture on the wall at Raven Moon fish camp, the one with the huge gator?”
He cocked a gray eyebrow and spat tobacco juice. “You recognized me in that old picture? Damn, that’s impressive. You a cop?”
“Not anymore.”
“My daughter was five in that picture. She’s twenty now. This river’s got some bigger gators than that. Right here in this bend, I seen one that’d go ever bit of fifteen feet. I hunt gators in season, and I’m licensed by the state to hunt nuisance gators. Had a little processing house about ten miles down river where the power lines cross north of Hontoon Bridge. I’d butcher the gators, sell the hides, meat, whatnot. Some fellers bought the place recently. Said they was part of a fishin’ club. They didn’t look like people who fish. I used to guide. You can usually tell.” He glanced at Max. “How’d you make the connection between me and the old picture?”
“Didn’t at first, but your name was written below the photo with the length and weight of the alligator. I’ve had some practice remembering names and faces on photos.”
“Bet you have.”
I broached the next question so I could get a good look at his eyes. “Let me ask you something.” He glanced up from his boat. “Did you hear about the murder yesterday on the river?” His eyes were as dark as the water. No looking away. There was a slight nod of the head. “It happened about a half mile south of here. A young woman was found. She’d been beaten and stabbed.”
He chewed the tobacco thoughtfully, quiet for a long moment. The catfish beat at the side of the container. A hawk cried out. “Not much in the newspaper. No picture. Law ain’t arrested nobody yet.”
“I wonder if you or anyone may have seen something.”
“Such as?”
“Anything out of the ordinary.”
“What’d you drivin’ at?”
“Do you know Joe Billie?”
“Know of him. Can’t say I really know him.”
“Where’s he live?”
“You do sound like a cop. I’ve had ‘nough experience in that area. Used to do a little poaching.” He stuffed some tobacco leav
es between his gum and cheek. “You might find Billie at Hangin’ Moss Fish Camp.”
“Thanks. That’s not too far from here.”
He looked at me like I had said I was going to swim across the river in the dead of night. “You gonna question Billie about the killin’?”
“Why?”
“It’s not ‘cause you said you ain’t a cop no more.”
“Then what is it?”
“They say Billie’s a descendant of Osceola. It was Osceola who gave the guv’ment hell during the Seminole Wars. Never beat him. Few years ago, a bone hunter was caught diggin’ up one of the Seminole’s sacred burial sites. This Indiana Jones fancied himself to be an anthropologist. But I heard he was sellin’ skulls to some devil worshipin’ cult. The fella had been warned by game and fish to stay the hell outta the wildlife refuge and the protected mounds. A state biologist I know said he’d heard this idiot went and dug up a medicine man’s head. You just don’t do that to the Seminole people. They didn’t get the name ‘unconquered’ for nothin’. Rumor has it that Joe Billie tracked the guy, caught him doin’ a dig, hog-tied the ol’ boy, carried him down to the glades. The bone hunter ain’t been seen since.”
“You recall his name?”
“Best I recollect, feller’s name was Clayton Suskind.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“Less than a year.”
“Did Suskind live in Volusia County?”
Floyd smiled, his teeth the color of baked beans. “If you hadn’t told me you was once the law, I coulda figured it out by now. Why you so interested in Joe Billie?”
“He was here the day the girl was found. Walked out of the river.”
“I’ve seen him collectin’ stuff outta the river.”
“Hanging Moss Fish Camp, right?”
“Best be careful if you start jerkin’ Billie’s chain. He might hang you by your scrotum if you screw with him. And you’re a big feller.” He smiled, spat over the side of the boat. “Got to get these cats to the fish house. Runnin’ low on ice.”
I saw a small, spiral notebook in his shirt pocket behind the tobacco pouch. “If I can have a piece of paper out of your notebook here, I can write down my cell number.”
“Sure.” He pulled the pad out of his pocket.
“If you come in contact with anyone who might have seen or heard something in the area where the girl was killed, please call me.”
He yanked the motor cord. The old Evinrude started on one pull, smoke encircling the small boat. Before he put the motor in gear, he look at Max and then at me. “Ya’ll are new to the river and all. Best be careful, know what I mean?”
I watched the silent river flow around the elbow, around the crooked bend across from my dock, and I remembered holding the girl’s trembling hand. I felt there was something very evil around the corner. It was quiet as the current in front of me and darker than the water. I felt its presence just beyond the corners of my blind spots. It preyed on the helpless, the fragile—those broken in mind, spirit and body.
I looked at Max. “There have been warnings, Max. What are we to do?”
She barked and trotted to the end of the dock, stopped and glanced back at me. I followed her and we looked down and saw our reflections off the black water.
I wondered if there was anything just below the surface watching us.
#
I PACKAGED THE ARROW for overnight delivery to Ron Hamilton at Miami PD. I marked the box: CONFIDENTIAL. I sat down and fired off an email to him:
Package will arrive in a.m. Please rush the work-up the best you can. See what you have on a missing person, Clayton Suskind, d.o.b unknown, last domicile, Volusia County. Check bodies recovered from Everglades in the last two years.
TEN
The morning sun was topping the tree line down by the river when I started for the door. Max followed me through the house to the front door where she sat down on her rear-end watched me lock the door. She cocked her head. I almost expected her to open her mouth and speak.
“Stay here, Max, I’ll be back in a few hours.” She looked up at me with disbelieving brown eyes. Yesterday I told Max the same thing and almost caused her to develop a kidney infection. “All right, you can come along. Let’s go ask Mr. Billie a few questions. You’re the only back-up I have.”
#
THE WHITE LETTERS on the cypress plank sign leading into Hanging Moss Fish Camp were faded, but I could still make out the words. It read: Bait, Beer, Boats. Under a dozen live oaks and cabbage palms were single-wide trailers, rustic cabins, and a vintage silver Airstream trailer closer to the river. I parked the Jeep in front of the bait shop.
A gunshot popped.
Max barked.
“Hush, Max!” I half-zipped the isinglass windows on the Jeep just high enough to keep Max from jumping out. I shoved the pistol under my belt in the small of my back. I could see no one. I eased out of the Jeep. “Stay, Max! Keep your head down!”
A second shot fired. It came from the direction of the river. I darted to a fifty-five-gallon trash barrel next to an embankment that gave me a vantage point to look down at the river fifty feet below me. I followed a worn flight of wooden stairs to a boat dock.
A shirtless man, bare feet grungy, blurred tattoos on both forearms, stood holding a 12-gauge shotgun. Two boys in their early teens watched something in the weeds. One boy said, “I’ll get it with a paddle, Daddy.” He took a paddle from one of the johnboats and reached into the weeds, lifting out a large water moccasin. Half the snake’s head was blown away.
“He’s still alive!” the youngest boy yelled.
“No it ain’t,” the man said. “That’s just dying nerves twitchin’ the tail. Set him down, boy. Coon’ll come along tonight and eat it.”
The man spotted me and said, “I was cleanin’ some fish over there, turned around and that damn snake had a whole crappie in his mouth. Like to eat it right off my stringer. That’ll teach the sons-a-bitch.”
“Don’t think it’ll be back for seconds,” I said.
He sat the shotgun down, shook a cigarette loose from a Camel pack, lit it with a Zippo in his pocket and inhaled a long draw. He looked out toward the water, blowing smoke from his nostrils. “River’s full of them. Moccasins are mean motherfuckin’ snakes.”
I looked at his catch. “How’s fishing?”
“Pretty good,” he said after taking a second drag. “I bring ‘em boys up here every year. We usually do good, exceptin’ three years ago when the river was so high.”
“Do you know Joe Billie? He lives here at the camp.”
“Don’t know nobody. You can check with Doris in the store.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded and flipped his cigarette toward the dead snake.
Max poked her head out one of the air holes I’d left for her. She watched me silently as I opened the bait shop's screen door. The image that hit me was of an old Florida bait shop with a faded postmark and no return address. Hanging behind the counter was a six-foot rattlesnake skin, filleted open, shellacked and tacked to a cypress board. Pickled eggs and hoop cheese were sold next to alligator-claw backscratchers.
No one was in the small store, but the images of ghosts were tacked to one wall. A father stood next to his daughter and helped the girl hold a stringer of catfish. A barefooted man in bib overalls held up a bass the size of a roasted turkey.
“Help you?” He stood at the threshold of a side door and wiped his hands on a towel. Friendly face, ruddy, perspiring skin.
“Is Doris here?” I asked
“She’s off. I’m Carl. I was skimming dead shiners out of the tank. Didn’t hear you.”
“Do you know Joe Billie?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. He rent here?”
“That’s what I hear.”
“He a friend of yours?”
“He’s a handyman. I have some work I need done.”
“I haven’t met anybody named Joe Billie. You could ask the witc
h in the blue and white trailer about two hundred yards on the left.”
“Witch?”
“I wouldn’t go there unless you really need to find this guy.”
“Why?”
“If you stop there, you’ll find out.”
ELEVEN
As I drove slowly through the fish camp, I tried to match any one of the trailers or cabins with Billie. They all looked pretty much the same. A 1950’s feel. Sagging trailers with aged aluminum the tint of potato peels. The wooden cabins were painted in varied shades of army green. Most had screen doors. All had tin roofs.
A middle-aged woman stood next to a vintage trailer and watered flowers that looked plastic. A sign in her patch of green yard read: Psychic Readings by Rev. Jane.
I stopped and stepped out of the Jeep. Her head didn’t turn, but I could tell she was watching me. Her hair was swept back, covered by a strawberry-colored scarf. She wore a smock-like dress, dark blue with the images of yellow owls on it. I stepped closer. Her skin was alabaster white with tiny blue spider veins just below the surface on her forehead. Wide emerald green eyes masked detachment.
A breeze picked up across the river, and wind chimes began tinkling. The chimes hung like holiday ornaments from the lower branches of the oak.
She waited for me to speak. “Do you live here?”
“Two years now. Moved up from a spiritualist’s camp in Cassadaga.”
Her voice was beyond flat. It was more distant than the moon.
“Saw your sign. Thought you might have some information. I need—”
She held up one hand. “I know why you’re here. You want something.”
“Good guess. Let me guess, you’re Reverend Jane, right?” She nodded and watered a sunflower the size of a pie plate.
“It wasn’t a guess. You want something. Everybody who comes here does.”
“And what do you want, Reverend Jane?” She ignored me, turning to water her flowers. “Sure, I’d like some information.”